Under the Axe PT 2
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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.

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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. ♪♪

Hi, Kate. How are you? I'm well, Paul. I will say I'm well to an extent that I feel like I have to get something cleared up for our listeners because there are quite a few people who, while they are proud of you that you've taken on a new job, are concerned that this new job that you're going to explain to me in a second is going to make your time so limited that you can't be with me anymore, which would be a tragedy, I think.

Oh, yeah. It's like I don't already have enough to do. I know. That's what I was thinking. Well, tell me about this new gig. I know you announced it on social media. It's been a little while, but I just want to clear up for people. You're not going anywhere, Paul, right? You're not going anywhere. I am not going anywhere. You know, of course, I love doing the podcasting. I like doing the true crime media side of things. Yeah.

But also, as you know, my passion is always the actual casework. And it's been six years. You know, I retired six years ago. It's crazy that six years has gone by so fast, you know, and that's, of course, everybody knows that's when we arrested Joseph D'Angelo as a Golden State Killer back in April 2018.

And though I've been consulting with law enforcement off and on over the last six years, it was time. And so I took a position as a forensic investigator with Othram, which is the genealogy company. I've been so impressed with what Othram is doing in terms of the success that they've had, you know, solving cases as well as identifying the Jane and John Doe's.

And then also the philosophy that they've taken in how they approach casework. And they're looking out for the cases and they're looking out for the victim samples and the evidence. And it just seemed like a good fit. So now my role is I will be helping law enforcement out. Sometimes I'll be going to their agency and sometimes I'll be doing it remotely.

helping them assess their cases and see, you know, how they can progress it. And of course, looking at, you know, which cases genealogy might be able to

be used to solve the case. And then when results come back, then I help provide the investigators with the next steps, you know, advice on how to proceed, both from an investigative and genealogy type of set of circumstances, as well as just with other additional forensic testing that may need to be done.

investigative advice, and so I'll be very active on that front. So fortunately, I'll be able to continue with podcasting. You and I will continue to be able to share stories together and hopefully hang out in the near future. Well, one thing that I think is one of your secret powers is because you've been exposed to so many cases and now will be exposed to even more,

that just deepens the depth that you have of knowledge of all of these crimes. And, you know, one thing I always joke about is every single thing that I say about a crime that happened in history, I feel like you have a case in your head that you can relate it to. And I think that really helps listeners. So I am all for you getting involved in all kinds of active cases. And of course, particularly, it's just so good

For the communities and for you to be able to actively help solve cases is a big deal. And selfishly, of course, I'm happy for you to have more knowledge to share with us. And, you know, we can keep up with what you're doing. So that's great. I'm all for it. I'm going to sign off on this. Thanks for passing it by me. I'll sign off on this. I'm proud of you. I think that's wonderful. I appreciate it, Kate. Thank you very much.

So I just want to make sure, because you're so busy, are Cora and the fish, is everybody okay? Are they lacking attention in any way? Cora's doing good. The fish are doing good. And if I remember from the last episode, you brought up a dog, Shep. I did. Boy, you transitioned really well from Cora to Shep. Shep is, I would call, a big influencer in this case. And I'll tell you why in a minute, and you can tell me what the theory is.

What we're about to talk about are actually some questions that I think probably do come up in contemporary cases. And again, that's why we like talking about this case like the one of John Hossack, who, I'll remind you, was found in his very tiny bed that he shared with his wife one December night, 1900, in Iowa.

And he is bleeding from the head. The doctor who responds seems to think he was hit twice, once with the sharp end of an ax, the other with the blunt end of the ax. Brains everywhere. Blood everywhere. Five young kids in the house. His wife says, "I was asleep. I have no idea what happened. I thought it was a stranger." She jumped out of bed so fast she didn't even turn around to see if John was still in bed.

And came back after kind of clearing out the house with one of the kids and found him. And he dies painfully, I'm assuming, about 10 hours later. And investigators come. They start looking for the weapon. The sheriff is immediately looking suspiciously at the family. And part of it has to do, as I teased with you, with Shep, who was the family dog, who was devoted and loving, barked at every single stranger he could see.

And the neighbors say that when this happened, from what they could tell, Shep did not let out a peep. And the sheriff says, I think you know what I'm about to say, Paul. I do. It had to be someone in the family. If this dog did not bark, it was not random stranger on the neighbor's porch. Is that legit? Okay. So on the surface, I would say yes. However, because of my experience with the Golden State Killer...

Joseph D'Angelo. We had multiple victims, rape victims, survivors who had dogs, who these victims swore would bark at any strange man entering the house. But when, at the time he was known as the East Area Rapist, when the East Area Rapist showed up inside the house...

These dogs did not bark. In fact, some of them whimpered away. The thought is with D'Angelo is he possibly preconditioned these dogs ahead of time with some sort of negative reinforcement. I mean, D'Angelo was arrested in part shoplifting dog repellent. Is he going and, you know, spraying these pet dogs ahead of time so where they're now associating being sprayed with his presence? And now they...

they know to stay away from him and don't behave as their owners think. Now, I don't think that's what's going on here, you know, but it's something where just because of my experience looking at this one case where dogs did not respond as the owners thought, I have to consider

Dogs are much more complex animals than what we give them credit for, and they possibly, with a stranger present, recognize the danger and maybe don't respond as the owners think they would. Well, you know, my dogs bark at me.

Ruby and Bailey bark at everything. One of them barked at a fly the other day. So my dogs would be useless with this theory because they bark at everything. But the sheriff has an interesting and neighbors have kind of an interesting theory. So this is the rumor mill that, of course, circulates around every town, every city that you can think of. It doesn't matter if it's a small town or a massive city like New York. People are going to talk.

And the observation was that Shep the dog, the famous dog now, seemed unusually lethargic and quiet hours, you know, before John's attack happened. So this is probably coming from the kids and from Margaret, I'm assuming, but the neighbors buy into it and the sheriff might be buying into it. The theory is that the dog was

was chloroformed ahead of the assault by the killer. Can you chloroform a dog? I've never heard of that before. I mean, what would you do? I, you know, in terms of the use of chloroform, you know, obviously this is something that, you know, back in the day, the solvent, it was known, you know, it has this anesthesia-like property to it.

how chloroform would be administered to a dog, I really don't know. In the movies, you typically see the chloroform on the rag that's put over victims' nose and mouth, and then they instantly lose consciousness, which isn't the way chloroform doesn't work that fast. It's kind of a myth. But it most certainly is something that does cause, can cause unconsciousness in terms of if exposed to a high enough level.

If this dog is appearing lethargic, whether it be chloroform or some other drug, this is typical. We see in neighbor disputes, et cetera, where you throw a drug or a poison inside some meat and throw it over the fence, the dog's going to eat it. And then you have the negative ramifications of what the dog has ingested. So if Shep is in fact being lethargic,

drugged ahead of time, then that tells me, well, the offender is aware of the presence of Shep, is aware of Shep's predilection to bark at strangers,

But does this necessarily eliminate a family member from drugging Shep because this family member wants to be able to just make sure Shep is not going to interfere? Because we know dogs are unpredictable. You get up in the middle of the night. Yep. You know, I get up in the middle of the night and all of a sudden Cora is going crazy thinking it's breakfast time. You know, and that's the last thing I'd want if I want to be sneaking around doing something bad inside my own house.

Yeah. And I don't think the sheriff thinks this is some huge conspiracy necessarily with the little kids and with Margaret. But, you know, he is thinking this is odd. People who came like the doctor who came in the early morning hours said, yeah, the dog just seemed a lot calmer than normal. And you do have strangers showing up. I don't think Dr. Martin has been hanging out.

at the Hossack's house. So you do have people showing up, and the dog seemed a little dopey, is what people said. That could go either way, right? I mean, you do have either somebody who knows there's a dog, you're right. But then we come back to, why would a stranger do this

You know, a sexual assault could be a motive. Didn't happen. Robbery could have been a motive. Didn't happen. And you did mention, let's look at political enemies or he was a jerk to his family. He was probably a jerk to other people, too. So it's kind of open right now. But the sheriff is definitely given the side eye to Margaret specifically, who was laying right next to him. As he should.

You know, and this is this is part of, you know, when you start dealing with this particular type of circumstance, Margaret is inside the room in this tiny bed right next to John. I mean, for her statement, she's asleep and wakes up.

But you have to consider, well, she might be the killer. And this comes back to victimology, comes back to understanding the family dynamics, and that Margaret potentially has motives. She's tired of the abuse. And so when John's asleep, he's at the lowest risk to her as possible. This is when she could potentially take him out.

And then, of course, stage this scene in a way, you know, get rid of the murder weapon, wherever that ultimately gets disposed of, and then plants with her kids, you know, this circumstance where she's asleep and wakes up, heard a clap, saw the flashing light, you know, and then she immediately goes and wakes up the kids.

You know, so this is something you have to at least pay attention to early on in the investigation. So I want to have a little bit of a reminder of their ages. So Margaret is 57 when this happens and John is 59. Both of these are people who work on a farm, probably are pretty physically fit.

So he certainly is capable of violence, fighting back. You know, we talk about the domestic violence, and she is probably equally as capable of swinging an axe. So we're not talking about—I mean, you and I are both—I'm almost in my 50s and you're in your 50s. We're not talking about old, old people here. We're people—

They look a little older than probably they are when we see their photos because of just the hard life and the hard work that they've done. But they are very capable of violence, both of them. No, for sure. And at least you couched when you said that I was in my 50s. You couched this as they're not very old. And when they're talking about Margaret and John being in their 50s. So thank you for that. You're welcome. But.

You know, for sure, you know, in terms of their physical capabilities, you know, these are not decrepit individuals.

They probably are fairly robust from the decades of working on a farm, probably much more so than the average 50-something today. And then when you take a look at, if we're looking at, is Margaret physically capable of killing John, particularly under this set of circumstances? John's asleep. He is, I mean, he is completely helpless in being asleep, but

Margaret most certainly could swing an axe and kill him. I don't have any qualms about that at all. It's, did she? And the axe is the big concern because Dr. Dean thinks these look like axe wounds to him, but they need to find that weapon. 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.

So here comes more 1800s forensics, and you can tell me what you think about this. They search. Finally, they think they've found it, the family's axe. So stranger with an axe? You have told me before that strangers sometimes use weapons that are found on the property, not bringing anything with them.

The family's axe was discovered tossed underneath the farm's granary. Do you know what that is? I know that's a new term I throw at you all the time. I have no idea. Is this something during the Gilded Age? No. No.

Okay. This is where you store grain. And actually, I've heard that. I mean, I grew up on a farm, so I've heard that before. But this is a building where they would have stored grain. So they find an axe tossed underneath it, which is unusual because the last known resting place of this axe was actually inside that building. So the family says the axe was always in the building, and now somebody has taken it.

used it, and they know that they used it because there is some wet blood on it and a few hairs.

And, you know, hairs would not have been useful necessarily in the 1800s. I don't even think they would have... There was no microscopes to be able to put under at that point. They would just eyeball it and say, this person's hair. So they find an ax. It's bloody. There are hairs on it. But people have handled it. So it's contaminated. Well...

Yeah. You know, and this, even today, you know, I get into debates, discussions with various forensic scientists because what you run into is like, oh, here's, in this particular case, a murder weapon, but it's contaminated because other people have handled it. So we're not going to examine it. Just because it's contaminated doesn't mean there isn't still probative evidence present that can be recovered.

In this day and age, of course, you may find, you know, witnesses' DNA on the axe. Maybe Dr. Dean found the axe and picked it up. You know, it's handed to somebody who handles it. We deal with this all the time. But the killer's DNA, the killer's latent prints could still be on that axe.

And so it's still important and critical to process it when we're talking modern day. From this era, you know, obviously they can't do that type of testing, but the presence of blood and hair is significant. You know, of course, they wouldn't be able to do any type of species testing on the blood in the 1900s. The hair, you know, I would be, does it visually look like human hair? Yeah.

This is significant because we have a homicide victim who has received blows on the head, causing bleeding injuries, and typically bludgeoning weapons often will have hair that gets stuck to them. The hair sometimes is crushed sometimes.

And then the crushed ends are present. We can look at them under the microscope, you know. But just typically, when somebody's bludgeoned the head, the murder weapon often has that combination of blood and hair and potentially brain matter, which I would suspect would also be present on this axe, considering the extent of John's injuries. But they're not necessarily looking for that back in 1900s.

But it is, if they're visually say that looks like Cuban hair, I think it's like, yeah, that makes sense. This is probably the murder weapon.

Well, we have differing opinions here. One is a family friend named Frank Keller who looks at this and says, "There you see one of poor John's old gray hairs." But Will, who is one of the children who was in the house, says something different, of course, if we are thinking that this happened within the family.

Will, in the picture I showed you from 1892, looks to me to be probably 8 to 10, maybe younger. I don't know. He could be 6. But that was 8 years earlier. Will is probably a young teenager, 14, 15, 16, maybe even 17. He says, well, hang on a second. That could be a young teenager.

That could have been from the Thanksgiving turkey that we had slaughtered just a couple of days before. That's where the blood and the little bits of hair came from. Do turkeys have gray hair? And do we believe this? Well, we're dealing with lay people, non-forensically trained, you know, so I'm not sure that I could put any weight on either person's assessment.

But for somebody like myself, I would be able to very easily differentiate human head hair from anything that came from a turkey without even needing to put it under a microscope. You know, it would be that obvious. What was the name of the first person who said the gray hair? Frank Keller, who's just a family friend. Nobody with any authority is making a comment on that.

On this, I mean, the sheriff collect, I was impressed. The sheriff did collect the evidence. He said, you know, there is blood on the handle, a few strands of what appears to be hair on the axe's blade. He takes the hair, puts it in his pocket, not the most sanitary thing in the world, but at least he tried. And he wrapped up the axe in newspaper and

and gave it to the deputy for safekeeping. This was before fingerprinting. I mean, I don't know what he was thinking would happen, but he at least tried. This was as sophisticated as they would have gotten here. The sheriff is trying at least.

Yeah, for sure. You know, and as I'm thinking about this, you know, also part of assessing the acts is the amount of blood staining, the type of blood patterns present, consistent with the injuries to John, or is it more consistent with maybe, you know, the slaughtering of a turkey, you know? But what do you do with an axe to slaughter a turkey? You cut its head off. I mean, it's a very minimal...

use of the axe. So I have a hard time believing that anybody would be confused with the blood and hair on the axe as being something that had been used at Thanksgiving on the turkey.

Yeah, that's Will's theory for whatever we think of that. He was trying to give an explanation. We don't know why yet. We do know that the sheriff reports there. His deputy comes there. The county attorney, who which I will just call the prosecutor DA. I mean, that's what they would have called him then. The county attorney, George Klammer, came. Everybody showed up to this farm because this was going to be a big deal. It was a big deal.

Let me tell you about the blood and then I'm going to show you a map you'll probably be pretty pleased with here. And now you'll have to put this together. So I can show you a map that shows the building where the grain was stored, where the axe should have been, and underneath it was found, was this axe.

and the path that, if this is a stranger, the person would have taken that night with the axe in hand and then maybe left also with. So let me first tell you, before I show you the map, where the blood is, because I know this is interesting. The sheriff looks all over the place, at the building where the grain is stored, on the porch, the bedrooms, everywhere. There are a few drops of blood on the front steps of the Hossack's home,

And that is it on the outside of the house. A couple of drops on the front steps. He goes in and there's blood all over the bed.

where John was, and that is basically it. There is a minimal amount of blood. He says both on the axe. It is not dripping with blood. There's blood on it. So maybe that comes back to our turkey theory. But there is not a ton of blood, just a couple of drops on the axe, just a couple of drops on the front porch, and that is it. Okay, well, that's what I would expect.

So based on the description of John's injuries, he has one incisive blow. I'm going to assume that that was probably the first blow. And then he has the crushing blow, probably from the back of the axe. Now, if there's only the two blows, this initial blow with the blade of the axe,

there isn't a pooled blood source. So this is the initial injury that could potentially cause some blood to start to pool. And this becomes critical in terms of interpreting how much blood is going to be on this ax. Now, if the back part of the ax struck exactly where now this blood has pooled, there'd be some blood that would be present on the head of the ax or wherever part of the ax struck in this location.

But it sounds potentially like you have the incisive injury and then above that incisive injury on a distinct area of the head, separate from this initial blow, is where now you have the crushing blow. So now it's striking in an area of the head where there may or may not be

pooled blood source and if this is a fairly rapid these blows are in fairly rapid succession Which is what I would suspect is that likely there was probably very little blood where the axe hit the head that causes crushing injury so the only blood in that scenario that I would expect to be on the axe would be just from that very brief interaction of that second blow and

If the axe had been used repeatedly after that, that's when you start to see a lot of blood being transferred to the murder weapon and then cast off as subsequent blows are being done. But if you just have these two blows in two distinct areas on John's head...

Just because the second blow does seem to crush in his skull and there's brain matter that's coming out and it's obviously going to be a significant bleeding injury, there's going to be some transfer of blood, but not significant. The drops of blood outside the house, well, the ax, after striking John in the bedroom, that's when the ax is going to have the most blood on it. So how come there isn't a dripped blood trail leading out there?

to the front of the house? Is the offender holding the ax in a way like putting it in his or her shirt or something which is preventing blood from dripping? Or are these blood drops unrelated? You know, that's always a possibility.

But that's all part of the assessment. But I would not suspect the acts to be completely coated in blood as a result of this scenario, nor a whole bunch of blood spatter inside this room, nor a heavy blood trail leading out of the bedroom. This set of circumstances does not lead me to believe this is a real bloody scene outside of the pooled blood underneath John as his head wound is bleeding out.

Well, you know, I'm often annoyed by the maps that we are given of these crime scenes. And this is obviously a modern map I'm about to show you, but it seems very clear and I think it's going to be very helpful. So let me show you the map of where everything happened. And you need to notice their little key down below. The dots are where there were blood spots. The asterisk is where John was laying, which is right next to a wall. And then you've got the pathway that the killer probably took from

from the bedroom back to the building where the grain was stored and then the X is where the grain was stored. This just strikes me as a very kind of complicated pathway. And then also, maybe somebody really needed to know where John was. They'd have to be kind of familiar with the house, I think. Don't you think? Or what do you think? Well, if everybody's asleep, then they can take their time and kind of do a building search to find, you know, where John's at. Because we don't know. You know, this...

This map and where these bloodstains are found doesn't indicate anything about the offender's approach. And if we assume that the bloodstains that are on the floor as depicted in this diagram are a result of the offender escaping, then that gives us some ideas after the homicide, or after, I should say, the violence was inflicted on John, where the offender went. Now, one of the things that I want to caution on is

John stays alive for a significant period of time. His wounds are being attended to. You have a physician that is interacting with him. This physician is possibly getting blood on him. I don't know if John is moved at all through the house or when he dies, how he's taken and transported out of the house.

But oftentimes, what we have to take into consideration is some of these bloodstains on the floor are due to the after-crime dynamics that occur. We often will have, let's say, a body transported. You know, it's

paramedics come in, put a body on a gurney and take the will, the gurney out of the house to put in the ambulance. Well, there's blood dripping off the gurney and creating a blood trail. It has nothing to do with the offender having an ax and having blood drip off the ax.

So that's part of my assessment in looking at this case would be, okay, so they're noting bloodstains on the floor. At what point in the process were those first noticed? Was it upon the initial first responders entry or is it after 10 hours and John's been bleeding and sitting up and being moved around the house and everybody's coming and going? Then I'd say I can't even attribute to these bloodstains on the floor bloodstains.

to the offenders' movements because it could be from something else. It's, in essence, a form of crime scene contamination.

So does this tell you anything else? It doesn't tell you about whether or not the person had to be familiar with the layout because you said, you know, if everyone's asleep, it's midnight. And it's really, you know, young teenagers and little kids at this point. The guy could wander around, essentially. It still seems like you'd have to have an idea about where to go. Are they upstairs? Are they downstairs? It seems like they're on the first floor, though.

Right. There's nothing about this that tells me the offender had knowledge of the layout of the house. I still think the offender targeted John. Probably most critically is, you know, if this axe was out here in this granary initially –

Then we know the offender at least went to the granary, grabbed the axe, then went into the house, targeted John, and then upon escape, discarded the axe underneath the granary. The location where the axe was discarded, was this something that was in plain view on the logical flight path that the offender would take? Or did the offender have to go out of their way to find this hiding spot? And then why did the offender do that?

If the hiding spot is truly sort of hidden, or the offender is taking sort of a weird route in order to find it, then that might indicate that the offender had pre-existing knowledge of this hiding spot and may have greater familiarity with this location, such as a family member versus a stranger, boogeyman, that's just wandering around, stumbles across the axe and goes in and kills John.

You're really pushing your luck by asking for photos. You're going to jinx us.

But I understand. I mean, I think it's amazing that we even get maps in this day and age. That's a good little map, at least to know the layout. Let's talk about the sheriff's suspicions. He, of course, asks around. Shep is alarming to him that Shep was either doped up or Shep didn't bark. Of course, they're looking at the family. And he starts asking around and he finds out

that they had a really difficult relationship, Margaret and John did. Neighbors said that Margaret had confided in them about the problems that they had, that John was abusive towards her and the kids. To me, I will say that would have been highly unusual for a woman to disclose that to neighbors. So this must have been bad along the lines of, "I want to get a divorce," bad.

in the late 1800s, early 1900s, that abuse just wouldn't have been talked about. So he must have been really a tyrant, I think. Yeah, well, you know, and part of this, you know, when you see this type of abuse, you know, with the child abuse as well as the domestic violence on Margaret,

Do these family members or other witnesses, have they seen bruises, cuts on family members of John over the course of time that help substantiate the level of abuse?

You know, this is what we will see, you know, today. And oftentimes, you know, a parent will bring a child into the hospital saying they fell, you know, and they've got some injuries. And then upon x-ray, they've got all sorts of old healing x-rays, you know, to their skeleton.

as a result of just chronic abuse. 1900, of course, we don't have that type of medical history. But what stands out to me with what Margaret is saying to her friends, it's one thing for Margaret to be the target of abuse.

but when it's her kids. You know, this is where that's where I start going, okay, you know, Mama Bear is going to come out at some point. Margaret may be somebody, and we see this time and time again, that is going to absorb the abuse over time. But

But when now her kids are being abused and she's concerned about their safety and their lifestyle, she may decide enough is enough. And remember, the neighbors had said, yes, we've had to break up domestic violence incidences at that house.

So they've seen things. I don't have details on injuries or anything like that, but it is pretty well known. It's documented. She's not making this up, that this is happening. So this is what Frank Keller, he's the one who said, oh, that's definitely John's hair on the axe.

He said that Margaret once said this. She said John had bundled up his clothes and he was going to leave. That Margaret said she wished to the Lord that he had done it. There was no peace in this family, nor never would be as long as he lived.

And then Frank said she bursted out with a kind of screaming and said, why is it that the Lord don't remove him out of the way?

And of course, he had not left. He didn't leave. So that sounds definitely like a threat. I mean, she is very publicly saying this man needs to go. He is not a good person. Yeah, you know, and I think, you know, the set of circumstances, the victimology, this appears that John likely was killed by somebody within the family that had the physical capability to do it. You know, Margaret most certainly could have.

But the older children could as well. So as you're talking about this case, I'm kind of narrowing this into this is more likely going to be a result of the ongoing domestic violence inside the house.

than maybe the political enemy or somebody from the outside. And that's going to be kind of the focus of the interview process by the early investigators in this case, at least in my opinion.

Well, the county attorney is really focusing on Margaret for a couple of reasons. And he's vocal about this. He says there is no way that woman is sleeping through an axe attack on her husband. She is literally inches from him. And he says that is just not the way that she said this came out and all of this played out, that she woke up only when she heard these two boards crashing together.

And the fact that she didn't flip over, look to see where John was to wake him up and say, somebody's broken into this house. He does not believe it. Now, you have told me it is absolutely possible for someone to sleep through an attack. And remember, we had the Nashville serial killer, two twins in a bed. One was murdered right next to the other one. And the other one didn't hear a thing.

Yeah, you know, I don't agree with that attorney. I think this is such a limited attack on John. You know, two blows. The first blow probably didn't produce any type of sound. The second crushing blow to the skull is that cracking of the bone that Margaret is possibly hearing.

Now, if Margaret is a killer, she's organically experiencing this audio sound of the axe striking in the back of John's head. So she has this experience which she could weave into this story of hearing two boards clap. Or she truly is just an innocent witness, if you will, that...

hears the crushing blow to John's head, and it sounds like two boards clapping, but she doesn't see the offender. And it's like, where is she looking? I think the biggest thing that the attorney's saying that I also am having a question is you would think that she would, after this experience, be, hey, John, you know, something's going on inside the room, you know, get...

the physical presence of the man up and around to see are we safe or not. And she doesn't do that. But it may be a result of the relationship. She doesn't want to wake him up because he's going to get mad at her and possibly abuse her if he thinks that, oh, you just disrupted my sleep. So who knows? There's a lot of dynamics going on. I mean, Margaret's in play as the killer for sure.

Well, and to feed into that a little bit, what you just said about their relationship, the attorney says, John had a rifle in the corner of the bedroom. I cannot believe she did not turn over and say, get up, grab the rifle, go protect our family. It's just more evidence in his mind that this was Margaret who did it. I think that just refers back to when you said that, I just thought, oh, yeah, maybe she doesn't want...

want John with a rifle pissed off at her for making up some noise that didn't exist. That is the complexity of this type of relationship. You know, there's behaviors that Margaret's doing which on the surface may seem suspicious, but

But at the same time, given the relationship issues that she's in and possibly the fear for her own physical safety, if she wakes John up and John is upset with her, she knows that she's going to be the subject of abuse. And that could explain away her behavior. So it's hard to assess with a lot of confidence, you know, these suspicious behaviors by Margaret.

I think you always do this, Paul, in our cases, but I feel like in particular, you're doing a great job on this story, trying to play both sides. I don't usually like the phrase devil's advocate, but you're going back and forth on why you think this could be Margaret as the offender and why we can also call BS on this quote unquote suspicious behavior that the county prosecutor is bringing up. So I think that's great that you're doing that.

Well, this is just, you know, this is just from experience looking at a wide variety of cases, understanding human behavior. And in my experience, people who are in these positions of making decisions on whether investigators, whether prosecutors or even defense attorneys.

They often put, in my opinion, way too much weight on a set of circumstances without really considering, oh, there are other mitigating factors that may be the real reason why somebody behaves a certain way or makes a certain statement. It's just the reality. It's not black and white. There's a lot of gray in real-world human behavior.

Well, tell me what you think about this. We hear back from William Haynes, and now his wife, Rinda, wants to give her input here on their relationship. William's a neighbor who said, there was a stranger on my front porch. I wonder if this is the guy who did it. But after some reflection, he goes to the prosecutor and says, listen, I have a story.

Margaret came to him and said, "My husband's violent. Can you get together a group of guys to come to the farm and scare the hell out of John? Beat him up. Tell him to stop hurting us." And William says, "Boy, did she want him dead."

He was potentially having affairs. There was abuse. And here's the kicker for me, the pregnancy that we talked about before, it sounds like John fancied one of Margaret's sisters and wanted to marry her. But he ends up getting Margaret pregnant. And that's how he ends up being a father to 10 children.

So there's a lot of—I mean, that's just a laundry list of things that this man has screwed up, it sounds like. With Margaret approaching William the neighbor and seeking to have a group of guys basically inflict violence on John to scare him. Okay, now this opens up a suspect pool, from my perspective, an unexpected suspect pool, where now is there somebody within—

Margaret social circles that would be willing to do this for her or do this for some level of compensation or some form of compensation. You know, in essence, she's hiring a hitman, right? Kind of in this modern day parlance, you know, but back then it's like, okay, so is there somebody that Margaret reached out to that came in and did this?

That's something that the sheriff is going to have to march down on. Well, I need you to tell me if this next thing is an actual thing. There are witnesses. So this is a coroner's inquest at this point. There are witnesses, including a physician, who believe that the attacker was likely left-handed. The one who held this ax, Margaret, is right-handed.

Do you believe that? No. I figured not. Okay, good. So, well, now let's say there were many blows. And I talked about this. Now you have subsequent blows, pooled blood source, a lot of blood getting onto the head of the ax. When that ax is being brought up to strike again, you have cast-off patterns.

With multiple cast-off patterns, you might be able to see generally the arc and directionality of the swing of the axe by the offender. Now, typically, right versus left-handed individuals, you know, they go to their dominant side in terms of the way that they swing the axe. But it doesn't mean that they are locked into doing that. You know, when I...

When I've used an ax, when I use a sledgehammer for around the house projects, I will often change the

the directionality of my swing based on what I need to accomplish. And that is also what offenders do when they commit homicides with these types of weapons. So there is no way somebody can draw a conclusion as to the handedness of the offender. They can just say, well, the offender seemed to swing multiple times in

in this directionality, but that doesn't mean that that's a right-handed person versus a left-handed person, because no matter what your handedness is, you can swing an ax and I'm

in either way. Okay. Margaret's still in play, I think is what you were saying there. So that does not matter. Now, to me, this is the most compelling physical evidence. Tell me what you think about this. Margaret is wearing a nightgown when this attack happens. And there are witnesses, including Dr. Dean and two male community members, which is important, I suppose, to know what their sex is. They come to the crime scene. They look at Margaret's nightgown

There are bloodstains on the right sleeve and on the back of the nightgown. Nothing on the front. Not one bit of blood that they can see on the front. So what do you think about that? Because the idea is that perhaps she was there, but she was not the one who swung the axe. She had her back turned.

Or she was on her stomach. I mean, I don't know, you know. Oh, I need so much more information in order to, because, you know, part of, you know, okay. So, yeah, assessing these bloodstains, of course, you know, we'd have to show, okay, these bloodstains, they look like they're fresh bloodstains that they're from John versus, you know, Margaret had a bleeding injury from some prior thing that she was involved with.

But it's also, okay, the location on the sleeve and on the back. Okay, what do these bloodstains look like? Are they contact transfers? Are they drops? As I mentioned before, this ax is not going to have a lot of blood on it. So this is something where I would not suspect that bloodstains

You know, if she's swinging the axe up overhead, that there's going to be some drops of blood dripping down onto the back of her nightgown. I just don't think that that's this set of circumstances. But I would need to see what is present on her. I need to account for all of her activities.

activities after John has a bleeding injury. You know, it's not unusual for a loved one to go up and either do a medical resuscitation or hug their bleeding loved one and getting blood transferred onto them. Yeah. She's wrapping his head. She's using cloths on his head. She's doing all kinds of stuff. Absolutely. Or you have the physician who's attending John, and then he goes up and

consoles Margaret and he's got blood on him and transfers that blood to Margaret. You know, all of this is part of the complexity of, okay, when are these bloodstains being observed? What has happened between the time of the bleeding injury to the time that these bloodstains are being observed? Can I eliminate with confidence all the other spurious reasons for these bloodstains to say these bloodstains are entirely consistent with the killer?

I would be much more concerned if I saw a little bit of blood spatter, some hairs on Margaret, some brain matter that has spattered up onto Margaret. That becomes important. A few bloodstains on her nightgown. Right now, it doesn't tell me anything.

Now, let me ask you, based on the head wounds that you've heard about, based on what we think happened, would you expect the person holding the axe and doing this with force, would you expect, if it were Margaret, that she would have some kind of blood on this nightgown because they didn't find anything except on that sleeve and on the back? Wouldn't she have something, Paul?

No. You know, again, this is going back and really assessing what's going on. There's two blows. First blow, there's no blood on John. It's with the sharp edge of the ax. There's really not going to be any possibility of blood spatter from that. Now you have a bleeding injury.

With the second blow, could there be some blood spatter? Possibly. It would be minimal. This is where I'd be looking at the bedsheets, at the pillow. Am I seeing emanating blood spatter patterns coming from this injury? But the ax with the long handle allows the offender to

to be a distance away. Plus, the broad head of the axe is a shadow, has a shadowing effect. It's just like a baseball bat. The blood can't come directly back at the person who's wielding the weapon. It's going to go out to the sides and possibly underneath the handle.

But with the limited amount of blows to John, I am not expecting this to be a blood spatter scene at all. So in my opinion, I would not expect the killer to have any type of spatter, blood spatter onto their person. And if they did, it would be minimal and it'd probably be easily overlooked. We're talking a few tiny droplets that would have made it back onto the killer.

Well, let me shorthand what happens here. What you're saying is what the jury is confused by. At every turn, the only thing that the coroner's inquest, the jury said was, yes, we do think that John died by two X-blows, but we have no idea who did it. We do not know if it was Margaret. So they do not recommend that.

that clamor, who is the county prosecutor, he wanted to go after first-degree murder charges. And they said, we don't think that's a great idea. He disagreed. He goes after her anyway. He convinces the local magistrate to issue an arrest warrant for Margaret. She's taken into custody right after his funeral. And in April of 1901, so this is five months after he is murdered, her trial begins.

There are five days of testimony, which is a pretty decent length for a trial in that time period. She says the same thing over and over again. I did not do this. I have no idea what happened. All of the kids, all nine of them say, we agree. We don't have any idea what happened. The defense attorney says, you cannot prove that blood on the ax and that hair on the ax is not turkey blood. You cannot say definitively

that it was John. Margaret and her children say things were bad, but they were not that bad. Mom does not want to kill dad.

And that is the defense. So, you know, we have to fight the perception that women, even country women, are incapable of killing a man. The prosecutor said, hell yeah, she could do it. She is a farm girl. She could pick up an axe and whack this guy. She was very strong. He described her as stalky and heartily built, that she had been seen using a wood-splitting axe with no problem.

And, you know, this is all sort of building up to the idea that she was abused. She was pissed off. She had said she was pissed off to multiple people. And now she was also humiliated because it comes out that they were pregnant before they got married.

And just all of this, John was miserable from the beginning. And that's what the prosecutor is saying. So that is the whole crux of the case. He doesn't have physical evidence, but he is saying circumstantially this woman did it. Who else would have done it?

Yeah. You know, I lean towards Margaret being the one responsible. I think I definitely disagree with some of the facts, if you want to call them facts, that the prosecutor is using to lay out a circumstantial case. The most compelling thing as I assess this is...

William saying Margaret approached him to try to round up a group of men, in essence, to inflict violence on John, to get John to stop abusing her. William, I imagine, doesn't have any grudge against Margaret. You know, I'd want to know what that relationship is. If he sees Margaret as a friend or a good neighbor, he has no reason to make something up.

So that informs me, okay, Margaret is looking at somehow getting John to stop this abusive behavior, and she's willing to have John be beat up, you know, by, you know, a group of men in order to do that.

So this informs me that, you know, her capacity for accepting John's suffering is there, you know, and rightfully so because he's abusing her. But

I don't think with their limitations back in 1900 to look at the physical evidence, you know, is, you know, the ax a murder weapon? Are we able to, you know, demonstrate that it truly is a murder weapon? Are we able to demonstrate that, let's say, there's a bloody ridge detail in John's blood to show that, okay, the person who left that, you know, got John's blood on there as a result of the homicide and it happens to match Margaret. That would be compelling.

They don't have that. You know, I think circumstantially, the case just does not add up in my mind to be able to take it forward at trial. I think there needs to be more investigation done. But I think the sheriff and the prosecutor are on the right track. They just don't have enough to prove the case, in my opinion.

Well, the neighbor, William Haynes, who we talked about, who says, first there was a stranger on the porch, and then he says, well, by the way, you know, Margaret said she wanted a bunch of men to go beat this guy up, is supposed to testify at this trial. And it would be, you know, on the side of the prosecution to talk about her anger. He has, it sounds like, a nervous breakdown. And he's actually admitted to a mental health facility before the trial. So he can't testify. Right.

It does not matter because she is convicted by a panel of all men. And she is given life in prison. At least it wasn't the death penalty, which is what the prosecutor wanted. But she is convicted. So what do you think about that? You just basically said what you thought, which is...

This is not enough evidence to put this woman on trial right now. You know, that's the hard thing is I think they have the right person. I don't say that with total confidence. You know, again, could it have been one of her older children? Could it have been maybe this stranger was the hired hitman, right? And maybe William had a greater role in terms of helping arrange somebody to go in to kill John than what he's admitting to, right?

which may be a reason for his mental breakdown. But, you know, part as we kind of talked about at the beginning of the first episode, this is such a hard thing. Yes, I think Margaret is likely the one responsible either directly or indirectly through having somebody come and do this, whether it be one of her older children or somebody from the outside. But she's doing it in essence to save herself and save her family. You know, and how do you put somebody away for life when

for that. This is the complexity that prosecutors are. John's asleep. He is helpless. And to have somebody come and hit him on the head with an ax, well, this is an egregious act of violence that takes somebody's life.

You can't allow that type of behavior in our society. But if somebody is feeling trapped and thinking, I'm either going to die or my kids are going to die, how do you hold it against them from taking that type of act? Because authorities aren't doing enough to keep them safe. Well, this is not the end of the story. Of course it's not. You've been holding back again. I have. So she's in prison for a year.

And then she had an appeal. And there's a scholar named Patricia L. Bryan who followed this case. She says the Iowa Supreme Court decided that she had been unfairly prejudiced by two tiny little technical errors involving jury instruction, which trips up a lot of judges, surprisingly. There's a technical error there.

And the case is overturned and she is released on bail. And the prosecutor said, here we go again. Let's do it again. So there's a second trial. William Haynes is now out of the asylum. He gives testimony. But the issue with William Haynes is that he gets on the stand and he says, I lied about the stranger on the porch. So now he is, quote unquote, crazy. And he is a liar.

And while at first I thought, well, this is going to undermine her defense about a stranger, I think what ends up happening is it undermines his testimony when he says she told us to go beat this guy up and told him essentially, and that was it. So this was supposed to be pretty good testimony, and it doesn't turn out to be good testimony for the prosecution because this guy lied about something and he was institutionalized.

Oh, sure. You know, and as I'm assessing William and this lie of the stranger, why is he lying about the stranger? Because he's trying to protect Margaret. This informs me that

that William looks at Margaret as a good person, if you will, whatever, if they have a friendship or whatever, but he is in essence, he's aware Margaret is likely going to be a suspect in this case, and now he is misdirecting the investigation by saying, "Hey, I have the stranger that was on my porch," in order for the investigators to think, "Well, that stranger must be the killer that had entered into Margaret and John's house and killed John in his bed."

So this gives greater veracity to William, in my mind, William's statement that Margaret approached him about, hey, I want to have a group of men hurt John.

And this elevates, in my opinion, in my assessment, Margaret's involvement in John's homicide. Well, it's interesting because the community does not think that. The community looks at William, whose wife is divorcing him at this point and charging him with cruelty. The community looks at William and says, you lied about this stranger.

We're not sure what you, if you're telling the truth about, you know, her approaching him about beating up John. You had a breakdown before the first trial. Plus, it seems like you're a mean guy, too. They think that he's involved somehow in this case.

And it casts a big shadow over this second trial, which only benefits Margaret in this second trial. Sure. And I would not be surprised if William had a role, whether he directly is, I mean, he's the killer. He's the one that decided, okay, I'm going to take John out for Margaret. Or he does make the arrangement to have somebody go and take care of John per Margaret's request.

But instead of, well, we're just going to send John a message, it's like, well, we're just going to get rid of John. Now we're going to throw in another stranger. The defense digs up a witness, a guy named G.K. Burson, who says he saw a horseman charging past his farm from the west where the family is.

And, you know, this horseman is whipping his horse, and the horse is frantically running. And, of course, the defense is insinuating that this could have been a stranger, maybe not William Haynes' stranger, but a stranger.

this reasonable doubt, and the prosecutor responds and says, well, this is probably just someone racing his horse at night, which I don't think is a great idea, but maybe this was a thing in 1900 Iowa. But either way, this really puts some reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury, and things are going very differently. As you can tell, I'm framing this up to be a different outcome.

Yeah, you know, it's, again, and I've said this over and over again, in any case, there's always these red herrings. And, you know, you run across them during the investigative phase.

And then once you kind of start proving a case against somebody, you drop pursuing these other red herrings. But they're fodder for the defense. And so now it's like, oh, that was the real killer, the guy on the horse, this mystery man on the horse. But are they showing a nexus to the crime? No, just this is odd. This is odd. And so now I'm going to direct the juror's attention to this mystery man. He's got to be the real killer.

you know, and it's a ploy. You know, I think, you know, right now, I see where things are going in this retrial of Margaret, and I have a feeling that she gets off. She does. It's not an acquittal, but it is a hung jury, and the prosecutor gives up and says, okay, we're not going to have a third trial. And according to the Iowa Cold Case website, Margaret never talks about it. She dies at the age of 70, so this would have been...

13, 14 years later, and she's buried right next to John in the family plot. Oh, wow. It is unsolved. There were no other suspects. They dropped the case, but it is still unsolved. And in this area, the rumors were maybe William Haynes, the liar, the crazy guy, maybe he was involved, or, of course, the most popular theory is that this was all in the family. Yeah.

Yeah. What a case. It's a tough one because I do think it's family, you know, just based on other cases that I'm aware of and the set of circumstances in this case. But at the same time, I'm not necessarily upset that Margaret didn't serve the rest of her life in prison. You know, it's kind of it's one of those you get torn about what's going on here.

I hope that this family went on and the kids went on to live long, happy lives, terror-free, free of domestic violence. And, you know, I hope that Margaret, with all of this being true, people saying this stuff happened, he was not a good husband, not a good father, that I hope she was able to rest in peace with all of this, even if she was next to her scumbag of a husband.

And I know that we've talked about this. You have to solve cases. It doesn't matter who the victim is or who the killer is. They have to be solved. But I think you're right. This had the outcome that was supposed to happen. The prosecutor tried. He did his job. You know, who knows? This is law and justice. This is the way our system works. No, for sure. You know, and this is, you know, one of the few cases.

sets of circumstances where I ultimately have some compassion for the killer. Me too. Well, this case has been a big one, doubleheader, so we need a week off. I need a week off. You can come back in a week, but I'm not going to be here, but I'll leave the camera on. It's just going to be an empty mic. My kid will be here. She'll do homework in here for you, and you guys can have a chat. We'll have

We'll have a week off, and the audience will have a week off. And, you know, we'll be back with another great case. I'm excited. I'm already thinking about it. We're going to play Stump Paul Holes. It's more Stump the Dummy. Okay, I'm ready for you. All right, have a good break. You too.

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

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

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