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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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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.

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. Hey, Paul. How are you? I'm doing good. I understand season seven of Tenfold More Wicked is starting. It's out. The first two episodes are out, and I love it. I'm so excited. That show gives me such life, and I love being out, just like you. You and I talk all the time about wanting to be out in the field. I love being in the field of journalism, being out in the field.

and reporting on stuff. And so I've got season seven, which I think you and I are going to have to chat about because it's about a family annihilator in the 1800s in Austin. For people who don't know, what is the definition of a family annihilator?

You know, actually, that term is kind of a generic term. It's just, here it is. It's somebody who takes out their entire family. It may be insidious or over time the relationships degrade, but then you also have the mass killing where the entire family has been eliminated. What I think

is interesting about the family annihilator in this case, it's the father, which is kind of traditionally what has happened in the past. It's usually a man, but not always. And this was a man who in the 1800s in Austin, when he was a teenager, he witnessed a really gruesome crime scene that his father took him to.

And so the big question that I answer in season seven, I try to answer is, did being at this crime scene trigger something in him because the crimes he committed against his family, you know, 15 to 20 years later were very similar?

to what he saw at the crime scene when he was a teenager. Do you believe in that? Do you believe that, you know, young people witnessing something terrible can influence them in a really bad way later on in life? No, I don't think there's any question that, you know, a level of trauma like that can have an impact that resonates throughout somebody's life.

I think what I would be interested in hearing about are the details of what he witnessed as a kid and then what exactly he did to his family. You know, part of what people rely upon to commit crimes is what they have seen, whether it's in the media, you know, on TV or at the movies or now, you know, what they look up online. And then that's

what they understand what they have to do. So maybe he thought, well, I saw this. That was successful back then. I will do that again to my family. I just don't understand how you can do that to your family because it involves two little kids also. The level of violence that you see sometimes with these cases to me is just unbelievable. I think there are people who kill their families and then there are people who just break

brutalize their bodies. And it's just always stunning to me to report on stories like that. Yeah, it's obviously a horrific crime for a parent, a husband, spouse, you know, to do something like that. I think, though, what I like about this season, besides the fact that it's in my hometown of Austin, Texas, and I get to learn a lot about the history there, what I really like about this season is learning about that, the psychology behind it. What happens to

you when you're young, we know affects you later on. But with something so traumatizing, it must have been very traumatizing what he saw, and I'm not going to tell you what it was, that it affected him so profoundly later on. So, you know, once we get further in, I'll tell you a little bit more about the season, but I'm just excited to share it to everybody. So I have a tenfold more wicked high is what I call it when I'm just as giddy as can be because I know that this show is coming out. I love it. I love the show. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome.

You must be getting bored of me, so here's something else that's coming, right? I knew you were going to say that. Don't be threatened. It's okay. I don't know. I don't know. You're still my favorite.

Well, and you know, I can bounce things off of experts at Tenfold More Wicked, obviously. I do. That's part of the show. But to have a relationship with someone, a friendship with someone consistently where I know I've asked you things in the past and I'll ask you to repeat these things and I remember bits and pieces of information consistently.

That's invaluable to me in the little safety deposit box in my mind of forensics that I don't understand. So the more I talk to you, the easier it is for me to do my other two shows. That's nice to hear. I'm grateful for you for that. So let's move on to this next case and let's set the scene. ♪

So this case is set in the late 1800s in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I don't think I've ever been to Pittsburgh. I've been to Philadelphia. What about you, Pittsburgh? You know, I've flown into Pittsburgh and drove, I think, from the Pittsburgh airport out to West Virginia one time. So I have a little bit of a sense of the outskirts of that city, but just generally that part of the country.

When I was reading about in the research that Maren did and my own independent research about this story, Pittsburgh by the late 1800s was already a steel powerhouse. And I'm sure it provided a lot of steel for the railroads that were really popping up.

And this is also the start of what they called the Great Migration, where millions of Black people left the rural South for larger cities in the North to get more industrial jobs. And so you're seeing Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania being a lot more diverse than it had been in the past.

By the end of the 19th century, a lot of Black Americans had already relocated to western Pennsylvania because they were promised all kinds of work. But of course, then they would arrive and they were mostly exploited and underpaid. So this involves a man named Albert Davis, who's 48 years old.

a black man who arrived in Pennsylvania. We don't know where he came from. We don't know much about his background. I don't think it really matters in this story, but we'll see what you say. In 1889, he's living in a house in the city's east end, and he'd been there for a few months.

And he's sharing it with his wife of 10 years, who is a Black woman named Caroline. In the newspaper, she's also called Carrie, but predominantly it was Caroline, so we're going to stick with Caroline. And here's one of the first of many discrepancies. We don't know if they were legally married or not.

I don't think it matters in this case, but that's just one of the things that pops up for me. Whenever I report on people of color throughout history is lack of birth certificates, lack of immigration papers, lack of any real official documents that would tell you any real details, government details about

about somebody who was living anywhere in America. And I know that you and I have talked about the unreliability when you can't find someone's birth certificate in history, right? No, obviously, you know, the birth certificate is a huge thing because it not only substantiates, you know, the day that somebody was born, it lists the parents, right?

assuming that the parents are listed correctly. And we know that sometimes the mother is going to be the accurate listing, but the father may or may not be accurate. But that's just something that is taken into consideration as you build a family tree or utilizing the genealogy tool in modern forensic technology.

I have a story, a tenfold season that you'll hear about eventually. I can't really talk about it much right now, but it's from 1766 in Williamsburg, Virginia. And I spoke to a woman there whose family had been there for generations and generations into the 1700s earlier. And she said...

she knew nothing because her relatives were all Black. She had no documentation versus her friends who were white and had plenty of documentation from their families. So it's interesting trying to piece together the history of people who were involved in a crime in history. It's just hard. It can be a struggle sometimes. But I think we have a lot of good information, and I have some great forensics to run past you that are, of course, I find that the more confusing the forensics are to me,

the more fun it is for you because you get to explain it to a layperson, which is great. And I am a layperson with ballistics, which is really what we have to get into. Okay. But I actually have a question of you from a historic standpoint. With these Black families and the lack of official documentation, and in these types of cases, you're not getting the media reporting to the level that you would see with other populations. Right.

Would these Black families be buried next to their family members? Yes and no. I just did a story that we were talking about the gravesite in Austin, the oldest, which is called Oakwood. And there were an awful lot of family members, current family members, who were buried near their ancestors' graves.

The problem was that there were almost no markers in certain areas. They just didn't mark the graves, and so it was sort of a guessing game. So it's hard to even find, in some circumstances, graves that are still there or that were marked accurately at all. So, yeah, it's difficult, and that's part of it. And so I can't imagine then trying to piece your own family history together when you have ancestry and you just can't locate these documents. It's just another piece of evidence of...

lost history because of, you know, who you were and who your ancestors were. Yeah, because I would occasionally have to go to like findagrave.com, not only just to get information on the person that I knew was buried there, but look at the surrounding grave sites to see, oh, here's the person's wife that I have no documentation on or children or parents.

Yeah. So with this story, there are inconsistencies that I don't think are really going to impact the story. But one of them, of course, as I said, is that we're not sure if Caroline or Albert are legally married, but I don't think it matters at this point. Albert Davis is not like most Black men in Pittsburgh. He's not a steel worker. He's a restaurant proprietor, which is actually, you know, a great position for him to be in.

So Albert Davis will be our victim here. The death happens in the early morning on Tuesday, January 8th of 1889. Around one o'clock in the morning, a police officer is patrolling near Davis's house in Pittsburgh and he hears a gunshot heard.

from inside the residence. So someone who's outside patrolling around hears this gunshot, and I think that's important later on. So just something to lock away here. Before long, the police have forced through Davis's front door, and inside they find him in a pool of blood at the bottom of his staircase, and

And there is a revolver lying on a table nearby, as well as several empty beer bottles. And it's very clear he has a big hole in his chest. So he has been shot in the chest. Do we know how far away he's laying from this table that has the revolver on it? Here's the discrepancy. So the media had different opinions. They were very vague. But a source that I like a lot says it was on a table, and it sounds like...

pretty close by the table. So in my mind, if this is murder, he can be shot. Or if it's not murder, if it's death by suicide, he would have been able to stagger over the four feet to the staircase. It doesn't seem to be across the room. It's nearby. Okay. So beer bottles nearby to me. Are we thinking just you're an investigator, you walk in, this is the scene that you see

You're not jumping to conclusions about anything, even though there are beer bottles by and there's a guy dead on the ground from a chest wound. You're not thinking immediately murder or suicide or anything. You're trying to gather information, right? Well, that's correct. And it is so important to look at sort of the information about

normal living that occurred prior to the homicide. And so those beer bottles would be something that I would be paying attention to. Is there an indication in the way that the beer bottles are distributed? Like you had several people that were sitting down or standing in conversation. Are they more in a heap? Like you have one person who's just pounding down these bottles. You know, it's something to note. And then, of course, it's going to be

is Albert one of the people that's drinking the beer or drank all the beer? And that's something that would be determined as the investigation proceeds. We do interview witnesses later on, and I'll tell you about the scene. Nothing abnormal. People there drinking. No one's drunk. Albert had a drink. He's not drunk. Nobody seems drunk at this point when this place closes down. Because remember, it's a restaurant, and he lives upstairs from the restaurant.

Normally, these beer bottles would be a great form of evidence. You know, yes, the fingerprints on them, of course, in this day and age, the DNA would probably be able to determine, you know, which bottle was touched by Albert or by a potential suspect. But in 1889...

you know, even fingerprints weren't being widely used. Yeah, you're right. And the good thing, I guess, not the good thing for Albert Davis, but the good thing about this case is that the police kind of quickly determined that fingerprints are not going to be needed in this particular case. But we'll see if you agree with this moving forward. So beer bottles, a revolver, you've got this man on the floor in a pool of blood, and they find two people there only. Anyone else who had been there has left. But...

The people who had left, left at about 11.45 p.m., shut the door, the restaurant closed, and then you've got the three people there who live there. There is Albert Davis. There is the woman I mentioned, Caroline, who is his wife.

And then there is a young girl who is also Black. Her name is Nellie. So you're probably going to have a lot of questions about Nellie. The frustrating thing about Nellie is that the papers can't even get her age right. It's an age range from 9 to 14. I have reason to believe that she's closer to 14, but we'll talk about that in a little bit. That's a

pretty big range when you're talking about some man at the bottom of the stairs dead and the only two people who were in the house that we know of are a woman and someone who could be a nine-year-old all the way up to a 14-year-old. Obviously, that is such a critical age in child development.

both mentally, emotionally, and physically. So it's now assessing all of those characteristics in this potential witness. Right. And so when the police take a look at these two people, the woman and Nellie, they're both in their pajamas. Nobody has blood on them. And what Nellie says is that she never heard a gunshot.

She says that she saw Albert fall down the stairs, so tumbled down the stairs, but she hadn't seen anything amiss up until being in bed. She went to bed, and then the next thing she hears is something, and she goes and she sees Albert falling down the stairs. She doesn't hear a gunshot. She doesn't see the gun, and that is it.

Similarly, Caroline gives very vague details to the police also. And not surprisingly, the adult, the woman, Caroline becomes the top suspect. Now, we have the first responder that's entering into the house. Does he see Caroline standing near Alvin?

Albert? Does it appear that she's trying to take care of him as if, you know, she's distressed that he's been shot? No reaction that was noted that I saw. They were there. They were in their pajamas. They looked shocked.

but also shocked that you just had the police kick in the door. So nobody's running to the door. I think this all happened very fast. I think it was fortuitous that the police were in the neighborhood and heard this shot happen. I think it's weird that police outside heard the revolver go off, but Nellie, who was asleep, didn't hear the revolver go off. Does that in any way make sense to you? Someone who is dead asleep, who's a young girl,

Yeah, in fact, I've had cases, witnesses that, in fact, in one case, which there was probably on the order of about 70 shots fired. And there was a man sleeping in just one of these little trailers on a driveway. And he literally wakes up while I'm processing part of this crime scene right by the trailer where there was cartridge cases. And when he was interviewed, he didn't hear any of those shots.

So in that sleepy state with Nellie, it doesn't surprise me at all that she's not processing that loud noise, but also it's the configuration of the residence that they're in. Maybe the acoustics were such that it would have been muffled where she was at in her bedroom and allowed the sound more focused out towards the street where the patrol officer was at. Yeah.

Normally, I would call BS on the 70 shots, somebody sleeping through it nearby. But probably about two weeks ago, we had our burglar alarm go off because somebody didn't close the door all the way and the wind blew it open. And it sounded horrific. Neither kid woke up. 13 years old, slept right through it. I'm like,

You guys, you're going to be useless if someone breaks into our house. But I mean, even the dog didn't wake up. Right. And you also have to pay attention to, you know, as a person under the influence of a substance. Let's have another reminder of what the purpose is of a coroner's inquest. The coroner's, when they cannot conclude as to the manner of death, is it homicide? Was it accident?

Then they will convene a jury and have a magistrate oversee this hearing in which now witnesses, the pathologists, officers that would have responded to the scene.

Other witnesses presenting the facts to this jury. And then the jury, after hearing those facts, will give a finding. And sometimes it will come down as being homicide. Sometimes it will be suicide. So you're really allowing this peer group make the decision based on what they've heard. It's like a grand jury when you are presenting a criminal case in order to get the true bill, to get somebody now having to stand trial.

Right. So criminal charges can follow a coroner's inquest. Okay. So now I've given you the clue that there is some question about the manner of death. And I've told you that Nellie said she heard no gunshot, but she did see him fall down the stairs. Caroline is equally as vague. She said the same thing. So the coroner does an autopsy, and I'm going to tell you the results there in just a second, but I wanted to remind you of

what these women, what their story was, which was pretty consistent, even though I do think it's vague. Nobody heard a gunshot. These two people saw him roll down the stairs. So here's what they found. Two physicians examined him, and they both concluded that Albert was killed by a single gunshot wound, which struck him in the heart. And they also said, this to me is important, they also said there were no other wounds on his body.

Can you fall down the steps and have no wounds on your body? I've seen it happen. Really? I had a roughly 45-year-old male.

who tumbled down carpeted steps, broke his neck. He was dead. You'd expect all these abrasions and everything else. Nothing. Wow. Okay. So we're not saying Nellie's lying and Caroline's lying at this point because that could have been the case. He could have fallen down the stairs. You know, we don't know what happened. He fell down the stairs. Maybe he shot himself at the top of the stairs. He fell down the stairs. He put the gun down. He stumbled over. And I guess there could be a lot of things that could happen, but they are debating suicide versus murder.

Knowing the little that you know, and I have some more details coming up, where just on the onset would you fall on this? You know, a lot of this comes down to the assessment, particularly of Carolyn, in terms of,

her statements, her state of mind, information about where that relationship was at that moment, as well as how would she benefit if Albert had been killed. This is all assessing her as a potential suspect.

If she is telling the truth about seeing Albert fall down these stairs, now I start getting into questions of, okay, you know, if he's not shooting himself and tumbling down the stairs and whether he staggers and puts a revolver, you know, over onto the table or does a revolver fling over, you know, kind of gets thrown as he's tumbling and just happens to coincidentally, you know, land on the table. I'm now interested in if there's any information about the distance between

of the gunshot. And that would tell me and be very informative as to whether Albert could have physically shot himself or do I ask somebody, maybe an unseen offender by the two witnesses at the bottom of the stairs shooting Albert while he was up on the stairs. And then that shooter places the revolver on the table and runs out. Those are good questions. I want to start with gunshot residue.

because that's something that I've always found confusing and interesting. And I gave you a little bit of a homework assignment because testing someone or something for gunshot residue, there was no test until about 1933 for that. So they weren't able to do that. They're going to have to rely on a couple of other interesting techniques.

But tell me about, I read about paraffin used for gunshot residue. And did you get a chance to look into that for me? Actually, I was very familiar with that particular test. I had to reacquaint myself with it because we never did it in my lab. But as part of my forensic studies,

That was a test that I learned about during the evolution of how we would examine for gunshot residue. So tell me about the paraffin. Is that paraffin that when I go get a manicure or pedicure that they put on my legs kind of paraffin, like waxy? Is that what it is?

That's exactly what it is. Now, I can't say if it's the same composition as what was used during the test, but basically the paraffin is just a wax that can melt at a reasonably low temperature, and then it can be applied to somebody's hands, allowed to harden, and then that wax can be peeled off and then tested with a chemical, diphenylamine, that reacts with nitrates. And firearms discharge evidence says

is chock full of nitrate-containing chemicals. And so if somebody has this gunshot residue on their hands, it's now embedded in this wax. And then the wax, when tested with a diphenylamine, will turn into these blue flecks. And so this is a presumptive test for nitrates. It's a color test.

The problem with the paraffin test is that, well, there's quite a few other types of substances just in our environment that we interact with that also have nitrates, such as fertilizer. It's so prone to false positives. You know, that's really the primary concern about it. But gunshot residue is so prone to contamination. Yeah.

And that's part of something that has to be assessed when evaluating this evidence. Is there the possibility that somebody's hands are contaminated as a result of being handled or other environmental factors than the gunshot residue being deposited because they are the shooter? Well, this is our limitation. We can't test for gunshot residue. And at the core

In Turner's inquest, the prosecutor begins leaning pretty heavily on witnesses, on Caroline and her disposition, and on what people say about their relationship. So Caroline, the wife, is a total wreck.

at the inquest. She is upset. There's a huge amount of people there. I'm sure it was very uncomfortable for her, mostly from the Black community. She is distressed. People are comforting her, visibly anguished. She's asked to take the stand. She declines, which is probably a smart idea. And we put Nellie on the stand. Nellie is the 9- to 14-year-old. So Nellie says, when they ask, tell us a little bit more about what happened that night.

Nellie had told the police initially. She didn't really see anything except she saw Albert fall down the stairs and that was it. No gunshot. Her story by the time the coroner's inquest comes along has now changed. Experience the glamour and danger of the roaring 20s from the palm of your hand in

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

turns, and catchy tunes, all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline. This is your chance to test your detective skills. And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective club. There, you'll chat with other players and compete with or against them. June needs your help, but watch out. You never know which character might be a villain. Shocking family secrets will be revealed, but will you crack this case? Find out as you escape this world

and dive into June's world of mystery, murder, and romance. Can you crack the case? Download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android.

So she says everybody left and the witnesses corroborate that. The people who were there hanging out and drinking and having a couple beers took off at 1145-ish. She said she went to bed shortly after that at 1150. And she saw Albert reading a book in the corner of the room upstairs where, you know, the three of them lived. So Nellie and Caroline shared a room and Albert,

Albert Davis was in a separate room. And I know that sounds strange, but in the 1800s, that wasn't particularly strange for people to have not only, you know, separate beds, but separate bedrooms, especially because there's a young girl there. We don't know if she's related. It doesn't sound like it was a child of theirs, but we don't know what the relationship was like. So she says that Albert is reading in the corner. She says she woke up a little bit later and saw Caroline running out of the bedroom and Albert was following her.

She said nobody had a weapon, but seconds later, Albert had fallen down the stairway with blood pouring from his mouth and his ears. And Nellie isn't reporting a gunshot yet again. So blood, mouth, and ears with a gunshot wound through the heart. Is she mistaken? Would that have happened? Yes, absolutely. Okay. Even though right now I'm only hearing that the heart is what the bullet penetrated, I

In all likelihood, you've also have damage to the lungs. And now you have blood going into the lungs. Oftentimes, it will come up. The trachea will get into the oral cavity. If the person is breathing, still alive after being shot, now you can get these expiratory patterns of blood.

It looks like they've got a major injury to their mouth. And no, it's all internal. Now, the ears are a little bit more difficult for me to be able to say. And I would say Nellie's probably not...

seeing where that blood is actually coming from. It's probably coming out of his mouth and flowing down his face and pooling in the ears. That is very, very typical. And it's dark. If we are believing everything Nellie says, it's dark. She's in a slumber. She hasn't heard this loud gunshot that the police outside had heard. So I don't think she's a particularly reliable witness. I am curious about why she has changed her story and now says that she saw Caroline running down the steps

and Albert following her and then falling down the steps. Is it possible to have that gap in a memory if you witnessed a traumatizing event, including police knocking down your door and coming in and arresting probably her mother figure? Yeah, and she may not have given a complete statement, you know, that morning of Albert's death. I am kind of curious, though, about her statement because her and Caroline's

sleep in the same room and are in the same room when she's asleep. Is she saying that Caroline runs out of their room and Albert comes out of his room? It sounds like it. It sounds like she is awoken by Caroline running and she could see her running out of the room and Albert following after. And then I'm assuming Nellie must have stood at the top of the staircase where she could see the blood. This all happened so quickly. All we know is when the police come in, the two women are

sort of in the vicinity of the room at the same area as where Albert was. Another concern about Nellie's statement is here you have Caroline, who has very strong influence over Nellie.

So that morning, let's say she's involved in Albert's death. It's a homicide. She's telling Nellie, don't say anything. Yeah, and I think that the prosecutor is really trying to figure out with not that much evidence whether or not this was suicide at the coroner's inquest and then eventually at the trial. They're asking a lot about state of mind.

I go back and forth saying, I know jurors want a clear motive. We want to know the story, why somebody is capable of killing someone. Give me your opinion on motive on any of these cases. It's not 100% necessary. Is that right? No, it's not necessary in order to be able to convict somebody of homicide because there are situations in which you can never determine a motive.

And there are many situations in terms of, in all these investigations, that suspects come up and the reason they become suspects is, well, they have a motive. Maybe it's a financial motive. They had financially benefit. But then you prove the case against somebody else. You know, so motive is something that,

can be very helpful when it's strong and obvious that that's what caused or motivated somebody to commit a homicide, but it also is misleading. It is something that you just have to keep an open mind about. Well, here's some information that points us towards motive. There's a man named Cable Nicholas who was Albert's business partner with a restaurant and

And he says he was there that night. Everything seemed fine. Everybody left. There were four or five people who had a couple of beers, and then they left at 1130, 1145 or so. But when asked about the relationship between Albert and Caroline, Cable says that they fought all the time and that many times it escalated to a point where they would each threaten the other person's life. This is a hard relationship. And now

I'm assuming that maybe this is a tick in the box under a potential motive for homicide. It sounds like there is a level of domestic violence going on here and possibly by both parties. Yep. So, of course, that becomes a characteristic that the investigators have to really take a look at.

The evidence still needs to indicate that you are dealing with homicide. And now I'm looking at this revolver. Whose revolver is this? Did Albert have it? Where was it kept in the house? What is Carolyn saying to that? What is Nellie saying about this?

I believe it is Albert's revolver, something that he kept. That would have been, of course, very normal. I can't imagine there was any man in 1889 in a large city who didn't have a gun of some sort laying around and certainly not locked up. From what I saw in the research, there was no question that anybody brought this revolver, that it was there already. This would have been maybe his personal weapon.

So after hearing all of this, the coroner's inquest ends up saying the jury for the coroner's inquest went and deliberated, came back to the courtroom and formally charged Caroline with the murder of Albert, which, of course, Caroline just had a total meltdown, which is not surprising. Either she's guilty or

And scared to death of jail or she's not guilty and scared to death of jail. Sure. Now, I know you said, hey, we don't have gunshot residue testing available, right? But firearms discharge evidence is something that could be very readily seen.

seen under the right circumstances. If this revolver was close enough to Albert, I'm assuming he had a shirt on. Yep. So now you get the gases at the time the shot is fired that come out the end of the barrel. You get partially burned gunpowder particles as well as unburnt gunpowder particles. This becomes critical and we use it all the time to establish the

how close or distant the gun was from the target, from Albert at the time it was fired. And another interesting thing with a revolver is there's a cylinder gap. The reason a revolver is called a revolver is there's a cylinder that holds the ammunition. And when you've

shoot this revolver, the mechanism turns that cylinder to line up the next live round with the barrel for the next shot. But there's a gap between that cylinder and the rest of the gun. We get what's a sideways discharge of

of this firearm, of the gases. And if you're next to a wall, you can literally get sooting on the wall, which tells me exactly where that gun was in space at the time a shot was fired. Okay. All of this has to be documented.

But most certainly, Albert's shirt or his skin is becoming critical for me. If he's shooting himself in the chest, most certainly this is going to be a close range shot and something that he could physically do. If there is no firearms discharge residue,

on his clothing or his skin around the entry wound, now it's doing a determination of how far away that revolver with that type of ammunition would be. And if it falls off far away where you can't see it at all, let's say it's four feet away, that's pretty far. That means somebody else likely shot him. He didn't shoot himself. See, these are the times when I feel really badly. Yeah.

When I keep evidence from you, you make me feel guilty sometimes. Oh, have you been holding out on me? I have, and I commit to you that in about 30 seconds, I'll tell you the information that I have because I'm still confused. Despite you explaining all of that, I'm still confused, and you're going to have to tell me because they had the same idea. Okay. The experts had the same idea you did, so I'll give you that information. But let's talk about the defense versus the prosecutor. Prosecutor says Caroline did it.

There's no getting around it. Their stories are inconsistent. They had a terrible relationship. He's at the bottom of the stairs. He did not shoot himself. They feel pretty confident. The defense says it was either suicide or...

The Nellie girl did it. So I don't know if Caroline is in on this defense, but that seems very cruel to share a bedroom in a bed with a person in your life and then turn on them and say, well, let's use her as, you know, potentially a scapegoat in this whole situation. And it sounds like the defense just said whichever one works, suicide, which I'll give you evidence of in a second, or Nellie did it.

Well, and I think Nellie, and we have this age range of 9 to 14. Right. I'm kind of curious, at age 9, if she is responsible for Albert's homicide, how would the courts have treated her? Oh. I doubt she's getting locked up in prison. So here, even though the defense, I mean, it seems so cruel that throwing Nellie under the bus, so to speak,

to be responsible for this homicide, chances are Nellie's going to get off easy if she is the one that is pulling the trigger on Albert just because of her age. She's a child. So, okay, I'm kind of sitting on the edge of my seat here wanting to hear more that you've been holding back. Okay, well, let me tell you this little bit first. So in the defense, they are bringing people, of course, onto the stand and they bring Albert's friend, who is a man named J.J. Brooks,

He says that Albert was normally a happy-go-lucky guy generally, but that recently over the past couple of days, he seemed really grim, really downtrodden. And on the night of his death, he had been wiping tears from his eyes that whole night.

So this all goes to the suicide column until I tell you what happens with the gunshot. So again, is this evidence, this goes to state of mind, right? He was really upset that night and had not been well for a couple of days. Well, that's very important. My phrase that I say over and over is victimology is huge. And so now getting some information about Albert's state of mind,

is a critical part of assessing this case. Now, it's not definitive, but this is where in some of these situations, a profiler can be pulled in on the case in order to do what is called basically a psychological autopsy. And now you get an expert evaluating the behaviors of the deceased prior to their death

to determine is there a pattern that has been seen in other people who have killed themselves. And so now I am very curious to hear more. Here it comes. One of the doctors who testified for the state says he did not believe that Albert Davis could have shot himself through the heart with this revolver because they bring out Albert's shirt and there are no burns or gunpowder residue. But...

The defense put multiple firearms experts on the stand who said they tested by shooting through a canvas bag three inches away, and it didn't set fire to the bag. There was no burning around the hole, around the entry. So what do you think about that? There didn't appear to be gunshot residue going through the shirt.

So, you know, the lack of any sooting or gunpowder does tell me, okay, this revolver was at a distance in which that type of firearms evidence, discharge evidence, is not coming in contact with Albert's shirt. What I'm not hearing from these experts yet is, well, did they do a distance determination that is taking this revolver with the same type of ammunition?

and shooting it at fabric for close contact, near contact, 12 inches away. This is how we do this to see when this firearms discharge evidence no longer lands around the entry hole on the fabric.

And now that is very informative. The idea of this shirt, Albert's shirt catching fire, when a gun is fired, there is a muzzle flash. You know, there is something that could ignite something, but I haven't seen that happen, you know, with contact or near contact type of shots. And I've seen that a lot.

So I'm not sure why they're putting so much weight on whether or not the fabric itself had been caught on fire. Am I interpreting what you said right? The defense is saying it's possible to shoot into a shirt or anything from just three inches without leaving a mark, meaning he could pull the gun out and shoot himself. What it sounds like to me is a big disagreement on whether or not you had to be a certain distance away in order to leave any kind of a mark on the shirt.

And what they're saying is they did an experiment of three inches, which, I mean, if you think of him, he's probably an average height, average wingspan on his arm. I don't know if he's trying to shoot himself how far away he'd put the gun. I don't know. I mean, just from this, from marking, do you feel like there is just no way he could have done this himself without leaving some kind of residue? Because it would have been close. It would have been at least a half a foot, I would guess.

Well, it's dawning on me. So let's think of the suicide theory. When people kill themselves with a gun, they typically put the muzzle in contact, whether it's their head, their chest, and pull the trigger.

So the bullet and these gases go into the wound itself. It's when the gun is pulled back several inches. That's when you start to see the gases come out of the gun and go around the wound and then becomes more dispersed the further back you are.

So this is now we're going back to autopsy is so critical in terms of what was the wounding pattern on the entry wound? Was there, let's say, stellate tearing of this skin? So when these gases go into the body in these contact style shots,

Those gases have to go somewhere and those gases expand rapidly. And there are times when you can get the tearing of the skin as the gases are escaping back out this opening in the wound that was just created. Not all the time, and especially in the chest area. You see it more with the scalp than in the chest area, but also the clothing. Is there evidence of tearing on the clothing from these gases escaping back?

So that's part of what I would be wanting to see to determine, okay, this looks like it's a contact shot.

And that would be entirely consistent with a suicide versus somebody a couple of feet away or four feet away under the homicide scenario. The other thing, men generally shoot themselves in the head. Right. I was thinking about that. It is not definitive. You can't use it to eliminate whether or not Albert could have killed himself. But it is something that makes me go pause going, well, why the chest?

Is it possible that a bullet from a revolver in 1889 was constructed differently so that maybe it was a little bit more like a shotgun kind of pellet thing where it would have spread out a little bit more than what we're used to so that the actual pattern would look different than what we're used to with a revolver in 2022? Is that possible? Yeah.

The primary characteristic of the revolver back then that I'm just now thinking about is this a black powder revolver. We rarely see those. I've never had a homicide case using black powder that I can recall. If that would change anything about the firearms discharge evidence, maybe, but I'd literally have to do some research on that.

Well, that's the thing that I'm wondering about that comment, where the other multiple firearms experts said that a shot could be fired into a canvas bag, which I'm assuming they're saying is flammable and be the easiest way to track gunpowder residue or burns, at a distance of three inches without setting fire to the cloth.

So clearly saying it would be a clear shot. I'm just wondering if there is a certain kind of residue that they were looking for. It doesn't sound consistent to a suicide to me still. Seems clean, very clean.

You know, they passed around the shirt. Nobody in the newspapers had anything odd to say about it. It was just a shot through a shirt. Yeah, at least with how these experts are testifying and getting some information about the lack of firearms discharge evidence on the shirt, absent that contact shot...

So as I'm hearing and kind of really mulling over everything about this case, the evidence, the statements, right now, I think I'm just like they were back then in terms of, are we dealing with a homicide or suicide? I'm not hearing anything that is definitive for me to say I can conclude it's a homicide or I can conclude it's a suicide. I go back to where Albert is in the house. It's suicide.

Why there at the bottom of the stairs? And again, it's not definitive. Right. But why not sitting in a chair? Right. Why not in the bedroom? That starts to make me go, hmm, you know what? That seems like it'd be more consistent under the homicide theory than suicide.

I agree with that, and I also think that they were equally confused at this criminal trial. I think that they heard the inconsistencies in Nellie's story and Caroline's story. Caroline said he didn't even come upstairs that night. I don't know what happened to him. Now, the inconsistency of those stories could be trauma. It could be asleep. It could be Caroline drank more than she admitted to. I don't know if that's something that can definitively point to...

homicide, but I do think that death threats in a terrible marriage maybe check off a little bit on the murder side also. I don't know. I feel like there's a lot more leaning towards murder than toward suicide at this point. And there's no information that Caroline had any injuries on her. Nope, not a one.

Okay. And I will tell you, most women would have known how to use a revolver in the 1800s. And I think a lot of women would have carried a revolver too. So with a revolver in a small area, you don't have to be a great shot to hit the heart, right? Yeah, no, none of that is anything that I would ever be weighing. I'm just kind of wondering, there are these homicide cases where the woman has just had enough abuse and has decided, I'm taking him out. Right. This sounds like that could be

The circumstances. I think you're having another epic fight and she picks up a gun that was probably lying nearby like they usually were. Yeah.

That would explain why Albert is at the bottom of the stairs under a homicide theory and why Caroline's very vague about what happened. And I will say this because someone listening might say, well, why doesn't she just say if this is self-defense, which is probably what it is, why doesn't she just say that? Because in 1889, a black woman saying it was self-defense doesn't matter. They would throw her in jail no matter what.

And what's interesting is the jury was just as confused as you and I are. She was convicted, even though the defense said there's no definitive evidence of this. You guys don't have any forensics. There's just nothing that you can say. You're speculating. Three inches versus shooting from far away, it's all speculation. They still convicted her, but they convicted her of second-degree murder. And the defense attorney said, please give her leniency. You all haven't proved anything. I know you're convicting her.

And the judge said, okay. And he gave her 10 years. Okay. Now, I'm not sure in Pennsylvania how the statutes differentiate second from first. Right. But generally, that second degree murder lines up with the jury, the judge, determining this was in a heat of the moment scenario versus a planned homicide. Right.

The crime scene itself tends to suggest that type of case. So a crime of passion. And I wanted to read the exact quote because I thought it was actually really interesting because I'm sure this is a white judge saying,

The attorney reportedly asked the judge for leniency, and the judge replied that he would be as merciful as the law provides, and that's why he gave her 10 years. So, obviously, what they heard in that courtroom was a case that was compelling for act of passion, self-defense, something that was not planned. This was not a cold-hearted murder, according to everybody in that courtroom, it sounds like. Yeah, and if it really was a homicide case,

I would agree based on the circumstances, you know, the relationship issues. That tends to suggest this just blew up that night. Something caused an argument. Now, maybe they were both going for the gun. Maybe he had the gun and she's, you know, taking it away. But under the homicide scenario, that makes sense.

You know, Albert's state of mind, though, kind of, that bothers me a little bit leading up. I know. The friend is saying, you know, he's crying. He seems really depressed. Maybe she's breaking up with him. Yeah. And he knows it. Maybe she's cheating on him and he knows it. Maybe he knows she's getting ready to walk out and he's upset and then it turns into this.

Who knows? What I do think is interesting, though, is if this is self-defense, wouldn't it be easier for her to shoot him in the back? Like, is there an opportunity where his back's turned to shoot him rather than shooting him in the chest? Okay, so when I consider a scenario which would be classically deemed self-defense, that would indicate that Caroline actively being threatened at that moment.

versus the domestic violence that has been occurring and she decides, while he's asleep, I'm going to put one in the back of his head. Right. That, for me, is not a self-defense in the moment. Obviously, the reason for it is kind of this potentially life-preserving act to take out your abuser. Mm-hmm.

But even today, you will see if it's that scenario, even though he's abusing her, she is committing a homicide without being threatened herself. Right.

So she apparently served 10 years and then vanished, which is not surprising. She might not have vanished at all. She was never tracked down. Again, every time we do a story on someone of color, either a perpetrator or a victim, we know so little. I think that you did a great job trying to sort out the different details that we have. I don't always have the information that you need, but I do think that no matter what happened, this was a terrible

relationship that just ended in tragedy. Absolutely. Well, I'm excited to bring you the next case, which I think will be very difficult to untangle, but will have a good ending, as good as we can have in these crime cases. I think this will be one of the more interesting ones for you. Okay, well, I'm looking forward to it. ♪

This has been an Exactly Right production. For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buriedbones sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi. Research by Maren McClashen and Kate Winkler-Dawson. Our mixing engineer is Ryo Baum. Our theme song is by Tom Breifogle. Our art

work is by Vanessa Lilac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer. You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at Buried Bones Pod. 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.