Death Did Us Part PT 1
57:58 Share

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

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

while uncovering the mystery of her sister's murder. There are twists, turns, and catchy tunes, all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline. This is your chance to test your detective skills. And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective club. There, you'll chat with other players and compete with or against them. June needs your help, but watch out.

You never know which character might be a villain. Shocking family secrets will be revealed, but will you crack this case? Find out as you escape this world and dive into June's world of mystery, murder, and romance. Can you crack the case? Download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android.

Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android.

Lady to Lady here to tell you we are celebrating our 600th episode. We commemorate every 100th show with the iconic actor and our dear friend, French Stewart. French, French, French, French, French, French, French, French. I'm French Stewart. And this time we took him to Las Vegas, baby. Tune in to hear about all the antics and make sure to check out more episodes. We've got literally 600 to choose from.

They're packed with sleepover games and ridiculous tangents with the best guests. Don't miss new episodes every Wednesday. Follow Lady to Lady wherever you get your podcasts.

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

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

Hi, Kate. Hey, Paul. How are you? I'm hanging in there. I'm doing all right. Do you get achy when it gets cold outside? I think we have talked about that. You have all kinds. I have like mental ailments and you have physical ailments. We'll talk about both at some point.

Yeah, I do a little bit, you know, but not as much as what you would think. You know, I, of course, had the arthritis in the shoulder and I had to have the shoulder replacement. And I know I have arthritis in my right elbow and my lower back. Sometimes I can feel it a little bit achy, you know, but I get a like a ghost pain in my right forearm and my right hand. Ghost pain? Yeah.

Yeah, it's, I have nerve damage. A few years ago, I had no idea what was going on. I thought, you know, I was feeling some pain low down in my right forearm near my elbow when I would put it into certain positions. Mm-hmm.

And I just thought I had scar tissue from lifting weights in the sports over the years. And I happened to be doing a lot of travel for the show that I used to host called The DNA of Murder. And I was sitting on the plane. And prior to this, I had noticed that my pinky and index fingers on my right hand, not index, but my ring finger, pinky and ring finger, had started to tingle a little bit. And I thought, oh, I probably should get that looked at.

But I've got the show that I need to do. So I just kind of pushed it off and pushed it off. And I was sitting on this plane. I looked out of my right hand and it looked almost skeletal. And I was like, oh, that's not good because now the muscles were starting to atrophy. So I immediately went into a hand surgeon and it turns out that my ulnar nerve down in the elbow was trapped. You know, the tunnel that it passed through was too narrow and

And he said, you need to have surgery now or you could potentially, in essence, my hand would end up turning into a claw if I didn't get this fixed. And so we had to put the show on hold, filming the show, in order for me to have the surgery and recover. And it's recovered, though I don't have full functionality in my hand. I've lost some of the fine motor control there.

But obviously the surgery was something I had to do and it's deemed successful. But every now and then I get what I call this ghost pain, you know, and I never had that before. And it's just kind of a weird feeling.

weird thing, and I've noticed recently, seems to be happening more frequently. So what does that actually mean? Is that a mental thing? Is that what happens with ghost pain? I'm assuming it is because obviously, you know, I mean, it's not like somebody who is an amputee and then they're feeling pain where they no longer have a limb. I still have, you know, everything, all the sensation in my hand and, you know, all the anatomy is there. So there potentially could be something firing in

that my brain is registering, but it may be there is something that's either up in the elbow or up in the brain that is not true pain where it's originating at, but where I feel it is in my hand. And it's on the kind of the pinky side of the palm, you know, where I initially had the tingling going on from the nerve entrapment.

So what are the fine motor things you can't do? Like if you need to screw in a tiny screw or something, or what would it be? Kind of like that. It's not that I can't do it. It was right after the surgery, I was struggling to do the, like, threading a bolt, you know, a nut on a bolt. And I'm a DIY guy, you know, and so it was very, very frustrating. But as time has gone on, I've recovered most of that. You know, it's just...

The strength is not quite there. You know, it's gotten better, but it's not like it was, you know, years ago when I was younger and apparently still had fully functioning nerves into my hand. I feel like that about my abdomen after our C-section. Oh. I had twins, and my doctor said,

you know, we think a C-section would be the way to go. And so I said, "Okay." And she said, my doctor was a woman, she said, "I think you're gonna find that maybe you're not gonna, your abdomen's not gonna recover as well.

I'm not sure that's really the case, but I do, I will say something I didn't expect, which your story brought up for me and I had forgotten about is the amount of water retention that I had from the pregnancy afterwards. I had carpal tunnel in both arms and hands for several months because of, you know, I guess that is water retention, right? From the pregnancy, it was awful. I couldn't bring my hands up

The girls had to go on to do formula, and I couldn't feed both of them at the same time because it was so painful to just put my hand up, you know, so my elbow was pointed. It was the worst pain I've ever been through for several months until we finally ended up doing, like, a lot of massaging. And then, you know, eventually, you know, everything went down, but it was awful. So I can't imagine anything.

having that kind of pain. Well, that's the first I've heard of like a, I guess you'd call it pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel type of syndrome. Usually it's because you've been sitting at the computer and you have things pressing against your wrist and all the repetitive motions. But that at least was temporary and then you have no long-term effects from that? Okay, good. My

Pregnancy was fairly, I guess, uneventful for twins. I mean, I carried them to 35 weeks, which my doctor was very pleased with. I taught up until five days before my water broke. I felt sick every single day of my pregnancy, and my mom just kept saying, this is a tiny little sliver in your life. It'll be okay. But it was pretty miserable, but my blood pressure was great. I mean, I, you know, it was very healthy, but...

Oh, boy, that was a bad after effect for me. But anyway, I am glad that you have been on the mend. But this ghost pain makes me a little every once in a while, almost feel them kicking the girls kicking. Oh, and it freaks me out every single time. It freaks me out. And, you know, it's probably indigestion or something. It's nothing. But it definitely brings you back to going, oh, yeah.

Yeah, that was what that was like. Sure. I couldn't even imagine, obviously. No, boy.

Well, let's get into the story because this is a two-parter. It's a humdinger, as I would say. It's a pretty big story. And, you know, when we get into this, it to me is what is a circumstantial case? And I know that we have circumstantial cases because of where we are in history. We have a lot of stuff that is not available to the investigators when we're talking about whatever error we're talking about versus what we have now.

So I know you do an awful lot of, well, today, this is what we'd be able to do. So I think we probably need a good deal of today, this is what we'd be able to do. And, you know, I think that there had to be a lot of settling, unfortunately, with prosecutors and investigators in the 1800s because...

They just didn't have the rock-solid evidence. And I think sometimes there are miscarriages of justice because of that. And I know you're frustrated sometimes because I don't have enough information for you. But it's interesting to see how far we've come with these stories. Yeah, you know, and I would say that still continues on today because, you know, believe it or not,

When we have, let's say, major cases, let's say a homicide case, I couldn't say percentages off the top of my head, but it's not like in every single major case that we have physical evidence. And so they are circumstantial. And there is concern in terms of, well, how much weight can you truly put

on the circumstance. You know, how strong of an association is this circumstance to indicate that the defendant is responsible for the crime?

And I know as I've been on the investigative side and have evaluated suspects and the circumstances as why they are a suspect, only to think, oh, my God, this has got to be the guy. And then to have the physical evidence eliminate him. I have truly...

grown to understand that coincidences do happen. And you'll hear old-time homicide guys say, I don't believe in coincidences. Well, you better, because I've seen it and it's real. Prosecutors need to understand that because it's real, because there, to this day, can be miscarriages of justice due to our inability as humans to truly evaluate this circumstance and what it means. Is it a coincidence or does it mean involvement?

When I was doing research for Oscar Heinrich for the book, for American Sherlock, there was an article where the reporter said, I think, you know, in very differential terms, Heinrich has sent, his evidence has sent six men to the gallows in one year. And I just thought, oh, gosh, from what I know about forensics then and now, I

I would bet a third of those guys probably didn't belong there. I mean, I don't know. Just because the man closed more than a thousand cases doesn't mean he did not have a hand in wrongfully convicting and wrongfully executing a good portion of people. And that's what's scary to me then and now.

Well, it even for me, you know, that's my biggest fear is have I formed an opinion and testified and that helps sway a jury to convict somebody who's innocent. You know, I would be devastated if sometime down course of my life, I find out that something like that has happened. That's where as an expert, truly understanding what the science is, what your expertise is, the limitations are.

and ensuring that all of that is presented openly and fairly without bias in court. And that is fundamental to being a forensic expert, no matter what discipline. You have to be able to

understand the strengths and the limitations of your opinion and convey that in an articulate and accurate manner in the courtroom so the jury understands what you're saying and how much weight to put on that.

Well, in this case, we have a whole lot of circumstances and not as much forensics hard evidence. So we will see what you say. One of the things that I like about the way you approach this show is you, even when we're talking about people from the 1600s, still are uncomfortable speculating too much. Yes, I think Levi Weeks killed, you know...

The woman in the well, I mean, you really can come close and say, yeah, evidence does point strongly, but I would need DNA or something, which is never going to happen. So you always have an out there with Levi Weeks and his family. But I think you really, what you just said holds true for the way you handle the podcast, which is you really don't say, definitely, this is what was happening, and I could have proved it even in 1870. And I think that's great.

It's just experience. Well, let's see what your experience says about the case of Ellen Lucas. Let's go ahead and set the scene.

The best time period. I know I say that all the time, but 1870s around New York City. Love this time period. Is this the Gilded Age by chance? It's right on the edge. Really, Gilded Age for me is like 1890s, boss tweed, people with, you know, diamond cufflinks and $10,000 bills under plates of caviar. That was a thing. And that really was, you know, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s.

So this is on the cusp of that, but these are not those people for sure. I love the time period. And this is where I do need some really good expertise on what is possible to prove and what isn't.

So we're not in New York. We're in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Love Connecticut. One of my favorite states. Love it. And it's very close to New York. And in the 1870s, it was burgeoning. So there are factories that are churning out all of these products like carriages and sewing machines and ammunition, brass goods.

Lots of job opportunities in manufacturing. There are a lot of, of course, working class people, skilled laborers coming in from the countryside and a lot of immigrants moving here. That is just to set the scene.

As we get into the story, I do like to issue warnings here. There is a discussion that we'll have to get into about murder versus suicide. So just a quick trigger warning here about suicide going into this. So this is going to sound kind of familiar to you once we get going. This is 1874, October 2nd in Connecticut. It's an 18-year-old woman is our focus. Her name is Ellen Lucas. She's having dinner at home with her mom.

And she is very, very excited because she is getting married tomorrow. And she has a fiance who is 26, and his name is James Lattin. And they have an appointment in New Haven, Connecticut. They're kind of eloping, but with everybody knowing about it, this is not some huge shindig, it sounds like. This is a, you know, we're going to go have a small wedding. But everybody knows about it. Nobody is shocked by this.

Now, we had another case that I brought up before, which was the woman in the well, in the Manhattan well. Very similar sounding circumstances. You remember Elma Sands, she goes downstairs, she thinks she's eloping, she ends up dead in a well. And Levi Weeks, he denies fiancé, but he is the one that goes on trial and ultimately becomes acquitted because his brother is very famous and has a lot of money.

So it was very deja vu for me reading the research on this and then reading up on it, you know, independently because it felt very similar. A woman the night before or the night of her big day running down the stairs saying goodbye to people. And, you know, as we know where this is going to head, she is never seen after that. Eventually she will be found, but she was not seen alive after that.

What is it about people getting married? Is this just a big event that is something that freaks people out? What has put these two women in danger 50 years apart? At least in cases that I've been exposed to, I can't say that I've seen any type of pattern like this.

So I could only speculate in terms of why, is there something going on? Are they just not attentive to their surroundings and inadvertently put themselves in risk?

Are they not paying attention to, let's say, if you're talking about like with the Levi Weeks, you know, the relationship that there are some red flags in the relationship that may be elevated. The victim's risk, you know, they're in love. They're kind of saying, oh, you know, he'll get over that type of behavior if he's abusive and they ignore it. And then, of course, it escalates. So I don't know. You know, I think it'll be interesting to hear about the circumstances regarding Ellen. Yeah.

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 around 7 o'clock, Ellen throws on a shawl and a bonnet, and she leaves her parents' house. She tells her mother that she's going to step out, but she'll be back soon. Doesn't really give her an explanation about where she's going or who she's meeting, but everybody knows she's getting married the next day.

There are some contradictions, as I am very used to with 1800s newspaper reporting. One of the newspapers said that witnesses said that Ellen seemed nervous before she leaves the house. But there's a different newspaper reporter that said he talked to people that said she was in good spirits afterwards.

It could have been both. Right before your wedding, you could be swinging through all kinds of emotions. And this is just where it's also so subjective. Right. You know, somebody could be looking at Ellen's, you know, mannerisms, the way she's talking and concludes she seems nervous. And somebody else could go, she seems like, you know, normal. This is how Ellen is. You know, so I wouldn't put a whole heck of a lot of weight on how these witnesses were describing her behavior.

manner prior to her going missing? Well, the mother, Mrs. Lucas, finds out why she's left. It looks like she's approaching James on the nearby corner, her fiancé. There are a couple people who saw them together. Witnesses say it looked like they were having a serious discussion, not a bad discussion, but kind of, you know, let's talk about the wedding tomorrow discussions.

But we don't have enough information about that yet. Mrs. Lucas, I think, is nervous in general, and I'll kind of tell you why. James is an interesting character. He was employed by a local meat market, but he didn't have a great reputation in the community there.

He was engaged to Ellen publicly, but he had already been married and divorced, which was not so great in 1870s. Of course, that doesn't mean anything now, but that was certainly frowned upon. After his first marriage ended, James then kind of went on to make a bunch of questionable life decisions, and he was eventually arrested on theft charges.

And he served a little bit of prison time as a result. Nothing violent, though. So, you know, if we know that Ellen's about to go missing, James having theft charges against him right now should not be held against him, I'm assuming. No. If he ends up being a suspect in this case, of course, you know, his past is something that has to be evaluated.

If there is a history of violence, then there's something there that at least shows capability. But no history of violence doesn't mean that somebody is not capable of committing a violent act. It's just they haven't been caught or they haven't done it up until this point in time in their life.

Yeah, and James really is a mysterious character. He came out of prison during that little stint, and this was before he knew Ellen, and he became immediately engaged to a different woman. She ends up dying in what the newspapers describe as a mysterious manner. Of course, we don't have any more information about that. It's a rumor. It's right before the wedding day. And let's keep in mind that this is reported...

after Ellen Lucas has gone missing and right before her wedding day. So all I can say is that there is this death floating around that 1800s reporters say was mysterious, but nothing came of this first death, nothing at all. So again, interesting, but not really relevant at this point if he even becomes a suspect. RISA GOLUBOFFA

How long ago before Ellen's disappearance did this other woman die? Sounds like a few years ago. And just to clarify, this is a woman that was at the time engaged to the same James, and they were going to get married the next day, and she dies under mysterious circumstances. Right.

Shortly before the wedding. We don't know how long before. What confuses me is because we've done so many life insurance stories, I kept thinking, why doesn't he just wait to marry these people? But I also have to confess, I'm not quite sure how that would have worked in the 1870s. I mean, he would have had possession of everything before.

But I'm also thinking as craven, money-hungry person, not as someone with a bad temper, which James could have, and get set off pretty easily at his fiancée. But I don't know. I'm just going to table this previous death, just file that for maybe bringing it out in the future and see if it really has any relevance to Ellen's disappearance.

James is not a popular person. I've already said that. Nothing against people who work in local meat markets. It sounds like he's great. He even had a job considering he was in prison. But Ellen's father does not think his 18-year-old, very attractive daughter should marry this man. He's not good enough for her. He had strenuously opposed the match, 1800s terms for, you're not marrying my daughter, forget it.

But Ellen dug her heels in and said, I'm marrying him. And if you want to be involved in my life, you're going to accept it. And so they ultimately okayed the plans for them to be married. And this is something that we see over and over again. Edward Ruloff in my book, the same thing happened. You know, you have these men who have gotten their claws into the women and the women just say, I'm walking away from you all if you don't accept them. And then bad things happen. And I'm assuming you've seen this.

you know, in your work too. This is a very common scenario where two people that are in a relationship, you're often blinded by love, right? Whereas the family or friends who don't have that cognitive bias about the person is seeing, hold on, we don't think this is a good match for

we see some issues, the red flags, but they talk to their loved one or their friend and the friend is so smitten by this other person that it's like, "No," or, "I'll change him." You know, "I so love him, I'll change him." This is common today and it sounds like, I mean, human nature hasn't changed. It was what's happening here.

Have you dealt with families in those kinds of cases that just say, I wish I had done something? Hindsight, what do you do in this circumstance? If you feel like in your heart, this is not a good person who is potentially violent, but

Ellen is an adult. She's 18. I mean, family do regret not interceding more when all of a sudden they've lost a loved one or the loved one ended up in an abusive relationship. Of course, you know, the family is going, well, I did talk to her, but, you know, there's only so much and she didn't want to listen. You know, and there's just...

they will have after the fact, of course, you know, frustration and regret that they didn't do more. But the reality is, is they really can't in most circumstances. Well,

Well, as much as a jerk as James seems right now, we don't know what's happened with Ellen. And I'm not ready to convict him on anything until we get some more circumstances here. Because we are going to get down to 19th century police work and circumstantial evidence. And there's a lot to discuss, I think. So just to catch us up, Ellen has left.

she is seen through the window by her mom talking to James. They're having a serious conversation, but not something that seems like an argument. Then Ellen doesn't come home. Her mom's expecting her home. She never comes home.

And early the next morning, which is the couple's wedding day, a group of Ellen's friends and family set out to look for her. So that's how much they don't trust James, and that's how much they're worried about Ellen, because it would have been unusual for her to not come back home, according to her family.

So they go out and they do a big search, but they don't find her initially. They go to James and he said, I have no idea what you're talking about. I haven't seen her. I'm expecting to marry her. What's going on? You know, this is already kind of an alarming situation with this unwanted wedding. And now you've got a woman who's gone missing. And it's concerning. He's seen talking to Ellen again.

Is he saying, yeah, we finished the conversation and she walked off in that direction? That's the typical type of response that you get. At first, he denies that anybody knows what they're talking about. You never saw me with her. And then he says, OK, I was with her very briefly. But then he has an alibi that takes him out to sea. And

And it's confirmed. But we've got quite a few family members on both sides who I'm not quite sure we believe what people are saying because they're so entrenched in this story because it's involving a family member. But as of right now, he's saying, I don't know where she is. I saw her briefly and that was it. So I'll help you look, but I don't know what's going on. Well, let's talk about, you say he has an alibi. Well, right now at this point,

Ellen hasn't been found. We don't know what has happened to Ellen. Correct. And so let's say, let's assume she's been killed. Well, we need to know, okay, when, where, what time,

You know, this happened. Now we can start looking at what James is saying, his whereabouts were, to determine if there's an alibi. But there's no way James can have an alibi at this point before Ellen's body is found. Well, then I'll jump into it and say her body is found. Not long after.

after the family and friends come back from their search. I mean, they just left early the next morning. No luck. They came back around 7:00. So this is 12 hours after she disappeared. There were two men who were not connected with the search party at all who just stumbled across her. So this is where circumstances are interesting.

They find her body laying face down in a remote stream that's known as the Cedars. The reporters describe it as very lonely, entirely concealed from the road, and fairly close by to Ellen's house. We don't know an exact distance.

I have the crappiest of sketches to show you about what this place looked like, and I don't know if it's going to be helpful, but she is found face down in a stream, and I have more information about injuries. And you said this was 7 a.m. in the morning when these two men found her? Yep. Okay. And fully clothed? Fully clothed. So initially they think—I have no idea why—

that she perhaps died by suicide. And I don't know why they jumped to that, except for maybe the life circumstances, or maybe they theorized that once they found out from the family that she was supposed to get married and maybe, you know, they hadn't talked to the fiancé, and they just thought that she went to this remote area and took her own life via drowning, which doesn't make any sense to me, except...

And this gives you actually a little bit of information. The water that Ellen was found in was so shallow, it was only two or four inches deep. There was a newspaper reporter who said it would have required more fortitude than the delicate girl was likely to possess to enable her to hold the face beneath the

There's a lot to unpack there. Can you take your own life like that? Absolutely. You know, of course, autopsy is going to be pivotal in terms of what those observations are.

But, you know, at this point, I'm assuming it's law enforcement that is thinking, okay, she's died by suicide. Now, this idea that she couldn't have had the fortitude in order to be able to keep her face under two to four inches of water in this, I'm assuming there's muck underneath, that, you know, if somebody is really committed, they absolutely will have

have the fortitude in order to do something like this. There's all sorts of people who have died by suicide under very bizarre and extreme circumstances. Some of the strangest crime scenes or death scenes that I've been to

have been people who have died by suicide. So it would not be anything, I would not sit there and look at this type of scenario and say, well, there's no way that she died by suicide just because I don't think she had the fortitude in order to pull it off under these set of circumstances. I would eliminate that as an argument straight off the bat.

So what are they saying? They're saying fortitude, do they mean physical or like she was physically incapable of keeping her face down and inhaling or whatever enough water at two to four inches? Or are they saying that she, I mean, what are they saying? I don't even understand what the fortitude part is. I think they're saying that two to four inches of

of water with the mucky bottom of this creek that they're of the opinion that if she puts her face in this water and starts to panic, can't breathe, that she's going to be pushing herself up out of this water.

They're failing to take into account that there's a drowning possibility, but there's also the initial asphyxia. We're talking 10 seconds. Okay. And she could be unconscious, face down in water. This is what happens when people...

go unconscious. Let's say they overdose while they're in a bathtub, and now they slip underneath the water, and within 10, 15 seconds, the lack of oxygen, they're not going to recover from that. This is what could be happening here. Now, I, of course, know that it's probably likely not that she died by suicide in this scenario, but

Right now, I would say it's absolutely possible for her, within a matter of a few seconds, she could have slipped. She could have gone unconscious with her face still in the water. And now, if she's still breathing, now you're starting to get the water going into the trachea. You're now going to be able to see that she still was breathing and was taking the water into her lungs.

Well, let's continue on. Let me show you the sketch, which I always say they're not going to be helpful, but you might think so. You see the sketch at the bottom. It looks like that's where her body is. But they say the body as it was found in a ravine near Berkshire Pond.

Yeah, so I'm looking at this sketch, and it is actually quite an amazing hand drawing, which shows Ellen laying face down with her clothes, head to the left of the photo, feet towards the right. I'm surprised at the amount of trees, large trees in the backdrop, as well as this wooden fence

that looks like it's in disrepair that is in the background. It's kind of hard to see where the artist in this sketch is showing the stream, but I think what is notable is the, I can see her face in this sketch. It's not like her face is buried in the creek bed. It doesn't even look like it's submerged under the water in this sketch.

Her hands are outstretched. At least her right arm is stretched out a little bit above her head. Her left arm is close to her face. Her feet, you know, she's not curled up in a fetal position. She's just somewhat looks like somebody who could have easily have fallen and landed in this position.

I don't know who drew this. I don't know if this was a reporter or some of the... One of the investigators, this is very nice, so I don't think this was an investigator. And, you know, you and I have done stories where I show you photos, like, remember the one with the whole family killed by the son-in-law? And it's clear the police photos, in the police photos, that they've already moved the body and covered him up and stacked him together and all that. So I don't know where we are with this. I did wonder if you looked to the right...

If that's a stream that's kind of coming down the hill and it's wrapping around, it's such a beautiful drawing that it actually kind of, there's too much detail in some ways for us to figure out what's actually happening. Yeah, no, I see that stream. That's what I thought that was too. And to your point,

You know, this sketch would have taken a fair amount of time to do. I doubt you have this artist standing there at this death scene and sketching this entire thing as accurately as possible. My suspicion is...

is this sketch was done probably from memory. And we don't know at what point after her body was found and had she been moved, you know, what kind of disruption to the scene there is with the details here.

You know, so it's not something that I would put a lot of veracity into in terms of this is an accurate representation of how Ellen's body was found. Are there any indications? You know, part of the crime scene processing early on, once they find this dead body, of course, is going to be looking for, well, what evidence is here of somebody else being present? You know, was she carried and dropped here? Did it look like she walked into this location?

So I don't know if you have that kind of information, but that's part of the documentation that helps somebody like me to reconstruct, okay, this is what is going on, you know, the ingress aspect of the offender and the victim, what happened at this particular location of the victim, and then how did the offender leave if this is a homicide case.

Well, and actually, this brings up an interesting point. You know, we know when you talk to witnesses, everybody has their own point of view. Everyone has their own slant. You know, you just said what the perspective, I mean, who knows what the artists did here, how many liberties they took. This is all somebody's perspective and point of view. But with investigators, like what I want to know from the 1870s is how much do they know what they're talking about?

Because I will tell you that we do have some physical injuries that might not have been caused by someone. We'll have to see. But they do say that they found evidence of assaults.

a struggle. And they said that, so this is the first thing I'll say, there's clear evidence of a struggle in the environment around the stream. The reporter says that for many yards along the bank of the grass and the earth were trodden down, and it was apparent that the victim had struggled for her life.

with all the energy of desperation." How can you prove that? That's what I mean. I mean, they're saying for sure there was a struggle, and I'm just thinking, "What if there was a cow there?" I mean, I don't know. Well, there actually can be evidence where you can conclude, yes, appears the victim did struggle. And this is not only within the environment, but on the victim herself, whether it be her clothing, whether it be injuries to her body,

But let's say we talk about the environment. It's okay. This possibly is somewhat of a, because we have a creek bed, we have plants, you can start to see, if you just expect people who just walk in and walk out of this location, it's common sense. How much of the plants would be disrupted? Now, if you are seeing a fair amount of disruption to the plants, as well as

Shoe impressions, sliding shoe impressions. She's muddy. Her feet or her shoes are muddy. She's got grass stains as she's struggling. Maybe the offender's on top of her and they're laying down on this plant material. Of course, defensive injuries. Does she have bruises like she's being grabbed hard or scratches? All of this is combined to...

start to reconstruct, yes, it appears that the victim was aware she was being attacked. And in this environment, there is combat between two individuals, at least. So the investigators look at her body and they discover what they say are marks on her wrists, which they describe as clearly somebody grabbing her and dragging her along. And that the

This is, I think, odd. She's wearing a bonnet and they're saying that she still has her bonnet on, but the back has been crushed in. And the reporter who's describing this scene says that there are thumb and finger markings that have been left on the bonnet near this crushed area.

And the insinuation here is that somebody grabbed the back of her head through the bonnet and held her underwater, and they had been holding her arms in this disrupted area to get her down and then shove her down. Does that make sense to you, or is that too much kind of speculation on their part? And they're getting this from the police. It's not reporters standing there. They're getting these details. I think that really just depends on what their observations are. The grabbing around the wrists,

you know, of course, when you first said there was marks around her wrists, my mind immediately went to binding. You know, is there a possibility she had been bound? But it sounds like what they are observing is the broad types of marks to the skin and potential bruising from being held hard. And that

You can conclude that. It rarely is very distinct where you're seeing individual finger marks and thumb marks, but you do see marks where you go, yeah, that looks like a hand has grabbed hard around the wrist. Now, is this occurring while she's upright or is this occurring as they're trying to move the body? You know, that I don't know with the description. The bonnet with the finger and thumb marks on the bonnet,

I'm not entirely sure what they would be looking at. I'd have to see the bonnet. It sounds like this is somewhat of a hard surface. Well, it could be because, I mean, it's October. It's not cold. It's cooler. It could have been a more rigid bonnet, but it also could be just part of the bonnet was pushed in and they're making some pretty big speculation here. And also, you know, this

report was probably written after some of the autopsy stuff came out. So again, that's what happens sometimes with reporters is you're kind of backtracking and making the evidence fit what is in the autopsy versus kind of evaluating it independently and saying, okay, what makes sense? Because it still sounds like suicide could be on the table. Right. Well, and this is also where

you know, when photography became available, that was a huge advance in terms of documentation because now an investigator, you get the autopsy report, you get the pathologist's findings, now I could correlate the findings from the autopsy to what I can see at the crime scene in its original state. And so like this bonnet,

You know, was it crushed in, as they said, at the crime scene when her body was first found? Or was it crushed during the collection process or in the transportation of the body to the morgue? How was this bonnet treated? You know, so I would be going back to these photos in order to verify, yeah, it looks like I have an offender grabbing this bonnet. That makes sense based off the autopsy results. But absent those crime scene photos back in the 1870s,

how do I substantiate that type of observation? Now we are talking about people having to rely on their memory, because I doubt you've got 20 different sketches that accurately portray all the intimate details of how Ellen's body, how her clothing, how the evidence was in situ at this crime scene. And that is the disadvantage we have. I mean, they've certainly had, it was all

awful. I know Oscar Heinrich loved photography. He photographed, I can't even tell you how big his photography collection was. Thank goodness. Because, you know, as an author, I can look at the photographs of these crime scenes and get so much out of it, so much description, so much sort of feeling and, you know, a visceral evidence for my readers that

that it's just so much more difficult to get when you're working in the 1800s before something like crime scene photography really would have come up.

Let me give you a little bit more information because now we have the police scouring the area. I told you parts of it were disrupted as if there had been a struggle. They found pieces of a man's necktie which had been torn apart. Now we might be coming back to the wrists because they weren't specific enough to say these are finger marks on her wrists that have been restraining her. They just said marks.

Okay. So now I wonder if you're right and she had been restrained using somebody's necktie, some man's necktie. Yeah, well, that's entirely possible. I've seen a man's necktie used as a ligature around the neck for sure. But it most certainly is capable of being used as binding in order to, you know, bind both wrists together or to be wrapped around one wrist to be almost as a control mechanism for

So, again, I would have to see the marks on her wrists to correlate. Does that look like something that this kind of broad fabric of a necktie would make versus, let's say, shoelaces, which very narrow marks would be left on the wrists? Is there usable DNA on that necktie or no? Oh, absolutely. On a man's necktie? Okay. You know, you think about a man's necktie, you know, there's...

Really, only one person that generally touches the man's necktie, and that's the man himself. Now, sometimes a partner may touch that necktie, but it's not like this is an article of clothing that you have a lot of people grabbing. So this wear DNA, because men's neckties, you don't throw those in the laundry. You might get them dry cleaned, but generally you wear them.

In fact, most of my neckties, I don't think were ever, you know, laundered in any capacity. But my hands are constantly touching them as I'm tying that tie or flipping it out of the way. You know, I go to a crime scene, I don't want it to go down into the blood pool. I did not know that. Men don't wash their neckties.

No. I mean, you really have no reason to unless it gets stained, you know, you get the ketchup on it or the spaghetti sauce. In fact, I had a homicide guy who, you know, that was, it was always funny because back way back in the day under my previous sheriff, the homicide investigators had to wear shirts and tie.

And so, you know, you lean over the body. Where does that tie go? You know, and I literally saw one guy's tie go right down into the blood pool around this victim's head. Now you're screwed. Now that tie needs to be laundered. But I'm just talking generally in terms of habit.

If this tie is left by the offender and it's the offender's necktie, it's a beautiful source of DNA. Now, can't conclude at this point that this tie is from the offender or even related to the crime scene, but it's present and it's

Kind of stands out because this is not a location where you'd expect a man's necktie to be laying. Yeah. Does it look fresh? Items of clothing and any items for that matter are out in the environment. There's some weathering that occurs. And so that's part of the initial observations. I would process outdoor crime scenes in sometimes very trashy areas.

And so now I have to have a very discerning eye as to how long I think any item that I'm looking at laying on the ground, any piece of trash looks like, hell, that's been there for weeks, you know, or versus that looks fresh. So I put more weight on something that looks fresh.

So does this man's necktie out here at this crime scene, does it look like it's been recently deposited? Or now is it looking like it's faded and it's kind of driven down into the ground? So you just start having to pay attention to those types of details.

I believe recently deposited. Ripped up, but recently deposited. So they take it. Let's talk about some of the stuff that was found with the autopsy. They said that her shawl was bunched up, which anybody could have seen in the stream around her head.

And she also had what they called a livid bruise on her forehead. What does livid bruise mean? Well, lividity, and this is what I am assuming that they're talking about, is that when you die, your heart stops pumping blood. The blood is going to flow down with gravity. And this is your lividity, you know. And so you can see, looking at a body, you

You can see the lower surfaces of the body with gravity be darker, kind of a reddish, purplish-reddish color, and the top surfaces of the body being lighter. It doesn't have the blood up there.

If she's face down in this stream, her face is going to be flush with this lividity. But where her face is in contact, let's say with the ground, the blood can't get into that tissue. So you'll have sort of this clearing. We use lividity all the time to determine has the body been moved sufficiently.

since the lividity formed and set. It tells us, oh, there's been, this victim was dead, laying somewhere else for a period of time, and now that they've been moved to a secondary location, their lividity doesn't match up with how the body is laying there. So this livid bruise, my thought is, is they're observing lividity. They're just using a different type of descriptor than what we would use today.

Well, the attending physician says that it looks clear that she was probably either struck with a rock...

Meaning on her forehead, meaning someone hit her or she fell and hit her head and drowned. So what do you think about that? That's what they said, that she either fell and her head hit the rock or somebody did it to her. Okay, so now they're using the term livid differently than what I was thinking. Okay. Sorry, Paul. Disregard my entire monologue on lividity. But that was valuable.

No. So, yeah, I'm just looking up the term livid, which it makes sense now within context, you know, furiously angry, you know, is kind of how this you're livid. Right. So this is a weird adjective. It's a weird adjective to apply to an injury. So it sounds like the pathologist is noting that there has been a blow.

a blow that caused hemorrhage to her forehead. And so now they're seeing a very distinct bruise to her forehead. Now, do they indicate if this blow caused a laceration? Is it a bleeding injury? Is there any fracture to the skull itself? Or is it just a bruise to the front of her forehead? Bruise to the front of the forehead. However, and this is what I thought was interesting, and we circle back again to suicide or an accident.

that she was out there and tripped and fell, hit her head, because they found water and sand in her stomach, as well as a vegetable substance which grew on the rocks in that brook. And of course, the attending physician says she was alive in the water and inhaled all of this stuff when she was trying to catch her breath. That's exactly what that indicates. And now I'm seeing...

livid bruise as dark bluish gray in color. So this is a, yeah, this looks like that is a formal descriptor. The more you know, Paul Holes, not often I teach you something. So now, okay, so we have a bruise to her forehead and

And we have her inhaling the water and, in essence, the muck from this creek. With just that information, is it consistent with her tripping and falling and hitting her head and possibly losing consciousness? And now she's just ingesting the water and the muck.

I would say with that information alone, yes. So at this point, we also know she has these strange marks on her wrists that isn't consistent with just the trip and fall. Does she have any other injuries that they found at autopsy? Nope. They found something else, though, that I think you'll find very interesting. So we have to head into our break and then we'll have another discussion next week. But I will leave you with this.

When the attending physician went through the autopsy, he found that 18-year-old Ellen Lucas was about seven months pregnant. That complicates things. Okay. Yeah.

So we have an 18-year-old young woman who is pregnant, very pregnant, it sounds like. We have a fiance who says, I don't know anything about anything. And the investigators, as soon as they get this report, I'm sure going to head straight to his place to find out what happened with James. And a family that is heartbroken. And everybody wants to know what happened to Ellen Lucas. Did she do this herself?

Did she have an accident or was she murdered? And that is the question we will have for next week. Okay. Well, I look forward to hearing the rest of the story. See you soon. Sounds good.

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.