Death Did Us Part PT 2
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In June's Journey, you have the chance to solve a captivating murder mystery and reveal deep-seated family secrets. Use your keen eye and detective skills to guide June Parker through this thrilling hidden object mystery game. June's Journey is a mobile game that follows June Parker, a New York socialite living in London. Play as June Parker and investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s

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

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

Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android. Listen up. I'm Liza Traeger. And I'm Cara Clank, and we're the hosts of the true crime comedy podcast, That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast. Every Tuesday, we break down an episode of Law & Order SVU, the true crime it's based on, and we chat with an actor from the episode.

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

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

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

Hey, Kate. How are you? I'm great, Paul. How's it going? I'm doing good. I guess you have to give me an update on the case that we're talking about because I'm losing track of some of the details. I thought you'd be thinking about it all week, but obviously I didn't make a compelling case for poor Ellen Lucas, if you remember our 18-year-old woman who was found face down in a creek in Connecticut in 1874.

And, you know, the evidence so far has been this, that she has a lousy fiance, that they were supposed to get married. They seem to have a very serious conversation on the night of October 2nd, according to her mom. And then we're going to hear from a witness later.

Nobody likes James. He's kind of a jerk and sort of a ne'er-do-well, I guess. He says, I said goodbye to her and that was the end of it. And he, as we will find out in a minute, says, I have an alibi. And the next thing we know, Ellen has not come home and she's found in that creek somewhere.

And they say she has a really bad bruise on her forehead, a livid bruise on her forehead. And they say that she has inhaled water and sand and the vegetation that would have been in the water. So it seems clear from you, from what we know, right? One of the issues with the story is they can't definitively say how she died.

They can't say for sure right now whether they think this is murder or suicide or an accident. There's circumstances, but there's no gun, there's no knife. There's a lot of murkiness about this story so far, no? I don't find it as murky, just because you have to take in everything in totality at the crime scene and the autopsy findings.

And just the, you know, the bruise on the forehead, the inhalation of the water and the muck from the creek bottom, those two things could be a result of somebody who fell and went unconscious. However, we have on her body, we have marks on her wrists that is inconsistent with that scenario of her just tripping and falling.

We also have the surrounding area where there's an observation of a struggle

You have plant material that's crushed down. It sounds like there's shoe impressions that they're interpreting, showing that there's some combat going on. And of course, there's this men's necktie that's in the area. So there's enough for me, you know, like this would be a suspicious death scene up front, but should be treated as a homicide until proven that it's not. There's enough here to where I'm going,

okay, can I account for all this other evidence at the crime scene to result in that whether she died by suicide or whether this was an accidental drowning, if that's what it is? Or is it more likely that this is a result of death at the hands of another? We have a homicide. And right now, I have to lean towards homicide until I can account for this evidence for these other manners of death.

Well, and then, of course, we have that complication that I dropped on you right at the end of the last episode, which is that Ellen was seven months pregnant at the time of her death, as discovered by attending physician, which is huge. Was she hiding her pregnancy? It sounds like no, but...

Nobody would admit that they knew. So I will say it like this. We don't know if Ellen's family knew that she was pregnant, but the fact that her father was willing to do such an about-face on James in the marriage situation, what I envision and what happened a lot was the girl said, I want to marry him. The father says no.

And then the girl says, "I'm pregnant." And then the father says, "Okay." Because, boy, that wouldn't have flown in 1874. An unmarried woman, an 18-year-old unmarried woman who was pregnant. That's the suspicion by many is that the family, who was not saying anything about whether they knew about it or not, did their about-face because of that, because of the pregnancy. Yeah, you know, and I immediately go to, "Well, is James the father? Did James know she was pregnant?"

that evening before she's found dead? Did she tell James she's pregnant and who the father actually was? You know, there's obviously there could be motive for James to act out under those types of hypotheticals. So it becomes significant. You know, how does this pregnancy affect the relationship and how is it going to affect the relationship moving forward in James's mind? And

And a little side note, you and I have talked about this with another case, the woman who got pregnant in the 1700s by a young man who was not her husband, and they felt so trapped that they killed the husband. And then she ended up being executed, even though people probably knew she was pregnant at the time. You know, I had brought this up before. I had read that in a new study says that pregnant women are 35 percent more likely to be murdered.

than not pregnant women. I think we can talk about that because pregnancy is one of those things that could scare someone or it could be used as a threat. I mean, right, there are a lot of different possibilities about why pregnancy would result in murder. Not blaming the victim, just saying circumstances could really frighten somebody, an offender.

Well, with these pregnant victims, there's a couple of aspects that I could see where they would have an elevated...

percentage of being victims of homicide. One is because of the significant life change that is about to occur and that the offender, his life is being impacted and he's deciding, I do not want this. And he kills the mother. Then there's also sort of what I was bringing up

under one of the hypotheticals involving James is that it's found out that the offender is not the father of the child. Now in that jealous type fit of rage, you know, acts out. There could be financial reasons as well. You know, this is going to be a financial burden to raise a child. And now there's an elimination homicide due to that financial fear. And I think many of those are on the table here with this case.

They try to find conclusively an absolute cause of death. So there's that initial autopsy, which was the discovery of the pregnancy. They buried her. Then they exhumed her. And with no luck, they were not able to conclude what the cause of death was. I will say that they did some toxicology. No poisons found in her system.

So they're trying to rule things out, but what they're left with is water in the lungs and this bruise, but no contusions, no nothing else. So you can see why this would be really frustrating, not just for the attending physician slash medical examiner, but for investigators and the prosecutor who is looking at James and saying, you're the one who did this and is trying to put together a case. Yeah, you know, and I just question if the pathologist was as...

thorough in knowledge as a modern pathologist? Was there subtle petechia that was missed? How experienced is this pathologist in this, you know, you said it's a burgeoning town, but how many homicides does this pathologist have experience with? How familiar is the pathologist with

with the various signs of the different types of deaths, such as strangulation, such as asphyxia. So, you know, right now, I personally, right now, with the evidence, I don't think she slipped and fell. I don't think this is an accident. I don't think this is death by suicide. I think it's likely homicide. And with the

Okay. Well, let's see if you continue to feel like that.

We're going to go through more circumstantial evidence. The police investigators, and I actually say that pretty loosely, there would not have been even an organized police force in the 1870s. This could have been a constable. This is probably not an experienced investigator, but we don't know. So the investigators discover that the tie from the crime scene does appear to be James's tie.

And he's not admitting to this, but there are witnesses who say, I've seen this tie. Now, I mean, they don't have DNA. If he denies it, he denies it. And there are other ties floating around. But I'm imagining you would think that's significant if we can just go ahead and say, this is James's tie. Yeah, I'll go ahead and just make that assumption. Yeah.

Okay, so we now have witnesses, and you can talk about witnesses, because in my head, I'm keeping a little list of things. And I know we do this all the time, but there's a little list of things going through my head of what would be helpful. The tools we have now, that would have been great. That would have turned this from a circumstantial case.

Like the photography would have been very helpful. Of course, DNA for the baby would have been helpful. DNA for the tie at the scene would have been helpful. There's, you know, I mean, what you were talking about, a more experienced pathologist with petechia, all of that stuff could have locked this case in, but we don't have that. And we have to think of that as we are 1874 investigators with limited tools, right? Right.

And so now the investigation does have to establish as good as possible a timeline for Ellen and her whereabouts. They also have to establish...

a timeline for James. And then there needs to be an appropriate interview of James to get his initial statements, get him locked in to what he said happened, and then further investigation to corroborate or refute what James is saying.

And I think earlier in the first episode, you talked about James had an alibi. So it sounds like James made a statement. He did. He maintains his innocence. He says, I have nothing to do with it. I finished up at my meat market job before 7 p.m., which he went pretty quickly because his boss expected him to be there a lot longer. And he went aboard his cousin's schooner, which is a boat. That's why they end up finding wet plates.

pants on him. More circumstantial evidence, but he has an explanation. And his cousin says, yeah, he was with me on the schooner that night. But he said he had the ability, if he needed to, hop in a boat and go to shore. They weren't very far offshore. And the cousin went to sleep at some point. So

So, you know, there are with this alibi of James's, there are chunks of time when when he could have certainly snuck off and done something and then came back. And that was it. So, you know, he has an alibi, but not really. And it is his family, too.

And by the way, there's no reliable time, apparently. They can't figure out what the time was because there was a boatsman who was on the schooner that said, yeah, James was there, but he didn't come until later in the evening. The cousin was mistaken. So not only do we have a difference in when people are saying James was on the boat, you know, there's someone who said he didn't even come on the boat until way later in the evening. I don't know what the cousin's talking about.

So I don't think this is a reliable alibi, but he is giving excuses for why his pants were wet and kind of some other stuff. Sure. I mean, this is so loose. You know, right now, we don't even know what time Ellen was killed at. And again, this goes to...

you know, how experienced is the pathologist? What is he observing that could potentially say, you know, she's, this is where the lividity comes in. This is where rigor mortis comes in. You know, observations like that could indicate, yeah, she's been laying there most of the night. You don't, you can't pin it down, you know, to precise times versus she was killed that morning. You know, this is a fresh body. You know, with James, you know, I want to know, okay, so you,

James had a discussion with Ellen outside at this location. Tell me what that discussion was about, and then how did that discussion end, and then where did you go to from there? And then I want to hear from the witnesses who saw, okay, what was, you know, did they see this interaction? Did anybody see Ellen outside?

walk away from James, and then why would Ellen be out at this location where her body is found? Is she meeting up with somebody else? Was she abducted off of the street? This is where the canvas comes in. Let's try to pin down Ellen's movements as much as possible, and then James's timeline as much as possible. Experience the glamour and danger of the Roaring Twenties from the palm of your hand. In

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

while uncovering the mystery of her sister's murder. There are twists, turns, and catchy tunes, all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline. This is your chance to test your detective skills. And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective club.

There, you'll chat with other players and compete with or against them. June needs your help, but watch out. You never know which character might be a villain. Shocking family secrets will be revealed, but will you crack this case? Find out as you escape this world and dive into June's world of mystery, murder, and romance. Can you crack the case? Download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android.

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

When investigators start poking around at James's life, they find out that he has another woman who he wants to be married to. And of course, it's not Ellen. The timeline with Ellen is she leaves her mom at seven o'clock. The mom sees her go across the street and meet up with James. Here's the conversation. So, you know, we had kind of what I call an ear witness. There was a woman who was identified as Miss Bassett. She was a woman who was identified as Miss Bassett.

She was nearby when James and Ellen were having this tense conversation. She said she heard Ellen ask James, now you'll be there, won't you? And then she said James responded reluctantly that he would be there and he

She said Ellen then said, if you are not there, you know what the consequences will be. So what is she threatening him with? Exposure for getting her pregnant when she's unmarried? Yeah, I think you know as well as I do, you know, this time frame with this 18-year-old woman who's pregnant.

If she's hiding the pregnancy, you know, that sounds like if James is the father, you know, she's protecting the both of them. And now she's using the exposure of that as a threat in order to ensure that James is going to show up for the wedding. Now,

Now, remind me, isn't it, we've talked about this before, where women... Heart bomb lawsuits. That's it, yes. And remind me, how is that, what are the scenarios for that? So the argument that a woman would make is what would happen often is a woman was not supposed to have sex before marriage. The men would propose to have sex, and then we're

And when the guy was done with her, for however long that was, months or whatever, then he would leave her and leave her in society's eyes very sullied. She would not be able to get married again, or if she did, it wouldn't have been to a Paul Holes, it would have been to a lesser man.

And therefore, your personal equity as a woman has gone down in 1870s society. So you could sue by essentially saying, you lied to me, you tricked me. I had sex with you because we were going to be married. And therefore, it's not really breaking the law because we're, you know, together. And so you could turn around and sue. And women got a lot of money. I mean, what...

In one of my books, one of the most famous detectives in Oscar Heinrich's book was being sued during the time of all these stories. And in 1925, he was being sued by a woman who claimed that's what happened. It happened all the time, and it was a really big threat to men. And that could be exactly the consequence that Ellen is threatening James with. Yep. And I think that's what's scary about this. You know, now we don't see Ellen after this conversation with James. We don't know where she went.

We don't know if he said, let's go talk privately. One of Ellen's brothers said that he saw James very close to the Cedars, which is where she was ultimately found. None of these places are far apart. Her house is not far from, you know, it's a couple blocks away from where they met. The Cedars is very close to her house. So...

If he is responsible for this, he didn't take her very far, but he did take her in a remote wooded area. So one of the sisters of Ellen said she saw him moving pretty quickly toward the brook that night. But these are her family members who hated him even before she ended up dead. How much do we trust these witnesses? I trust Ms. Bassett because it doesn't sound like she has a dog in the fight who overheard the conversation, this specific conversation.

the best witness we have by far. But the family members, I don't know. No, you have to consider that they have a bias against James. So you have to take their statements with a grain of salt, you know, but that's just where now they're making statements and it's evaluating those statements against, you know, the other witnesses and the evidence in the case.

This location where Ellen's body is found, this does not sound like the location that she would have decided to go for a walk in that night. She's not dressed for that. You know, so this is where the crime scene processing up front, you don't know when you originally get out to a crime scene, you don't know the

the story. You don't know what really happened. And so you have to be so observant. And I mentioned early on, paying attention to evidence of ingress and egress. Anytime you're, be indoors, be outdoors, you have to look for that. Does it look like two people are walking side by side, like it's a voluntary act?

Is it possible, you know, James pulls a knife and forces Ellen back here?

and he doesn't use a knife to kill her? Or is he just so intimidating to Ellen that he could just command her, "You're coming with me." How is this tie being employed? Does he take control of her, bind her up, and push her back to this location? There's ways to be able to see at least with some of the evidence, the shoe impression evidence, this ingress.

It doesn't sound like she was carried back there, you know, like she had been knocked out and carried back there. Then the evidence of the struggle, you know, what is that showing us?

So this is just where, you know, when you first get involved with a case and not knowing the details of the investigation until later, you have to pay attention to all of this and then see, as the investigation unfolds, see what is actually correlating with the crime scene, with the crime scene evidence, with the autopsy, with witness statements.

At this point, we have big holes that we probably aren't going to be able to fill in in terms of the information that's needed to figure out. But fundamentally, this type of homicide takes minutes.

So James forcing Ellen back to this somewhat secluded creek area, holding her down in the creek, you know, having a struggle, holding her down in the creek bed, and then getting out onto the cousin's schooner? Absolutely possible. He has no alibi as far as I'm concerned. No. No real alibi. And weird stuff. His tie's there, his leg pants are...

are wet. They say something funny. They find a fiber on his pants that matches Ellen's shawl. And I just thought, who cares? I mean, that's... I mean... Yeah. I mean, I appreciate the effort, but I don't... They're really trying to do some forensics here that I don't think are necessary. No, you know, and I think, you know, part of what I would be looking at, like with James's pants and his clothing in general, if he still has the clothing on that he had on the night before...

Is there...

you know, the botanical debris that's caught up in his clothing that matches the location at the creek bed. Is this a freshwater creek? Is it brackish? Is it saltwater? I'm assuming the cousin and James on the schooner is going out into the ocean. Is there something, the mud at the creek bed area, is that present on his clothing? I would be trying to tie James to that environment where Ellen's body was found. Yeah.

They tried that. And I think the issue is, you know, he said, I went out on the schooner. You're right. Salty water. The creek bed also has salty water because it's coming off of the ocean. So, I mean, they were saying, oh, my gosh, this is a big deal. And I thought, yeah, but he says he's on the that's how his pants got wet. He said I was in that water, just not that water.

Let me ask you this. What if James said, and this is not what he says, but what if James said, listen, I went down there, we got into an argument, she ran, tripped, fell, hit her head, drowned, I got scared, I took off. And if that were true, what would the consequences be for James? Because they could say he was down there, circumstances look bad, but can't he just say, listen,

listen, she freaked out. It was in the middle of the night. She ran off and sorry, I didn't go down there. But they can't say he murdered her, right? You know, this is where the devil is in the details in his statements relative to what's out at the crime scene. You know, if he's making a statement, we got into an argument. Okay, describe this argument. Was it physical? How did that physical aspect of the argument go? If he's going, no, you know, we just were standing there. We

we were just getting into an argument and then she flipped out and ran and tripped and fell. Well, then the crime scene would kind of show sort of this stagnant area. Let's say there's a little bit of the plant material that's crushed down.

But there isn't, let's say, sliding shoe impressions as somebody, you know, as you see two people that are fighting. And so that's where I would be wanting to correlate, okay, what truly was observed at the crime scene, does it look like true combat? And if James is just saying, no, there wasn't anything like that, then now I'm able to refute that statement. He's lying.

And so that will start stacking as he lies more and more and can be refuted with the evidence.

Now he paints himself into a corner, and this is where you start building that circumstantial case. Boy, let's talk about circumstantial cases. Moving forward, James does not look good, but I don't know if this points to him being a murderer. Let me tell you what he did. There were witnesses who come forward who testify who say James bought packages and vials of arsenic

strychnine and prussic acid before her death. Now, none of these show up on the toxicology report, but he did that. He had hidden them in his work shoes, which were stored at the meat market. And of course, the police are saying that James purchased them to give them to Ellen under the guise that he would induce an abortion. And then in her state of weakness, he held her fast by the wrists till she died in the stream.

And this is not the first story you and certainly not I have talked about where a botched abortion turns to murder. But that's what the theory is right now. You know, is there any evidence that these purchase poisons had been any consumption of it in terms of, you know, some of the materials missing from what he originally purchased?

I am skeptical that the toxicology test back in the day would be very sensitive, you know, so is it possible that she had been poisoned and just in her body is at a level that the 1870s toxicology test would not be able to detect? And it doesn't matter because it sounds like she drowned. I mean, all that stuff is in her stomach and her lungs. I think, you know, in terms of, you know, the cause of death,

But the motive, and if there is an employment of a poison, and even though the poison doesn't kill Ellen, that is a significant act that the offender is doing leading up to committing the violence against Ellen.

So that would be something that has to be taken into consideration in terms of evaluating James' involvement. Now, of course, you have to prove the actual act of homicide. But this is where now, okay, you start taking a look at some of these circumstances in James. Well, he's buying poisons ahead of time. Is it to really induce abortion or is it just to kill Ellen? Because he's got this other woman on the side.

Right. You know, so maybe he's just trying to get out of one relationship and into another relationship. And we see this time and time again, where instead of saying we're done and you part ways, homicide ensues in order for somebody to gain freedom to move on with their life. And I go back to that little thing that I filed away at the very beginning of the episode. James had another woman in his life who he is about to

to be married to, and she died under mysterious circumstances. You know, so there's a little bit of a pattern that is developing with James. And I agree. And so now I'll do a trigger warning specifically for my daughter, Ella, who is very sensitive to animals dying. She actually, Paul, I don't think you've...

You probably have never heard of this website. It's called doesthedogdie.com. You could plug in the name of any movie and it will tell you whether or not the animal dies in the movie.

Like the Meg, she could care less about people being eaten, but she does not want to see a dog die. Do you care about the animals dying in the movie? I do. Oh, of course. And my youngest daughter was very, very sensitive to that as well. You know, just any animal in the movie that, you know, ended up meeting a bad fate, coming to a having a bad fate. Yeah, she she would just burst out into tears.

Okay, so you're about to tell me about an animal. Two what were called unsubstantiated rumors, but I absolutely believe. One is that neighbors said that around the time of her death, of Ellen's death,

about five or six cats in the neighborhood where he worked died. And it was believed that he was using, because he was storing all this poison at his work, he was using the poison to experiment on the cats, you know, to see. And we've talked about this before, and I've talked to other people about it, people, you know, experimenting on animals to get the effect right. But that doesn't fit in with the abortion narrative. So now I'm confused of what he wants to do with this poison. Well,

I think he wants to kill Ellen with the poison. I don't think it's abortion. And there is a case in my jurisdiction that I had very minimal involvement with

But it was this same scenario where husband has a pregnant wife, ends up having a girlfriend. They scheme to kill the pregnant wife, and the initial part of the scheme was to poison her. And how did they experiment? On the cat. It's awful. This is something that happened back in the early 90s in the East Bay, California. And this is something that was going on back in the 80s.

1870s, you know, so this is, you know, history repeats itself. Well, and I'll tell you, even though her body did not show evidence of poisoning, let's just assume that there really was no poison. It sounds to me like he either chickened out or she called his bluff pretty quick based on that conversation. So maybe what he would have preferred was to poison her less, you know, hands on.

And instead, they got up to the wedding date and she said, "You're gonna do this. You're not gonna publicly humiliate me. I'm seven months pregnant. You've pushed this as far as you can. I'm gonna give birth soon. You're gonna marry me or you're gonna pay a price."

and that was enough to send him over the edge, and poison went out the window. And this is how he gets her down. I don't know if he says to her, you know, let's go talk privately. You're kind of having a hissy fit in the middle of the town square, and that's how he gets her down there. Does that scenario make sense to you? We just don't know, of course. Right now, that is my primary theory. I think you hit it right on the head. There seems to be enough churn in James's background that...

that he was likely thinking of killing Ellen, using the poison, and then resorted to plan B, whether that was that night in the heat of the moment or whether he had recognized he needs to do something besides poisoning ahead of time. And, you

You know, was this a planned meeting? Was James the one that said, hey, let's talk? And he goes over to where Ellen's at, and Ellen goes out to meet him to have this conversation. James could have initiated that with the intent of separating Ellen and taking her, maybe he preselected this creek location, and taking her out there and killing her there.

That makes sense to me. He sounds like an awful person because his first wife, not the dead woman he was engaged to, but the wife who got away, obviously, whose name is Mrs. Wheeler, she comes forward and says that he was just a terrible person. She said that she considered her life in constant peril.

and that his cruelty even to dumb animals challenged crudility. Is this important to hear? I guess my note with this was,

It sounds like he was a jerk. It sounds like he was bad to animals. But it is her ex-husband and she's taking the stand and she doesn't know anything about what happened with Ellen. How is it relevant except to say that this guy was a lousy husband and probably would have been a lousy husband for Ellen if I'm the defense attorney here?

Well, in terms of their relationship and her experience, is it relevant to the homicide of Ellen? No, in terms of proving the case of homicide, of Ellen's homicide. However, it's very important, you know, like for me, in terms of assessing James as an offender,

I think I've talked about before this predictors of violence, which everybody's kind of heard of the serial killer triad, bedwetting, fire setting, and animal cruelty. I put no stock in bedwetting. Fire setting, it depends on the scenario in which that person is utilizing fire. Is that a predictor of violence against another person?

But if you are somebody that is torturing and killing animals, you're one step away from doing that to a person. To me, that is the biggest predictor of all. So if James has a history, of course, I'd want to know, well, what is he doing, you know, to these animals? You know, this is just where, you know, this tells me a lot that, okay, now this pattern that I've

I'm seeing what James and his past relationships

You've got the woman who died under mysterious circumstances that he was about to be married to. Now you've got a former wife saying he's, in essence, he's abusive, he's cruel to animals. And then now we have Ellen dying the night before their wedding. This all is so informative that James, I'm on the right track in thinking James is likely the one that killed Ellen. And now it's, okay, we have to see it.

does the evidence show that? Whether it be physical evidence and or circumstantial evidence, is there a case in which now 12 people will say, yes, we believe that James is responsible for Ellen's homicide? Well, we're at the end of the evidence. There was an unsubstantiated rumor that he had cut

the paws of a dog and stuck them in turpentine to torture the dog. But that also could have been sensationalized reporting. I also probably wouldn't put it past James. He sounds sadistic to me. What do you think about that? I mean, it's just more evidence if it's true. Well, it most certainly is a sadistic act, you know, and we're not seeing...

at least physical sadism against what happened to Ellen that night. Right. Now, this type of animal cruelty, though, speaks to a psychological aspect of James that is getting gratification, you know, from torturing this innocent animal. Is James doing some sadistic acts, whether they be physical acts or

or mental acts to his partners, these women that he gets into relationships with. You know, there's a pathology there inside of James. So,

You know, and he appears at this point, I'm really leaning towards, he likely killed that one woman that died mysteriously. I believe he's responsible for Ellen's homicide. And if he's the father of the unborn child, his own child, this other woman, it sounds like he's very abusive to. And we don't have any real details in terms of the types of abuse that he was doing to this woman. No, no.

Just her life was in constant peril. You have to think physical and emotional abuse. Absolutely. Awful. She said start to finish, she was terrible. You know, and so this is, you know, he's on a fairly extreme, I shouldn't say necessarily too extreme, but he is, he's definitely on the spectrum of

of being a violent, I mean, this is a, somebody who is doing domestic violence at a fairly deep level, if you will. You know, and I have a feeling of it. I mean, if this woman is saying that she felt her life was in constant peril,

You know, he's on one hand, he's possibly getting some enjoyment out of putting her in this peril, whatever it was. But this is also the way that he's controlling her. He's keeping her in fear, using this coercive control. So she isn't going to.

leave or isn't going to report these acts of violence or whatever his goals are. Well, this is a huge case. The sheriff had to bar the front doors with two long ladders to prevent any more people from coming in. Police officers everywhere. This was very, very high profile.

So he had gone through the whole inquest. They said he needed to be obviously tried for murder. And when the defense attorney was given the choice between a bench trial and a jury trial, and that was a choice in the 1800s.

in certain areas, he chose for bench. And they actually got two judges, which was also not unusual. I just was working on a book that said in 1840, and it's two judges who hear the case. This is a two-week-long trial, and the judges consider all of this evidence that we're talking about. So they're, you know, thinking about whether or not the prosecutor could prove that this was actually murder.

They said, obviously, James is a terrible person, but you have to prove murder. And at the end of the day, they said they could not find hard evidence to demonstrate how he killed her. We think that he did kill her.

But we don't know how he killed her. So instead of first degree, he did get convicted of second degree murder. He didn't go to the gallows because of it, which would have been his sentence. What do you think about that? So they opted for second degree murder. Yeah, I don't have a problem with that under the circumstances. You know, I think now, you know, for first degree murder, you know, there's, you know, a set of criteria there.

in order for it to be considered first degree. In essence, this was the malice they forethought. This is a planned...

This was planned. The person had an opportunity to think about what they were doing and carried it out. Versus second degree, in the heat of the moment, I would say this very possibly could have been in the heat of the moment type of murder. I thought you were going to say because they couldn't establish the manner of death conclusively as homicide...

Yep. At the hands of another that there's no way he could be convicted of murder. So I'm surprised that they actually went ahead and convicted him of second-degree murder under that. But I agree with that finding. I agree with it, too. They cannot say he did it. I think circumstantially it looks really bad for him. Mm-hmm.

But there's no CCTV. There's no DNA. There's no witnesses to what happened. There's no gunshot. There's no knife. And the pathologist said she could have tripped and fallen or done this to herself on purpose. So I'm uncomfortable with second-degree murder, but...

It's obviously the right decision. I just think legally, I don't know. I just, I don't know if there's actually enough there, there to feel okay legally. Morally, it's great. I can understand your position. I kind of, I think this is where we're on a seesaw and, you know, we're just on the opposite sides. You know, I think with what I'm hearing about James and that night and what happened to Ellen and his potential motives,

You know, it's kind of weighing the seesaw towards what I think. And then, of course, you are weighing the seesaw. But it's really, I think it's a fine division in terms of where we are standing about James and whether or not legally he should have been convicted of the second degree murder. Yeah. Well, he got life in prison and we don't know much about what happened after that.

We know that Ellen was murdered and we know that she had a baby. Ultimately, there was justice there. And again, I never want to talk about my viewpoints on the death penalty. It doesn't really matter here, but I don't know. I think that the big part of this case was they could not prove how she died. And we don't get many of those. Like definitively said, this is how she died. It was murder.

But I know that it's uncomfortable enough for us to say James was responsible. So this is one of those squishy cases that I think are interesting to bring to you because it's not cut and dry. You would think it is, but it's really not. And it's entirely possible that if this case had happened today, that sufficient evidence of homicide would have been discovered. Oh, yeah. Sufficient physical evidence would have tied James to this homicide. You know, and then it would be probably a very, very easy case

because you'd have both the physical evidence, the manner of death being conclusive, as well as the circumstances. But dealing with the limitations of the 1870s, yeah, it becomes, I think in your words, a squishy case. I think that's the technical term that you use there. Yes, scientific, actually. Yeah.

Well, thank you for listening to this squishy case in two parts. I like complicated cases. I don't like the white knight and the bad guy with no dynamics whatsoever. I really do like complicated stuff. So I'm happy to bring you another case next week. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks, Kate. Thanks.

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

Our mixing engineer is Ben Talladay. Our theme song is by Tom Breifogel. Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and 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.