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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.

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On July 11, 2002, J.C. McGee was shot and killed in the doorway of his home in Ohio. For 22 years, the case remained unsolved until his daughter Madison started asking questions. This

This is the journey of a daughter searching for answers, for closure, and for justice, and figuring out exactly what that means as she uncovers some dark truths that have been hidden from her. As far as podcasts go, it doesn't get more personal than this. From Tenderfoot TV, Ice Cold Case is available now. Listen for free on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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

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

Hey, Paul. Hey, Kate. How are you? I'm doing well. I wanted to kind of jump into this story just a tiny bit because I want to get your input on something. The story that I have for you is from 1959 in New York in Albany County. And some of the information that we got comes from a podcast called Upstate Unsolved.

And, you know, sometimes we'll have all interview podcasters, other podcasters about what they do in their shows. And we have certainly used other podcasts as sources. And I teach a true crime podcast course at the University of Texas, which is very popular. I always have a couple hundred students attending.

every semester, and we talk about the good things about true crime podcasts and the bad things, the, you know, making sure that we don't re-traumatize survivors and hallmarks for good journalism, good reporting, respecting the victim, that kind of thing. So from a forensic investigator's standpoint, we've talked about this before, I think. How do you know who to trust to

as a journalistic source, like a podcast or a Michelle McNamara. I think we've talked about this a little bit. Do you just get a gut instinct about people? Well, that's, you know, that's most certainly part of it. But it's also just the interactions and talking to somebody, how the questions proceed and

With Michelle, I could tell that she had a deep understanding of the Golden State Killer case, much more so than what I was expecting when I first started interacting with her. What she understood about the case was factual. It wasn't like she had just been reading Reddit boards and online sources. You know, she definitely had some facts. So that gave me some comfort there.

but also just the way that she went about interacting with me and needing to substantiate the information. And too often there's been others that I've interacted with that, for lack of a better term,

way to put it, tend to gravitate towards more of the conspiracy stuff, you know, that's out there. And then that's when I start getting concerned. But fundamentally, the way you're teaching your class about, you know, good journalism, being sensitive to the victims. And I know what I like to try to bring to the table is authenticity.

Even though I'm in the true crime genre now, I come out of real crime. That's something I just keep saying over and over again. And I just want to be able to pass on to people

the listeners, you know, this is the aspects of real crime that sometimes you don't get while consuming true crime content, you know, and that's always been my goal. We definitely talk about respecting the victim. We also talk about, you know, bringing attention to underrepresented people. We talk about

putting pressure on the police, but also understanding when the police have limitations, when the police withhold information for why they do that. I will say, just as a recommendation, one of the shows that I have my students listening to is called Bear Brook, which is done by New Hampshire Public Radio, and it is outstanding. One of my favorite, the first season is one of my favorite seasons ever. Jason Moon, who's a wonderful journalist,

is a prime example of just excellent reporting on a case of two barrels that contained bodies in the Bear Brook Park in New Hampshire and the investigation and kind of the twists and turns it takes. And so, you know, every week when I talk to my students about the episodes, they just say, boy, they really know how to write stories.

in a way where the police are respected but also sort of scrutinized. But, you know, they have these great sources and they really try to talk to everybody. And it's clear that the journalist is trusted by the sources. And that for me is...

the hallmark, I think, of a good, solid podcast. So, you know, with Upstate Unsolved, Upstate Unsolved is a collaboration with NewsRadio 810 and 103.1 WGY. And they also collaborate, which this, I think, is a wonderful thing. They're in partnership with the Cold Case Analysis Center at the College of St. Rose.

So I feel like the information that we're going to get on this next case is going to be solid because I think they have a lot of information accurate and covered. And so these are the kinds of podcasts that I like to look towards that our researchers seek out when they have new information that's exclusive. So we're going to give them a lot of credit here. No, that's awesome. You know, and I'm looking forward to hearing this next case. Okay. Let's go ahead and set the scene.

We are in 1959. Again, kind of a contemporary case for us, although not that contemporary. So 50

Where is that with you? That is, have you done anything that old? I feel like you just told me that and I forgot. You know, the oldest modern case, I would say, was 1964. And within my agency, I would have gone back further in time. It's just that they didn't have evidence going back much further. They had a few cases with evidence from the late 1950s, but they were cases that had been solved. They weren't unsolved cold cases that I would have gone after.

Let's just set this up right now. I'll have a question for you. In the times before DNA analysis, when things were collected, so in this case, it's going to be hair samples, fingernail scrapings, some tire track impressions, but mostly they really focused in on the fingernail scrapings. What were they hoping to get from that in 1959 that would at all help the

in the conviction of someone if not to do DNA analysis, which wouldn't be available for another 30 years or so. Back in 1959, when they're collecting fingernails, at most what they're going after is they just want to see, is there any tissue underneath the fingernails to indicate that the victim scratched?

Okay.

Biological testing, like ABO testing, enzyme testing that we were doing before DNA, they weren't even doing that on such minute samples underneath fingernails back then. But I would assume this sort of collection would be beneficial later on, even though, of course, that's not their intention. They cannot project that far ahead in time and say, "Oh, maybe this will be helpful later on." You're thinking they collect this stuff present day just as a cautionary thing to be able to use as some kind of evidence.

For sure. Just so happens that DNA technology was developed that they, those investigators, those CSIs didn't know anything about, could not predict that that would have happened. But the fact that they took the step to collect fingernails, of course, has solved many cases that are, you know, from many decades ago.

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You know, Kate, I've started working real cases again. And of course, I'm dealing with some of the horrific details of those new cases, but it causes the old cases to bubble to the surface. And so to have the ability to talk about it, you know, that's such a game changer for me. Absolutely.

Take a moment for yourself. Visit betterhelp.com slash buriedbones today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash buriedbones. Experience the glamour and danger of the roaring 20s from the palm of your hand.

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.

Well, we are in 1959 in a place called Colony, New York. It's a small town in Albany County. It's 8 a.m., December 8th, 1959, and a school bus driver is driving down the road in his bus on Sand Creek Road. So everything is kind of going normally for the school bus driver, except he sees something on the side of the road. Just from the drive, it appears to be a petite young woman

She's laying face down in a drainage ditch and she is fully clothed. He can see all of this from the side of the road. She's in a winter coat. She's wearing leather shoes. And this ditch has about a foot and a half of water in it. And she's face down.

He sees this, doesn't touch her, doesn't do anything. He gets in the bus and drives to a nearby house and calls the police. And the police arrive and they confirm that the woman is dead. So she has been severely beaten and has many injuries to her face and her head, including a long laceration on

on the back of her head that cuts down to her skull, but the skull is not fractured. So, taking all of this together, young petite woman, it looks like face down in a drainage ditch, fully clothed, beaten about the head and the face, and then a laceration on the back of the head, but not a cracked skull. So far, what does that all mean to you? And fully visible from the road. Well, right now, all it means is that you got a woman who was beaten to death and she was disposed of in the ditch.

Now, at this point in time, I can't say was she killed at that location, was she transported in a vehicle. You know, this is now where the details have to start coming out. But the extent of her injuries to her head, you know, this significant laceration to the back of the head, she likely is going to have been bleeding significantly later.

And so that would be something that I would be keying in on as I'm moving through the investigation. Do I have a vehicle that seems to have blood in it? Do I have another crime scene location that has a pool of blood or some blood spatter? Is it possible the offender may have blood on? And you haven't told me any information to indicate how long she possibly had been laying there. Right now, I'm assuming she's fresh. Right.

Yes, and I'll explain why, because that's where Upstate Unsolved kind of comes in here. Let's just start with the bad things that happen in this case. So this town has a very small police force. They don't have any experience with homicide, and they do a terrible job processing the crime scene. So when we're talking about where the blood is and all of that, they do a very hasty job just sort of documenting what's around.

And they remove the body from the drainage ditch and take it to the funeral home in a nearby town before they call anybody, the state police, the FBI, anybody with any kind of knowledge. They yank up the body and take her to a funeral home, and she's not even identified yet. So this is already, I'm assuming, pretty problematic, right? Well, it's not a good start. Yeah.

No kidding. You know, because it all really depends on how hastily they removed her body and the extent of the documentation and evidence collection that happened. You know, if all they did was snap a few photos and throw her body in a body bag and transport her, yes, that is completely incompetent.

And I'm assuming that that's kind of the mindset that I need to take on in terms of what was found about how this original crime scene was handled. Right. And I'm not even sure photos at this point. Okay. Right. So they take her body. They take her to the funeral home. And finally, somebody smart decides to call the New York State Police.

and the New York State Police show up and said, what have you done? Then they make a decision that I think is odd. The police, the state police say, let's bring her body back to the drainage ditch and have the local police stage it as closely as possible to how it was found. And I don't know what the thought behind, what is the thought behind that even? Good God, no. I know. No, don't do that. You can't trust the state police in this case.

I think with the state police making that kind of recommendation informs me that they don't have anybody that is part of the team that is being on loan that has any real experience. You can't resurrect that crime scene. All they're doing is further damaging the

her body, the evidence on her body, and potentially the location at the drainage ditch. This is where, you know, I've walked in, I've been pulled into, in fact, one case I can recall, and I'm not going to name the case, is

in which literally I'm looking at the local CSIs and how they're handling the case. It was like, stop. The more you continue doing this, the more you're rooting the case. The best avenue that the state police could have taken is going, okay, things up to this point weren't handled right. But from this point on forward, we need to do it the right way.

Well, they end up collecting quite a few things. Of course, later there's an autopsy where they do the collection from the things on the body. But here's what we figured out so far. And I know that you're going to be very interested in this. There are no obvious signs of a sexual assault when we've talked about the caveat with that.

There's no obvious signs of semen, presence of semen. But this woman, who we still haven't identified yet, isn't wearing any underwear. And there is a panty girdle in one of her pockets. And I'm assuming you know what a panty girdle is, kind of like Spanx for women now. So what do you think about that? I think we're going to hear a little bit about offenders dressing, undressing and stuff with victims. Well, there is part of that. My practice always is to assume...

that there is sexual evidence present. Now, the sexual evidence may not be from the killer, may be from a consensual partner. And this is how we can uncover the victim's secrets. If she had met up with somebody that her friends don't know about on the side, and then she leaves that person and then runs across the killer,

It's important information to have. Also, we know that offenders do allow victims to redress or will redress victims. However, this scenario where the panty girdle is tucked in her pocket versus just kind of thrown on top of her, at this point in time, I'm going to lean towards she put the panty girdle in her pocket. So maybe she did redress. Okay.

and had to redress in haste? Did she have a consensual encounter that went sideways, and now she's scared, and she's trying to get away, and she doesn't? Who knows what the scenario is, but...

most certainly, even though it looks on the surface that she's fully dressed, in this day and age, her entire body should be processed for sexual evidence, biological evidence, trace evidence, because I have to assume that her killer had close, intimate contact with her prior to her body being disposed in the ditch. Yeah.

Yeah, and before we get to the autopsy, I'll tell you Upstate Unsolved, this podcast in 2019 interviewed a forensic anthropologist named Mercedes Fabian, Dr. Mercedes Fabian, who reviewed all of the evidence and said, you know, even though there is this lack of quote unquote obvious signs of rape, like the presence of semen, torn hymen, I mean, all the lists of things that, you know, people say, oh, there's definitely no signs of sexual assault when we know that's not correct.

She, of course, says, I'm not convinced this wasn't sexual assault because when we looked at the evidence, the woman had blood on her clothes, most of it on her bra, but nothing on her outermost layers. And remember, she was wearing a jacket and shoes and

And, of course, she's not finding any underwear. So Dr. Fabian is saying kind of what you've said, which is perhaps she was undressed, attacked, and then redressed at a different location before she was left in the drainage ditch. Does that make sense to you also? Yeah, in fact...

I probably, if I had access to, you know, the photos, if she had been properly documented, I possibly could end up making a definitive statement that she had received bleeding injuries and had been redressed. And this most certainly indicates that there's a sexual component to this crime. So the cause of death seemed to be by drowning, right?

and not by the wounds that she'd incurred during the beating. She was discovered in 18-inch deep water in that drainage ditch and had inhaled a fatal amount into her lungs. And what Dr. Fabian said was she had wondered, because there was a lack of defensive wounds, if the woman had been beaten so severely that the killer

had deposited her into the drainage ditch thinking she was dead. And she wasn't actually dead. And then she inhaled the water. Dr. Fabian is not thinking that this is somebody who held the head down on the public road for this to happen. Right. You know, and this is something where a lot of people don't necessarily recognize that most of these killers are very poor at killing. They don't have experience. They're not trained killers.

killers. So they often aren't sure, have I actually killed this person or not? With the extent that I'm imagining of the injuries to her face and the back of her head, the sizable laceration, probably the amount of bleeding that she was doing and likely unconscious or she goes motionless, this offender is thinking, I've killed her.

Not knowing that she's still breathing. You know, now, part of my question to the pathologist at the time would have been just to sort it out. It doesn't really matter. But the extent of her blunt force injuries, if she had been left to lay without any medical intervention, would she have died from those versus, you know, obviously the drowning aspect? Because let's say you have...

somebody who's beaten her and then has somebody else toss her into the water, transport her and toss her into the water. Well, you need to establish, well, the person who actually did the bludgeoning did enough to kill her versus, oh, it's just, it's accidental. She was beaten, but I intended to leave her alive, you know, and then somebody else scooped her up and threw her in the water. And I had nothing to do with that. You know, you can start to play around with a defense in this scenario.

So what the autopsy says is that she was beaten with a blunt object, which they think they've recovered, I'll tell you in a second, so violently that the blows nearly killed her. We know that they say that because of the water in the lungs that the drowning actually killed her. She had, as I said before, no skull fractures.

No, you know, this is where...

This term, she had been beaten so severely and... Subjective. Yeah, you have no skull fractures, you have no subarachnoid hemorrhaging or, you know, the various internal injuries to the brain that pathologists would see as a result of really strong blows. Mm-hmm.

But the amount of her injuries, is it possible she could have lost enough blood that she would have died? Head wounds bleed significantly.

Particularly if this is a very large gaping, maybe overlapping lacerations on the back of her skull, as well as bleeding from the facial injuries, is it possible? This is where I always rely on the experts. If I'm at the morgue and I'm looking at this body, I'm talking to the doctor saying, okay, with what you see here, would she have died from these bleeding injuries or

versus just the drowning. Right. You know, it's a combination of both. And she's still not identified at this point. We just say a brunette, petite young woman. They collect 21 pieces of evidence from the scene and from her body. There are hair samples, fingernail scrapings, tire track impressions, a car jack that was found nearby that's missing a piece, and scrapings underneath the woman's fingernails.

So the fingernail scrapings contained human blood and hair, and they preserved this. The carjack is missing a piece. It's laying nearby. But I couldn't figure out whether it was a piece that had been broken off, like somebody had used it as a weapon and it had broken off, or it had nothing to do with the case. But remember, there was sort of this long laceration on the back of her head. They collect that, and then they say, I don't know if this is consequential or not, but

The tire tracks had a tread that you would think would come from a vehicle that could handle mud or snow. But gosh, the way the locals handled this case, it probably was like a cop car. We have no idea if that has anything to do with anything. Yeah, and that's part of the problem with the way the original scene was handled.

'Cause there's always, the offender commits the homicide or in this case, disposes of the body and leaves. And then somebody discovers the body.

There's always an alteration to the crime scene after the offender has left. Always. You have to take that into consideration. And that's where once you recognize what you have, you have to freeze that scene to try to preserve it in as close to its original condition as possible. But if all of a sudden you have all these patrol cars driving up on the bank over this drainage ditch and everybody's kind of gathering around and looking down on the body, you

Now you've got tire impressions that have been overridden. You've got new shoe impressions that are being left at the scene, their hairs, et cetera, being deposited. You know, so that's that just complicates the interpretation of what is significant evidence in this case that you can go that came from the offender versus it's part of what we'd call contamination of the crime scene.

Well, it looks like, according to Upstate Unsolved, there are no signs of a struggle. There's no defensive wounds. The wounds that she have are on her face and her head. And what Dr. Mercedes Fabian, who was on the podcast, noted was interesting is there's no muddy handprints on the woman's coat, which is another reason why people think that she was killed somewhere else and then dumped into this drainage ditch somewhere.

But why not put her someone more private? I mean, this is literally a road where a school bus is driving down. Was he just not concerned about her being discovered? Obviously not. Well, there's a multitude of factors in the offender's mind. And this is a common disposal method that's used.

Bodies are just dumped off the side of the road. And there's two fundamental reasons why that's done. One is because they can do it quickly. And, you know, you think you're out in an uncontrolled environment. The last thing you want to happen is while you're disposing of the body, somebody drives by. So they're going to try to choose a location that in their mind is going to be remote, that has little traffic, but

And they're going to want to get that body out of their vehicle and somewhat hidden from the roadside and then drive off as fast as possible to limit the likelihood of a witness. But there's a second, there's an alternative reason why bodies are disposed of this way, and it's because the offender wants the victim to be found.

It's almost in a way a taunt, you know, and sometimes you can read into the offender's mindset in terms of was the victim displayed, you know, posed in a certain way. That would start to indicate, okay, now you're dealing with somebody that is more in that predatory realm. In this case, right now, it doesn't appear that that's the situation at all. I think this is more of what I would just say.

term as a dump and run. The offender is just trying to get rid of the body as fast as possible and possibly knew about this location ahead of time, so may indicate that the offender has some local knowledge, unless it's like a main thoroughfare that

people passing through town would possibly use on a frequent basis. But right now, I think that this offender is just trying to get rid of the body and get out in a way and back to home or wherever the offender is going to go after getting rid of the body. Well, the police are desperately doing two things, trying to find who killed this young woman and even more importantly, trying to figure out who she is.

So as soon as her body is discovered, the police send out an alert that has her description all over the radio. And they're hoping, of course, she'll be identified. And that's what happens. Shortly after this alert airs later that day, there's a 21-year-old employee of a restaurant called the White Tower Restaurant, which is a burger joint. And the

That person is a guy named Nelson Paul. He says that he thinks that the victim is his fiancée. Her name is Ruth Whitman. She's from Albany. She's 18.

He is 21, and he calls the police and says, I think this is Ruth. They ask all sorts of questions. He says, I have not seen her since yesterday afternoon at 1.30. He said, I went to work for a shift that lasted from 1.30 p.m. at this burger joint until 11 p.m.,

He said Ruth told him that she would be stopping by her mother's house that afternoon, and the mom says, yes, that's what happened. She said that Ruth stopped by to pick up that panty girdle that was mysteriously found in her pocket that you had said...

It sounds like maybe she had done herself, right? Because you said that a killer would probably not have put in her. I mean, it just seemed like a weird place for a killer to put a panty girdle, maybe. My opinion isn't like, well, she must have done it herself. Right. I think it's more likely she did because it's found in the pocket. Because I typically see when victims' bodies are dumped, even if they've been redressed, but some of their clothes are off.

they're just discarded right there. Or the offender is tossing them out of the car as he's driving away or something like that. Now, I'm wondering with her picking up the panty girdle at her mom's, is that when she put it in the pocket? Or is there a chance that she did have it on later?

And that gives some sequence, if you will, because if she's putting it on later, where is she going? And of course, her fiance, Nelson, he has to be eyeballed hard.

in terms of, of course, establishing his alibi, establishing his statements, processing his body for evidence, processing his clothes, processing his vehicle, because it looks like she likely was transported in a vehicle. And you're looking to see, is there anything to indicate that he might be involved?

You have to eliminate him right up front. Boy, there's a lot to unpack with this. There's an extensive timeline. Ruth encounters a lot of people. She does turn out to be our Jane Doe. She encounters a lot of people the night that she disappears. But let's start with the girdle, which I think is one of the most interesting things. So this panty girdle she picked up at her mom's and was found in her pocket. One thing I did not tell you about the autopsy is it turns out that Ruth Whitman

was four to six weeks pregnant. Now, would she have known that? Because, Paul, nobody knew that, including Nelson. So the idea was, if she had known that, maybe she was covering it up with this panty girdle, which would have done a fine job for quite a while of keeping this pregnancy quiet. Ruth knowing whether she's pregnant or not, you know, I think she may have suspected it, you know, based off of her own menstrual cycle and possibly missing her period.

Now, with the panty girdle, I'm assuming that this is like a full girdle that's like a pair of underwear but extends up and compresses, right? One in the 50s would be down kind of into the thigh area. I would call it Spanx now, but somebody might correct me. That's what I would call it is for women, Spanx. Okay. So in terms of talking to mom, was this panty girdle recently washed or is it brand new?

And then part of the forensic aspect of this, is there evidence that this panty girdle had been on her body? Because as, you know, the woman's, you know, you get the vaginal discharges or secretions that could be in the crotch of the panty. So that would inform me, okay, she left mom's and then had put it on if it was clean, right?

ahead of time. You know, you have to, can't draw that conclusion if it's just something that she had worn frequently prior to that, getting it from moms. But that's something that I would be paying attention to to see, can I establish a sequence of

And then if she's putting the panty girdle on after leaving moms, again, it's why. Is she trying to make her figure more flattering because she's going to meet up with somebody that's not her fiance? Or is she trying to hide the pregnancy as you suggested? But at four to six weeks, I mean, she wouldn't be showing, right?

No, she wouldn't be showing. And it could have been just, you're right, I mean, it could have just been for vanity. Who knows? It's interesting, though, to note that she was pregnant. She might have known. We don't know. But she did not tell anybody. You would have think she would have told her mother. But she...

She and Nelson were living in quote-unquote sin. They were not married. And even though they were engaged, they were living together, which would have been kind of a no-no even in the 1950s. But at this point, I would not assume the child is Nelson's. Boy, Ruth is complicated. And I don't mean complicated in a we-need-to-look-at-her-escue kind of way. I mean like there's a lot happening in her life and people coming in and out together.

So they, of course, as you said, start looking at Nelson, ask Nelson a lot of questions. He identifies the body. That's kind of the first thing. And then they start to put together a timeline. They talk to a bunch of witnesses, and they learn that the night before her body is discovered, which is December 7th, which would have been cold, inevitably, in New York...

She and a bunch of neighbors, Ruth and a bunch of neighbors, had crowded together to watch firemen put out the flames of a nearby house fire. So this is about a block away from the apartment that she and Nelson shared. So a lot of people saw Ruth that night at the house fire. It sounds like Nelson was at work still. And police are starting to interview all of these different witnesses because they want to know who she was with.

Because Nelson is at work. It seems like that's indisputable. He's at work. She was there between 10.45 p.m. and 11.10 p.m. She is discovered at 8 o'clock the next morning. So you've got nine-ish or a little bit more hours where we're trying to figure out where Ruth was. She is seen watching this fire with... This is the...

the best they can do with a description, a white man in his 20s who was definitely not Nelson because people knew who Nelson was. But...

We don't know what the interaction was like. We don't know if they really even knew one another. They maybe spoke a couple of words to each other. It's just that it's sort of this nebulous witness account that we're not sure really adds to the situation at all, except she was seen with a couple of different men that night. Well, the priority, of course, is to identify everybody that was watching that house fire and get statements from all of them.

especially seeing Ruth and who she's interacting with. Maybe these are all just neighbors and you can account for that. And then do you have witnesses saying, well, I saw Ruth walking away by herself.

Or I saw Ruth get into a vehicle. You know, do we have anything like that for many of these, you know, what do you want to say, rubberneckers of the fire? Kind of, yeah, including Ruth, who was rubbernecking. I guess you would call that with a fire. Yeah, let me tell you what the police have gathered from all of these witnesses who say many different things. They say that this white man in his 20s, which is not helpful at all, was arguing with Ruth at some point, but not everybody saw that.

And there are tipsters who have come forward who have said that they saw Ruth eventually leave the scene. And it's, again, contradictory and these timelines don't match up very well. So there are a lot of sort of like misrememberings and misidentifications. Some people said that they saw Ruth being punched by a man outside of her apartment later that night after the fire had been put out.

that she had walked to a friend's house where the common-law husband and an ex-boyfriend of Ruth's were hanging out at the time. They saw Ruth getting into a red and white vehicle after leaving this house fire. Two state troopers said that Ruth was with a man with dark wavy hair who was leaving a restaurant in Albany around 1.15 a.m.,

So this is all very strange that police seem to be kind of the most accurate. And they said that eventually a tipster reported seeing a red and white Chevy idling about half a mile from the site where Ruth's body was found. And the tipster reported seeing the car around 1140 that night. So there were two people inside. But none of this is verifiable. I mean, they are not able to track down these people.

And this is not unusual in an investigation where you are dealing with getting statements from a crowd like this. Basically, everything now is just being having to be recorded, you know, and then as the investigation proceeds, if something seems to line up like this red and white vehicle, this red and white Chevy, now that might be something worth pursuing in terms of going out to the public and

and seeing if they can get tips coming in about, okay, who owns this type of vehicle in the area and who else has seen it? It's interesting, Upstate Unsolved podcast, you know, talks about the Chevy and that the tread marks are not matching the rugged vehicle that the tread marks

you know, would have left behind if the police were documenting. We've already kind of said that. There's no way to really know how recent those are or if this was a first responder coming out or I don't know how much we're really relying on these tire treads. Not much, right? Well, no. But, you know, at the time, they should have made efforts to try to figure that out. If it is a responder vehicle, law enforcement, fire, whoever's going out there,

All those vehicles need to be tracked down, and the CSI, the criminalists, the evidence tech should be recording the types of tires, the tread patterns from each of those vehicles to see if any of them can account for any of the tire impressions at the scene. And then if you have other tire impressions that can't be accounted for that look reasonably fresh, and it all depends on the type of substrate you have, whether or not you can determine that.

then that's the type of tread pattern you should focus in on. But I guarantee they didn't take that extra step. And that is routine, whether it's shoe impressions from patrol officers who have to go in and clear a house or tire impressions from vehicles that arrive at the scene after it's discovered. You know, we always do that. That's just getting those elimination standards is what we call them. Well, that's...

Well, police want to know who Ruth is because they're trying to determine who her inner circle is. They talked to 400 people over the course of their investigation, more than 400 people, huge amount of witnesses, lots of interviews, and they have been left with a very mysterious, contradictory profile of Ruth Whitman.

There were people who said that she was shy and kept to herself. There were others, including her family members, who said she could be kind of a smart mouth and she liked to be the center of attention. And it seems just like nobody knew who Ruth really was. Only a few people really seemed to see her very often. Of course, her fiance, Nelson. Then there's her mom. And there were a few local families that she babysat for. And then there's a woman who I

identifies as a sex worker, and this is when the police start thinking maybe that Ruth is a sex worker also, just simply because in 1959, she is associated with a woman who's a sex worker. You know, Ruth is a babysitter. That's one of the things that she did. She was 18. She babysat. She didn't have a regular job.

So when the police start thinking about maybe this is a woman who, you know, had been a sex worker or involved in some sort of illicit trade, then the investigation starts becoming a little gross to me as far as I'm concerned. Do police go down wrong roads like that? I'm assuming they do. And I'm not saying this is a wrong road necessarily. I'm just saying that this is a little bit of a leap because there's no evidence she was a sex worker. Right.

There's all sorts of investigative paths that are pursued that turn out to be dead ends. And just depending on the set of circumstances, you're obligated to take a look at it. You know, if Ruth is associating with a known sex worker, you know, of course, is that appropriate?

friend or professional associate, does she say, yeah, you know, Ruth was also working? You know, and so there may be some veracity to that path of investigation. One of the questions that I do have is...

Ruth is out and about, it appears, while Nelson is at work. What is the normal pattern? Would Ruth typically be home when Nelson gets off work and comes home, or would she be out and about? Or is she taking advantage of the fact that he's actually at work and maybe she's doing things that he is completely unaware of?

Well, let's talk a little bit more about Ruth and then we'll get into their regular patterns. So Ruth came from a very big family. She was the eighth daughter of 11 kids. And, you know, she babysat, but she didn't have a formal job. You know, Nelson and her family say she was out and about a lot, kind of an unpredictable schedule because, you know, she's not working at a burger joint like her fiancé is.

She was out of the house often, even when she lived with her parents, and I'm assuming had a curfew. But we don't know what she was doing outside of the house, whether it was illegal or whether it was, you know, just hanging out with friends. But she had been with Nelson two years. They had had a very volatile on and off again relationship.

And in the off periods, the media and the police found out that she had dated other men, which is like, well, of course, that's what people do. I don't think, though, in the 1950s that was looked at as something that was very proper for a young woman. They were living together and not married, as I had mentioned before. That was also not very proper. She had a very open friendship with this woman who identifies as a sex worker. That was not very proper.

So she was also a drinker, not very proper. There's all sorts of things that were falling into right before the 1960s that frame Ruth as someone who was a victim who maybe is not so much of a surprising victim anymore to the police because she could have gotten herself into trouble. I don't agree with any of that.

But when we're talking about victimology in the 1950s, this is what they were thinking is, okay, well, we have a big circle to look at now. It's not just Nelson and her mom, and that's it. Yeah, well, again, victimology is huge.

Now, with Ruth, what I'm hearing is that she has a much larger social circle than, let's say, somebody who, you know, she's engaged and she's staying home in the evening while her husband's out at work. Sounds like Ruth is actually getting out and interacting with a wide variety of individuals. And so that really does complicate, well, where did she run across her killer?

Now it's drilling down on that timeline to try to narrow it as much as possible. And I know you mentioned these troopers that saw her at 115 with the red and white Chevy getting into the Chevy or sitting in the Chevy. And then her body's found at 8 o'clock in the morning. So now we've got...

Six hours, 45 minutes unaccounted for at this point. If we think that the troopers are right, but, you know, I mean, they're the most reliable, but still attractive brunette in Albany, which was a big city still. I mean, I don't know. Are you really going to be able to pick out a woman like that at night?

in the dark? No, not necessarily. It's just that we have two sightings of a red and white vehicle in this case. So that boosts that up in my mind, not to where it's like, oh, I'm absolutely convinced that this is Ruth and her killer in this red and white vehicle at this point, but it's

Something where, okay, I always describe these leads, you know, it's like a seesaw. You know, you may think you're going down one path, and so the seesaw is kind of leaning that way, and the new information comes in, and now the seesaw has to tip the other way in terms of your efforts and resources. Well, now that I'm hearing, oh, a red and white vehicle, in one instance it's described as

as a Chevrolet, okay, that gives me something to go off of. I'll chase that lead down until I exhaust it or new information comes in where I can kind of just set that lead, the red and white vehicle, aside and I have to chase the new information because it has a greater priority. Well, before you ask, Nelson does not have a red and white Chevy. He, in fact, doesn't have a car. So...

If this were Nelson, he could have borrowed somebody's car. I'm not sure how prevalent you could rent cars in the 50s. But really, you know, if we're thinking that she was transported, which seems pretty clear she was, then, you know, Nelson doesn't have a car to speak of right now. He is a big drinker. So is Ruth. They have had, as I said before, a very volatile relationship.

fights, he has hit her on at least one occasion. Doesn't mean he killed her, but it does mean that they have had that kind of a relationship before. But Nelson has an alibi, which is the White Tower restaurant says he was here all night until 1110. Now, that's about when the state troopers spotted, they say, Ruth getting into a red and white Chevy car.

So this is the same type of car that people say was, you know, idling about 30 minutes later near this site. So where she was found. Now, here's what's interesting. I want to go back to that real quick. A tipster said this red and white Chevy idled about a half a mile from the site where Ruth's body was found. And there were two people inside. Okay.

at 1140. So where would the murder site, if this is accurate and it's Ruth and her killer, where would the murder site have been? In the car? And then he drove a half a mile up and dumped her, if this is right? That's one scenario. But I can think of a scenario where, let's say you have Ruth and her killer in this red and white vehicle that's idling there. And then they go back to the offender's residence. Right.

And now she's killed, put back in the vehicle, and he drives back out and dumps her body along that same stretch of road. You know, that's not outside the realm of possibilities. As of now, I'd leave everything open. The red and white vehicle at this point in time with the information presented is interesting to me. So Nelson gets off at 1110, and what he says is that he walked home,

He went by this house fire is where it's at. Apparently, this is a big social event. He walks by the house fire and he went back to the apartment that he shares with Ruth and the lights were on inside, but the doors were all locked. He didn't have a key because he assumed she was going to be home.

He hoped, at least. He knocked on the door. She didn't answer. He did not freak out over this because Ruth goes out, and he just was irritated. But he thought, well, I'm going to find a way to get in. So a neighbor says that she watched Nelson struggle to get inside the home, and she said,

And she yells out the window that Ruth had gone to watch the house fire. You must have passed right by her. He goes back to the fire, I'm sure irritated and ready to get a key from her so he can go to sleep. But Ruth is not at the fire at this point. So I would bet like 1130 p.m. He goes back to the apartment, pissed, and sits outside for two hours until she doesn't show up. He busts a window. He climbs inside. He goes to sleep.

He wakes up at 8:30 and she wasn't there. So, you know, he figured she'd come home sometime after him and then woken up before him and then left the house.

But as we get into the afternoon, he hadn't heard from his fiancee. And at about 1230, he heard the radio broadcast. And that's how we end up where we are right now. Investigators think that Nelson's story is straight. I mean, that this is probably what ended up happening. And they also think that Ruth was definitely taken by a car from the

from the vicinity of the house fire in Albany to the drainage ditch, which is about eight miles away, and Nelson doesn't have a car. And also, just one last thing, there is a description of the man seen with Ruth at the fire, or it could be also the person allegedly seen by the state troopers at the restaurant in Albany,

But, you know, Nelson is still floating about as a suspect in the minds of the police. So that's just very all very nebulous, you know. Sure. You know, I I like that the neighbor sees Nelson and corroborates at least part of his statement. His statement rings true to me at this point in time. And I understand the complexity there.

We know Ruth is transported in a vehicle to be disposed of in the ditch. So Nelson doesn't have a car. He would have had to procure a car.

Now you're involving somebody else unless he's stealing the vehicle. And then you could have a reported stolen vehicle come in and it happens to be a vehicle, let's say a red and white vehicle. You know, that would be something the investigators would potentially key in on. At this point in time, I am minimizing Nelson as a suspect, though I'm not eliminating him.

Okay. And I'll show you the sketch in a minute. Even though Nelson doesn't seem to be their main person, they keep an eye on him because Nelson is not an angel, as we know. You know, he drank a lot. They fought a lot.

But he was visibly grieving, and he eventually goes back to Canada, where he's from. And the police look at him askew again because two years later, he gets into a huge bar fight in Canada and kills another man. And so now they're saying, of course, you know, you are capable of killing somebody in a bar fight. Maybe we need to talk to you about Ruth's murder again.

And this goes nowhere, as usual. They investigated again in 2010. So this is 70 years later. And they talked to him when he's in his 80s, just to wrap that part of this up. And he is consistent, completely convinced that Nelson had nothing to do with it.

and I am not going to lead you down a bad road. We don't have DNA evidence that actually says Nelson did it. They have tried to clear him as much as possible. Yeah, I guess I didn't realize that this was an unsolved case, at least up until 2010. Let me show you this sketch, and you can tell me, because I think this actually looks like Nelson quite a bit, but I'll show you. So this is Ruth on top.

And then this is Nelson, not the best photo of Nelson, I'm sure. This is Nelson. And then, so look at this sketch. I think it looks a lot like Nelson. This is a sketch depicting the man that Ruth May had been seen with by the state troopers at a diner, very 1950s color up. But he looks like Nelson to me. It looks like James Dean to me. He does. He's very handsome. Yeah.

He's got sad, the little corners of his eyes are down in a sad kind of sexy way. Yes. Yeah, but with all the, you know, the entire crowd that's watching this house fire, do any of those witnesses, and they must not have because you would have brought it up, none of them are saying they saw a red and white vehicle. No. You know, as I think about it, you know, this house fire, you know, this is really the last...

True time, we can say Ruth was seen. These other incidents, it may have been Ruth. The consistency of this red and white vehicle by two different witnesses is

I think is significant. I kind of go back to the panty girdle. In my mind, if she has no underwear on at all when her body is found, this is probably where talking to mom or talking to her closest friends, what was her pattern? Would she typically be wearing underwear? After she leaves mom, is she putting the panty girdle on? And then when her body's found, the panty girdle is off.

and tucked into her pocket. That's where I'm leaning towards. She met with somebody she was comfortable with, possibly, right? And this is where, do you have a secret lover on the side? She tells him, I'm pregnant.

and he freaks out, and that's why she's killed. Or I don't know how much weight to put on the potential sex work. Right now, I don't think I'm going to put that much work on it because I think the friend sex worker would have said, yeah, you know, she was doing this on the side. And no one's saying that. Yeah. So I'm thinking right now, you know, unless, you know, some person

predator happened to see her walking home after the house fire and there's no witnesses seeing her being abducted and you know taken into the guy's car you know I'm

I'm going, God, maybe she knew her killer and they went somewhere to be together and something happened that caused him to kill her. Well, let's tackle the former, some predator, because we do have a predator in our midst here. His name is Robert Garrow. He moved to the area in 1957, but he didn't get on the police's radar until 1961, which is two years after Ruth was murdered when he raped a teenage girl.

He went on after he got out of prison for that to commit multiple violent sexual assaults, and he would eventually carry out a killing spree that resulted in the murders of four people.

He was at the house fire that night, and he lived a half a block away from Ruth and from Nelson. And people think he looks a lot like this sketch. I'll show it to you. I don't know. But what do you think about that? We always have predators in our cases. That's just par for course. You know, now it's okay. You have to pay attention to him. And when he is identified as, I mean, he's living in the area and is at the house fire,

Now, at least there's a nexus with him possibly crossing paths with Ruth that night, but

And it's like, okay, well, let's go see what he says. He, of course, is denying it. This is the sketch. I don't know. It looks more like Nelson to me. I'm not sure if it really looks like Robert. Well, this is where it's so hard with these composites in terms of, you know, I've seen some composites that are really close and I've seen other composites that are just way off. So it's really hard to go, oh, I've got confidence that this composite is the man that she was seen with.

But taking the composite at face value, in my mind, it doesn't look anything like Garrow. I agree. And they can't go anywhere with it anyway. They cannot make a more decisive connection. He does not have a red and white Chevy. It doesn't seem like he has access to one.

They are trying to, according to Upstate Unsolved, the podcast, they're trying to make a connection with a friend of Ruth's and this woman's boyfriend, who, when they go and interview, Ruth had been at their house, and I had mentioned them earlier, when they go and interview the boyfriend of Ruth's friend,

He is a known abuser. He has a history of beating people, including the daughter. He has long scratches on his hands that can't be covered up by Band-Aids. He, of course, says what happened, and he said, well, a cat scratched me. He has a pickup truck, which could be the tire treads, although we've sort of discounted those. And, you know,

you know, the police talked to them for quite a while. But despite all of this, they never really get back on the radar of police. They just cannot make a case about anybody at this point. There's just not enough evidence of anything. Did they keep any evidence in this case up to the current day? I'm glad you asked that. They did have the evidence and

And they were hoping to analyze it, except no one can find it. The police don't have it. The Albany police don't have it. The local police don't have it.

They have no idea what happened. In 2022, they exhumed her body because cold case investigators wanted to get some forensic evidence of some kind that could push the case forward. They tried to get new fingernail scrapings from her body to make impressions of her skull injuries, but it is to be continued. It doesn't seem like there has been any movement on that case. The Times Union newspaper said later in 2022 that

that investigators must now wait three or four months for results from a private lab with a more comprehensive genealogy database to see if the findings jibe with, you know, the initial coroner's report that listed her death as a drowning and if there's a hit on DNA with a possible suspect. But there is absolutely no word on anything being developed yet.

as of 2022, and now we've done research in 2024, and it doesn't seem like there's been any movement, no. But they have a DNA sample at a genealogy testing laboratory.

It sounds like it from Ruth, but I guess they were looking for more material under her fingernails after she had been buried. Would that still have been there? You never know until you look. And so I would say there is a possibility. I mean, there are cases in which foreign DNA is found underneath fingernails after victims have been buried.

You know, my hope is, you know, part of the complexity is her original, where she originally was found in the drainage ditch with the water. But we've seen, even with submerged remains, that DNA, even on external surfaces of the body, can persist, even though they're exposed to this water.

And as long as she's buried, let's say, I'm assuming in some sort of coffin, then I would say, yeah, you know, there's a possibility. It's a long shot, but there's a possibility that if her fingernails were still intact, that they could recover. And hopefully they're not just doing scrapings. They're actually taking cuttings of her fingernails. At this point, they're just collecting the fingernails because they would have detached from, in all likelihood, from the body.

In some ways, the original processing of her body back in the day may have worked to their advantage because back in the day, they just did scrapings. And this is literally taking something akin to a toothpick and rubbing it underneath the fingernails. This is a very poor sampling method. We got rid of doing scrapings decades and decades ago and went to cuttings. So at autopsy, when I'm processing the victim's body,

I'm taking sterile fingernail clippers and I'm cutting the fingernails down as low as I possibly can go to the fingers to get everything. And now everything that is potentially underneath the fingernails is collected versus just a poor sampling.

So if her fingernails were still there with her body, then yeah, there's a possibility, even since 1959, that that foreign DNA could have survived. It all depends on the conditions. It sounds like we don't have an answer just yet.

So, you know, all of this stuff has been happening over the past two years, and either they haven't gotten a hit or it hasn't gone anywhere because I have not found anything. Here, just looking at it again, I have not seen any kind of a development. There are newspaper articles from about two years ago, but there's no update at all. So what do you think that means? They didn't find anything? Because it wouldn't have taken this long, right, Paul? Two years? Yeah.

Usually these private genealogy testing labs are quicker than that. So I would have expected that some results may have already been obtained. But just because we don't hear anything doesn't mean it's a negative on the DNA front. The number of potential relatives to foreign DNA recovered underneath their fingernails may have been poor. And so the genealogy process kind of hit a brick wall. And so you have to wait until more people are added to the database to

Or they actually got a result, and now they are investigating. And sometimes that investigation can take a long time. So it's really hard without the absence of information you can't really extrapolate from. Having worked on the law enforcement side, there's so many variables. And they're going to be mum about it until they're ready to maybe make an announcement of an arrest in the case. Wow.

Well, what I just saw was that, you know, they had exhumed the body, her body, and gotten these samples in August of 2022. The most recent thing that I found was February of 2023. So that was about a year and a half or so ago. And what they said was that this was with the Cold Case Analysis Center. And what they said was that they were hoping to get

results back soon, but that was a year and a half ago. So you're right. Maybe they got the results back and, you know, they were hoping to, maybe they're pursuing something or maybe they got no results and we don't have any answers. So who knows? Yep. It's entirely possible. And depending on what

genealogy lab they sent it to. Sometimes a lab will just take the sample and run with it and not get a result. And hopefully that's not the case. Hopefully they sent it to a lab that actually assesses the evidence and

doesn't just unnecessarily consume it if it's a long shot at getting a result. You hold onto it and let the technology approve, especially for a case of this vintage. Well, vintage is right. And let's hope that we get an answer at some point about what happened to 18-year-old

Ruth Whitman in 1959, it's so sad. And I'm sure that she came from a huge family. I'm sure that everybody was really devastated, whatever their relationship was with her. And it sounds like Nelson, her fiance, despite having a really difficult time, really was not...

someone who should have been focused on. But I guess we'll see. We're going to really cross our fingers for the results. And I know that you've done that a lot, crossed your fingers and your toes for DNA results to come back. So this is par for the course for you. Not for me. I don't like it one bit. But I know that this is something you're used to. And boy, you just don't have any control of when you get those results back.

No, you don't. And, you know, I think if I were involved in this case, you know, trying to find the original evidence would be paramount. I've seen evidence destroyed and there's no record of it being destroyed, even though there should be. But what I would be paying attention to, of course, it's rolling up your sleeves and getting into these property rooms or wherever the evidence may have ended up and actually doing a search yourself. And don't just rely on the property technicians. But more critically,

is look at the cases surrounding Roos in the evidence room. Do they still exist? Does that evidence still exist? How is it handled? How is it documented? If you see a consistent pattern, and let's say there is consistent paperwork of destruction of those cases around Roos, then...

there should be paperwork on Rue's case. And then now you know what's going on. If you don't see that type of pattern, then you're kind of left in a lurch as to, well, they just didn't document things very well back in the day. Well, again, I think this case is a great case, and it was brought to us by a podcast, you know, Upstate Unsolved. Good journalists doing good work. And I always tell my students that, just to wrap this story up, is when you're looking for what I consider to be a high-quality podcast...

looking at journalists is a good place to start. It doesn't mean you're going to find anything that's perfect, but really looking for people who know how to dig into a story. And it sounds like these folks did a really great job. And boy, I appreciate it. I like having reliable sources. And certainly if we get an update, we'll let everybody know. So fingers and toes crossed, Paul, and hopefully we'll have a good update. Well, I will keep my fingers and toes crossed. And thank you again for another case. See you next week. Sounds good.

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

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

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