MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Elfrieda Knaak
57:06 Share

High crime junkie, I am your host dashy flowers.

And I at at the story .

I have for you today is one of the most baffling i've come across because IT starts with the discovery of a woman in the basement of a local police station in one thousand nine twenty eight. And many have said that IT unfolds pretty much like an agg. The Christian novel, one that's mystery, still persist to this day. This is the story of alfa connect.

So its thirty of nineteen nineteen twenty eight and it's a quiet tuesday morning in lake bluff, illinois. And to be honest, every morning is a quiet morning in lake love because this is a small village about an hour north of chicago. So it's around seven A M when the long standing police chief barney rose and heg and gets to work at his job, one of his several jobs, because that's how small the town that we're talking.

They don't need a full time police chief, according to crack morland, who's this local author who becomes like a bit of an expert on this case. Back in one thousand nine twenty eight, there were only about five hundred people living in this town. So well, barney is their police chief. He's also the chief department. He's the village grounds man, possibly the superintendent of the streets, maybe the world master I am, depending on what source area this guy like, kind of does .

everything they can never SE berny.

yeah. Like, I hope burne has a bus plan, but barny is the first to arrive around seven, eight. But the city's handy man, Chris Lewis, is right behind, so barny unlocked the door and the two of them are hit with this instant chill.

When they walk inside, it's colder than IT should be. And bari knows that he stopped the fire in the basement furness before he locked up last night. But clear, he hasn't done a very good job.

So he sends case to the basement to get the furnace going for the day. And before he knows that, he hears this blood curdling scream followed by Chris yelling, help, help. I just saw .

ghost is my dude. What are you talking about?

And Chris has like, listen something or someone is down in that basement and forget that something someone goes part. Like there can possibly be anything down there, like it's been locked all night honesta goes actually makes the most sense.

Like a real person, like for that reason alone couldn't be there but Chris is adamant he's like I saw someone and whoever IT was, they were just standing there are in front of the fairness like waving at him so barney doesn't really understand what Chris saw, but he's clearly upset so he's like a cat to go check that out for myself. And when he walks down the stairs of this basement with Chris right behind him, he sees what caused Chris to initially scream so loudly according to coverage from the walkie, an new sun. At first, barney things, he's looking at a Young boy that has his eye start to adjust to the light.

He realizes it's not a boy, is not even a ghost for that matter. IT is a woman who is totally naked and covered in burns like bad burns, worse than anything he's ever seen. Even as the fire chief, the skin on her arms and face is burnt black.

SHE has pretty much no hair left on her head, and the burns on her forehead so severe that borne e can actually see her skull. The skin on both of her arms even crack and charred all the way to her elbows. And like, again, bones are popping out here.

Her hands are almost completely burn off like her. I mean, quite literally, SHE has no like top of her fingers. It's like right down to the nuckles on both hands.

And there is no fire around.

Oh, there is no fire and no sign that there's been a fire recently. Like IT is like it's a straight up cold in there and I get things in the room don't look burn IT just looks like this woman walked out of a blazing building and as just keep stress enough, like fingers.

toes of the burn, the how SHE alive standing.

that what is going to say it's a miracle she's even standing and by the time barny y gets to her, I mean, she's not standing anymore. She's like laying on the floor but SHE is able to talk enough to tell him that she's cold and he needs some water and barn asked her what happened, but SHE wouldn't or couldn't answer him.

So he wraps her in a blanket, which also, I feel like would just be like painful, but raps her in a blanket, calls for a doctor and an ambuLance, and both arrived at the same time. And they quickly get out of the basement. They get off to a hospital.

And by this time, one of the other officers is Young guy named you, gene. He's on duty, and they're all just kind of like standing in the furnace room trying to process what they just saw like the room itself is pretty bare bones, just a furness and a water boy. And according to a tape of time story on the other side of the room, but like ten feet from the furness, they find a pair of shoes, they find a purse and a watch, and it's all like placed carefully in this little pile. But what is most unsettling is that there are all these bloody for prints around the room, going from furness to that pile of stuff then to, like the xr, your door, which has blood on IT too. It's like, almost like this woman had been trying to get out of there.

And the person stuff like that's not burn.

No, like not so much as singh, that's i'm saying everything else.

This room is fine, and the bloody footprints, I assume those are her.

So the share of office is there. The ones they get called to help investigate, they think that they are hers, and so does the state's attorney who is also involved at this point. In addition to the bloody footprints, there are pretty clear hand prints of hers on the outside of the furness, not on like the door handle, but up high, according to the belvil news democrat there, like above the furnace.

Actually, i'm to get you to read the support icann ity earlier is from a reporter named irony Q. B. It's her description of what exactly SHE saw back, how he interpreted.

IT says, quote, on the furness high above the door, I found greece y handprint cleaning back on the career of the furness. The fingers were widespread, as if in application, there was mute expression of agony, as if the hands clutched at the furness in an endeavor to escape something. The hampering are ghostly in the clearness with which they are reproduced. They are the first thing you notice. Now, as you enter the furness room and put a twelve at a ten for drama.

yeah, I mean, in addition to those gassy prints, reporting by the daily chronicle says that investigators find what looks like burned flesh on the water coils around the furness, which to them suggest that the woman may have been holding on to those. Well, maybe he was struggling with another person, or if SHE I was.

I was assume the theory here was that her burns were from the fairness.

Well, and that's one theory. And I think the most logical, but even that is kind of hard for police to imagine. Like everything in this room isn't adding up because you see are two farmers in that room, one that heats the building and one that heats the water. And it's that second one, the water boiler that they think her burns came from. So it's the smaller of the two furnaces is like maybe four feet talk so and the doors only like nine and three records like lesson ten by twelve, twelve, thirteen and just something like that.

So so like a little bit bigger than a piece of computer paper.

Yes, which is pretty small. Yeah and if you remember, the woman had burns on her feet and her hands and her arms and her head, wich means, based on the size of that opening, it's not like he was thrown in there or walked in there. All of that would have had to have been done like one body part at a time, like torture us.

So they don't know what's going on. Like I said, this is very confusing. They keep looking around the basement.

They also find some hair, though the source material is all over the place on this. Some say the hero was just found in the basement. Others say, was on the floor, or like the water pipes in the basement.

And what IT comes to the amount of here, one place says IT was a few strings. One calls IT a lock. There's another that says IT was like several handfuls.

Like bottom line there is here in the basement got IT. More importantly, though, the hair looked to police, like IT had been pulled out. Now there's one mention in the day one covered that looked like someone had tried to kind of brush the hair off the pipes.

Like hair and flesh actually is what he says may be clean up the scene, but like, they didn't do a very good job. Maybe they just gave up, who knows? But honestly, at this point, taking everything together, they have no freking clue what happened to this woman, or even how.

But the more important question is who? Who is he? And the answer to that question, luckily, is right next to them in the person that they found.

The woman that they found burn in a basement is thirty old already to connect. SHE is not a lake bluff locals. He is actually from the town over deer field, just like fifteen, twenty minutes away.

And the connect family are like a pretty prominent and big family in deer field, like everyone knows them. Of the nine children in the family, three of alfas brothers, so dio, rudolph and alvin, they are the kind of the most recognizable, just because they were really like out there in the community. Because the o brunts, the local pharmacy, which he took over from their father, rudall, in the gas station, alvin, he's like the deer field clerk.

But Alfred is no stranger in her community, either because she'd been a teacher for a while. But then sh'd made a career change to door to door in psychopath, a sales, and like he was good at IT, according to an interview with the author I mention, cried more land on the most notorious podcast. He was one of their top sales people in chicago at the time. So again, once they fight out who he is in her story because you so well known, they're like, oh, maybe a sales job brought her too late love or I guess what you're getting at like whatever brought her there like SHE probably had plans to go home because they end up finding a rail ticket in her purse that would have taken her from lake bluff to the train station closest to her house in deer field.

Her clothes in the stuff .

that they found. They weren't in that pile of things, but they did find what was after her cloth when they shifted to the ashes from the furness. So like a few medal class, like what you find on a road, maybe some fragments from what was probably address, but that is there.

Why would you throw the clothes in the furnace, but not anything else, especially like the purse with the ID and the real al tickets?

It's a great question. I don't know why some things are burn and others are just piled up to me. What's more baffling is that there are some things that seem to just straight up be missing because according to her family and friends I ve had had been wearing this um IT was like this blue coat with I A for color and this button specifically made of bone and a hat that had a metal ornament on IT. And neither of those things are in the room and there are no traces of them in the ashes. You would .

expect the bone buttons to survive.

T, but aside from the hat and the code, the thing that they're really hoping to I, or hoped I I can't, was a key, because chief rosen hagen had locked the door himself the night before at nine P. M, and that door is the only way into the room.

So think this one, they don't know. Town had a key to their police station.

right? But they can find that. And I know that sounds bananas, but like apparently a lot of people how to key, they say that they didn't even really know how many keys might have been like floating around out there, which is wild. When you think about IT today, if this, like the police chief is headquarter, I don't know there is like passing out keys to the city or whatever. But if he had a key, someone had to have taken IT because there is no key in the ashes of the furness, no key in the room, and they even do a search outside, like around the building, thinking maybe that he or someone uni t find on that either .

locked door like the main entrance, the building, or are we talking about a specific key to get to the basement?

So I know for sure that the furnace room has its own entrance, like from the outside, so you couldn't get there from the main building. But from what I can tell from the stuff that I read, I think it's really same key for the furnace room. As for the rest of the building, I mean, again, the passed these things I write left that clearly not really about security.

And I found a number again. Who knows if this is right? The reporting is so old, but is there like fifteen for loading out there with different town officials? So at this point, there is no evidence, they have no theories, but they're hoping that piece together a timely of Alfred's movements on the day before might give them something to go on.

So one of the first people that they talk to is Alfred's sister, who tells them that Alfreda had left home sometime before noon on monday for a meeting in chicago, and that she's last heard from her in the afternoon when i'll free to call to say that he had bought some new sheet music. She's excited to get home and tried out. And at the time, SHE told her sister SHE, expected to be home around seven thirty now of da, travelled by train and bus to chicago and back, usually like a train from chicago to the station near near house, and then a bus from the station home.

And we know SHE made IT to the station. Police are able to confirm that. But according to that temple times article, when he got there, SHE learned that her bus home was gonna late and not like a few minutes late by like several hours.

So instead of just waiting around, what he did was SHE checked her bag or her like brief case and stuff with the station agent. And SHE bought a round trip train ticket to lake bluff. Now they already knew from talking to her boss that he had master to stop anywhere.

As far as he knew, her plan was to go straight home. And we know SHE hadn't call her sister to tell her that he would be late, but SHE did make two phone calls from the train station before he boarded the bus to lake bluff. And one of those calls was to the lake love police station, where he would later be found.

Okay, can I make a guess?

Guess it's .

a lover, right? Only five hundred people in this tiny town probably only went like three officers. Yeah, let's question all of them.

Well, whoever he was trying to reach, though, he didn't, because apparently the answered him to a lot of information call records. I can barely get in an episode like the eighties. But T, V, T, all I know is that they say that call doesn't get answered, but the second call that he makes the problem is like that one, there's nothing about that one.

So who that was too, is never released. I don't know if they were unable to track IT or they just didn't tell people, but I do think IT connected because there are reports of her talking in whispers to somebody. So SHE makes those hush calls. Gets on the train. Please can place her on the train.

Two leg bluff, which drops her off about nine forty pm, but she's a ghost then from nine forty that night to seven o'clock the next morning, when barney in the maintenance guy find her naked in the basement of the police station covered in burns so was SHE lord there or taken there, or had you just found her way there on her own and just happened to encounter someone who attacked her, tortured her and left her there to die or try to anyway, because alpha didn't die right away at this point, he is still alive. And now that she's gotten some help with the hospital, he is talking, even though he is still in and out of consciousness already, a is doing her best to communicate with. The people around are trying to tell them what happened.

And the one thing that he says is hitch, oh, hit. Now everybody knows that there is a possibility that he is delicious with pain and not saying anything useful. But then SHE goes on to say, why don't you come to me now? Remember, everyone knows everyone in this tiny, tiny town.

And police know exactly who she's talking about because he's one of them. He is their nights. Chen Charles hitchcock, also known as hitch I IT.

and that explains how he got in the basement yeah, and they're onder .

ing what kind of relationship SHE would have with hitch that would lead her practically calling out for him on her death. So if they go to find Charles hitchcock and they do find him at home in lake bluff with his wife, a style, and therefore kids, except they're surprised at what they see, or maybe they are to knew this. But I was surprised because Charles is in bed with a broken leg, which is where he says he was on monday night and every night for the last week, because I guess he'd gotten in an accident of some kind of he'd broken his ankle pretty and dude, one thousand nine hundred and twenty eight, we don't have like the medical do now apparently the guy could barely get around, like photos of him in the local paper, literally propped up in bed with his crouches next to him, and like a cast all the way up to his knee.

So how does he know? afraid? Well.

he doesn't know. So he says that the'd met a few years ago when he started taking classes on salesmanship and public king ones that he teaches at the local. why? And I mean, he'd been teaching in town for like four years at that point, ever since he moved back to lake blood from chicago.

And back then he'd been working as a stage actor. He'd even been in a movie with charlie chaplin. So these classes were pretty popular in town, like even the days of tourney had taken them, so that he says how they met, how they knew each other.

He says that he taught her for, like, two years, but then they had kept in touch for the two years after he had stopped taking the classes. But he says that he'd hear from her everyone's in a while when he needed a vice or when he was having issues in her sales work and even compares their dynamic to more like a dad daughter kind of thing. But he says that that's the full extent of IT.

And according to an article in the voyager new sun, hitch claims he has no idea why Alfredo would have been at the police station that night. He like, not a thing. SHE did he never been there after hours .

with him before? Yeah, okay.

I know. And police are like a little skeptical too. And when investigators press him eventually, he's like, wow. OK. I mean, he had met me there from time to time, but I swear I was just to talk or whatever, or whatever. I know the night watchman .

was working the night that Alfredo was found.

but here's a thing. So no, this is what I was saying about his ankle. Normally he would have been right. So his shift was from one P. M to A M, but the broken ankle had kept him from being there that night.

In fact, the only reason that chief rose hagen had been the one to lock up the building and stop the fire himself that night was because Charles wasn't. There that would have ordinary been part of his job. So it's for shore .

confirmed that he was laid up with this broken ankle before he said his name because I was kind of about to about the farm that this was like a fake cast situation.

I know, and I thought so too, but apparently an x ray confirms that this injury is legit. And here's the thing that maybe will play in hitches favor. IT doesn't seem like Alfredo knew that he had broken his ankle and wasn't working that night, which you would think maybe if they were super close, SHE would know, right, because, like basically they think they did try and reach him because he wanted to me up when he had this layover.

IT really just was for this acting salesman coaching thing, whatever. Maybe not TBD. But when SHE couldn't reach him, he just figured that, you know, he was doing his rounds or whatever and she's like, logic.

go anyways and i'll just show up. So in theory, he's not working, but are we sure he's actually home all night? Well.

hearts of the night. I think we're pretty sure his wife was him until about A P. M. That's when he goes to work. But supposedly his friend Oscar stopped ed by the house for a drink that evening right around the same time. And then Oscar stays there until about ten, thirty.

Him or her, Oscar, her both but I don't know that matters because like in the critical period, there's no one who can account for his way about between ten thirty P. M. And twelve thirty eight. Twelve thirty is when his wife would have gotten home from work.

What about his kids asleep?

Yeah, there are there bit asleep.

So to me, the time mine isn't in his favor because I imagine he gets off the train around, may be he goes to first, he's SHE goes looking for, don't know if he knows where he lives or not, but by the time he finds him or get a hold of him, he alone.

Possibly, yes, but I don't know if he could do IT without evidence of him going there, because, you see, Charles does only live like two blocks from city hall. So without the broken ankle, he sure could have gotten there and back before his wife was home. But with the broken ankle, and even with crushes, doctors say that if he made that walk back and forth, they would expect to see some swelling. And when they look at him, they say, like, there's none of that present. So based on that, they don't seem to think he was involved.

If SHE was a little delicious, do you think he would say, hitch, why don't you come like SHE didn't understand why he wasn't there to come save her.

Maybe I guess I was good to about the farmer anything but the only person who knows for sure what happened and why she's saying what she's saying is already a and while he is still in bad shape, like she's in and out of consciousness and she's heavily medicated, SHE is losted enough at times to talk to her brother and the medical staff who are able to tell investigators a more helpful information.

The doctor who has been taking care of her since the night that they found her specifically asks her the question that they need answer to solve this hole. Esty, who was with you in the basement of the station that night, and SHE gives him a really clear answer. SHE says no one.

But and when they hear that, they're like he has to just be out of IT because that doesn't make sense. So the doctor asked again who was with you? And SHE says, no one. I was alone.

So then find different question, who did this? And her response to that question is, I did this to myself. According to reporting from the octagon news, son Alfredo thought that if he could purify herself with fire, that would somehow make her quote, worthy of the great love .

SHE born him.

him who, well, I think him hit, because after that he says he did IT to prove her love for hitchy, which, I mean, what like? So they ask free, like if SHE was in love with him, like specifically, not just hit hedi, where are you in love with Charles hitchcock, who he is referring to, a hydro dgi? And she's like, yep, definitely super in love so naturally everyone's elling pretty confident that again, I feeling is spelled IT out.

But like he did this for him, him is Charles. But Charles is insisting this is not a thing. Absolutely not. No, there's nothing romantic going on between us. No idea what she's talking about.

This old situation turns into this weird he said, he said, or maybe IT isn't because of to tells them that her love affair with Charles wasn't physical per, say IT spiritual astros. And he says that he had been hearing his voice in her head for weeks, telling her over and over to have faith, just have faith. And on monday night, while she's waiting for him, hoping that he's gone to show up, SHE hears that voice again, his voice urging her to have faith. And so he decided that the best way to have faith, to prove her faith, was with the fire. So SHE burned her clothes, and then SHE burned herself one body part at a time .

that would have been in my mind, there is no way he could have held herself to the, and that feel .

like I don't know that I could IT. I mean, maybe you could get away with that like one time.

but I like your .

body naturally. Yes, your body wants to survive. So I don't know how, without someone else is keeping you there, how you stay.

remember? I mean, SHE is burned to the actual bone like on her. They can see her school. They can see her elbow burn down to the nuckles on her fingers. Like, I don't know.

Like in obviously this was bother other people because they look look into this and I guess to cause the level of burn injuries that he has, like as a toes and fingers burned off, bones visible, SHE wouf had to hold her feet and her hands, her head inside that tiny furnace over the hot cold for at least five minutes each time. right? right? Which like, again, even if you say you ve got one foot in, then you have to stand on that foot while you put the other one .

in and then stand on both feet. Well, you put your head and then each ARM in for, I mean, just like a what, twenty five minute process.

I guess the doctor say it's possible, but they don't think anyone could have done that without the coming to the excruciating pain and ultimately passing out. That's what I can help but think. I feel like your body would go into shock and you didn't get through all of IT.

The stuff she's saying that feels a little far fetched and obviously disturbing. The city is IT possible that she's having some kind of metal breakdown during this.

If what you saying happened is what happened, then maybe, but really nobody thinks that what SHE is what actually happened, like not the doctors treating her, not her family, and not long enforcement either. Because even if he was having some kind of mental break, even if you're in that deep of a bad spot to do, what is we happen to her? They say it's just not possible.

There is actually this reporting from a guide, m. Alfred prowed. He has a quote from the states attorney that I want you to read them.

The guide, the name A B. smith. I sent IT to you.

Okay, it's as quote, do you mean to tell me that the girl stood on one foot, held the other in the fire, and when I was burned so that the bone began to crumble, withdrew IT, then stood on the burn foot and held the other in the furnace, and finally, standing on both charged feet, held her head and arms in the furnace until they were charged to. The idea is insane. IT is. And quote, I literally just said .

that I know it's insane. yeah. So they were thinking the same way back then.

How if this is three, when is standing on two hard feet? How is SHE walking on two hard fee? Because I remember there were all those working, walking in ing.

And remember, police firmly believe that those verprat ts are hers. As impossible as IT sounds, they believe that he walked across the room in one direction, then back to the door. But what they do not believe is that SHE was in that room alone. And I think those prints are proved that he was trying to escape whoever had .

her in that room. But if he walked over to the door, SHE try to get out and just couldn't what .

SHE locked in. So yes, I know chief rosen hag insists that the door to that room was locked when he left the night before, and IT was locked when he increase.

Ed arrived the next morning around the inside.

Girl, you're asking a question. I spent far too much time line. So everything says IT locks from the outside OK.

So since of frida was found inside, they're like someone else would have ve had to lock the door outside the there's no clear reason to me why he couldn't or wasn't able to like get out at least like I mean I know doors right like, I mean, for the structural prospect, I can't wrap my head around IT and like that I inspired, inspired some reports say that there was a wie latch on the inside of the door and I imagine it's almost like one of those I am thinking, door chains or something. They say that that was latch when police arrived. I assume by police they mean like the chief and the Chris guy.

My question is, if the large was hot, IT would mean that Alfredo would have been to hook IT inside. But then if she's to get IT out White sheep king from the inside here, if someone else was responsible, how would they have hooked IT did they go out and he was trying to keep them out like IT drives me truly not. And listen what i'll says, we're time with the one thousand twenty here. Like in that episode of most notorious podcast, crag morlan says that there was so much that got misreported and then I got picked up by paper after paper paper that by the time we're trying to interpret IT now it's like a little hard to decipher the truth.

Were talking about a hundred game of telephone.

right? So maybe what i'm like losing my mind, I could have been cleared up back them. But like, it's lares .

ask her .

about IT. SHE says that a mysterious hand locked the door.

Serious hand.

mysterious hand.

Is there a chance that Alfreda was already in the further room when the chief went down to stop the fire that night? That mysterious hand was just like the chief just walking up for the night.

I don't think so. Like I don't feel like that matches up because he got to the station like nine P M. He says he locked the doors at nine thirty and we know that l free that did he get off the train until nine forty but I mean, please even consider that as a possibility because I I guess the basement hasn't like dark corners were like someone could hide.

So even though of the timeline is like unrealistic, that are like, I don't know, we're grasp extra a not only that, but chief rose hagan told the belleville news democrat that he had his dog with him that night and like when he went down there to stoke the fire, the dogs, like all for the rooms, so you would think the dog would have spotted her elder up and over a while, like even the police, cheap is kind of a suspect. He was the last to be there that night. He's one of the first to arrive the next morning.

And there is some kind of questionable stuff with him like, for example, the fact that he sent Chris down to the basement to ten to the fire, like that's not even really part of crises. Job usually uses the chief's job, like the time he sent someone else to check, is the they find a woman in IT weird, I don't know. And apparently he told conflicting stories about that morning to, according to the the daily chronical, initially he said that he sent Chris down to start the fire, but then later he said he actually sent Chris down to, I think he said, put some canned bulbs in the sand, I think is what the quote was, those like flowers, I can grow in sand. So like, okay. And the ends of getting criticize for keeping the case of secret, I think secret is a bit of a strong word, although this is the exact where they using the source material, like, apparently he did some stuff to, like, not have people be noisy or ask questions, which, you know, is that him being shady? Is that him trying .

to like protect .

the investigation? I don't, which I hope like he's not in charge the investigation if he's the suspect but thousand thousand twenty eight chicago who that is ultimately like the majority of the criticism is more about when the chief called for the sheriff.

I think because that I guess didn't happen until like a 1AM， which was four hours after Alfred, he was taken to the hospital and that wasn't even the chief who actually did notify the share of IT was the undertaker ambuLance sky. And then there's another two hours after that before the states attorney gets notified, according to crack morland chief rosen, hagen was also super quick to get rid of the ashes from the furness. And we do know they were sifted through.

But after that, like I don't know again, I don't know what they knew in the nineteen, twenty years, but like I think hold on to everything for evidence but he's just like no blood, just like toss those and it's not just quite a police speculation. I mean, people in town are talking too like he's arts getting ony mous phone call saying that they knew he was the one who burned the girl and he should get out of late love. So is alibi.

They say it's iron clad, apparently but I don't know what IT is like. They don't. We know where hit was like this seems like every minute of the day but like it's you .

just know that like you don't worry about the chief.

Yeah okay. So I think that would be hard to rule out the chief if there is even anything to rule him out. And with no other leads to follow, police are about ready to accept alfreton original statement that she's alone in the basement that night, but then her version of events changes on thursday, november first.

This is now a day. Three of their investigation already does. Semicon coherent statements from her hospital bed where he is clinging to life.

They start to raise even more doubt about her story, because now she's starting to say some other stuff, stuff like, why did they do this to me? So they keep asking her for a names who is vay. And for a while they get nothing, just like these vae in situations.

But they wait because time seems to be Alfred as best friend. And finally, SHE named drops. Frank. Frank, throw me down.

What's the chief first name?

Not Frank. barney?

No, you don't.

Frank, that they can even loosely connect to alpha a is this guy named Frank Mandy and police don't even know if SHE and Frank have ever met like he's this local violin teacher. He's a single guy in town, but not like one that would have ever been on their radar at all if he hadn't started saying the name Frank. But what's interesting about Frank bandy is that he is connected to Charles hitchcock.

Apparently they share a studio space. But I guess Franks a dead in too. There was anything to connect him to Alfredo other than the shared space to hedge.

Investigators feel like there's enough doubt in the air now where they can't like, say he's involved but they're like, okay, we were about to believe your story that I was you but now we're like like someone else was involved in this. We got to keep going. So they started like map out their theories.

Number one, SHE did this to herself, which was her original story. And really kind of her own story at this point is, even though she's like, says Frank down, she's not saying Frank did IT all of this. Number two, SHE was in the wrong place at the wrong time and it's some ranged m attack by a randomly perpetrator who buy the way would have ve had to have a key to the town hall like one fifty.

five hundred SHE was supposed to be there that, like.

there's a lot there. I get wrong place from time. Number three, IT wasn't around them at all. And Charles hitchcock somehow, somewhere, had something to do with IT.

So shortly after this, the states attorney kind of test Alfreda a little bit, saying that he is gonna have Charles arrested. He's hoping for some kind of reaction from her. But already a just tells him he'd be doing a rank injustice by arresting Charles.

But they don't know what else to do. They have to do something because they are truly racing against the clock. They are best witness.

They are only witness, is dying. I mean, I know she's been talking this whole time, but like things are not getting Better. They are getting worse and they need something big and I need you now.

So they decide to see what happens when they bring Charles, actually, to the hospital to see all free, the face to face. So that night, in the legate middle of the night, they go pick up Charles, they bring him and his broken leg on crushes to the hospital. And they taken to see Alfreda, now investigating, gave him a script to follow in terms of questions.

Did you know about the broken an angle? Who let her into the station? Why did he do IT? And he sticks to his questions? This is the weird part to me.

Alfredo doesn't answer any of his questions except one, Charles says to her quote, you didn't do this terrible thing to yourself, did you? And all eleven a could do was mouth the word no. And he asks more and more questions.

But already to still isn't answering and it's not clear if it's because SHE can't or doesn't want to. And i'm saying it's not clear to me from the reporting. I I feel like they would know in the room now as he's leaving because eventually, like I mean, like they're not getting anywhere.

But as he's leaving, he does say goodbye to him, which ends up being one of the very last thing he says, because before the sun rises on friday, i'll free to die. There are autopsy later that day, unfortunately, doesn't tell them anything new. One of her arms was fractured, but they say that IT was most likely from falling on that concrete for, or trying to get around on to burn feet.

And you also had a head injury. The coroner's physician had a quote in the paper that kind of explains that i've read IT. You IT says, I have very great doubts that anyone did IT or help to do IT.

Aside from the bird, there is absolutely nothing to show that any violence occurred. So they end up sending Alfred's brain to another doctor to check for any like blood clots that might explain why SHE burned herself. I don't think that science, I know, but or even like they also say they are talking for .

like signs of mental illness. Can you see .

you looking long? And the short of IT is after all of the test, after all the analysts from the experts, the conclusion ends up being already there was most likely telling the truth. I assume they're talking about the truth the first time, which is that he did this to herself.

But there is still some questions, right? Because we like he does. no.

So does this shut down the police investigate solution? They're still not accepting IT even after the autobots. For then, there are too many missing links. So the lake county board of supervisors, I only you know what that is, but they offer a one thousand doll reward for information, and they hope that that's gonna bring someone, anyone, forward.

I had a lot of money back in nineteen eight and someone does come forward with a letter to the states attorney saying that they basically couldn't hold the truth in any longer and they have IT a word for Alfreda um let me read exactly what they said. They want to tell the world how bub was burned, bob, that's what IT says. And I mean, when people read this, but that's not a nickname anyone has heard like belly to be called by any when they actually call her freaky.

Definitely not. But there's something about the letter that makes IT seem like a little credible, or at least the states attorney thinks is a little credible. This is like so important. I want you to read at least some of IT. So IT was published in the tribune in there in november seven, nine hundred and twenty eight paper.

IT says, for the last twenty years I have been a student of a courtesy mister sm hite's m and an experimenter in a cold science, but but I spent much time together, and there were no secrets between us. For that reason, I knew of her evaluation for charlie hitchcock, and I knew how hard that was for her to overcome IT. Of course, charlie never knew for bub was stopple and kept IT hidden.

But if you know anything at all of the third, an theory of suppression, you will understand that that merely increased her agony. A hundred fault from bubs. In my experience in hnidy sm, I learned SHE was an excEllent subject supersensitive psychic to the finest degree, and very impressive.

We dealt deeper and deeper into our devolution subject SHE merely to forget. And I, because of my thirst for things are natural, I could render her cataleptic and absolutely insensible to heat cold, hunger or pain. But one thing I could not do hurt her of the memory of charlie hitchcock.

We decided on a final test that would rid her forever of charlie. Sisera godless of ancient fire was the only one who could burn all memory of charlie from her mind. I placed her in a deep sleep as far into the third degree of his native sm.

As sh'd ever ban. I gave her the suggestion that all feeling would leave her body, that he would pass through the fire. And at the only thing that would burn would be her memory of, I still think the experiment would have been a success under the proper circumstances.

Although he suffered no pain, I could see immediately that he was being physically burnt. At that I became frighted. I've been helping her hold her limbs in the fire, but I dropped her and ran out, hooked the door and went home. I thought SHE would die before he came out of the hypnosis, but I know now that SHE didn't, although he did not suffer, except during the moments before he died.

Wow, i'm obsessed. So listen, I don't know know if i've been doing this too long and i'm losing IT because, like, I was talking to someone else on the team, work on this with me and they were like, oh my gosh, this like hack letter and I was like, oh yeah, total I like, I like kind buy IT well.

like I was kind of like, OK whatever and then is like and then I hooked the door behind me. We just had a conversation. How was the door lacked?

Was IT like a change slide? I think maybe it's because some of them is so unexplainable. The same reasons, and i'm buying IT a little bit, is why they did back then like the kind of bridges the gap between that got feeling everyone's having that someone else was involved with the medical evidence that says he did IT to herself, right? Like someone wants involved, all the box, someone was involved, but IT wasn't like, but he's not hitting the basement trying murder her.

SHE did IT herself, but he needed help and someone helped her.

I know. So maybe this says a supernatural crossed over episode, I don't know, but it's like, I mean, it's a little wild, right? Yeah so that his letter, the end of doing a corners inquest, they call like thirty witnesses to testify, all the investigators, the chief, her doctors, her family, her colleagues or best friend, people at the train station I wait to saw around.

And of course, Charles hidcote and the jury questions Charles at length about hippot sm, but he insists he has no idea how to hit. Notice anyone, though he does say that he met people who can, including, he says, he met the great who deny who he calls a friend. But when the inquest raps on november ten, IT finds the very same thing that the autopsy did.

I'll be IT a bit more reluctant, and I am going to read you exactly what they said from a twenty sixteen ago tribute article. The jury found that already, to quote, came to her death by burns, which appear from the evidence to be self inflicted and vote. So this inquest basically shut s the door on the possibility that none of the witnesses is called, including Charles hitchcock, had anything to do with her debt.

But still investigators refused to close the case. They think someone is guilty of something here, whether that to sing her, we're even just encouraging her into that fire. And about two weeks later, they find something that starts to prove that they might be right.

In alf test bedroom, her family finds three things of interest to the states attorney. The first is a book called Christ in you, which talks about how the only way to know god is through pain, that pain has a purifying power, and that this process is referred to as the refiner's fire. Now they also find alfas diaries, which include dates and times of when he saw Charles hitchcock, as well as passages like this, one that I found in the lake. I, when have you read for me?

He says, on my side, one, I love him. Two, I want to be true to the best in me. Three, I want to be able to face his wife with honesty for, I love him for his intelligence.

He helped me. He understands me. I idealize him. He is very near perfect. I am attracted physically.

My real tie of love is spirit al understanding on his side. One, he loves me too. He wants to be true to the best in him. Three, he wants to be true to his wife, for he loves me for my spiritual beauty. Five, my spiritual understanding inspires him to continue his own and quote.

so it's clear some things going on there yeah that's .

like a proc list for like continuing relations, right? Yeah I just don't know.

Like reading one alone IT feels a little like it's both ways when she's talking about right like he wants to be true to his wife, he wants to do this. Like, oh, IT feels like you guys have had maybe a conversation .

about this is closest to mutal.

right, if else like this. But then they find another letter and this one is addressed to alpha and it's post march on october twenty eight. And this is the last thing of heavy read, I promise. But this one, I think, is important.

OK, dear friends, I remember .

that's what they call her. So this is too over that. So are right.

Sorry, dear, dear friz, I haven't forgotten you told me not to write, but I am just this once, regardless of what happens. Dear me, you made me care, so don't blame me entirely. I often wish I taken the books the first day, and then this would never have happened.

But after studying you a while, something seems to tell me you were craving for a friendship that was full of love and kindness, one that understood you. And before I knew that I was trying to be your friend, not once did I think of anything beyond being a friend until the third time, U. K, in the way you looked at me, I lost all control.

When then the next time you mastered me again, more than ever, I lived over that moment a thousand times. Darling, after that, how can you be so distant? I'd be satisfied just to see you, if only for a moment.

It's awful. I haven't done a thing worthwhile for a week. Can't it's so long enough even to read a short story? But of course, if you don't intend to see me anymore, IT will be best not to hear from you.

I can forget in time, but god forgive you. There's no harm in love, darling. And that's all I offer you lovingly. Yours be lock.

not hitch. I thought a thousand percent when I read IT the first .

time he was gonna hit. Yeah, I got through all of this entire letter and I was like, I know loving .

ly c hdc ck. This is where IT gets into.

Who is block here?

So IT is interesting. So please trace this letter to a woman named a who lives about a few miles from lake bluff in liberty vel. Now, apparently i'll free to have only met block a few weeks before her death already, I guess had solar, some books. And then like obvious, and this, like friendship blossoms.

sounds like a little more than friendship to me.

I agree. But remember, in one thousand and twenty twenty paper, I don't think they would day or go there or like touch that. Now there was a short note that they found with the longer letter that seemed to indicate maybe there had been some kind of rift between them.

He says that like Alfredo was forgiven. And then in another IT says that he should be sorry, so it's enough for the states attorney to bring leela in for questioning. SHE confirms that, yes, SHE in Alfredo were friends. They shared an interest in spirituality and religion, but he says he has nothing to do with her death. He was home that night that alpha was burn, and I guess her husband .

confirmed that. Okay, number one, I never trust a spouse as an l and two is SHE the?

I don't know, I kind of have the same thought, but I have no idea.

Maybe she's also interested in.

I know, I know. So that's just kind of like flowing out there. I don't know what to make of IT. IT doesn't seem like IT goes anywhere else.

And the only other really thing that pops up there is one more person who kind of comes on their radar is a possible suspect. Like just as quickly it's on, it's offit like some guy in taxi starts confessing, saying that he's responsible. They like literally go all the way, get him, bring him back.

IT becomes clear he's mentally ill. There's no way he was involved like he went even in the state of illini at the time. And then after that the case just kind of dies, or at least the official investigation kind of dies out. And over the years of free, his family was pretty vocal about their beliefs. It's kind .

of interesting. So do remember the malle Carter case, yeah, he went .

to trial over the ve l, the family. Then the macal cardcase wasn't the landmark case that we all thought I was, because they basically think that the exact same thing happened almost a hundred years before that one. They think that someone put the idea into her head and encouraged her to do IT, which is kind of like one of the there's we've been .

talking about yeah, I can totally see the parallels. But then who is the Michelle Carter in story?

That's the mystery that's never been solved in the author that I mentioned crag morland. He thinks police didn't look hard enough at l as best friend mary muller, which I know they didn't look at her. We know because he hasn't story a who exactly.

So he was one of already disclosed st. friends. He was someone who was even rugged to her beds while Alfreda was in the hospital.

And he actually testified at the inquest as like a character witness, where he described alpha, you, among other things, as just like a very emotional person. Exceptionally emotional, I think, is what he said. And her testimony pretty much amounts to know Alfreda is not out of her mind.

But yes, SHE totally would have done something like this all on her own. But the most interesting thing about mary is that he knew Charles too. He and l. Freear had actually taken that public speaking class together.

Did you live in lake bluff?

Well, she's from luck hegan. So they're like all in the same victim. Here's where it's really interesting. Charles s.

First wife as style divorce him in nineteen thirty three, and then fourteen years later he marries none. Then murray Miller, no, I know. right.

And apparently at some point he had told her niece, this is years later, that SHE and Alfredo were both in love with Charles back then, and that already a and Charles did have something going on, some kind of affair. Muri hated that he was super jealous, super competitive. And SHE would always be calling him the grading and letter is vying for his attention.

And we admitted to the knees that SHE knew what happened to offer to that night in the basement of the village hall. But SHE said SHE loves her husband too much to ever talk about IT, so he will take that to the grave and SHE must have. Because ninety six years later, I still can't tell you what really happened in that basement.

There's one theory that isn't in the archival coverage, but that is kind of explorer a little bit now. And something I meant you just got gloss over, it's like that one of the police officers was involved. The chief was coming up on retirement at the time that all this played out and there were two other officers that were working there that you can guy and and apparently they both wanted to be next in line for the chief job.

You, gene, is ultimately the one who got the job. So know there is a theory later that could he said Charles, up to get amount of the way, or did one of them, said, barney, up to be the fall again? Because there was a lot of weird self.

Remember around the chief barney, right? Maybe they were trying to get amount of their fast chio son hagen was in his sixties when he found of free in the basement. And I mean, he was already in poor health.

The board of supervisors for the town pushed amount of his job as chief by the end of november of one thousand and eight. And then he was given a six months leave of absence from all of his other duties. And then by january of the following year, he was dead.

And people think that the stress of the case had a lot to do with that. Ultimately, Charles hitchcock is asked to resign from his job as the net watchman, too. Because it's brilliant on a great look to have a member of the force under like this kind of suspicion.

So three months after i'll free to die, Charles PS away from his duties. You know, we've got our chief leaving you jeans like the head. And surprise, surprise, Charles actually ends up back in the news again almost a year after all of this, when he and his son are both arrested for, which is, I don't know what that means.

Officer, I want off like the charges don't ultimately stick not to Charles anyway, even though he confessed to being a part of several robberies. Es with his son, who does in fact, get convicted of these crimes. So I mean, if this happened today, police would have access to a world of evidence or talking, surveilLance footage, DNA, fingerprints, blood analysis, hair analysis, times of stuff, even think about, like, again, go back to mall Carter, like the text and communications between people. But none of that was available back in one thousand twenty eight. And so whatever happened to already to connect in that basement, and for whatever reason, will continue to be lake bluff biggest mystery.

You can buying all the source material for this episode on our website, crime gently podcast dot com.

And you can follow us an instagram at we .

back next week with a brand new episode.

Crime junkie is an audio chuck production, so what do you think, chuck do you prove?