00:00:00
Hi Crime Junkies, I'm your host Ashley Flowers. >> And I'm Brit. >> [music] >> And this is a story about what can
00:00:06
happen when a case feels solved, even when it may not be. In Massachusetts, [music] two women from
00:00:14
very different worlds disappeared within a few years of each other. One was last
00:00:19
seen leaving a bar. >> [music] >> The other vanished after stepping out of Logan Airport.
00:00:24
Police would eventually say that these two cases were connected and that they had found the man responsible.
00:00:30
But after spending more than a year reporting on this case, interviewing witnesses, tracking down survivors, and
00:00:37
reviewing thousands of pages of records, we found a story that doesn't quite [music] sit right. And our question is,
00:00:46
was the wrong man blamed for these crimes? And if so, then is the person or people who actually committed these
00:00:54
murders still walking free? These are the stories of Joan Webster and Marie [music] Iannuzzi.
00:01:08
December 1st, 1981 is a Tuesday, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving break, and the day that
00:01:15
Terry Webster really starts feeling anxious about not hearing from her youngest daughter, Joan. Their whole
00:01:21
family had been together for the holiday weekend at their home in New Jersey, but
00:01:25
instead of driving back to college in Massachusetts with her older sister as planned [music]
00:01:30
on Sunday, 25-year-old Joan left on Saturday night because she wanted to make it to a study group. So, her dad
00:01:37
booked her a flight to Boston Logan Airport. >> And she's at Harvard, I assume? Yeah, so
00:01:41
she is in grad school there for architecture. And girl works hard, hence [music] ending her break early just to
00:01:46
go home and study, which is probably part of the reason Terry didn't stress out at first when she didn't hear from
00:01:53
her daughter on Sunday. Like, you know, that's study group day. Whatever, yeah. Didn't hear from her on Monday. Maybe
00:01:59
she's just getting settled. But still not hearing a word from her by Tuesday morning, now she knows something is up.
00:02:06
And almost at the same time Terry's starting to spiral, the phone rings. It's one of Joan's friends from Harvard,
00:02:12
and right away Terry knows something is wrong because the friend tells her that Joan missed that Sunday study group, and
00:02:19
she didn't show up to class on Monday, either. So, Terry hangs up and calls Joan's older sister. She lives close to
00:02:26
campus, and Terry asked her to go check Joan's dorm room. But what her sister finds doesn't ease anyone's concerns. I
00:02:33
mean, before she even goes into Joan's room, she sees notes on her door from friends. And inside there is unopened
00:02:40
mail, and no sign that Joan's even been in the room since before break. Now, Terry is the one to file a missing
00:02:47
person's report that same day. And by the next morning, Joan's family has their first clue. Because a call comes
00:02:54
into Joan's dad's office from a fisherman. Apparently, he was walking near the marshes in Saugus,
00:03:00
Massachusetts, which is like 6 mi north of Logan Airport. And the guy says he found Joan's wallet on the riverbank.
00:03:07
And inside was a driver's license, credit cards, no cash though, but there was this like card instructing whoever
00:03:13
finds the wallet to call Joan's dad's [music] office. So, they call him, he calls the police. And when they hear
00:03:18
about this, they're worried right away because this marsh area where her stuff was found, it is a known dumping ground.
00:03:25
Like, for trash, for stolen stuff, and for bodies. So, they go out to meet this fisherman, and they search the area. And
00:03:33
not too far from where he had found the wallet, they find Joan's red leather pocketbook with her checkbook inside.
00:03:40
And this is a bad sign. Because of the location, because of how the items were scattered, police wonder if someone
00:03:48
could have thrown Joan's things out the window of a moving car as they passed on
00:03:52
this highway that runs right over this area. And if that's what happened, >> [music]
00:03:57
>> finding Joan and whoever took her might be even harder than anyone thought because they're now four days out from
00:04:05
anyone last seeing her and who knows where she could be now. I mean, at least they know that she made it onto her
00:04:11
flight and to the Boston area. >> her stuff to be there, yeah, exactly. And they focus a lot of their attention
00:04:17
and early searches around the airport specifically and that marsh area. And they really do pull out all the stops.
00:04:23
We're talking officers, dogs, helicopters, even scuba divers to comb the river by the marsh, but there is no
00:04:30
sign of Joan or anything else. >> And is the marsh area like on the way to campus from the airport? Is like on that
00:04:36
route? >> No, that's the thing. So, this is like in the complete opposite direction,
00:04:40
which is what I think makes people even more certain that if someone intercepted
00:04:44
Joan, it was more likely at the airport than anywhere else because they also start finding witnesses who say that
00:04:51
they saw her there. Passengers on the flight confirm that Joan definitely made it onto the plane. They say she seemed
00:04:58
relaxed for like the whole flight which landed at Logan Airport around 10:30 p.m. And then a few Harvard students who
00:05:05
flew that same day tell police they saw Joan in the terminal, too. One friend even remembers talking to her at baggage
00:05:11
[music] claim. Joan had this like carry-on tote, she had her purse, but she was also waiting on a bag, this like
00:05:17
dark suitcase with unique striping. Now, when the bag comes, she just grabbed it
00:05:22
and headed out to ground transportation [music] and she told at least one person
00:05:25
at the airport that she planned to take a cab straight to her dorm, which is what her family knew her plan to be,
00:05:30
too. Her dad had even given her 70 bucks in cash for the cab ride back to her dorm. So, Joan walking to the exit is
00:05:38
the last confirmed sighting of her by anyone who knew her. But the best lead that police get is
00:05:45
actually from someone who doesn't even know her at all. Sometime in the first week of the investigation, this cab
00:05:51
driver comes forward and says that around 10:45 p.m. that night, a woman matching Jones' description came up to
00:06:00
his cab outside the terminal, like knocked on his window, and asked Cambridge, right? That's where Harvard
00:06:05
is. Feels a lot like Joan. >> Yeah. But the woman wasn't alone. According to the driver, an older man
00:06:13
was with her. Not like old old, but like older than the 25-year-old Joan, right?
00:06:18
And the driver thought maybe this guy's like in his 40s. He's a white guy, about
00:06:22
5'7" with curly hair and a beard, and he was wearing these like round glasses, which is like I think pretty common for
00:06:28
the time. Now, this matches no one that Jones' family claims to know. But the driver said that the woman
00:06:35
seemed [music] to know this guy. >> like familiar. Yeah, or the woman who we think is Joan. But here's where I think
00:06:39
start to get really weird. So, this driver's like, yep, Cambridge, I got you. [music] So, the driver goes to pick
00:06:45
up the guy's suitcase, and it is super heavy. So, he makes a comment to the guy about how heavy the suitcase was.
00:06:53
And all of a sudden, the man gets really aggressive. He told the driver he didn't
00:06:57
like the way that he was handling his luggage, and he told the woman, you know what, we don't even need this cab after
00:07:02
all. So, he pulls the luggage back out of the trunk and leads her away toward another cab, this blue one. And this cab
00:07:11
driver just kind of like watches as they drive off in this blue car. So, this wasn't like someone grabbing her and
00:07:17
forcing her into a car. This is presumably another passenger, maybe even like another student if they were both
00:07:23
going to take a cab together to Cambridge. >> Could be, or at least somebody who
00:07:28
worked at the college or was affiliated with it in some way. His age is what makes me think you got to like broaden
00:07:33
the scope, but yeah, like someone going where she was going. And it's not like she had to bum a ride, like she had her
00:07:39
own money. She like could get her own cab. So, if this was Joan, [music] it seems to me like this guy was someone
00:07:45
she recognized from the school or someone she planned to meet up with. But, that's the catch. This is the last
00:07:52
possible sighting of Joan. If that was her, why hasn't that man come forward? For that matter, why
00:07:59
hasn't the cab driver who took them come forward? >> Wait, they never found the other cab
00:08:05
driver, like the one that that was like in a blue car? >> Nope. The guy who saw them get into the
00:08:10
car clearly. Yeah, he couldn't tell which company the cab that cab was with or who was driving
00:08:16
it. Just that the cab was like blue in color. But, did did Joan say anything about meeting anyone when she was home?
00:08:23
>> No, I know a guy that she was seeing planned to visit her over Thanksgiving break and they ended up canceling. But,
00:08:29
like her parents knew about that guy, like that didn't seem like a big deal. Also, that guy was closer to her age,
00:08:35
wouldn't be mistaken for 40-something like this other guy. And I assume no one else they know fits this
00:08:42
40-something-year-old guy's description. >> Well, I don't know for sure because the
00:08:47
strangest thing happens. So, police take this account from the cab driver seriously enough to make a composite
00:08:54
sketch of the man described. But, as far as we can tell, that sketch was never publicly released. We actually
00:09:03
spoke to one of Joan's professors and even other students who were at Harvard at the time with Joan, none of them knew
00:09:11
that this sketch even existed all these years later. Yeah. And it's not really clear why. But, Joan's [music] professor
00:09:18
told us that early on, it felt to him like police just assumed that Joan left and that she was going to come back on
00:09:26
her own eventually. Which like I don't even know where that assumption comes from because to me, all of the signs
00:09:33
right from the jump are pointing to some kind of foul play. Like it's not like they were hearing things from like the
00:09:38
family that would make them think she walked away. Everyone who actually knew Joan didn't believe that for a second.
00:09:45
They know that she's a good student. She was a resident advisor. She's super responsible.
00:09:49
>> And look at how you found her stuff. Like why would she walk away and dump her stuff in this marshy area off of an
00:09:56
overpass? >> Exactly. I don't know if it was ignorance, if it was negligence, or
00:10:01
something [music] else entirely. But there is something so wrong about the way this investigation was run. Like I
00:10:08
said, we spoke to one of Joan's professors and they told us that police were coming around at first. They were
00:10:14
meeting with students. They were meeting with faculty. >> They were not showing them the sketch.
00:10:19
Not showing them the sketch. Yeah, to see if they recognized this man who also wanted to go to Cambridge.
00:10:25
But also, they were telling everyone that interviews are happening. They were telling everyone that leads are being
00:10:32
followed. But here's the wild thing. During these like meetings where they were like
00:10:37
talking to people and bringing people together, they caught the officers in a straight-up lie.
00:10:42
So police are in this meeting. They're saying they're interviewing everyone. They're specifically saying that they've
00:10:47
interviewed everyone who was on Joan's flight. But then someone in the room is like, "Um hi. Uh
00:10:53
I was on Joan's flight and you never talked to me." Oh. Like egg on the face, right?
00:11:01
But even if this was like a simple slip-up, it was a big Yeah. Like if investigators
00:11:07
missed someone that obvious, it raises a bigger question. What else could they be missing?
00:11:13
>> Mhm. So this is why when Joan's classmates start getting the feeling that police think she just like ran away
00:11:19
on her own, they get right to work. They start calling newsrooms all over New England.
00:11:26
They contact local papers. They work the phones non-stop. They're passing out flyers. They're just trying to keep
00:11:32
Joan's story in the public [music] eye. It would have been real nice to include a suspect sketch in those appeals to the
00:11:38
public. >> the life of me, I cannot figure out why this wasn't widely distributed.
00:11:44
>> or distributed at all, widely or not. Like this Even if you don't want to call
00:11:48
this guy a suspect, even if you think there is a chance that that might not even have been Joan, until you can say
00:11:55
"We know it's >> we found this guy, we talked to him, we know it's not him." >> that wasn't Joan or whatever. Like I
00:11:59
feel you have to show it. Like you have to find the guy who has this unusually heavy suitcase, last seen with a woman
00:12:06
who looked like your missing person. But they don't seem to do anything to find that
00:12:11
guy. Instead, most of the press pick up just features Joan's family, who by this
00:12:18
point have flown to Boston themselves to help out with searches and speak to the
00:12:22
press. By January, even with a $10,000 reward offered for any information, no one
00:12:29
knows where Joan could be. She and all of her luggage are still missing. But little did anyone know, Joan's
00:12:38
luggage had actually been hiding in plain sight since just [music] hours after she walked off that plane.
00:12:46
And where it's found could be the biggest clue in this case. In the parks and forests you love, there
00:12:56
are stories waiting to be told. I'm Delia D'Ambra, the host of Park Predators, [music] a true crime podcast
00:13:02
that reminds you sometimes the most beautiful places [music] hide the darkest secrets. Listen now wherever you
00:13:09
get your podcasts. On January 29th, 1982, [music] police get word that Joan's missing
00:13:18
luggage has been found, but in the strangest of places. Her suitcase is found at a Greyhound bus terminal in
00:13:26
downtown Boston. This is around 5 miles from both Harvard and the airport and about 10 miles from that marsh area
00:13:34
where her wallet and purse was found. And this is how they find it. So, this employee was working at the bus terminal
00:13:39
said that they found the suitcase when going through all of like the lost and unclaimed luggage that they had in their
00:13:45
storage. Basically, it was their job to take everything that had been sitting there like, you know, piling up for a
00:13:50
while and they were supposed to take it to a warehouse in New York. Now, I don't
00:13:54
know how they made the connection for sure, but I assume that there was like, you know, those tags or whatever
00:13:59
>> Yeah. and that they recognized her name from the news because they knew to call
00:14:03
police when they came across her back. And what police learned when they had the facility really dig into their
00:14:08
records is that the locker that her suitcase was found in was rented about 12 hours after Jones flight [music]
00:14:15
landed. So, like right around 10:30 in the morning on Sunday. Now, those temporary lockers are rented for 24
00:14:22
hours. So, the way it works is basically like when the time is up and no one came back for
00:14:26
it, like >> gets opened, you take the stuff out of it, it goes into storage or whatever.
00:14:30
>> Right. Where it had been sitting for [music] two months. And does anybody remember who rented that locker by
00:14:36
chance? From the records it doesn't seem like it, but I don't think this is a place
00:14:41
where you like go and like pay someone. It's It was one of those places where you like go and you just like put 50
00:14:46
cents in and you like get a little key and you come back for it. If you're not back in 24 hours, the lock basically
00:14:51
turns red, employees know that they can use their master key to open it, take all the unclaimed stuff out. [music] And
00:14:57
if it's Joan who rented it, that doesn't make sense because we know she planned to go
00:15:01
straight to campus >> Right. Also, why store your suitcase, but then like toss your purse and your wallet?
00:15:08
>> And was this like her big checked luggage, like the one with the stripes or was it her carry-on?
00:15:13
>> It was the checked one. The carry-on actually has never been found. >> Oh. I mean, I guess you could make an
00:15:19
argument that like if this was her, wherever she's going, she's just like traveling light.
00:15:24
>> Okay, but why check the bag and just like not ditch it once you get to wherever you you need
00:15:31
it? Like Like I don't understand why you take it you take the checked bag to like
00:15:35
the storage area. And then you're like again tossing the wallet and purse. Right. And this is like the weird thing,
00:15:40
too, is like it doesn't seem like anything was taken from the checked luggage. Like all of her clothes are
00:15:46
still in it. So So someone else had to have checked it in at the bus terminal. You would think,
00:15:52
but why? Why run the risk of being spotted? Just like dump it somewhere, burn it. Like I mean like this clue is
00:16:01
so confounding to me because like did they want to keep this for some reason, but then they couldn't come back for it
00:16:06
cuz there was too much publicity around Joan's case by then? Or was this some kind of like sick game they were playing
00:16:11
hoping that someone would find it half a century later and reporters and podcasters would be speculating about
00:16:17
what it means? Like I think what really gets me >> [music] >> is that Joan wasn't reported missing for a
00:16:23
few days, right? >> was like Tuesday and this was checked on Sunday morning. They could have gotten
00:16:28
it by like Monday morning. >> That's what I'm saying. So So someone, Joan or someone else, they would have
00:16:32
had time to anonymously come back, get the stuff, even if they had to go ask staff for it. Nobody knows Joan is
00:16:40
missing in that first 24 hours, like what before the locker turns to red. But no one comes back for it. So if you're
00:16:45
trying to get rid of the luggage, again, why not just dump it with the wallet and purse? Why not just dump it
00:16:51
anywhere else? >> it like the wallet and purse, not even in the same area. Yeah. Trying to like
00:16:55
figure out the plan or like the logic behind this, like it makes my head spin. And it's why I keep coming back to like
00:17:01
this was some kind of game. Mhm. And in the end, this mysterious clue doesn't actually bring police any closer to what
00:17:10
happened to Joan. And they do even try testing the luggage for prints and get some.
00:17:15
But without anyone to compare them to, like back in the day, like it doesn't mean much. So, despite having local,
00:17:21
state, and federal authorities all circling this case and following leads, each working off of slightly different
00:17:28
theories, nothing is paying off. But then, like manna from the heavens, that same year, in 1982, [music]
00:17:38
the Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney, this guy Tim Burke, he's the one who is assigned Jones' case.
00:17:44
He gets this out of the blue call about a totally different case that changes the trajectory of Jones. Now, this call
00:17:52
that ADA Burke gets isn't even about a case in his jurisdiction. [music] This woman is calling from the next
00:17:58
county over hoping that someone in the DA's office in Boston can give her the help that she isn't getting on her
00:18:05
sister's case. And her sister is Marie Iannuzzi. She was murdered about 3 years before Jones, but her case has never
00:18:14
been solved. And listen, she doesn't even know if she's calling the right guy, but someone suggested to her like
00:18:19
she just try. [music] And her ask is simple when she calls the ADA, "Will you at least take a look and help
00:18:27
me, please?" So, even though it's kind of a side quest, the ADA does a preliminary look into
00:18:34
[music] Marie. And so, he has the lead detective in her case walk him through some of the basics. And as they did,
00:18:40
both of them were struck by one aspect of the investigation. >> [music] >> Marie's body was found in that same
00:18:48
marshy area where Jones' [music] things were dumped. And I don't know if it was just that one detail or if they
00:18:53
got further in, but pretty quickly ADA Burke has kind of married this random case that he got a call about to the
00:19:01
white whale case that he is already working. Maybe they're connected. And from that point on, that becomes almost
00:19:10
like fact. And I want to pause here because the way that this case, this story gets told even now says a lot
00:19:18
about who gets centered and who doesn't. Joan was a wealthy Harvard student who got immediate attention from the media
00:19:27
and [music] from the public and from powerful people who made noise. Marie was working class. She was from East
00:19:33
Boston. She didn't have an Ivy League school behind her or a dad in the CIA. >> Whoa, Jones' dad was in the CIA?
00:19:42
>> Yeah. Yeah, so like the big guns were on her case and I think that's part of why
00:19:45
it got so much attention. But while Jones' case had been everywhere, Marie's case only got attention because of
00:19:54
Jones. >> [music] >> And even then it sort of faded into the background. And they're just connected
00:19:59
because of this like known dumping ground area. Well, well that's the thing that grabs Burke's attention, right? ADA
00:20:06
Burke. But there is another big thing that actually links the two forever. But let me lay out a little bit more about
00:20:13
Marie's case [music] so you'll hopefully see what they did. 20-year-old Marie Iannuzzi's last day was Saturday, August
00:20:21
11th, 1979. Again, this is 3 years before Joan. That was her dad's birthday. And Marie's sister told us that they
00:20:30
grew up in East Boston in this like big close-knit Italian family. And even though their parents tried to shelter
00:20:37
their kids, like they'd really been through a lot. Like Marie's brother had actually been murdered, too, in like a
00:20:42
totally unrelated way. But Marie was still trusting and loved to have fun. So she wasn't suspicious of the world
00:20:51
around her. And nothing about the day that Marie died tells me that she thought she was in danger.
00:20:57
She spent the morning with her parents [music] and after Marie went with her boyfriend David to his cousin's wedding.
00:21:04
Now, at the reception, David ripped his pants, [music] which is like what good wedding reception doesn't have ripped
00:21:09
pants. But he at that point was like, I want to go home. But Marie wanted to go to this after party at the groom's
00:21:15
family's house. So, her and David end up having this argument about this. Witnesses we talked to who were at the
00:21:21
wedding [music] didn't describe anything violent, just this like disagreement. David ends up leaving and Marie finds a
00:21:27
ride to go to this after party. This is like around 5:30 that evening. Now by 10:00, the after party was winding down.
00:21:34
So, another guest named Candy agreed to take Marie home. But on the way, Marie asked Candy to just drop her off at a
00:21:41
bar instead, one near Logan Airport, which Candy did at around 10:30 p.m. Then Candy went back to the after party
00:21:49
where her boyfriend Lenny was waiting for her. Now at some point, I guess Marie had supposedly left some things in
00:21:56
Candy's car and so Candy and or Lenny delivered those things back to Marie at the bar. And they were like two separate
00:22:02
trips where they saw her. And the last time was after midnight. So, it would now be August 12th. And that was their
00:22:10
story at least. Lenny says that the last time he ran in to give her a set of keys, he offered to give her a ride
00:22:15
home, but she said no because she was meeting someone. He said they walked out of the bar, he went to the car where
00:22:21
Candy was waiting, and Marie walked around the corner and that is the last that he saw of her. [music] And a
00:22:27
girlfriend who had met up with Marie at the bar backs some of this up. She says that Marie was like making a phone call
00:22:33
right before Lenny showed up for the last time. And as Lenny was leaving, so was Marie. But Marie told this friend
00:22:39
not to leave because she was going to be right back in like 30 minutes. Though this friend's like, I you know, I don't
00:22:44
know where she was going. It wasn't totally clear. But this woman confirmed that she saw Marie walk out of the bar,
00:22:50
same as Lenny, but then she never came back. That was the last they saw of her. So, her family
00:22:55
reported her missing quickly, but it was already too late because a A on August 13th, that's when her body was
00:23:03
discovered in the marshy area behind this lobster company. Now, when she's found, she's fully clothed with all of
00:23:11
her jewelry on. The only thing missing were her shoes and stockings, which were never found. But everything else was in
00:23:19
place, even her body suit that she was wearing. Now, an autopsy determined that she died from ligature strangulation,
00:23:26
probably about 12 hours before her body was found. And there were signs of a struggle, bruises and scrapes like on
00:23:33
her face and her arms, her legs. And the medical examiner said there were no clear signs of sexual assault, but it
00:23:40
was obvious that there had been some kind of sexual activity between the night that she went missing and when she
00:23:46
was killed, because the ME found sperm after doing a vaginal smear. So, after she's found, like in the first
00:23:53
like, you know, early days of this case, there were basically two suspects. >> [music]
00:23:58
>> And that was Marie's boyfriend, David, and Lenny. But investigators had quickly
00:24:03
zeroed in on Lenny, right? I mean, he is the last person seen with Marie. He would have known the marsh area because
00:24:11
turns out he's a fisherman by trade, actually sold fish to the very lobster company near where she's found.
00:24:17
>> Oh. And Lenny had a pretty long rap sheet, including the abduction of a 16-year-old girl and attempted rape of a
00:24:25
college student that he offered to drive home. Now, he served prison time for that second crime. And Burke told us
00:24:32
[music] that to him, past behavior, especially sexual violence against women, is one of the best indicators of
00:24:39
future behavior. He thinks Lenny got bolder in his crimes as the years went on, and that his psychology lined up
00:24:47
with the type of murder or murderer in Marie's case, a murder that was sexually motivated. Now, when police originally
00:24:54
interviewed Lenny and Candy, their stories stood out to them. I mean, they both had the same story that when Lenny
00:25:01
and Marie walked out together, Candy was waiting in the car, Lenny offered Marie
00:25:05
a ride home, but she said no, she's meeting someone, and she walks off around the corner. But, police noted
00:25:11
that like Lenny and Candy's stories matched up almost too perfectly. Like, the case file says word for word. I
00:25:18
mean, I I get what they're like wink wink nudge nudging at here, but if their stories didn't match, I think that would
00:25:25
look bad, too, right? >> Totally. Again, I think it's like the word-for-word part. Like, I To them, it
00:25:30
seemed rehearsed, I guess. And in the report, it says that Candy was really nervous, like she was shaking when she
00:25:36
talked to the police. Now, she'd been with Lenny for around 8 years, since she was 18, and people we talked to who knew
00:25:43
them said that she would do anything for [music] this guy. And he would push her
00:25:47
to do a lot. Because, guess who was his alibi witness for the attempted rape case that he ended up being convicted
00:25:53
of? Candy. Candy. Problem is, there was nothing here in Marie's case to disprove
00:26:00
their story, and nothing else to really go off of. So, the case went cold for nearly 3 years.
00:26:09
Which brings me back to 1982 and this call from Marie's sister to ADA Burke. So, now that he has gotten up to
00:26:17
speed on the details of Marie's case, and he's wondering if he could be looking for the same perp,
00:26:22
he goes to Jones' case file looking to see if there's anything that might tie Lenny to her disappearance. And sure
00:26:29
enough, what do you know? Burke learns that a tip had come in January that ties everything together for him.
00:26:42
In January of 1982, a week before they found Jones' luggage, a woman had called police to tell them about this scary
00:26:51
incident that she had with a man years before. She never reported it and admittedly
00:26:57
there are >> [music] >> plenty of differences, right? Like but when she heard about the circumstances
00:27:03
of Joan's disappearance on the news, she felt like she needed someone to know about this thing that happened to her.
00:27:09
Our reporter Malika Dollywall actually tracked this tipster down back in 2025 so we could hear her story firsthand.
00:27:17
And this woman claimed that years before Joan disappeared, when she was in her 20s, she had been out at a club one
00:27:25
night and this guy that she knew from her neighborhood was there. And when she was going to leave, he convinced her to
00:27:31
give him a ride saying that he was like sick, he needed help getting to the hospital. But once she was in the car,
00:27:36
he told her to go somewhere else, like somewhere out by the water. And when she realized that they weren't going to the
00:27:41
hospital, he pulled out a gun and tried to assault her. Now, she said that she was able to talk her way out of this
00:27:47
situation, reminding him that people had seen them leave together. So, like they
00:27:52
knew she would be with him. But she said this was the most terrifying moment of her life and she just could not shake
00:27:58
this overwhelming sense when she saw Joan's story on the news, like what if it was him? What if he
00:28:05
wised up over the years, went after someone that, first of all, he wasn't as closely tied to
00:28:11
>> one could like confirm that he had been with another person that night. >> at a place, right? But the airport where
00:28:16
so many people are coming and going, they might not remember who left with whom. And here's the real thing that
00:28:23
made her sure she had to call police. She'd heard rumors that the guy who pulled a gun on her was now driving
00:28:28
[music] a cab around Logan Airport, not through a company or anything, just kind
00:28:34
of like picking up rides unlicensed. So, that is what made her pick up the phone and give police the man's name.
00:28:43
Leonard Lenny Paradiso. Now, that tip didn't seem to go anywhere at the time. But now that ADA Burke sees it, it means
00:28:53
everything. This is the same Lenny from Marie's case. So, he kind of strong-arms his way into
00:29:02
Marie's case and takes over even though it's outside of his jurisdiction. Cuz if
00:29:06
he wants to get Lenny, he has a much better chance of nailing him for Marie's homicide. Mostly because Jones' case
00:29:14
isn't a homicide. They still haven't found her. So, he throws himself into that one. And
00:29:20
listen, this isn't a slam dunk by any means. It's mostly circumstantial. Even the car that Candy and Lenny say that
00:29:26
they drove that night is long gone. >> Was it a a blue car by chance? No, it wasn't. [music] And it doesn't even
00:29:33
matter. I highly doubt he even had the same car years later when Joan went missing because over the last like three
00:29:39
or four years, Lenny and Candy reported eight cars and like two boats stolen, damaged, or sunk for basically insurance
00:29:47
claims. So, I don't think it was and the same one blue or not, but it wasn't blue. I know that. Now, one of the
00:29:52
things that Burke finds to help his case is a set of notes from Lenny's parole officer. According to the notes, on
00:30:00
August 13th, 1979, at around noon, this would have been a few hours after Marie's body was ID'd. Lenny told his
00:30:09
parole officer that he was worried about police questioning him about her. Which
00:30:14
is like not something I worry about when body turns up. >> Same. But, I mean, I might be if I was
00:30:21
the one last seen with her or seen with her the day before. I mean, it's not like it's some random person. He had a
00:30:26
connection to her. So, I don't know. Of everything that Burke's got against Lenny, this is kind of like the least
00:30:32
concerning to me. Now, there is one problem standing in the way of bringing charges against Lenny.
00:30:38
And that is David. Which is Marie's boyfriend. Yeah. A good defense attorney would offer up
00:30:46
the boyfriend. Right? Like remember, he was an early suspect. They were fighting
00:30:50
that night. He still hadn't been ruled out. And actually, there was a lot of suspicious stuff around him, too.
00:30:57
According to police reports, David and Marie argued the day that she's last seen alive. [music] Apparently, she was
00:31:02
seeing someone else, so there was motive there, too. And he had been abusive to her. He'd even strangled her just a few
00:31:10
months earlier. And it left her so scared that she moved out of his place [music] and stayed with a friend. Not to
00:31:16
mention, the morning after that wedding they were at together, David called Marie's family saying that she didn't
00:31:22
come home and asking if she was with them. And that even struck them as odd because he didn't usually check in like
00:31:28
that. Ultimately, ADA Burke decides to put this all to a grand jury. And he does this in March of 1982. He's going
00:31:36
to present what they have in Marie's case and let them decide whether to bring charges against David or Lenny.
00:31:44
And in his opinion, David was a sympathetic witness. He answers [music] every question. He owns up to what he
00:31:49
did. And he claims that he cried for Marie when he was alone. And most importantly, according to Burke, David
00:31:56
didn't have any connection to where Marie's body was found. [music] But Lenny did. Again, he sold fish to that
00:32:02
lobster company. And I guess [music] the grand jury agrees because they chose to
00:32:07
indict Lenny. And on July 6th, [music] 1982, he's arrested for Marie's murder and remains locked away until his trial
00:32:15
is set to begin. [music] And that time between arrest and trial proves to be invaluable [music] for ADA Burke because
00:32:23
an inmate named Robert Bond comes forward in early '83. And he tells Burke that Lenny had been doing some talking
00:32:31
in jail. Bond said he got close to Lenny when he was moved into the same jail cell as him. And they'd actually serve
00:32:37
time together at the same prison before. And they got so close that Bond claims Lenny confessed not to just one murder,
00:32:46
but two. Both Marie's and Jones. In a letter to Burke, Bond writes that Lenny told him that he drove back to the
00:32:55
bar Marie was at without Candy and convinced Marie to get in Candy's car by telling her he needed to pick Candy up.
00:33:03
But instead, he drives her to the marshes, sexually assaults her, and he says that during a struggle Marie
00:33:09
scratched Lenny. And so he made this like specific comment that he didn't want investigators scraping under her
00:33:13
fingernails for skin cells. Now, as for Joan, Bond claims that Lenny told him that on the night Joan disappeared, he
00:33:21
was doing his unofficial cab thing, picked her up at Logan Airport after she got off her flight. And Bond says that
00:33:26
Lenny claimed he told Joan he needed to stop by his office to like pick up some papers [music] or something and that
00:33:32
after that he'd take her to Cambridge. But he didn't. He drove Joan to this pier where he kept his boat, the
00:33:39
Malafemmina, which means evil woman in [music] Italian. And Bond says Lenny took Joan onto the boat, offered her
00:33:45
drink, and when she said no and rejected him, he hits her in the head. Specifically on the right side of the
00:33:51
head with a whiskey bottle and sexually assaulted her. And that is when he took the boat way out and dumped her body in
00:34:00
the water. So, he tells investigators that Lenny claimed there was a lot of blood on the boat after this. And so two
00:34:08
days later, he took the boat out again and just sank it. Bond says that Lenny showed him pictures of the boat on his
00:34:14
like wall that they had. And he said there were two. There's a smaller one and there's a larger one. And the larger
00:34:20
one is the one that he sank. He even describes the registration numbers. And this all feels like ultra specific and
00:34:28
provable if it's true. Yeah. And around this time, another inmate comes forward and backs up Bond's statements. He
00:34:35
claims that Lenny confessed to him, too. So, if investigators can find this sunken boat, they might have a real
00:34:41
case. So, in the summer of '83, Jones' parents announce this reward for any tips that will lead to its location, and
00:34:48
investigators are searching the harbor. They're bringing in divers, and it takes
00:34:52
till September 27th, but that's when they find the Malafemmina. They raise it from its watery grave, but there's no
00:35:00
evidence [music] found. Now, I don't think this makes anyone believe the story isn't true. I mean, like, the
00:35:06
thing's been underwater for almost a year at this point. Like, I don't know that you would still see a bloody crime
00:35:11
scene. So, unfortunately, without anything to strengthen Jones' case, Burke has to like just focus on getting
00:35:17
justice for Marie. And Lenny's trial for her murder begins on July 9th, 1984. By
00:35:23
then, Burke had secured another inmate who says that Lenny confessed to them. And even though he doesn't have any
00:35:29
physical evidence, he argues that the similarities and consistencies [music] between the two informants' statements,
00:35:36
the two people who said that he confessed to them, he says like because they're so similar, it it makes them
00:35:40
more credible. So, did they end up not doing anything with the vaginal smear from her case? So, on the stand, the
00:35:48
lead detective says that the slide wasn't refrigerated. And when the bodysuit was tested, there was no like
00:35:54
seminal residue on that. So, that was all [music] a bust. Wait, did they ever test her fingernails then? Cuz isn't
00:36:00
that what Lenny told Bond he didn't want them to do? No, they didn't, which for me would have been like the first thing.
00:36:07
They'd go straight to the fingernails. Yeah, but for some reason, they didn't. I don't know if they just like thought
00:36:11
they didn't need it or what, but they don't test that. [music] And maybe they were right, because on
00:36:16
July 21st, the jury comes back with a verdict, and Lenny is found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of
00:36:24
Marie Iannuzzi. He's also convicted of assault with intent to rape and sentenced to life in prison. And for
00:36:31
Marie's family, there is relief, but it is complicated because while there's a conviction, they can't help walking away
00:36:38
feeling a little used [music] because the way it all played out, they never really felt like it was about Marie.
00:36:45
They always felt like Marie's case was just a way to get Joan justice. >> stepping stone. It wasn't justice for
00:36:52
Marie, it was justice to find Joan justice. Like they they they they could use this to put this guy away while they
00:36:58
look for the smoking gun in the case that like really mattered to them all along. Now, ADA Burke told us that
00:37:03
Marie's trial focused on her case and he avoided bringing Joan's case into that trial beyond like the cross-examinations
00:37:10
involving Lenny's girlfriend or whatever, but >> But still, that's how Marie's sister
00:37:14
feels. And that's like a pretty yucky feeling to walk away with. >> It is, right? And I don't know if it's
00:37:19
the trial she's just talking about or even the fact of like how the like the fact that the case got taken on it all,
00:37:23
but I agree like that was their experience walking away and that's a terrible feeling [music] and
00:37:28
complicated. Like would her sister do anything differently? No, probably not because Marie had long been forgotten
00:37:34
like altogether before this, but it still sucks. And at the end of this, it's not really like they got Joan total
00:37:41
justice because Joan's family is kind of in limbo and no amount of media coverage
00:37:46
or attention from the prosecutor's office is changing things. They're basically told that until we have a
00:37:51
body, we have nothing. So, that is the thing they have to hope for now, but everyone knows that chances are slim. I
00:37:59
mean, per the confession, Joan is like out at sea somewhere and the reality is they may never be able to properly lay
00:38:06
her to rest. And I don't know if that reality gets harder or easier to accept as time goes on, but I imagine either
00:38:14
way their world gets flipped upside down when Joan is found in April of 1990 and
00:38:22
not in deep waters or washed up ashore. Where she's found calls into question the entire confession that their theory
00:38:33
has hinged on for the last eight years. Joan's remains end up being found by a woman walking her dog in Hamilton,
00:38:45
Massachusetts. [music] Now, she initially spotted what she thought was this deflated volleyball in a drainage
00:38:51
ditch, but it was a human skull. And after an extensive search by police, they end up locating more bones and a
00:39:00
shallow grave buried beneath a pile of logs. Dental records are what confirmed that it is Joan that they found. [music]
00:39:07
And it's so weird because there were at least two layers of logs and debris that
00:39:12
were laid on top of her body at two different times. >> Which means someone's been like coming
00:39:18
back and checking on things. Making sure that she stayed hidden. Now, the glaringly obvious thing here is that
00:39:26
Joan, in fact, had not been dumped in the ocean off a boat like Robert Bond said Lenny confessed to. But, I will say
00:39:35
there is a large fracture on the right side of her skull. Which does match what Bond said.
00:39:42
>> Right. Was that a lucky guess? Was Bond lying? Did Lenny lie to Bond? I don't
00:39:48
know. What I think is so interesting is [music] the area where she's found and what that could tell us.
00:39:55
Hamilton is about an hour northeast of Logan Airport. The marsh area where her purse and wallet were found is like in
00:40:02
that general direction. >> Oh. So, it could make sense that someone dumped those things as they were driving
00:40:08
to Hamilton. And someone, Lenny or otherwise, clearly had this Hamilton, this like specific place in mind because
00:40:15
where she was found was this quiet rural road that winds through the woods. I mean there were houses, but it's like
00:40:23
the kind of road that locals use because they live there or because someone knows
00:40:27
it well enough to feel okay stopping there without being seen. Like enough time >> this. You have to go out of your way to
00:40:33
find it. >> cuz you cuz you also know that you can have time to like dig a shallow grave,
00:40:37
right? Come back and like and nobody's going to spot you. Like you're not going to be seen.
00:40:41
But here's what's really odd. We found [music] out that there was a massive fire in the area around the marshes that
00:40:50
caused roadblocks and evacuations on the night that Joan went missing. So like [music] even getting to that place would
00:40:56
not have been an easy path. I mean it clearly didn't stop someone though. No, but I think my question is like
00:41:03
was that someone really Lenny? The location of Joan's body doesn't seem to change much for investigators though.
00:41:09
Like or for 88 Burke. I mean it changes his plan probably. Like he can't take this to trial because the only thing he
00:41:17
had to go on were the stories from these jailhouse informants. >> Which don't match.
00:41:21
>> No, but like oh well. In his mind the case is already closed. Now they've at least found her. I mean truthfully
00:41:28
people probably could have seen this coming because he seemed to be disregarding anything he considered bad
00:41:33
facts along the line. Bad facts being those things that didn't fit his like Lenny did it theory. I mean at one point
00:41:40
it's realized that the night Joan went missing was super stormy by like the harbor. Like there's no way anyone could
00:41:46
have gone out on a boat that night. [music] And Burke had to even publicly admit that. Also, plot twist, Lenny
00:41:54
didn't even have his boat when Joan went missing. What do you mean he didn't have his
00:41:59
boat? >> And this is what I'm saying like before So they were like disregarding the stuff
00:42:02
before Joan's even found. He told investigators this early on. He said that the rudder was broken and it had
00:42:08
sank. He even filed an an claim like he was known to do for it. And court records for a federal bankruptcy trial
00:42:15
show that the judge in the case believed that the boat was sunk by August of 1981. This is months before Joan went
00:42:22
missing. But like was it actually though? Because insurance claims on cars and boats and things like that was kind
00:42:28
of his his racket with Candy, right? >> Yeah, but when they recovered his boat like it it the story lined up. The
00:42:34
rudder was broken just like he said and it was found right where he said it would be. And either way we know nothing
00:42:41
is actually found on the boat. Like it's [music] >> No. Like finding the boat is like okay
00:42:44
cool. >> It doesn't even matter because now everyone agrees that he didn't kill her
00:42:48
on the boat. So they say like oh so sorry we got that part wrong, but everything else is still right. Okay,
00:42:54
what is everything else though? No one can really say for sure, but Burt continues to publicly insist that Lenny
00:43:02
is responsible for Joan's murder even though he's never been charged. Honestly, this insistence might help
00:43:08
explain why the suspect sketch in Joan's case never became more publicly tied to
00:43:14
the case. I mean it doesn't explain to me like the first month or so. >> Wait like like the initials like
00:43:19
searches and interviews and stuff. >> after they lock in on Lenny it feels like they just like write this guy off
00:43:25
completely because it like it doesn't look like Lenny, right? Sketch is a white guy curly hair, beard, 5'7", he
00:43:31
was in his 40s. Lenny is 6'2", he's heavy set, didn't have curly hair, didn't wear glasses. Like dude's a hard
00:43:39
guy to miss. He could have been the other cab driver though. Maybe, but even that gets a little murky when you dig
00:43:45
in. So the tipster who called and had that bad experience with Lenny told us that she heard word on the street was
00:43:51
that he was driving that unlicensed cab, right? We couldn't find any evidence of
00:43:56
that. When he picked up the hitchhiker that he assaulted, he didn't introduce himself as a cab driver. And in Bond's
00:44:02
statements, he never claims that Lenny drove a cab either. Wait, then what's the story of how he got Joan in his car?
00:44:08
>> Just that Lenny picked her up at the airport. But like he doesn't specifically say like he was driving a
00:44:13
cab or pretended to be a cab driver or whatever. As far as I can tell, he didn't really give other specifics
00:44:17
around that. And like it is a big question for me, too. Like well, how would Lenny get her in the car? But I
00:44:22
don't think anyone was pressing him for those details. So, I don't [laughter] know. Okay, so say Lenny was doing this
00:44:29
like unmarked cab thing. >> Mhm. There's something that I just I cannot make sense of. Her luggage. Like
00:44:35
if he's pretending to be a cab driver, I don't think he convinces her to Check her luggage or like gets out and
00:44:42
does it and leaves her in the car. Like instant red flag. >> It would have been. And like here's I
00:44:47
mean we know whoever checked it didn't do it right away, right? Like it happened the next day at 10:30 a.m. So,
00:44:54
theoretically, like one scenario could be like someone picks up Joan, they kill her either in Hamilton or then they take
00:45:00
her thereafter. And whether she's already buried or not, her luggage is driven back. Like back south to downtown
00:45:07
Boston and then left at the station. Or Joan is still alive at 10:30 and she did
00:45:12
it for some unknown inexplicable reason. And if that's the case, then she's not with Lenny. Like she had zero ties to
00:45:19
this man. He would have been a stranger to her. So, I I really believe someone else did it. And the more I think about
00:45:26
[music] it, I keep coming back to I think whoever did it wanted it to be found, but maybe not to play with
00:45:32
people. Maybe they wanted it to look like Joan was got like caught a bus somewhere.
00:45:37
Like think about it. Like earlier I said that her wallet could have easily been tossed on the way to Hamilton. But what
00:45:43
if it was on the way back? Say Joan's killed in Hamilton, just like ditch her stuff, right? Why drive all the way
00:45:49
back? And if you're going to, why not put all her stuff together? They separate the purse and the wallet from
00:45:55
the luggage because that kind of makes it look like she took those things with her. And why would you need to make it
00:46:03
look like she took off if you have zero ties to her? If you knew her. Especially if you were
00:46:10
last seen with her. Wait, didn't you say they got fingerprints from her suitcase?
00:46:15
Like do we know whose those are? Oh, so here's another thing. Those are not Lenny's. They tested him against those
00:46:21
right away in 1982. Not a match. I don't know if they've ever been entered into a
00:46:27
modern database. We would have loved to ask but the Essex County District Attorney's office didn't respond [music]
00:46:33
to our requests for comment. But I know they tested them against at least one other person over the years. But whoever
00:46:39
that was, that wasn't a match either. I mean, I say start there, right? Like it it seems like it could be pretty
00:46:46
freaking important. Could be. I mean like at the same time it also came from an airport where it's being handled by
00:46:52
other people. A stranger could have touched it thinking it was their bag. Like it might not be the thing.
00:46:58
>> even like someone put it in the locker but then someone had to take it out of
00:47:01
the locker, put [snorts] it into storage and they were sorting it in like in storage to put into further storage.
00:47:05
>> where I'm like, I pray to God they like checked the people who worked at the Greyhound bus or whatever. But like I
00:47:10
don't know. Like yes, it might not be connected but like that sure feels like something
00:47:14
>> Yeah, it feels like something you want to like know or rule out. Did they get
00:47:17
anything usable when they found her remains? Like was there anything other than her remains with her?
00:47:23
>> By that point, it had been so long. I don't think they got much. I mean, I know there were like a few hairs found
00:47:29
at the scene but like I mean, those may have been Jones. We couldn't confirm if those have ever even been tested. I
00:47:36
mean, it was 1990 when she was found and they had a suspect. >> So they didn't compare the hair to Lenny
00:47:42
even? Oh, no, they did that. It wasn't his. That's why like >> That's where the answer is like who
00:47:47
knows? Probably Jones. >> Yeah. So It's like giving tunnel vision for me. Like I assume no one's racing to exhume
00:47:55
her to see if there is anything else they could use. There is not even an option to do that because after Joan's
00:48:01
body was found, her family quietly and quickly cremated her. Which actually, technically, is illegal. I was actually
00:48:09
about to say that. Like, cuz the case is open. >> Yeah, it's technically still open. And
00:48:12
according to Massachusetts law, you can't cremate a body that's part of an open investigation. And I listen, I
00:48:17
don't say that to insinuate anything shady. They had been grieving her loss for a very long time. Like, they
00:48:23
probably didn't even know that. But, it seems like something the investigator who was working her case should have
00:48:28
known. But, I think they were so set on their theory that like when they're like, "We're going to have her cremate."
00:48:33
Nobody stopped them. Does Joan's family believe that it was Lenny? Well, we couldn't talk to any of her immediate
00:48:38
family. So, her parents have passed and we reached out to her siblings, but they
00:48:43
haven't gotten back to us. But, we did talk to Joan's former sister-in-law, Eve. So, she was married to Joan's
00:48:49
brother back in 1981 when Joan went missing and they were still married when she was found in 1990. According to her,
00:48:57
Joan's parents and brother kept telling the same story. Lenny killed [music] Joan. But, that's a story that she never
00:49:04
really believed. I mean, so much so it's part of what caused a rift with her and
00:49:08
her husband. And they've since [music] divorced and she's like made it her life's mission to get people asking
00:49:14
questions about Joan's case again. And she's been doing her own investigation. Even hired a PI to help her pull records
00:49:21
and interview witnesses and review trial transcripts. And she sees a lot of the tunnel vision I think that we do. And
00:49:29
she validates the way that Marie's family feels. That her case was a lot about Joan. Like, apparently, they even
00:49:35
did a search of Candy's place. [music] Again, Candy's related to Marie's case, but the items that investigators hoped
00:49:41
to find were ones tied to Joan. So, what's Eve's stance on Marie's case? Does she think Lenny did one but not the
00:49:49
other or >> Well, she feels like both investigations left loose ends, albeit a lot more in
00:49:55
Jones. But even in Marie's case, she still has questions, mostly about David, the boyfriend. And I wish I could tell
00:50:02
you a lot about the conversations police had with him. I should be able to because they did over 20 interviews with
00:50:09
the guy. >> Oh. But when the lead detective took the stand in Lenny's trial, he admitted that
00:50:14
he didn't take any reports on any of those 20 interviews. What? But I bet they were illuminating because he was
00:50:25
just acting straight-up odd after her murder. Like on Monday morning, shortly after Marie's body was
00:50:33
identified, family members went to David's house to pick up a dress for the wake. And according to court documents,
00:50:39
they found Marie's belongings all packed up, and what they believed was blood on
00:50:44
the stairs. Now, ADA Burke told us that he doesn't believe that David's home was
00:50:48
processed at the start, but he says once he learned about the staircase that he had a lead detective inspect it, and
00:50:54
they determined that it was paint, not blood. But Marie's family also testified in front of the grand jury that they
00:51:00
noticed scratches on David's hands. And the explanation for the scratches kept changing over time. Like first, he said
00:51:07
it was a cat, and then it was like work, and then it was a car accident, then a bar fight. And we're not talking like
00:51:12
small marks. These were like deep gouges, and Marie had long fingernails. Now, as far as we know, just like Jones'
00:51:21
family, Marie's family believes that Lenny was her killer. Still, one family member remembered something else that
00:51:28
stuck out with them. On the drive to Marie's wake, David asked if he should start dating again. What timing. And
00:51:36
when he got there, Marie's family member claimed that David threw a joint into Marie's coffin, which like just felt out
00:51:43
of place to them. Now, David said in his grand jury testimony that he struggled with substance use, though. So, that
00:51:50
might explain some of this behavior, but it doesn't make it any easier to understand for Marie's family. And then,
00:51:57
there's what happened just before Marie's funeral. David never showed up to the funeral because he had flown to
00:52:04
New Jersey under Marie's stepbrother's name, and he ended up getting arrested in Newark Airport for stealing luggage.
00:52:12
What? It's weird, right? Like yes, but I don't even know what to like make of it.
00:52:20
>> Like what does it even I don't know. It only stands out in my mind because of
00:52:24
Joan's case. But, if you divorce the two, like what the hell was he doing? Yeah, like I'm
00:52:31
trying to even come up with something that makes sense if you don't divorce the two. Like it still doesn't really
00:52:36
work for No. Joan's case. >> No, it doesn't really make sense. >> And if he didn't have any connection to
00:52:41
Joan, the only thing tying them together was Lenny. Well, so here's the thing. So, he didn't know Joan personally, but
00:52:48
guess what a local newspaper reported. David worked as a shuttle bus driver at Logan Airport. So, he has a connection
00:52:57
to the airport. Yeah, a loose connection. But, to me, about as loose as the idea that Lenny just like swung
00:53:04
by the airport and picked Joan up. >> Right. Does he look like the sketch? So, not to me. That's a good point. So, he's
00:53:10
in his 20s at the time. Which is younger than like >> Yeah, the 40-year-old guy they saw her
00:53:15
with. And listen, I know that they looked at David for Joan's case at least a little bit, but investigators say that
00:53:21
he was ruled out. They just don't say how he was ruled out. And I need to say David did have an alibi for Marie's
00:53:27
murder. He lived with his mom, who told police that he came home from the reception without Marie around 4:30 p.m.
00:53:35
He went out briefly that evening, was back by 9:00. The issue all these years later is we spoke with wedding guests
00:53:43
who remembered David returning to the party later that night. And no one ever placed David inside the bar where Marie
00:53:50
was last seen, but his house was only a few blocks away. You know, if you were just going to like walk over and be
00:53:57
right back in 30 minutes? Totally doable. Could have been who she called from the
00:54:02
bar to see if she he was home. >> Would have been nice to know, but those records were never pulled or not in the
00:54:08
files that we have today. But I didn't see anywhere where David admits to getting a call from Marie. He said that
00:54:15
he didn't think he was going to see her that night at all because Marie told him
00:54:18
that she was going to go like stay at her parents. But apparently she told her parents that she was going to stay at
00:54:23
David's. But at the end of the day, she's still last seen leaving with Lenny, who was already a bad dude before
00:54:30
this. For sure. Her friend last saw her leaving with Lenny. But apparently one of the bar owners told police that he
00:54:37
remembered Marie being there like near closing time at around 1:45 in the morning. Then another person we spoke to
00:54:44
who was at the bar that night remembered that last call was around 1:25 and Marie
00:54:49
was still there. And he doesn't remember seeing Lenny at that time. And if Lenny
00:54:54
and Candy were telling the truth, that might make sense. So, if she maybe came back after leaving
00:55:02
with him, then really all investigators have is jailhouse confessions and the fact that Lenny knew the Marsha's. And
00:55:10
like jailhouse confessions by the way, that like don't always add up. Yeah, and by the way, turns out you could say the
00:55:16
same thing about David. One man told police and later testified that David confessed to killing Marie at some party
00:55:25
in 1981, saying that Marie was seeing someone else and he, quote, did what he had to do. And that same witness also
00:55:33
claimed that David tried to kill him twice after he went to police. And it turns out that those marshes where she's
00:55:39
found is near a trash dump site, like this local landfill. And David worked in garbage collection at the time. ADA
00:55:49
Burke told us that he asked the lead detective to follow up on the allegation that David confessed, and [music] that
00:55:56
witness was determined not to be credible. But I have real concerns when I look at
00:56:03
the documents in Lenny's case. Because after his conviction, there are a series of sworn affidavits submitted alleging
00:56:12
that witnesses who testified in front of the grand jury were pressured to change
00:56:17
or soften their testimony about David before the trial and even threatened with arrest or losing custody of their
00:56:24
children. So like this idea of like, oh, I put both of them in front of the grand
00:56:28
jury and the grand jury is who chose Lenny. Was it? >> Based on the testimony of
00:56:33
coerced people. >> Yeah, and listen, Lenny's defense lawyer told us that he could imagine pressuring
00:56:39
or at least like them changing witnesses' minds. Like telling them that like >> want to do the right thing?
00:56:45
>> don't you want to get like a bad guy off the streets? ADA Burke told us that the
00:56:49
safeguard against witness intimidation at the time was the court. He said that any witness who felt pressured could
00:56:55
just like bring it to a judge. >> Oh, okay. But I ask, could they really? Like I get it, on paper, yes, but in
00:57:02
practice? >> Yeah. Cuz according to an investigation by the New England Center for
00:57:06
Investigative Reporting, in the years surrounding Lenny's prosecution, Massachusetts prosecutors were
00:57:12
repeatedly found by the state's appellate and supreme court to have violated defendants' rights to a fair
00:57:19
trial. Judges overturned at least 120 convictions since the mid-1980s in part or entirely because of prosecutorial
00:57:29
misconduct. Things like withholding evidence, >> [music] >> failing to disclose information that
00:57:34
could undermine witness credibility, or misrepresenting evidence to juries, which makes you call into question even
00:57:42
those supposed confessions. Those [music] two informants may have had something to gain. Like when it comes to
00:57:48
Robert Bond, in one sworn statement, another inmate says that he personally saw Bond with Lenny's court papers,
00:57:56
copying information into a yellow legal pads. And then after that, the inmate says that Bond started talking openly
00:58:02
about how police were trying to tie Lenny to the Marie Iannuzzi murder and Joan Webster's disappearance. And that
00:58:09
he planned to write the district attorney claiming that Lenny confessed. He says that Bond talked about money,
00:58:14
talked about legal help, and getting his own case overturned, and even asked this
00:58:19
guy to like go along with the story, but the inmate said no. And then there's a whole another story from a different
00:58:25
inmate that's like very similar to that one. The other guy who snitched on Lenny
00:58:29
had an even fishier story. Like I won't bog you down with all the details, but basically the inmate helped a lawyer
00:58:36
with some like legal work, and the lawyer that he worked for represented Lenny. And court records and that
00:58:42
inmate's sworn affidavit show that after he cooperated with prosecutors, including testifying against Lenny, he
00:58:49
was allowed to plead to a lesser charge in his own murder case, and he was released after about 14 years, even
00:58:57
though he originally faced a life sentence. None of that context was shared with the jury at Lenny's trial.
00:59:04
So, does Lenny have a lawyer fighting all of this? He did for many years, but it didn't get anywhere. And in 2008,
00:59:14
Lenny died in a prison hospital, maintaining his innocence. You know, he had a daughter, and she told us that she
00:59:23
knows her dad hurt women. Like that's not like up for discussion. She doesn't excuse that. But what she does push back
00:59:30
on is the idea that he committed these murders. And she says that once police zeroed in on her dad, their minds were
00:59:38
made up. In the months after Lenny's arrest, she told us that she was followed and questioned by undercover
00:59:44
officers. She was approached at Logan Airport and then later at her workplace. And they were pressing her to say that
00:59:51
she knew something about her dad. And she said it got so overwhelming she left the state for more than a year
00:59:57
just to like get away from [music] it. But it seems to her like it is just her and Eve who believe that Lenny didn't
01:00:03
get a fair shake. To them, the rest of the world seems satisfied that the right man was put behind bars.
01:00:10
ADA Burke actually published a book expanding [music] on the case that he won at trial. And in it, he claims that
01:00:19
Lenny wasn't just responsible for Marie and Jones' murders. He suggests that Lenny was a serial killer who committed
01:00:26
more murders than he was [music] ever charged with. And listen, in a courtroom, a prosecutor is bound by
01:00:32
rules. Like there's the standard of proof. Outside of court, those standards don't really exist the same way,
01:00:40
especially when you're talking about a convicted murderer. About 20 years earlier, Lenny tried to sue Burke for
01:00:46
libel in connection with an article he published calling him a suspect in Jones' murder. But Lenny lost. Not
01:00:52
because the claims were proven true, but because the court ruled that Lenny didn't have any reputation left to
01:00:59
protect. Now listen, I don't know if Lenny was innocent, but I do see real problems with his trial
01:01:07
and the investigation, especially the investigation into Jones' case, which got no trial.
01:01:13
>> So, if not Lenny, then who? I don't have an answer to that. I can tell you where
01:01:19
I would start looking if like I had the badge, though. First of all, I'm not convinced these cases are connected. So,
01:01:25
first things first, I would treat them as two distinctly separate cases. In Marie's case, I would want to know a lot
01:01:33
more about David. I would want to know if Marie really was seeing someone else. I would want to know who did she call
01:01:40
from the bar that night? For Joan's case, I would be looking close to Harvard. Someone she knew. That area
01:01:48
where her body was found, where someone visited to make sure that her remains would stay buried. Like you had to know
01:01:55
it. And guess what we found out? The area where Joan was found was actually close to Harvard-owned property. And the
01:02:06
woman who found Joan's skull was married to a man [music] who had connections to Cambridge. I'm
01:02:14
sorry. That seems super relevant here. Yeah. Now, according to Eve, that guy was cleared. But like
01:02:22
knowing how hard they focused on Lenny, I'm like, you know, let me just like >> mean?
01:02:27
>> Yeah. Let me just see who this guy is and if he's done anything wild or committed any crimes in the last 50
01:02:32
years, you know? This is like I usually do this in a lot of our cases. I'm like I just like do background checks on like
01:02:37
the people involved. >> yeah. You'll get surprised. So like I was fully ready to go down a rabbit hole
01:02:44
on this one. >> are. But this is where it got stranger for me. So the man who lived near the property
01:02:51
owned by Harvard was this guy named Dr. Jonah Turken. He was a social sciences professor at a college in Maryland in
01:02:59
the 70s, even ran for mayor of the college town at some point before he resigned without really any statement or
01:03:05
explanation in 1974. By the time Joan was at Harvard in 1981, he was working there as an administrator, not in Joan's
01:03:14
school and no connection between them as far as we know. But this is what's so weird. There is like
01:03:22
nothing on this guy online. I mean, not nothing. Like I found a book written by him that
01:03:28
only existed on eBay. So like I bought it. It just came in. I haven't even got to read it yet. We'll report back. And
01:03:34
there were like a couple of old newspaper articles about his early career. Like a few blips in 1978, maybe
01:03:41
one thing I found in '86, like some property sale if it's the same guy in Florida. But then this dude just does
01:03:49
not exist. And I'm not just talking about on Google. When we searched databases, this guy
01:03:56
does not come up, which I hardly ever see. Now, maybe he went off the grid, he and his wife, cuz by the way, I
01:04:05
couldn't find anything for her, either. And I think this is extra weird because like there were in in the few articles
01:04:10
I've seen about him, it talks about how he has like all these academic accolades, these multiple degrees, that
01:04:15
he was, you know, wrote that book, he was like publishing a paper that people were talking about. And then just like
01:04:20
poo, nothing. And so I like I had this weird, probably wrong idea. But listen, call me crazy, but it's 2026
01:04:31
in a world where we still aren't getting everything in the Epstein files, and there have been zero arrests, and I
01:04:37
trust the government about zero percent. Here are the things I know, and the things that I find strange
01:04:43
when you put them all in one pile. Yes, yeah. Jones family had confirmed ties to
01:04:49
the CIA. Mhm. It is pretty well documented that during the Cold War and into the 1970s and
01:04:55
'80s, the CIA recruited on college campuses through academic departments, through research programs, and
01:05:03
administrative roles. And to me, it's like when you dig into this case, Jones case, you keep just
01:05:09
like running up against dead ends, just like missing records, unanswered questions, and entire chapters of
01:05:16
people's lives that just stop. Like Jonas. And that kind of murkiness makes it harder, not easier,
01:05:26
to ever be certain about what really happened. Now, even though he was in his late 30s when Joan
01:05:34
went missing, I don't know that Jonas looked much like our sketch. Based on at least like the two pictures I could find
01:05:41
of this guy online, which notably are from years before. >> Not from like around the time
01:05:47
>> Yeah. Joan was murdered. Yeah. And again, to be extra clear, police later told a private investigator that Eve
01:05:55
hired that this guy was ruled out as a suspect in Joan's case. But like Jonas, Jonas' family, if you are out there,
01:06:03
like send me a smoke signal. Like let me know you're real. Let me know you're alive. I would love to talk to you about
01:06:10
who else was on that like property, knew that property by where you lived. Like who would come and go? I have all of the
01:06:18
questions. So, Joan Webster's murder is still unsolved and open. Marie Iannuzzi's case
01:06:25
is considered closed. And the man convicted of her murder has passed away. Is that the truth of what happened to
01:06:31
her? Maybe. But I don't know because of how both cases were handled. Joan and Marie both deserve investigations based
01:06:38
on evidence, not assumptions. So, my question isn't just who killed Joan and Marie, it's why didn't anyone want the
01:06:46
truth? But I think someone out there knows what happened. Maybe the man who drove that blue taxi that Joan got into.
01:06:53
Or maybe it was someone who was at the bar the night Marie was last seen alive. Just because this episode ends, doesn't
01:06:59
mean we stop. We never stop. Like you know that. So, if there's anyone out there who might
01:07:05
have any bit of information to share about the cases of Joan Webster or Marie Iannuzzi, email us [email protected].
01:07:13
[music] You can find all the source material for this episode on our website crimejunkie.com.
01:07:19
And you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. [music] And we'll be back next week with a brand
01:07:23
new episode.