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[Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who 30 years later would still like to know what's the
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frequency Kenneth here is the captain I thought at one point I knew but I I now know I have no clue it's good to be seen
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and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for Tom [Music] friend I just fact checked it captain
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and nobody knows still nobody knows all right cheers to the great folks over at Highland Brewing for producing some of
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the very best beers available today we are sipping Wishing Star cold IPA from Highland Wishing Star features four
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varieties of hops Apollo Centennial Strat and mosaic hops this cold IPA is clean and crisp with a bright hoppy
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flavor that you're going to love garage grade four and a half bottle caps out of
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five and here's some cheers to our friends near and far that helped us out with this week's show first up a shout
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out to Adrien from monan Michigan and a big we like your jibs to Morgan and Opie
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and Portland Oregon next up here's a cheers to Rebecca Ruth from toson Maine and last but certainly not least we have
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a shout out to a great dude Larry Collins who made a beer fund donation in honor of Tim Watkins Tim was killed in
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Colorado 7 years ago by some unknown Park Predator we covered his case on True Crime garage and I talked about it
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in my book the deli murders as well that case is still unsolved so we pour a little out for Tim and thank you to
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everyone who contributed to the Beer fund yeah B are you in beer Ron if you need more True Crime for your
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earballs you can go over to YouTube cuz I've been releasing old episodes of off the Record and they're fun to listen to
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Colonel that's enough of the Beers N all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
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crime the investigation into Susan reinhard's murder was unraveling for detectives
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they weren't having much luck here Captain they talked to the ex-husband interviewed him interviewed everybody
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that they could find that would be willing to tell them anything we talked a little bit about a potential
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relationship remember there were some people that said no Susan was not in a relationship that I was aware of others
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saying she was very deep into to a relationship and that was with a one bill Bradfield the two were teachers together
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at the high school we also mentioned a principal now we we should be clear here the principal that we mentioned
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yesterday Dr J Smith he was a principal at that school for 12 years but he was not a principal at the time of The
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Disappearance of the kids in Susan's murder in fact he had left the school about a year prior he got into some
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trouble his life really went off of the Rails about a year or two before he lost
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his job as a principal part of that likely had to do with the death of his wife who was suffering for several years
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with a very tough bout of leukemia the way that it's described is horrific and what he and she went through through
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during from the time of diagnosis to the time that she passed sounds incredibly tragic and stressful and horrible to
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have to deal with the the heartache with him had to be palpable but we'll get into Dr J Smith here in a bit what we
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need to focus on right now though is this bill Bradfield he is as complicated of an individual as they
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come he was a man who had been married twice before he had been a bachelor for quite
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some time and he's in this relationship yeah he's in this relationship with suzan many people that
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they talked to that were aware of this relationship said that they were going to be getting married and there was
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further detail on that some people were even telling police well they were going
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to get married and they were going to move to Europe at some point or move to England the other version that they're
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getting is Bill Bradfield who's saying yeah we were kind of seeing each other not really I was more of a friend
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there were some people that backed up those statements by saying well Susan thought it was one thing and it wasn't
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it you know Bill had a whole different opinion of it it wasn't really a relationship but then it's when they
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dive into Susan's Financial records detectives are starting to see some things that they're concerned with so
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unfortunately Susan's mother had passed away about a year or so before Susan was
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murdered she's left with a pretty handsome inheritance from her mother the reports that I've seen are
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$200,000 in real estate and about $30,000 in cash now we're going back to 1978 1979 with these figures
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$25,000 back then would be equal to about $100,000 today yeah it's a lifechanging
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situation she's not going to be able to not work or anything but this is going to give her a huge boost like you said
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not with just the real estate but also the money aspect just the cash alone would be over $100,000 in today's money
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and then the $200,000 in real estate would be about $800,000 in today's money so a a good
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amount of money here and what they are seeing is that for some strange reason shortly
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before her murder she opens up several life insurance policies on herself and she already had at least one
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pre-existing life insurance policy where her kids her two children were to be the
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beneficiaries of that how however she changed the beneficiary to her boyfriend who when she sits down to make this
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change to the life insurance she doesn't describe him as boyfriend William Bradfield she describes him as fiance
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soon to be husband and in fact that those words make it onto the paperwork so she switches one from kids to future
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husband as she put it and then two other life insurance policies that she takes out on herself again beneficiary is Bill
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Bradfield Future Husband I've seen some varying descriptions of how much money this was but some say as little as half
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a million dollars when you total up all of the life insurance policies others saying that was closer to $1 million
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back then again to give a little bit of background here we're talking I mean this is this would be equal to millions
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of dollars today and that doesn't include the inheritance that she had of the $30,000 cash and the real estate
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that she had inherited from her mother well and if you're law enforcement this is fishy right you have people saying
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well they're boyfriend girlfriend some people say NOP bill was her friend Bill's saying hey it wasn't that serious
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well if it wasn't that serious then why is she calling you her fiance on these legal documents and why is she giving
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you or you would be the beneficiary to three insurance policies and you would be the beneficiary to real estate and
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like you said what does that total and today's money it could be up to three4 million and one person that was aware of
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this prior to Susan's death was her brother and her ex-husband so what takes place here in fact they are the reason
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why this ends up on the detectives radar in the first place so the ex-husband and
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brother come forward and they say they file what I believe is called a caveat and what that is is they're
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challenging the insurance companies saying wait a second yeah we know she she's been killed and you're probably
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going to pay this out now keep in mind a lot of these life insurance policies are
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not going to pay out with a pending investigation right it they would pay out once the investigation runs its
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course and everything if everything's on the up and up then it will pay out but prior to that while this investigation
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is ongoing brother and ex-husband come forward and they say wait a second you guys might want to
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not pay this guy because he's one of many suspects I mean as said even the brother and
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ex-husband were at some point on the suspect list because until you're ruled out you're ruled out you're you're still
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a suspect this goes on to police radar now police through this they start figuring out well wait a second leading
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up to her murder now we're going back a couple months before she was killed remember that $30,000 cas Cash She
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inherited well that was in a in savings she was making large withdrawals from that
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$30,000 multiple times leading up to her death and taking out money multiple occasions mainly because of daily limits
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but they figured that it was about $25,000 that she had taken out of savings Jesus they're looking through
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her financials they're looking through her home they're they're going through her life and they're going well there's
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nothing obvious that she spent that money on so where did it go once again bring in Bill
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Bradfield Bill Bradfield was according to him her friend her very close friend that was helping her and he even said
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that she seemed troubled and seemed to make decisions that didn't make any sense he he didn't know why she would
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name him as the beneficiary of these life insurance policies but maybe it was because she was looking at him as some
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kind of financial advisor as he puts it he was telling her and this is going from her brother's statements and other
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people that tell police well we know where the $225,000 went she was giving it to Bill and he was investing it for
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her or at least that's what she told us and of course Bill's telling police I don't know what you're talking about
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$25,000 I've never seen $25,000 this guy seems a little bit like a Scott peeterson well nowadays things are all
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done online but back then when you buy stocks or bonds you would typically get a decorated paper receipt let's call it
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for a lack of better term right a certificate right and so when police go to her home they are finding things that
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are that are certificates of stocks that were purchased or bonds that were purchased
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but what they quickly realize is a lot of these companies that she seemed to own stock
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or thought she owned stock for didn't exist and now they're starting to say well she's telling people that he's
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investing this money for her she must have believed it but we think he's doing something else with this money because
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these stocks are for companies that don't exist so now right he becomes obvious suspect Prime suspect number one
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the problem with him being a suspect though is the time of death and that's why I said earlier Captain I don't love
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when you when you tell me cause of death is this we've narrowed it down to three
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things I'm not so confident when you tell me that you've narrowed down the the time of
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death because it's her time of death that takes him off of the radar that moves him and seems like
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makes it so the likelihood of him being a good suspect is not so likely so he was with
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three other people at a place called Cape May New Jersey and he is there the original reports that police get is he's
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there the entire weekend now to complicate things he lives in the Greater Philadelphia area remember he
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works at the same school as Susan to complicate things with when he comes back from this Cape May New Jersey he
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he's returning home on the same Monday that she is found dead in the hatchback he goes home and then he
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immediately leaves so within a few hours of getting back to his house he's now on
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an airplane heading out to New Mexico all of these travels of his were pre-arranged okay so that's one thing
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that's it doesn't look like he's on the run from anything it's suspicious but it's not highly suspicious because these
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are all pre-arranged travels that he has set up so the the travel to Cape May New
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Jersey he's traveling with three friends these are three people that he worked with that worked at the high school so
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all three of these people know him and they know Susan of course the plane trip out to New Mexico
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is because he is taking a course he's going to be attending classes there that he signed up for remember the these
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people are all teachers and it's now summertime so it's the summer and they have the summer to go work other jobs to
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further their education well that's what he's doing he's on a plane with one of these other teachers out to New Mexico
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to take classes for the summer well this is quite convenient because every time the police want to talk to him about
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Susan's murder he's busy he can't take the phone call it's easy for him to duck them because he's on the other side of
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the country this is what leads police to Bill Bradfield as a possible or very good suspect in this case the problem
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though is once again the timeline if if he is in Cape May the entire weekend with three other people that makes it
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very difficult for him to have committed the murder especially when the coroner is saying that she had only died about
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24 hours or so before being found 27 hours approximately after leaving her home on that Friday night I agree with
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you on the sense of he's not a good suspect if their if their timeline of death is correct exactly
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and what will move what will help to move police off of Bill Bradfield is this they start
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talking to the three people that he's at Cape May with and these people they're all teachers all three of them are
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teachers at the same high school they start telling detectives that oh well we were
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hearing through the grape vine that Dr J Smith was going to murder Susan and who
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are they hearing this from uh well that's that's interesting it's very raising guys well this this
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case is very incestuous so they're hearing some of this and they're saying well okay well who's telling you that or
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where did you hear this well they're hearing it from each other you know again a game of telephone one of them
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said something to somebody and then it's kind of getting regurgitated around and
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around in a circle but what it looks like here Captain is that maybe that rumor started with Bill
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Bradfield that he started saying it and somehow this became regular conversation
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over the course of weeks maybe even months leading up to her murder I don't like this bill guy well and police want
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to know like well what what would be why would Dr J Smith who was her one-time principal her one-time boss why would he
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have any motive at all to kill this person he's she's not worked for him for a year
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approximately well this dude they start looking at him and he's he's already been in trouble with the law quite a bit
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and that's why he lost his job as a principal I'm telling you guys if you don't know this case there's this
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case put on your raincoat yeah put on your raincoat because there's going to be some [ __ ] you cannot make this stuff
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up okay not too much [ __ ] but quite a bit of [ __ ] all right so let's take a look at this Dr J Smith yeah he grew up
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during the Great Depression he enlisted in the US Army he became a colonel a lieutenant colonel in the Army and then
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he transfers we know he's full of [ __ ] the United States Army Reserves okay well remember the comb
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that was found underneath our victim in the hatchback yes well that was part of his
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that that was his unit that was inscribed on the comb that was his unit that he was enlisted for with the Army
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Reserves so most likely his com yes now I let's before we go too far because I know I'll forget to say it later
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Captain they made a whole bunch of these combs at one point we're talking thousand they made thousands of them and
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it was not just to give to the people that that served or that were in that unit but they were also handed out as a
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potential recruiting tool so it stands to reason that he would have that comb in his possession but it also stands the
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reason that maybe dozens if not hundreds or thousands of other people would have
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had a comb like that at one time in their life well it's also possible that maybe he gave them out to his teachers
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when he was a principal this part of it though is interesting because here we have a comb
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that that he would have had in a unit that he served in and he has a direct connection to a Tob to our victim and
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then it also makes you wonder was there some type of relationship between Susan our victim and Dr J Smith
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well and depending on who you talk to there there either was or there wasn't so there are some people that say that
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there was no never any relationship uh when Dr J Smith is asked about it he says I've never met her children I never
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spoke to her once outside of the workplace place I didn't really know her other than she her and I worked at the
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same school there are people out there that say they had a one-time Affair there are other people that
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say he tried he made advances toward her and she rejected him and then there are
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other people that say what he was saying they had no relationship outside of work
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at all again very difficult for detectives to piece through this information when
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you're getting conflicting information from really the same pool of people well it's also tough because look at our
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victim Susan she doesn't seem to be an individual that she's telling every detail of her life to multiple
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people so it's not like we have a bunch of people in her life like you said there's some people going well this this
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relationship with Bill was nothing and other people say it was everything and then you have people in in her life
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saying well there was no relationship with Dr J Smith and some people saying there was a relationship I mean and we
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don't have an individual that we feel like she's giving every detail of her life too well in Dr J
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Smith depending on how you want to cut it it's either good for your investigation or bad luck for him he's
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he's a weird dude there's no way to put it uh so being a weird dude when you fall into a suspect pool is not helpful
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to you if you're innocent if you're an investigator you're looking for the weird dude in the
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suspect pool and this weird dude has a police record this is where I said you can't make this stuff up he this dude is
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a respected Army Reserve Commander like a a ranking officer and he's a principal of good
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upstanding for 12 years at this one school in particular right that's until August of 1978 so this is 13 sorry
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this is a little short of one year before Susan's murder this is when police go and they
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arrest a man so they all right there's this guy wearing a hood and carrying two pistols and he's trying to break into a
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car in a shopping mall parking lot they the police get on the scene and they arrest this dude without
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incident and the guy in the hood with the two pistols turns out to be principal Smith he's in the parking lot of the
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Gateway Shopping Center trying to break into a vehicle now police search his vehicle after they arrest him they find
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four handguns one that is fitted with an homemade silencer they don't know if he purchased
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this thing or if he made the silencer himself and in a suit coat that is in a pocket of a suit coat that's found in
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his car they find a syringe that is loaded with prescription medicine of some sort now this is going to INSP fire the
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police to get a search warrant to search his home when they get to his home they find some things of interest
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they find a a large stash of marijuana and the the thing that's of the greatest interest to them is they
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find security guard uniforms and fake badges okay so the reports are here captain that they found like three
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pounds of marijuana so he think about the charges already that this guy's facing right like this homemade silencer
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is illegal as they come that's a charge the three pounds of marijuana that's drug possession charge and when you have
00:25:10
that quantity that's with the intent to sell too uh or intent to distribute and then he's trying to break into a vehicle
00:25:18
one thing that I've I've searched high and I've searched low my friends for two weeks I've been trying to figure out
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whose vehicle was he trying to break into and why and that information ceased to exist as far as I aware so if
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anybody knows that information that's what we that's one of the things that we want to hear in this case among some
00:25:36
others police are very interested in the security guard uniforms and the fake badges that they find in the basement of
00:25:44
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restrictions apply cement mobile for details all right we are back cheers mates we uh we found that three bags of
00:27:47
marijana so rest of the episode is going to be very interesting we we're going to
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be high on Old Mar confiscated and now we will pursue what is often referred to as a
00:28:01
controlled burn yeah like when you said I've searched High well how how high were you all right cheers let's talk
00:28:11
about these security guard uniforms Captain because this this is one part of the story that I find to be very
00:28:17
intriguing this is a very um point breakish to me okay so this area had experienced some pretty big thefts
00:28:28
recently okay so in August of 77 there was a theft of $53,000 from a Sears department store in
00:28:37
a neighboring community and then there was the theft or attempted theft of $158,000 at another steer sears's
00:28:46
department store and another neighboring Community what they figured out was Dr J
00:28:52
Smith with these security guard uniforms and the fake badges had fash himself a Brinks armed car security
00:29:02
guard uniforms he made these things even giving himself an ID like a lanyard with
00:29:08
an ID identification badge and a and a a silver badge what they believe he was doing is watching these stores these
00:29:18
large box stores and he would figure out the routines and know what day and at approximately what time Brinks was
00:29:25
showing up to collect cash and check from these stores what he would do is he would dress up like the brink security
00:29:32
guard and go into the store shortly before the scheduled pickup it show him identification chat with them and no
00:29:41
one's the wiser and they would fill up the bag and he would walk out the bag and then what would happen is the actual
00:29:46
Brink security guard would show up minutes later and now the manager's wondering well if you're the real guard
00:29:53
who the hell did I just hand thousands of dollars to yeah officer your cash it's actually # don't try this at home
00:30:01
I'm not I'm not saying go out and do this but it's actually a rather brilliant plan when you think about it
00:30:06
okay but and not to diverge from the story completely but when I was reading this to me it almost reminded me a
00:30:15
little bit of Breaking Bad in a sense because we do have this criminal history of J Smith but it doesn't seem like the
00:30:24
criminal history goes back like that far and so I Wonder like you you were saying
00:30:29
his his wife was suffering from leukemia and he was under all this pressure and he's a principal and you just wonder if
00:30:40
he was just one of these guys that was like Hey life didn't work out for me the way I planned and I've been doing good
00:30:47
things I mean he had a lot of um he had accomplishments as far as career and I mean he had a doctorate and um he had a
00:30:58
life in the in the Army Reserve so he was working toward a good retirement and here's the thing I I don't somebody out
00:31:05
there is going to get mad at me I don't want anybody to think that I'm rushing to defend Dr J Smith J
00:31:13
Smith but I was reading something the other night that was absolutely heartbreaking and this is stuff that is
00:31:20
not unknown to others out there but I had never seen the actual number numbers they were talking about so this month is
00:31:29
breast cancer awareness month and the article I was reading reading was how much does it cost for a year of care for
00:31:36
somebody who is diagnosed with breast cancer they did a cost breakdown between stage one 2 3 4 stage one look nobody
00:31:45
wants to get any kind of cancer or any stage of cancer but stage one not very expensive stage two 17 times the cost of
00:31:53
stage one and then you can imagine where it goes from there stage four you you're
00:31:58
lucky to live but if you live you're you're you're bankrupt so I'm not rushing to to defend Smith I'm just
00:32:07
examining what's going on in his life in his timeline his wife has not died of leukemia yet and was diagnosed with
00:32:14
leukemia and it was not ever considered to be a situation that she was going to beat so I don't know if he just lost his
00:32:21
mind or if he was trying to collect funds to try to save his wife's life I don't know well and this and yeah and
00:32:29
that's it's like like I said breaking bad situation like you said this guy had accomplishments not just in military but
00:32:39
as a civilian also and so then the these the these crimes took place but I couldn't find anything that he was
00:32:49
charged with and that doesn't mean he wasn't committing crimes before this that he just wasn't caught for but I
00:32:54
couldn't find any one thing that's always been uh of heightened suspicion for Dr J Smith is his daughter and
00:33:04
son-in-law have been missing for a very long time they've they've been missing and they've never been found now did
00:33:11
they run off because Jay Smith would tell everyone that they ran off others based off of these events that we just
00:33:20
discussed and later events that he suspected of people think that he is the reason that they vanished his statements
00:33:29
have always been and and some of these statements are absolute fact his daughter he had two daughters okay so
00:33:35
let's be clear here nothing ever happened to his other daughter but the one daughter that disappeared his name
00:33:40
her name is Stephanie and I believe she was named after her mother she fell into
00:33:45
drugs pretty bad she was a heroin addict and her husband who was a couple years older than her he was a heroin addict as
00:33:54
well their last name was hunsburger they go missing and this is early 1978 like February of 1978 which again
00:34:04
you got this criminal activity plus the the family members going missing this is
00:34:09
setting him up to be equally as good of a suspect if not better than Bradfield because Bradfield has what seems to be a
00:34:19
pretty solid Alibi not only that if J Smith made two people disappear before never to be found it's reasonable that
00:34:27
he could do it again yeah and so Smith's daughter and her husband to this day Captain have never
00:34:37
been found they're reported missing early 78 as The Story Goes she had been arrested on a couple occasions for
00:34:46
prostitution son-in-law was up to no good I think he had got picked up for theft or something on occasion they were
00:34:54
living in his home at this time the last time that they're seen they're seen by his parents
00:35:01
the son-in-law's parents when they went to visit them for get together evening get together for dinner one night
00:35:08
everyone's suspicious of Jay Smith because they were living at his home with his wife at the time right he says
00:35:14
they were in trouble with some drug dealers some local drug dealers and they hit the road and the best they told him
00:35:21
was they were heading out to the West Coast to start all over and to hide from these people that they owed bunch of
00:35:28
money to I don't I've reviewed it Captain I don't have a strong opinion either way
00:35:33
as to what happened to these two individuals if they took off on their own if those drug dealers caught up to
00:35:38
them or if J Smith is responsible for their disappearance what I will say is this what we do know the way that this
00:35:46
all plays out is J Smith is now facing a whole hell of a lot of charges and Jay Smith wasn't known to be
00:35:54
the most social guy he didn't have a whole bunch of friends well when he's in trouble and he's facing all these
00:36:01
criminal charges the only person that comes to his defense is a one bill Bradfield who many people say they
00:36:09
weren't aware that the two were close and Bradfield even tells police that they weren't close he says but he went
00:36:17
to police and says I know on of a couple of these charges that he absolutely could not have committed these crimes
00:36:24
because he was with me and not only that he was hundreds of miles away at this and I think he
00:36:31
referenced Cap May one more time so this is the only person that comes to his defense and testifies in court as an
00:36:38
alibi for Dr J Smith that he couldn't have committed some of these offenses because he was with me the whole time
00:36:47
and we were out of town he was nowhere near I know you found those security guard uniforms in his
00:36:53
basement but uh he he couldn't have done it yeah but then it makes you wonder if
00:36:59
they are close and Bill Bradford was able to establish if Bill Bradford was able to
00:37:07
establish a solid Alibi for when Susan and her kids go missing and then her body is
00:37:15
found and somebody that bill Bradford is close to J Smith needs money for some reason and you're set to inherit again
00:37:27
let's just go over this again three life insurance policies real estate plus this
00:37:34
money that she was giving you that was obviously some kind of scam more than his the cash that she gave him to air
00:37:44
quotes invest for her as she told other people remember that's what she told her
00:37:48
brother that's what she told several people and she also told people that she gave him her grandmother's diamond ring
00:37:55
her grandmother's wedding ring that she inherited so that he he would go and get
00:38:00
it reset to give her an engagement ring so they could make it official and then go and get married soon she according to
00:38:07
everybody that knew her intimately and this includes uh a therapist that she spoke to on a couple of occasions they
00:38:15
all said the same thing she was telling them she's getting married to this guy now you go digging a little bit de
00:38:23
deeper and here's what you find out there are three other women that thought they were getting married to this
00:38:28
element this uh English teacher as well con artist three other women that thought they were getting married he one
00:38:36
woman was 20 years younger than him used to be one of his students they they started hooking up after she turned 18
00:38:42
and graduated play out play out play out play and he was living on and off again
00:38:48
with another woman that went by the name Sue Jesus one woman was so infatuated with him that even though she knew about
00:38:56
the other relation ships when he ends up getting arrested and we'll get into that
00:39:00
in a minute she pays thousands of dollars to bail him out there's I can't place it Captain there's an old rock
00:39:07
song where one of the lines is the world's greatest lover this dude must have been that they must have been
00:39:12
singing about him or something because hold on I'm I'm looking he seemed to convince four smart women that he was
00:39:18
going to marry all four of them well I'm looking this up on Wikipedia and you know we keep calling him Bill Brad
00:39:25
Bradfield but uh his real name was William golden [ __ ] Bradford so what we end up here with
00:39:33
Captain is this is what the way that this starts to play out police were under huge pressure to solve this thing
00:39:41
and I tell you what I think they got close to getting it right Bill Bradfield is not a great suspect because of the
00:39:47
timeline they can't put him and Susan together at the same time when they believe that she was murdered in fact
00:39:53
he's miles away in another city another Cape May with three different people that are that swear up and down he was
00:40:02
with us the whole weekend in fact we stayed together they had they had two rooms for four people he and one person
00:40:09
stayed in one room and the other two people stayed in the room next to it they had lunch and dinner and breakfast
00:40:14
together they went to church together on two occasions during that weekend but here's the problem he made prior
00:40:22
arrangements for this group to stay at Cape May New Jersey he did this about a week or two before the weekend in
00:40:29
question when he made these Arrangements he told the proprietor of the business hey we are going to arrive late Friday
00:40:37
night so just leave the doors unlocked with the keys inside we'll let ourselves in so he they pay for Friday Saturday
00:40:45
Sunday well Kate May it's not close to where they live so it stands a reason that they would arrive there late you do
00:40:51
a little bit of checking here the longest drive that it would have taken them even back then
00:40:57
and I'm figuring this up conservatively giving them the benefit of the doubt adding an additional time here
00:41:04
conservatively captain we're talking two and a half hours they according to the three people that he traveled with they
00:41:12
arrived there at 3:00 in the morning well that means that they didn't leave till midnight or a little after midnight
00:41:19
on that Friday and what do we know is happening that Friday at some point Susan and her kids are rushing around to
00:41:26
go where we don't no but that was at 9:20 p.m. that leaves about a 3-hour window on Friday
00:41:34
night where Bradfield is unaccounted for let's go through his day real quick remember
00:41:41
we said he's the world's greatest lover well he spent half the day with one of those other three women that we talked
00:41:47
about briefly and he spent part of that day too with a gentleman by the last name of
00:41:53
I shouldn't say gentleman because I don't know exactly his involvement in this he seems to have some involved he
00:41:57
might be a piece of [ __ ] yeah yeah yeah his last name is uh papis he was one of
00:42:03
the people that went out to Cape May with Bradfield they spent a part of the day
00:42:10
together too so when these two people talk to detectives basically their story is Bill Bradfield is accounted for up
00:42:18
till about 8:00 pm that night Susan and the kids take off at 920 and they him and friends don't
00:42:25
arrive in Cape May till 3 a.m. again there's there's enough window of time there if she was in fact killed
00:42:34
or abducted and bound so he could have had some direct involvement in what happened to
00:42:42
her and still made it out there to Cape May now how does Dr J Smith fall into all this well remember there were some
00:42:51
of those rumors but police and detectives needed a little more of a motive well the motive at some point
00:43:00
became well Bill Bradfield came forward and testified and likely perjured himself providing an alibi for J Smith
00:43:10
for some of his more serious offenses so Dr J Smith owed him one the thing that even points out more that J
00:43:19
Smith was involved is oh by the way her body's found in Harrisburg where was J Smith supposed to
00:43:26
be the same morning that Monday morning when her body was found in that parking lot in the
00:43:32
hatchback har he was supposed to be in Harrisburg checking in with police because he's going to have to start
00:43:38
serving his sentence on all of those crimes that he was convicted of that we just discussed and it's noted that he
00:43:47
shows up an hour later than scheduled so now detectives are saying well he was probably late because he's
00:43:56
busy TI in up the crime scene the other thing we should point out too and I know a lot of the
00:44:01
listeners are are circling around this detail like vultures remember one of the details about him breaking into that car
00:44:09
remember they found a syringe in his pocket and we know that our victim was doped 10 times level on
00:44:17
Morphine at some point so that's a little that's connective tissue there and even if she would recognize Jay
00:44:26
Smith as he got closer he could have used some kind of Disguise like a security guard or law enforcement or
00:44:36
something to get close to her well and they weren't going to let bill off the hook either they think that bill needed
00:44:46
to get rid of Susan one two to collect the life insurance money two that some of the Investments
00:44:54
he claimed he made for her it's believed that they were coming due to pay so she
00:45:00
was going to get her money back plus a return and in one case it was like 12% interest that he was claiming so at some
00:45:08
point she's would be notifi you know she would likely become aware that he's scamming her and at some point she'd
00:45:15
become aware like he's not really going to marry me and we're not really moving off to
00:45:21
England this's a con artist right and and so he's conning her and the only way out of it is to kill her but why the
00:45:31
children so the way that the theory goes is that the children were not supposed to be there this whole murder of of
00:45:40
Susan was very premeditated very planned out but the the wrench that got thrown into the whole situation was wherever
00:45:49
she showed up to wherever the Trap was that had been set she showed up there with two kids
00:45:57
that that no one had expected that it was going to go that way I don't know why maybe they thought that the kids
00:46:02
were going to be with their father that weekend or or whatever but she shows up for all we
00:46:11
know she well and for all we know that she changed plans and said okay well yeah you're
00:46:19
supposed to go with your dad but come with me anyways it's going to be fun one theory is
00:46:25
that J Smith calls in a an Emergency to her saying oh your fiance Bill's been in
00:46:34
a horrible accident uh I'm driving off to the hospital come and meet me at this location and I'll take you with me to go
00:46:41
see him that was one of the theories that was out there the the problem with a lot of these theories is the way that
00:46:48
some theories work out that we've not even discussed is that Jay could be responsible for killing Susan without
00:46:55
Bill having any information no involvement at all and you could also work it out that bill did this or had
00:47:01
other people involved with him and Jay had no involvement okay so we do have a lot to
00:47:08
get through here because what ends up happening is Bill who will not talk to police about Susan and what's going on
00:47:16
he's a he's able to dodge them because he's in New Mexico and he's conveniently busy every time that they want to talk
00:47:23
about it well what they end up doing is they end up Char ing him with with fraud
00:47:30
for all of his involvement in the financial affairs of of Susans well that's smart by law
00:47:38
enforcement because that's going to give them time to build cases against him but
00:47:45
that's no Justus whatever he gets charged with that that's no justification for him to get away with
00:47:50
murder and then his story gets even stranger his story starts to become well I knew that Jay was going to kill Susan
00:47:59
and I tried to protect her when we were at Cape May I was so worried that something was going to happen to her
00:48:06
that I insisted that that the group go to the church and let's light a candle for Susan and say a prayer can you
00:48:14
imagine you're a detective and you're talking to three people that provide an alibi for Bill Bradfield and they're
00:48:20
saying that they spent a portion of their weekend getaway lighting a candle and saying a prayer for someone who this
00:48:26
guy I think she's going to be murdered soon and then Monday morning she turns up dead in a vehicle in Harrisburg who
00:48:33
are these bags of trash that aren't just turning on him but again we don't know who these individuals are like
00:48:41
everything about him obviously and then it's like if he's scamming people is he teaching other people to scam or or or
00:48:48
these friends of his that are in on the scams and it seems far-fetched to say that a lot of people would be involved
00:48:55
in this but here's the thing police have a hard time nailing down bill because of the
00:49:02
timeline there's just not enough time for him to have murdered her place her where she was found and the vehicle
00:49:08
place where it was found and then make two kids disappear there just I don't care how you shake it there's not really
00:49:14
enough time for him to to do that and I really want him to be good for this because he looks damn good for it the
00:49:23
thing is I think he is good for it I just think he had help I think he did a good job of pointing out that there is a
00:49:29
gap in his timeline but there's a lot of things he would had to accomplished within that timeline but if this is true
00:49:39
that these bags of [ __ ] on their vacation are going down to the church to light a candle and and pray for this
00:49:46
lady and then she ends up she's found nude and dead in the trunk of her car you'd think one of these [ __ ] bags would
00:49:55
come forward and say you know you know Bill is an awful human and or maybe that's not even
00:50:05
true maybe that's just what he's telling law enforcement and then law enforcement
00:50:09
talks to these guys and they go we we never said a prayer for her we don't know what you're talking about you know
00:50:15
yeah well I mean there there's more than one person that confirms the the prayer
00:50:19
and C candle lighting Story one of the people on the trip with them that weekend was the woman who he had lived
00:50:27
with on and off again who was also under the belief at one time that they were going to get married or they had some
00:50:33
serious very serious relationship to the point that they live together old golden
00:50:37
[ __ ] strikes again well here's there's a few problems with this Theory remember the theory is
00:50:45
that Bradfield needs her to go away so the life insurance pays and he could absorb the
00:50:54
inheritance right that she came into recently and that he got his old buddy who's already crooked as they come and a
00:51:01
hardcore criminal and maybe he's he doesn't have murder in his past we don't know he his his daughter
00:51:09
disappeared but he certainly was caught with a lot of guns and Implements of murder and so he looks
00:51:20
like and Bill comes to his defense right that that's something that can't be argued we know that he sat and testified
00:51:27
in court on behalf of Dr J Smith that's a fact but let me let's examine it this way some people say Dr J Smith has got
00:51:39
to be guilty because oh it's obvious he he was in Harrisburg the same place where her body's found and he shows up
00:51:45
late an hour late okay but doesn't that also mean that even though bill came and testified on his behalf
00:51:57
that he was still found guilty on all of those charges so it really doesn't mean a damn
00:52:04
thing I don't owe you anything bill you may have come and testified for me but what I'm what am I going to do go kill a
00:52:11
woman and her two kids hours before I'm supposed to go and and start serving my sentence that just doesn't make any
00:52:21
sense yeah I mean and I know there's a lot of dumb people out there but this guy was a colonel at one time yeah maybe
00:52:27
his life went completely off the rails and he totally lost his mind I can't say whether or not that happened but he was
00:52:33
a colonel at one point and he he was he was a doctor he was an educated man again what we do know is it
00:52:43
seems that that Jay Smith took a turn and it didn't seem like it was a murderous turn
00:52:52
turn seems like it was a financial turn we I need money quick and and gobs of money quick like I said it's like a
00:53:03
breaking bad situation maybe J Smith doesn't owe Bill anything but maybe Bill said hey if you do this
00:53:12
for me there'll be a Payday and there'll be a large one but when's he going to get it he's going to prison so you're I
00:53:20
think you're barking I think you're barking up the the the right tree here so speak yeah I think you're on to it
00:53:28
you found the scent maybe it's the wrong tree because this is where I go we talked about the equivalent of what that
00:53:35
money compared to yester year was to today well that means there's a lot of money to go around you could pay
00:53:43
somebody to help you commit these murders it doesn't have to be Dr J Smith and a wise person once
00:53:54
said that getting away with the perfect murder the perfect murder isn't just getting away with
00:53:59
it getting away with the perfect murder is getting somebody else to take the fall for it Dr J Smith was somebody that
00:54:08
these the victim and this other suspect worked for for years it was no secret that Dr J Smith was facing all these
00:54:16
charges in fact it was big-time news and headlines in the area because all these
00:54:21
parents are going what the hell this guy was the principal of our high school so you're thinking Bill Bradfield
00:54:28
was like hey he's going to prison anyways pin it on him and and none the wiser well I think that if you wanted to
00:54:40
look for somebody and find somebody that might look like they're capable of such
00:54:45
an act he seems like an easy scapegoat I'm not saying that Dr J Smith had nothing
00:54:51
to do with this I'm just saying that if there's hundreds of those Combs or somebody had been to J Smith's home or
00:54:59
in his car or in his office dozens of times as it's been reported that Bill had how difficult would it be to snatch
00:55:08
one of those Combs and place it underneath the body of this victim and again he flies to New Mexico that
00:55:18
same day he just happens to be coming a going and if he's staying in regular contact
00:55:24
with J Smith he's going to know that J Smith is going to be starting his sentence in Harrisburg Pennsylvania that
00:55:31
morning because here's the thing Captain I don't think for a second had Jay Smith
00:55:35
showed up on time remember everybody makes a big deal that he was an hour late you mean to tell me that if he
00:55:39
showed up on time that everybody's going to go well he's innocent he couldn't have done it [ __ ] it's one hour's
00:55:44
difference they everybody would still think he's guilty I just think when you got he's
00:55:51
got three different women one who oh by the way was staying in a seat motel in Philadelphia for at least 3 weeks prior
00:56:00
to Susan's murder and she drives his car on that Monday from Philadelphia to New
00:56:08
Mexico where Bill is flying why wouldn't he take his own damn car he's going to fly she takes a car
00:56:15
and they meet up at the same place and and now you have some woman that was staying in a motel in Philadelphia
00:56:22
leading up to the murder who won't talk to police she by the way is the one that
00:56:25
ends up bail in him out when he gets charged with this fraud count so we kind of got to investigate this because the
00:56:33
way that this whole story plays out is now we have Dr J Smith who's serving his time in prison and it's not going to be
00:56:41
a short sentence at all we're talking years bill is facing fraud charges which should land him in prison for about two
00:56:50
years I believe two or so years and he's going to have to repay a whole bunch of
00:56:54
money he ends up being found guilty on the fraud charges mhm so the life insurance never gets paid out in fact I
00:57:04
think what they ended up doing was it that it got paid out but it went to Next of Kin which ended up being her older
00:57:09
brother older brother is a standup guy you know what he does he puts it in a trust for the two missing kids and says
00:57:16
that when they come home they'll get the money it wasn't until he's charged with
00:57:24
fraud and on the stand for those charges that he has to start answering some actual questions about Susan's murder he
00:57:31
can't duck and Dodge it anymore yeah and once he gets out of prison he gets convicted on the fraud
00:57:37
charges once he gets out of prison for that that is when they charge him with murder but it's not your standard murder
00:57:44
charges he gets charged with three counts of conspiracy to murder and it's with the uh with the
00:57:54
assistance of a person who is known or unknown but the person's never named in those
00:58:01
charges and to try to make a a long story short here through a lengthy trial he gets
00:58:08
convicted of three counts of conspiracy to murder now according to according to the
00:58:15
state if you read it the way that those charges are laid out he they are saying look we don't think that you
00:58:24
actually that you that you were the the one that actually murdered these people but you arranged for it to happen you
00:58:30
made efforts to get away with it you conspired to murder at least Susan and then maybe had to premeditate the the
00:58:38
other two once you've you know you they show up right he gets convicted of three counts
00:58:45
of conspiracy to murder he gets three life sentences consecutive life sentences which means homeboy you never
00:58:53
going to get out unless you live to be about 6 years old I don't think you're ever going to get out you're not you're
00:59:00
you're not a ladies man no more you you're a prison man and that's nasty but think about that charge
00:59:08
they've convicted this guy on that now we got to go find who who who did he conspire with to commit these
00:59:15
murders right they do the same thing they wait till Dr J Smith gets out of prison for his lengthy sentence and now
00:59:24
they're coming after him and remember that narrative is that favors for favors he helped you now you helped him
00:59:33
that is what they bring to court the problem is Dr J Smith had a good defense team
00:59:39
who said that the only evidence that they had against J Smith was these police had all these rumors
00:59:48
that Dr J Smith was going to kill Susan but they admitted in court that all those rumors were stemming from Bill
00:59:57
so that's not really evidence at all now but you got the blue comb and then you got the the blue comb you have the
01:00:04
fibers you have the the fibers but you also have like you said the syringe and you have the location of the death scene
01:00:12
which would have been in Harrisburg well the fibers uh what was determined was that they were they were believed they
01:00:20
were presented as fibers that were found on her that came from jce it home the defense rightfully so points out well
01:00:34
that could have come from any number of like thousands and thousands of different sources would
01:00:40
have matched those fibers so it's not unique to our defendant they also proved that how many hundreds or thousands of
01:00:50
those cols that were made and again it makes it so it's not unique to our defendant
01:00:57
the prosecution then presents a jailhouse snitch who at no time they they they set
01:01:06
him up with a wire they tried their damnedest to get Smith to confess to this jail house snitch he never says
01:01:13
that he murdered Susan he never says that he murdered the kids the only thing that he that they can get him talking
01:01:20
about is is an attempt to escape from jail or from prison mhm now remember they started setting this up while he was in
01:01:32
prison for these other charges this was this was what led them to even charging him with this to begin
01:01:41
with was this jail house snitch so the jail house snitch testifies at at trial saying
01:01:50
that that he not only did J Smith want to escape from prison but he he had said on
01:02:01
recording that he would be willing to if if at some point the Escape if they had
01:02:05
gone so far in the Escape at some point he would be willing to kill a guard if they got far enough in their escape so
01:02:13
the jury's going to look at that is okay well this guy has the possesses the ability to dream up premeditated murder
01:02:23
they never have him on record saying that he killed any of the three victims or even abducted the two kids
01:02:30
and made them disappear but they have the word of the jail house snitch saying well he did tell me that he did say that
01:02:37
he killed her he told me that multiple times but but anytime that you wire me up I can't seem to get him to say
01:02:45
it he gets convicted of three deaths he gets sentenced to three death sentences because by this point the two
01:02:58
kids have been presumed to be dead but that's not the end of the story my friend because what we're going to get
01:03:07
is a few years is going to go by this man is sitting on death row and his defense team starts uncovering evidence
01:03:17
prosecutorial and judicial misconduct in his trial and in the investigation against Dr J Smith
01:03:26
right and it's kind of sad too because he's on death row and they prove their point several times over and yet they
01:03:35
allowed him to remain on death row while they dragged their feet on getting a new
01:03:41
trial or getting this one tossed out but you know there's like shady [ __ ] going
01:03:45
on when once they start going a jail house snitch and once the jailhouse snitch can't really provide anything it
01:03:54
really kind of shows how much they're grasping at straws and so what other areas of the investigation or during the
01:04:04
prosecution did did they grasp at straws and and and work outside the lines of legal legal actions well one part of it
01:04:15
that was that would help to their cause is you have to disclose the prosecution has to discl closed to the defense team
01:04:27
if you are offering a deal to the jail housee Niche right like we're going to give him leniency we're going to take
01:04:34
some time off of his sentence if you come forward and help us with this right that didn't happen in this case in fact
01:04:42
the the the snitch is on the stand saying that he wasn't offered any kind of deal that he's not getting any kind
01:04:49
of leniency or getting any type of reward for coming forward that's test ony at a State Trial right that becomes
01:05:00
fact as far as the state's concerned his word what turns out is he perjured himself because
01:05:06
later it's easily determined that he he got out like they they pushed him to parole because they needed they knew
01:05:15
that the defense the defense could tear apart some of their evidence that they had and so they needed to build a better
01:05:22
case against Smith and that snitch was going to be part of that and he got a lenient deal
01:05:29
he got out he didn't have to pull any more time as they say and once that was revealed well
01:05:37
that's misconduct and then there's another angle to this we've talked about this a little
01:05:44
bit on off the Record where the a lot of the Publishers especially the big ones they True Crime isn't isn't isn't the
01:05:54
best-selling genre out there as far as books go so Publishers are taking a risk on
01:06:01
True Crime to start with but when they do the overwhelming majority of the time they want a case that is that is solved
01:06:10
that is done it is an open and closed case and as we said there were three books written about at least three books
01:06:21
that were written about this case one was turned into a TV movie and Joseph wau was one of the authors uh he wrote a
01:06:29
book called echoes in the darkness which is a fantastic read unfortunately when he showed up on
01:06:36
the scene he was interviewing police and interviewing detectives and he said his
01:06:41
next book he was already a best-selling author he was he's I mean he's written a
01:06:45
a whole bunch a whole catalog of fantastic books and he's a retired cop too so these cops and detectives like
01:06:52
talking to him he's one of their own but when he showed up on the scene he said this is my next book but it's got to be
01:06:59
solved first it's got to be solved well it was later one of the officers came forward years later
01:07:11
after J Smith had been in prison on death row for quite a bit of time saying you know I was paid $50,000 to make sure
01:07:18
that there was an arrest on Dr J Smith by the paid by by the author Jesus Christ and so that doesn't look good for
01:07:29
your case either So eventually what happens is Dr J Smith gets released after years
01:07:37
on death row eventually he would pass away in 2009 and under of course a cloud of
01:07:46
suspicion that he was still involved in this case and involved in The Disappearance of his daughter and
01:07:51
son-in-law so nobody really knows the truth all of these years later unfortunately the the kids have never
01:07:58
been found now the other person who we we the state still deemed to be guilty is Bill Bradfield who remained in prison
01:08:10
serving three life sentences until the day he died after he's convicted do we get any acknowledgment of Smith's
01:08:21
involvement with Bill or does Bill just continue to claim he's innocent Bill maintained he was innocent until the day
01:08:31
that he passed away um but look police have never forgotten about this case and and anybody from
01:08:38
Pennsylvania specifically the Philadelphia Harrisburg Area will will back me up on this nobody's ever
01:08:44
forgotten about this case and nobody's forgotten about those missing kids and I I wanted to make sure that we include
01:08:51
this here in our coverage after he passes away police they honed in on a photograph
01:08:58
that they found in his cell so William Bradfield passed away in 1998 yeah he died of a heart attack
01:09:07
while serving the life sentences they found a photograph which they think may have been developed
01:09:15
in 1986 we'll get into that in a minute they find this in his cell but they find
01:09:20
it among dozens of of other photographs and letters and writings and things of that nature and a
01:09:27
couple boxes that he had in his cell with him now this Photograph it's a Polaroid photo that depicts a stone
01:09:36
marker that that some say resembles a hooded figure rather than trying to describe it
01:09:44
the scenario put it on our social media well let let me read this this is from the Philadelphia Daily
01:09:49
News and the headline is is photo an eerie clue to rer Graves and it says it is a photograph of what
01:09:58
looks like a monument possibly a grave marker dead brown leaves clutter the foreground but the growth above the
01:10:06
stone is fresh and green nothing very remarkable about the Polaroid except it was found among the possessions of the
01:10:13
late William Bradfield The Man convicted of killing two children whose bodies have never been found could this crude
01:10:21
Stone mark their final resting place the Discover of the photo has added another
01:10:27
puzzling ingredient to a case that already abounds in mystery and then it goes on
01:10:34
to describe the crimes a little bit which we've we've done at length here so we don't need to to go into that but the
01:10:41
what's interesting is we know that the kids disappear in 1979 on the back of the this this marker this on the back of
01:10:52
the Polaroid somebody wrote a date on there which was 1986 and we know that polar Polaroid
01:11:00
film especially ones that old do not automatically date themselves so nobody really knows what this December
01:11:10
1986 date means which in fact sheds little light on the mystery at all because that has that date seems to have
01:11:16
no relevance to the missing kids right and it could just be simply this picture this item
01:11:25
in the picture has nothing to do with the murders and it's just simply that's the date that the person took the
01:11:32
picture correct and but what what I like about this story uh with the photograph and finding
01:11:39
it in the cell even though it's damn near 20 years after the homicides is that it does show a level of effort by
01:11:48
law enforcement to never give up on finding those kids just like that passionate call to action rally the
01:11:56
troops that we talked about in part one where he just said just find them you know Search Everything who cares about
01:12:01
the citizens rights we're looking for two kids here in the end Captain this case came to be known as the mainline
01:12:08
murders it ended up being the largest and longest running investigation ever conducted by the Pennsylvania State
01:12:14
Police as said it's been the subject of at least three books including echoes in
01:12:18
the darkness by Joseph woma and a TV movie which I did watch the TV movie again parts of it are
01:12:28
likely fictional fictional yeah um because I think woma was filling in some of the blanks and while he's a great
01:12:35
author we do have the accusation that he paid somebody $50,000 to speed up the case if you will or steer it in a
01:12:43
certain direction so he could write the book so I don't put a whole lot of weight into his version of the events
01:12:52
but it was it was a good movie Robert loia is in the book or in the movie I'm sorry he's he's a great actor you might
01:12:59
know him from big but as we know there are no signs of Michael and Karen and there haven't been and in fact all of
01:13:08
these massive and extensive searches have turned up nothing as far as the kids go and never turned up any sign of
01:13:15
their mother's clothing and some of her missing belongings as well so this mystery is far from over now we do have
01:13:23
one law enforcement officer amongst many who has been active and vocal to the media talking about this case decades
01:13:32
later who said that he considers the investigation open but quite inactive but he did say that at least
01:13:42
one person who has never been charged in the case may have intimate knowledge about these slays that person may know
01:13:50
what happened to the children and that's possibly the the female that helped bill out he said that that he would
01:13:59
certainly say that there's a possibility of a third person out there a high probability he said and with a reminder
01:14:07
to everybody out there with if anybody has any information about what may have happened to Karen and Michael Reiner to
01:14:14
call the State Police at 717 67175 37 want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage sharing these cases
01:14:36
on social media and telling your mother and your father about the show Colonel do we have any recommended reading yes
01:14:44
we do and this one is a great read I would recommend this this week next week and the following this one's called
01:14:51
principal suspect the true story of Dr J Smith and the mainline murders by William kopos Joseph waz's echoes in the
01:15:00
darkness and its subsequent TV dramatization have made household words of both of the names Susan reinard and
01:15:10
Dr J Smith who was the high school principal where Susan worked the naked body of Susan Riner was discovered
01:15:19
jammed into a hatchback of a car her two young children were missing and never found this is one of three there's at
01:15:27
least three books about this case but this was the one that I chose to read and it's a fantastic read and I say that
01:15:34
because this is a very complicated and difficult story to tell and William Copus told it as well as anyone in fact
01:15:43
he's an attorney who worked very close on this case for many many years so check out principal suspect you'll find
01:15:50
that recommendation and many more on our recommended page on our website True Crime garage.com and until next week be
01:15:57
good be kind and don't litter [Music]