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thank you [Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime thank you
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[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] city of Beatrice is located in the southern portion of the great Cornhusker
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state of Nebraska Beatrice was once featured on the popular show Unsolved Mysteries
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for a famous story from the city's history that took place in 1950 when a natural gas explosion destroyed a
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church during the church choirs regularly scheduled practice but miraculously all 15 choir members
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survived because for a variety of different reasons each of the 15 were running late
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that day the True Crime Story we are featuring today did not make it on Unsolved Mysteries and takes place 35
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years later in 1985. today back in 85 the population of Beatrice is practically the same
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right around 12 and a half thousand people lived in Beatrice which is engage County Nebraska
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and we will reference both Beatrice City police and Gage County Sheriff's Department during our garage exploration
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of this case Helen Wilson was born in the nearby Village of pickerel which is also in
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Gage County she was born on July 13 1916 and at the time of our story she was 68 years old
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and living alone Helen was retired and her husband passed away years earlier she was very active in her local
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Methodist Church in fact she helped out quite a bit by watching some of the children at the church while their
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parents attended she was also a member of the Gage County Historical Society in the Eagle's auxiliary
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in the days leading up to February 1985 Helen was not feeling well Helen had pneumonia was relying on the
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help of others including her daughter Jan Winters in Nebraska are cold in the February nights are even colder on the
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night of February 5th 1985 68-year-old Helen Wilson went to bed the next morning Helen's brother
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went to her apartment on North 6th Street and sadly at approximately 9 30 a.m on
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February 6th he found Helen dead she had been murdered sometime between when she went to bed the night before
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and that morning this is True Crime garage this is a case of Helen Wilson and the
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Beatrice six [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] 68-year-old Helen Wilson lived alone in
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a small four-room apartment located near the downtown area of Beatrice across Route 77 from Charles Park in apartment
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number four at 212 North 6th Street her lifeless body was found February 6 1985.
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Helen had been raped and suffocated to death Helen Wilson leaves behind three children seven grandchildren and six
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great-grandchildren they held a closed casket service in the days that followed and she was buried next to her husband
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Ray at Pleasant View Cemetery let's take a look at the crime scene captain and go
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through some of the evidence in regards to this rape homicide investigation first off there were very obvious signs
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of a break-in and a violent struggle at the scene the door had been pried open Helen was found dead in the living room
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but there were things at the scene to indicate that the attack started in her bedroom and then ended in the living
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room Helen's hands were bound with the towel now the towel came from inside of her
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apartment her face was covered with a scarf that was tied around her neck and or head covering her face this too was
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her scarf her nightgown was lifted up there was a lot of evidence a lot of physical evidence at the crime scene
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semen was found on Helen's body and collected during her autopsy it was also found on the carpet where her body was
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found on and portions of her clothing as well and a cutting from her gown she was wearing contained blood stains
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they were also blood stains on her bed they found three fingerprints at least three fingerprints found throughout the
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apartment that they did not have a match for or any reasonable explanation why they would be there a knife was also
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left at the crime scene and this contained fingerprints other than Helens the knife came from Helen's kitchen so
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when you see a scene like this Captain the first thoughts are someone broke into this home clearly in the middle of
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the night she must have been sleeping in the bedroom he surprises her using a knife to probably try to control the
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victim and the fight for whatever reason the scuffle ends in the living room where her body is eventually found the
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next morning did they know if the unidentified fingerprints match the prints on the knife that's a good
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question and I don't have a solid answer for you Captain because of the wording in the information that we have
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it would seem to me that this individual whoever committed this crime or individuals that committed this crime at
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least one of them was not wearing any type of gloves to try to hide their fingerprints because we found these on
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the knife itself right the other fingerprints that were found throughout the apartment I'm guessing belong to the
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same individual but there is no definitive statement that I saw that says yes this is all from the same
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individual there was a significant amount of cash and valuables that were found in her apartment
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meaning that anybody that broke in that night during this attack could have loaded up on cash and other valuables
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before leaving her apartment but for whatever reason did not and you could say maybe they didn't know that these
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things were here or there but a quick search of her small apartment would have found at least thirteen hundred dollars
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in cash and other valuables it's also a different time at that time period a lot
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of people kept cash on them nowadays I just walk out of my house with my debit card I don't even carry cash on my
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person yeah and there was thirteen hundred dollars cash in the top drawer of her dresser in her bedroom that
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anybody could have found now blood type serology at the time this is 1985. was considered to be the top scientific
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method to solve crimes when the perpetrator left blood hair with follicles and or semen at the crime
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scene there are four main human blood types A B A a b and O I have that tiger blood people are either secreters or
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non-secretors and about 85 percent of the population are secreters Wilson's rapist and murderer left semen at the
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murder scene now test revealed that the killer was type B blood which is more rare than the other types and a
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non-secretor so this is really going to limit the population you know we're not using DNA technology back then to solve
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crimes but this is going to limit how many people could have possibly committed this crime that is a big help
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for your investigation so in this case captain we're looking for someone with type B blood and a non-secreter and the
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information that I have seen says that back in 1985 only about one in 10 people carried this rare blood type according
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to police reports and this was a single apartment this was a apartment building somebody actually messed with the fuse
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box and it turned all the lights off in the hallways yeah so police immediately believe that this is connected to the
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murder itself that this wasn't just something that was a coincidence and from my understanding Captain there's at
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least three floors in this building and her apartment number four was on the second floor
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what this indicates to me is that whoever perpetrated this crime had some kind of knowledge of this building the
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other thing too is you have to wonder would the perpetrator have known or known of no matter how Loosely the
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victim themselves yeah it seems like a targeted victim to me also by cutting out the power so there's
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no lights in the hallway it gives her no way of knowing if somebody let's say knocked on the door and then she went to
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the door to see who it was should have no way of seeing out of her people and we have a situation too here where we
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can really kind of narrow down the time frame of when the murder occurred first off if you do believe that the cutting
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of the lights this also affected the furnace in the building too remember this is February in Nebraska so some of
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the residents woke up to apartments that were extremely cold because at some point the heat just stopped kicking on
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well the other reason that you'd cut the lights off too is as you're exiting the
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crime that if a neighbor went to see you they would have a harder time identifying you and the way that we can
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narrow down the time frame of the murder in the attack itself is we have relatives remember we have Helen Wilson
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she's older She's suffering from pneumonia at the time she's not been feeling well they were kind of taking
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care of her some of her relatives they were there till I believe 9 45 PM the night before to which she said to them
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before they left that she would be going to bed shortly afterward there were some
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phone calls that were made to her apartment that night that went unanswered we also have the situation of
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her relatives finding her the next morning when they're trying to call and again getting no answer so we really
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only have a time frame of about 12 hours where this could have taken place pretty
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large time frame though again there was a significant amount of cash that was found inside of the apartment easily
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available to anybody that was in there and from the attack itself and from the forensic evidence that we just described
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it's easy to believe that the perpetrator probably spent a good deal of time inside of the apartment now in
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regards to some of the autopsy information I mean this was a brutal attack that not
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only involved rape but from the coroner's opinion involved necrophilia after the fact they found blood under
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her fingernails right that belonged to the perpetrator but her body was in bad shape as we said
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there was a towel wrapped around her hands and wrist and the scarf was wrapped around her neck and head
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covering her face she suffered traumatic fractures to her sternum left fifth and
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sixth ribs and the left humerus she also had suffered abrasions to the face thorax and right knee and she had clear
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defensive wounds on her hands and her wrist consistent with sharp instrument lacerations well and the more that you
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fight the more chance that you have to collect DNA evidence on your body as bad as this attack was and as brutal as it
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sounds Captain there is belief by the experts that say that they do not think that the perpetrator intended to
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kill the victim and the way that they explain this and it doesn't make sense on the surface now
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does it but the way that they explain it is they think that the attacker simply wanted to rape and incapacitate the
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victim and then flee at some point the combination of using all of that force and the scarf on her face and around her
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neck combined with the pneumonia that she was suffering from was enough to sadly do her in well and
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like you said there was some sign of necrophiliac you wonder if the murderer even knew that she was dead yes that's
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exactly right and we need to really focus in on this Blood evidence that was found and the science that's involved in
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that as we said according to the police reports in 1985 only about 1 in 10 people carried this rare blood type
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police really worked this case good and what's going to sound weird by the time we get to the end of this case you're
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going to go Colonel what are you talking about Buddy when this case first took place when
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they found Helen Wilson's body the investigating agency at that time was the Beatrice Police Department we have
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Beatrice police chief luckenroth and detective Sergeant Stevens who will be up front and center in regards to this
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case luckenroth will be the one that will speak with media and will oversee the investigation but detective Sergeant
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Stevens will be the one leading the actual investigation and they had some information early on that led them to
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several suspects because of the fingerprints you start questioning is this one murderer or a group well one of
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the individuals that they were looking at was a man by the name of Bruce Smith who was kind of a Drifter he was
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a one-time resident of Beatrice who had moved away and was back in town briefly right Bruce Smith Captain was the early
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Prime Suspect and I'm talking about March 1985. about a month after the murder the way that Bruce Smith gets onto the
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radar of the Beatrice Police Department is an individual comes forward and says hey I'm friends with this guy he was in
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town and we spent the night at a bar drinking and he wouldn't shut up about wanting to get laid that night well we
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end up hanging out with some old friends of ours and going to an after party that
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just keeps getting later and later in the night and we end up crashing at these young ladies Place Bruce Smith and
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his friend are in there early to mid 20s in 1985. but something happens in the middle of that night and what happens is
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one of these young ladies says hey you know I'm sleeping and Bruce Smith attacked me attempted to rape me or
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sexually assault me in the middle of the night so basically we know that he's this local creep and that he's back into
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town so they start going through a list of people that are capable of something like this yeah well his friend is the
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one that brings Bruce Smith to the attention of police because he says well some friend that is the way that that
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works out is when he tries to assault this young woman she gives him the business and basically kicks his ass
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good for her and his quote unquote friend or you know sometimes you think you're friends with somebody and then
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you learn who they really are and decide we're not really friends this friend also joined in on kicking Bruce Smith's
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ass so much so that he then escorted Bruce Smith out of their residence and decided you know what Bruce where you
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want to go I'm going to take you somewhere and drop you off you can't stay here so he drops Bruce Smith off
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and he just says look I want to tell you police this is what was going on that night I know she never reported the
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attack but I'm not saying that there can connected I'm just letting you know that
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this is the type of guy that was here in Beatrice that night and this is what I know he did that night that he attacked
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this other woman police love this lead right they end up tracking down Bruce Smith and he was out
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of town I believe in fact out of state and they track him down and talk with him and he's pretty Cooperative he says
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yes I was in town that night some things happened it was a misunderstanding and he was willing to cooperate with their
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investigation yeah I'm sure it was a misunderstanding they have law enforcement has this blood type that
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they know is going to rule out most of the suspects so they say plain and simple anytime they are interviewing
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anybody about this case they say just give us your blood give us some your blood in your fingerprints
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and we will check into the information and it will either clear you or will keep you on our list Bruce Smith submits
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blood and fingerprints to the police department they run a check on it and it turns out that Bruce Smith who is now
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their Prime Suspect tested and the forensics showed that he was in fact type B blood but he was a secretor so
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this cleared him and he was free to go police are going to have to move on with their investigation I just wonder if the
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if you have two blood types one a secret or one a nonsense Creator if that would
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mess up the testing well you can have a mixed sample like you'd have like the victim's blood was a secreter so somehow
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that gets tampered with the other blood and that would confuse the test yes you can have a mixed sample when it comes to
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the forensics on these cases in fact that's what we had in the Barbara blatnick case that we discussed a couple
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years ago about 90 days into Beatrice police chief Don luckenroth's homicide of Helen Wilson investigation police
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announced that phone tips in and police suspicions led to checks into 62 men now
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around this time Helen's daughter Jan was interviewed Jan said that the citizens of Beatrice and others from
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around the area were very sympathetic to her and her family saying quote this town is fantastic I've lived here all my
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life and the people are just wonderful and she spoke highly of law enforcement Personnel working the case as well
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saying quote they've been nothing but considerate of our feelings right from the start shortly after the murder of
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Helen Wilson her family established a reward fund being offered for information leading to the arrest of the
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killer when Helen's family set up the reward it was for one thousand dollars but after 90 days and with the help of
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other contributors from members of the public the reward as of June of 1985 was just over thirty five hundred dollars
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now Jan and urged members of the elderly Community to take security precautions and ask that if anyone may have seen
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something out of the ordinary on February 3rd and February 4th or if they know someone acting strange after the
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murder to please contact Beatrice Police Department well the FBI also was brought
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into this case pretty quickly they sent out just a single agent but like we said
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this is a very small town just a little over 12 000 people and with that blood sample you're able to eliminate so much
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of the population there will be a lot of blame to be thrown around here captain in what will ultimately be a horrific
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investigation into this murder case what I want to point out one more time is police chief luckenroth and the
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detective Stevens look at the work that they're doing it's 1985 they are making sure that they collect all of the proper
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forensic evidence at the crime scene that it's stored properly that it's tested and that that information is kept
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and used to steer their investigation they're also bringing in other agencies they recognize look we're the Beatrice
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Police Department this might be above our bar so let's bring in an expert and have them assist us or at least tell us
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where to go with our investigation because we need a little guidance usually these things are solved within
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48 to 72 hours let's bring in the FBI so the FBI sends special agent Peter klisman to speak with and work with the
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Beatrice police department and he's going to put together an FBI profile a perpetrator profile on Helen Wilson's
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homicide investigation in my summarized version of his profile reads as follows it is not likely that Helen Wilson was a
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victim of a crime of opportunity it is possible the victim was surveilled or possibly known to the offender robbery
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was definitely listen to that robbery was definitely not the motive for the attack or murder the knife used came
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from inside the home this was used by the perpetrator to gain control of the victim this attack is definitely
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connected to the same individual that committed the failed attacks on single elderly women a year and a half to two
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years ago all right so I want to talk about this and break in here for a minute here Captain so even break into
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your own conversation in Beatrice yes in 1983 there were several attacks that were
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undetermined to be related or not where someone broke into a single elderly woman's home or apartment and attempted
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to either rape them or assault them but was unsuccessful for whatever reason may
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have gotten scared off maybe she fought back got spooked whatever ended up leaving the scene fleeing the scene this
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information was given to the FBI when they were reviewing Helen Wilson's murder investigation and this is our
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special agent saying this attack and his opinion was definitely connected to those three failed attacks that took
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place a year and a half to two years ago he goes on to add these attacks took place in the middle of the night within
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blocks within blocks of Helen Wilson's apartment the killer may live alone he might live
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close to the murder scene and the previous attacks he's probably unemployed if he does work it's
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unskilled labor he has a terrible self-image and is confused about his own sexual identity between the last known
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attack the attempted rape in August of 1983 that's the last of the three attacks
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that took place previously yeah and the murder of Helen Wilson in February of 1985 the attacker may have left town for
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a new job joined the military or been busted for prowling somewhere it goes on to say that there's a strong possibility
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that the killer hated or resented older women and probably had a terrible relationship with his mother oh not his
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mother he may have experienced emotional abuse or torment from his mother grandmother or some other older female
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relative this attack rape and murder was most definitely committed by one single
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male perpetrator the man that you are looking for is most likely a white male short or of medium height in his early
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twenties thin a high school dropout considered a loner viewed as odd or wimpy in school and came from a broken
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home he owns pornography and likely spent time in a juvenile facility or underwent counseling he has engaged in
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fetish burglaries and or window peeping if he has not been arrested for these types of crimes he did it without being
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caught he is sloppy he is dressed poorly he has bad hygiene he knew the area and
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possibly the building he had a well-planned Escape Route and did not feel that he would be caught
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[Music] foreign [Music] cheers to you too wash your hands and that man wearing the red shirt
00:28:47
you know somebody that's going to freak him out how did the captain know he was wearing a red shirt it's because we can
00:28:53
see you I can see you Captain now's the point in the story where we have to introduce Burdette Cersei who is
00:29:01
Burdette Cersei well he's an individual that was a one-time Beatrice police officer and then goes on to become a
00:29:09
private investigator and afterward he will then become a deputy for the Gage County Sheriff's Office
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now I do not know this individual obviously but he comes off to me as somebody who
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thinks of himself as one of these famous detectives that you see on TV you know fictional detectives that you might
00:29:31
see on HBO or on Netflix solving the unsolvable murder of the small town that he lives in Old Frank driven what
00:29:40
happens in this situation is we have the Beatrice Police Department that's doing
00:29:46
good work in their investigation and they keep coming up with suspects and Persons of Interest and they're using
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the blood evidence that they found at the scene to clear these individuals it's pretty simple right we have
00:30:00
very unique evidence so when we have that very unique evidence and we go okay well this guy is pot this guy possibly
00:30:07
could have done it or this these people could have possibly done it and you go talk to him and you find out
00:30:15
hey they don't have an alibi let's get them to test the evidence and so when they test against the evidence
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they have to rule that individual out it's pretty simple just like what we saw with Bruce Smith the police the Beatrice
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Police Department really liked him for this murder he gave his blood they test it it doesn't match up 100 they move on
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to the next guy what ends up happening here though is because they keep clearing individuals
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the case drags on for months and then for years in fact Burnett Cersei does not become a deputy at the sheriff's
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office until this case is a couple of years old he is an obsessed officer obsessed with
00:31:00
the murder of Helen Wilson and obsessed with solving it he was considered by the
00:31:06
Beatrice Police Department to be an average cop it sounds to me like a lot of the other officers didn't care for
00:31:14
him much that he was hard to work with and difficult to get along with that might be why he ended up being a private
00:31:20
investigator for a while and then he gets hired as a sheriff he did try to get back on at Beatrice but they I don't
00:31:28
know if they turned him down or if he was offered the deputy job before that was worked out so bedet Cersei is
00:31:36
determined to solve the murder of Helen on Wilson and look I love a good passionate detective who is for the
00:31:45
people and looking to right or wrong and bring Justice to any of our victims here
00:31:51
so I don't want to sound like I'm coming down on that side of it yeah but sometimes passion turns into stupidity
00:31:57
but what we're going to see here Captain is a situation where I think this man's
00:32:02
Obsession may have taken him over and I will cite just some of the portions of this investigation or his investigation
00:32:10
as it unfolds here so first he has information or claims that he has information from a young woman named
00:32:19
Lisa podendorf now this Lisa podendorff will go on to be labeled as informant number one and I
00:32:28
have a summarized version of the story that she told to Cersei Lisa stated that at approximately 7 30
00:32:36
or 8 A.M on February 6 1985 while she was standing in Charles Park located by the junior high school in the city of
00:32:46
Beatrice Nebraska that she was approached by Joanne Taylor who began to visit with her she stated that during
00:32:54
their conversation she noted that there were several police cars in and about the apartment building located across
00:33:01
the street from the high school building and that she had made a comment to Joanne Taylor that she wondered why all
00:33:09
of the police cars were at that location to which Joanne Taylor then replied oh haven't you heard there was an older
00:33:18
lady killed there last night Lisa asked Joanne Taylor what had happened and Joanne Taylor stated to her that an
00:33:24
older lady was killed there and that she was killed by Suffocation Lisa asked how
00:33:30
Joanne knew that information Joanne stated that I know that because Joseph White and myself did it
00:33:39
Lisa replied back to Joanne oh sure in disbelief and Joanne Taylor said look I can tell you where the lady is lying
00:33:49
and what happened to her Joanne then advised her that the woman could be found lying in her living room near a
00:33:56
hallway on her back with her hands bound and that her face would be covered with
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an Afghan Lisa made a comment to Joanne oh sure I'll bet you did it right Joanne
00:34:08
Taylor then replied to Lisa hey look I can prove it I can even tell you the color of the footstool that's Lying by
00:34:15
the body and Joanne Taylor proceeded to state that there would be a foot Soul Lying by the body turned upside down and
00:34:22
that the footstool was vinyl covered green in color so there's a lot of information in that general statement
00:34:30
that Lisa podendorff provided to Burnette Cersei at his request some of that information is factual
00:34:40
crime scene information and some of it is incorrect yeah [ __ ] Malarkey we do need to point out that this is
00:34:48
information that Cersei says he received shortly after the homicide but then received it again years later from this
00:34:57
same Source one of the problems with this Lisa's statement is right from Jump Street where she says at approximately 7
00:35:06
30 to 8 o'clock A.M on February 6th she's standing there she talks to Joanne Taylor and they're discussing all the
00:35:13
police cars across the street that are in front of that apartment building well we know that Helen Wilson's body was not
00:35:21
discovered until 9 29 a.m there were no police cars there during the time that she says she was having this
00:35:28
conversation and that police cars were there right the information about where the body was located in the apartment
00:35:34
was correct the banner of death was correct in fact the stool kicked over lying on its side near the body was
00:35:42
correct as well this is going to prompt Deputy Cersei to believing well by jove I've got it I've finally
00:35:50
solved the unsolvable murder of our small town well but every time you know in his defense if you're if you hear
00:35:58
this rumor years ago and now this rumor is creeping back up you start thinking that maybe there's some weight there to
00:36:05
it well and in a move that I don't love but I guess you know sometimes if something's not getting solved you got
00:36:11
to get other people involved the Sheriff's Office knowing this information now they're determined to
00:36:17
take over this case and I imagine they were probably assisting the Beatrice Police Department
00:36:23
along the way up to this point but basically what you have here Captain is the Beatrice Police Department in
00:36:30
particular detective Stevens and the police chief they are now telling the sheriff and his deputy
00:36:39
Cersei like we understand that you have this information from this Lisa podendorf we
00:36:46
know who she is she's not a reliable honest person right this is not somebody that we would take important information
00:36:55
from you know this is stuff that you do collect and you investigate it and you look into it and it's quickly it's
00:37:02
usually quickly brushed aside because there's no there's no weight there's no credit nothing
00:37:08
backing it up and that was Stephen's concern in regards to the statements that were given to Cersei in fact he
00:37:17
goes on to say another officer goes on to tell Cersei and Warren Cersei watch out what she's saying to you because
00:37:24
this is a person who's not only unreliable but of very limited intelligence right Cersei takes this her
00:37:32
statement to be gospel that now we have Joanne Taylor and her friend Joseph white who committed this crime so now
00:37:43
this is going to lead Cersei to interviewing Joanne Taylor and this Joseph White
00:37:51
so again they have this let's call her eyewitness Elisa podendorf years earlier she's telling a story now
00:37:59
she's kind of telling the same story but everybody has dismissed the story because of her character and and she's
00:38:08
just not a believable Source but for some reason they're going to take her as a source now and run with this
00:38:16
well not only that we have Cersei Deputy Cersei who is now telling the sheriff's office that he works for
00:38:24
look my confidential informants I have more than one not just this Lisa person but they've given me information that
00:38:33
has assisted in identifying several persons who are known in the area where the Wilson homicide occurred
00:38:42
so in addition to this Joseph White and Joanne Taylor Cersei is now telling the sheriff's
00:38:50
office that this investigation has led him to consider Thomas Winslow Cliff Sheldon Mark Goodson Beth Johnson Debbie
00:38:59
Brown and Charlotte Mendenhall also known as Charlotte Bishop as Persons of Interest in this case at this time
00:39:10
at this time he's not necessarily saying that all of these individuals did in fact commit the the murder right but
00:39:18
these are all Persons of Interest to him based off of information that he's been
00:39:23
told by you know these could be local gossip people they could be rumors that are
00:39:30
going around town but whatever he's hearing is leading him to believe that some of these individuals are involved
00:39:37
in Helen Wilson's homicide well and sometimes when you have a especially a local case and very small community you
00:39:46
start hearing these rumors but you might have okay one or two of these individuals or The Killers but we
00:39:54
know that they were all at a party at some point and this story was shared so all these individuals know about the
00:40:01
crime the interesting thing here Captain is now we have eight individuals that Cersei is concerned with as being
00:40:07
possible Persons of Interest and he's going to have to investigate each one of these individuals at the very least
00:40:13
check into the their whereabouts see if they have Alibis maybe obtain blood from
00:40:18
each one of them in fingerprints interview them figure out who to leave on his list of suspects or include on
00:40:27
his list of suspects and who to eliminate so as he's investigating these Persons of Interest
00:40:34
he verified that on the night of the homicide one of his Persons of Interest Cliff Sheldon was at a hospital
00:40:42
and Beth Johnson was at her parents okay so they seemed to have pretty good Alibis Mark Goodson told Cersei that he
00:40:50
was out of town on the night of the homicide and it appears that Cersei believed Goodson's statement sounds like
00:40:58
cersei's willing to believe just about anything right Thomas Winslow claimed that he was working at a truck stop on
00:41:04
the night of the homicide but we have some information where Cersei does some good work here he actually finds out
00:41:11
later that this Thomas Winslow called in sick that night so while Winslow may have thought that he was at work or at
00:41:20
least was using that as a false alibi Cersei finds information to determine that that in fact is not correct and he
00:41:29
does not have an alibi at this point in the investigation they went from thinking that maybe eight people were
00:41:35
involved or knew something about the crime to five people that could be involved or know something about the
00:41:41
crime and he's really going to hone in on three of these characters in particular and that's going to be Joseph
00:41:47
white Joanne Taylor who he's already been told by Lisa were there and committed that murder and now he is
00:41:56
interested in this Winslow guy because remember he does not have an alibi for that night he does a little more digging
00:42:04
into Winslow and figures out that he has a previous arrest record it's all kind of Pretty Petty stuff but of interest on
00:42:13
his arrest record is a situation where someone kicked in a door to an elderly woman's home in the middle of the night
00:42:22
she calls it in police show up on the scene and they find a man walking in the area well this is that Winslow character
00:42:31
so he's brought in and actually charged with some kind of misdemeanor of menacing or vandalism vandalism
00:42:38
something of that nature well he sees that on Winslow's record and he says you know what this is a clear indicator that
00:42:46
he was probably trying to break into that woman's home so that he could rape and maybe even kill or Rob
00:42:52
the woman that night yeah and his little p brain he's going got him got him to Winslow's credit he says he
00:43:00
was simply just walking in the area when police showed up he was the only one there so they believed that he in fact
00:43:06
was the one that was guilty of kicking in This Woman's door but as they're doing more digging too they figure out
00:43:12
that Joseph White and Joanne Taylor the ones that he believes are responsible for these murders left town
00:43:20
just a little bit after the merge took place that information is true and that's certainly going to make them look
00:43:26
guilty to Deputy Cersei what we have here Captain is a situation where Winslow gets himself into some kind of
00:43:34
trouble he ends up being involved in a pretty brutal robbery that takes place and it sounds like Winslow was kind of
00:43:42
the lookout man and this robbery goes bad and his partner ends up severely assaulting the man that was robbed
00:43:51
so Winslow is facing now decades in prison for this violent robbery that he was involved in this is going to be
00:44:00
cersei's in right he's going to be able to go to the jail while this guy's waiting for his trial and he's going to
00:44:06
be able to talk with him and he says to him look I know that you have some kind of information in regards to the
00:44:13
homicide of Helen Wilson tell me what you know do you know a Joanne Taylor yes do you know a Joseph white yes
00:44:21
you're friends with them I was friends with them a long time ago I was friends with them four years ago just before
00:44:26
they left town shortly after the murder what ends up happening is after a long interview process Winslow is now saying
00:44:34
and getting an opportunity to get off of this long prison sentence for the violent robbery if he agrees to say
00:44:45
that Joseph White and Joanne Taylor told him that they committed the homicide and
00:44:50
that is why they were leaving town right because at this point we have Lisa that
00:44:55
we can't believe even everybody in Townsend we can't believe her but if we have her saying it and another person
00:45:01
saying it now we have two people going to be able to testify against Joseph and Joanne today we will be recommending
00:45:10
failure of Justice by John Ferrick this book is fantastic on the case and it's a
00:45:17
really long process here Captain how they get from the FBI telling them one single male perpetrator committed this
00:45:26
crime to now we're up to three people right we're we're at two people were involved
00:45:32
and one guy Winslow knows about it and because he's facing a lengthy prison sentence he's all more than happy to
00:45:39
throw his former friends under the bus and say yeah they told me they were getting out of Dodge because they
00:45:46
committed the murder right interview after interview after interview he wants to know that they told him
00:45:54
details they didn't just tell you that they committed the crime and they're they're leaving town did they know they
00:45:58
told you intimate details didn't they tell you this that the other thing he's feeding Winslow information
00:46:05
to help fill in a lot of the blanks and give him details unknown to the public details about the homicide the rape and
00:46:14
the attack itself showing him pictures of the crime scene well we see this all the time you know
00:46:20
look at West Memphis Three or whatever where it's like oh well they oh well they use this weapon and the the cops go
00:46:29
um you sure it was that weapon you sure it wasn't a knife you sure it wasn't this and they just kind of Point them
00:46:35
into the correct direction armed with this information they are going to go back to their original suspects Joseph
00:46:42
White and Joanne Taylor to which Joseph white he says look I'm innocent I do not know what you're
00:46:49
talking about I didn't kill any woman I didn't do it with Joanne Taylor I didn't
00:46:52
leave town because I killed a woman I have no involvement in this at all and furthermore they don't have any evidence
00:46:59
that Joseph white did this other than this confession from this Winslow guy they just received and it's you know a
00:47:08
little bit of information that turns into a lot of information but then you have these fingerprints and you go how
00:47:13
about we test these fingerprints in this Blood evidence well that's the thing what happens is the blood evidence
00:47:20
doesn't match Joseph white the fingerprints don't match Joseph white well that's okay because we now know
00:47:26
that two people were there so does the blood match Joanne Taylor now did the fingerprints match Joanne
00:47:33
Taylor no well Winslow knew somebody else there Winslow knew about this crime he says that he knew about it maybe he
00:47:42
knows more than what he's telling us maybe he was there that night too and helped the two of them commit this crime
00:47:48
maybe he was actually even involved in the murder and rape itself now we're up to three people tied together being
00:47:54
involved in the murder and rape they test Thomas Winslow's blood it doesn't match the fingerprints do not match at
00:48:02
some point you'd start going hey all these uh no's equal they're not involved but he doesn't stop there he goes okay
00:48:11
well now we got these three suspects but they don't match so while they knew about the crime possibly were there so
00:48:19
now I need to find another individual that actually matches the evidence through this they will get a confession
00:48:26
from Joanne Taylor and Thomas Winslow Thomas Winslow goes from just knowing about the crime to now
00:48:35
he's completely involved and he's confessing that he was in fact there and was involved in the attack itself
00:48:41
their stories are all a little you know they're not 100 lining up but they're close Joanne Taylor and Thomas Winslow's
00:48:48
stories are close and what's interesting to me here Captain is that these are fairly detailed actually not fairly
00:48:55
they're very detailed accounts of what went down that night how much of that information was fed to them is certainly
00:49:02
to be called into question now note Joseph White is still proclaiming innocence he never
00:49:09
confesses to anything he never implicates anybody else in the homicide in fact he even says I believe you I was
00:49:17
with Joanne Taylor that night so she couldn't have committed the crime or committed it with anybody else
00:49:23
through the statements that they get from Joanne Taylor and the altered statements that they get from Thomas
00:49:29
Winslow they will go on to implicate a Deborah Sheldon and James Dean so now we have five individuals that committed
00:49:40
this rape and homicide and what is cersei's theory the theory is that Winslow white and Taylor had prior
00:49:50
knowledge of the victim and prior knowledge of her belongings and that she would have money and that they went
00:49:57
there to Rob this elderly woman the robbery then turned into a rape and a murder
00:50:04
keep in mind right the FBI who originally assisted the Beatrice Police Department who again was doing good work
00:50:13
on the case before the sheriff's office took it over told the police department this is almost certainly a single male
00:50:21
perpetrator and the motive was definitely not robbery yeah single male now we're having females involved and
00:50:30
there we're up to five people right well now and again the nose the amount of nose that they got the nose
00:50:39
nose the nose knows now with the addition of Deborah Sheldon and James Dean we have two possible people that we
00:50:45
could connect the fingerprints and blood evidence to and again it's more nose no way it doesn't match the blood of
00:50:54
Sheldon or James Dean come on if the glove don't fit you must have quit we have a shirt that will tell you
00:51:01
differently um the interesting thing here though Captain is now we still need to find
00:51:08
somebody that the blood evidence will match right we're up to five perpetrators and nobody's matched the blood well
00:51:15
let's keep going why stop at five there's an interesting little tidbit to this whole story and part of that is
00:51:22
that Thomas Winslow for about a week maybe a few nights to a week stayed at the home of Kathy Gonzalez
00:51:31
Kathy Gonzalez lived on the third floor of the apartment building in fact directly above our victim Helen Wilson
00:51:41
It is believed that Gonzalez and Winslow because of this Arrangement he stayed there crashing on her couch for a few
00:51:50
days she was trying to help him out because he was basically homeless after his girlfriend dumped him and kicked him
00:51:55
out of her place get out you son of a [ __ ] so now Cersei believes that this provided
00:52:02
knowledge about the victim and her apartment and her belongings from Kathy Gonzalez and Thomas Winslow so they
00:52:09
tracked down this Kathy Gonzalez she is adamant I did not have anything to do with this I remember exactly what I was
00:52:17
doing that night because the next morning was very strange for me they found a murder victim a person that I
00:52:22
knew that I lived near how could I forget what I was doing she said that she had done laundry watched a movie
00:52:29
went to bed and that Winslow was not living at her residence at that time she had kicked him out too it goes from
00:52:37
Kathy Gonzalez doing laundry and watching a movie that night to her confessing to being involved in the
00:52:44
murder as well and implicating all of these same people that have been implicated by the others
00:52:49
six people will ultimately be charged with the murder of Helen Wilson five of them confessed to being involved and
00:52:57
confessed that the others were involved as well Kathy Gonzalez her blood matched but not one hundred percent
00:53:07
and so we saw the blood was from a male well the blood evidence is not going to suggest if it's male or female they're
00:53:15
not doing DNA evidence we're saying hey we got fingerprints and we have blood evidence and we have
00:53:21
semen so we know the Siemens from a man so we're going to assume that the blood is
00:53:27
from a man as well that's what the FBI is stating and to be clear the forensics that were conducted the tests that were
00:53:35
conducted on the blood evidence found at the scene and the forensic evidence found at the scene they were conducted
00:53:42
in the state of Nebraska not by the FBI Kathy Gonzalez her blood matches but it's not a 100 percent match but it's
00:53:51
close enough for Cersei and the Sheriff's Office to continue with their charging these six individuals with
00:53:59
homicide now what their statement is going to be is that because we have so many perpetrators plus we have a victim
00:54:06
that they weren't going to be able to get a 100 match because it's probably a mixture some kind of blood mixture yeah
00:54:15
that makes sense the confessions the five convictions are what will ultimately win over these convictions of
00:54:23
all six of these individuals and in fact John Ferrick says this in his book and I
00:54:28
have to Echo this belief of his the if the death penalty did not exist in Nebraska at the time I don't know that
00:54:36
they would have gotten all these confessions or any of them for that matter because the death penalty was
00:54:42
what was the threat to these individuals they took them from not being involved to confessing to being involved in a
00:54:49
brutal homicide and I don't want to get into opinions on death penalty for against that's not what we're here to
00:54:56
discuss just know that that was used as leverage against these individuals plus we also have a group that's
00:55:03
really kind of a group of Down and Out people you know some people that have had tough upbringings have had bad
00:55:09
situations some that are not quite all there some that are easily impressionable yeah but what they do is
00:55:15
they use multiple people against each other not just one in one if it's one and one you start thinking well it's he
00:55:23
said she said once these law enforcement officers are saying look we know you're involved and if you don't
00:55:30
cooperate like the others are cooperating we're going to give you the death penalty so then you're going to
00:55:37
start contemplating in your head while I'm innocent of the crime I definitely don't want to die because of it so if I
00:55:45
go along with the others then at least I'm alive in prison and I have a fighting chance to get out in 1989 the
00:55:55
six that will go on to be known as the Beatrice six were arrested for the crime of murder ultimately all six are charged
00:56:03
and convicted and they will all serve pretty lengthy prison sentences now this will be up until they are all all six of
00:56:13
them exonerated in 2009 and the reason for this is that in 2008 DNA evidence implicated to a 100
00:56:24
certainty that Bruce Allen Smith the original Prime Suspect in the murder was the sole perpetrator of this rape and
00:56:33
homicide but I thought it was blood didn't match but what we have here Captain is that Bruce Allen Smith was
00:56:39
eliminated by testing performed by later disgraced lab analyst Joyce Gilchrist so she just did a shoddy job with her
00:56:50
testing and her findings in her test now unfortunately even though we've proven that Bruce Allen Smith committed this
00:56:58
homicide he could not be prosecuted because he died in Oklahoma back in 1992. so he's dead and gone while these
00:57:06
other individuals are sitting in prison for this murder charge now out of the six the way it works is some of them got
00:57:13
only 10 years and some of them got like 40 years and others got life in prison that's correct we have white who
00:57:21
received life in prison the two males were charged most heavily charged because they were the ones that were
00:57:29
implicated by the others as committing the rape and the murder itself right unfortunately in 2011 Joseph white was
00:57:39
killed in a construction accident at work and the state agreed to pay compensation to all of these individuals
00:57:50
who served time in prison so there was a lawsuit that was filed against the Gage
00:57:55
County Gage County Nebraska it was actually dismissed a couple of times before it finally went through there was
00:58:03
a trial for the lawsuit and the jury awarded millions and millions of dollars to not only the five that remain but
00:58:11
also to Joseph White's heirs now this is not a extremely wealthy County right and
00:58:19
so the county was forced to raise taxes so that they could pay back the Beatrice six for the wrongful
00:58:31
conviction well it's sad in this case too because again law enforcement have all these forced confessions
00:58:39
at some point I mean how many people do you have to have involved in this case I
00:58:45
just don't understand how somebody in law enforcement could it's almost like they had to make up the story as they
00:58:51
went along and that's what Cersei was doing and a little bit in his defense I'm not going to come to his defense too
00:58:57
much but when you have these suspicions and you have this completely bogus theory that he believed I I believe that
00:59:05
he actually believed his own Theory yeah well I believe that you believe that he
00:59:09
believed his own Theory and the problem then becomes he starts finding people that are going along with his theory and
00:59:18
filling in a lot of the blanks along the way now they got to some of these fill in the blanks they got some of
00:59:25
these blanks filled in by some questionable Behavior you know you had a uh psychologist that was involved that
00:59:32
was telling people you know well you probably blocked it out you know you could have been there and completely
00:59:38
blocked it out just because you don't remember it doesn't mean you didn't do it right you weren't there and they
00:59:44
started relying on a lot of the confessions a lot of the portions of the confessions that implicated themselves
00:59:50
and the the others came from first the notion of well the police tell me I was there so I must have been there and then
00:59:58
secondly it goes to they were taking information that some of the individuals say that they were they were having
01:00:04
dreams about the crime so they must have been there right and but I also want to
01:00:09
know how much force was used and that's that's something that law enforcement would know you see what I'm
01:00:16
saying like if I actually if I'm going into the interview and I and within an hour or so I I start getting people to
01:00:23
confess yes we all know that innocent people will confess to crimes they didn't commit but I'm going to start going well
01:00:31
that was pretty easy so maybe I am on to something and what I'm saying is we don't know those details of of how the
01:00:39
interrogations went well if you want to know the details check out John ferrick's book because he details that
01:00:45
in his book and what we do learn is that I don't believe that there was any type
01:00:51
of force or abuse that was used I mean I shouldn't say any type of abuse because
01:00:56
there was certainly some type of abuse but I would put that more on the mental and emotional aspect of really kind of
01:01:04
trying to Corral these individuals and convincing them that they did in fact do this and altering their own statements
01:01:12
and giving it back to them we're talking about a situation where we have multiple
01:01:16
individuals that were interviewed multiple times over series of days and weeks and and so on and so forth and and
01:01:25
a lot of them started off with the story that they were innocent and had nothing
01:01:29
to do with it and over time after being interviewed over and over and over again
01:01:32
and sitting with the police psychologist and being hypnotized and this that and the other thing
01:01:39
it morphs into this weird situation of they go from being innocent to yeah I was guilty and they're guilty
01:01:46
too but that's what drives me nuts about some of the these law enforcement and some of these detectives it's the level
01:01:52
of manipulation it's the level of manipulations that you have to use on these individuals and multiple
01:02:00
individuals to get any kind of confession at some point you should understand that you're only getting that
01:02:06
confession because of the manipulation not because it's the truth [Music] [Applause]
01:02:22
all right thanks for joining us here in the garage and if you are freak nasty make sure you check out off the record
01:02:30
our bonus show that comes out every other week but only do so if you're nasty Colonel do we have any recommended
01:02:37
reading for this week yes sir Captain obviously this week we will be recommending failure of Justice a brutal
01:02:44
murder and an obsessed cop and six wrongful convictions by John Ferrick you can find that wonderful title and many
01:02:52
others on our website truecrime garage.com click on the recommended page this book is incredible this is a very
01:02:59
convoluted and difficult to understand story because there's so many people involved there's so many different
01:03:06
confessions John Ferrick did an amazing job of laying this case out and really detailing every portion of this case an
01:03:16
investigation that ultimately took over four years so make sure you check out failure of Justice by by John Ferrick
01:03:23
it's also available on Audible so you can check it out there I'm actually listening to it right now as we speak
01:03:32
as we record make sure you join us back here in the garage next week until then be good be kind and don't listen
01:03:48
[Applause] foreign [Music]