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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 joining me as always in the garage a man that knows just as well as i do that you
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fully intended that pun ladies and gentlemen the captain yeah it's good to be seen it's good to see
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you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend this week we are very happy to be
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featuring ritual destruction by one of my very favorite brewers that's jackie o's ritual destruction is a hazy double
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ipa that is bright effervescent and features a hint of apricot made from real apes abv nine percent
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garage grade four and a quarter bottle caps out of five and let's give some praise and thank you to our good friends
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for helping us out this week first up it cheers to charlene and andrea in rochester new york and a big shout out
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to gretchen in waunakee wisconsin next up captain we have a double-fisted cheers that goes out to andy and utah
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and dan the van man who is probably somewhere in colorado and a big we like to jib to jennifer in plainfield indiana
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and here's the cheers that goes out to caitlin and conway south carolina and last but certainly not least we have
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jenna and olathe kansas everybody that we just mentioned they helped us out with this week's beer fund and for that
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we say you're very generous and we thank you very much yeah bwrun beer run and if you need more true crime garage
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and click on off the record to sign up and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a
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chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] the city of beatrice
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is located in the southern portion of the great cornhusker state of nebraska was once featured on the popular show
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unsolved mysteries for a famous story from the city's history that took place in 1950
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when a natural gas explosion destroyed a church during the church choir's regularly scheduled practice
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but miraculously all 15 choir members survived because for a variety of different
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reasons each of the 15 were running late that day the true crime story we are featuring today did
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not make it on unsolved mysteries and takes place 35 years later in 1985. today back in 85 the population of beatrice is
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practically the same right around 12 and a half thousand people lived in beatrice
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which is in gage county nebraska and we will reference both beatrice city police
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and gage county sheriff's department during our garage exploration of this case helen wilson was born in the nearby
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village of pickerel which is also in gage county she was born on july 13 1916 and at the time of our story
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she was 68 years old and living alone helen was retired and her husband passed away years earlier
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she was very active in her local methodist church in fact she helped out quite a bit by watching some of the
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children at the church while their parents attended she was also a member of the gage county
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historical society in the eagles auxiliary in the days leading up to february 1985
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helen was not feeling well helen had pneumonia was relying on the help of others including her daughter
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jan winters in nebraska are cold and the february nights are even colder on the night of february 5th 1985
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68 year old helen wilson went to bed the next morning helen's brother went to her apartment on north sixth
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street and sadly at approximately 9 30 a.m on february 6th he found helen dead she had been murdered sometime between
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when she went to bed the night before and that morning this is true crime garage
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this is a case of helen wilson and the beatrice six [Music] [Applause] 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
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in apartment number four at 212 north sixth street her lifeless body was found february 6
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1985. helen had been raped and suffocated to death helen wilson leaves behind three children seven
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grandchildren and six great-grandchildren they held a closed casket service in the days that followed
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and she was buried next to her husband 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 apartment her
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face was covered with a scarf that was tied around her neck and or head covering her face
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this too was her scarf her nightgown was lifted up there was a lot of evidence a lot of
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physical evidence at the crime scene semen was found on helen's body and collected during her autopsy it was also
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found on the carpet where her body was found on and portions of her clothing as well
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and a cutting from her gown she was wearing contained blood stains there were also blood stains on her bed
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they found three fingerprints at least three fingerprints found throughout the apartment that they did not have a match
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for or any reasonable explanation why they would be there a knife was also left at the crime scene
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and this contained fingerprints other than helens the knife came from helen's kitchen so when you see a scene like
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this captain the first thoughts are someone broke into this home clearly in the middle of the night she
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must have been sleeping in the bedroom he surprises her using a knife to probably try to control the victim
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and the fight for whatever reason the scuffle ends in the living room where her body
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is eventually found the next morning did they know if the unidentified fingerprints match the prints on the
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knife that's a good question and i don't have a solid answer for you captain because of the wording in the
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information that we have it would seem to me that this individual whoever committed this crime
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or individuals that committed this crime at least one of them was not wearing any
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type of gloves to try to hide their fingerprints because we found these on the knife itself right the other
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fingerprints that were found throughout the apartment i'm guessing belong to the same individual but there
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is no definitive statement that i saw that says yes this is all from the same individual there was a
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significant amount of cash and valuables that were found in her apartment meaning that anybody that broke in that
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night during this attack could have loaded up on cash and other valuables before leaving her apartment
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but for whatever reason did not and you could say maybe they didn't know that these things were here or there but
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a quick search of her small apartment would have found at least thirteen hundred dollars in cash and other
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valuables it's also a different time at that time period a lot of people kept cash on them nowadays i just walk out of
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my house with my debit card i don't even carry cash on my person yeah and there was 1300 cash in the top drawer of her
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dresser in her bedroom that anybody could have found now blood type serology at the time this is 1985
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was considered to be the top scientific method to solve crimes when the perpetrator left blood hair with
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follicles and or semen at the crime scene there are four main human blood types a
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b a b and o i have the tiger blood people are either secretors or and about 85 percent of the population
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are secretors wilson's rapist and murderer left semen at the murder scene now tess revealed that the killer was
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type b blood which is more rare than the other types and a non-secretor so this is really going to limit the
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population you know we're not using dna technology back then to solve crimes but
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this is going to limit how many people could have possibly committed this crime that is a big help for your
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investigation so in this case captain we're looking for someone with type b blood and a
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non-secretor and the information that i have seen says that back in 1985 only about 1 in 10 people carried this
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rare blood type according to police reports this was a single apartment this was a apartment building somebody
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actually messed with the fuse box and it turned all the lights off in the hallways yeah so police immediately
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believe that this is connected to the murder itself that this wasn't just something that was a coincidence and
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from my understanding captain there's at least three floors in this building and
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her apartment apartment number four was on the second floor what this indicates to me is that
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whoever perpetrated this crime had some kind of knowledge of this building the other thing too is you have
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to wonder would the perpetrator have known or known of no matter how loosely the victim
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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
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and then she went to the door to see who it was she would have no way of seeing out of her people and we have a
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situation too here where we can really kind of narrow down the time frame of when the murder
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occurred first off if you do believe that the cutting of the lights this also affected the
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furnace in the building too remember this is february in nebraska so some of the residents woke up to apartments that
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were extremely cold because at some point the heat just stopped kicking on well the other reason that you cut the
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lights off too is as you're exiting the crime that if a neighbor went to see you
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they would have a harder time identifying you and the way that we can narrow down the time frame of the murder
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in the attack itself is we have relatives remember we have helen wilson she's older she's suffering from
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pneumonia at the time she's not been feeling well they were kind of taking care of her some of her relatives they
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were there until i believe 9 45 p.m the night before to which she said to them before they
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left that she would be going to bed shortly afterward there were some phone calls that were made to her apartment
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that night that went unanswered we also have the situation of her relatives finding her the next morning when
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they're trying to call and again getting no answers so we really only have a time frame of
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about 12 hours where this could have taken place pretty large time frame though again there was a significant
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amount of cash that was found inside of the apartment easily available to anybody that was in there and from the
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attack itself and from the forensic evidence that we just described it's easy to believe that the
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perpetrator probably spent a good deal of time inside of the apartment now in regards to some of the autopsy
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information i mean this was a brutal attack that not only involved rape but from the
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coroner's opinion involved necrophilia after the fact they found blood under her fingernails right that
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belonged to the perpetrator but her body was in bad shape as we said there was a towel wrapped around her
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hands and wrist and the scarf was wrapped around her neck and head covering her face she suffered traumatic
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fractures to her sternum left fifth and sixth ribs and the left humerus she also had suffered abrasions to the
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face thorax and right knee and she had clear defensive wounds on her hands and wrist
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consistent with sharp instrument lacerations well the more that you fight the more chance that you have to collect
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dna evidence on your body as bad as this attack was and as brutal as it sounds captain there is belief
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by the experts that say that they do not think that the perpetrator intended to kill the victim
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and the way that they explain this and it doesn't make sense on the surface now does it but the way that they explain it
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is they think that the attacker simply wanted to rape and incapacitate the victim and then flee at some point the
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combination of using all of that force and uh 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 ant well like you said
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there was some sign of necrophiliac you wonder if the murderer even knew that she was dead
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yes that's exactly right and we need to really focus in on this blood evidence that was found and the science that's
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involved in that as we said according to the police reports in 1985 only about 1 in 10 people carried this
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rare blood type police really worked this case good and what's going to sound weird by the time we get to the end of
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this case you're 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 lucknroth 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
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early on that led them to several suspects because of the fingerprints you start questioning is this one murderer
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or a group well one of the individuals that they were looking at was a man by the name of bruce smith who was kind of
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a drifter he was a one-time resident of beatrice who had moved away and was back in town briefly
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right bruce smith captain was the early prime suspect and i'm talking about march 1985
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about a month after the murder the way that bruce smith gets onto the radar of the beatrice police department
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is an individual comes forward and says hey i'm friends with this guy he was in town and we spent the night at a bar
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drinking and he wouldn't shut up about wanting to get laid that night well we end up hanging out with some
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old friends of ours and going to an after party that just keeps getting later and later in the night and we end
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up crashing at these young ladies place bruce smith and his friend are in there early to mid 20s in 1985
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but something happens in the middle of that night and what happens is one of these young
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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
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local creep and that he's back into town so they start going through a list of people that are capable of something
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like this yeah well his friend is the one that brings bruce smith to the attention of police
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because he says well some friend that is the way that that works out is when he tries to assault this young woman she
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gives him the business and basically kicks his ass good for her and his quote-unquote friend or
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you know sometimes you think you're friends with somebody and then you learn who they really are and decide we're not
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really friends uh this friend also joined in on kicking bruce smith's ass so much so that he then escorted
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bruce smith out of their residence and decided you know what bruce where you want to go i'm going to take you
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somewhere and drop you off you can't stay here so he drops bruce smith off and he just
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says look i want to tell you police this is what was going on that night i know she never reported the attack
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but i'm not saying that they're connected i'm just letting you know that this is the type of guy that was here in
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beatrice that night and this is what i know he did that night that he attacked this other woman
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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 your blood and your fingerprints
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and we will check into the information and it will either clear you or we'll 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
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who is now their prime suspect tested in the forensics showed that he was in fact type b blood but he was a
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secretor so this cleared him and he was free to go police are going to have to move on with their investigation i just
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wonder if that if you have two blood types one a secretor one a non-secretor if that would mess up the
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testing well you can have a mixed sample like you'd have like the victim's blood
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was a secretor so somehow that gets tampered with the other blood and that would confuse the test yes you can have
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a mixed sample when it comes to the forensics on these cases in fact that's what we had in the barbara blatnick case
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that we discussed a couple years ago about 90 days into beatrice police chief don luckenroth's homicide of helen
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wilson investigation police announced that phone tips and police suspicions led to checks into 62 men now around
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this time helen's daughter jan was interviewed jan said that the citizens of beatrice and others from around the
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area were very sympathetic to her and her family saying quote this town is fantastic i've lived here all my life
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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 3 500
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now jan 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
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after the murder to please contact beatrice police department well the fbi also was brought into this case pretty
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quickly they sent out just a single agent but like we said this is a very small town just a little over 12 000
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people and with that blood sample you're able to eliminate so much of the population there will be a lot of blame
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to be thrown around here captain in what will ultimately be a horrific investigation
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into this murder case what i want to point out one more time is police chief luckenroth and the detective
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stevens look at the work that they're doing is 1985 they are making sure that they collect all of the proper forensic
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evidence at the crime scene that it's stored properly that it's tested and that that information is kept and
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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 klismet to
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speak with and work with the beatrice police department and he's going to put together an fbi profile a perpetrator
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profile on helen wilson's homicide investigation in my summarized version of his profile
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reads as follows it is not likely that helen wilson was a victim of a crime of opportunity it is
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possible the victim was surveilled or possibly known to the offender robbery was definitely listen to that robbery
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was definitely not the motive for the attack or murder the knife used came from inside the home this was used by
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the perpetrator to gain control of the victim this attack is definitely connected to
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the same individual that committed the failed attacks on single elderly women a year and a half to two years ago all
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right so i want to talk about this and break in here for a minute here captain so you don't break into your own
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conversation in beatrice yes in 1983 there were several attacks that were undetermined to be related or not
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where someone broke into a single elderly woman's home or apartment and attempted to
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either rape them or assault them but was unsuccessful for whatever reason may have gotten scared off maybe she
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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
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failed attacks that took place a year and a half to two years ago he goes on to add these attacks took place in the
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middle of the night within 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
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the attacker may have left town for a new job joined the military or been busted for
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prowling somewhere he goes on to say that there's a strong possibility that the killer hated or resented older women
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and probably had a terrible relationship with his mother oh not his mother he may
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have experienced emotional abuse or torment from his mother grandmother or some other older female relative this
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attack rape and murder was most definitely committed by one single male perpetrator the man that you are looking
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for is most likely a white male short or of medium height in his early 20s thin a high school dropout
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considered a loner viewed as odd or wimpy in school and came from a broken home he owns pornography and likely
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spent time in a juvenile facility or underwent counseling he has engaged in fetish burglaries and
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or window peeping if he has not been arrested for these types of crimes he did it without being caught he is sloppy
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he is dressed poorly he has bad hygiene he knew the area and possibly the building he had a well-planned escape
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route and did not feel that he would be caught [Music] [Music] all right we are back cheers
00:28:38
cheers to you on the front the people in the back the people in the bathroom cheers to you too
00:28:44
wash your hands and that man wearing the red shirt you know somebody that's going to freak
00:28:49
him out how did the captain know he was wearing a red shirt it's because we can see you i can see you captain now's the
00:28:55
point in the story where we have to introduce burdette cersei who is burdette cersei
00:29:02
well he's an individual that was a one-time beatrice police officer and then goes on to become a private
00:29:09
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 you might see
00:29:31
on hbo or on netflix solving the unsolvable murder of the small town that he lives in
00:29:40
what happens in this situation is we have the beatrice police department that's doing good work in their
00:29:47
investigation and they keep coming up with suspects and persons of interest and they're using the blood evidence
00:29:53
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
00:30:06
pot this guy possibly could have done it or this these people could have possibly done it
00:30:13
and you go talk to them and you find out hey they don't have an alibi let's get them to test the evidence
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and so when they test against the evidence they have to rule that individual out it's pretty simple just
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like what we saw with bruce smith the police the beatrice police department really liked him for this murder he gave
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his blood they test it it doesn't match up 100 they move on to the next guy what ends up happening here though is
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because they keep clearing individuals the case drags on for months and then for years
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in fact burdette cersei does not become a deputy at the sheriff's office until this case
00:30:53
is a couple of years old he is an obsessed officer obsessed with the murder of helen wilson and obsessed with solving
00:31:03
it he was considered by the beatrice police department to be an average cop it sounds to me like a lot of the
00:31:12
other officers didn't care for him much that he was hard to work with and difficult to get along with that might
00:31:18
be why he ended up being a private investigator for a while and then he gets hired as a sheriff he did try to
00:31:25
get back on at beatrice but they i don't know if they turned him down or if he was offered the deputy job before that
00:31:32
was worked out so bernette cersei is determined to solve the murder of helen wilson and look i love a good passionate
00:31:43
detective who is for the people and looking to right or wrong and bring justice to
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any of our victims here so i don't want to sound like i'm coming down on that side of it yeah but sometimes passion
00:31:56
turns into stupidity but what we're going to see here captain is a situation where i think this man's obsession may
00:32:03
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 podendorff now this lisa podendorff will go on to be labeled as informant number one and i
00:32:27
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
00:32:45
in the city of beatrice nebraska that she was approached by joanne taylor who began to visit with her
00:32:53
she stated that during their conversation she noted that there were several police cars in and about the
00:32:59
apartment building located across the street from the high school building and that she had made a comment
00:33:06
to joanne taylor that she wondered why all of the police cars were at that location
00:33:12
to which joanne taylor then replied oh haven't you heard there was an older lady killed there last night lisa asked
00:33:20
joanne taylor what had happened and joanne taylor stated to her that an older lady was killed there and that she
00:33:26
was killed by suffocation lisa asked how joanne knew that information joanne stated that
00:33:34
i know that because joseph white and myself did it lisa replied back to joanne oh sure in
00:33:42
disbelief and joanne taylor said look i can tell you where the lady is lying and what happened to her
00:33:50
joanne then advised her that the woman could be found lying in her living room near a hallway on her back with her
00:33:57
hands bound and that her face would be covered with an afghan lisa made a comment to joanne oh sure i'll
00:34:06
bet you did it right joanne taylor then replied to lisa hey look i can prove it i can even tell you the color of the
00:34:13
footstool that's lying by the body and joanne taylor proceeded to state that there would be a foot sole lying by the
00:34:20
body turned upside down and that the footstool was vinyl covered green in color so there's a lot of information in
00:34:28
that general statement that lisa podendorff provided to burdette cersei at his request
00:34:38
some of that information is factual crime scene information and some of it is incorrect yeah [ __ ] malarkey we do
00:34:46
need to point out that this is information that cersei says he received shortly after
00:34:53
the homicide but then received it again years later from this same source one of the problems with this lisa's
00:35:01
statement is right from jump street where she says that approximately 7 30 to 8 o'clock am
00:35:08
on february 6 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
00:35:20
was not discovered until 9 29 a.m there were no police cars there during the time that she says she was having this
00:35:27
conversation and that police cars were there right the information about where the body was
00:35:33
located in the apartment was correct the banner of death was correct in fact the
00:35:38
stool kicked over lying on its side near the body was correct as well this is going to prompt deputy cersei to
00:35:46
believing well by jove i've got it i've finally solved the unsolvable murder of our
00:35:53
small town well but every time you know in his defense if you're if you hear this rumor years ago and now this rumor
00:36:01
is creeping back up you start thinking that maybe there's some weight there to it well and in a
00:36:06
move that i don't love but i guess you know sometimes if something's not getting solved you've got to get other
00:36:11
people involved the sheriff's office knowing this information now they're determined to take over this case and i
00:36:18
imagine they were probably assisting the beatrice police department along the way up to this point but
00:36:26
basically what you have here captain is the beatrice police department in particular detective stevens
00:36:32
and the police chief they are now telling the sheriff and his deputy cersei like we understand that you have this
00:36:42
information from this lisa podendorf we know who she is she's not a reliable honest person right
00:36:51
this is not somebody that we would take important information from you know this
00:36:56
is stuff that you do collect and you investigate it and you look into it and it's quickly
00:37:01
it's usually quickly brushed aside because there's no there's no wait there's no credit
00:37:08
nothing backing it up and that was stephen's concern in regards to the statements that were
00:37:14
given to cersei in fact he goes on to say another officer goes on to tell cersei and warn cersei
00:37:22
watch out what she's saying to you because this is a person who's not only unreliable but of very limited
00:37:28
intelligence right cersei takes this her statement to be gospel that now we have joanne taylor
00:37:37
and her friend joseph white who committed this crime so now this is going to lead cersei to
00:37:45
interviewing joanne taylor and this joseph white so again they have this let's call her eyewitness alisa
00:37:55
podendorf years earlier she's telling a story now she's kind of telling the same story but
00:38:01
everybody has dismissed the story because of her character and and she's just not a believable
00:38:09
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 the deputy cersei who is now telling the sheriff's office that he
00:38:23
works for look my confidential informants i have more than one not just this lisa person
00:38:30
but they've given me information that has assisted in identifying several persons who are known in the area
00:38:39
where the wilson homicide occurred so in addition to this joseph white and joanne taylor
00:38:48
cersei is now telling the sheriff's office that this investigation has led him to consider
00:38:53
thomas winslow cliff sheldon mark goodson beth johnson debbie brown and charlotte mendenhall
00:39:02
also known as charlotte bishop as persons of interest in this case at this time at this time he's not necessarily saying
00:39:12
that all of these individuals did in fact commit the the murder right but these are all persons of interest to
00:39:20
him based off of information that he's been told by you know these could be local gossip
00:39:27
people they could be rumors that are going around town but whatever he's hearing is leading him to
00:39:33
believe that some of these individuals are involved in helen wilson's homicide well and sometimes when you have a
00:39:41
especially a local case and very small community you start hearing these rumors but you might have okay one or two of
00:39:50
these individuals are the killers but we know that they were all at a party at some point and this story was shared so
00:39:58
all these individuals know about the crime the interesting thing here captain is now we have eight individuals that
00:40:05
cersei is concerned with as being possible persons of interest and he's going to have to investigate each one of
00:40:11
these individuals at the very least check into the their whereabouts see if they have alibis maybe obtain blood
00:40:18
from each one of them in fingerprints interview them figure out who to leave on his list of suspects or include
00:40:27
on his list of suspects and who to eliminate so as he's investigating these persons
00:40:32
of interest he verified that on the night of the homicide one of his persons of interest cliff sheldon was at
00:40:41
a hospital and beth johnson was at her parents okay so they seem to have pretty good alibis
00:40:48
mark goodson told cersei that he was out of town on the night of the homicide and
00:40:53
it appears that cersei believed goodson's statement sounds like cersei's willing to believe just about anything
00:40:59
right thomas winslow claimed that he was working at a truck stop on the night of
00:41:05
the homicide but we have some information where cersei does some good work here he actually finds out later
00:41:12
that this thomas winslow called in sick that night so while winslow may have thought that he was at work or at least
00:41:20
was using that as a false alibi cersei finds information to determine that that in fact is not correct and he
00:41:28
does not have an alibi at this point in the investigation they went from thinking that maybe eight people were
00:41:34
involved or knew something about the crime to five people that could be involved or know something about the
00:41:40
crime and he's really gonna hone in on three of these characters in particular and that's going to be
00:41:47
joseph white joanne taylor who he's already been told by lisa were there and committed that murder
00:41:55
and now he is interested in this winslow guy because remember he does not have an
00:42:01
alibi for that night he does a little more digging into winslow and figures out that he has a previous arrest record
00:42:09
it's all kind of pretty petty stuff but of interest on his arrest record is a situation where someone kicked in a
00:42:17
door to an elderly woman's home in the middle of the night she calls it in police show
00:42:24
up on the scene and they find a man walking in the area well this is that winslow character so
00:42:31
he's brought in and actually charged with some kind of misdemeanor of menacing or
00:42:37
vandalism vandalism something of that nature well he sees that on winslow's record and he says you know what this is
00:42:44
a clear indicator that he was probably trying to break into that woman's home so that he could rape and maybe even
00:42:50
kill or rob the woman that night yeah and his little pee brain he's going got him
00:42:57
got him to winslow's credit he says he was simply just walking in the area when police showed up he was the only one
00:43:04
there so they believed that he in fact was the one that was guilty of kicking in this woman's door well as
00:43:10
they're doing more digging too they figure out that joseph white and joanne taylor the ones that he believes are
00:43:17
responsible for these murders left town just a little bit after the murders took
00:43:22
place that information is true and that's certainly going to make them look guilty to deputy cersei
00:43:29
what we have here captain is a situation where winslow gets himself into some kind of trouble he ends up being
00:43:35
involved in a pretty brutal robbery that takes place and it sounds like winslow was kind of the lookout man
00:43:43
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
00:43:58
this is going to be cersei's inn right he's going to be able to go to the jail while this guy's waiting for his trial
00:44:05
and he's going to be able to talk with them and he says to him look i know that you have some kind of information in
00:44:12
regards to the homicide of helen wilson tell me what you know do you know a joanne taylor yes do you know a joseph
00:44:19
white yes you're friends with them i was friends with them a long time ago i was friends
00:44:24
with them four years ago just before they left town shortly after the murder what ends up happening is after a long
00:44:31
interview process winslow is now saying and getting an opportunity to get off of this long prison sentence for
00:44:40
the violent robbery if he agrees to say that joseph white and joanne taylor told
00:44:47
him that they committed the homicide and that is why they were leaving town right
00:44:52
because at this point we have lisa that we can't believe even everybody in town are saying we can't believe her but if
00:44:59
we have her saying it and another person saying it now we have two people going to be able to testify against
00:45:06
joseph and joanne today we will be recommending failure of justice by john ferrick this book is
00:45:14
fantastic on the case and it's a really long process here captain how they get from
00:45:21
the fbi telling them one single male perpetrator committed this crime to now we're up to three people right we're
00:45:30
we're at two people were involved and one guy winslow knows about it and because he's facing a lengthy prison
00:45:37
sentence he's all more than happy to throw his former friends under the bus and say yeah they told me they were
00:45:43
getting out of dodge because they committed the murder right interview after interview after interview
00:45:50
he wants to know that they told him details they didn't just tell you that they committed the crime
00:45:56
and they're they're leaving town did they no they told you intimate details didn't they tell you this that the other
00:46:02
thing he's feeding winslow information to help fill in a lot of the blanks and give him details unknown to the public
00:46:10
details about the homicide the rape and the attack itself showing him pictures of the crime scene
00:46:18
well we see this all the time you know look at west memphis three or whatever where it's like oh well they
00:46:24
oh well they use this weapon and the the cops go um you sure was that weapon you
00:46:30
sure it wasn't a knife you sure it wasn't this and they just kind of point them into the correct
00:46:37
direction armed with this information they are going to go back to their original suspects joseph white and
00:46:43
joanne taylor to which joseph white he says look i'm innocent i do not know what you're
00:46:48
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 i've 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 and 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
00:47:25
that two people were there so does the blood match joanne taylor no did the fingerprints match joanne
00:47:32
taylor no well winslow somebody knew about this crime he says that he knew about it maybe he knows more than
00:47:42
what he's telling us maybe he was there that night too and helped the two of them commit this crime maybe he was
00:47:48
actually even involved in the murder and rape itself now we're up to three people tied
00:47:53
together being involved in the murder and rape they test thomas winslow's blood it doesn't match the fingerprints
00:48:00
do not match at some point you'd start going hey all these uh knows equal they're not involved
00:48:08
but he doesn't stop there he goes okay well now we got these three suspects but they don't match so while they knew
00:48:16
about the crime possibly were there so now i need to find another individual that actually matches the evidence
00:48:23
through this they will get a confession from joanne taylor and thomas winslow thomas winslow goes from just knowing
00:48:34
about the crime to now he's completely involved and he's confessing that he was in fact there and was involved in the
00:48:39
attack itself their stories are all a little you know they're not 100 lining up but they're
00:48:46
close joanne taylor and thomas winslow's stories are close and what's interesting
00:48:50
to me here captain is that these are fairly detailed actually not fairly they're very
00:48:56
detailed accounts of what went down that night how much of that information was fed to them is certainly to be called
00:49:03
into question now no joseph white is still proclaiming innocence he never confesses to anything he never
00:49:11
implicates anybody else in the homicide in fact he even says i believe you i was
00:49:16
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
00:49:28
they get from thomas winslow they will go on to implicate a deborah sheldon and james dean so now
00:49:36
we have five individuals that committed this rape and homicide and what is cersei's theory the theory
00:49:45
is that winslow white and taylor had prior knowledge of the victim and prior knowledge of her
00:49:53
belongings and that she would have money and that they went there to rob this elderly woman the robbery then turned
00:50:01
into a rape and a murder keep in mind right the fbi who originally assisted the beatrice police department who again
00:50:12
was doing good work on the case before the sheriff's office took it over told the police department this is
00:50:18
almost certainly a single male perpetrator and the motive was definitely not robbery yeah single male
00:50:27
now we're having females involved and they're we're up to five people right well now and again
00:50:35
the nose the amount of nose that they got the nose nose the nose knows now with the addition of deborah sheldon and
00:50:42
james dean we have two possible people that we can connect the fingerprints and blood evidence to and again it's more
00:50:50
nose no way it doesn't match the blood of sheldon or james dean come on if the glove don't fit you must have quit
00:50:58
[Music] we have a shirt that will tell you differently um the interesting thing here though captain is
00:51:06
now we still need to find somebody that the blood evidence will match right we're up to five perpetrators
00:51:13
and nobody's matched the blood well let's keep going why stop at five there's an interesting
00:51:19
little tidbit to this whole story and part of that is that thomas winslow for about a week maybe a few nights to a
00:51:27
week stayed at the home of kathy gonzalez kathy gonzalez lived on the third floor of the
00:51:35
apartment building in fact directly above our victim helen wilson it is believed that gonzalez and winslow
00:51:45
because of this arrangement he stayed there crashing on her couch for a few days she was trying to help him out
00:51:52
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
00:52:09
so they tracked down this kathy gonzalez she is adamant i did not have anything to do
00:52:15
with this i remember exactly what i was doing that night because the next morning was very strange for me they
00:52:20
found a murder victim a person that i knew that i lived near how could i forget what i was doing she said that
00:52:27
she had done laundry watched a movie went to bed and that winslow was not living at her residence at that time she
00:52:34
had kicked him out too it goes from kathy gonzalez doing laundry and watching a movie that night to her
00:52:41
confessing to being involved in the murder as well and implicating all of these same people that have been
00:52:47
implicated by the others six people will ultimately be charged with the murder of helen wilson five of
00:52:55
them confessed to being involved and confessed that the others were involved as well kathy gonzalez her blood
00:53:04
matched but not 100 percent and so we thought the blood was from a male well the blood evidence is not going to
00:53:13
suggest if it's male or female they're not doing dna evidence we're saying hey we got
00:53:18
fingerprints and we have blood evidence and we have semen so we know the siemens from a man so
00:53:25
we're going to assume that the blood is from a man as well that's what the fbi is stating and to be clear the forensics
00:53:33
that were conducted the tests that were conducted on the blood evidence found at
00:53:37
the scene and the forensic evidence found at the scene they were conducted in the state of nebraska not by the fbi
00:53:47
kathy gonzalez her blood matches but it's not a 100 match but it's close enough for cersei and the sheriff's
00:53:53
office to continue with their charging these six individuals with homicide now what their statement is
00:54:01
going to be is that because we have so many perpetrators plus we have a victim that they weren't going to be able to
00:54:07
get a 100 match because it's probably a mixture some kind of blood mixture yeah that makes sense the confessions
00:54:17
the five confessions are what will ultimately win over these convictions of all six of these individuals and in fact
00:54:26
john ferrick says this in his book and i have to echo this belief of his that if the death penalty
00:54:33
did not exist in nebraska at the time i don't know that they would have gotten all these confessions or any of them for
00:54:39
that matter because the death penalty was what was the threat to these individuals that took them from
00:54:45
not being involved to confessing to being involved in a brutal homicide and i don't want to get into opinions on
00:54:52
death penalty for against that's not what we're here to discuss just know that that was used as
00:54:58
leverage against these individuals plus we also have a group that's really kind of a group of down and out
00:55:05
people you know some people that have had tough upbringings have had bad situations some that are not quite all
00:55:12
there some that are easily impressionable yeah but what they do is they use multiple people against each other not
00:55:18
just one and one if it's one and one you start thinking what's he said she said once these law
00:55:25
enforcement officers are saying look we know you're involved and if you don't cooperate like the
00:55:32
others are cooperating we're going to give you the death penalty so then you're going to start
00:55:38
contemplating in your head well i'm innocent of the crime i definitely don't want to die because of it
00:55:44
so if i go along with the others then at least i'm alive in prison and i have a fighting chance to get out in
00:55:53
1989 the six that will go on to be known as the beatrice six were arrested for the crime
00:56:00
of murder ultimately all six are charged and convicted and they will all serve pretty lengthy
00:56:07
prison sentences now this will be up until they are all all six of them exonerated in 2009
00:56:18
and the reason for this is that in 2008 dna evidence implicated to a 100 certainty that bruce allen smith the
00:56:28
original prime suspect in the murder was the sole perpetrator of this rape and homicide but i thought his blood
00:56:35
didn't match but what we have here captain is that bruce allen smith was eliminated by testing performed by later
00:56:42
disgraced lab analyst joyce gilchrist so she just did a shoddy job with her testing and her findings in her
00:56:52
test now unfortunately even though we've proven that bruce allen smith committed this homicide he
00:56:59
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
00:57:20
received life in prison the two males were charged uh most heavily charged because
00:57:26
they were the ones that were implicated by the others as committing the rape and the murder itself right
00:57:35
unfortunately in 2011 joseph white was killed in a construction accident at work
00:57:43
and the state agreed to pay compensation to all of these individuals who served time in prison so there was a
00:57:53
lawsuit that was filed against the gage county gage county nebraska it was actually
00:57:58
dismissed a couple of times before it finally went through there was a trial for the lawsuit and
00:58:04
the jury awarded millions and millions of dollars to not only the five that remain but also
00:58:11
to joseph white's heirs now this is not a extremely wealthy county right and so the county was forced to
00:58:22
raise taxes so that they could pay back the beatrice six for the wrongful conviction
00:58:32
well it's sad in this case too because again law enforcement you 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 just don't understand how
00:58:47
somebody in law enforcement could it's almost like they had to make up the story as they went along and that's what
00:58:53
cersei was doing and a little bit in his defense i'm not going to come to his defense too much but
00:58:58
when you have these suspicions and you have this completely bogus theory that he believed
00:59:04
i i believe that he actually believed his own theory yeah well i believe that you believe that he believed his own
00:59:10
theory and the problem then becomes he starts finding people that are going along with this theory and filling
00:59:18
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 psychologist that was involved that was
00:59:33
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
00:59:43
and they started relying on a lot of the confessions a lot of the portions of the
00:59:48
confessions that implicated themselves and the the others came from first the notion of well the police tell
00:59:55
me i was there so i must have been there and then secondly it goes to they were taking information that some of the
01:00:02
individuals say that they were they were having dreams about the crime so they must have been there right and but i
01:00:09
also want to know how much force was used and that's that's something that law enforcement would know
01:00:15
you see what i'm saying like if i actually if i'm going into the interview and i and within an hour or so i i start
01:00:22
getting people to confess yes we all know that innocent people will confess to crimes they didn't
01:00:28
commit but i'm going to start going well that was pretty easy so maybe i am on to
01:00:33
something and what i'm saying is we don't know those details of of how the interrogations went well
01:00:41
if you want to know the details check out john ferrick's book because he details that in his book and
01:00:47
what we do learn is that i don't believe that there was any type of force or abuse that was used i mean i shouldn't
01:00:54
say any type of abuse because there was certainly some type of abuse but i would
01:00:58
put that more on the mental and emotional aspect of really kind of trying to corral these
01:01:05
individuals and convincing them that they did in fact do this and altering their own statements and giving it back
01:01:13
to them we're talking about a situation where we have multiple individuals that were interviewed multiple times over a
01:01:20
series of days and weeks and and so on and so forth and a lot of them started off with the story
01:01:27
that they were innocent and had nothing 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
01:02:05
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
01:02:28
check out off the record our bonus show that comes out every other week but only
01:02:34
do so if you're nasty colonel do we have any recommended reading for this week yes sir captain
01:02:40
obviously this week we will be recommending failure of justice a brutal murder and an obsessed cop and six
01:02:46
wrongful convictions by john ferrick you can find that wonderful title and many others on our website
01:02:53
truecrimegarage.com click on the recommended page this book is incredible this is a very convoluted
01:03:00
and difficult to understand story because there's so many people involved there's so many different confessions
01:03:07
john farrick did an amazing job of laying this case out and really detailing every portion of this
01:03:15
case an investigation that ultimately took over four years so make sure you check out failure of justice by john
01:03:23
ferrick it's also available on audible so you can check it out there i'm actually listening to it right now as we
01:03:30
speak as we record make sure you join us back here in the garage next week until then
01:03:36
be good be kind [Music] [Applause] [Music] you