[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Michael Cleary went to see Father Ryan and explained to him that Bridget had a very difficult evening and he was hoping that the priest could come pay her a visit. I like how he describes it as a very difficult evening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bridget appeared definitely more nervous and overexcited than she had been previously.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he said that he didn't see anything that indicated she was in danger, like nobody was acting strange.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, as he was leaving, he asked whether Bridget had been given the medicine that Dr. Kreen had prescribed. He was like, you know, she doesn't seem great, so like, did you give her anything? And Michael replied, people may have some remedy of their own that might do more good than doctor's medicine. No.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. Incorrect. And the rest of the afternoon was spent by various visitors stopping by to check on her and later that evening, Bridget apparently was feeling a little stronger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When Smythe asked how she was doing though, Bridget seemed very agitated and told Smythe that she was quote, middling, that he was making a fairy of her now in an emergency, which accusing her of being a changeling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, Bridget's anger was like very clear that day towards Michael. Like, she was very angry, very upset.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Many of the visitors remarked on it later. They said they could very much tell that. And that evening apparently Joanna Burke, Patrick Boland, her own father,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mary Kennedy, her aunt, James Boland, uh, which I believe is a cousin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Patrick, uhm, or no, excuse me, it's James Kennedy, excuse me. Uhm, and not the DJ.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, James Kennedy and Patrick Kennedy who were, um, her cousins.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she ate two pieces of bread and then Michael Cleary, which you know she's sitting there being like, honestly, everyone shut the fuck up. Cause Michael Cleary's just eating her jam.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And drinking our tea and Michael Cleary says, are you Bridget Cleary, my wife, in the name of God?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then Michael became enraged that she wouldn't answer and forced her to eat the third piece of bread. And then threw her to the floor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now Joanna Burke, I will say, was screaming for him to stop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But didn't, I mean nobody intervened here, everybody was just like yelling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And immediately what I thought something immediately and Angela Bork seems to also agree in her book that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The details of this part of the crime are reported like that. That this is how it went. But there's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a sexual sadist act aspect about this that I think is underplayed and I think wasn't reported upon as much. The fact that he stripped her down in front of everybody and then... And then holding that to her mouth. Yea, I don't like that. Like he's gonna shove it into her mouth. It's like there's something about that that seems...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also each of these, like, attacks on Bridget,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're seeming more like at this point not to kill her, but to put some kind of terror into her and dominate her. That seems to be, this motherfucker felt powerless and he snapped and decided


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I am your wife. That's what he wanted to hear. He was looking for, he wanted to dominate. And he wanted to put terror into her. That's what I see it as. He wanted to beat her down. It certainly feels that way. It doesn't feel like he's sitting here acting out of love and compassion or anything like that in some kind of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now this escalated very quickly, this scene of violence. According to witnesses, they said it was awful. And they also said this was really scary to witness in general, but also that Michael Cleary before this was a very unassuming man. He was quiet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because he became so enraged during this that he knelt on her chest and she was begging him to stop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nobody knows, and I'm not going to speculate because I was not there, nobody knows if what happened next was the intended end here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But what happened was he was holding that stick that he had taken out of the fire.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In flames from the stick that he was holding from her face, like fell onto her night dress, and it caught fire. And engulfed her in flames.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, this is where, uh, this is where I say to me this sounds intentional.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because right here, you can go, okay, that seems like it went further than was maybe intended.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But Joanna Burke later testified that Michael Cleary grabbed a nearby lantern and threw lamp oil.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And after this, you can absolutely say that he intended for her to die.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because he didn't help her. He threw the lamp oil on her. The fire grew very intensely. And Mary Kennedy, her aunt, ran to help her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But Michael stopped her and shoved her to the floor. Oh my.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then he shoved them all out of the house and trapped Bridget in the house, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Witnesses are yelling for him to help his wife, like everyone there is like, help his fucking god, like are you kidding me? And he was shouting, she's not my wife, she's an old deceiver sent in place by, of my wife.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said, as I begin it with her, I will finish it with her. You will soon see her go up the chimney.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, he was saying like, she's a changeling, she's a deceiver, she was sent here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's not her, you're gonna see her go up, like the changeling go up the chimney, and you'll see it. Okay. That was what he was saying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When anyone tried to go in there to help her, Michael was threatening them saying he would burn them as well if they attempted to help her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and nobody knew what to do. It just completely stopped at this point. And Mary Kennedy, her aunt, wrapped the body in a sheet and left the room. Didn't know what to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when she came back, she found that Michael had put Bridget's body in the fireplace to try to destroy her remains.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why is nobody going to get a policeman? Exactly. Now she said the house was full of smoke and smell. She later said. Uh, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now later, when they were all in the kitchen again, Michael Cleary said she's burned now. And God knows I would never do it but for Jack Dunn. I would never have forced my wife into the fire but for Jack. It was he who told me my wife was a fairy. So now he's trying to say Jack told me to do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, now Michael Cleary collected his, uh, Bridget's remains in a bag.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Patrick Kennedy helped him, and they both took her to a nearby churchyard to bury her on consecrated ground.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That night, Cleary forced all who were involved to swear that they would never talk about what had happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sounds like that didn't work out. And if anyone asked, they were told to say that Bridget had gotten dressed that evening and left the house and they just didn't, never saw her again. Oh yea, she just like walked away with pneumonia. Now throughout the entire thing,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's weird about this and what makes you say there was more to this than just like somebody who was caught up in hysteria? Michael Cleary was pretty ambivalent when it came to his beliefs in fairies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the moments directly after Bridget's death, he kinda seemed to recognize that Jack Dunn


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that he was saying, well, that's what led me to do this. Like already placing the blame. He was kind of taking his own belief out of it, which is wild considering the length he is claiming to have gone to rid her of this changeling that had taken over.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's like, to me, I'm like, you're conflicting your own reasoning here, and you're making it more obvious that there was a lot more intention behind this than just a hysterical fear of changelings. Yeah. Uhm, and in fact, but,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then it, and I say ambiguous because it's going back and forth because there's that and you're like, well, I don't know, you're telling me that you really don't believe that stuff and it was Jack Dunn who set you up on this. But then for three nights following her death,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Michael was said to have waited on Kilnamanah Hill for her to return from the Fairy Fort on horseback, because that's what the legend said. Was that after you kill the changeling, the real human will return on horseback from the Fairy Fort. Wow. So now everybody's like, was that, you know, was that just for show or what was that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So as he was waiting, the police were alerted to Bridget's disappearance by William Simpson. You think they were fucking?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I hope they were. I hope they were. He seems like he at least tried. Uhm, but then also a day after that Joanna Burke went to the police and told them that she disappeared.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wasn't there, so I can't sit there and say that Joanna didn't try to do something. Exactly. It didn't seem like a lot of people were making great vast efforts to stop what was going on here, which is very disconcerting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not going to sit here and crucify anyone in particular except for the people who actually did the things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but based on the information provided by William Simpson, uhm, Burke and several others in the house that night,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, they did make nine arrests, they set out nine arrest warrants, um, on March 21st. And Michael Cleary and all his co-conspirators were arrested for the assault and murder of Bridget Cleary. Now that included Patrick Kennedy, Dennis Ganey, the farmer and herb doctor who prescribed the herbs, Jack Dunn and Joanna Burke.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause again, they were there. The following day, March 22nd, which was a week after her murder, Bridget Cleary's remains were discovered.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, the news of this whole thing spread very quickly. It actually made its way to London, the United States, like, very quickly, because it was just wild.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, and it was reported as a witch burning, very like, you know, very sensationalistically, but in the British press at the time were


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How rural Ireland is so barbaric, which is not great. Uhm, and you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Irish papers were equally quick to blame the murder on folkloric beliefs of the Irish peasantry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ignoring the fact that very few of the people involved would have been considered peasants at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The day after the arrest, a coroner's inquest was held in Clonine, I believe it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, at this time Dr. Kreen and Dr. W.K. Heffernan provided the jury with details of the post-mortem examination.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so there was obviously extensive burning and charring of Bridget's body, but Dr. Kreen and Dr. Heffernan also found an abrasion on the inner side of the lips at the right side of the mouth and the tongue at the side was slightly lacerated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so they don't know where that came from or what happened. Maybe when they were forcing the milk down her throat. Possibly, or that poker that he held to her mouth. And didn't end up in her mouth. Did she, did he do that at some point?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, they also reported that other than the obvious burns.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The evidence suggested that Bridget had been perfectly healthy when she died. And the cause of death was attributed to shock caused by burns.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On April 1st, 1895, all nine defendants were brought before the magistrate and charged with maliciously wounding Bridget.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Michael Cleary, Patrick Boland, Mary Kennedy, James Kennedy, and Patrick Kennedy were also charged with murder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. Uhm, so like her own father was charged with like, that's just so like, ugh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No one helped her. And the trial began in early July and, you know, everyone testified that it was Michael Clearley who was directly responsible for the death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but the testimony from witnesses were kind of conflicting and contradictory at times, too. Everybody was saying something different.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Would shout out in the middle of the court a lot. He would have a lot of angry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He jumped, Michael Cleary jumped out of his seat and shouted, I can't listen to it any longer. Like he had nothing to do with it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When it came time for him to testify, he just kind of confirmed though what the witnesses had said, explaining that based on what he was told by Jack Dunn, he and his neighbors, he made sure to include them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] had attempted to drive out the changeling with herbs and fire


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Believing that in doing so, he would cause the changeling to flee.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Although he definitely attempted to pass the blame onto Jack Dunn, like he was like, without Jack Dunn I wouldn't have done this. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and he was like, it was because of his beliefs and fairies and witchcraft, not me being an awful person. I didn't believe it, but I did burn my wife alive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everyone else though tried to minimize their role and just pointed right at Michael Cleary and said it was all him. Yeah, I mean he's the one that fucking lit her on fire and then threw lamp oil on her. Exactly. And a lot of people said the motive, while a lot of witnesses said that Cleary's mind was going astray for sure, uhm, they said he'd definitely become somewhat hysterical.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They said they believe that may have made him more susceptible to this whole fairies and changeling rhetoric that was being spewed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, even after all the testimony that have been heard, though, it remained unclear


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What exactly happened? Like how did this go here? Like it got here so quick. What happened?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but what was clear to the jury was that although Michael Cleary had been the one directly responsible for the death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There were others whose participation and influence had definitely contributed to the outcome. Like Jack. Uhm, even the judge in the case felt that murder was an inappropriate sentence and reminded the jury that uhm, they alone had the right to recommend a sentence of manslaughter, which they chose to do in the end.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I agree. Who the fuck doesn't understand that concept? Michael Cleary was sentenced to 20 years in prison. That's it. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, yeaah. Joanna Dunn, Patrick Kennedy, James Kennedy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And William Kennedy were all found guilty of malicious wounding. Uhm, Dunn was sentenced to three years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] William and James Kennedy were sentenced to 18 months, and Michael Kennedy to 6 months.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, Michael Kennedy definitely obviously received the harshest penalty, which he should have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But while so many others may have avoided the lengthy sentence, that doesn't mean, like jail sentence, that doesn't mean they got out of it. Don't worry, because uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They definitely got it when they got out of prison. Upon his release from prison, Jack Dunn's reputation had plummeted into the earth's crust. One would think. He was seen as a laughing stock and obviously someone who was involved in creating this hysteria.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That led to the murder of an innocent woman.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pretty much, and Mary Kennedy, her aunt. Bridget's aunt. Avoided prosecution for her role in the murder, but when neighbors learned about the details of what had happened, um, and that her sons were also involved, they burned the Kennedy house to the ground to make sure they couldn't return. Holy shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it was like too little, too late. I don't, I mean, I think people heard a lot of stories and I think there was, there's a lot of like unclear parts of this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When the, when the whole herb mixture was being force fed to her when she was being violently abused during her illness, who was there?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, cause somebody could have gone to the police, somebody could have gone to somebody and been like, this is happening in this house, somebody needs to go stop it. Like go do something. And nobody did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So on its face, it definitely sounds like a sensational story of murder motivated by kind of outrageous beliefs at the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It really has to do with like the time and place and less about like the reasoning I guess? Like it's strange, there's so many layers to this one, you know what I mean? Yea, definitely. Like the press at the time also was a wild part of the story because particularly the British newspapers at the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, they made a lot of the folkloric beliefs that were involved, like they really went to those, and they kind of placed those, those kind of hard, steadfast, somewhat archaic beliefs at the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They placed them on an entire rural population in Ireland. When it seems like they were on their way out anyway. Yeaah, and they used it to portray these people as very superstitious, very antiquated, very like, wow, they're just gonna burn you at the stake if they think you're a changeling kind of thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And at the time it was also like this kind of language was used, like fairy language and witches and kind of folkloric language was used in Ireland a lot. Yeah. But it also was used metaphorically, not so much like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For real, for real. You know? Like, uhm, as, like Bork points out in her


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In her book that uhm, the term gone to the fairies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can absolutely be used in the literal sense and it was used in the literal sense, but in Bridget's case, it was likely referring to having an affair or stepping out of the house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, making people treat her like she's sick and rotten, like something that you don't need to be around.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Um, and again, the press coverage definitely in the trial really didn't really entangle any of the true motive behind this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But uhm, Angela Bork's book suggests that the language and circumstances of those involved might be where we can find the keys to what happened here. Like she says Michael Cleary had no relatives close by and says


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For over a week, his wife's relatives had been in and out of the house shaking their heads and making dark insinuations about her condition. A suggestion that she was away with the fairies was a serious reflection on him and their marriage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's all to say that Michael Cleary was already an outsider. He already wasn't surrounded by his own family. He had come from another county, which meant he didn't have a lot of social support here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His wife had a huge social and familial support network. And she was also independent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She supported herself, she didn't need him, she didn't need to rely on him, which is all great.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like, people should look at that as like, what a bad bitch. Like, good for her, you guys can just love each other and live your lives. Nobody needs the other one to live, you know what I mean? Like, you're just doing this because you care about each other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's the other part where like there was all these rumors of her having an affair.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was likely the real motive, was the feeling of perilous and wanting to dominate her, wanting to take back that power, wanting to be the man of the house, you're my wife, you're not this, you know, this, you will answer to me when I ask you to say who you are, you say you are Michael Cleary's wife. You don't say you are just Bridget Boland, you are my wife kind of thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She still wouldn't say that she was his wife.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then you have the other side of that with Jack Dunn being this other piece of the puzzle where he


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was also feeling powerless and feeling like he was not the authority anymore because he believed all these archaic folkloric things and he used to be the authority and these things would have made him powerful and would have made him somebody that everybody came to to find out what was going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He doesn't have that anymore. Another feeling of powerless. And it's really scary to think about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's true that that could have absolutely been part of this, that it's two, unfortunately two men in a time when men are supposed to have all the power and all the influence and all the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The handhold on the home and they didn't, or they felt they didn't. And so they decided to assert it in a very violent and horrific and tragic way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In this time, especially, Bridget clearly had achieved


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stuff that most rural, you know, women at the time in Ireland especially,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wanted and we're striving towards. She was successful. She was independent. She was powerful. She


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean she was going to Jack Dunn's house to collect some payment because she gave you the goods. Like it's like you, she was on it. She was like a business lady. And she was murdered for that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yup. That's the, uh, unfortunately that's the, that's the end of it. No, you're right. I think that's really where it all boils down to. Fairies are no fairies here. And it's- Wow. A really sad story. But a very interesting one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think uhm, I'm trying to think, cause I remember hearing about this story a long long time ago. I've never heard this one. I think Aaron Manke did it on lore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In one of the early lore episodes I think, so if you, if you were interested by the story and you want to hear a different...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, he has a podcast that he just launched recently called That's Just Weird.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's like a family friendly thing, but it's also like, and it's short, it's short little like bite sized episodes, I think they're like 17 minutes. And he just talks about like weird phenomena, weird history, weird news, and like, you can listen to it with your kids.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I try really hard for the swoop. Your swoop is a good swoop. Thank you, but it's not effortless.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It would be sick if you could just sing a quick line of this is how we do it, but I totally understand if that is like not something you want to do. He did. And?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You wouldn't look like a British man if you shaved your hair off. And I was like, thanks Linz.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Truly not. I'm glad you said it because I was trying to figure out how to segue in my head and I couldn't. But uh, let's recap. Uhm, I do have a confession and it's that I lied to you. I'm sorry. Yeah. I said that part two was going to be longer than part one. Incorrect. Incorrect. Incorrect. I swapped. I was like, I looked at the pages that I had written before we recorded and I was like, oh, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, let's recap a little bit. So in part one, we got to know Joan, uh, Joan Robinson Hill. We got to know her dad Ash and her mom and, you know, she got married a couple times and you really thought it was gonna work out well in the end and unfortunately it did not because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whether or not, uh, John Hill has anything to do with her death, I don't know, personally. I think the waters are too murky to say for sure. But whether or not he did,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In part two, it's really, I don't think it's going to be cleared up. It gets even murkier. Yeah. So, and it's like, regardless of that, he was a shitty husband. Yeah, exactly. And honestly, it sounds like he wasn't a very present father as well. No, at least not for like the first part of Little Boots life. I think he got,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yea, but as we know, uh, Joan's father Ash was like a very big presence in her life, and when she did pass away,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He fullheartedly believed that John had something to do with it and he, it was essentially like his life's mission to figure it out. Now when I left off, uh, in part one,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We had just gone through basically Ash trying to get anywhere with the district attorney, a team of doctors to prove this. And when we finally did finish part one, he had uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was going to go before a grand jury, like he was being indicted. So let's pick up with the grand jury.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In July 1969, one doctor after another filed into the Harris County Court to testify in the grand jury case presented by McMaster, the district, uh, assistant district attorney.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Since the case rested mostly on the conflicting autopsy reports and the cause of death, just about every medical professional


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At no time did any of them present any evidence suggesting that Joan's death had been intentionally caused by John, or anyone for that matter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But what these medical professionals did do was question, and just like we were saying, many of the decisions that John made in the days leading up to Joan's death, from the medication he gave her,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Rather than being motivated by evidence of wrongdoing,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was Ash Robinson who was really behind the persecution of John Hill. Because small town people talk. Of course.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After the grand jury had heard, excuse me, all the testimony regarding John's negligence leading up to his wife's death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even Assistant DA McMaster was skeptical that their case would go anywhere.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The problem it seemed was that the case was built mostly on complicated conflicting hearsay evidence from medical professionals and there was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Really no physical evidence whatsoever of criminal behavior.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So frustrated by Robinson's continued pressure, McMaster told Ash if he wanted to get a conviction, he would need to present the authorities with evidence of a crime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause that seems a little more likely to possibly get. Yes, like some kind of conviction on. Their point was, regardless of how she'd become sick,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So knowing that John had already refused Ash's attempts to have Joan's body exhumed,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And again, it, like, it's going to just murky the waters even further, and it, it's interesting what happens here, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] While the court may have ordered the exhumation, it remained that both the exhumation and the third autopsy would be overseen by Dr. Jahem Csik.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Meaning that he was essentially being asked to reconsider or undermine his own earlier assessment of Joan's cause of death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ash actually conducted some research of his own to find out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who were among the most well-respected doctors in the nation?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She's like, let's go. The list was short, but it included Dr. Milton Halpern, the chief medical examiner of New York at the time, whose credentials and reputation were beyond reproach.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Ash wasted no time contacting Halpern and bringing the man to Houston, where he was deputized as an acting Harris County Medical Examiner, so that way he could join the team of doctors performing this autopsy. Holy shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know that you're really overbearing, but like the way that he just loved his daughter. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. Like if, like he has the money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To be so sure in like your own mind and heart that your son-in-law murdered your daughter. Yeaah. And that you're trying to find the evidence of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you're coming up at like- What a- I can't imagine that journey. And then just to come up at like hard stop after hard stop of like it's not panning out. And feeling like she's never gonna get the justice, that must have been so hard. Yeaah, and just the way he loved her, like I've never heard of a dad loving his daughter like this hard. He really went.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He did. So on August 11th, 1969, Joan Robinson Hill was exhumed and brought to the medical examiner's office. Now, almost immediately something struck Dr. Yihamchik as odd.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The medical examiner had performed the autopsy in the middle of the embalming process, like we know, and Joan was buried immediately after.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when he opened the casket to remove the body now, he discovered dried mud.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When questioned about the mud, the mortician noted that it had been a rainy day when Joan was buried and he suggested that the mud maybe got inside when they reopened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause it's like you wanted to reopen the casket to get her, I understand like wanting her wedding ring as like a, a sentimental piece of value, I suppose. But it's like, you also didn't, like you,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Didn't really care about her feelings about the whole thing. That's the thing. Which I'm not saying like he doesn't have a right to grieve and, you know, there's complicated feelings everywhere here, like I get that. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know. I'm not saying it makes him a murderer, I'm just saying. Not at all. It's a strange behavior. Yea. Strange.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think it's just within all of this, you know? That's the thing, like, it can be understood. Yeah. Like, we're both saying, like, I get it. Right. But it's like, put together with everything else, you're just kinda like, huh. It makes you just scratch your head a little, you know? To lift your eyebrow a little bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, it turned out that the mud on the inside of the coffin was only the first of many bewildering aspects of this case. Really? Because when Joan's remains were removed and prepped for the autopsy, the team was shocked, and I think you'll have a bigger opinion of this than even I did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it was shocking to me. And the team was shocked to discover that not only was the brain missing, but so was the heart.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean I don't know how it works here or in this time period. Yeaah. It's like the 60s. You should have to have permission to keep body parts. That's what I would think. For research. There's a lot of red tape.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what I would think. Like at least when, when I was working in autopsies, if you were going to keep a body part of brain specifically or any other organ, there were specific forms that needed to be signed by family members, by everybody involved, by the doctors, by everybody.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it needed, and there's like a chain of custody with that organ. You need to know where it is, why it's happening. I mean, a lot of people have to agree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just somebody keeping an organ. Because usually when you're studying one, you take a piece, you take your sample, but you put it back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I feel like- Unless otherwise asked for. Right, and that, I mean that makes perfect sense to me that there would be a chain of custody and it would be like a rather intense process.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was some protocol that maybe wasn't followed. And the fact that this doctor, this original doctor Arthur Morse, felt like he needed to kind of potentially defy that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You thought that this case was gonna come back up again. That's the thing, I'm like, so were you not?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, again, small town, I'm sure people are talking. Did you think to yourself, I need to be prepared if...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If shit goes down and people want answers about the state of this body. Cause that's, that's risky on his part and for him to take a risk like that. Exactly. Sounds like he knew he was going to have to speak for something. That's what it sounds like to me. Or speak to something, you know what I mean? And that's just very strange. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's strange to go against what you would assume is a pretty, like, uh, rigorous protocol. Right. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't imagine there's anywhere in the country that is like super willy nilly about just like, I can just keep a brain. Like it's, no.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like you have to put that back. Strange. Unless otherwise noted obviously because there's plenty of times where you request to keep an organ because you know you want to do studies on it for a long period of time. Right. But again, there's got to be so much permission involved. And to me the fact that if there was like a paper trail that would have had to have been followed and he wanted to avoid that, I


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The reasons for the brain and heart specifically, because usually when you do keep a brain, it's because there was something


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pointing to the brain being like a part of whatever was happening here. Right. Or like, you know, the heart, same thing. And it's like, so why did you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know those are two like the powerhouses of your body, obviously, but it's like, did you just do that because you were like, these are the two main parts? Because it's like also like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think he was preparing for the potential of a court case. Yes. He was probably like, they whisked her body away so quickly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Shirking protocol from the get-go. Right. And started embalming it at lightning speed so no one could touch it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So maybe he was like, I'm going to take the two most important parts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because they're gonna be affected by whatever is, could have happened here? Yeah. I'm gonna take these two because I need to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's tough because you need to have permission to do these things and like, you know, it gets hairy like ethically and all that. Of course. I'm glad he at least thought.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, and that's what, my gut just says that he knew something was off and he wanted to be prepared. That's what it seems like. So it took nearly two months, but in October of 1969, the first two, uh, excuse me, the first of two autopsy reports were submitted by a team of three pathologists working on the case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I say the first of two autopsy reports from this third autopsy. I know that's a little confusing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the first report authored by Dr. Robert Buckland stated that Joan's cause of death was, and I quote,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dr. Jahimchik, on the other hand, released his own separate report stating that Joan's cause of death was, and I quote, the result of a fulminating infectious process, the specific nature of which is no longer determinable. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And now he's like, now we can't be sure. I can't determine. And he added quote, it is my further opinion that the exact cause and manner of death cannot be established from the exhumed body autopsy alone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when he did finally submit it in April of 1970 now, the report


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hellburn's report actually cleared Hill of many rumors by noting the cause of death while indeterminate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right. Explain to me how you can, how do you reconcile those two statements together? Because I need you to have a cause of death to know that nobody did it. I'm gonna need you to determine the cause of death before you tell me that no one could have caused it. Yes, that's the thing. Like those seem very conflicting to me. I'm like, nah, that doesn't...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That doesn't jive. I think the reason that he said that he didn't believe that it was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In simple terms, Halpern's report confirmed what Dr. Jahimchik had already indicated. As a result of miscommunication and improper medical practices immediately following Joan's death,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was very unlikely that her specific cause of death would ever be known.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is really incredibly unfortunate. Yeah, so frustrating. Now, while it may have dismissed the theory that John had directly caused his wife's death,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So by May 1972, grand juries had heard the district attorney's argument and declined to return an indictment against John Hill. With the latest results from the autopsy in hand,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] McMaster returned to the grand jury for a third time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And presented his case again, this time with the opinion of one of the nation's most well regarded medical examiners.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For the most part, the case was represented the same as it had been the other two times that they'd been before the grand jury, but this time jury members actually wanted to know


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The extent to which John's behavior had hastened Joan's death. And according to Halpern,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And after a brief deliberation, the jury returned a decision against John Hill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Murder by omission implied that John had willfully, intentionally, and culpably


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the indictment immediately split the physicians on the autopsy team with half flatly rejecting Halpern's conclusions and criticizing the jury for their decision. Dr. Paul, I think it's Radelet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Told the press, if criminal charges in this type of situation be appropriate, then anyone whose mate expires unexpectedly after a few days of symptoms, whether from pneumonia, heart attack or septic shock, could also be indicted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, I get where they're coming from, that like, it could seem like a slippery slope. It's hairy. Like, okay, so if I don't know it's that bad and I don't take them in time and they die, that's


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, like if I can't see the symptoms, you know what I mean? Yeah. But then you're like, I think what it's saying here is that one, he's a doctor, which you are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was vomiting so much that she couldn't even get herself into the bathroom. And was like, the maid found her covered in vomit and feces on the floor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what I can understand that the doctor here is saying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It could be a slippery slope if we allow this to be this case, if this is not the way it is. But it's like, this one is different. This is case specific. And that's why this has only been used 20 other times. Because this is very case specific and this case alone,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's hard for him to reconcile and explain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why he didn't get her to a hospital sooner. Exactly. I don't get it. It was multiple days, like at least three days of symptoms like that. And it's like after the first day of violent, violent symptoms, if she's not better, to the doctor she goes. That's the thing. Why not?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The doctor of it all really takes it up a notch. Right, exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Halpern's autopsy report had definitely influenced the jury's decision to return an indictment against John, but so did testimony given by his now ex-wife Anne Kurth. When John had initially asked his lawyer to draw up the divorce papers, his attorney actually strongly advised against it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Noting that it would look pretty bad if he was already divorcing the woman he'd left his wife for. Yeah. But John insisted it needed to happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the couple was divorced on March 12th, 1970, one week short of the anniversary of Joan's death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Telling them quote, John, John Hill had not only killed his first wife, but had also tried to kill her on three occasions. Damn man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anne insisted that, uh, John had managed to fake his polygraph results and made her best attempt to convince the entire courtroom


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I feel like in this case, I don't know, should we, this is tough. This is tough, but it's also like, she's mad, obviously. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's the thing. I mean that's pretty mad. That's pretty mad. Like that's pretty bad blood. Yeah. Between...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everything about this sucks because it's like she could absolutely just be unhinged and be up there angry and decide to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And again, I'm not saying that that's the case. But if she's not, if she is telling any of the truth, then that sucks even more because she's just being ignored and treated as. That's right. Which like, I'm not an Ann fan as we know. No. But like, if she was being abused in any way or he was violent with her, she does not deserve that. She does not deserve that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think I ever would have put her on the stand as a prosecutor or as a defense attorney. No. To be quite honest. No. But the accusations and the indictments were all deeply troubling for John. Uh, but just as the grand jury investigation was wrapping up, he started dating a new woman. Okay. This one lasts. Okay John.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Connie Loesby, who would serve as a source of comfort and support through the upcoming trial, was the new woman John was dating. Under normal circumstances, his romantic life obviously wouldn't be that important, but now, in the context of his legal troubles,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It appeared to the outside world that he had a bit of a habit of, uh, trading one wife in for another pretty rapidly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In fact, it took, uh, John's lawyer Richard Racehorse Haynes, who I'm actually working on another case of his right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jesus Christ. So, when the trial did finally begin on February, uh, yeaah, February 15th, 1971, John Hill's love life was, of course, put on display for everybody to see. Yeaah, which it didn't need to be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It didn't need to be, but in this case it's like, honey. But that's what I'm saying. Like he didn't need this to be part of it. Like why did you do this? Like just take, take a beat. Yes. Take a beat. Please. Be a dad, take a beat and deal with what's going on in your life. Like don't, you don't, I understand you need to like, if you, if, cause again, if he's not,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in his opening statement, uh, for the jury, I.D. McMaster said, we expect to prove that problems arose in the course of this marriage, which resulted in the filing of a divorce petition on December 3rd, 1968.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When John learned that Joan planned to contest the marriage using his affair with Anne against him, he withdrew his petition.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] McMaster continued on, having failed to terminate the marriage legally, the defendant began to formulate a plan to rid himself of an unwanted li- uh, unwanted wife.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Among the first witnesses was a woman named Diane Setagast, I believe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] John was showing Laurel and Hardy films to his friends in the home, just laughing and having a good time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. According to Diane, John said Joan had a, and this is a quote, had a very high fever, approximately 106, and he had broken it. He said after he broke the fever, he didn't take her to a hospital because he thought she was getting alright.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, you're bordering brain damage at that point, aren't you? Like, but 106 is just wild. Like, that is bordering brain damage, right? I think they've found research that suggests that it's not as simple as that, but I don't, I honestly do not know what the newest thing is. That was always the thought that I passed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now by the time Ann Kurth took the stand to testify on behalf of the state, it was becoming clear that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just as they had in the grand jury case, the district attorney's office was hoping to succeed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With a case built on innuendo. In fact, Racehorse Haynes, our defense attorney there, had argued considerably actually to keep Anne out of the courtroom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For obvious reasons. Yeah. Knowing that her anger and resentment could lead to a mostly slanderous, mostly slanderous testimony about his client.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] According to Anne, John hated Joan. End quote, couldn't stand to be around her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess we do need to know that. No, I know. It's just like, it just sucks. That's the mother of his child. Like, that's really fucked up. It's sad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, over the course of her testimony, Anne claimed that she'd found, quote, three laboratory dishes containing a reddish substance with white spots in John's apartment. And she heavily implied that he had used tainted pastries to poison Joan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And another time by quote, trying to inject her with a syringe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He just told me how he killed Joan with a needle. He pulled the syringe from his pocket and tried to get it into me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Imagine if she's telling the truth. Well that's the, that's exactly the problem. You're not just gonna like, but it's like, what a shitty way for this to come about if she is telling the truth, cause so many people aren't gonna believe it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And just think she's angry. And you wish that there was somebody there during those times. Yeah. Like you wish that some kind of... There was some kind of person near her that knew that there was something going on that could be like, yeah, there was some stuff happening. Especially after that car crash. It's too bad that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Potentially, like, she didn't say anything then and they couldn't have figured out, like, was this intentional? Yeah. Like, you know how they can look into that? Yeah, this is, this is interesting. But Anne claimed that John's hand was shaking too hard to inject the syringe into her and he actually dropped it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's fucked up, but that whole loophole there, people rely on that. That loophole can be so fucking detrimental. And it doesn't always work. I was watching something recently.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't even remember if it was fiction or not. Or maybe I read something about it recently.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe it was a dream. Maybe it was a dream. No, I remember reading or watching something where like they were gonna try to use that defense, but then they couldn't. Yeah, definitely. It's a hairy. It's a very specific situation. Yeah. And I'm talking about like the privilege testimony. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, so he, but he was like, fuck this, we're going for it, and he moved for a mistrial.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Judge Fred Hooey overruled Haynes' objection and called a recess, but when they returned a short time later, the judge said he reconsidered what had occurred in the courtroom and granted a mistrial.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. Yeah, that I, I, you could see this coming from a mile away that a mistrial was gonna happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's why people don't testify sometimes. That's why people don't talk about this shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Being like I, like I really would like my name cleared here. Like I would like to be declared innocent. Yes. Because a mistrial does...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Does carry with it some connotations, like, cause it's literally like something went awry and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we're not continuing, but we still have no idea what's going on. That's the thing. Now it turned out that John may have been right to be disappointed though.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So John Hill was not the only one disappointed with the mistrial, obviously, after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in his pursuit of justice. And just in general, Ash Robinson was outraged by this decision.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] ID McMaster was also in a similar situation. He spent


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The DA's office announced that the second trial of John Hill would begin November 15th, 1972. No.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Throughout his relationship with Connie, John had managed to keep the details of the trial and his relationships with Joan and Anne kind of private from her somehow. That's a little shocking. It truly is. But over, uh, excuse me, of course, she knew why he was on trial and she'd heard about Joan's death in the papers, but she actually didn't know anything about Ash Robinson.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anne's claims that John had tried to murder Joan were also something that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Connie didn't really know about and she didn't really know about any of the other details that came out in court. I don't, I guess she wasn't there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that changed in the days just before the wedding because he does end up proposing to her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And just a couple days before the wedding, a folder arrived addressed to Connie's parents.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Inside there were newspaper clippings, reports, and other information detailing the entire situation. The press reports of Joan's death, the reports from private detectives and doctors,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a wealth of information about John's indictment and trial. The envelope had no return address, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most in Texas assumed that it had come from at least Ash Robinson or his people. At least his people. Trying to save a gal. Which, from what they think is going on. You know, I can't be mad at that. I simply can't. If this is what he and his truly believed to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To warn this girl is the right thing to do, in my opinion. And if he, you know, whatever, it's just, oof. If he truly felt this way. And he did truly feel this way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, John had fully expected McMaster to retry him for murder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in the meantime, he wasn't going to let the district attorney or Ash Robinson control the rest of his life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sure they were to some degree, but she's a grown woman. So it was his third marriage and her first.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By that point, John's income had been seriously impacted by the case, and most of his savings had also been eaten up to pay for his defense. And to make matters worse, the bank that held several of the loans that he had taken out to renovate the house


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] had called in the loan, placing further financial stress on this new couple and preventing them from even taking a honeymoon. Wow. So sad. But still the couple was happy and excited about their future together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With the new trial more than a year away at this point, everyone pretty much got back to what passed I guess for a normal life. John and his lawyers continued pursuing a civil suit against Ash for slander.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Ash Robinson continued his protracted amateur investigation, I guess we could call it, of John Hill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in late September of 1972, she traveled with John to Las Vegas for a plastic surgery convention. Neither of them was particularly fond of Vegas, but the trip kind of was like a honeymoon for them since they hadn't been able to take one after the wedding. And they were just really happy to be together, like getting some time away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They returned to Houston on the evening of September 24th and took a cab from the airport back to the house. Both of them were eager to see Robert, little boot, little boot, and tell him about the trip.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she assumed Robert must have just gotten wrapped up in what he was watching and didn't hear the bell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But she also thought, why hadn't John's mother, who was there taking care of Robert, heard it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But as the figure got closer, Connie noticed that this figure was dressed in what looked like a green jumpsuit or coveralls with a hood covering their face. What the fuck?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For a split second she was like, why would Robert or Myra, John's mom, be wearing a costume? Like what? When the door finally did open.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Connie saw that it was indeed a hooded figure standing before her, and she still thought it was Robert, so she said, what's this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And for a few seconds, the two just stood at the door looking at one another and not saying anything. And then it occurred to Connie that the figure before her was actually too tall to be Robert and too large to be Myra.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And before she could call out to John, the man in green grabbed her by a gold braided necklace she was wearing and dragged her into the house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everything happened incredibly quickly from that point. The figure finally spoke, telling them that it was a robbery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Connie twisted trying to get out of the guy's grip and at this point John is here and he steps forward to protect his wife.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that distracted the intruder and gave the opportunity to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Connie to break free of the intruder's grasp.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She just reached the house two doors down when she heard a gunshot. And then she heard another.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So she shouted to her neighbor, my husband's being murdered. Just as the neighbor opened the door. What the fuck is going on right now? It's insane.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Connie managed to calm herself down enough to call the police on the, when she was inside her neighbor's house and explained what happened. And then she called, uh, Don Fullenweider, one of John's lawyers who actually lived in their neighborhood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Don races over on foot and he actually managed to reach the house before the police did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Moving slowly, he approached the front door, which was still slightly open, and he pushed in, he pushed inside.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And inside the house looked fairly undisturbed, but then his eyes settled on something in the middle of the room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 12 year old Robert Hill was standing over his father sobbing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With his feet, his like Robert's feet, and his wrists bound with heavy tape.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was still a piece of tape hanging from the corner of his mouth where somebody had taped his mouth shut.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The paramedic checked for a pulse or any sign of life, but there weren't any. And when they turned the body over, this is, uhm, pretty, pretty bleak.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When they turned the body over, they were shocked to find that John's eyes, nose, and mouth were completely covered in the same heavy tape that had been used to bind Robert.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whoever did this shot, is that what they did? They shot him? They shot him. And then covered his eyes, nose, and mouth with tape, or they did that first? Yeah, they did that first, I think. What the fuck? Yeah, it's very strange.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. Yeah. So the paramedics approached a stunned Don Fullenweider and said, I'm sorry mister, we're too late.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So following the declaration of a mistrial, more than a few people wondered whether John Hill was in danger now. Connie recalled countless nights of harassing phone calls. She said that she would spot Ash driving back and forth outside of their house late at night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] John's lawyer Richard Haynes had even suggested that John hire a bodyguard. But by that point, John didn't have the money to get one. Eventually.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What'd you say, sorry? That's awful. It is, yeah. Eventually, after a few months, the calls did slow down and eventually stopped, and even Ash seemed to slow the frequency of his alleged drive-bys.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which led Connie to believe that they were out of danger and things were finally settling down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But despite the relative calm, few people were all that surprised when the news of John's murder was reported in the press.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So just one day after the murder, Richard Haynes told the press he thought the robbery was a cover-up and the slaying could have been an assassination, with the implication that Ash Robinson was behind John's murder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the first thing detectives did after searching the scene was talk to Robert Hill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] According to the boy, a man had shown up at the Hill residence about a half hour before his parents got home and forced his way inside.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After tying up Robert and his grandmother Myra the man simply sat in the house and waited for John and Connie to return. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Robert was in another room when he heard that the gun, when he heard the gunshots, and by the time he managed to get out to where his father was, the intruder was gone. I mean, that was, that seems like that was the intention.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You wait for him to come. Oh yeah. Kill him and then you leave. It was a hundred percent. Like that was the intention. That kind of proves the, at least the part that this was clearly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This wasn't like just a robbery that John happened to be involved in? No. Not at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It would take a few more days before John's mother Myra could speak. I mean, of course. Uh, and also,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But this doesn't seem like it would be connected to Ash Robinson having his own wife kicked in the throat. I feel like that wouldn't be. That's not his wife. It's John's mom. Oh, John's mom. I forgot this was John's mom. Yeah. But uhm, yeah, no, but that also doesn't, cause it's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Having Robert Ta- I don't know. It just doesn't feel...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's true. But he would kind of have to know, because if he knows that they're on their trip, where's Robert? If they're not taking care of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Poor Myra. Yeah. Geez, kicked in the throat. Poor everyone involved in this case. The tragedy just keeps trickling down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was an urgent tone she said in his voice, and he was very anxious to speak with John.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Myra said the Hills would be returning the following evening, and as soon as she said that, the man hung up. Oh. Now, hindsight is 20-20, but going forward, don't ever tell anybody when your family members or when you are going to be home or anything about your schedule. Yeaah, don't let people, strangers know those things. No.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The man called again and the next after, uh, excuse me, called again the next afternoon. And again, Myra said that they would be home that night around 7 30. And the man hung up. And obviously she didn't know that this would happen. Of course she didn't. But at about 7 PM that night, the doorbell rang. Robert got up to answer it, assuming it was his parents.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when he opened the door, he found a large man standing before them wearing a hood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He then ordered them into an adjacent room where they were tied up, taped, and just told to sit down and wait.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About 20 minutes later, they heard the sound of a car pulling up inside the driveway and fearing that Robert or Myra might call out to John.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The man kicked Robert in the side of the head, 12 year old boy and Myra in the throat and then left the room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fuck? Myra told the detective she didn't recognize the man and he never said anything to indicate who he was or why he was there other than saying it was a robbery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's terrifying. But he's sitting in the house waiting for them to come home. He's not going through anything. He's just tying them up. Exactly. What the fuck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, sensing the gravity of the situation, Dr.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Joseph Yahimchik decided to handle the case himself on behalf of the coroner's office. He's like, yeah, Marty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So John had been shot, it turned out, three times with a .38 caliber revolver. He'd been shot once in the wrist, which I'm assuming was like in a struggle. A defense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The third shot was the fatal one, which was through the stomach, and it severed his aorta. Oh. Yeah. Oh, the bleeding. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yehimchik estimated that, this is horrible, John likely bled internally for three to five minutes before dying from his wounds. So this was a, unfortunately, a slow death. Awful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As a sign that John had put up a considerable fight before sustaining the disabling shot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean your kid is in the house. Of course. You're gonna fight. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The detectives at the scene started operating from the position that John's death was simply a robbery gone wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess that's all they had at that point, so how else are you gonna go about it? And if you start from there, then maybe you can...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's, I think that is the smart way, instead of going in with a preconceived notion of like, something strange happened here. Right. And there were signs that maybe this was a robbery, because his, uh, John's briefcase and wallet were missing, and the man who had killed him, like we know, said more than once that it was a robbery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But as far as anybody could tell, once they started kinda going through everything, the killer hadn't even entered.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or seemed interested in the rooms, the other rooms in the house, besides the one where the murders took place, or the murder, excuse me, took place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which obviously struck the investigators as strange because John and Connie's house was full of valuable items that would have attracted the attention of a robber. And again, why are you waiting for the other people to come home? You've already subdued the grandmother.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right. So now this would be your chance to go take anything you want and get the fuck out of there before somebody who's maybe more in the prime time to fight back with you is coming home. And especially, he got there at seven. She, Myra had told him, you know, like my son, who it seems like you're looking for, or this caller, this mystery caller. And if, if this is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Other than that, those couple things, uh, the scene was light on evidence. And after six hours of searching the premises, the most that the detectives found were the rolls of tape used to bind, uh, Robert and Myra.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the fingers from the work gloves that the intruder wore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the green hood that he had been wearing, which turned out to be a cheap green pillowcase with holes cut out so that he could see. Oh my god.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is like the strangers. Yes. Oh. Yes. I hate that. It freaks me out a lot. Oh god, poor Robert and poor Myra. Like seeing that. And Connie to open your door to that. Oh my god, I forgot that she just uuuh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Later when the evidence had been processed, the detectives would be disappointed to find that no fingerprints had been left anywhere.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But as he searched around the site for additional evidence, he noticed what he thought was a pipe covered in leaves and mud.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They confirmed that the revolver discovered in the lot with the briefcase was the exact same one that had been used to kill John Hill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Only a few miles from the house, they threw it in a bush? Yeah. The fuck? Yep. That's weird.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So detectives trace the gun back to Dr. Orrin, I believe it's Stabes, or Stavis.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He sheepishly informed detectives that he had indeed purchased the gun while he was in Texas on business, but that it had been stolen from him by a sex worker that he had hired while he was asleep.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Using his former vice squad contacts, Carpenter learned that there was indeed a sex worker in Houston who did operate under the name Dusty and that she would likely be found in the company, excuse me, in the company. The company. The company.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fancy company. A company. A company. Of her boyfriend, Bobby Vandiver, and an older woman by the name of, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lillipolis. What the fuck is going on? I told you. Holy shit. It gets very, very complicated. Okay. So after months of dead ends and dried up leads, the investigators finally managed to track down all three of these people at Lilla's home in Houston.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All were arrested without incident on April 27th, 1973.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of the men standing on the other side of the glass, only two looked vaguely familiar to Robert, but he couldn't be certain if either was the intruder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After looking each person over carefully and listening to their voices,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It took a few days of contemplation and back and forth with investigators before Bobby finally accepted that there was likely not any way out of this situation and he agreed to talk to Carpenter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When Lilla, the older woman who, I think they were just like friends with her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lila started talking about a contract on someone's life with a $5,000 payout.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jesus Christ. So a few days later, Lilla called to say that somebody else had taken the job, so forget it. But then, a few days after that, she called again and she said that had fallen through and, Bobby, it's still available if you want it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] During his statement, Bobby knew all the details of the case, from the location of the Hill's house to their schedules. When Lilla gave Bobby the photo of his target,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Bobby's description of the Night of the Murders was nearly identical to what the investigators had been told by Robert and Myra.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He told Carpenter, I got the pillowcase from Lillipolis' house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What the fuck, this is so fucked up. It's unreal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His account of the murder not only matched the witness's statements, but it also fit with the theory and the evidence collected at the scene and from the body.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the problem was, while they believed what Bobby had told them, their entire case was turning into this gigantic conspiracy. Because now we're bringing Ash Robinson into it and saying he contracted these people. And now we have to prove that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the biggest challenge facing the district, district attorney at that point was according to Texas law.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A jury could not convict a person based solely on the testimony of their accomplice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's to say, Bobby might have confessed to the murder, but in order to get additional convictions for his girlfriend, Marcia McKittrick and Lilla Paulus and Ash Robinson, they would all need to have corroborating testimony. Oh shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But still, prosecutor Bob Bennett decided to bring the case before a grand jury, who indicted Bobby Vandiver and Marsha McCritic for first-degree murder and Lilla Paulus as an accomplice. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So while they waited for the trial date to come, Bennett put Bobby Vandiver and his wife, who was not Marcia, oh my, these men, I know, up in a motel where it was basically like a kind of house arrest where Bobby agreed to stay in the motel unless given explicit permission to go anywhere else. In June of 1973,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bobby explained that his wife Vicki had been engaged in a bitter custody battle with the father of her child and needed to travel to Dallas for a hearing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he was seeking permission to accompany her and stay there for the duration of that trial.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like you are living in a motel right now because you have to. Because you just admitted to doing a contract killing, kicking a grandma on the throat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And kicking a kid in the head. And murdering a man. After murdering a man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you would have murdered Connie if she had not gotten out of the house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No one's alright. No one is okay. No one's okay here. No.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is really wild. I just can't, my brain won't wrap around to any of these people's actions or thoughts, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when we say no one, we mean uhm, no one. Literally no one. Because given how cooperative Bobby had been to that point, Bennett said, yeah, you can go travel to that custody.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, hearing on the condition that you check in with me regularly and return for your trial, which is scheduled for September.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No one's alright. Now, you're gonna be shocked to hear that months passed, and Bobby actually did seem to be following the rules laid out by Bennett. That is shocking. Which set the prosecutor's mind at ease. He even showed up for his trial in September, just as he was expected to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But upon his arrival, he learned that the trial would be delayed and was rescheduled for April 1974.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unfortunately for Bennett, when the trial date finally did arrive, Bobby was nowhere to be seen. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't think the child was with them. I actually cannot confirm that, but. I really hope not. Uhm, I'm gonna say for my own and for everybody's peace of mind that no. They were not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As one of the smaller cities in Texas, Longview's law enforcement agencies had a tendency to know and keep tabs on the local troublemakers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So an officer, John Raymer, noticed a new car and two new faces hanging out at the local pool halls and bars. It's a small town, I love it. It's so. He made a point of finding out who this new couple was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As soon as he saw a quote-unquote J.C. Sheridan, he figured the guy was in town for one of four reasons. To sell drugs, to look for an underworld contract,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pimping, or he was on the run. After getting Sheridan's name, Raymer ran the man through every database he could think of, and he came up with nothing under the name J.C. Sheridan, of course. But still, something didn't seem right with this new guy in town, so he was like, I'm gonna keep a close eye on this one. Good for you, man. Yeah, instincts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Strangely enough, Bobby's arrival in Longview did coincide with a startling increase in bar room fights and fatalities around the area. You don't say. So weird.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They've been on high alert for any reports of bar fights or problems at drinking establishments. And on the evening of May 11th, John Rehmer was punching out of work and he went down to the Continental where Vicky was working as a waitress at the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was just drinking his coffee and he heard a commotion on the other side of the room. The noise turned out to be coming from a drunk person just harmlessly ranting about something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But as he scanned the rest of the room, he did lock eyes with, uh, JC Sheridan, aka Bobby, who was playing pool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They stared at one another briefly, and then Bobby gently set his cue down on the table and made a hasty exit toward the back door.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The anonymous voice on the other end sounded young and slightly gruff, not anybody he recognized. The caller informed Raymer that the man he'd been keeping an eye on in Longview


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was not J.C. Sheridan, but Bobby Vandiver. A man who had recently gone on the lam to avoid first degree murder. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A murder charges, excuse me. Having learned this new information, Raymer knew that he was not going to be able to sleep at this point. So he got back to the office and he called, uh, the Mesquite police to get a physical description of Bobby.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His contact at the Mesquite Police Department said they would get back to him with a photo identification by teletype.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Rather than wait for the image to reach him now, Raymer went out to patrol in the hopes that he might find Bobby on the street somewhere. Raymer is like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm like, all right, all right, Raymer. Yeah. All right. He's got instincts. Damn. And they're right. And he was right. He was dead on. Dead on. Just-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, so he's like, yeah, I'm gonna go out and find this motherfucker.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was just outside of the Continental when he got a radio communication asking him to contact the department. So he found the nearest payphone and he called the department.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And under the circumstances though, he called for backup and waited for them to arrive before attempting the arrest. Raymer keeps getting better. Yea. He's not going in there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, with a plain clothes officer positioned outside the back door, Raymer entered the continental and approached the area with the pool tables, of course. When he called out Bobby's name, Bobby,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So with Raymer standing directly in front of him, the two men stared at one another for a few seconds, and then Bobby reached for the gun in Raymer's hand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Damn. However, the heat from the discharge made the barrel of the gun really hot, which made Bobby let go, and that gave Raymer the opportunity to get him down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is a shootout. So, Raymer fired a second shot, this time directly into Bobby's chest at point Blake range, cause he was about to shoot him. He was, he was reaching for his weapon. You gotta do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So. Damn. But it fucked this up. Yeah, it fucked this up. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Marcia McCritick's lawyer argued that, uh, excuse me, McKittrick's lawyer argued that since Bobby was dead and couldn't testify, the prosecutor was in danger of violating Marcia's Sixth Amendment right to face her accuser. Because Bobby accused her of being involved.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And just like tiny little loopholes. So the judge shot down the lawyer's movement to dismiss the case. But Bennett knew the lawyer had a point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So rather at this point than risk a mistrial or an acquittal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bennett actually struck a deal with Marcia to plead no contest and accept the guilt as an accomplice in Hill's murder, particularly as the driver of the car. Okay. As a result of her plea, Marcia was given a sentence of 10 years in prison and was paroled after five years. So she took the deal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lilla Paulus went to trial in February of 1975 on a charge of being an accomplice to murder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As part of her plea deal, Marsha had testified against Lilla, though she only did so after her immunity was granted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She told the court that Lilla had been paid $25,000 by Ash Robinson to arrange the murder of his former son-in-law.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And 5000 of that was what she offered Bobby to actually do the killing. Which I was like, woah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You only got $5,000 of the $25,000 and you're doing the hit, like that's a bad deal. It's a bad deal no matter what because you're murdering someone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the end, Lilla Paulus' trial was lengthy and involved many of the hill's closest friends and associates, but the link between Lilla and Ash was tenuous at best.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now it's over. I mean, I guess that depends on his definition of justice. Exactly. And it depends on if he was willing to, he just wanted it over. Right. And this was the closest thing to justice, which again, who knows? Not me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I really wanted to believe, and I still want to believe that Ash didn't have anything to do with this. You'll never really know. But we'll never know, but I really, I really just want to believe he didn't. I know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lillipolis died from breast cancer in prison in 1986. Oh wow. Very complicated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 1977, Connie Hill filed a 7.6 million dollar civil suit against Ash Robinson, alleging that he had colluded with Paulus to have John murdered.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, in court, Myra Hill told the jury that Ash had been obsessed with John ever since Joan's death and was quote unquote fiendishly vindictive towards her son.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In his defense, Ash told the journey, uh, the jury, this has been a journey. It has.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there was no intention any which way in the world of killing him or having him killed. Okay. So he's like, I didn't do it. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, in the end, the jury ruled 10 to 2 against the Hills, stating that while he may have been responsible for a certain amount in emotional damages, quote,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mr. Robinson was not guilty of the conspiracy charge, and he could not be forced to pay for what he had already been cleared of by a higher court.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 1980, CBS News aired a segment on the case alleging that it was very possible Joan Robinson Hill


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And would have explained the rapid onset and quick deterioration. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as it hadn't been established in the medical community at that point in time,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He can't say that definitively. No, of course not. He's saying that's what makes him sleep at night. He's saying that's what makes him sleep at night, exactly. That's the perfect way to put it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Still, we don't know. That very well could be it, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, after the end of all the trials, Ash and Rhea Robinson relocated to Florida, where they lived out the rest of their lives. In 1981, after years of bitterness, Robert Hill


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Reconciled with his grandparents and maintained a good relationship with them until their deaths.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, why would somebody else just randomly kill John? Other than uhm- I don't know. I can't-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was any of that true? But then it sounds like Connie was very happy in her relationship with John. Sometimes that happens, of course.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anne is, is an enemy of his. Absolutely. It might have some people around her who were not happy with John or how she was claiming to be treated. That's a good point, you know what I didn't think of that. That's a whole other, again, I'm not saying she did anything or like she hired anybody or knows anybody that hired anything. Yeah. Just, just saying that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It does, the buck doesn't stop with Ash Robinson there as the only person who could have possibly been this angry with John Hill. Very good point. I didn't even think of that avenue. And there's also, I mean, you can see it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had that one male practice thing. It was so long ago at that point that I don't know. So there was that, but it's just to say that like, there was some stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like obviously the Ash Robinson thing, like there's some pieces that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can sit there and put together and go, well yeaah, that makes a lot of sense, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Either way, it sounds like everybody just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What a complicated, awful, tragic, in every way, conceivable story. Truly. And I really think that's the perfect sign-off for us. Yeah, truly. With that being said, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We got the full coven in here. Calling the corners later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Keep it weird. Keep it weird, just like Cinderella. I just missed you while you were gone. Yea, it's always weird. I don't know, I didn't really do much this week. I got a lot of wedding stuff done this week. Well that's good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, like why did the doctor have to be there if the baby was already coming out anyways?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh wow, how embarrassing it is that you had a fucking seizure, are you kidding me? Exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A child and like you think about like how badly you wanted to have kids.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like how hard it is for some people, and then some people are just gonna throw their kids in institutions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] See, I think that if you want to present yourself, that's all well and fine. That's a lot to put on your family. Yeah, especially kids.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, return to start, pass, go, land in jail, stop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh my god, and knowing, he knew nothing about it, it sounds like, cause it doesn't sound like Kathleen, he like, listened to what Kathleen said at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well don't you think, or wouldn't you think that you would want to see cases of like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who knows, like you said, he probably never told her where Rosemary was. So then you have to feel like Rose was robbed of her child. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's like neither did you, Joe, because now you're going down in history as somebody that lobotomized and threw away your fucking child.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I probably said beyond a total of like 52 times at this point, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when you drill a hole into the skull, I know like sometimes bone can kinda like regrow itself, right? But does that happen on your skull, do you know? Like, can it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause I'm like, you're just walking around with a hole drilled in your skull. Like that seems like it could be an issue. Like wouldn't you think that it would bleed or like, you know what I mean? Like, and then you would get like blood on the brain or?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't understand how this motherfucker looked in the mirror and was like, yeah, I'm a good guy. Yeah, I think he was like, I got this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why the fuck he had that in his kitchen drawer? Yeah. What the hell is Walter doing with an ice pick?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can I ask you, I don't know if you'll have an answer, do you have any idea why it would have worked? Maybe he just didn't sever a connection.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is there any possible way that he could have put the ice pick in a part of the brain where there were not connections and maybe that's why it worked because no connections were severed?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How do you put a four year old on that table and shove a fucking ice pick in their eye? Into their brain. Oh my god, and then-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, you think about ruining the rest of somebody's life in general, that's horrific. You think of doing it at four?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's like, it shouldn't be about you, it should be about your patience, which clearly it never was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Don't have them, or don't marry somebody that has them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't understand why people don't realize you don't have to have kids. Exactly. If you don't want kids, if you, if you are thinking that you could possibly give up your fucking child, like in, like, rights to your child, a 12 year old, I don't mean like give them up for


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's at least on the books. Yeah, like that's, this was the- That's shocking, he only killed one person. No. I mean, tragic, like the fact that she had to die, that's horrible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you think about what doctors have to go through now, like pre-med.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like you have to go through all the different rounds and all the different, like various types of, I don't even know like the correct way to say it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when you had your, one of your C-sections, wasn't there like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is something, that's a story that will always stick with me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The two that stuck out to me the most in this part are obviously Rosemary Kennedy and Howard there. I know, Howard broke my heart.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You guys are rooting for the wrong guy, because if the devil is helping her, that's fantastico. And then if God is making her confess that she's a witch, she's gonna die anyway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, that's the thing because you- I wish I was making this up. Because your first reaction is to like, chuckle at that. Because it's absurd. Because it's absolutely absurd, but then you're like, holy fuck, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, men were stripping the clothes off of women they believed to be cohorting with the devil and looking for the limbs of babies. Yep.