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[Assistant] When she reached the bathroom though, she found Francis. Oh no. Francis' lifeless body was draped over the side of the bathtub with her head wrapped in towels and resting on the floor of the tub.


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[Assistant] Her pajama top had been removed and looped around her neck, while her bloody pajama bottoms had been pulled down and were tangled around her feet.


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[Assistant] There was also a very large bread knife thrust through her neck, its point and handle protruding beneath each ear.


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[Assistant] The image that that conjures up in my brain, it makes you like have to take a deep breath. I am like, those, that woman, Martha Engels walking into that, you'll never be the same. Never.


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[Assistant] And it's like if you're looking at this, all the similarities are here. Same area, an apartment, ransacked, in the bathroom.


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[Assistant] Tried to clean up. But not really well. We have stab wounds to the neck again.


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[Assistant] So detectives were like, wow, this is very reminiscent of the Josephine Ross murder. The apartment was ransacked, but nothing was stolen again. Weird. Which again, that's weird.


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[Assistant] Uhm, the victim's head had been wrapped like we said and as, as though the killer didn't want to see her face and didn't want to see what she had done.


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[Assistant] And the body had been washed of blood, like completely washed again.


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[Assistant] Despite being found nude in the bathroom, or partially nude at least.


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[Assistant] Maybe to just confuse, or very likely in my thought process, and I don't know if anyone will agree.


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[Assistant] When Martha Engels said she walked in, there was a trail leading to the bathroom. She was dragged in her pajama pants.


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[Assistant] Pulled down. Sure. As she was dragged. That does make sense, yeaah. So it does seem like maybe that's a possibility. And maybe that's not supposed to be posed at all and he just didn't want to touch her anymore. Just happened.


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[Assistant] Now the knife through Frances's neck obviously would have been enough to cause her death. However, when the coroner removed the several towels wrapped around her head, they discovered the actual cause of death to be a large hole in her head. Oh my god. Caused by a 38 caliber bullet fired at close range.


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[Assistant] Oh yeaah, don't worry, people heard. What? Yeah.


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[Assistant] In addition to the head and neck wound, Frances had also been shot in the right shoulder and stabbed in the chest with the same knife that the killer had put through her neck.


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[Assistant] It was one of those reporters who after entering Brown's bedroom called out to everyone that there was something they needed to see. Oh no. In the bedroom, written on the wall, in red lipstick.


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[Assistant] Was a message that anybody who knows about the lipstick killer case has seen this message. Several photos existed. You can look them up. They're not, you don't see crimes. I already saw it, yea. You just see the message.


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[Assistant] It is, it says, for heaven's sake, catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself. Which again is so similar to the Weepy Voice Killer. Yes. And it's, and it's so chilling. Yeah.


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[Assistant] And as for in the Ross murder, a window was found to be open when police arrived, which they determined was maybe the killer's point of entry, but all prints appeared to have been wiped away. So they cleaned up. They made sure they didn't leave anything.


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[Assistant] A few days later when technicians return to finish processing the scene,


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[Assistant] A single smudged bloody fingerprint on the back of the bathroom door jam? That's all they could find.


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[Assistant] But aside from the single print, there was no additional evidence left behind.


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[Assistant] Now a canvas of the neighboring apartments proved a little more fruitful. A tenant on the second floor said they heard gunshots somewhere in the night between 3 and 4 a.m.


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[Assistant] And did what about it? And the night that just, I heard him.


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[Assistant] Are you kidding? I mean, I don't live in Chicago. I don't know how this rules, but I'm like, damn. Like.


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[Assistant] I mean, I'm sure you hear gunshots in Chicago quite often. Possibly. You would think that within the apartment building?


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[Assistant] That's the thing, those have to be pretty close range that you're hearing. I would be a little concerned. Yeaah. But.


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[Assistant] Oh wow. Uh, the night Clark said he came down the automatic elevator at 4 a.m. He was a stranger. He fumbled at the front door, not realizing at first it was locked.


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[Assistant] And the clerk described the man as being 35 to 40 years old, five and a half feet tall and weighing about 140 pounds and wearing quote, a dark overcoat and a dark hat. Okay.


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[Assistant] Now like the investigation into the Ross murder, the Brown case was stalled almost as soon as they started.


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[Assistant] Frances had many friends, but most of them if not all had alibis, none of them had reason to even be upset with her. Right. So they were immediately ruled out, and investigators did find some love letters tucked away among her things, but unlike Josephine Ross,


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[Assistant] Francis's love life was pretty simple, uncomplicated.


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[Assistant] There weren't many potential people that she was dating or you know, potential suitors or spurned lovers to be questioned. Sure. Simply put, there wasn't a single piece of evidence to provide even the slightest hint of who this killer was.


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[Assistant] Now given the similarities to the Ross murder and the message sprawled on the wall in lipstick, the press seized on the story and quickly dubbed the murderer the lipstick killer. Oh yea. The next day at a press conference, Captain Reynolds told the press, whoever the killer was, he's a maniac and we must get him.


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[Assistant] Now, which like, yeah, we agree. Mhm. Interestingly, Reynolds was also clear about the fact that investigators had not ruled out the possibility that the killer could be a woman.


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[Assistant] Expanding on that possibility, Reynolds pointed out the note left on the wall having been written in lipstick.


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[Assistant] And having even included the feminine phrase for heaven's sake. Are you kidding me? That's real.


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[Assistant] Feminine phrase, for heaven's sake.


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[Assistant] I feel like I've heard a lot of people say that, including men. And also it's the 40s. Yeah. I know there's some dudes with a button up shirt and a sweater vest on. For heaven's sake. And the 40s being like, for heaven's sake.


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[Assistant] You know that, that's not a feminine phrase. What the fuck is a feminine phrase?


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[Assistant] Right. Like, one of those women probably had lipstick in that apartment.


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[Assistant] And they also pointed out the fact that Francis and Josephine had not been sexually assaulted either.


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[Assistant] But now, knowing what we know after you can read about this case, uhm, it turned out that


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[Assistant] There were some romantic love letters found among Francis's belongings that were written by a woman and that might be why they were. So that's why they were saying that. Okay.


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[Assistant] Reynolds, quote, admitted that the evidence to support such a theory was purely speculative based on the phrasing of the message left behind on the wall. Yeah.


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[Assistant] People also pointed out that the theory that this killer was just on some unhinged raving madman was unlikely as well because they had the presence of mind to not only sneak in and out of the building successfully, but also they thought to wipe down any surfaces they might have touched to make sure they didn't leave behind fingerprints. That's cunning at the very least. Also,


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[Assistant] All the eyewitnesses are seeing a man leaf. Right, exactly.


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[Assistant] The truth was Chicago detectives had literally no idea who killed Francis Brown or why. Doesn't sound like it. But they did know or at least strongly suspected that the Brown case was connected to the murder of Josephine Ross six months earlier. Definitely.


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[Assistant] Um, although they didn't have the language or frame of reference at the time, investigators on the case suspected they had a serial killer operating within the city. Again, they weren't calling him that. They didn't have that language back then.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but basically just someone compelled to kill for deeply psychological reasons that would most likely only make sense to the killer.


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[Assistant] This Jack the Ripper type of slayer, as they called him, which doesn't roll off the tongue quite as long as well as serial killer. No, it sure doesn't. Uhm, Jack the Ripper type of slayer is what they were calling him. Imagine if we just had to say that every time we talked about a serial killer. Jack the Ripper type of slayer. That'd be a lot.


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[Assistant] I mean there's, aren't there like podcasts called like Serial Killers? It would have to be called Jack the Ripper Type Slayer?


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[Assistant] Of killers. That doesn't sound as easy to say. No. So they said that he had a lust for bloody killings and reasoning that defied the conventional beliefs about murder at the time.


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[Assistant] That evening, they were still no closer to identifying him. Which is interesting, that they immediately thought it must be that guy.


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[Assistant] That stopped by looking for Francis, which I'm like, I get it. I get why you're thinking like you at least want to talk to that guy. Right. I'm like, I wouldn't like totally pin it on him yet. That could just be like a friend.


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[Assistant] Now, while investigators struggled to make literally any progress in this case, the press weren't as quick to let the story go as they had been in the Josephine's murder. Well, especially now that it's happened twice.


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[Assistant] Unlike the Josephine Ross killing, which everyone assumed at the time was a one-time murder,


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[Assistant] This case now suggested that there would or could be more brutal deaths until the killer was caught.


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[Assistant] It really didn't help the matter or do anything to ease the feelings of helplessness felt by the women of Chicago at the time.


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[Assistant] Because they published an interview with Francis' roommate, Viola Butler, who insisted Francis had no enemies. And Butler said quote,


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[Assistant] And the portrait of Francis that Viola painted with reporters was one of a chaste, much loved, and deeply respectable woman. Right.


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[Assistant] Who by all accounts sounds like this fucking ideal, like amazing human being, friend, human, worker, woman. Everything. Just everything. If she could meet her end this way?


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[Assistant] Like some brutal evil, evil stranger could come in and kill her this way, then no one's safe in Chicago at this point. So that's when we get into


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[Assistant] My least favorite thing to talk about, which is the murder of a child. Yeah. I just want to warn you, that's what we're going to talk about next.


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[Assistant] Now, the unsolved murders of Josephine Ross and Frances Butler had everyone in Chicago on edge, obviously, with a growing demand for police to show some evidence of progress. It was really one of those where a lot of pressure was put on them, obviously, to catch this killer, but they were not taking it as a


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[Assistant] One of the best instances, I think, personally, of like, so much pressure


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[Assistant] Being put on a police force and them handling it.


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[Assistant] They bided their time and they built a case and they took care, like, I think that was a very good example of like, I know there's a lot of pressure here and I know everyone wants all this information.


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[Assistant] But we cannot trickle it out. Like you gotta just wait until we are able to give it to you. And I think that's such a good way to end it. The results spoke for themselves. They were able to close it.


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[Assistant] This though was the exact opposite. They could not handle the pressure. They could not handle the criticism. They couldn't handle any of it. And it wasn't even that long. They just couldn't handle it. Right.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, there was a very growing demand for them to show any kind of progress at all. And little did they know.


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[Assistant] Uh, however, that the recent rash of violence was going to reach a pretty fucking horrifying peak here. On the evening of January 6, 1946, less than a month after the Brown murder,


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[Assistant] Helen Degnan tucked her six year old daughter Suzanne into bed and kissed her good night before saying goodbye to her husband Jim.


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[Assistant] Who was headed to awake that evening with plans to return home later that night. When Jim Degnan returned home around 11pm.


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[Assistant] Just to try to avoid any accidents, bring her to the bathroom, let her go. They just kinda like woke her up. Right.


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[Assistant] And he said, quote, she awakened that night and we were talking and fooling and joking with her.


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[Assistant] He and Helen also retired for the evening but were awoken a short time later when Helen said she heard what she said she can't be sure, but she thinks she heard her daughter crying.


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[Assistant] She said she didn't want to disturb her daughter's sleep and then she kind of rationalized that it was probably just the upstairs dogs that she was hearing because she said she was like out of it.


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[Assistant] So Jim woke up the next morning around 6.30am and began starting getting ready for the day and he finished shaving and went down the hall to Suzanne's room and found the door closed. He assumed, you know, she was still asleep.


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[Assistant] He opened the door and he was very surprised because he didn't find her, his daughter in bed.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and he said what was more alarming was that the window, which had only been open a crack the night before, was now wide open.


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[Assistant] Hoping their daughter was just playing some trick, Jim and Helen sent their other daughter, Betty, upstairs to their neighbor's apartment to search while they checked each room on the floor of their house. Together with the neighbors, the Flynn's, the family searched the entire house, but Suzanne was nowhere to be found and Jim wasted no time. He called the police right away.


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[Assistant] In 1945, things were different. A missing child, quote unquote, wouldn't have raised the kinds of alarms that it raises now.


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[Assistant] A lot of police precincts at that time would just be like, oh, they're probably playing a trick. Right. They probably just run away. They'll probably be back by suppertime. Don't worry about it. Like it was very...


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[Assistant] Weirdly normal for them to just not be alarmed by this. Right. And they'd be like, oh don't worry about it, they'll be back by dinner. But Jim Degnan was a person people respected.


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[Assistant] And he had some renown because he was an executive with the office of price administration.


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[Assistant] Soon after the call was placed, the Degnan home was crawling with detectives and FBI agents, all very eager to solve this case and find this little girl before the press was able to make a big story out of this whole thing.


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[Assistant] Now despite their best efforts to keep the press at bay that day,


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[Assistant] By 10am, the house and sidewalk out front were crawling with reporters and photographers just trying to break the story. That's so fucked up. Because of the intense public scrutiny over how investigators were handling the Ross and Brown murders already,


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[Assistant] Among other recent crimes, like it's not like those were the only two, there were other crimes that they were bumbling and not handling, right? Investigators were intent on taking their time to comb every inch of the scene and avoid any further blunders or criticism. They were like, let's do this right. Now outside the house, just below Suzanne's window,


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[Assistant] Her bedroom window, investigators found a wooden ladder that appeared to be the means by which the kidnapper had entered the home.


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[Assistant] This reminds me of like the Lindbergh baby. I was just gonna say that. Yeah, so they were able to get through it by the open window is what they assumed. Yeah.


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[Assistant] A cursory search of the girl's bedroom turned up really nothing unusual at first. There was no sign of any blood. It didn't appear that there was like a giant struggle. Nothing was broken, like fallen over.


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[Assistant] But on the floor beside the bed, detectives found a handwritten note.


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[Assistant] How to deliver this money? Right. Just wait. Just get the money and wait.


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[Assistant] The note was covered in an oily substance, and on the back the kidnapper had written a postscript that said burn this for her safety.


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[Assistant] Without any other options, and he's not just gonna sit around, he was like, fuck this. No mate, six year old is my thing.


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[Assistant] So the press coverage in Degnan's radio broadcast prompted a wave of responses. So some people were reporting tips.


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[Assistant] And of course there were other pieces of absolute fucking garbage claiming to be the kidnapper wanting to get the money. That's so gross. You have to be the lowest fucking form of human being to do that shit. I say it every time, but you gotta be the lowest fucking form.


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[Assistant] But none of them proved credible, even the tips. Wow. So just assholes.


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[Assistant] And honestly, unfortunately, none of it would matter by the end of the day. Later that evening around 7pm, and this is very gruesome.


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[Assistant] Two detectives were searching the area around the Degnan home when they noticed that the dirt around a nearby manhole cover looked disturbed. Uh, it looked like somebody had recently tried to access the sewer.


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[Assistant] When they remove the cover, they shine their flashlights down into the sewer.


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[Assistant] However, when they got a closer look, they realized to their abject horror that they had discovered


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[Assistant] If you see a picture of Suzanne, she's just the cutest little thing. Investigators and volunteers combed the sewers and streets above and eventually found a ton of other dismembered body parts. Oh my god. So she had been completely dismembered. Which is truly unthinkable. Like truly unthinkable.


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[Assistant] Nothing about this reminds you of the Ross and Brown case. Not at all. Not the victim


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[Assistant] And for the parents to be like, oh yea, like we woke her up around, you know, a little after 11 to take her to the bathroom. We were joking with her, laughing, having a great time. And you had no idea that was going to be the last time you ever saw her.


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[Assistant] So, the discovery that Suzanne Degbin had been murdered was obviously the worst possible outcome imaginable.


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[Assistant] To everyone, including investigators, for very obvious reasons obviously, but also because it gave the press another sensational story that would quickly, they were gonna tie it back to like,


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[Assistant] And in fact, the next, which this is what's so frustrating is at first,


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[Assistant] It's like the press didn't even give investigators time to do good police work. No.


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[Assistant] A shit ton of undue pressure on them and not allowing them.


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[Assistant] To solve these cases. Exactly. They are both equal parts of the shit.


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[Assistant] In fact the next morning, the gruesome, horrific discovery dominated the headlines of all five major Chicago papers, with each giving a very detailed account of the discovery. Oh wow.


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[Assistant] Or whether they were riling up the public with sensational coverage of the awful case, which is also what was happening. Yeaah.


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[Assistant] The reporting elicited a remarkable response. Just hours after the news broke, two citizens called the Chicago Tribune to separately offer $500 rewards.


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[Assistant] The arrest, conviction, and execution of Suzanne's killer. Wow. Now people were like...


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[Assistant] Ready for blood. Like, people which I would also be that way. You just remember a six year old and you- Yea, you gotta go. Yea. You gotta go. That's what I'm like, go for it. That's- you gotta go. Like, I don't- I don't- I'm gonna turn my back, but you gotta go. Exactly. Whoever did this to Suzanne Degnan, on site.


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[Assistant] Now, immediately, I would be thinking this is a totally unrelated case though. Like that's the thing. A hundred percent.


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[Assistant] Nothing about this is related. Not one thing. Totally outside of them, but as far as the Chicago police and administration were concerned, the brutal seemingly ritualistic murders of Josephine Ross and Frances Brown were bad enough, obviously, but the kidnapping and murder of a child whose dismembered body was then dumped in the sewer


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[Assistant] And anticipating a major public outcry and demand that the killer be brought to justice immediately. Investigators and patrol officers.


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[Assistant] The most compelling lead at the time was that, and this just like hurts my heart, was that coal dust had been discovered on the bottom of, bottoms of Suzanne's feet. Her little like bare feet. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Cold death. Oh god. Taken out of her bed in the middle of the night and killed in a cellar? No I genuinely can't. Like this doesn't-


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[Assistant] Assuming her abductor had been known to her and lived nearby, that's what they were going off of because...


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[Assistant] Who else climbs into a child's window at night and takes them out of their bed? Yea, they were assuming that there had to, and it didn't seem like there was a huge struggle, and like they knew where the bedroom was it seemed like, or like, it just seemed like there was some familiarity. Right, because she had a sister too, like. She did, so it seems like there was a little familiarity, I understand why they were going off of that. Yea.


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[Assistant] Officers began a house to house search of the coal sellers in the houses around the Degnan house. Oh, that's just so, so sad. Oh, it's awful. It's awful. Horrible.


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[Assistant] In the basement of a house on Winthrop Street, just one block from the Degnan house, investigators found what they believe to be, quote, the murder room. Really?


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[Assistant] Now among the discoveries made in this particular basement were four large tubs, blood stains on the colbin, a bloody pushcart,


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[Assistant] And several garment bags that matched those in which the body parts had been wrapped.


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[Assistant] In a floor drain investigators also found pieces of flesh and strands of blonde hair that matched Suzanne's.


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[Assistant] Now, obviously certain that they had found the scene of the murder, detectives sent for the building superintendent. Because this is a building, so this is a shared space.


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[Assistant] Those lockers that they found those things in are residence lockers where like everyone puts stuff. Yeah. So.


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[Assistant] Finding this, great. But now you have to talk to everyone in this building. And who had access here. It might not even just be tenants who had access here. Yea, it could be workers, it could be anybody. So, they thought sent for the building superintendent, Hector Verberg.


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[Assistant] Find toys, fix them up, and hand them out to kids who couldn't afford them.


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[Assistant] When asked about how someone could have accessed the basement, Hector said, I don't know anything about it. Anybody could get in.


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[Assistant] According to Hector, only he and the tenants in the building had keys to the basement, but he said, but the windows were always open, anybody could get in.


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[Assistant] Broke into a window through an open window to get this, this young girl. Right. They would have easily went through another window to do something like they're not opposed to going through open windows where they don't belong. Right.


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[Assistant] Uhm, at the station, detectives began interrogating Hector, who was initially very cooperative, but then became decidedly less so as the night wore on and it became very clear that they were trying to make him a suspect.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, patrol officers were still canvassing the neighborhood and started speaking to neighbors about Hector. All of whom were shocked.


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[Assistant] To hear that he was even being considered a suspect.


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[Assistant] An indulgent parent and grandfather. Aww. And hardly seemed the killer type. One neighbor told the press later that day, quote, He just couldn't be the murderer. Why, he loves children. He has seven grandchildren of his own, and he'd spent every minute with them that he could. He couldn't have killed that little girl.


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[Assistant] The more investigators learned about Hector, the less likely it seemed that he was a sadistic killer of a six year old girl.


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[Assistant] He was very actively involved in his community, engaged regularly with friends and neighbors and according to those who knew him best, he was quote, harmless as a fly. Wow.


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[Assistant] Now more importantly though, Hector's wife told police her husband always went to bed at 10pm and he had indeed been in bed around that time on the night Suzanne was taken from her room. Yea.


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[Assistant] But then you hear that description and you're like, I feel like that could be him. Yea, it seems a little right. Now a coroner's inquest was held on January 9th where it was established that Suzanne's cause of death had been strangulation. Wow.


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[Assistant] And the disarticulation had been done with a large sharp knife post mortem.


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[Assistant] Uhm, it had not been done by a hacksaw or a hatchet, which are the two things that were taken from Hector's house.


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[Assistant] Also, several medical experts testified at the inquest, saying the killer was definitely someone that was familiar with anatomy.


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[Assistant] And demonstrated expertise that one might have if they were a butcher or a hunter.


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[Assistant] Oh wow. And Jerry Kearns from the coroner's office said quote,


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[Assistant] The killer had to be an expert at cutting meat because the body was separated at the joints. Oh god. Not even the average doctor could be so skillful. It has to be a meat cutter. So these medical experts are like, it is a meat cutter. Even just to think about that detail. It really is horrible to think of it that way.


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[Assistant] Oh god, this is like, this is a lot. I know. That's why I had to separate this into two parts because even though the second part is mostly about, you know, what happened in the investigation, it's like, this is a lot. I'm like freaking out over here. Now, despite the evidence pointing very much away from Hector,


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[Assistant] He's not a butcher and he has an alibi. He has an alibi. He has character witnesses that are all like, nah. And it's like his alibi.


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[Assistant] On what fucking grounds do you have to say that? Because guess what? No, they're not. What? Upon analysis, the bones were fucking animal bones.


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[Assistant] But that fact, when it came out, didn't receive any attention because Detective Jack there had already been like, by the way guys, maybe these are tiny little baby arm bones, you think? Think about that. Like that's him literally being like, wow, isn't that fucked up?


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[Assistant] Like you have no fucking basis to sit here and suggest!


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[Assistant] That these bones are from her arms? Who the fuck are you? You're a detective, you don't know shit. Name one of those bones. Seriously. Name a bone in the arm, Detective Jack. I fucking guarantee you, you can't. Do you think too that, like, obviously?


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[Assistant] Infuriating. Infuriating. To think that this man went to reporters and said, we found bones in the furnace. Which like, what are you doing telling reporters that and that at all? You're not supposed to say that shit, you idiot. Like bones at all, but then to insinuate? And then to just be like, I don't know, maybe they're


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[Assistant] But you were from the forties, so. I was like, I think he's probably dead. You've probably been junk punched. But, either way. Alrighty, I think you got junk punched. Exactly. So life junk punched you, I'm sure. But they were animal bones. But again.


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[Assistant] So for their part, the press did little to exercise any objectivity or practice responsible journalism at all.


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[Assistant] Fixes them up and gives them to children whose families cannot afford them. Let's forget all that and just be like, well, he's an immigrant.


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[Assistant] And in the days after the murder, James Frutell, a neighbor of Hector's, recalls how some people began to turn on Hector.


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[Assistant] This is the detectives and the press' fault. Yeah, absolutely. 100%. And racist fault. Although he had been charged with any crime whatsoever, investigators continued to question and harass Hector and his wife.


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[Assistant] Demanding that he consent to a polygraph examination when he refused and continued to protest because he's like, what the fuck? I didn't do anything. Their tactics became more aggressive and they attempted to beat a confession out of this grandfather.


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[Assistant] Oh my god. However, when even a literal vicious beating


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[Assistant] Failed to elicit a confession. Cause you just got not admitting to killing a child.


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[Assistant] They said if he denied any involvement still after suffering such abuse, he must be innocent.


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[Assistant] They had handcuffs on me for hours and hours. They threw me in a cell and blindfolded me. They handcuffed my hands behind my back and pulled me up on bars until my toes touched the floor.


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[Assistant] I didn't eat, I go right to the hospital, oh I am so sick, anymore and I would have confessed to anything.


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[Assistant] Fucking medieval style. Medieval style. And even he said, so he went through all that and still was like, I did not kill this little girl. Like I'm not admitting to it, but even he said any more and I would have confessed to anything. And that's what they were aiming for.


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[Assistant] They didn't want to catch you, actually stole this baby out of their bed in the middle of the fucking night, strangled her in a dank basement and dismembered her and threw her body parts into a fucking sewer. They just wanted everybody to stop being mean to them.


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[Assistant] How much they care about actually closing the case with the real person who did it and how much they care about just having someone


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[Assistant] Get the fall. Take the fall for it. So that everybody stops being mean to them. I'm like, are we nearing the end of part one because this has truly been the most. We are nearing the end, so. Holy shit. The Chicago Police Department denied that any abuse had occurred, of course.


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[Assistant] But Hector and his wife and another suspect, who was briefly detained during this time,


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[Assistant] Now the flagrant abuse of suspects and reckless release of information to the press because they were just leaking everything.


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[Assistant] Reflected the absolute desperation and frustration by the investigators as the public outcry grew louder.


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[Assistant] The Ross and Brown murders had been horrible and terrified the women of Chicago, but the murder of Suzanne Degnan not only intensified local outrage,


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[Assistant] But it also made a story, the story national interest at this point. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Under increasing pressure to solve the case, detectives began speculating and grasping at literally anything that even remotely resembled a clue.


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[Assistant] They began theorizing that at 74 pounds, Suzanne would have been too heavy for one person to carry.


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[Assistant] So there must have been two kidnappers now. So that's after they beat the shit out of an old band. They said, actually, now that I think about it. They're like, oops, I guess there's two. And not this grandfather.


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[Assistant] Now in the meantime, they continued arresting and questioning various suspects, including a man recently released from a psychiatric hospital and


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[Assistant] A local black man who was subjected to a polygraph exam but was ruled out when he passed the test. They also had like no evidence to arrest him, which should be shocking. Yea, this police force is racist as fuck. Despite their best efforts.


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[Assistant] Uhm, after spending five months chasing down more than 3,000 tips, conducting over 300 interviews, performing 170 polygraph examinations,


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[Assistant] Detectives were no closer to finding who killed Suzanne Degnans.


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[Assistant] Out of the lead, completely out of leads at this point, and with no suspects to question, investigators were desperate for any opportunity to close the case, even if the opportunity really wasn't a good fit. And that's where we're going to end for part one.


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[Assistant] What's fascinating, and like Dave said this too, we both, we went into this thinking one thing.


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[Assistant] And I had no idea. Really? The ins and outs of this, like the politics of this and everything that ended up shaking out in the wash. Yeah.


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[Assistant] It's very, you're like, oh, I thought I knew who the lipstick killer was. And you don't? Yea. And I don't.


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[Assistant] Wait until we kind of touch on that message again in part two. Part two has a lot of shit


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[Assistant] We're gonna be talking about a lot of


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[Assistant] Of mishandling and a lot of shady ass investigative work, if you can even call it that.


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[Assistant] I think I had to, I'm still not sure if I'm gonna watch it cause it feels too long. No, you gotta. Cause you didn't even sell it the second, when I said I was gonna watch it, you were like, by the way, like half the movie, they're not even in Sahlberg and it's kind of slow. I was like, close it.


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[Assistant] I have a cut for you, Beth. I have a cut for you. It's TikTok that has made me think that I should watch it, but then I'm also like, I think I've watched it now at this point, like all the things I need to see, I think I've


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[Assistant] Maybe I will. Maybe I should just film my reactions to it. Please do so. Cause it seems, uh, all, cause that song is stuck in my head.


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[Assistant] Ash has this awesome quirk about her, and it's everybody's favorite, like I'm being dead serious, but I love it.


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[Assistant] Silly. Yeaah. We just do. Or ridonculous, if you will. We have silly existences.


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[Assistant] We're gonna be talking about, um, this little, like, they're called, like, the Bedford Avenue gang or something like that, but it's a bunch of, like, rich kids in this gang who just are, like,


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[Assistant] It's the most bizarre bonkers, like, thing I've ever seen. Like, it's just, it feels made up. Wait, what's the year? So the year of this...


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[Assistant] I miss it. Max Cutler, you rock. Max Cutler is great. Uh, yeaah. Bring back crime countdown. Sorry if you can hear my eyes.


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[Assistant] Let's get into this with, uh, let's start off with who Florence Burns is.


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[Assistant] That's gonna cause huge like swooping changes all the way around because that's allowing Americans to travel outside of the relatively closed regions that they were living in. What is the space that you're making?


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[Assistant] Uhm, but according to Virginia McConnell,


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[Assistant] Whose book you should definitely pick up, we are linking in the show notes. Uhm, this quote gave teenagers and young adults access to places they might not have had earlier. Particularly those living in cities like New York.


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[Assistant] For instance, this whole expansion of urban infrastructure, like bridges, tunnels, public transportation.


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[Assistant] Uh, that all meant that people living in places like Brooklyn and Coney Island could now easily access the business and entertainment districts that were in


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[Assistant] And this opened up new opportunities for employment, but also for cultural engagement. So everybody's just being, their worlds are opening up, basically. For teenagers and young adults, particularly the wealthier,


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[Assistant] This expansion of transportation allowed them to escape what was usually the watchful eye of their parents and gave them easy access to all the fun stuff, the dance halls, the speakeasies, the restaurants, all the other social spaces. It's like riding in cars with boys with Drew Barrymore. It's exactly like that.


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[Assistant] And this meant that maybe for the first time they could actually shed the societal expectations of responsibility and respectability that usually kids in those families had. And they were now free to be themselves without any of the adult supervision and judgment.


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[Assistant] So this social shift from previous generations was really unlike anything Americans had seen to that point?


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[Assistant] For young people in New York, many of them from conservative immigrant families,


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[Assistant] Basically seeking to establish their own identity, their own rebellion outside of the home was Florence Burns. I knew it.


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[Assistant] She was the daughter of strict German immigrant parents, born, uh, April 9th, 1882 in New York to Frederick and Henrietta Burns. Uh, Florence had a lot of advantages. A lot.


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[Assistant] Also well respected, she was the daughter of Wilhelm Friedrich von der Bosch.


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[Assistant] I think I've heard of her. Now given her parents' social status and respective pedigrees, it was baffling to friends and family that Florence seemed to be out of control from an early age. They said, you're a rich girl and you've gone too far. She was by most accounts pretty lazy.


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[Assistant] She's fuckin' rich, so. She consistently did poorly in school, which is different because usually it was like, they had like, you know, standards to be held to. Right. And quote, was more interested in boys than in her studies. Word. Despite her beauty?


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[Assistant] However, her vapid personality and general lack of curiosity did


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[Assistant] Ambition, she didn't really have a lot of substance happening. Shouldn't have chutzpah. Yeah. And as most people knew her, they thought she was like, pretty boring.


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[Assistant] Uhm, also Florence's behavior was occasionally extreme or inappropriate, especially when she didn't get her way. Oh. For instance, when her first serious boyfriend Harry broke up with her after the initial, you know, like romance in the beginning wore off. Florence exhibited behavior that would today?


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[Assistant] Most likely be considered stalking. Oh goody. Uhm, and there were even rumors that she had threatened to kill him unless he married her. So she went, she went too far. Usually, I mean,


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[Assistant] Her parents were more like jailers than parents. They were outdated disciplinarians who had no idea what it was like to be young. They just didn't get it, mom, dad. It's not a face! And in reaction to what she perceived as parents that were too rigid and overly restrictive, Florence acted out a lot.


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[Assistant] Getting kicked out of school, getting kicked out of local businesses for smoking at the time it was illegal for women to smoke in public. Fake.


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[Assistant] Now in response to all this, Fred, the dad, disciplined his daughter in ways that would, uh,


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[Assistant] No longer be considered acceptable. Ruh-roh. Uh, this included physical abuse. Oh no. Uh, confining her to her bedroom, and on more than one occasion, he would just enroll her in a boarding school outside of the city, including one in Montreal. Oh, goody. Uh, though she always ran away and made her way back to Brooklyn on her own.


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[Assistant] Now by the time she was 17 years old, Florence had dropped out of school. She hadn't gone further than eighth grade at this point and seemed just completely directionless.


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[Assistant] When she was finally, when she finally found a group of friends, uhm, she felt super comfortable finally and she felt like she was accepted by these people and they didn't want anything more of her than who she was.


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[Assistant] And this group was called the Bedford Avenue Gang.


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[Assistant] So, I'll give you a little more insight into this, uh, gang. So, given her lack of interest in things like school or creative pursuits, it shouldn't come


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[Assistant] Too much of a surprise that this isn't the kind of group that she fell in with. It was in 1901 and this, uhm, this is, this gang was mainly, I say gang-like, quote unquote, that's what they were called.


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[Assistant] This gang was comprised of what her parents would almost certainly deem bad influences. Yeah, I would think so. The Bedford Avenue gang, as they called themselves, was named for the Bedford's divestment neighborhood of Brooklyn, where many of its members lived. And it was comprised of boys and young men mostly.


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[Assistant] But like, you don't need it. So yeah, they're just assholes. Like what the fuck? They're assholes who are like, we're bored, our parents are mean.


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[Assistant] Because like we can't just like lazily roll around all the time and just get money, so we're just gonna steal it from people who work. Yeah, let's steal money that we could already have. Yeah.


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[Assistant] That's good. Of course, this was not like we said, like Ash just pointed out, it wasn't for lack of having their own money to spend, because hello, or you know, given to them by their parents. But instead, the shoplifting, petty robbery, and pickpocketing were committed just for the thrill of it. They were bored rich kids. Wild. Their secondary interest, however, was women.


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[Assistant] And for this group of wealthy, well-dressed bad boys. I gotta look them up. Uh, which you know, they were like, the- the-


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[Assistant] The Bedford Avenue Gang. Here's the thing though. This is a bunch of...


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[Assistant] You know rich boys who are rebelling there get they get everything they want.


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[Assistant] And they're probably well quaffed, you know? Like they're put together. And so they had no shortage of girls and young women who followed them around like groupies. Of course. Of course. Cause it's like the, it's like bad boy light, you know? Like diet bad boy.


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[Assistant] So if you're not ready for like the full, the full thing, you get the diet bad boy and you can be like, well, everything will be fine cause he'll pay the bail. Yeah, I can't even find pictures.


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[Assistant] Uh, but the thing is McConnell notes the Bedford Avenue gang of boys was dedicated to seducing the groupie girls who followed them and it gets worse and darker because this is all like very fluffy and like they're just little shitty rich boys. Like silly. You'll get yours, you know what I mean? Like you're stealing from people who work.


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[Assistant] But it got darker because they would, they were all about these groupie girls and they would keep them around. They were like, you know, it was like an actual like, like mafia style, you know, like the gals hanging around.


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[Assistant] But if they didn't, weren't able to seduce them, they would turn to sexual assault. They would just, they would, like, they were rapists as well. Oh, Jesus Christ. It turns from this like silly, so like, that's why this, this gang is like so gross in so many ways, because it's


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[Assistant] It's a bunch of shitheads who have everything in the world at their fingertips are doing all of this just for the thrill of it and also taking advantage of women who, these young women who probably don't know any better. It's just like the whole thing is so nasty.


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[Assistant] So despite the petty shallow and criminal interests of this gang, uhm, they provided, like we were just talking about, a pretty attractive lifestyle.


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[Assistant] And kind of social outlet that appealed to rebellious young people like Florence who were looking for just that. They were easily recognizable because they wore flamboyant outfits.


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[Assistant] Which included diamond jewelry, the girls would wear corsets, brightly colored vests, the boys would wear the vests and the spiked tailed overcoats, like, very over the top.


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[Assistant] And they also carried heavy canes and baseball bats with them, while definitely part of the overall outfit would also double as a weapon if they wanted to be violent. What a wily time to be alive.


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[Assistant] The Bedford Avenue gang would be comparable to something, and this is actually, uhm, this is, Dave brought this up, and it's such a perfect comparison. I had, like, brilliant comparison by Dave.


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[Assistant] They would be comparable to something like the fictional Drugs in Anthony Burgess' 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange.


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[Assistant] They're very much like that, like it, it calls into, like you can think of that gang when you, like you should read it, it's crazy. I will. Uh, but they're also, and these two are also similar to what we would modernly probably think of.


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[Assistant] Young middle class white men who engage in rioting and looting after certain sporting events. You know what I mean? Like that kind of thing where it has no purpose whatsoever just for the hell of it.


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[Assistant] Now, their behavior and engagement in violence and destructions


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[Assistant] It's not a matter of survival or necessity or even purpose. Right. You know what I mean? Like there's nothing to back it up at all. It's bored rich kids. It's just a thrilling outburst of bad or criminal behavior because they know they're not going to be punished for it.


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[Assistant] Because of where they sit in the, in the class system. Because their dad's a lawyer. Because my dad's a lawyer. I'll sue you. That's why.


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[Assistant] Now when it came to the Bedford Avenue gang, there wasn't exactly a hierarchy or organizational structure per se.


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[Assistant] But there was a kind of like informal leader, I feel like that always happens. Yeah. Uhm, and this informal leader was Theodore or Ted Burris and his best friend Walter Brooks. Uh oh. Now Burris was the son, the only son of a millionaire stockbroker.


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[Assistant] And after graduating from high school in 1898, using his generous allowance given to him by his mother to fund his flashy lifestyle and petty criminal escapades, like the others in the gang, he was known to lash out violently anytime he felt the urge, targeting anyone from a random pedestrian on the street to the police.


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[Assistant] But Ted's criminal activities weren't confined only to violence.


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[Assistant] Bures was a well-known thief and cheat. He stole everything from money, cars, jewelry, and even once stole a prized French bulldog worth a thousand dollars. He does not deserve that fucking dog. He stole a dog.


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[Assistant] Me too, that's exactly what I want to do.


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[Assistant] Although he came from a family far less wealthy than that of Ted Burris, Walter Brooks did fit in with the gang nonetheless. Walter was born in Brooklyn in the summer of 1881 and grew up in a very stable household where his father was a typesetter with one of the New York newspapers.


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[Assistant] As a child, Walter was smart, he was attractive, very popular athlete, very good student.


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[Assistant] But he was known as quote, something of a wild young man, rather fast, addicted to fine clothes, alcohol, and pretty women.


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[Assistant] Now following his graduation from high school, Walter chose not to pursue a college education, which usually at this time, young men of his social standing would definitely pursue college education. So this was different. But instead he went into business with two friends as commission merchants.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and though Walter shared many interests with Ted Burris, the informal leader there, he was less interested in acts of violence and destruction, and he was more inclined to like move towards like,


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[Assistant] You know, schemes and scams. He liked that part of it. He's a con man. He wanted to earn money and he wanted attention and he wanted adoration from young women. That's what he was looking for. He wasn't looking to beat the shit out of someone. He just wanted girls to fall over them for him.


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[Assistant] So we thought scams and scheming were gonna do it for him. There's other ways to go about that. Absolutely, many.


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[Assistant] Uh, Walter was incredibly popular with women. Really? But much to their dismay, he wasn't really into commitment. He wasn't a one girl kind of guy.


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[Assistant] In fact, the year before his death, Walter was engaged to a young woman named Lottie Eaton. I love the name Lottie. I do too. It makes me think of the Princess and the Frog, which we watched recently because my youngest wanted to watch it for the first time.


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[Assistant] But just a few months later, Lottie called off the engagement because she cited Walter's quote, moral lapses as a reason.


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[Assistant] Like you, none of us should be, we can't be in the room with Lottie Eaton. Lottie Eaton? Eat your fucking heart out. I don't belong in the same room as Lottie Eaton.


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[Assistant] I don't know. Not me. That's crazy. Not I. Uh, now our, our girl Lottie Eaton, she wasn't specific about what those moral lapses were, uh, but we can kind of- He's a cheat. Think with the thing between our ears. Yeah. He's a philanderer. I'm thinking infidelities and other troubles probably went into it. He's a fuckboy. Yeah, it's not good. So,


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[Assistant] There was also a lot of rumors about him being part of many


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[Assistant] Uh, secretive pregnancies. Oh god. And you know, like secret abortions, all kinds of things going on. He was very much


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[Assistant] Being irresponsible with his, uh, with his affections. Oh goody, spreading it too much.


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[Assistant] If ever there was a woman that was perfect for Walter Brooks, it was Florence Burns. Was it? Both were young, they were impetuous, they were shallow, they were reckless when it came to the emotions and wants of others. Uhm, and according to, uh, Virginia McConnell, even the gang's leader, Ted Burris,


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[Assistant] Walter saw something of an irresistible kindred spirit in her, and his desire would ultimately lead to deadly consequences. Yeah, I felt that way. So in 1900, around the time Florence started hanging around the Bedford Avenue gang, the base of operations for the group was a Coney Island dance hall.


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[Assistant] Which, I gotta say, this does have, the vibes are right.


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[Assistant] Like that's, that's fun. And then you get into the substance of it and you say no, no. No. No, no. Coney Island Queen.


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[Assistant] But this Coney Island dance hall was called Bader's Roadhouse. I love that name.


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[Assistant] Uh, it was only a half hour commute from their homes. Okay. And it honestly may as well have been in another country when it came to the freedom it offered the young clientele. I mean, they were totally on their own there. Yeah. Uhm, it was a wild, uh, very anonymous place.


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[Assistant] They shed the Victorian era protocols, cause remember we're in a specific era here. Right. Uh, that ca- and those protocols would have kept young men and women separate at all times. Wow. Like this was different. That's crazy to think about.


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[Assistant] And it would require very elaborate courtship rituals before they could even think of getting to the more intimate parts of a romantic relationship. Before they would even look at each other.


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[Assistant] But it was at Bader's Roadhouse. Bader's Roadhouse! That Walter and Florence met for the first time and Walter immediately found her irresistible. Oh god. The two became romantically involved very soon after and things became physically intimate very quickly. No Victorian-era protocols here.


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[Assistant] Like no, uhm, so unlike most of the other girls in the neighborhood who either appreciated Walter from afar or were put off by his reputation as a member of this gang, Florence liked that diet bad boy image and his rebellious attitude. She was like, oh my goodness, this is exactly what I've been looking for my whole life.


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[Assistant] And before long, Florence was claiming that she had fallen in love with Walter and she loved him quote, even more than my mother and father.


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[Assistant] Uh oh. And he generally returned these bold declarations of love. Damn. Florence had been in love before Walter, or at least something that resembled it. I remember, she said she was gonna kill the guy. I'm gonna kill you. A year before they met, she had been in a relationship with at least three members of the Bedford Avenue gang.


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[Assistant] Before Walter, we got a groupie. All of them burned very hot, very bright, you know, you know how these go. I love that she was able to like stick around after that. Yeah, she just, they were like, that's fine. Didn't last very long, mostly due to their inability or, you know, disinterest in any kind of commitment. They were all just living.


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[Assistant] And so it was with Florence and Walter who met and quickly fell in love in August 1901.


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[Assistant] They were already having relationship troubles by October, so they're kind of following right in the...


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[Assistant] Right in the footsteps of those previous relationships, same kind of thing.


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[Assistant] There were rumors going around the group that Walter had been chasing after another young woman who hung out on the fringes of the gang, and when Florence found out, she made her displeasure known, saying if it were true, Walter would quote, suffer for it. She scares me. Yea, she's got a laugh. She scares me.


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[Assistant] Never one to worry much about what others thought, though. Florence made no attempts to keep her relationship with Walter a secret, and the two were anything but discreet when it came to physical displays of affection. Oh, I hate that. Hate that so much. It's so not for me. That's usually, to me, that's a, that's a red flag right there. Yeah, you're making up for something.


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[Assistant] When Word of the Relationship made its way to Fred and Henry and a Burns, you know, mom and dad, Laurence's parents were outraged. Not only was their daughter, uh, being very inappropriate, sexually active in a time when this was just not okay. They said, our daughter is a harlot. She's a hussy.


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[Assistant] But also, she was once again, according to them, what they're thinking, a source of embarrassment.


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[Assistant] And she was going to be a source of potentially scandalous rumors about that family. Right.


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[Assistant] So now she's got a new goal. Yeah, so Fred and Henrietta's reaction likely seems pretty harsh. Uhm, but the Burns' had already endured a lot of embarrassments from their point of view. Yeah, everybody's got a line. You know, as a result of Florence's behavior and they didn't think they could stand for another.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and also, as Virginia McConnell points out, quote, possibly there was a pregnancy involved, as it seems to have been a drastic action on their part.


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[Assistant] And they had not drawn such a hard line with Florence under


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[Assistant] Like similar circumstances before, so they think there must have been something else in here.


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[Assistant] Remember they had a different style of parenting. Yeaah. You know, so. Oh yeaah, I forgot about that. So the possibility of a pregnancy would also explain why Florence began pressuring Walter to marry her that fall. Something that everyone from, everyone from the other gang members to his parents strongly discouraged. Oh wow. So his parents were like no no.


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[Assistant] Throughout the better part of November, Florence lived in a boarding house in Brooklyn, but that didn't stop her from being a near constant presence in the Brooks households.


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[Assistant] Uh, she would take along lunches with Walter. She would lunch with his mother sometimes. Huh. Even attended church services with them on Sundays.


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[Assistant] Uh, but by the end of November, she had moved in with the Brooks family after coming down with some vague illness that many speculated could have been the unexpected consequences of a self-induced miscarriage or abortion. That's really sad. Rather than insist Florence return home to her parents' care, Walter's father, Thomas Brooks, simply paid for Florence's medical care.


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[Assistant] And he was like, you know what, I'm pretty accustomed to taking care of my, my, you know, Walters stuff that goes on. So I'm just going to take care of whatever you need as well. Which is like, alright.


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[Assistant] And it seems likely that Florence was actually pretty ill for a short time, but the fact remains that she definitely used the opportunity to force her way into the Brooks' home and stake a further claim on Walter by early December when she had finally recovered from whatever was ailing her, because there's no actual, like,


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[Assistant] Medical records here. Florence had all but formally moved into the house and once again started pressuring Walter to marry her.


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[Assistant] And this is his mother saying this later? Being like, yeaah.


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[Assistant] Like I witnessed that. Oh my god. So I can see why they were like.


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[Assistant] And Florence responded, because I love Walter too much.


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[Assistant] I'll be your escape. Oh good. Now as the year came to a close, the arguments between Walter and Florence continued to escalate to the point that Thomas Brooks, Walter's father, hid his pistol, went to Fred Burns


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[Assistant] Florence's father was like, no. Telling Brooks he wouldn't allow her back until the couple had married. And Thomas literally was like, that will never happen.


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[Assistant] For some reason, whatever reason it is, just before the year ended, Walter agreed to marry Florence and the two went to the Church of the Good Shepherd in Brooklyn where Florence insisted that Reverend Robert Rogers marry them immediately.


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[Assistant] Perhaps sensing something was amiss, uh, Reverend Rogers said,


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[Assistant] Nah. And he said there's no witnesses here. That's a no for me. Right.


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[Assistant] That was it, they didn't get married. Having once again failed to manipulate Walter to marry her, Florence returned home and told her parents the truth. And they promptly kicked her out of the house for a second time. That's kind of sad. Cause it's like- We tried to get married.


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[Assistant] More importantly, at least in the long term, there was a growing chance that if she continued to defy them, that her parents would cut her off, like financially as well. They hadn't done that yet. Okay. So she was worried that was the big, that was gonna be the big hammer.


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[Assistant] Uh, basically putting an end to her life of excess and luxury, which she was just not willing to do. Of course not. Virginia McConnell points out


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[Assistant] That given Florence and her father's desperation for her to be married


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[Assistant] Quote, there must have been a baby on the way. So everybody keeps pointing out that there had to have been.


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[Assistant] Something here, that's like much more over the top, I don't know.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I'm not convinced. I'm not convinced of that either. That's just what a lot of people thought, so I wanted to make sure I mentioned it. But I also am not as convinced. I think this is just respectability.


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[Assistant] I think what she, what Virginia McConnell is pointing out and what many people thought too, so she is going off of like a lot of other things, is that if it was a pregnancy,


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[Assistant] It would become obvious to everyone shortly that she was pregnant and that would be another scandal, another moral failing for that family if she was unwed and pregnant and living with them.


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[Assistant] I don't think he's, I think he's having many affairs, so I'm sure there, there's no.


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[Assistant] And also she was just relentlessly demanding, so I think he was like, I'm...


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[Assistant] I'm attracted to you, but this is a lot. Like, I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. I don't want this to be the only thing for the rest of my life.


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[Assistant] So by February 1902, it seemed Walter had avoided yet another one of Florence's meltdowns and, you know,


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[Assistant] There's a lot of just like, dishonesty here on everyone's part. Everyone's so false. Like this is all just such a facade, you know, cause it's like,


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[Assistant] Fred is like demanding that they get married, not caring whether they're in love or not. Yep. Walter is like, I like her.


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[Assistant] I'm attracted to her. Sometimes we have a nice time. Right. I don't want to marry her though. And then he, but he's just trying to keep everybody satiated by being like, okay, I'll just fake it. I guess I'll just talk to this priest about it. I guess. And I'm like, none of this is good.


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[Assistant] He was ready to end things with Florence finally without feeling guilt. He was, that was the whole thing. He didn't want to end it with her and have her end up on the street. Yeaah. And it be his. Which is honorable. And then he was worried that he was going to have to take her in if that happened. So he was like, I'm going to be in this endless cycle.


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[Assistant] So he's like, now I feel like I've done my duty. I've tried.


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[Assistant] It's not working and he's so, in fact, by the time the attempted wedding had fallen through, Walter was actually already dating a new girl. He was just out of there. Uh, this girl was 17 year old Ruth Dunn and she, and he was looking for the easiest way to end things with Florence and kind of avoid her wrath as well. Cause remember, she threatened to shoot him with Fred's pistol.


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[Assistant] I'm gonna be honest. I think that would, that would pack a punch. Speaking from someone who has dated someone who also started dating another girl while we were dating, it inspires a lot of wrath. I would think. A lot of wrath. I would certainly think so. So much wrath. All the wrath. The most wrath.


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[Assistant] I became wrath in that moment, so I imagine, uh, yes.


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[Assistant] So, so Walter's relationship with Ruth began quietly and subtly at the beginning of the new year, and he'd spent weeks assuring Ruth that he was going to end things with Florence. He was like, I just gotta figure out how to go about it without


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[Assistant] You being in danger and me being like, this was actually like a little scary. He was like, I'm scared to do this. So like, I do want to be with you and I'm trying.


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[Assistant] Oh man, this is a wreck. So by the second week of February, Walter seemed to be taking the matter more seriously and had started talking with his friends in the Bedford Avenue gang about it, all of whom quote, assured him it was a good move on his part.


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[Assistant] Now given the gang's penchant for drama and hijinks, it's very likely that Florence had some idea of Walters and Tenten, their relationship. I'm sure one of the other gang members was like, he's going to break up with you, girl. Like I'm sure one of them was like, he's already dating someone. I bet there was hot gossip.


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[Assistant] She almost certainly noticed his absence and distance in the recent weeks.


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[Assistant] Beginning Monday, February 10th, she began showing up at Walter's office everyday.


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[Assistant] And each time she asks, Walter's office boy, 15 year old Joseph Cribbins, found a way to insinuate that Walter had received many female visitors at the office, likely intending to irritate her.


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[Assistant] Now, while this may seem trivial, like, you know, it's just like him being a little 15 year old shit. Yeah. Walter had in fact never received any other woman other than Florence in his office. Oh wow. Like that was the truth.


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[Assistant] Had a business meeting with a man in Patterson, New Jersey and after that they all had lunch in Newark. Uh, that's at this lunch. They met two young women at the lunch.


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[Assistant] Side eyes downward. Yep. And after chatting with the girls for a short time, they all went to a nearby hotel, they all had sex, and they all went their separate ways.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, Florence, while this is going on, had stopped by Walter's office yet again. This time, she left a note saying she was leaving for Detroit that afternoon and had only stopped to say goodbye.


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[Assistant] Florence said she actually returned three more times that day hoping to catch Walter. Girl, I thought you were going to Detroit. And she finally caught him on the last visit around 5.30 PM. Walter seemed unsurprised to see Florence in his office and they made plans to go out after he closed up the office for the day.


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[Assistant] And Walter was intending to give Florence a proper sendoff before she left for Detroit. I don't know if he was like, I guess we'll just fuck one more time.


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[Assistant] That seems like the vibe here. According to McConnell, Walter's partner Harry Cohen, quote, begged Walter not to go with Florence that night and to come out to dinner with him instead. But not wanting to do anything to upset Florence, just as he was about to, you know.


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[Assistant] Yeah, he was like, I just don't feel good about this. Now that evening, Walter and Florence checked into the Glen Island Hotel. So you can see why I think what I think.


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[Assistant] Of course. They, they checked in as John Williamson and wife of Brooklyn.


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[Assistant] Oh, just adding insult to injury. And they were shown to their room by a bellhop named George Washington. Shut the fuck up. His name was George Washington. Icon.


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[Assistant] Who is alive but only barely conscious at the time. Oh man. Now, this is wild. This doctor, I'm like, are you okay, sir?


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[Assistant] Despite the presence of blood on the pillowcase.


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[Assistant] It took Dr. John Sweeney much longer than it should have to notice that there was a giant wound on Walter's head. What? And even when he did finally notice it, he assumed it had been from a fall and he was like, oh, it's nothing serious.


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[Assistant] Yep. What? So they came in and they were like, wow, it's weird. There's gas in this room and he's unconscious and there's blood on the pillow and he's like not awake.


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[Assistant] And they were like, oh, weird, let's air the room out. Silly that that happened. Open a window, I guess. And then they were just like, boop bop a doop, using some antiseptic, gonna wash your wound, but not pick your head up. They literally just washed the area around the wound. What the fuck? Didn't actually look at it. And he was like, pfft.


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[Assistant] You know what you should do with head wounds? You should sleep them off. That's what you should do in a gas-filled room.


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[Assistant] Which by then had become saturated with blood from a hole in his head. The fact that it sounds like they probably could have saved this kid's life. Yea. That's what I'm saying. That's really fucked up.


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[Assistant] Dr. Sweeney was called back to the room and in the light of day realized that what he had thought was a wound from a fall was actually a gunshot wound to his head. This man was shot in the head, was alive, and just left to bleed out.


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[Assistant] Oh my god. They could have saved him. Absolutely. Or at least given a shot. I shouldn't say they could have saved him. They could have at least given any kind of shot. Well just the fact that he was still alive when they left him.


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[Assistant] There was an actual opportunity to save him, or try to. And how awful.


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[Assistant] Not able to move or call anyone and just lay there. Wow.


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[Assistant] Now Dr. Sweeney insisted someone call an ambulance, which like, ugh.


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[Assistant] The doctor, everybody. Uh, but it still hadn't occurred to anyone to call the actual fucking police because there was another person in this room with him and he has a bullet hole in his head. And that person is missing.


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[Assistant] Where Thomas Brooks found his son alive, but in very bad conditions. He's still alive. Unresponsive, but alive.


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[Assistant] Wow. Well the two men waited two hours for the ambulance to arrive. Two hours. Why did it? This is New York, correct? Cohen and Brooks searched the room, they picked up all of Walter's belongings as well as a hair comb.


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[Assistant] Now the ambulance transported Walter to the hospital, he was rushed into emergency surgery, and the 32 caliber slug was removed from his head.


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[Assistant] But he never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at 11.15am.


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[Assistant] Wow. Now, like Thomas Brooks, Harry Cohen also told police, you should question Florence Burns.


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[Assistant] Uhm, he was like, she was with Walter, and was, you know, they were supposed, that's where they were supposed to be that night together, like this all adds up. And now she's missing. And also Harry was like, they've had a very long, complicated and tumultuous relationship.


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[Assistant] When officers arrived at the Burns apartment in Flatbush, Florence didn't seem very surprised to see them.


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[Assistant] She told them that yes, she did know Walter Brooks and she had seen him the previous day, but she said, after I spoke to him at his office, we parted ways and I hadn't seen him since then. Liar.


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[Assistant] If the officers were suspicious by her initial reaction, they were double suspicious when after informing her that Walter had been shot, her response was, I wonder who could have done it? Have they found the pistol? Girl. What? Girl. What?


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[Assistant] The officers took Florence into custody immediately and brought her to the church street station, escorting her directly into the office of Captain Halpin.


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[Assistant] Now, she had been informed that she was under arrest and was being charged with a felony, but the police neglected or refused to inform Florence what the charge was or that Walter was in fact dead. They didn't tell her that. Instead, they asked her to see her hair combs, which she handed over.


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[Assistant] Other than her insistence that she had nothing to do with the shooting, Florence was generally uncooperative. In an effort to get more- What do you mean? I'm shocked. Excuse me? In an effort to get more information or to catch her in a lie, the interviewing detective told Florence that Walter had been robbed.


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[Assistant] Yep, she said obviously George Washington hadn't, you know, he did it. What a coot. But obviously George Washington hadn't taken the money.


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[Assistant] But he did, however, when they talked to him, remember Florence and when he was brought into the station that day and asked whether she was the one woman who had checked into the hotel with Walter Brooks.


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[Assistant] He's emphatically confirmed that yes, that bitch was the woman who was in the room with Brooks. He's like, I remember her, she was a pain in the ass. Certain that she was responsible for the shooting and confident that they weren't going to get much more out of her being very uncooperative and a dick.


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[Assistant] Detectives escorted her out of the captain's office and took her to a cell in the center street station. Uh, it was at this point that the press got their first look at Florence Burns.


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[Assistant] Uhm, at one point she screamed to her father, father, father help me, they're trying to take my picture. Honey, no one's gonna help you now. Your dad is not a good guy.


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[Assistant] Now on the morning of February 16th, Florence appeared before a judge at the Center Street Court and she was wearing a dark veil to indicate that she was in mourning. Of course. Uh, speaking on Florence's behalf was her defense attorney, Foster Bacchus.


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[Assistant] A former Kings County District Attorney who'd gone into private practice after leaving public office. Now as a former DA, Bacchus was intimately familiar with the ins and outs of the system and knew very well that his clients, his client wouldn't be in court that morning if the authorities didn't have a strong case against her.


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[Assistant] Because of this he quickly developed a strategy where he would attempt to delay any sentencing or formal charges.


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[Assistant] Giving him time to evaluate the evidence that was against Florence. In the days that followed, the evidence against Florence came out in multiple pre-trial hearings, and it was likely kind of encouraging to back us. Aside from her hair comb discovered in the room and George Washington's identification of Florence as the woman with Walter the night he checked in, the case against Florence was


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[Assistant] Pretty con- like, circumstantial? Mmm. It's true.


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[Assistant] The bullet taken from Walter's head was a match for the caliber of pistol owned by Fred Burns.


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[Assistant] But neither the gun used in the shooting or the gun owned by Burns could be found. Okay. So that was a problem. So there was nothing for the slug to be compared to. Right.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and I also love that like the fact that that gun was suddenly missing isn't considered


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[Assistant] Suss. Pretty good proof here, like, where did it go? Exactly. Now at the same time, George Washington's identification had also kind of become a problem for the District Attorney, William Jerome. Why? Although Washington was and always would be adamant that Florence was the woman who checked into the hotel with Walter Brooks, he looked her in the face multiple times.


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[Assistant] It was pointed out that Florence had been the only woman seen in the hotel that day.


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[Assistant] And more importantly, Washington had made the identification.


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[Assistant] After being brought to the police station where he saw Florence being questioned. Oh, okay. You can't do that. That's wrong. That's tainted.


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[Assistant] He could have naturally assumed her to be guilty, and that contained the identification. Like in The Little Things. Exactly. That movie. Precisely.


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[Assistant] Now what started out as a strong case against Florence was kind of unraveling a little bit.


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[Assistant] According to Virginia McConnell, the unwritten law emerged in the American South in the mid 19th century and it quote,


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[Assistant] Started out as a permission for a man to kill a man who had dishonored, raped, seduced, or even ruined the reputation of a woman they were related to or intimately connected with. Okay.


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[Assistant] Let me say that one more time so you guys can get that cause this is an unwritten law.


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[Assistant] It was permission for a man to kill another man.


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[Assistant] Now, in time, it was extended to women accused of murder, as well, and was considered a viable defense. So now it can be like, you dishonored me.


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[Assistant] So I killed you. And it was as long as they had committed the crime to protect their decency.


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[Assistant] Knowing that his case was already somewhat precarious at this time, Jerome agreed to back his request for a special sessions hearing where a judge would determine whether the evidence was strong enough. Okay.


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[Assistant] If at any point he changed his mind or wanted to go to a grand jury, Bacchus assured Jerome the DA could go to the grand jury and get an indictment.


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[Assistant] In reality, this was just an attempt for Bacchus to stall Jerome's investigation and give himself time to put critical evidence or witnesses like Fred and Henrietta Burns out of the prosecution's reach.


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[Assistant] Now agreeing to the special sessions hearing, the first for a woman in New York, by the way. Wow. Jerome effectively put the responsibility for determining Florence's guilt in the hands of the newly appointed judge, Julius Mayer.


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[Assistant] Mayor's job was to interview witnesses and evaluate the evidence to determine whether she was responsible for Walter's death.


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[Assistant] Which meant he had to determine the following. One, means. So we're going to need means, motive and opportunity. Yep. Means. Walter Brooks was shot in the head with a .32 caliber pistol. So mayor needed to confirm that not only did Florence Burns have access to a .32 caliber pistol, but also that she knew how to use one.


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[Assistant] Motive. Although motive cannot always be arrived at conclusively.


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[Assistant] In order to determine guilt, Mayer needed to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Florence had a reason to kill the man she frequently and passionately and outwardly exclaimed claimed to be in love with. An opportunity.


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[Assistant] Still, it was a well established fact that Frederick Burns owned a handgun of that same caliber. So it was possible that Florence could have used that gun. Yea, and then she threw it off grandpa's bridge. As far as the ability to use it, the grandpa's bridge. As far as the ability to use it, the coroner had examined the wound on Walter's head and found that


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[Assistant] While there was burn marks around the wound, there was no powder marks indicating that the barrel had been placed against his head when the gun was fired. That's horrific. Given that, the prosecution could easily and convincingly argue that one needn't any firearms training to have committed this murder, because it was right up against it. Right, like it's not like you don't need to aim or anything. Right.


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[Assistant] The biggest issue was to be the ide- and to me that would also mean that you were intimately near this man. Yes. If you- maybe he was asleep. You were able to get by close. That's what I think, he was asleep and she just pressed it to his head. Damn.


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[Assistant] Now the biggest issue was going to be the identification placing Florence at the hotel with Walter. After all, if she couldn't be placed at the scene of the crime, how are you going to convince a jury that she was the shooter?


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[Assistant] In his testimony, George Washington not only described Florence perfectly for the judge, he also described the exact outfit she had been wearing when Harry Cohen saw her at the office that morning. Throughout the interviewing process, Washington's story remained consistent, and he appeared to take the process very seriously.


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[Assistant] We're too questionable and he was unwilling to consider it.


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[Assistant] George Washington looked this woman in the face several times. He asked her if she needed anything else. She turned and looked right at him and said no. He knew who this was. He described her outfit exactly and Harry Cohen said yes, that is the outfit I saw her in that day at the office. How would he know that? Yea, he wouldn't know that.


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[Assistant] There were others who had seen Florence with Walter on the evening they checked into the hotel, including John Earl, the other Glen Island employee on duty that evening. Unfortunately, Earl was frequently maligned in the press and described as not as astute as the bellboy.


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[Assistant] So if the bellboy's so astute, then why are we publicly humiliating him? No, also, I'm paraphrasing that sentence because I'm avoiding saying racist terms out loud, by the way. They just went all in in the press.


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[Assistant] Uh, so his testimony and identification were equally unhelpful in the prosecution's case. They just threw them all out. These two men saw this, like could identify her, and they were like, no, we're racist, so it's no.


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[Assistant] She testified at length about her interactions with Florence during the time she lived with them, telling Mayer that not only did Florence regularly threaten to kill Walter, but she said quote, it seemed to happen every time they met, every single day.


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[Assistant] Wow. But when pressed for clarification,


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[Assistant] Mrs. Brooks acknowledged that she had been exaggerating when she said the threats were a daily occurrence and that it wasn't as often as that.


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[Assistant] And Mary also had to acknowledge that despite the frequency with which Florence had threatened her son, she had never done it in front of anyone else, so there was no one else who could corroborate it. The final piece of testimony on which Jerome's case rested was the hair comb discovered in the room.


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[Assistant] Although the comb matched those worn by Florence on the day of her arrest and would have accounted for the missing back comb,


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[Assistant] Combs of that type were ubiquitous at the time of the murder, and there was no way to prove that the comb in the room belonged to Florence, even though she was missing that exact comb.


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[Assistant] I think she was just like, I wasn't there. That's what she's saying. She's like, I met with him at his office. I left him at six. I was home by seven thirty. No one saw me, but I went right to sleep. And then the next morning she was home. So as far as anyone was concerned, she was asleep.


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[Assistant] Wow. They had to tie this comb directly to her and other than that it wasn't really value because they couldn't use like,


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[Assistant] It's not like they were using hair and shit at this point, so it's like- And even still, that's like tough. That comb, even though she was missing that exact comb that she was wearing in her hair when they interviewed her, they still couldn't use it.


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[Assistant] After considering the evidence and testimony, Judge Mayer came to the following conclusions. One, the threats Florence had hurled regarding shooting Walter were irrelevant because they had happened too long before the murder and were set under a specific context to a specific person and were never heard by anyone else.


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[Assistant] She said that she was gonna shoot him. He ended up shot dead. Yeah.


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[Assistant] She'd also threatened to kill another boyfriend of hers, and other people had heard that. Right. So it's like, pattern.


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[Assistant] Because it matched the combs of thousands of women in New York. I guess I have to like, accept that one, but it's so frustrating. I will accept it, but she was missing that one comb in her hair. It's like, come on, I know it's circumstantial, I know that. I believe that it was her, obviously.


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[Assistant] Number three, George Washington's identification of Florence was valueless because the lineup and identification process was so deeply flawed that it couldn't be trusted. That really sucks that they fucked up on that.


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[Assistant] And number four, the statements made by Florence to detectives that were incriminating or suggested she knew more than she was saying were also thrown out because of the circumstances under which they were taken. Detectives lied and withheld various facts about the case.


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[Assistant] Like not telling her what felony she was being charged with or that Walter was dead. So the comments could not be taken as a factual statement.


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[Assistant] Now on this last point, McConnell notes that there is no law prohibiting investigators from using deception to obtain a statement or confession from a suspect. So the statements made by Florence to police could very well have been used against her. This wasn't the law.


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[Assistant] So him saying they used deception against her so that those weren't factual statements? No, that's not the law, and it wasn't the law then.


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[Assistant] They just didn't tell her. They were keeping it close to the chest. Or you know, like they said certain things that could be deemed deceptive. There's no law that says they can't do that.


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[Assistant] So that, that being thrown out of the trial is not right. No. Because legally it should have been let back in.


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[Assistant] But McConnell suggests, quote, the judge needed something to hang his hat on from a legal standpoint in order to apply the unwritten law.


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[Assistant] Even though the Burns case didn't fit the typical narrative of a naive young woman seduced and abused by a scheming man.


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[Assistant] They were going to use it anyway. Given Walter's history as a member of the Bedford Avenue gang and the number of times he'd been arrested for fraud schemes, it was very easy for any defense attorney to use the unwritten law as a self-defense claim.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Especially when the evidence against the accused was flimsy and circumstantial. It's not that flimsy. It's really not. It's circumstantial, sure. Yeah. Flimsy, nah. Flimsy, not so much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now without new evidence, there would have been little point in indicating and trying Florence for Walter's murder, and Jerome knew it. Jerome told the press, I still believe that Florence Burns killed Walter Brooks, but I have not got the evidence to prove it. We presented every bit of evidence we had.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jerome signaled his intent to keep the case open and seek additional evidence.