Transcript of S2 Episode 9: The Reversal

Note: episode transcripts are radio scripts - please keep that in mind as you come across notations and errors in the text.

[THEME MUSIC IN]


Lauren Chooljian, Narrating: Previously on Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story…


Rabia Chaudry, In the Car: My main goal is to raise the concerns around this conviction to the extent that it would encourage the state to revisit the evidence.


Cynthia Mousseau, On the Phone: The clerk, who I know, came over to chat with me, and she said that she had been listening to Undisclosed. She’s like, “You know what, there’s a big box in our basement with Jason Carroll’s name on it.”


Mousseau: Hey. 


Radha Natarajan, Quietly, On the Phone: Sorry–


Mousseau: The fucking nail clippings are here.


Moon: So, the answer to who killed Sharon Johnson is very likely in that envelope right there in front of us?


Mousseau: It is possible that the answer to who killed Sharon Johnson is in this envelope in front of us.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT, SOUND OF CASSETTE TAPE STOPPING]


Jason Moon, Narrating: It’s been about 17 months since that day with the box. The box of evidence from the investigation into Sharon Johnson’s murder.


The box had the clothes Sharon was wearing when she died. The knife police say she was stabbed with. The fingernail clippings from Sharon’s hands with blood on them – blood that might belong to her attacker.


For 17 months, Jason Carroll and his attorney with the New England Innocence Project have been trying to get that evidence DNA-tested. They think there’s a real shot that evidence could exonerate Jason.


But the state of New Hampshire didn’t. You might remember they said there was, quote, “no scenario” where DNA testing could exonerate Jason. So, they objected to Jason’s request for DNA testing.


That is, until just a few days ago.


Moon: So, did you celebrate?


Mousseau, On the Phone: [LAUGHS] Um… yes. I mean, I think, I think… I think I celeb– I guess I would say yes, I celebrated. It's weird to say that you would celebrate separately from Jason, right? So, like, the weird thing was that I wasn't able to see Jason that night, so I, I talked to him on the phone. And so to be able to say, like, celebrating something for someone – It's like celebrating somebody's birthday when they're not there. So, when I was finally able to talk with him about what happened, he was… shocked. Shocked, I would say. And he essentially said to me, “Half of me feels like crying like a baby and half of me feels like throwing up.” 


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Mousseau: Um, and he said, “It's the best news I've had in 35 years.”


Moon: He said that, the best news in 35 years?


Mousseau: He did! He did.


[THEME MUSIC POST]


This is Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story. I’m Jason Moon.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: So, here’s what happened. After Jason’s lawyer Cynthia Mousseau found that box of evidence, she filed a petition with the court under a state law specifically meant for just such a moment. It’s called the “Post-Conviction DNA Testing” law in New Hampshire.


The evidence in question belongs to the court. Remember, the box was hanging out for three decades in their basement. So Cynthia needs a court order to get this stuff tested.


But the prosecutor on the other side of this case, Charles Bucca, objected. By the way, we requested an interview with Bucca, but a spokesperson for the AG’s office declined on his behalf.


So, with the state and Cynthia taking different positions, that set up a hearing. The two sides were gonna duke it out in front of a judge and he would decide if testing was going to happen. That’s where we left off in this series.


Mousseau, On the Phone: So, we were scheduled to have a hearing on this motion in December…


Moon, Narrating: That’s December of 2023.


Mousseau: …And about three days before the hearing was supposed to start, we got a call from the prosecutor. And I didn't, I didn’t actually – I missed the call or he had just emailed me maybe and said, “Give me a call?” And I thought that he was going to agree. And I told my co-counsel at the time, “Oh, I, like, I wonder if this is it. Like, they're going to agree to testing now.” And we called. And it was clear from, like, the first moment, like his – the tone of voice, that it was not a call about agreeing. That it was a call about something else. And I remember that’s when he said, “We found another box…”


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: “We found another box.” Another box with more evidence from the investigation into Sharon Johnson’s murder.


Mousseau: I remember just sitting there being like, “I don't even know what to say.” Like, I think the proverbial, you know, your… your jaw hits the floor is really how I was feeling in that moment. And I think… um, that was a huge shock to me.

[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: This box – let’s call it Box Number 2 – was found in the basement of the former headquarters for the New Hampshire Department of Justice. It just so happens, the New Hampshire DOJ is moving offices and the building is being torn down, right now.


So, in the process of the big move, someone’s down in the basement and they find this box that says, “DO NOT DESTROY (SHARON JOHNSON CASE).”


[MUSIC POST]


Moon: Kind of amazing that the very first box at the courthouse, you stumbled on that because this clerk had happened to have listened to the Undisclosed podcast. And then, the next box is discovered through another sort of happenstance, that, that the, you know, the building in which it's housed is being demolished. And if not for that, you know, maybe this, maybe they wouldn't have found it.


Mousseau: Exactly.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Remember, Cynthia has been asking the state for all the documents and evidence from the investigation for years. And by this point, the state had told her they’d already turned over everything they could find.


In light of Box Number 2, the big hearing that was supposed to happen in December gets postponed. Instead, the two sides meet in front of the judge for what’s called a status conference, basically a check-in to see what the heck needs to happen now.


And at this status conference, Cynthia… she’s a little annoyed. It’s already been more than a year since she found Box Number 1 and filed the petition for DNA testing. And now, things are getting delayed because of some sloppy housekeeping by the state. Cynthia wants assurances from the prosecutor, Charles Bucca, that this isn’t gonna happen again.


Mousseau, In Courtroom: I-I-I’m not asking for a lot. I’m just asking for a reach-out to those three places to ensure that we have everything that exists.


Charles Bucca, In Courtroom: And the three places are Bedford PD…


Mousseau: State police.


Bucca: State – well, state police we know, because they’re the ones that cataloged this and are involved –


Mousseau: They did, but I would double-check and ask because I have asked you for discovery a lot of times and we didn’t know until we knew, right?


Bucca: Sure. But I’ve had those conversations with the state police ad nauseam, so the state police have… [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Charles is like, “Trust me, we’ve gotten everything from state police.”


Bucca: If you’d like me to ask them again, I’d be happy to do that, but we already know the answer to that. So, Bedford PD is easy. We can contact them, and make another inquiry. Um, well, who’s the third?


Mousseau: You! [LAUGHS] Your office is the third. 


Bucca: I… wha-, what – And what would you like me to do?


Mousseau: I’d like you to reach out and confirm that all of the boxes that were in storage have been cataloged and that there’s no longer any remaining boxes… 


Judge William Delker, Off Mic: Yep.


Mousseau: …that have anything to do with the Sharon Johnson homicide investigation.


Moon, Narrating: Maybe you heard that quiet “yep” as Cynthia was talking. That was the judge, William Delker. He basically agrees with Cynthia and tells the state, “Check everywhere again and file a memo with the details of how you did that.”


Mousseau, On the Phone: And so, we were really grateful that the court did that because what ended up happening was that they found, uh, significantly more information.


Moon, Narrating: At the Bedford police department: three more boxes. And from state police? Yep. 400 new pages of lab documents about the forensic evidence from the case.


Moon: And just to be clear, y-you… do you believe there was any sort of willful hiding of this evidence?


Mousseau, On the Phone: No, no.


Moon: Yeah, Okay.


Moon, Narrating: This is bad record-keeping and poor communication, not a coverup.


So, the state turns over all of this new stuff to Cynthia in January and February. And she’s furiously sorting through those boxes and reading through everything to see what it all means. Meanwhile, the big hearing to argue whether the evidence should be DNA tested is rescheduled to the end of April. As in, this April, 2024.


Let’s talk about what was in those new boxes. Some of it was stuff Cynthia already had. Duplicates of police reports from the discovery file – things like that. But it wasn’t just paper.


Inside one of the boxes was a shirt. I’ve seen a photo. It’s long-sleeved, ribbed, three buttons at the top. Looks like a man’s undershirt. It’s white. Or… it was. It’s covered in stains. Some black, some brown, some yellow. It was found in August of 1988, just after the murder. A woman saw it lying on the side of the road in Bedford, about two and a half miles from where Sharon’s body was found, and called the cops.


Moon: But interestingly, when it was tagged in evidence… they…


Mousseau, On the Phone: They labeled it “victim's shirt.”


Moon: Yeah, they… they labeled it “victim's shirt.” Do you have any idea why that happened? Any guess?


Mousseau: I don't know, I, um… I don't know the answer to that. 


Moon: Yeah.


Mousseau: Yeah, I have no way – I have no idea.


Moon, Narrating: I'm not quite sure what to make of this either. You might remember, the location of Sharon's missing shirt was a big focus of the investigation. When state police interrogated Jason, they asked him about it again and again. They never found it.


But we know what shirt was wearing when she left work that day. And this isn't it. 


Remember, Sharon was seven months’ pregnant when she was killed. She was last seen wearing what was likely a maternity t-shirt with teddy bears and baby rattles on it. Again, this one looks like a man’s shirt. According to the police report, the woman who found the shirt and called police thought it might belong to whoever had murdered Sharon.


So, I’m not sure how or why it ended up labeled as “victim’s shirt,” but it did. At any rate, it got added to the list of items Cynthia wants DNA tested. Maybe those stains are blood stains. Or, maybe it's just a painter or a mechanic’s dirty work shirt.


Another item that turned up in the new boxes… a knife.


This knife was also found along the side of a road in Bedford shortly after the murder. It was another civilian who came across it, thought it might be involved in the murder, and called police. Just to be clear, the shirt and the knife were found along two different roads in Bedford, by two different people. The two areas are in opposite directions from the crime scene.


But the knife was found less than a mile from where Sharon’s body was found. It’s described as a long blade, wood handle, similar to what you’d find in a kitchen.


Mousseau: So, those were two big pieces of physical evidence, obviously, that we’re really interested in. And then, obviously the lab file has been really interesting for us. And one of the things that we found in there was that there had been some – a profile generated from Ken Johnson's blood.


Moon, Narrating: Two things I need to point out about this. One, it’s helpful that there’s already a profile of Sharon’s husband Ken’s blood. It’ll make it that much easier to know if any DNA found on the evidence is his. The second, and I think a lot more interesting thing, is when this DNA profile of Ken was generated.


Mousseau: It's a very strange scenario. So, we had noticed and by “we,” I include you in that. We had talked about this a while ago that we had seen custody logs of Ken's blood tube. Ken had his blood drawn at the Department of Corrections when he was arrested for the crime. And, uh, that blood tube had ended up going to the state lab, and you and I had both noted that in 2004, it was sent to the lab and it said “DNA analysis.”


Moon, Narrating: 2004. Sixteen years after the murder and 13 years after prosecutors dropped the charges against Ken Johnson, New Hampshire State Police were generating a profile of Ken’s DNA.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon: But why would they be doing that in 2004?


Mousseau: The only reason I can guess that they were doing it in 2004 is because they were going to try and DNA-test things, um, related to this case. I-I don't know what other reason there would be. Um, the only other thing I can think of is that the national database for DNA was sort of getting online at that time, and perhaps they were trying to put Ken's DNA profile into CODIS, but I don't think, I don't know if they would even be able to do that. Um, Ken hadn't been, you know, at that point, he, he hadn't been convicted of anything.


Moon, Narrating: There’s no record of what, if anything, Ken’s DNA was compared to in 2004. The lab report only shows that a DNA profile was generated. And as far as CODIS goes – that’s the national law enforcement DNA database – only people who are convicted of certain crimes get their DNA put into it. That’s why Cynthia is mentioning that Ken hadn’t been convicted of anything in 2004.


Complicating this further is the fact that Ken was dead by 2004. He died in 2002. I only learned the exact timing of Ken’s death in the months after we published season 2, when a listener reached out to me.


So, why were state police analyzing Ken’s DNA after he was dead? I really don’t know.


One last thing about this minor mystery of Ken’s DNA. It set up a pretty ironic situation where the state was about to argue in 2024 against post-conviction DNA-testing in this case when they had apparently done it themselves, or maybe were about to, in 2004.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Cynthia added the white shirt and the knife to the list of items she wants DNA-tested. The full list was now up to about a dozen, depending on how you count them. It includes the fingernail cuttings, some of Sharon’s clothing, cigarette butts from her car, various samples taken from her body, Jason’s pocket knife (the alleged murder weapon), and bloody soil samples from the crime scene.


Then, she prepared for the hearing. Again.


Cynthia assembled a cast of heavy-hitter expert witnesses to explain what might seem like an obvious point – that DNA-testing could reveal who killed Sharon.


There was Tim Palmbach. Twenty-two years in law enforcement. Connecticut state trooper. Detective. Before he retired, he ran the entire forensic lab for the state of Connecticut.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: He’s been called as an expert-witness in lots of high-profile cases, like the murder trial of Michael Peterson – that’s “The Staircase” trial for those who’ve seen the documentary. More recently, Tim testified in the murder trial of former South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh.


There was Karl Reich. Twenty-two years’ experience in biochemistry. Cornell, UCLA, Harvard, Stanford. Lawyers for Steven Avery, the subject of the “Making a Murderer” documentary, hired him as a consultant.


There was Hayley Cleary. A psychologist, professor, and expert in juvenile false confessions. She knows this case well. She was on Rabia Chaudry’s podcast Undisclosed to analyze Jason’s confession.


Cynthia even consulted with an expert in genetic genealogy – a woman named Barbara Rae Venter. Yes, that Barbara Rae Venter. The one who identified Terry Rasmussen and three of the victims from season one of this podcast.


Barbara Rae-Venter from Bear Brook Season 1: The challenge is going to be getting, uh, usable DNA because those bodies were out there exposed to the New Hampshire winters for between five and 20 years.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon: You were ready!


Mousseau, On the Phone: I was ready, yeah. I'm still ready. Yeah, I was ready.


Moon, Narrating: And then, just last Thursday, on the eve of the hearing, the state reversed course. 


It is dropping its objection to DNA testing. But it is still reserving the right to argue about whether any results exonerate Jason. Officially, the deal still needs to be okayed by the judge, but there’s not much doubt he will.


By the way, the fact this just happened is the reason you’re not hearing from Jason in this episode. The logistics of getting on the phone with him can be complicated and there just wasn’t enough time.


I asked Cynthia what she made of the timing of all of this.


Mousseau, On the Phone: This is the thing about the court system is that, like, it's not – it doesn't work the way people think it does. So, all of the things that you, you know, think about court, just aren’t – they aren't real, right? So, like, the reality is, is that, like, deals get made on the night before trials all the time. And, uh, it comes down to lots of things. I have no idea what the actual reason in this particular case was. Um, I'd like to think that it's the fact that, like, we were prepared. 


[MUSIC IN]


Mousseau: We had given our reports over. The state looked at those, and they realized that, you know, as they said in their motion, that we're going to be prepared to be able to prove those things. And they thought that we were going to be successful in that, and they decided to agree to testing and save us all the trouble of the hearing. Um, do I wish that this happened… a long time ago? Yeah. You know? It could be 34 years, not 35 years for Jason if we had rewound the clock to when we, you know, originally had filed this petition.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: After the break – after 35 years, what happens next?


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Hey, a quick reminder. Bear Brook Season 2 took a lot of resources and time. I’ve been reporting this story for more than two years now, and as you can hear, I’m still on it. If you’re in a position to do so, please consider making a donation to New Hampshire Public Radio. To give now, click the link in the show notes – and thank you for supporting local, longform investigative reporting.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: The agreement between Cynthia and the state is that the state forensic lab will handle the first stage of the DNA-testing. It’s called quantitative testing. Basically, how much DNA is there on any particular piece of evidence to begin with? But even getting there will be complicated.


Mousseau, On the Phone: So, for example the shirt, right? You don't just take the shirt and go, “DNA test the shirt.” There's not, like, a machine where you can put the shirt in and, and then, just type in “DNA, please.” And then it gives you the profiles, right? It doesn't work like that. So, we have to figure out the places on the shirt that we think there's most likely to be DNA that we could even collect in the first place.


Moon, Narrating: Forensic experts from both sides will have to go through each piece of evidence one by one and decide – what’s the best place to try and find DNA on this object?


Mousseau, On the Phone: You know, what parts of this, this stuff are we swabbing or cutting or whatever? And,. uh, then, after we do the quant, we figure out what the right method of testing will be.


Moon: And about what kind of a time frame are, are we talking about here?


Mousseau, On the Phone: It's hard to tell. Um… We asked for a six-month check-in to see, you know, sort of what was going on.


Moon, Narrating: That’s a check-in with the judge in six months. Doesn’t necessarily mean anything will have happened by then. This kind of work can take a long time. Especially if there’s degraded DNA, which is a real possibility given how long this stuff has been sitting around in boxes. There’s also a 10-month backlog at the state lab, the only DNA testing and analysis provider in New Hampshire. So, it could be a while.


Moon: Alright. Um, the last thing I want to do is briefly talk about some scenarios. Give me the best case scenario for you.


Mousseau, On the Phone: I think the best case scenario is we get a profile on some of those items, uh, that doesn't match Jason, Ken, or Tony. We're able to take that profile and enter it into CODIS, which is the national DNA database. There is a match in CODIS to sort of a known, uh, other perpetrator, um, from somewhere else. That obviously has nothing to do with Ken, Jason, and Tony, and we think that that would be pretty clear at that point that Jason wasn't involved.


Moon: And what about, um, a scenario where let's say Tony's DNA is found on some of the items?


Mousseau, On the Phone: Yeah, so there would be a lot of reasons why that could happen that don't have anything to do with Tony being involved, because Tony was involved with the family, right? So, Tony had connections with Sharon's stepdaughter, Lisa. So, there's, like, lots of reasons why we wouldn't be surprised if Tony's DNA was on some things. It's the same with Ken, right? So, like, it wouldn't be a total shock if we found Ken's DNA. Obviously, anything in Sharon's car, because Ken and Sharon were married. So, your DNA can get shed from all kinds of things. It's not just, you know, saliva and, you know, bodily fluids. It's all kinds of stuff. But, you know, those would be trickier scenarios. So, in the event that it's something that, you know, we're gonna have to make an argument about with the state, what would happen is, you know, we would find out some of these things. Possibly some of that stuff would lead us to further investigation, um, or have further investigative leads for us and maybe not. Um, or maybe we would get these DNA results and say, you know, “None of this matches Jason, but there's some things in here that match Ken.” And so, then it's a question of, like, well, what does that mean for the case at large? So, that's gonna be a matter for the court to decide, um, you know, when we get the results back.


Moon: Do you think in that scenario you just mentioned where, you know, Jason's DNA isn't found on anything, is that a strong enough case for you to request a, a retrial?


Mousseau: If Jason's DNA is not on anything at all… This is a very close contact, very intimate, very violent encounter, so the fact that Jason's DNA wouldn't appear on anything of Sharon's or anywhere near her would be, to my… from my perspective, very strange if you were arguing that Jason was involved in this. So, from my perspective, I think it's certainly arguable that the jury should have known at the time. If, if, if this would make a difference to the jury, then the jury should know it, and I think he's entitled to a retrial.


Moon: So, what if… the DNA comes back and it is Jason's? Do you, do you think about that? Do you let yourself think about that possibility?


Mousseau: I-I don't expect it's going to be Jason. It’s such a, It’s such a… That's such a remote possibility for me, from my perspective. Having, like, viewed all the evidence in the case, I just I don't, I don't believe that that's going to be the case. But if that was to happen, to me, that's not even sort of the worst case scenario. I mean, that would be an end of the case. Obviously, it would be the end of that. But the, the practical reality is it's going to be a lot more anxiety producing for me if there's a scenario where, like, you know, Jason's excluded from everything because then it's gonna be an argument over what does this mean? It's not going to be automatically that Jason gets a retrial. It's going to be like, what does this mean? And then, we're gonna have to have an argument over what, you know, what it means. You know, I believe, I believe Jason and I believe in Jason, and I believe this case, and I, and I would be shocked to find that it was Jason's DNA.


Moon: And now, we get a chance to find out.


Mousseau: That's right. Now we get a chance to find out. 


Moon: Hmm.


Mousseau: Yeah, 35 years in the making.


[MUSIC IN]


Mousseau: We didn't go to court and, you know, win in court. We didn't have this dramatic, you know, sort of like, big, like, hearing and, like, a big opinion or any of these things. It's, like, we have this agreement and this agreement is done, right? And that's great. Uh, but it feels really, like, less dramatic than sort of those, like, TV shows or whatever that you get. But this is so massive. Like, this is such a massive, massive win for Jason. There was no guarantees here and now, we're gonna be able to move forward. This is a gate! You know, the gate’s open. The gate was locked.


Moon, Narrating: The gate was locked. When we ended this series last year, I said the only question left was whether our system of justice was willing to keep looking for the truth, if it was willing to revisit its own true crime story.


It’s taken 17 months, but now the system – stumbling, a little reluctant – has given us an answer. Yes.


The gate was locked. Now, let’s find out what’s on the other side.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT, THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Bear Brook Season 2 – A True Crime Story is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon.


It’s edited by Katie Colaneri.


Sara Plourde created our original artwork, as well as our website, bearbrookpodcast.com.


Additional photography and videos by Gaby Lozada.


Bear Brook is a production of the Document team at New Hampshire Public Radio.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Transcript of S2 Episode 8: The Box

Note: episode transcripts are radio scripts - please keep that in mind as you come across notations and errors in the text.

[SLOW THEME MUSIC IN]


Lauren Chooljian, Narrating: Previously on Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story…


Judge William Delker, In Courtroom: To cut you a break would utterly undermine the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system.


Lucy Holt: How do you prove something… How do you prove an “I didn’t do it?”


Cynthia Mousseau, On the Phone: There’s this belief that, when you’re Catholic and the priest gives you communion, that the bread turns into the body of Jesus, like literal human flesh. This is essentially the same thing as what happens – Once this conviction happens, it’s like that story is what happened.


Karen Carroll, On the Phone: All I– all I could think of was, remember the TV detective, Kojak?


Dr. Fabiana Alceste: The system, the culture that our detectives live in and are made to operate in sets them up for this specific kind of failure of not being able to realize that there’s an innocent person in front of them.


[SLOW THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Jason Moon, Narrating: It’s been seven years since Jason Carroll first wrote a letter to the New England Innocence Project. NEIP, as it’s called, is a small nonprofit – only about a dozen people on staff. And for the first three years after Jason wrote, they didn’t even have an attorney based in New Hampshire who could work on his case full-time.


Then, NEIP hired Cynthia Mousseau. Jason’s case was on the top of the pile on her desk when she arrived in 2019.


Mousseau: And I remember thinking to myself, even when I started this job, like, how am I ever gonna figure out these cases where people are innocent? I was a public defender for a long time. I've only had a few clients claim actual innocence. 


Moon, Narrating: And then, Cynthia read the documents in Jason’s case.


Mousseau: The way we want to think about our criminal legal system is that we don't have to rely necessarily on stories that people tell. We want to be able to rely on hard evidence and, and, and science and observable, objective fact. So, my hope is that when there is a statement made // that statement can be verified by objective scientific fact. And in Jason's case, that's just not true. The police tried to do that and could not do it. They tried to focus on the financial aspect. They got Ken's bank records. Those do not show what they thought they were gonna show. You know, they got the knife. They wanted to prove that that was the knife – that wasn't the knife. It couldn't have been the knife. It's just, they don't – they don't line up.


Moon, Narrating: But it’s one thing for an innocence attorney like Cynthia to be convinced Jason didn’t do it. It’s another to get the state of New Hampshire to admit they might have gotten this all horribly wrong.


[SLOW THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Remember back in episode one – that hearing where Jason asked for an early release from prison? That was one of Cynthia's first moves. It would’ve been the fastest way out of the prison walls for Jason. But, as you heard, it didn’t work – in part, because Jason has always refused to take responsibility for the crime.


The prosecutors for the state, and the court system that oversaw Jason’s convictions, both stick firmly to the original narrative.


Delker, In Courtroom: You confessed to your participation in, uh, this murder-for-hire plot and you and your accomplice, Mr. Pfaff, kidnapped and murdered a seven and a half month pregnant woman and you stood by while your accomplice sexually assaulted her as she lay dying – dead or dying – there in that gravel pit. And you were paid $5,000 for those inhuman acts – and I don’t say inhumane, but inhuman acts – by the victim’s own husband.


Moon, Narrating: Despite the fact that Tony Pfaff was acquitted and Ken Johnson was never even tried, in the official version of this true crime story, they’re still killers.


[SLOW THEME MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Innocence claims are almost always a longshot. The criminal legal system is built on a bedrock of finality. The courts want criminal prosecutions to end at some point, not be endlessly retried. And there are legitimate reasons for that. Dogmatic ones, too.


But in New Hampshire, a state that has never exonerated anyone convicted of a murder, it can feel like the hurdles are even higher than usual. What Cynthia and NEIP are trying to do has simply never been done before.


[SLOW THEME MUSIC OUT, MAIN THEME MUSIC UP]


Moon, Narrating: And so, to help challenge the official narrative, NEIP invited someone from the outside to come tell a new one.


Rabia Chaudry: A lot of times people will say, “Oh, just read the trial transcripts. You’ll see why this person is guilty or innocent.” [SCOFFS] What gets brought into a courtroom and what gets left out sometimes tells the story much more fully.


This is Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story. I’m Jason Moon.


[THEME MUSIC, SOUND OF TAPE STATIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Rabia Chaudry is an immigration attorney, an author, a podcast host. But there’s a good chance you already know her as an advocate for Adnan Syed.


In 2013, Rabia brought the story of Adnan’s murder conviction to the people who made the podcast Serial – a series that alerted millions to the existence of podcasts and arguably, created a genre of true crime ones. Not long after, Rabia decided to make her own podcast called Undisclosed, all to try and force the court system to revisit its original narrative in that case – a process that, so far, has taken almost 10 years.


Chaudry: It’s like everything that happens in a courtroom is like… um, it’s like, you know, a fly trapped in tar from hundreds of years ago. Like, that same rotten piece of tar keeps getting passed from courtroom to courtroom to courtroom, as if noth– as if the entire world is static and nothing has changed and no technology has changed and no witnesses have come forward, but we’re just, like, stuck in time.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: As you probably know, the true crime genre ranges widely from exploitation of personal tragedies to high-minded journalistic exposes to direct advocacy.


I think Rabia’s work is probably the best example of what you might call the soft-power of true crime.


Rabia started her podcast Undisclosed with two other attorneys, Susan Simpson and Colin Miller. At first, it was all about Adnan’s case. But then, they started looking at others. In each season of their show, they reinvestigate what they believe is a wrongful conviction. They reinterview witnesses who may have changed their story, they track down witnesses police never spoke to, they look for evidence of legal foul play – whatever they can find.


By now, they’ve looked at over 20 different cases and by Rabia’s count, they’ve played a role in overturning convictions in about half of them. About a month before Jason Carroll was back in court in the fall of 2022, Adnan Syed walked out of prison. He was a free man for the first time in 22 years, though his legal battles still aren’t over yet.


In another example in Georgia, Undisclosed worked alongside the Georgia Innocence Project and found evidence of juror misconduct and prosecutorial misconduct that recently helped vacate the conviction of Joey Watkins. He’d also been in prison for 22 years.


Chaudry: I mean, look, true crime has always been big, but when I was growing up, true crime, it was a different angle, right? It was, like, getting the bad guy, and investigators getting it right, and the police getting it right, and you know, everything being resolved. But I think after Serial, suddenly… it’s shifted a lot. Between Serial, between movements like Black Lives Matter, suddenly folks are like, “Well, maybe it’s not all wrapped up in a nice little bow like that all the time.”


Moon, Narrating: Undoing nice little bows. That’s exactly what the New England Innocence Project had in mind when they invited Undisclosed to look at Jason Carroll’s case.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: In the summer of 2021, Rabia arrived in New Hampshire to start investigating…


[SOUND OF MOVING CAR UP]


Moon, Narrating: …and I went with her.


Moon, In the Car: Rabia, do you want to just explain, like, what we’re doing today? Like, what you’re up to?


Chaudry, In the Car: So, today, uh, we’re gonna be trying to find some of the original investigators in the case… [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Rabia brought with her Sarah Cailean, a former police officer turned private investigator, cold case consultant, and true crime personality.


The two of them followed Google Maps down winding back roads across New Hampshire to reach some of the witnesses in Jason’s case. I sat in the backseat of their rental car with my microphone, getting a little car sick.


[SOUND OF MOVING CAR UP]


Chaudry, Driving: Where did you say I was turning again? I’m sorry. Do you remember?


Cailean, In the Car: Oop! Right there where we just passed on the right. [LAUGHS] [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: I recorded Rabia and Sarah as they recorded interviews.


Chaudry, Outside: Yeah. So, I kinda want to start at the top and ask you, like, what your relationship was with the Johnsons.


Unidentified Man, Outside: Well, like I said, I was a coworker with Sharon.


Moon, Narrating: And, of course, we talked about true crime podcasts as we happened to drive past the entrance to Bear Brook State Park.


Cailean: [CAR SOUND FADES UP]…that the idea becomes to produce something that has value to society, not just retelling gorey stories. To me, it’s…


Chaudry: Although, like, the straight reporting also can have, has plenty of value. 


Cailean: Oh! Hundred percent! [CAR SOUND FADES OUT]


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: It’s all very meta. I know. But that’s exactly why I was there. Podcasts like Serial, Undisclosed, and lots of others don’t just reflect reality. They help change it.


I had my own experience with this, when someone who listened to season one of this podcast discovered the names of three of the people found murdered near Bear Brook State Park.


Becky Heath: And I kept stopping and going back. I was like, “You know what, listening to this podcast makes me think it is this person – this… these… these girls!”


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: This is actually how I first became interested in Jason Carroll’s case. Before I’d read thousands of pages of police reports and trial transcripts, before I’d heard the interrogation tapes, before I fell down the scientific rabbit hole on false confessions, all I knew was a famous true-crime podcast with millions of listeners was about to land in my backyard.


The official narrative was about to be challenged by a new story. And more than a year later, it is still changing things – in ways I never expected.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Rabia and Sarah ended up speaking to more than a dozen people connected to Jason’s case. Some of whom you’ve heard from in this podcast, and some who wouldn’t talk to me – like one of the detectives who investigated the case before Roland Lamy took it over.


And they talked to Lamy, too, who told them he was A, surprised Jason was still in prison, and B, had no problem with the idea of DNA testing in Jason’s case.


But in the end, Undisclosed did not find new evidence to test or new legal grounds for Jason to appeal on. No smoking gun alternate suspect and no airtight alibi for Jason on the night of the murder.


After all, more than 30 years had passed in between Sharon’s murder and Undisclosed’s investigation. People’s memories had gotten hazier every passing year. And it was unclear whether the physical evidence in the case still even existed.


But with the facts they did have, Undisclosed put forward a new theory.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Or actually, it was an old theory, the one the original investigators had before Lamy took over the case. Rabia and Sarah think that Ken Johnson was responsible for Sharon’s murder, but only Ken.


Cailean, In the Car: I think he did it and he acted alone. It was just him. 


Chaudry, Driving: Mhmm.


Cailean, In the Car: He killed her by himself and brought her to that site and dumped her there and then couldn’t get his story straight.


Moon, Narrating: The theory is partly based on the same things that made police suspicious of Ken back in 1988. Ken changed his story about where he was the night of the murder. His gambling debts were a plausible motive. His ex-wife said he’d been violent with her.


But Undisclosed also points out major oversights in the police’s investigation of Ken. Like, how in the days following the murder, police got a search warrant for Ken’s car – but there’s no record they ever made any attempt to search the house Ken and Sharon shared.


Rabia and her team also offer an alternate explanation for how Sharon ended up at a construction site. It’s an idea based on what Ken and others told police about Sharon and Ken’s sex life. Ken told police he and Sharon had a very active sex life. He said they’d often meet during the middle of the day and drive to a gravel pit to have sex. Ken called it a “noonie.” The Undisclosed theory is that Ken took Sharon to the construction site where her body was found under the pretense they were going there to have sex.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: When the Undisclosed season on Jason Carroll came out in the fall of 2021, I waited in the wings, ready to document the fallout.


I was a little naive. The podcast came out. Millions of people did listen. But if you weren’t one of those listeners, it would’ve been hard to tell that anything had happened. There was no local outcry. No op-eds in the local papers or local politicians making Jason’s innocence their cause, and no pushback from the state.


All seemed quiet, at least on the outside. But not for the people closest to the story.


For Jason, Undisclosed was exciting. It was validating. For the first time in decades, a new version of the story had been told and people believed in his innocence.


Carroll, On the Phone: And then, you know, like, the response, from people around the world, ya know, on whatever it was, Spotify or Twitter, whatever they were respondin’ to, to have the people out there and them being like, “Holy shit!” You know? “How come we’ve never heard about this before?” Or, “How does this even happen?” Or, like, you know, “It’s horseshit, let him out!”


Moon, Narrating: Ironically, Jason hasn’t actually heard the podcast himself. He doesn’t have access to podcasts in prison. But he also told me he doesn’t want to hear it – or this podcast for that matter. He doesn’t want to relive any of this again.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: I expected Jason’s lawyer, Cynthia Mousseau, would feel excited about the podcast, too. After all, her office pitched Jason’s case to Undisclosed. But for Cynthia, it wasn’t that simple. Of course, she likes that this new narrative says Jason is innocent. But, as a former defense attorney, it also raised questions for her about when it’s okay for true crime storytellers to say someone else is guilty.


Mousseau: We’re very appreciative of the attention Jason’s case has gotten from Undisclosed. And I would never underestimate the impact of the support to Jason. I-I think the podcast is on the whole been beneficial for Jason. But I'm always very skeptical of… You know, Jason, you and I have been talking for a long time. You know that I always say it's just like, I'm anti-hunch.


Moon, Narrating: It’s true. Cynthia had told me many times how dangerous she feels hunches can be in the criminal justice system. As far as she sees it, everything that went wrong for Jason was the result of a hunch – Detective Roland Lamy’s hunch.


And even though Undisclosed’s theory includes the idea that Jason had nothing to do with the murder, the way it points the finger at Ken… I think for Cynthia it feels too close to the way the finger got pointed at Jason.


Mousseau: And in that way, I don't personally agree with that theory. Um, it’s just not based on concrete, observable facts. It's based on assumptions about human behavior and theories about human behavior.


Moon: You felt that, that their theory was a little too hunchy? If that's a word.


Mousseau: Yeah, a little too hunchy. Yeah, I think it's based on… Ken is not a good guy, so it must be Ken, because there was really nobody else. And I don't… I don't know Ken. And, uh, I don't know who did it.


Moon, Narrating: But for Rabia, it seemed only natural that their story provide an answer to what happened to Sharon.

Chaudry: For me, every innocence case is also a murder mystery. It is justice that still needs to be served for the victim. And so, I think it would be really weird and irresponsible and just bad storytelling to just tell part of it. These are the reasons Jason is likely innocent, but also we're just not going to try to at all figure out what happened to the victim. I think it – you're not telling the whole story then.


Moon, Narrating: What is the whole story? Even for two people who believe in Jason’s innocence, it’s not an easy question to answer.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Meanwhile, for those who don’t believe in Jason’s innocence, it can feel like the whole story is being missed.


Moon: So, can you just start by telling me your name and who you are?


Melonie Eaton: Melonie Eaton. Daughter of Sharon – to me, Eaton – but, Johnson.


Moon, Narrating: Melonie Eaton was 14 years old when her mother Sharon Johnson was murdered. Melonie cherishes the stories she has of growing up with her mom, like the time she says her mom bought her a few pet mice.


Eaton: Well, the people lied to her and it was a boy and girl, not two girls. So, we came home one day and they had babies. And the babies… got out. And then, we saw some on the floor and my mom’s like, “Oh my god!” So, we’re hurrying up, trying to catch ‘em. And we’re like – I found some in my bedroom, in my closet, all over the place. They were everywhere!


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Melonie remembers the time she woke up to an asthma attack and her mom soothed and guided her through it. She remembers the funny little dances she says her mom would do to make her laugh. The time her mom let her drive the car.


Eaton: I think of my mom every time I see a yellow rose. My mom planted – she made a garden box on the side of the house and she planted roses and when she found out she was pregnant with my sister, who I also never got to meet, um, there was one single yellow rose growing. And so, every time I see yellow roses, I think of my mom because to her that meant something special.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Melonie feels like her whole life has been shaped by her mother’s murder. She imagines the different paths it might’ve taken if she’d only had her mom. She’s logged all the moments her mom wasn’t there for.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Eaton: When my son was born, he was born July 24, 1992. Almost exactly four years to the day. And I was petrified I was going to have him on that day. [CRYING] And I can’t have a happy day on a bad day. Begging the doctors, “Please, I can’t have a happy day on a bad day.” My son was born, he was only born with a 2 percent chance of life. It would’ve been really nice to have my mom there, to tell me it’s going to be okay.


Moon, Narrating: For decades, Melonie tried to live with this pain. But now, new stories are reopening the wounds.


In 2021, Melonie got a call from Rabia Chaudry. They talked and Melonie’s voice was included in the Undisclosed season about Jason Carroll. But when the podcast came out, Melonie says she felt duped.


Eaton: She didn’t clarify. She just said, “I’m, I’m working on the case, I’m goin’ through it. I have your transcripts from when you talked to the police. Do you mind looking at it and then talking to me about it?” She wasn’t forthright at all, saying, “Hey, I’m actually an attorney trying to get Jason Carroll outta jail and I want you to answer some ques–.” I would’ve been like, “No, screw you, kiss off,” right away. But she wasn’t forthright and then, when I found out later on, it infuriated me.


Moon, Narrating: Rabia disputes this. She says she made it very clear who she was and what her aims were. And Melonie says she didn’t actually listen to Undisclosed. Just like Jason, she said it would be too difficult.


Eaton: For me, Jason Carroll is where he belongs, where he deserves to be, and he needs to stay there. He has no… no… Why- why should he, why should he be out and have his life to live when he was part of taking away my mother’s? He took away my mother’s life, my life, he took away the chance for all my children to meet their grandmother. Took it all away. Why should he have a life?


Moon, Narrating: My colleague Lauren Chooljian was in the room with me and Melonie for this conversation. And as we talked about Melonie’s experience with another true crime podcast, Lauren asked a question.


Lauren Chooljian, Off Mic: What’s different about what Jason’s doing from what they’re doing?


Eaton: I’m not entirely sure because Jason is, from my understanding, trying to get the entire story, in its whole, out to everybody, which includes how we all feel, the victims.


Moon, Narrating: I’m not playing you this tape of Melonie as a way to suggest my story is somehow morally superior to Rabia’s. And I’m not even sure Melonie would agree that it is.


I did tell Melonie that I thought what she and others who loved Sharon are going through was an important part of this story. And I hope I’ve honored that. 


But no matter how carefully we craft our stories, we can’t fully control how people hear them… or what they’ll lead to.


By the fall of 2022, about a year after the Undisclosed season on Jason’s case came out, I had begun to think that the impacts of the newest version of this true crime story had all played out.


Undisclosed had brought new attention to the case. It had reopened wounds and stirred hopes. And maybe that would be it.


And then, I got an unexpected call from Jason’s lawyer Cynthia.


Moon: Um, so, can you just tell me what happened again?


Mousseau, On the Phone: Yeah, so I went to court today with Jason’s sister, Jackie because… [FADE UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: This was in October 2022, about a month before Jason had his hearing where he requested early release. Cynthia explained that this day, she took Jackie Carroll, Jason’s sister, to the courthouse for a kind of dry run. Just to show Jackie the courtroom, the judge – so it wouldn’t be all new to her the day of Jason’s hearing.


Mousseau: So, we were sitting in the courtroom and I haven’t been there in years because I, you know, I was a public defender years ago. So, the clerk, who I know, came over to chat with me, and she said that she had been listening to Undisclosed… 


[MUSIC IN]


Mousseau: She’s like, “Uh, you know what, there’s a big box in our basement with the, Jason Carroll’s name on it.” And I was like, “Like an evidence box in the basement?!” And she said, “Yes!” And so, Jackie and I looked at each other and my mouth was wide open! Like, I was shocked! Ya know, it, it, it is standard practice in criminal cases for the court to issue a letter to the state and the defense after trial’s over, saying, “Come get these evidence exhibits or we’re going to destroy them.” So for them to be there after 30 years is… a small miracle!


Moon, Narrating: A small miracle. For months, Cynthia – and, separately, I – had been asking the state what evidence remained from the investigation into Sharon’s murder. The fingerprints taken from the car. Photos and video of the crime scene. Sharon’s belongings. The alleged murder weapon.


And especially important, Sharon’s fingernail clippings. The nails with blood under them. Blood that could belong to Sharon’s attacker. Blood that was never DNA tested. I asked the state in June of 2022 if those fingernail clippings still existed. They still haven’t responded.


But what public records requests did not reveal, a true crime podcast had. A mystery box of evidence in a courthouse basement. What was inside?


Mousseau: My pie-in-the-sky hope is that the fingernails are there. My realistic belief is that they are not. But my hope is that they are. But there is– a-anything that’s evidence in this case is useful to me.


Moon: I’ve never se– I’ve never heard you this excited, Cynthia. [MOUSSEAU LAUGHS]


[MUSIC POST]


After the break… the box.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


A quick reminder: Bear Brook Season 2 took more than a year to report and lots of resources – and as you’re about to hear, this story is not over. If you’re in a position to do so, please consider making a donation to New Hampshire Public Radio. To give now, click the link in the show notes – and thank you for supporting local, longform investigative reporting.


Moon, Narrating: In my mind, I pictured Cynthia brushing aside cobwebs and blowing off years of dust in a dank basement to see what was inside the box.


Instead, when we arrive, we’re shown to a quiet, mostly empty courtroom. And the mystery box had already been unpacked, its contents spread across the two tables attorneys would sit at during a trial. There’s a clerk and a bailiff in the room keeping an eye on us. This evidence is in their custody, so it’s not like Cynthia can take anything with her.


Moon: [SOUND OF MIC RUBBING ON CLOTHING] Alright. Want to just describe what we’re lookin’ at here?


Mousseau: Yeah, so when we got here the box was open and the exhibits are out, so we’re taking a look at all the stuff that’s on the table. [SNIFFS] So we… [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: There were stacks of documents, a pile of plastic Ziploc bags with things inside, large brown paper bags, photographs, a VHS tape. More than I ever expected.


Mousseau, Off Mic: [FADES UP] Sorry, do you have a garbage somewhere? 


Female Clerk: Yes.


Mousseau: I’m just gonna… I’m gonna throw out gloves after glove after glove here. 


Clerk: [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Cynthia knows DNA is Jason’s best shot. She doesn’t want to contaminate anything, so she wears gloves and changes them between each piece of evidence that she touches. The clerk brings over a trash can. I decide I’m not touching anything.


[ROOM SOUND FADES UP]


Moon, Narrating: Cynthia reaches for one of the large brown paper bags.


Mousseau: I want to know what’s in here. So, we’re going to look at DJE-4. [RUSTLING, PULLING JEANS OUT OF PAPER BAG] That's – that’s the jeans.


Moon: That’s Sharon’s jeans?


Mousseau: That’s Sharon’s jeans.


Moon: Wow. [FADES OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Sharon’s jeans with an elastic waistband and an ‘80s acid wash, still covered in the dried mud her body was found in. I wasn’t expecting this… to be this intimately close to Sharon’s death.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: The room feels heavier. Cynthia becomes methodical. She’s brought with her a large roll of white paper. She rips off big sheets of it to put underneath pieces of evidence to catch any dirt or dust that falls off.


[SOUND OF PAPER RIPPING]


Moon, Narrating: The jeans are just the beginning. Inside another bag is the bra Sharon was wearing when she died. Cut open in the front, still stained with blood. There were Sharon’s shoes – tan, moccasin-style slip-ons. There was the watch she was wearing. Bits of paper found in Sharon’s car, like a shopping list for coffee and Cheez-Its. A Ziploc bag full of cigarette butts from Sharon’s car.


[SOUND OF PAPER RIPPING]


Moon, Narrating: Then, there was Jason’s pocketknife. Small, with a brown handle, like any old pocketknife you might take camping or have in a junk drawer. Cynthia carefully placed it on a new sheet of white paper, unfolded the blade, and then photographed it next to a ruler.


There was a yellow spiral notebook that belonged to Ken Johnson, full of handwritten scores to sports games from the ‘80s. Evidence of Ken’s gambling habit.


There were the fingerprint cards taken from Jason and Tony at age 19. On one side, every finger was printed individually. On the other side, their full hand print was taken.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: For about 30 minutes, Cynthia has been making her way through each piece of evidence. Examining them, taking pictures of them, carefully placing them back how they came. Then, she opens a large Ziploc bag with a bunch of other ziploc bags inside of it. Inside each of the smaller bags are tubes and slides and other things that look like they belong in a lab.


Mousseau: [FADES UP] Sand from abdomen… [SOUND OF PAPER RUSTLING] Sand from back… [RUSTLING] What are you? [RUSTLING]


Moon, Reading: “Medical specimen. Please rush.”


Mousseau: Alright, we’re gonna look at that in a minute… [RUSTLING]


[MOON, MOUSSEAU GASP]


Mousseau, Quietly: That is the nail clippings!


Moon, Quietly: Oh my gosh.


Mousseau: This is the nail clippings! This is the nail clippings! [GASPS, PAUSES, THEN GASPS AGAIN. VOICE BREAKS ] I need to stop for a second.


Moon, Narrating: Cynthia walks away from the table. Her eyes are filling with tears. She takes out her phone and calls her boss at the New England Innocence Project.


Mousseau: Hey. 


Radha Natarajan, Quietly, On the Phone: Sorry–


Mousseau: The fucking nail clippings are here.


Natarajan, Quietly, On the Phone: What?!


Mousseau: The nail clippings are here.


Natarajan, Quietly, On the Phone: [GASPS] Amazing!


Mousseau: Yeah. [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Cynthia abruptly hangs up and then walks back to the table. The nail clippings are in two normal-size paper envelopes – one envelope for the nail clippings from each hand. Each envelope has a strip of red tape with the word ‘EVIDENCE” printed three times in all caps.


Cynthia holds one envelope up to the light. I can see the silhouettes of the nail clippings inside, like tiny crescent moons.


Mousseau: I don’t know if I’m shaking, Jason.


Moon: A little bit.


Mousseau: A lot. [LAUGHS]


Moon: So, the answer to who killed Sharon Johnson is very likely in that envelope right there in front of us?


Mousseau: It is possible that the answer to who killed Sharon Johnson is in this envelope in front of us. These two envelopes. And we have been looking for these. And now, we know where they are. And we only know where they by a chance encounter in court… [LONG PAUSE. SIGHS, LAUGHS, THEN VOICE BREAKS] I feel like I’m gonna cry.


Moon: These have just been sitting here for 33 years.


Mousseau: Oh! I am gonna cry. [LAUGHS] Yep! These have been sitting here for a long time. [TSK SOUND]


Male Bailiff, Off Mic: Take some tissues?


Mousseau, Off Mic: Yeah, I’m gonna – yeah, I’ll take some tissues. [LAUGHS, SOUND OF CYNTHIA WIPING HER HANDS]


[MUSIC IN]


The bailiff, who’s been looking over with an interested expression ever since Cynthia found the envelope, comes over to offer a box of tissues. The clerk is on her feet, too. She’s writing down the exhibit number of the nail clippings to make sure they’re preserved.


The courtroom is now filled with excitement, a feeling that’s reaching across the professional boundaries in the room. The bailiff says out loud, “This is incredible!”


Bailiff, Quietly, Off Mic: This is incredible!


Mousseau: Yeah, and you guys were here for this. This was history in the making.


Bailiff, Quietly, Off Mic: Yeah, this is like what you see in a movie!


Mousseau: Yeah! Yeah. Maybe your job is boring sometimes… Not today.


Bailiff: No, not today.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: A few weeks after that day at the courthouse, Cynthia filed a motion with the court for DNA testing. She asked the court to order testing for the nail clippings and six other pieces of evidence found in the box that have also never been DNA tested. Those include fingerprint lifts from inside Sharon’s car, the cigarette butts from Sharon’s car, and Jason’s pocket knife.


Cynthia had hopes prosecutors for the state might agree to the testing. After all, it could prove Jason’s guilt or his innocence. She waited days to hear whether they’d agree. Then, weeks.


Finally, the state filed a document with a court. They were objecting to DNA testing.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: The state’s objection to DNA testing in Jason Carroll’s case begins with yet another retelling of the official narrative.


The state then argues there is no scenario under which DNA testing would exonerate Jason. I had to reread that sentence a few times when I first saw this document. No possible scenario where DNA testing proves Jason’s innocence.


This means that even if DNA tests on the evidence came back and there was no DNA of Jason’s and there was, say, DNA from a known serial killer, the state’s position is that that would not exonerate Jason.


I tried to talk with Charles Bucca, the prosecutor who wrote the objection. I wanted to ask what makes him so absolutely certain of Jason’s guilt. But he declined.


It seems for Charles and the state of New Hampshire, they already know what happened, Jason is guilty. He confessed. And it seems nothing – not even a DNA test – can undo that story. Like bread becomes flesh, that story is now their truth.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: As of this moment, the decision on whether or not DNA testing will happen is in the hands of Judge William Delker. The same judge who denied Jason’s request for early release.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Even if DNA testing is granted, it will likely still take a long time to play out. There could be fights over which items get tested, which kinds of tests get run, and which lab should do the testing.


Then, of course, the results could be argued over. If the DNA tests come back as not Jason, but don’t point to anyone else, a judge might decide that’s not enough. If the DNA tests come back as Ken Johnson, the state could argue that confirms Jason’s conviction. It could all take months, if not longer. 


And in the meantime, Jason Carroll is inside the New Hampshire State Prison for Men, about five minutes from me. I talked to Jason again in January of 2023. His lawyer, Cynthia, was in the room with me.


Jason Carroll, On the Phone: I am tired of bein’ looked at like I’m some fucking kinda animal. And I’m just tired of being looked at like, you know, “Oh yeah, well, you were convicted.” And I get how, how the court systems work, but people, people don’t understand the shoddiness and shittiness that happened with this.


Moon, Narrating: Jason has been riding an emotional roller coaster the past several months. Appearing in court again for the first time in decades, having his request for early parole denied, learning about the discovery of the evidence box, and now finding out the state is objecting to DNA testing. It’s been a busy time.


Still, Jason seems cleareyed about the road ahead. He says they’ve lost some battles, but the war can still be won. He tells Cynthia he’s ready to keep fighting. Ready to be the first man in New Hampshire to ever be exonerated after being convicted of murder.


Carroll, On the Phone: I’m kinda like the, uh, I’m kinda like the plow right now for, for people that are behind the wall... in a, in a sense.


Mousseau: What do you mean by that? Say more about that.


Carroll, On the Phone: Well, for what you and I have got going on, you know, with your organization, which has never been done before, there are people in here who need it. There are people in here, like me, that don’t belong here. There’s not many. But there are some here. And the thing is, the state’s never had it before. So, I mean, you and I are like, you know, we’re trying to make history. It’s tough. But, like I said, we’re the snowplow that’ll open up a path for everybody else. 


Moon, Narrating: For a few moments, I stopped interviewing and just listened as Jason and Cynthia talk to each other. They’ve known each other a few years now.


Mousseau: Jason, can you talk about, like, how – What’s it been like, like, you put your faith in the system originally, right? And then the system fails you.


Carroll, On the Phone: Of course.


Mousseau: How have you felt about trying to put your faith in the system again? Like, h-how has that been?


Carroll, On the Phone: You know, it’s not putting my faith so much into the system. It’s putting my faith into you.


Moon, Narrating: Cynthia fights back a smile. A look of embarrassment, pride, heartache, and heavy responsibility blooms across her face.


Carroll, On the Phone: That’s what I put my faith into. It’s not the system. System sucks. Let’s just face it. System’s trash. [FADES OUT]


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: A word about that system that Jason just mentioned. The public institutions that are supposed to act on our behalf. The ones we pay for with our taxes. That system is not always built on science. 


The number one recommendation of false confession experts is that interrogations should be recorded in their entirety. More than half of all states in the U.S. now require police to do this. New Hampshire is not one of them. 


In response to our question about this, a spokesperson for the New Hampshire Department of Safety said they do consider it, quote, “best practice.” We talked to more than a dozen defense attorneys and local police officials, who told us interrogations with suspects in New Hampshire are often recorded, though not universally. A bill to require recording police interrogations in most circumstances is pending in the state legislature. 


Since 2002, close to 100 so-called conviction integrity units have opened across 27 states. These are units within prosecutor’s offices tasked with revisiting their own convictions to make sure they still hold up. Less than half of those units have actually recorded exonerations, but across those who have, 668 people have been cleared of crimes they did not commit. A conviction integrity unit played a role in the exoneration of Huwe Burton, who you heard from in the last episode. There are no conviction integrity units in New Hampshire.


Some law enforcement agencies are abandoning the Reid technique because of the risk of false confessions. In 2015, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, sort of the Canadian FBI, said they were switching to a less accusatory technique. And believe it or not, a sergeant with the RCMP described the new technique to a reporter this way. Quote, “Less Kojak and more Dr. Phil.”


[THEME MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: For now, this is as far as I can take you. The road to answering who killed Sharon Johnson – and whether Jason Carroll will be exonerated ends here, for the moment.


In my true crime story, I can’t tell you whether Jason is truly innocent. The truth is, I don’t know – at least not yet.


I do know this. In the late 1980s all we had to go on were a few clues and words on tape. Today, in 2023, with a box full of evidence that can now be DNA tested, and more than 30 years of science on confessions, we finally have a real shot at getting to the truth. The only question left is whether our system of justice is willing to keep looking for it.


[THEME MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: A True Crime Story is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon.


It’s edited by Katie Colaneri.


Additional reporting and research by Paul Cuno-Booth.


Editing help from Lauren Chooljian, Daniela Allee, Sara Plourde, Taylor Quimby, Mara Hoplamazian, and Todd Bookman. 


Our News Director is Dan Barrick. Our Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie.


Fact-checking by Dania Suleman.


Sara Plourde created our original artwork, as well as our website, bearbrookpodcast.com.


Additional photography and videos by Gaby Lozada.


Special thanks to Maria Savarese, Mary McIntyre, Gaby Healy, Sarah Nathan, Dan Tuohy, Zoey Knox, Jeongyoon Han, and Ruby Baer.


Original music for the series was created by me, Jason Moon.


Bear Brook is a production of the Document team at New Hampshire Public Radio.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Transcript of S2 Episode 7: This Side of the Line

Note: episode transcripts are radio scripts - please keep that in mind as you come across notations and errors in the text.

[MUSIC IN]


Lauren Chooljian, Narrating: Previously on Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story…


Cynthia Mousseau, In Courtroom: I could point out how Jason’s statements were so inconsistent with the undisputed forensic evidence in this case, that it was more probable that he was guessing in response to interrogation questions, than he had any actual knowledge. In fact, looking at these inconsistencies, it is shocking that Jason was ever even a credible suspect, let alone convicted.


Jason Carroll, On the Phone: I do remember being yelled and screamed at. And any time I answered the wrong way, he’d be like, “Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope.” I remember bein’ so wiped out, I tried to go to sleep under the table. They wouldn’t let me.


Jason Moon, Off Mic: But ultimately, did you find– were you convinced that Jason was guilty of the crime?


Tom Dufresne: Oh yeah, he admitted to… if I recall correctly, he admitted to stabbing her at least once. This was a horrible crime. I mean, that's… [TSK SOUND] why would you say that if you didn’t do it?


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Jason Moon, Narrating: The first known wrongful conviction in the United States was based on a false confession. Actually, two false confessions – one from each of the two co-defendants.


They were farmers in Vermont in 1812. Jesse and Stephen Boorn. They didn’t like their brother-in-law – thought he was lazy, freeloading off the family.


When the brother-in-law disappeared, the Boorn brothers were easy suspects. Witnesses said they heard the Boorns threaten to kill the brother-in-law. The brother-in-law’s personal items were found in the Boorns’ cellar. Bones were found buried in their field.


The Boorn brothers were arrested. A jailhouse informant said one of the brothers confessed to him. Then, Jesse and Stephen Boorn themselves both confessed. In detail, they described murdering their brother-in-law with a club, burying his body, then excavating and moving the remains – twice.


Stephen Boorn was scheduled to be executed on January 28th, 1820. Then, the brother-in-law arrived in town – alive.


[MUSIC IN]


Jason Moon, Narrating: The signs were all there. The bones found in the field were dog bones, the jailhouse informant had every incentive to lie about his cellmate, and the confessions from the Boorn brothers didn’t match with known facts.


But confessions are uniquely powerful as evidence goes. And so, for a very long time, it took something like this to exonerate someone who had falsely confessed to murder. A miracle. The victim come back to life.


[MUSIC POST]


Jason Moon, Narrating: Because of this, for a long time, the known examples of false confessions were very few. From 1820, when the Boorn brothers were set free, to 1989 when Jason Caroll was arrested, just 61 people in the U.S. had been exonerated after falsely confessing. That’s 61 known false confessions in 169 years.


Then, another miracle – DNA testing. In 1989, for the first time, a DNA test proved someone’s innocence after they were convicted and freed them from prison. Three years later, a group of lawyers founded the Innocence Project – a group devoted to doing more of the same. A flood of exonerations followed.


Over the last three decades, that flood has helped expose all kinds of problems in the criminal justice system. Like the unreliability of eye-witness testimony, police using junk forensic science like bitemark or hair analysis, prosecutorial misconduct, and false confessions.


Since 1989 – nearly 400 people have been exonerated after they falsely confessed to crimes they didn’t commit. That’s almost 400 known false confessions in just 34 years. Some of those people had been sentenced to death. More than half of all of them were Black.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT, THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: The same year all that began, 1989, Jason Carroll was confessing to murder.


Jason’s case sits on a bright red line separating what we used to believe, from what we now know about false confessions. And from today’s side of that line, the story sounds different.


This is Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story. I’m Jason Moon.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Dr. Fabiana Alceste: People really have a hard time understanding, why would you confess to something that you didn’t commit? Why would you confess to something as horrible as a rape or a murder if you didn’t actually do that?


Moon, Narrating: Dr. Fabiana Alceste has devoted her career to researching and understanding the answers to that question. She’s a professor of psychology at Butler University. 


Alceste: Being wrongfully accused and convicted of a crime that you did not commit on the basis of your own false confession is just about the worst thing that can happen to someone.


Moon, Narrating: I called Fabiana to see what she makes of Jason Carroll’s case. I wanted to know what she hears when she listens to the confession tapes.


I’ll spare you the suspense. There are no simple answers here.


But there is so much we’ve learned. What was once just a rhetorical question – “Why would you confess to a murder you didn’t commit?” – today, it’s actually been answered, thanks to decades of scientific research and the lived experiences of hundreds of exonerees who falsely confessed.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: For the last six episodes, I’ve told you about the ways Jason’s case was argued over as it happened – with the knowledge and ideas people had at the time. Call it another true crime storytelling choice. I wanted you to hear the arguments the way Tony and Jason’s juries heard them.


Now, let’s run the clock forward 30 years. Let’s take a journey into a modern understanding of confession evidence.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Fabiana’s first lesson for this journey… this is not the land of intuition. Hunches and gut feelings about the way people act or how they sound during a confession, it will not help us here.


Alceste: It’s very, very difficult for anyone to distinguish between true and false confessions.


Moon, Narrating: There’s one study that illustrates this so powerfully, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. It’s from 2005. Psychologists videotaped a group of incarcerated men confessing to the crimes they actually committed. Then, they videotaped them confessing to crimes they did not commit.  And they wondered, could anyone tell the difference?


They played the tapes for a group of about 60 police officers and another group of about 60 college students. Both groups felt confident they could tell the difference. Both groups were wrong. Overall, their accuracy rate was no better than if they had guessed at random.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: The police officers in the study had an average of 11 years of experience. Many of them had been trained in so-called deception detection.


But it didn't matter. Laypeople, trained detectives, you and me – as much as we might think we’d know a false confession if we heard one, we’re probably wrong.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Alceste: It’s very hard to reliably tell when people are telling the truth versus when people are lying, using the kinds of behavioral cues that are kind of in the general zeitgeist. So, if I asked you, “How do you know when someone is lying?” What kinds of things would you tell me to look for?


Moon, Narrating: Shifting in your seat, looking away, mumbling, making too much eye contact, touching your face. These might be signs of anxiety, but none of these behaviors are reliable ways to tell if someone is lying.


Alceste: But unfortunately, these are the kinds of signs that police officers have been trained to look for for a very long time. And they are often told in these trainings that these are scientifically proven ways to identify liars when they are just unequivocally not. And in fact, a lot of scientific evidence shows that this is not the way to identify liars and truth tellers.


Moon, Narrating: By the way, Fabiana says there is a better way to catch liars. Have them tell the story backwards. People have trouble with the mental effort required to build a false story in reverse.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: So, false confessions are really hard to spot. We can’t rely on our senses or intuition to hear them. But why do they happen in the first place? Well, Fabiana says the answer is not in the confession – it’s in the interrogation.


Alceste: Interrogations are not conversations, right? The interrogation is basically a monologue by the interrogator, uh, until the very end where you finally have the suspect verbalize and write their confession.


Moon, Narrating: Here, Fabiana is describing a particular method of interrogation common in the United States – something called the “Reid technique.”


The roots of the Reid technique go back to the 1950s. It’s named after the police officer who originally developed it, John Reid. He has since died, but today, the Reid Company continues to hone the technique and to teach it to all kinds of law enforcement agencies around the world.


The Reid technique uses a two-pronged approach. Make it hard for the suspect to deny guilt and make it easy for them to confess it.


False confession researchers like Dr. Fabiana Alceste call this maximization and minimization. You might think of it like the carrot and the stick.


[MUSIC POST] 


Moon, Narrating: In Reid, the interrogator tells the suspect up front that the evidence already points to them. The interrogator might do this, even if it’s not true.


Alceste: What’s called the “false evidence ploy.” This is an interrogation tactic in which an interrogator will tell the suspect that there is irrefutable, ironclad evidence of their guilt, like DNA, fingerprints, an eyewitness, CCTV footage, you name it – even though this is actually false.


Moon, Narrating: That’s totally legal in the U.S., by the way. And that’s the first stick. “We already know you’re guilty.” Then, the interrogator cuts off any denials. Another stick.


Alceste: You kinda put your hand up and you say, “Well, hold on a second. Let me finish, because this is really important.” And you don’t actually let them verbalize their denial.


Moon, Narrating: The sticks, or maximization, are meant to make the suspect feel hopeless. Like denying their involvement is a total dead end. “They already know it’s me, they won’t even let me say I didn’t do it, and they say they’ve got proof.”


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Now come the carrots – minimization.


Alceste: So, these could be things like blaming the victim, saying that anyone in the suspect’s shoes would’ve done the exact same thing, saying that the crime was committed on the spur of the moment rather than being planned. The interrogator might be using a kinder tone. Uh, maybe sometimes they’re even whispering all of these excuses to the suspect, telling them, “Hey, I-I understand. I would’ve done the same thing. You were just trying to protect your family.”


Moon, Narrating: Carrots can also be implied. Like, “Hey, if you tell the truth, it’ll be better for everyone,” which to a suspect might sound like they’ll get a lighter sentence, even if that’s not true.


Moon, Narrating: If you imagine the suspect is truly guilty, it’s not hard to see how this might work. The suspect feels the jig is up. “And anyways, even the cops are saying it’s not that bad what I did. I’ll confess and make things easier on myself.”


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: The carrots and the sticks of the Reid technique do work. The Reid Company once reportedly claimed their technique yields a confession 80 percent of the time. The problem, according to the research, is that it can work on guilty people and innocent ones.


In research settings, when these tactics are used during an interrogation, the rate of true confessions goes up, but so does the rate of false confessions.


The Reid Company responds to these critiques by saying that when false confessions happen, it’s usually because an interrogator has strayed, quote, “outside of the parameters of the Reid technique.”


But Fabiana and other experts on false confession say the Reid technique puts innocent people at risk, especially when you combine it with other risk factors. 


Like younger suspects. Children and adolescents are hugely overrepresented in the pool of proven false confessions. Same goes for people with intellectual disabilities.


The length of interrogations is another risk factor. According to one study, most interrogations last between 30 minutes and two hours. The Reid technique cautions against going for more than four hours. One study of 125 proven false confessions found the average length of those interrogations was over 16 hours.


So, the Reid technique, young or mentally disabled suspects, long interrogations. The research shows these things all make false confessions more likely.


But it can still be hard to wrap your mind around. Surveys show most of us still think we would never falsely confess. 


Maybe the research isn’t enough to convince us. Maybe we need to hear from someone who lived it, like Huwe Burton.


Moon: Have you ever gone back and watched the taped confession you gave?


Huwe Burton: Absolutely. It’s – you know, it’s, it’s still hard to watch it without breaking down. You’re looking – You, I can hear the officer’s voice in the back… 


[INTERROGATION TAPE FADES IN]


Female Prosecutor, On Interrogation Tape: Um, you gave uh, a hand… [FADES UNDER]


[MUSIC IN]


Burton: … And it takes me right back to that room, 1989. And it takes me right back to the – how terrified I was and I can see the fear in my eyes as I’m looking at my 16-year-old self.


[INTERROGATION TAPE FADES BACK UP]


Burton, On Interrogation Tape: …I’m not.


Prosecutor, On Interrogation Tape: Okay, but what you’re telling us now is the truth?


Burton, On Interrogation Tape: Yes, it is.


Prosecutor, On Interrogation Tape: And I’ve treated you fairly?


Burton, On Interrogation Tape: Yes, you have.


Prosecutor, On Interrogation Tape: And the police have?


Burton, On Interrogation Tape: Yes.


Prosecutor, On Interrogation Tape: Okay, anything else you wanna tell us? [FADES OUT]


Moon, Narrating: 1989. The same year Jason Carroll confessed. 


One evening, a 16-year-old Huwe came home to his family’s apartment in the Bronx and noticed his mom’s car wasn’t in their driveway. Then, he went inside.


Burton: And, um, [CLEARS THROAT] I came in. Now, I’m taking my things off. I’m walking towards the back of the apartment, toward the bedrooms. I noticed that my parents’ bedroom was open, the door was open. Um… I went into the room, I looked in there, and that’s where I made the discovery. I’d found my mom.


Moon, Narrating: His mom, Keziah Burton, was lying dead in her bed. She had been stabbed in the neck. 


Burton: Immediately called the police. I’m screaming, crying. I couldn’t stay in the house any longer so I ran outside.


Moon, Narrating: The police arrived. Huwe answered some questions about what he saw and where he was that day. Huwe’s father was away in Jamaica, visiting Huwe’s grandmother. So, Huwe went to stay with his godmother. A few days later, police called Huwe’s godmother. They wanted Huwe to come take a polygraph test.


[MUSIC OUT]


Burton: I was only able to sleep 10, 15 minutes at a time. And I’m, you know, I-I-I’m just waking up, staring at the ceiling. If I try to eat something, as I eat it, it's coming back up. I’m drained. I didn’t, I didn’t even wan– I didn’t even want to get outta the bed. My godmother said, “Well, they just want to do this– same questions they asked you that day, they just want to ask you the same thing again. They just want a polygraph test.” And you know, I’d never heard of it before. I don’t know what a polygraph test is. “Alright, so, let’s go. If it’ll help you find out who did this to my mom, then alright.” So by the time I get to the precinct, I’m, I’m already a mess. I’m already drained.


Moon, Narrating: Huwe went into a room alone with the police. No lawyer. No parents.


Burton: What started as a simple interview, maybe about an hour and a half, two hours into that, um, it turned accusatory, and they told me they had evidence that led them to believe that I was the one who had committed this crime.


Moon, Narrating: Huwe was 16, he’d just found his own mother murdered in their home, and now the police were telling him they knew he did it. Stick.


[MUSIC IN]


Burton: I-I started crying immediately, um, because I still couldn’t process that I just left my mom sitting on the couch and went to school, only to come back and find her murdered in my parents’ bedroom. I don’t know, I don’t know up from down. And in the middle of that, you tell me that, “We know that you’re the one responsible for it. You did this.”


[MUSIC POST]


Burton: The more I told them I didn’t, the more they told me, um, “You did and this is the only way this is going to work for you. We know that, uh, you know, you didn’t mean to do this, we know that this was an accident. But you need to tell us the truth.” Uh, I’m still telling them, “No, I didn’t commit this crime, I didn’t commit this crime, I do not– I didn’t do anything to my mom.”


Moon, Narrating: Huwe was telling the truth. He did not murder his own mother. But at the time, the detectives were following a hunch – a theory of the case, that later turned out to be based on a mistake.


When police first spoke to Huwe the day of the murder, he told them he went to school as normal. But when the police checked with his teacher, she incorrectly said her attendance records showed Huwe was absent that day. So, it looked like Huwe was lying.


Burton: The theory was that I owed a drug – a local drug dealer money. And I tried to pay with my mom’s car. And I left the keys for this, uh, uh, drug dealer and he’s the one who took the car.


Moon, Narrating: The interrogators believed Huwe’s mother confronted him about the car. They figured Huwe was high on cocaine, the argument escalated, and in a rage, Huwe accidentally killed his mother.


After hours of telling 16-year-old Huwe Burton they know he’s guilty and cutting him off when he denies it, the interrogators have succeeded in pushing him to the point of despair. The sticks, the maximization – it’s worked.


Burton: They continued with this over and over and over again, and in my 16-year-old mind it seemed like an eternity. I felt that, um, I could not leave, although no one told me “you can’t leave,” I was made to feel as if I could not get up and walk out of the, the interrogation room.


Moon, Narrating: Now, the carrot – minimization.


Burton: They then began to tell me that, “Look, just tell us that you committed this crime, because, again, we know this was an accident. Um, and if you do, we’ll take you to family court where your dad can come and pick you up and you can put all of this behind you.” So, when they started to suggest that, “This is the only way that this is going to work, because you’re going to go to jail for this one way or not,” when they started talkin’ that language, and now your mind says, “Well, Okay, you have to trust them.”


It’s interesting, the people that you look at as authority figures… You know, you’re taught to respect them and you get to a point where you’re almost trying to do the best that you can to make sure that you appease them and that it’s done right. Even with my confession, after we’re going over and over and over it, in my mind I’m saying, “I have to do it right if I want to just go to family court and see my dad. That’s the only way that I’m going to be released is by doing this thing that they’re asking me to do properly.” You believe that you’re helping, um, your accusers help you.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Huwe started to play along with the detectives’ questions. And remember, the police already had a theory of what happened here. And so they asked Huwe questions based on that theory. Now, this is really important, because it helps explain one of the most puzzling parts of false confessions. Here’s Fabiana again.


Alceste: False confessions aren’t just someone breaking down and saying, “I did it.” Right? They’re actually pretty often rich, detailed narratives. They have statements of motive, they have apologies, they have timelines, they make references to the thoughts and feelings of the confessor, of the victim, of the things going on around them when they’re committing the crime. They sound like stories that come from a person’s memory.


[MUSIC IN]


Alceste: And so, if we know for an absolute fact that someone is innocent, how is it possible that they could give such a detailed confession with real facts about the crime? And the answer to that question is contamination.


Moon, Narrating: Contamination. Basically, when ideas or facts are leaked from the interrogator to the suspect. It’s usually unintentional – and even though interrogators are trained to avoid it, that can be hard to do, especially over a long interrogation.


Alceste: The more frustrated you get or the more convinced that you might become of the suspect’s guilt, kind of the less careful you might be, ‘cause you’re like, “Well, I know that this person did this, why would I care about leaking information to them? Because they already have all the information, because they did it.”


Moon, Narrating: Embedded in the questions from interrogators are often details about the crime and an implied narrative about how the police think it happened.


Burton: And they say, “Okay, so, you were on drugs. So, then what, what did you do? Because she– uh, your mom was stabbed, so what, did you go into the kitchen and then did, did you go get a knife after that?” “Yes, I-I-I went into the kitchen.” So, my answers “yes” or “no” to things is them putting the story together and having me remember this.


[MUSIC POST]


Burton: They fed me a story and I agreed and I agreed and I agreed. And they kept going over it. “So, let’s – back from the top. So, what happened? So, you woke up that morning, and you were still high?” “Yeah I was still high.” And after you do it a few times, now it’s – they’re not saying anything, it’s just you. Now the training wheels are off and you can just roll and do this story yourself.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Contamination in interrogations can be hard to detect, especially when the interrogation itself is not recorded.


That happens a lot in proven false confessions like Huwe’s. The tape recorder isn’t turned on until the end. The interrogation – the contamination – is not captured. But the confession is. And so that’s all the jury hears.


Burton, On Interrogation Tape: So, my mother was arguing with me. I went in, had a knife from the kitchen. I came back into the room where she was at, and she noticed the knife in my hand. And she asked me what was I doin’ with it and said, you know, was I gonna kill her. And I said, “If I was?” She went to smack me and I moved. And as I moved, I went – I stabbed my mother in the neck. [SNIFFS] [TAPE FADES OUT]


Moon: What was that like, um, hearing the verdict from these jurors? I mean, you must’ve been in disbelief.


Burton: No, I collapsed. My legs gave. I was 18. Um, and we stood up and they read the, they read the verdict as guilty, second-degree murder. I-I dropped. I’m cryin’ and screamin’, um, “I didn’t, I didn’t kill my mom! I didn’t kill my mom!” First time I seen my father cryin’, you know… And I can remember the judge dismissing the jury and I’m cryin’, I’m lookin’ at them. They have all of the bailiffs and stuff around in the court around me. And I’m asking the jury – just to show you, I’m still a kid, when I’m 18, I’m askin’ them, where are they going? “Where are y’all going? Like, what about me? Like, what about, what about – you can’t leave. What about me?” I never forget that.


[MUSIC IN]


Burton: I couldn’t believe that someone would actually think that I could harm my mom. I… The shock of that, like, you actually believed that? Um… It was a lot. That day was a lot.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: The jury saw Huwe Burton’s videotaped confession and they believed it. Because why wouldn’t they?


Burton: Who in their mind – and go back in a time capsule of 1989 – who says that they killed their mother if they didn’t?


Moon, Narrating: Huwe Burton spent 20 years and eight months in prison for a crime he did not commit. He was released on parole and then finally exonerated in 2019 when he was 46 years old.


Huwe and a team of innocence lawyers uncovered serious misconduct by the police and prosecutors in his case.


The teacher who said Huwe was not at school the day of the murder? She later called police and told them she was wrong. She just looked at the wrong date in her records. Huwe was at school that day. And prosecutors had that information, but never turned it over to Huwe’s defense attorneys – a serious violation of their constitutional duty.


Huwe and his lawyers also uncovered the detectives who interrogated him had extracted false confessions in another investigation just three months before Huwe’s arrest.


But even with what the jury heard at trial, there were plenty of signs. Huwe recanted his confession and told everyone it was coerced. Huwe said in his confession he stabbed his mother once. She’d been stabbed twice. There was no medical or physical evidence that Huwe was high on cocaine or that he’d been involved in a struggle.


There were even signs, obvious in retrospect, that Huwe’s confession was contaminated. Huwe’s story about the murder was littered with police jargon, things most 16-year-olds would never say. Huwe said he was “stimulated” on cocaine, that he was “associating with a friend,” and that he “proceeded” up a road.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: But these warning signs were nothing compared to the power of Huwe’s confession.


Alceste: Confessions seem uniquely positioned as the thing that overpowers all the other factors that you could think of, that you could look at and say, “These things don’t seem right.” The confession overpowers all of those things. There’s some research that shows that confession evidence can be more powerful than DNA that exonerates the confessor.


Moon, Narrating: Confessions are so convincing, they can even spill over into influencing other forms of evidence, including forensic evidence.


Alceste: You would think that the science is the science and it would be really difficult to bias a scientist who is examining some kind of forensic evidence, like, let’s say a fingerprint. Um, but, actually, what we see in the studies that researchers in this field have conducted is that if a fingerprint examiner knows that there was a confession in the case, they’re more likely to say that that person’s fingerprint is a match to the fingerprint that they found at the scene.


Moon, Narrating: Fabiana says this goes for other forensic experts, too, like medical examiners. If they know a confession exists, it can influence their interpretation of the evidence.


Confessions can also derail good police work. Once there’s a confession, there’s a tendency for the investigation to come to a halt. “We found the guy, he confessed. What’s left to do?”


Six days after Huwe’s confession, police pulled over a man driving Huwe’s mother’s car. This man lived downstairs from Huwe’s family. He had a violent criminal history. He was driving the victim’s car. But police already had their guy – someone who’d confessed.


The man who was driving Huwe’s mother car died before Huwe’s trial. No one, besides Huwe, was ever convicted for Keziah Burton’s murder.


[MUSIC IN]


Burton: For many years, I would ask myself, sitting inside there, like, very angry with myself, like, “How did you allow them to trick you like that?” I was very upset, especially in my early 20s. It’s one of those things that, y-you know, you can’t put that kind of pain in-in-into words.


[MUSIC POST]


Burton: You’re screaming at the top of your lungs that you didn’t do something, um, and it’s almost as if the world can’t hear you.


Moon, Narrating: Once Huwe was exonerated, the world did hear him. He spoke out in interviews like this one. He says it was partly a way to begin healing – partly because he feels a duty to tell all of us, “This can happen. This does happen.”


Today, Huwe continues to speak out and to move on with his life. In prison, he picked up long-distance running as a way to cope with the pain. In 2019, he ran the New York City marathon as a free man.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: The experience of exonerees like Huwe Burton and the research of psychologists like Dr. Fabiana Alceste, have opened a new world of understanding about how and why false confessions happen.


In fact, according to the legal clinic that helped exonerate Huwe, his case marked the first time a court ruled that new understandings about false confessions can constitute newly discovered evidence of actual innocence.


After the break, we bring those new understandings to Jason Carroll’s case.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: I asked Dr. Fabiana Alceste to review the confessions in Jason’s case. The only real evidence against him. Here’s what she saw – five red flags in Jason’s interrogations. Five things that the research shows make a false confession more likely.


The first red flag – the length of Jason’s interrogations.


Over four days, police interrogated Jason for a long time. Just how long depends on how you count it.


Police actively questioned Jason for at least 13 and a half hours over four days. Five hours the first day, about six hours the second day, and then more sporadically in the following two days.


But if you count up all the time that Jason was with police, as part of the overall psychological burden he was under, the number is 24 hours over four days.


Alceste: The longer the interrogation goes on, you see more and more false confessions.


Moon, Narrating: The second red flag – Jason’s age.


Alceste: Jason was 19 at this time, but, so legally he wasn’t a minor, but we still would classify him as an adolescent. He’s still a person at this point in time where his brain has not fully developed.


Moon, Narrating: Of all people in the U.S. who’ve been exonerated after falsely confessing to murder, their median age at the time they were interrogated was 20 years old.


Red flag number three – Jason’s mom, Karen Carroll. Fabiana says Karen’s aggressive involvement in Lamy’s interrogation of Jason supercharged the carrots and sticks. Karen made it even more stressful for Jason to deny and repeatedly communicated that confessing was the only good outcome.


Karen Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: [FADE IN TAPE HISS] The longer you hold off telling the truth… [FADE UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Karen says, “The longer you hold off telling the truth the harder it’s gonna be, and the worse it’s going to be on yourself. You still have a chance to save your ass. My dear, I don’t want to see you go to prison.”


Jason says, “I don’t want to go to prison either, Ma.” Karen says, “Then tell us every goddamn thing you know.”


Karen Carroll: Then tell us every goddamn thing you know. [JASON CARROLL SOBS] [TAPE HISS FADES OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Remember, when Jason appealed his conviction to the New Hampshire Supreme Court in 1994, the judges ruled that if Jason’s mom had been acting as a police officer, the confession would’ve been thrown out. But because they said Karen wasn’t a police officer in that room, her conduct wasn’t relevant to them – since the state constitution doesn’t have anything to say about the way relatives question each other. But to a psychologist looking at whether Karen’s involvement made a false confession more likely, it definitely is relevant.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Red flag number four – maximization tactics. The sticks. Jason’s second interrogation especially is full of them.


Alceste: Ah, so, they say things like, “The jury will tear you apart if you’re not telling the truth here.” They repeatedly tell him that he’s not telling them the whole truth and he’s holding out on them and that they know that for sure.


Moon, Narrating: And the fifth red flag – contamination.


Alceste: So, we do see the interrogators revealing key details to Jason. And then, sometimes almost immediately after that, we see Jason incorporate those details into his story.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: We’re going to spend some time on this red flag because Jason’s knowledge of certain details about Sharon Johnson’s murder was a big point of contention at his trials. Remember, the state argued Jason could only have known so much if he was actually involved.


But Fabiana sees clear evidence that for at least some of those details, Jason likely learned them from the interrogators.


Here’s one example. During Jason’s second interrogation, detectives ask him, “Why did Ken Johnson want his wife murdered?” Jason says, quote, “I wasn’t briefed on that.” His mother pushes him for an answer. Then, Jason says, quote, “Because she knew something that Ken had done.”


And then, a detective with the Bedford Police Department, Leo Morency, jumps in and introduces a new idea.


Alceste: So, he asks, “What had he done? What had Ken done, raped his daughter?” And after that, Jason goes on to use this detail repeatedly. But he had never mentioned anything about Ken raping Lisa before Morency brought that up.


Moon, Narrating: Now, you might remember, this was an early theory police had that Ken Johnson had sexually abused his own stepdaughter, Lisa, and that Sharon caught him doing it.


But police later abandoned this theory because there’s no evidence for it. Lisa herself denied it. Tony said he was, in fact, the father of the child. And Tony never mentions it as a motive in his interrogations. By the time of Tony and Jason’s trials, prosecutors say the motive was Ken’s gambling debts, not a rape.


But once the idea is introduced to Jason – it sticks. It’s now a part of his story from that point on. Here he is repeating this idea in his third interrogation.


Unidentified Officer, On Interrogation Tape: Did he give you any explanation as to why she was to be killed?


Jason Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: Uh, he had told me that Johnson, she had caught Johnson raping his daughter and doing some other very – or heard about some very other criminal acts.


Moon, Narrating: Fabiana says it’s important to trace the genealogy of each detail in a confession.


Alceste: Is it something that the police had already thought in their theory before they even questioned anyone? Is it some– a new theory that arose out of the questioning of one of the suspects or witnesses? Where does each thought and fact and detail come from? Who states it first? Is it actually true?


Moon, Narrating: The idea that a rape was the motive for the murder was not reported on in the news. So if that idea isn’t true, and it wasn’t in the news, where else did Jason get it from if not the detectives? And if that happened with this detail, couldn’t it have happened with others?


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: If you trace the origin of other important details in Jason’s confession, you see a similar trajectory – detectives introducing ideas, Jason incorporating those ideas into his story.


Like the murder weapon. Even after Jason has admitted to stabbing Sharon, he gives a handful of different answers about where the murder weapon is. He says he doesn’t know. The detectives say that’s wrong. He says he burned it in a fire. They say that’s wrong. He says he threw it in a river. Wrong again.


And finally, Detective Lamy introduces the idea that the knife is at Jason’s house. Quote, “It’s at your house or you got it,” he says. Then, Karen introduces the idea of the specific knife. “Is it a small brown pocket knife?” Jason simply agrees with them.


Or how about the amount Jason was paid? According to police, before anything was tape-recorded, Jason said he was paid $500. Then, Lamy says, “I suspect that is not the accurate amount you got.” Jason changes his answer to $2,000. Then, later, to $5,000.


There’s Sharon’s bra – which, remember, was cut open in the front with a knife. One of those supposedly hidden details that only the killer would know. But Jason makes no mention of the bra until his third interrogation, when the idea is first introduced by police.


And then, when Jason gets the answer wrong (he says the bra was unsnapped), listen to the detectives give him multiple choice answers to try and help him match up his story to the evidence.


Neal Scott, On Interrogation Tape: [FADE UP TAPE HISS] How was the bra taken off?


Jason Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: The bra? It was unsnapped.


Scott: Unsnapped or torn? Do you recall?


Unidentified Officer: Cut, torn, unsnapped, pull over her head?


Carroll: To me– to me, the way it was goin’, it seemed like it was unsnapped.


Officer: Snapped in the front or the back?


Carroll: In the back. From what– it seemed like he was reaching around her to the back. [FADE OUT TAPE HISS]


So, not only does Jason not mention the bra until police specifically ask him about it – when he does incorporate the idea into his story, he does so in a way that gets the evidence wrong.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: There’s even evidence that detectives were willing to show Jason pictures of the crime scene. It happens during the interrogation with his mother.


Near the end of the tape, after Jason has already said he stabbed Sharon, Lamy asks Jason about Sharon’s rings. You might remember Sharon’s rings were found lying on the ground at the construction site.

Lamy says, “Who took the rings off of her hand, you haven’t told us anything about that. Why didn’t you tell us about that?”


Jason replies, “Because I didn’t know of any rings being on her hands.”

Lamy says, “Well, they were on her hands. Who took them off? You were there. Think clearly, think clearly now. They were found on the ground. Who took them off and why were they off?” 


And then, Lamy asks, presumably of one of the other detectives, if they have a picture they can show Jason. And from that moment on, the rings are part of Jason’s story.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon: So… [SIGHS] Alright, but so, a jury could hear this and think, “Well, um, whatever, he gets some of the details wrong and the details change and they get more incriminating – not because it’s what cops want to hear, but it’s because it’s the things that he doesn’t want to say.” So, why, why isn’t this evolution of details just a, a kind of slow, like, surrendering to the reality of what he’s done? Why, why can’t we say that’s what’s happening here?


Alceste: I think the hard part is that we can’t say that’s what’s not happening. We can’t prove just by analyzing what is going on in the interrogation – we can’t prove that this is a false confession just by anything that he has said or that the interrogators have said.


[MUSIC IN]


Alceste: All we have are, are the red flags. All we have are the red flags and what they amount to and how they interact with each other. They provide a reason to be skeptical of these interrogation practices and the confessions that resulted from them.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: After all of this, we’re back to the original problem of false confessions – they are so hard to detect, even for the interrogator. Fabiana says they often do not realize they’re planting the details of a false story.


Alceste: The majority of police officers and interrogators and detectives out there, when they’re interrogating someone and they are getting a confession and they are contaminating and they are making this person rehearse the confession over and over again, it’s because they really think that the person did it. And so, that is not always the case. I can point to some very specific people and instances where there have been set-ups by the police and the police knew that they were taking a false confession, and I think that that is rare. I think that that is the exception.


Moon, Narrating: Fabiana says the problem here is not about the intentions of individual interrogators. It’s bigger than that.


In 2012, the Attorney General for the state of Nebraska apologized and offered $500,000 in taxpayer money to a man who’d been wrongfully convicted. Darrel Parker had been coerced into a false confession in 1955 by a detective named John Reid. The most commonly used interrogation technique in the U.S. is named after a detective who extracted a false confession.


Alceste: The system, the culture that our detectives live in and are made to operate in sets them up for this specific kind of failure of not being able to realize that there’s an innocent person in front of them because it is so guilt presumptive. It is such an accusatory and confirmatory process. And so, I think that they’re just doing what they have been trained to do. They are doing what their police departments have done for decades and decades and decades.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: This is why recording interrogations from start to finish is the number one recommendation from experts like Fabiana to avoid convictions based on false confessions. In total, about an hour and a half of Jason’s interrogations were tape-recorded. That’s about 11 percent of the time Jason was questioned by police.


None of this is to say we should never trust any confession. Confessions can have green flags as well as red ones.


Alceste: One thing that you should be looking for are details that can be independently corroborated that the police did not know about beforehand. So, if a confession leads the police to new evidence, that’s a good sign that this might be a true confession.


Moon, Narrating: For instance, if Jason had led police to the location of Sharon’s shirt or her pocketbook, which were never found, it would’ve been strong evidence he was telling the truth.


But Jason didn’t. In fact, there’s not a single verifiable fact that comes from Jason’s confessions that police didn’t already know about in advance.


In criminal trials, the standard for convicting someone is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” It’s the highest burden of proof in our court system. It’s also notoriously vague. What makes a doubt reasonable? And what if doubts that seemed unreasonable in the early ‘90s, become reasonable 30 years later with new science? What do we do then?


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: In the courts, new doubts are often not enough to undo a conviction. So, what does it take? A new telling of the story?


Rabia Chaudry: My main goal is to raise the concerns around this conviction to the extent that it would encourage the state to revisit the evidence. And we have been lucky with other past cases that, almost in every case, we’ve been able to find somethin’. 


Sarah Cailean: Mhmm.


Chaudry: A witness who’s never talked before – just something. And that could happen, that could happen here, too.


Moon, Narrating: Or does it still take a miracle?


Cynthia Mousseau: What are you? [SOUND OF PAPER RUSTLING, GASPS] I need to stop for a second.


Moon, Narrating: That’s next time, on Bear Brook, Season 2: A True Crime Story.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Special thanks this episode to all of the scientists and lawyers whose work we relied on. They include Saul Kassin, Steven Drizin, Thomas Grisso, Gisli Gudjonsson, Richard Leo, Allison Redlich, Brandon Garrett, Emily West, Vanessa Meterko, Jennifer Perillo, Christian Meissner, Rebecca Norwick, Katherine Kiechel, William Crozier, Deryn Strange, Sara Appleby, Lisa Hasel, Kristyn Jones, Timothy Luke, Johanna Hellgren, Aria Amrom, the National Registry of Exonerations …and of course, Fabiana Alceste.


In 2022, 30 people in the U.S. were exonerated after convictions based on false confessions. The median amount of time they spent incarcerated was 24 years.


A True Crime Story is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon.


It’s edited by Katie Colaneri.


Additional reporting and research by Paul Cuno-Booth.


Photos and production help on this episode by Sarah Nathan.


Editing help from Lauren Chooljian, Daniela Allee, Sara Plourde, Taylor Quimby, Mara Hoplamazian, and Todd Bookman. 


Our News Director is Dan Barrick. Our Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie.


Fact-checking by Dania Suleman.


Sara Plourde created our original artwork, as well as our website, bearbrookpodcast.com.


Additional photography and videos by Gaby Lozada.


Original music for the series was created by me, Jason Moon.


Bear Brook is a production of the Document team at New Hampshire Public Radio.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Transcript of S2 Episode 6: 'Don't Roll the Dice'

Note: episode transcripts are radio scripts - please keep that in mind as you come across notations and errors in the text.

Previously on Bear Brook, Season 2: A True Crime Story:

 

[Roland Lamy] The jury is listening to you! You sound like a criminal, not a guy that made a terrible mistake!

[Jason Carroll] Sergeant, it’s not that easy. I hope you can understand that.

 

[Karen Carroll] I’m just thinking, this is my son, they’re trying to pin this murder on him and the word immunity is rolling around in my head.

 

[Mark Sisti] If we could dump it on Jason Carroll to get our guy off, we would’ve, but we didn’t even go in that direction. I mean, that confession was terrible.

 

 

[Jason Moon] I mean what was the first indication you got that something was going on?

 

[Jackie Carroll Hughes] First indication was… // Jason was not in the house. And it’s like, where’s Jason? All three of us kids kept asking that.

 

This is Jackie Carroll Hughes, Jason Carroll’s sister. The youngest of 4 children in the Carroll family. The night her brother was arrested, Jackie was 12 years old.

 

That night, Jackie didn’t know that police had interrogated her oldest brother over the last four days. She had no idea he’d been accused of murder. No idea he’d confessed.

 

She just knew something was up. Her parents were acting weird. And her brother wasn’t around.

 

[Jackie Carroll Hughes] It wasn’t until our mom came home the night he was arrested from the Bedford PD, // and we all came up off the couch at the same time and, “Where’s Jason?” She goes, “Just get your jackets on and let’s go” and we went down to the police department.

 

Jackie says the three kids – about 12, 14, and 16 years old – were led into a room with Jason and state police.

 

[Jackie Carroll Hughes] Jason’s handcuffed in the front, didn’t even take his handcuffs off, said you have five minutes, and we’re trying to give goodbyes as best we could. And, literally, five minutes, that’s all we got. And I want to say it was Roland Lamy that grabbed, you know, Jason by the upper arm and ushered him to a side door to take him out and I followed. You know, I always could go with Jason. And another man grabbed me and said, “No you can’t go.” And he was gone.

 

[mux in]

 

Jason’s arrest for the murder of Sharon Johnson and her unborn baby was all over the news. Karen Carroll says people vandalized their house. Jackie says she and her siblings were bullied at school.

 

[Jackie Carroll Hughes] And for me, it was not just the kids, but one of my teachers. // We were having a test and the bell rang and she’s the teacher that wants you to hand her the papers. // I handed her mine. I was one of the last ones and I handed her mine and it was a tug of war. And I’m like, “Fucking just take it,” you know? (laughs) And she just leaned into me and that’s when she said, “I hope he rots in hell.” And that was over with.

 

According to Jackie, she actually punched her teacher.

 

[Jackie Carroll Hughes] I took a couple swings at her.

 

[mux post]

 

A few years after Jason’s arrest, the Carroll family moved to South Carolina. Jackie was able to talk with her brother less and less.

 

[Jackie Carroll Hughes] I truly felt like we were abandoning Jason. And I still feel that way.

 

Jackie says her parents didn’t make it easy for her to stay in touch with Jason. It always bothered her. So in 1995, after she graduated high school, Jackie made up her mind to get in her car and visit Jason on her own.

 

[Jackie Carroll Hughes] That was our first physical reunion. My first solo road trip. (laughs)

 

[Jason Moon] Where did the idea for that come from? Like, how did that happen?

 

[Jackie Carroll Hughes] I just said, “Fuck it. I’m going to see Jason again.” I had friends up here, I could still stay with them. And that’s what I did. //

 

[Jason Moon] What was it like to see Jason again?

 

[Jackie Carroll Hughes] It was awesome. It was so awesome. The last time I had touched him - he has this thing he does with his toes to aggravate me. He purposefully will sit beside me, wiggle his toes, and I would just grab and frickin’ twist ‘em. So that was the last contact I had with him until March of ‘95 and it was like – it was awesome. I didn’t want to leave. If I could’ve stayed with him, I would’ve stayed. //  I think I cried all the way back as far as New York.

 

Through all of this, Jackie says she knew very little of what had actually happened in her brother’s case.

 

Jackie says this is because her parents, Jack and Karen Carroll, just didn’t really talk to the rest of the kids about what was going on with Jason. According to Jackie, she learned more about her brother’s case from the news on TV.

 

[Jason Moon] What do you make of that? I think people will be confused to hear that, like–

 

[Jackie Carroll Hughes] I’m confused, too. My mom and I have had discussions as adults. She swears that she spoke to us. My sister and I don’t recall it. We would’ve had a better understanding. // I mean we were always a quiet family. And then when this happened, we moved away, it was even more quiet. It was deafening, it was so silent.

 

Jackie knew a place where she might find some answers. A place many kids know to look in for the things adults don’t want them to see: their parents’ closet.

 

Jackie knew there was a copy of the discovery documents from Jason’s case in her parents’ closet. Huge three-ring binders with thousands of pages of police reports and court papers.

 

Jackie says one day, she marched into her parents’ room and claimed it.

 

[Jackie Carroll Hughes] Back then, the room that’s off-limits is your parents’ bedroom. // And it was me and my dad home that day. And I just got up and I went in there where they kept ‘em in the closet, and he’s watching ‘cause it’s off limits, and I came out and he saw what I had and he didn’t say a word to me. And that’s where it started.

 

For the first time, Jackie was able to look directly at what led to her brother’s arrest. It was part grieving and part mystery-solving.

 

[Jackie Carroll Hughes] I just picked up a book and started reading. I knew something wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what wasn’t right.

 

Studying the documents became an obsession. Jackie read and re-read the binders. She took notes and dog-eared pages.

 

The binders survived year after year, move after move. I got the feeling if the house had ever caught fire, Jackie would’ve saved the binders first. She felt, somehow, the answer to all of this – or at least the breadcrumbs for how to find it, were somewhere in those pages.

 

[Jason Moon] Was there a part of you that was anxious when you first started looking at the discovery documents that, like, maybe I'm going to find evidence of Jason's guilt in here?

 

[Jackie Carroll Hughes] I wasn't thinking that way. I don't think my anxiety had even kicked in. I was just reading and laying out the case. // I put the relationship aside and I just started investigating. If he's guilty, he's guilty. If he's not, we're going to prove this.

 

This is Bear Brook, Season 2: A True Crime Story. I’m Jason Moon.

 

[mux up & out]

 

 

By 1992, pressure was mounting on New Hampshire state prosecutors to hold someone responsible for the murder of Sharon Johnson. Ken Johnson and Tony Pfaff were walking free. Detective Roland Lamy’s credibility was being questioned in the press.

 

The trial of Jason Carroll might be their last chance to notch a win.

 

[mux in]

 

So far, it seemed like everything was going the defendants’ way. But Jason’s lawyers were anxious. They knew the state would learn from what happened at Tony’s trial.

 

[Cliff Kinghorn] I always thought that the defendant that went first, that was found not guilty, I think the state figures out the problems they had with the case and if you’re second in line, I always thought that was a disadvantage.

 

[Eric Wilson] I agree. Hung juries, too. The state changes, tweaks their case or they recognize the weaknesses of their case, and they get a practice run.

 

This is Cliff Kinghorn and Eric Wilson, two of the attorneys who represented Jason.

 

You met Cliff earlier - he had that big argument with Jason’s mom. Eric, who is also a former marine, worked under Cliff back in 1992.

 

[Eric Wilson] I was working for Cliff and Steve. I was still in law school at the time. I was in my second year of law school.

 

The third member of the team was Steve Maynard, Cliff’s partner at their law firm. Cliff once told a reporter, at the end of every day he and Steve would sit down together and have a beer. “And we always only have one beer,” Cliff joked. Steve Maynard died last year, so you won’t hear from him, but you will hear more about him.

 

So: Cliff, his partner and friend Steve, and Eric the apprentice. Together, they went into Jason’s trial in February of 1992.

 

[mux out]

 

In many ways, Jason’s trial was a rehash of Tony’s. Many of the same witnesses testified. And the same lack of physical evidence meant – again – everything would rest on whether the jury believed Jason’s confession tapes.

 

But it wasn’t exactly the same. There were some key differences that strengthened the prosecution’s hand.

 

Remember how in Tony’s trial, Jason’s confession was some of the defense’s best evidence? Tony’s lawyers pointed out all the differences between the stories Jason and Tony told about the murder.

 

Jason’s attorneys wanted to do the same thing. They wanted Jason’s jury to hear Tony’s confession.

 

[Eric Wilson] We tried to get his statement in // to Jason’s jury so they could see how the two confessions to the same crime just didn’t match // and Judge Murphy ruled it was not admissible.

 

Tony’s confession was not admissible as evidence in Jason’s trial. It was hearsay.

 

Remember, the hearsay rule generally does not allow into a trial statements made outside of court. Tony’s lawyers were able to sidestep this because police interrogated Tony after Jason. Tony’s confession was shaped by Jason’s and so Tony’s jury got to hear both. Jason’s lawyers couldn’t use that argument, since Jason’s confessions were taped first.

 

The upshot of all this is that Jason’s jury did not hear Tony’s confession. They did not learn about the differences in their stories. They heard Jason’s confessions on their own.

 

[mux in]

 

Another key difference: Detective Lamy. During Tony’s trial, he played right into the defense’s strategy when he got caught breaking the rule about not speaking to other witnesses. Lamy was not going to make the same mistake twice.

 

The judge did tell the jurors in Jason’s trial that Lamy had violated a court order in an earlier proceeding, but it didn’t have the same impact.

 

            [mux post]

 

Still, Jason’s lawyers tried to run largely the same defense that had acquitted Tony: There’s no physical evidence, the confession can’t be true, and it was all thanks to an intimidating and reckless detective.

 

[Eric Wilson] How can you undercut that confession? To show the confession was coerced and it was not reliable. That had to be – there really is no other defense to a confession case other than the confession’s a false confession.

 

There were a number of things Jason said in his confessions that just didn’t line up with the physical evidence.

 

I’m going to walk you through five of them. Five problems the defense said made Jason’s confessions unreliable.

 

[mux post]

 

Problem one: the knife.

 

The state medical examiner originally estimated that the length of the knife used to murder Sharon Johnson was “probably at least in the neighborhood of four inches. Perhaps could be longer.”

 

There were two blades on Jason’s pocketknife. The longer one was 2 ⅛ inches long.

 

[mux post]

 

Now, the medical examiner made his original estimate based on the depth of the wound in Sharon’s back – the deepest of the 14 stab wounds.

 

But during Tony and Jason’s trials, he backs out of that estimate. He says his measurement may have been imprecise because Sharon’s lung had collapsed.

 

And he maintains that the stab wounds in Sharon’s chest are consistent with Jason’s pocket knife.

 

The implication from Jason’s attorneys: the medical examiner was conveniently changing his scientific opinion to fit the state’s narrative about Jason’s pocket knife as the murder weapon.

 

[mux post]

 

Problem two: the lineup.

 

[Officer] Jason has been shown two folders with eight photographs of eight white males in same, all numbered.

 

During Jason’s final recorded interrogation, police show him a photo lineup. One of the eight photos is of Ken Johnson.

 

[Officer] Of the eight people in that lineup, Jason has recognized and pointed out the male subject in number five. And can you tell me again Jason why you focused your attention on the individual in number five?

 

[Jason Carroll] Because I remember the black beard.

 

Jason says number five is Ken Johnson. Only number five is not Ken Johnson. Ken did not have a beard the day of the murder. Jason could not identify the man who allegedly paid him to murder his wife. Who Jason told police was there during the murder.

 

I’ve seen the photo lineup. Ken is number two – the photo right above the one Jason picks.

 

[mux out]

 

Problem three: the diagrams.

 

On the day in between Jason’s two taped confessions, police had him draw a diagram of the area where Sharon’s body was found. Jason drew three.

 

I’ve seen all three of Jason’s drawings, I’ve seen aerial photographs of the scene, I’ve seen a videotape of the scene. There is just no way to make Jason’s drawings map on to reality. He never draws the pond that Sharon’s body was found at the edge of. He draws a foundation that doesn’t exist. He draws a road running by the area that in reality is more than a mile away from where Sharon’s body was found.

 

[mux in]

 

Problem four: the stereo.

 

You might remember Jason originally said he spent the money Ken paid him for the murder on marijuana. But later, he said he used the money to buy new tires and a stereo system for his truck.

 

Jason didn’t own his truck, he leased it on a handshake deal with a guy he once worked with. That guy testified at Jason’s trial. He said he had to repossess the truck because Jason couldn’t make the payments. And when he took it back, he said the truck did not have new tires or a new stereo. In fact, he says it was in terrible shape.

 

[mux out]

 

And then, there was problem number five: the diary.

 

[Debbie Dutra] When all this happened and Jason got arrested, I went to my father and I’m like, “Dad, there’s no way – we were gone this weekend.”

 

Debbie Dutra was friends with Jason in the summer of 1988, the summer of the murder. By the way this is a different Debbie – not the one who met Jason cruising on Elm Street. This Debbie’s best friend was Jason’s girlfriend at the time.

 

[Debbie Dutra] He hung out with us all the time. I mean, we were always together, all of us.

 

When the news of Jason’s arrest broke, Debbie could not believe it – at first, because she just couldn’t imagine her friend doing something like that. But then, she really couldn’t believe it because she remembered she was with Jason just a few days after the murder.

 

[mux in]

 

Sharon was murdered on a Thursday night. According to the final version of Jason’s confessions, he and Tony went to Ken’s house on Saturday morning to collect their payment.

 

But Debbie remembered that Saturday, Jason was with her, and two other people, on a trip to a lake about an hour north.

 

So Debbie, who’s around 18 at the time, tells her father she’s going to call the police.

 

[Debbie Dutra] I said, “I gotta say something, Dad.” I said, “I can’t not say anything.” And so my father listened on the other end, // we had the landlines, // and I said, “Listen, this is what’s happening. I know he wasn’t there because he was with us.” And that’s why Lamy showed up at our door.

 

[mux post]

 

When detectives first questioned her about this trip, Debbie says they tried hard to convince her she was confused. According to Debbie, they kept saying she must be thinking about a different weekend. And she says eventually she caved and said she must’ve been thinking of Labor Day weekend.

 

But privately, Debbie still thought she was right. And then, she remembered she had proof: her diary. It confirmed - Jason was with her that Saturday morning.

 

[Debbie Dutra] My biggest concern with it was I didn’t want it being publicized. That’s like a diary, you know, a girl’s diary. It had stuff in there I didn’t want anyone to know.

 

Debbie eventually did turn over her diary. She was the defense’s first witness at Jason’s trial.

 

And it wasn’t just Debbie’s diary that undermined Jason’s story about getting paid. In his confession, Jason says he and Tony got to Ken’s house around 11 or 11:30 that Saturday morning to get the money.

 

But that morning, the police were also at Ken’s house. They were staked out outside, surveilling the house, and making a log of everyone who came and went.

 

But – prosecutors seized on the fact that the police surveillance didn’t start until 11:30 a.m. And Debbie’s diary didn’t say exactly what time they left for the lake that morning. So in theory, it is still possible that Jason and Tony went to Ken’s earlier in the morning before the police were watching the house and before Jason went to the lake with his friends.

 

[mux out]

 

 

The knife, the lineup, the diagrams, the stereo, the diary. Jason’s lawyers made their case for why the confession simply could not be true.

 

Now, they turned their attention to Detective Lamy.

 

Steve Maynard tells the jury Lamy fancies himself a QUOTE “Kojak throwback.”

 

Cliff says you can hear how Lamy coerced Jason right there on the tapes. 

 

[Cliff Kinghorn] There are so many inconsistencies. // I mean, even in Jason’s statement. “Who stabbed her first?” “Ken did.” “You sure it was Ken?” “No, it was me.” I mean Jason just kept flipping. You could see the pressure he was under. Whatever they wanted to hear, Jason was going to tell them. // They could’ve asked him at that point in time if he believed in Santa Claus, he probably would’ve said yes if he thought that’s what they wanted to hear.

 

But the defense didn’t rely simply on the tapes. They also had a witness. A person they argued could’ve easily been sitting where Jason was because Lamy used all the same tricks on him.

 

[mux in]

 

The witness’s name was George Scott McDonald. George worked with Jason and Tony at High-Tech Fire Prevention, the restaurant exhaust cleaning company. George was a manager at High-Tech. And about 8 years older than Jason and Tony.

 

George was actually an important witness for both sides. George testifies the night of Sharon’s murder, he thinks he saw Jason drop off Tony for work. The state liked that because it put two of the three alleged conspirators together the night of the murder.

 

But the defense liked George because of what he had to say about Detective Lamy. George tells a story about Lamy that sounds an awful lot like what Tony’s – and now Jason’s – lawyers say happened to them.

 

[mux post]

 

George, like Tony, had some preexisting legal problems when Lamy first talked to him in October of 1989 – the month before police interrogated and arrested Jason and Tony. George had a habit of giving cops fake names when they pulled him over so they wouldn’t arrest him for driving without a license. He was also fraudulently collecting workers’ comp payments.

 

After their first meeting, Lamy knew all of this about George – told him he knew – but didn’t have him arrested for his outstanding warrants.

 

The implication from Jason’s lawyers was that Lamy was holding the charges over his head as leverage – just like what Tony’s lawyers said happened to him.

 

And just like with Tony, Lamy does make some of the charges against George disappear.

 

[mux post]

 

George also testifies that before Jason and Tony were arrested, Lamy told him he suspected them both. And if that’s true, it would mean that Lamy already thought Jason was involved in the murder before that first interrogation at the armory. Lamy denies this in his own testimony. He says Jason was not a suspect before their first meeting.

 

[mux post]

 

George testifies, eventually, Lamy began to suspect him of being involved in the murder, too. George says over a series of 10 to 12 meetings, Lamy accused him of taking part in the murder. In his testimony, Lamy denies this.

 

But George says that one time, Lamy even drove him out to the construction site where Sharon’s body was found and asked him if the area looked familiar to him. Lamy denies this.

 

[mux post]

 

Even after Jason and Tony gave confessions that do not include mentions of George whatsoever, George says Lamy continued to suspect him of being involved. He says Lamy told him the two boys weren’t smart enough to pull this off on their own. He must’ve helped them plan it.

 

[mux out]

 

According to George, Lamy even told him that Jason implicated George in his confession, which is not true. Again, Lamy denies ever accusing George of the murder.

 

But George says Lamy told him he knew he was guilty, he should confess and things would go easier for him. George says he was scared by all this. But ultimately, he didn’t confess like Tony or Jason.

 

Jason’s lawyers said that was because George was older, had more experience dealing with cops. In short, they argued he was less vulnerable to Lamy’s pressure campaign than the two 19-year-olds who worked under George.

 

[mux in]

 

So that was the defense Jason’s lawyers put on: problems with the confession that made it impossible. And an overbearing detective whose theory of the case always seemed to come before the evidence to support it.

 

But just as they’d feared, the state had learned from Tony’s trial.

 

This time around, prosecutors were better prepared to fight back against the onslaught of inconsistencies in the confession. This time, they zeroed in on their own set of moments from the confession tapes.

 

Prosecutors said there were two moments in particular – two things Jason said that did line up with reality in a way that was so damning, it proved he committed the murder.

 

[mux out]

 

It’s important to point out that most of the information about Sharon’s murder was in the news before Jason was interrogated.

 

And that allowed the defense to argue that that’s where Jason could've gotten the info from. He knew details about the murder, not because he was there, but in the same way you know details about the murder – from a journalist.

 

But not everything was reported.

 

Prosecutors said investigators intentionally withheld two facts: that Sharon was stabbed in the back AND that her bra had been opened. Those were things, prosecutors said, only the killer would know. And Jason included both in his confessions.

 

It is a little more complicated than that.

 

At first, Jason says there were two stabs in Sharon’s back. So he’s right about a stab in the back, but at least at one point, he’s wrong about the number.

 

And the bra? Here’s how Jason describes what happened with Sharon’s bra in his final taped interrogation. Keep in mind here the correct answer is that Sharon’s bra was cut open in the front with a knife.

 

[Neal Scott] How was the bra taken off?

 

[Jason Carroll] The bra? It was unsnapped.

 

[Neal Scott] Unsnapped or torn? Do you recall?

 

[Officer] Cut, torn, unsnapped, pull over her head?

 

[Jason Carroll] To me– to me, the way it was– it seemed like it was unsnapped.

 

[Officer] Snapped in the front or the back?

 

[Jason Carroll] In the back. From what– it seemed like he was reaching around to the back.

 

[mux in]

 

What was more convincing? The problems in Jason’s confession, or the allegedly hidden facts in Jason’s confession? Was Jason coerced and intimidated by Lamy and his mother? Or was he coerced and intimidated by his own conscience?

 

After a trial that lasted about a week, it was now up to the jury to decide. Could they be certain Jason was guilty?

 

[Tom Dufresne] The deliberation, after the trial with the jurors, that was somewhat tense. We had a couple of people – we had both ends of the spectrum.

 

Juror Tom Dufresne says, at first, he was somewhere in the middle.

 

On the one hand, he didn’t find Detective Lamy to be credible at all.

 

[Tom Dufresne] I still to this day wouldn’t believe him if he told me it was, you know, 11:30, you know? // And just his whole attitude and demeanor, you know… You're dealing with people's lives here and he just acted like he was so nonchalant. That was not credible to me.

 

But, on the big question…

 

[Jason Moon] But ultimately, did you find– were you convinced that Jason was guilty of the crime?

 

[Tom Dufresne] Oh yeah, he admitted to… if I recall correctly, he admitted to stabbing her at least once. This was a horrible crime. //  I mean, that's… why would you say that if you didn’t do it?

 

Mark Phaneuf was another juror. He didn’t see any problem with Lamy – thought he was entirely credible. And the fact that Jason didn’t have an alibi helped convince him.

 

[Mark Phaneuf] Maybe at the beginning there were some people who thought that he wasn’t involved, but as we spent more time with the evidence, I think everyone came to the thought that he was there, but couldn’t be definitive whether he physically was involved.

 

It seems the jury was convinced Jason was involved, but for some reason, they weren’t convinced he was the one who actually stabbed Sharon.

 

Tom says the way the story read to him, of the three alleged murderers, Jason was the least responsible. To him, it seemed like Jason was a decent kid who got roped into this by the real villains: Tony and Ken.

 

[Tom Dufresne] We kind of knew that there were other people involved, but they weren't being, they weren't in this trial. And Jason's participation in it was certainly at the least, I guess he did admit to stabbing the woman, but he shouldn't have had the full weight of punishment put on him, I don't think.

 

Whether it was because they weren’t certain if Jason had actually swung the blade himself, or that they just felt sympathy for him, the jury could not agree on the first degree murder charge.

 

[Mark Phaneuf]  We went back to the judge // and we asked if we could find him guilty of a lesser crime and we were told no.

 

The jury didn’t have discretion on the murder charge, but that wasn’t the only thing Jason was charged with. He was also charged with kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder.

 

And so a conflicted jury came down with a conflicted verdict: Deadlocked on the charge of first-degree murder. Not guilty on the charge of kidnapping. Guilty on the charge of conspiracy to commit murder.

 

[mux in]

 

If you’re confused by this, so am I. The evidence for these charges is the same: Jason’s confession. If you believe Jason’s confession, he was guilty of all three.

 

But juries are human. And as much as the court system may claim to be a venue for finding absolute truth, at the end of the day, in a criminal jury trial, the truth is really just what 12 people can agree on.

 

[mux post]

 

Jason was now a convicted felon. He would later be sentenced to 6-14 years in prison on this charge. The state had finally held someone at least partially responsible for Sharon’s murder.

 

But the jury deadlocked on the most serious charge. And that meant the state would retry the case. The stories would be told again. And another jury would get to decide what was true.

 

[Debra Carr] We took a vote right off the bat and it was pretty much split down the middle.

 

That’s after the break.

 

[mux out]

 

************************MIDROLL***************************

 

One night in the spring of 1992, after Jason’s first trial, Jason’s lawyers, Cliff and Steve were leaving the jail after talking to Jason. In the car on the drive back, they got into a heated discussion.

 

[Cliff Kinghorn] Steve and I never had harsh words and Steve told me that night on the way back. He said, “You crossed a line today.” He said, “You really leaned on him pretty hard.” And I said, “You know, Steve, you’re probably right. I probably did cross the line. But it was a line I didn’t mind crossing.”

 

[mux in]

 

Cliff and Steve had just told Jason about a major new development. The state was offering him a new last-minute plea deal.

 

Prosecutors were making another play at getting Jason to testify against Ken.

 

The lead prosecutor, Michael Ramsdell, wouldn’t talk to me, so I can’t corroborate this. Jason told me he can’t remember much of anything about his trials, including this moment.

 

But as Cliff remembers it, the state was offering only a handful more years in prison for Jason, if he would just testify against Ken.

 

Cliff says Jason refused.

 

[mux post]

 

Ironically, it was the kind of deal that Karen Carroll says Lamy had promised them in the beginning. But this time, it was official. And Cliff knew - it was by far the best deal Jason would ever get. Losing at trial could cost him another 40 years or more. So he begged Jason – take the deal.

 

[mux out]

 

[Cliff Kinghorn] If that’s the truth, what you told Lamy and your mother, if that’s the truth, why would you want to take the risk of spending 30, 40 years in the New Hampshire State Prison? // For the love of god, don’t roll the dice! I’m begging you, don’t roll the dice!

 

Many defense attorneys don’t worry about the actual truth of their client’s guilt or innocence. Their job is the same either way: provide the best defense for their client. But for Cliff, when Jason refused to take this deal before his second trial – it affected him. He couldn’t shake the thought that the only reason Jason would refuse this deal was if he was really innocent.

 

[Cliff Kinghorn] And I always said to myself, that statement can’t be true. Something’s wrong here. Something’s… // Why the hell would you not want to testify? “I’m not testifying. I’m not going to do it.” He never, ever changed – and when he made that mind up, he never changed it, in any way shape or form.

 

[mux in]

 

Jason’s second trial went much the same as the first. The defense pointed at Lamy, pointed at the problems in Jason’s confession. The prosecutors pointed at the hidden facts in Jason’s confession. And they also actually embraced the errors in what Jason said.

 

In his closing argument of the second trial, prosecutor Michael Ramsdell says if this was all a set-up by police, why wasn’t the confession more consistent? Why does Jason get things wrong if the cops are telling him what to say? To Michael, it was like the mistakes in Jason’s confessions were the coffee stain on the paper that proved it wasn’t a counterfeit. To him, the hidden facts that Jason knew proved he was there. And the public facts Jason got wrong proved he wasn’t set up by police.

 

Michael argued the other reason the jurors should believe Jason’s confession: the emotion. He told the jurors to re-listen to the entire tape of Jason confessing to his mother. To really listen. To feel it. Michael said the emotions in the tape make clear what’s going on: a young man admitting a terrible secret to his own mother.

 

[Karen Carroll] If you put a knife… If you put a knife in that woman, I want to know. You stabbed her, didn’t you?

 

[Jason Carroll] Yes I did, BLEEP.

 

[Karen Carroll] How many times did you stab her?

 

[Jason Carroll] I stabbed her three times.

 

[Karen Carroll] Alright.

 

[Roland Lamy] Who else stabbed her? Who else stabbed her, truthfully?

 

(Jason cries)

 

[mux in]

 

Michael Ramsdell told the jury, “That emotion is powerful. It's compelling. It allows you to feel with every fiber in your body he did kill Sharon Johnson.”

 

[mux post]

 

Steve Maynard argued the closing for Jason. He pointed to that same emotion as the reason the jury shouldn’t believe the confession. Steve called Jason’s interrogation a “psychological bludgeoning.” He said, “There is no way you can listen to that tape and believe that kid had anything left – any free will left. He was destroyed. He was destroyed by his mother. He was destroyed by Sergeant Lamy.”

 

[mux out]

 

[Dan Philie] We listened to that recording many, many times, over and over, that I remember.

 

The jurors in Jason’s second trial deliberated for four days. Dan Philie was one of them.

 

As Dan remembers it, he and the rest of the jurors all believed Jason’s confession was the truth. But another juror, Debra Carr, remembers it differently.

 

[Debra Carr] We took a vote right off the bat and it was pretty much split down the middle.

 

Debra says some of the jurors had concerns about the way the police interrogated Jason.

 

[Debra Carr] We did all agree that it was coerced, it was pressured. He had his mother and the, I believe it was the state police detective hounding him, so we didn’t even take that into consideration.

 

But despite her belief that Jason’s confession was coerced, Debra, like Dan, still thought it was the truth.

 

[Debra Carr] I don’t think it was false, but I do believe that he was pressured into confessing. // The defendant knew something that wasn’t out in the public eye. // It was something only somebody who had been there would’ve known.

 

[mux in]

 

The day before they started deliberating, the judge agreed with state prosecutors that the jury could have the option of finding Jason guilty of second-degree murder – instead of first-degree. First-degree murder is premeditated. Second-degree is not.

 

Now to the state, the truth was that Jason accepted money to commit a murder – clearly first-degree. But prosecutors were willing to have Jason convicted, even if it wasn’t on their theory of the case.

 

As jurors like Dan and Debra were trying to come to consensus, Jason waited in a holding cell at the courthouse. When I asked him what he remembered about waiting for the verdict, he told me a story about a spider.

 

[Jason Carroll] I’d be laying down and then one day I noticed a spider on the floor walking towards me.

 

Jason says in the long hours of waiting, alone, to find out what was going to happen to his life, a spider kept walking towards him.

 

[Jason Carroll] So it kept coming my way and I’m not a big fan of spiders. So I got up and went to the bench on the other side of the holding cell. And I’m sitting there and the next thing I know, there’s that damn spider coming at me again from the other direction. 

 

At first it was just a nuisance, just a spider that he happened to be trapped with. But the longer it went on, the more Jason started to think, “Is this what the rest of my life is going to be?”

 

[Jason Carroll] And I remember thinking to myself, “What’s this, a sign to come or something? You know, I’m going to counting bricks and spiders all day long?”

 

 

[Jason Carroll] And then they bring you upstairs because they found a verdict. And then… you stand up and they find you guilty and you’re looking over at them and they’re crying… And…it didn’t even seem like I was standing there… I couldn’t believe it.

 

[Cliff Kinghorn] Jason took it just the way I would’ve expected him to. He wasn’t shocked. // He took it on the chin, but I mean, he didn’t become emotional about it… I always thought Jason should’ve been in the Marine Corps for god sakes. He could be so stoic sometimes, it drove me crazy. Sometimes it was hard to get him to be emotional.

 

After 30 hours of deliberation, the jury found Jason Carroll guilty of second-degree murder. Later, a judge sentenced him to 40 years to life in prison – in addition to his earlier sentence.

 

Here’s juror Dan Philie again.

 

[Dan Philie] That’s a big accusation for someone to come out and admit that they did something when they didn’t do it. You know, robbing somebody or, you know, stealing something out of a grocery store is one thing, but, you know, the consequences are heavy here, so you want to really think about that. I don’t think that someone would just come out and say, “Yeah, OK, I did it.”

 

Juror Debra Carr says in the years since Jason’s trial, she’s come to understand that people do falsely confess to crimes they didn’t commit. Debra spoke with my colleague Paul Cuno-Booth at her home. The dog was in the next room.

 

[Debra Carr] I don’t think that happened here.

 

[Paul Cuno-Booth] Why not?

 

[Debra Carr] I just believe that he was part of that. That he was there and he was part of it. They strangled her and stabbed her.

 

After the jury convicted Jason, they were allowed to learn for the first time that Tony and Ken had not been convicted. For some, it was a shock.

 

[Dan Philie] It was kinda… It kinda takes you back a little bit. I mean, here’s this one individual who seemed to be like a straight-going guy being convicted of this and the actual person who hired him to do the deed got away. // You know, it was just kind of frustrating to see that somebody like this actually got away with it and this individual got // life in prison or whatever it was, 30 years or whatever.

 

It’s something I heard from jurors in Jason’s first trial, too. Like Tom Dufresne. A sense of imbalance in the justice that was meted out.

 

[Tom Dufresne] I remember having a conversation with a couple of gentlemen as we left, and saying, that is, it’s not right, you know? // I remember telling people the kid got screwed. I was not happy with the results after the fact, but given the circumstances, I don’t think I’d change my mind today. But, especially the fact that he’s still in prison – that’s ridiculous. That’s… That ain’t right.

 

But this was exactly why the jurors weren’t allowed to know this information. In the eyes of the court, justice shouldn’t be relative.

 

Although - sometimes it can seem arbitrary.

 

[Cliff Kinghorn] After the jury returned its verdict about a year or so afterwards, the second jury, I was at Southern New Hampshire for a medical, a minor medical procedure and the nurse that was working with me said to me, “Do you remember me?” And I said, “No, I'm sorry. I don't.” She said, “I was one of the jurors on the second Jason Carroll murder case.” // She said, “I was on, I was chosen as an alternate. I didn't take part in the deliberations.” And she said, “I have to tell you, if I had been on that jury, hell would have frozen over before I would have convicted that kid.” I'll never forget that as long as I live. That's the luck of alternates. She said, “I listened to that confession. I listened to him sobbing, and I have a young son and I just said, ‘There's no way I'm going to pay any attention to that.’”

 

[mux in]

 

In 1994 the New Hampshire Supreme Court took up Jason’s case on appeal. Jason’s lawyers argued his confession should never have been allowed in because he was coerced by his mother.

 

[Eric Wilson] And the decision that the Supremes came down would they acknowledge, had Karen been acting as a police officer, then Jason's will would certainly have been overborne. But they… they said that she was acting in the capacity as a mother, not a police officer.

 

In their decision, the state Supreme Court writes:

 

“Without Karen Carroll’s frenzied, emotional, and insistent questioning of her son, the defendant may well not have confessed. Consistently, it was her questioning, not Lamy’s, that reduced the defendant to tears and preceded his crucial admissions. Our constitution would not tolerate such conduct by a State actor, but here, Karen Carroll conducted herself in her private capacity as a mother.”

 

Jason says he was outside on the prison baseball field when he found out in the newspaper that the appeal had failed. His options had run out.

 

[mux out]

 

For the next few decades, virtually nothing happened with Jason’s case. Cliff, Steve, and Eric didn’t represent him anymore. He couldn’t afford to hire anybody. As far as Jason could tell, it was over.

 

But outside the prison walls, it was not. 

 

[mux in]

 

Two things were in motion that would lead us to where we are now.

 

One: Jason’s sister, Jackie.

 

She helped push Jason to write to the New England Innocence Project. When the lawyers showed interest - Jackie knew what she had to do. The binders of discovery documents. The symbols of what had happened to her family - that Jackie had obsessed, grieved, and pored over. It was time to let them go.

 

In 2016, Jackie packed the binders in a car and made a road trip from Texas, where she lived at the time, to Massachusetts to meet with the innocence lawyers. She brought her eldest daughter with her.

 

[Jackie Carroll Hughes] When she finally realized, when these four women approached us in the lobby, she realized just exactly what I was handing over. This was, like, my life’s work and she knew what that meant to me. And she looked at me, and she literally had tears in her eyes. She says, “Mommy, are you sure?”

 

Jason’s attorney with the New England Innocence Project tells me the fact that Jackie saved the discovery documents was huge. In cases this old, documents often go missing. The binders jump-started the work on getting Jason’s case back into court.

 

[mux post]

 

The other thing in motion over the past 30 years: our understanding of confessions.

 

While Jason sat in prison, a revolution was underway. Alarming evidence - from research and real-life examples - was teaching us how and why and how often, people were falsely confessing to crimes they didn’t commit.

 

Things we simply did not know when Jason was on trial.

 

[Dr. Fabiana Alceste] What has to happen? What is the order of events? What kinds of situational pressures do you have to face in order to do something that goes against your own self-interest so much that you confess to a crime – to the police – that you did not actually commit, that you had nothing to do with?

 

Like genetic genealogy transformed how cold-cases would be solved, this science transformed what we believed was possible about confessions.

 

Thirty years later, could it amount to new evidence in Jason’s case?

 

That’s next time on Bear Brook, Season 2: A True Crime Story.

 

[mux up & out]

 

A True Crime Story is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon.

 

It’s edited by Katie Colaneri.

 

Additional reporting and research by Paul Cuno-Booth. And an extra shoutout to Paul this episode for doing most of the work it took to track down jurors from Tony and Jason’s trials.

 

Editing help from Lauren Chooljian, Daniela Allee, Sara Plourde, Taylor Quimby, Mara Hoplamazian, and Todd Bookman. 

 

Our News Director is Dan Barrick. Our Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie.

 

Fact-checking by Dania Suleman.

 

Sara Plourde created our original artwork, as well as our website, bearbrookpodcast.com.

 

Additional photography and videos by Gaby Lozada.

 

Original music for the series was created by me, Jason Moon.

 

Bear Brook is a production of the Document team at New Hampshire Public Radio.

Transcript of S2 Episode 5: Trial in a Trial

Note: episode transcripts are radio scripts - please keep that in mind as you come across notations and errors in the text.

[THEME MUSIC IN]


Lauren Chooljian, Narrating: Previously on Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story…


Lamy, On Interrogation Tape: [FADE IN TAPE HISS] The jury is listening to you! You sound like a criminal, not a guy that’s made a terrible mistake!


Jason Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: Sergeant, it’s not that easy. I hope you can understand that. [FADE OUT TAPE HISS]


Karen Carroll, On the Phone: I’m just thinkin’, “This is my son. They’re trying to pin this murder on him.” And the word “immunity” is rolling around in my head.


Mark Sisti: We had a co-defendant, and if we could dump it on Jason Carroll to get our guy off, we would’ve, but we didn’t even go in that direction. I mean, that, that confession was terrible!


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Jason Moon: I mean, what was the first indication that you got that somethin’ was going on?


Jackie Carroll Hughes: First indication was… Jason was not in house. And it’s like, where’s Jason? All three of us kids kept askin’ that.


Jason Moon, Narrating: This is Jackie Carroll Hughes, Jason Carroll’s sister. The youngest of four children in the Carroll family. The night her brother was arrested, Jackie was 12 years old.


That night, Jackie didn’t know that police had interrogated her oldest brother over the last four days. She had no idea he’d been accused of murder. No idea he’d confessed. She just knew something was up. Her parents were acting weird and her brother wasn’t around.


Carroll Hughes: It wasn’t until our mom came home the night he was arrested from the Bedford PD, and we all come up off the couch at the same time and, “Where’s Jason?” She goes, “Just get your jackets on and let’s go,” and we went down to the police department.


Moon, Narrating: Jackie says the three kids – about 12, 14, and 16 years old – were led into a room with Jason and state police.


Carroll Hughes: Jason’s handcuffed in the front, didn’t even take his handcuffs off, said,
“You have five minutes,” and we’re trying to give goodbyes as best we could. And, literally, five minutes, that’s all we got. And I want to say it was Roland Lamy that grabbed, you know, Jason by the upper arm and ushered him to a side door [CELL PHONE MAKES NOISE] to take him out and I followed. You know, I always could go with Jason. And another man grabbed me and said, “No you can’t go.” And he was gone.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Jason’s arrest for the murder of Sharon Johnson and her unborn baby was all over the news. Karen Carroll says people vandalized their house. Jackie says she and her siblings were bullied at school.


Carroll Hughes: And for me, it was not just the kids, but one of my teachers. We were havin’ a test and the bell rang and she’s the teacher that wants you to hand her the papers. I handed her mine. I was one of the last ones. I handed her mine and it was a tug of war. And I’m like, “Fuckin’ just take it,” you know? [LAUGHS] And she just leaned into me and that’s when she said, “I hope he rots in hell.” And that was over with.


Moon, Narrating: According to Jackie, she actually punched her teacher.


Carroll Hughes: I took a couple swings at her.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: A few years after Jason’s arrest, the Carroll family moved to South Carolina. Jackie was able to talk with her brother less and less.


Carroll Hughes: I truly felt like we were abandoning Jason. And I still feel that way.


Moon, Narrating: Jackie says her parents didn’t make it easy for her to stay in touch with Jason. And it always bothered her. So in 1995, after she graduated high school, Jackie made up her mind to get in her car and visit Jason on her own.


Carroll Hughes: That was our first physical reunion. My first solo road trip. [LAUGHS]


Moon: Where did the idea for that come from? Like, how’d that happen?


Carroll Hughes: I just said, “Fuck it. I’m going to see Jason.” I had friends up here, I could still stay with them. And that’s what I did.


Moon: What was it like to see Jason again?


Carroll Hughes: It was awesome. It was so awesome. The last time I had touched him… He has this thing he does with his toes to aggravate me. He purposefully will sit beside me, wiggle his toes, and I would just grab and frickin’ twist ‘em. So, that was the last contact I had with him until March of ‘95 and it was like… It wa– it was awesome. I didn’t want to leave. If I could’ve stayed with him, I would’ve stayed. I think I cried all the way back as far as New York.


Moon, Narrating: Through all of this, Jackie says she knew very little of what had actually happened in her brother’s case. Jackie says this is because her parents, Jack and Karen Carroll, just didn’t really talk to the rest of the kids about what was going on with Jason. According to Jackie, she learned more about her brother’s case from the news on TV.


Moon: What do you make of that? I think people will be confused to hear that, like how–


Carroll Hughes: I’m confused, too. I mean, my mom and I have had discussions as adults. Ya know, she swears that she spoke to us. Now, my sister and I don’t recall it. We would’ve had a better understanding. I mean, we were always a quiet family. And then, when this happened, we moved away… it was even more quiet. It was deafening, it was so silent.


Moon, Narrating: But Jackie knew a place where she might find some answers. A place many kids know to look in for the things adults don’t want them to see – their parents’ closet.


Jackie knew there was a copy of the discovery documents from Jason’s case in her parents’ closet. Huge three-ring binders with thousands of pages of police reports and court papers. Jackie says one day, she marched into her parents’ room and claimed it.


Carroll Hughes: Back then, the room that’s off limits is your parents’ bedroom. And it was me and my dad home that day. And I just got up and I went in there where they kept ‘em in the closet, and he’s watchin’ ‘cause it’s off limits, and I came out and he s– he saw what I had and he didn’t say a word to me. And that’s where it started.


Moon, Narrating: For the first time, Jackie was able to look directly at what led to her brother’s arrest. It was part grieving and part mystery-solving.


Carroll Hughes: I just picked up a book, started readin’. I knew something wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what wasn’t right.


Moon, Narrating: Studying the documents became an obsession. Jackie read and reread the binders. She took notes and dog-eared pages. The binders survived year after year, move after move. I got the feeling if the house had ever caught fire, Jackie would’ve saved the binders first. She felt, somehow, the answer to all of this, or at least the breadcrumbs for how to find it, were somewhere in those pages.


Moon: Was there a part of you that was anxious when you first started looking at the discovery documents that, like, “Maybe I'm going to find evidence of Jason's guilt in here?”


Carroll Hughes: I wasn't thinking that way. I don't think my anxiety had even kicked in. I was just reading and laying out the case. [SOUND OF HAND SLAPPING] I put the relationship aside and I just started investigating. If he's guilty, he's guilty. If he's not, we're going to prove this.


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: This is Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story. I’m Jason Moon.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: By 1992, pressure was mounting on New Hampshire state prosecutors to hold someone responsible for the murder of Sharon Johnson. Ken Johnson and Tony Pfaff were walking free. Detective Roland Lamy’s credibility was being questioned in the press. The trial of Jason Carroll might be their last chance to notch a win.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: So far, it seemed like everything was going the defendants’ way. But Jason’s lawyers were anxious. They knew the state would learn from what happened at Tony’s trial.


Cliff Kinghorn: I-I always thought that the defendant that went first, that was found not guilty, I think the state figures out the problems they had with the case and if you’re second in line, I always thought that was a disadvantage.


Eric Wilson: I agree. Hung juries, too. The state changes, tweaks their case or they recognize the weaknesses of their case, and they, they get a practice run.


Moon, Narrating: This is Cliff Kinghorn and Eric Wilson, two of the attorneys who represented Jason. You met Cliff earlier – he had that big argument with Jason’s mom. Eric, who is also a former marine, worked under Cliff back in 1992.


Wilson: I was working, uh, for Cliff and Steve. Um, I was still in law school at the time. I was in my second year of law school.


Moon, Narrating: The third member of the team was Steve Maynard, Cliff’s partner at their law firm. Cliff once told a reporter, at the end of every day, he and Steve would sit down together and have a beer. “And we always only have one beer,” Cliff joked. Steve Maynard died last year, so you won’t hear from him, but you will hear more about him. 


So, Cliff, his partner and friend Steve, and Eric the apprentice. Together, they went into Jason’s trial in February of 1992.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: In many ways, Jason’s trial was a rehash of Tony’s. Many of the same witnesses testified. And the same lack of physical evidence meant – again – everything would rest on whether the jury believed Jason’s confession tapes.


But it wasn’t exactly the same. There were some key differences that strengthened the prosecution’s hand.


Remember how in Tony’s trial, Jason’s confession was some of the defense’s best evidence? Tony’s lawyers pointed out all the differences between the stories Jason and Tony told about the murder.


Jason’s attorneys wanted to do the same thing. They wanted Jason’s jury to hear Tony’s confession.


Wilson: We tried to get his statement in to Jason’s jury so they could see how the two confessions to the same crime just didn’t match and Judge Murphy ruled it was not admissible.


Moon, Narrating: Tony’s confession was not admissible as evidence in Jason’s trial. It was hearsay.


Remember, the hearsay rule generally does not allow into a trial statements made outside of court. Tony’s lawyers were able to sidestep this because police interrogated Tony after Jason. Tony’s confession was shaped by Jason’s and so, Tony’s jury got to hear both. Jason’s lawyers couldn’t use that argument, since Jason’s confessions were taped first.


The upshot of all this is that Jason’s jury did not hear Tony’s confession. They did not learn about the differences in their stories. They heard Jason’s confessions on their own.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Another key difference – Detective Lamy. During Tony’s trial, he played right into the defense’s strategy when he got caught breaking the rule about not speaking to other witnesses. Lamy was not going to make the same mistake twice.


The judge did tell the jurors in Jason’s trial that Lamy had violated a court order in an earlier proceeding, but it didn’t have the same impact.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Still, Jason’s lawyers tried to run largely the same defense that had acquitted Tony: There’s no physical evidence, the confession can’t be true, and it was all thanks to an intimidating and reckless detective.


Wilson: How can you undercut that confession, uh, to show the confession was coerced and it was not reliable? That had to be – there really is no other defense to a confession case other than the confession’s a false confession.


Moon, Narrating: There were a number of things Jason said in his confessions that just didn’t line up with the physical evidence. I’m going to walk you through five of them. Five problems the defense said made Jason’s confessions unreliable.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Problem one – the knife. 


The state medical examiner originally estimated that the length of the knife used to murder Sharon Johnson was “probably at least in the neighborhood of four inches. Perhaps could be longer.” There were two blades on Jason’s pocketknife. The longer one was two and one-eighth inches long.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Now, the medical examiner made his original estimate based on the depth of the wound in Sharon’s back – the deepest of the 14 stab wounds.


But during Tony and Jason’s trials, he backs out of that estimate. He says his measurement may have been imprecise because Sharon’s lung had collapsed. And he maintains that the stab wounds in Sharon’s chest are consistent with Jason’s pocket knife.


The implication from Jason’s attorneys: the medical examiner was conveniently changing his scientific opinion to fit the state’s narrative about Jason’s pocket knife as the murder weapon.


[MUSIC POST]

 

Moon, Narrating: Problem two – the lineup.


Unidentified Officer, On Interrogation Tape: Jason has been shown two folders with eight photographs of eight white males in same, all numbered.


During Jason’s final recorded interrogation, police show him a photo lineup. One of the eight photos is of Ken Johnson.


Unidentified Officer, On Interrogation Tape: Of the eight people in that lineup, Jason has recognized and pointed out the male subject in number five. And would you tell me again Jason why you, you focused your attention on the individual in number five?


Jason Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: Because I remember the black beard.


Moon, Narrating: Jason says number five is Ken Johnson. Only number five is not Ken Johnson. Ken did not have a beard the day of the murder. Jason could not identify the man who allegedly paid him to murder his wife, who Jason told police was there during the murder.


I’ve seen the photo lineup. Ken is number two – the photo right above the one Jason picks.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Problem three – the diagrams.


On the day in between Jason’s two taped confessions, police had him draw a diagram of the area where Sharon’s body was found. Jason drew three.


I’ve seen all three of Jason’s drawings, I’ve seen aerial photographs of the scene, I’ve seen a videotape of the scene. There is just no way to make Jason’s drawings map on to reality. He never draws the pond that Sharon’s body was found at the edge of. He draws a foundation that does not exist. 


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: He draws a road running by the area that in reality is more than a mile away from where Sharon’s body was found.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Problem four – the stereo.


You might remember Jason originally said he spent the money Ken paid him for the murder on marijuana. But later, he said he used the money to buy new tires and a stereo system for his truck.


Jason didn’t own his truck, he leased it on a handshake deal with a guy he once worked with. That guy testified at Jason’s trial. He said he had to repossess the truck because Jason couldn’t make the payments. And when he took it back, he said the truck did not have new tires or a new stereo. In fact, he says it was in terrible shape.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: And then, there was problem number five – the diary.


Debbie Dutra: When Jason – When all this happened and Jason got arrested, I went to my father and I’m like, “Dad, there’s no way. We were gone this weekend!”


Moon, Narrating: Debbie Dutra was friends with Jason in the summer of 1988, the summer of the murder. By the way, this is a different Debbie – not the one who met Jason cruising on Elm Street. This Debbie’s best friend was Jason’s girlfriend at the time.


Dutra: He hung out with us all the time. We were always together, all of us.


Moon, Narrating: When the news of Jason’s arrest broke, Debbie could not believe it, at first, because she just couldn’t imagine her friend doing something like that. But then, she really couldn’t believe it because she remembered she was with Jason just a few days after the murder.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Sharon was murdered on a Thursday night. According to the final version of Jason’s confessions, he and Tony went to Ken’s house on Saturday morning to collect their payment.


But Debbie remembered that Saturday, Jason was with her, and two other people, on a trip to a lake about an hour north. So, Debbie, who’s around 18 at the time, tells her father she’s going to call the police.


Dutra: I said, “I gotta say something, Dad.” I said, “I can’t not say anything.” And so, my father listened on the other end – we had the landlines — and said, “Listen, this is what’s happening. I know he wasn’t there because he was with us.” And that’s why Lamy showed up at our door.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: When detectives first questioned her about this trip, Debbie says they tried hard to convince her she was confused. According to Debbie, they kept saying she must be thinking about a different weekend. And she says, eventually, she caved and said she must’ve been thinking of Labor Day weekend.


But privately, Debbie still thought she was right. And then, she remembered she had proof – her diary. It confirmed Jason was with her that Saturday morning.


Dutra: My biggest concern with it was I didn’t want it publicized. That’s like a diary, you know, a girl’s diary. It had stuff in there I didn’t want anyone to know.


Moon, Narrating: Debbie eventually did turn over her diary. She was the defense’s first witness at Jason’s trial. And it wasn’t just Debbie’s diary that undermined Jason’s story about getting paid. In his confession, Jason says he and Tony got to Ken’s house around 11 or 11-30 that Saturday morning to get the money.


But that morning, the police were also at Ken’s house. They were staked out outside, surveilling the house, and making a log of everyone who came and went.


But prosecutors seized on the fact that the police surveillance didn’t start until 11-30 a.m. And Debbie’s diary didn’t say exactly what time they left for the lake that morning. So, in theory, it is still possible that Jason and Tony went to Ken’s earlier in the morning before the police were watching the house and before Jason went to the lake with his friends.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: The knife, the lineup, the diagrams, the stereo, the diary. Jason’s lawyers made their case for why the confession simply could not be true.


Now, they turned their attention to Detective Lamy. Steve Maynard tells the jury Lamy fancies himself a, quote, “Kojak throwback.” Cliff says you can hear how Lamy coerced Jason right there on the tapes. 


Kinghorn: There are so many inconsistencies. I, I mean, even in Jason’s statement. “Who stabbed her first?” “Ken did.” “You sure it was Ken?” “No, it was me.” I mean, Jason just kept flipping. You could see the pressure he was under. Whatever they wanted to hear, Jason was going to tell ‘em. They could’ve asked him at that point in time if he believed in Santa Claus, he probably would’ve said yes if he thought that’s what they wanted to hear.


Moon, Narrating: But the defense didn’t rely simply on the tapes. They also had a witness. A person they argued could’ve easily been sitting where Jason was because Lamy used all the same tricks on him.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: The witness’s name was George Scott McDonald. George worked with Jason and Tony at High-Tech Fire Prevention, the restaurant exhaust cleaning company. George was a manager at High-Tech and about eight years older than Jason and Tony.


And George was actually an important witness for both sides. George testifies the night of Sharon’s murder, he thinks he saw Jason drop off Tony for work. The state liked that because it put two of the three alleged conspirators together the night of the murder.


But the defense liked George because of what he had to say about Detective Lamy. George tells a story about Lamy that sounds an awful lot like what Tony’s – and now Jason’s – lawyers say happened to them.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: George, like Tony, had some preexisting legal problems when Lamy first talked to him in October of 1989 – the month before police interrogated and arrested Jason and Tony. George had a habit of giving cops fake names when they pulled him over so they wouldn’t arrest him for driving without a license. He was also fraudulently collecting workers’ comp payments.


After their first meeting, Lamy knew all of this about George – told him he knew – but didn’t have him arrested for his outstanding warrants. The implication from Jason’s lawyers was that Lamy was holding the charges over his head as leverage – just like what Tony’s lawyers said happened to him. And just like with Tony, Lamy does make some of the charges against George disappear.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: George also testifies that before Jason and Tony were arrested, Lamy told him he suspected them both. And if that’s true, it would mean that Lamy already thought Jason was involved in the murder before that first interrogation at the armory. Lamy denies this in his own testimony. He says Jason was not a suspect before their first meeting.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: George testifies, eventually, Lamy began to suspect him of being involved in the murder, too. George says over a series of 10 to 12 meetings, Lamy accused him of taking part in the murder. In his testimony, Lamy denies this.


But George says that one time, Lamy even drove him out to the construction site where Sharon’s body was found and asked him if the area looked familiar to him. Lamy denies this.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Even after Jason and Tony gave confessions that do not include mentions of George whatsoever, George says Lamy continued to suspect him of being involved. He says Lamy told him the two boys weren’t smart enough to pull this off on their own. He must’ve helped them plan it.


According to George, Lamy even told him that Jason implicated George in his confession, which is not true. Again, Lamy denies ever accusing George of the murder.


But George says Lamy told him he knew he was guilty, he should confess and things would go easier for him. George says he was scared by all this. But ultimately, he didn’t confess like Tony or Jason.


Jason’s lawyers said that was because George was older, had more experience dealing with cops. In short, they argued he was less vulnerable to Lamy’s pressure campaign than the two 19-year-olds who worked under George.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: So, that was the defense Jason’s lawyers put on. Problems with the confession that made it impossible and an overbearing detective whose theory of the case always seemed to come before the evidence to support it.


But just as they’d feared, the state had learned from Tony’s trial.


And this time around, prosecutors were better prepared to fight back against the onslaught of inconsistencies in the confession. This time, they zeroed in on their own set of moments from the confession tapes.


Prosecutors said there were two moments in particular – two things Jason said that did line up with reality in a way that was so damning, it proved he committed the murder.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: It’s important to point out that most of the information about Sharon’s murder was in the news before Jason was interrogated.


And that allowed the defense to argue that that’s where Jason could've gotten the info from. He knew details about the murder, not because he was there, but in the same way that you now know details about the murder – from a journalist.


But not everything was reported.


Prosecutors said investigators intentionally withheld two facts – that Sharon was stabbed in the back and that her bra had been opened. Those were things, prosecutors said, only the killer would know. And Jason included both in his confessions.


It is a little more complicated than that.


At first, Jason says there were two stabs in Sharon’s back. So he’s right about a stab in the back, but at least at one point, he’s wrong about the number.


And the bra? Here’s how Jason describes what happened with Sharon’s bra in his final taped interrogation. Keep in mind here the correct answer is that Sharon’s bra was cut open in the front with a knife.


Neal Scott, On Interrogation Tape: [FADE UP TAPE HISS] How was the bra taken off?


Jason Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: The bra? It was unsnapped.


Scott: Unsnapped or torn? Do you recall?


Unidentified Officer: Cut, torn, unsnapped, pull over her head?


Carroll: To me– to me, the way it was goin’, it seemed like it was unsnapped.


Officer: Snapped in the front or the back?


Carroll: In the back. From what– it seemed like he was reaching around her to the back. [FADE OUT TAPE HISS]


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: What was more convincing? The problems in Jason’s confession, or the allegedly hidden facts in Jason’s confession? Was Jason coerced and intimidated by Lamy and his mother? Or was he coerced and intimidated by his own conscience?


After a trial that lasted about a week, it was now up to the jury to decide. Could they be certain Jason was guilty?


Tom Dufresne: The deliberation, after the trial, uh, with the jurors, um, that was somewhat tense. We had a couple of people, uh… We had both ends of the spectrum.


Moon, Narrating: Juror Tom Dufresne says, at first, he was somewhere in the middle. On the one hand, he didn’t find Detective Lamy to be credible at all.


Dufresne: I still to this day wouldn’t believe him if he told me it was, you know, 11:30. [LAUGHS] You know? And just his whole attitude and demeanor, you know… You're dealing with people's lives here and he just acted like he was no nonchalant. That was not, uh, credible to me.


Moon, Narrating: But, on the big question…


Moon, Off Mic: But ultimately, did you find– were you convinced that Jason was guilty of the crime?


Dufresne: Oh yeah, he admitted to… if I recall correctly, he admitted to stabbing her at least once. This was a horrible crime. I mean, that's… [TSK SOUND] why would you say that if you didn’t do it?


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Mark Phaneuf was another juror. He didn’t see any problem with Lamy – thought he was entirely credible. And the fact that Jason didn’t have an alibi helped convince him.


Mark Phaneuf, On the Phone: Maybe at the beginning there were some people who thought that he wasn’t involved, but as we spent more time with the evidence, I think everyone came to the thought that he was there, but couldn’t be definitive whether he physically was involved.


Moon, Narrating: It seems the jury was convinced Jason was involved, but for some reason, they weren’t convinced he was the one who actually stabbed Sharon.


Tom says the way the story read to him, of the three alleged murderers, Jason was the least responsible. To him, it seemed like Jason was a decent kid who got roped into this by the real villains, Tony and Ken.


Dufresne: We kind of knew that there were other people involved, but they weren't bein’, they weren't in this trial. And, um, Jason's participation in it was certainly, at the least – I guess he did admit to stabbing the woman, but he, he shouldn't have had the full weight of punishment put on him, I don't think.


Moon, Narrating: Whether it was because they weren’t certain if Jason had actually swung the blade himself, or that they just felt sympathy for him, the jury could not agree on the first-degree murder charge.


Phaneuf, On the Phone: So, we went back to the judge and we asked if we could find him guilty of a lesser crime and we were told no.


Moon, Narrating: The jury didn’t have discretion on the murder charge, but that wasn’t the only thing Jason was charged with. He was also charged with kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder.


And so, a conflicted jury came down with a conflicted verdict. Deadlocked on the charge of first-degree murder. Not guilty on the charge of kidnapping. Guilty on the charge of conspiracy to commit murder.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: If you’re confused by this, so am I. The evidence for these charges is the same – Jason’s confession. If you believe Jason’s confession, he was guilty of all three.


But juries are human. And as much as the court system may claim to be a venue for finding absolute truth, at the end of the day, in a criminal jury trial, the truth is really just what 12 people can agree on.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Jason was now a convicted felon. He would later be sentenced to six to 14 years in prison on this charge. The state had finally held someone at least partially responsible for Sharon’s murder.


But the jury deadlocked on the most serious charge. And that meant the state would retry the case. The stories would be told again and another jury would get to decide what was true.


Debra Carr: We took a vote right off the bat and it was… pretty much split down the middle.


Moon, Narrating: That’s after the break.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: One night in the spring of 1992, after Jason’s first trial, Jason’s lawyers, Cliff and Steve, were leaving the jail after talking to Jason. In the car on the drive back, they got into a heated discussion.


Kinghorn: Steve and I never had harsh words and Steve told me that night on the way back, he said, “You crossed a line today.” He said, “You really leaned on him pretty hard.” And I said, “You know, Steve, you’re probably right. I probably did cross the line. But it was a line I didn’t mind crossing.”


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Cliff and Steve had just told Jason about a major new development. The state was offering him a new, last-minute plea deal. Prosecutors were making another play at getting Jason to testify against Ken.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: The lead prosecutor, Michael Ramsdell, wouldn’t talk to me, so I can’t corroborate this. Jason told me he can’t remember much of anything about his trials, including this moment. But as Cliff remembers it, the state was offering only a handful more years in prison for Jason, if he would just testify against Ken. Cliff says Jason refused.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Ironically, it was the kind of deal that Karen Carroll says Lamy had promised them in the beginning. But this time, it was official. And Cliff knew, it was by far the best deal Jason would ever get. Losing at trial could cost him another 40 years or more. So, he begged Jason, “Take the deal.”


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Kinghorn: If that’s the truth, what you told Lamy and your mother, if that’s the truth, why would you want to take the risk of spending 30, 40 years in the New Hampshire State Prison? For the love of God, don’t roll the dice! I’m beggin’ you, don’t roll the dice!


Moon, Narrating: Many defense attorneys don’t worry about the actual truth of their client’s guilt or innocence. Their job is the same either way – provide the best defense for their client. But for Cliff, when Jason refused to take this deal before his second trial, it affected him. He couldn’t shake the thought that the only reason Jason would refuse this deal was if he was really innocent.


Kinghorn: And I always said to myself, that statement can’t be true. Something’s wrong here. Something’s… Why the hell would you not want to testify? “I’m not testifying. I’m not going to do it.” He never, ever change– and when he made that mind up, he never changed it, in any way shape or form.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Jason’s second trial went much the same as the first. The defense pointed at Lamy, pointed at the problems in Jason’s confession. The prosecutors pointed at the hidden facts in Jason’s confession. And they also actually embraced the errors in what Jason said.


In his closing argument of the second trial, Prosecutor Michael Ramsdell says, “If this was all a setup by police, why wasn’t the confession more consistent? Why does Jason get things wrong if the cops are telling him what to say?” To Michael, it was like the mistakes in Jason’s confessions were the coffee stain on the paper that proved it wasn’t a counterfeit. To him, the hidden facts that Jason knew proved he was there. And the public facts Jason got wrong proved he wasn’t set up by police.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Michael argued the other reason the jurors should believe Jason’s confession was the emotion. He told the jurors to relisten to the entire tape of Jason confessing to his mother. To really listen. To feel it. Michael said the emotions in the tape make clear what’s going on – a young man admitting a terrible secret to his own mother.


Jason Carroll, Sobbing, On Interrogation Tape: [FADE UP TAPE HISS] I can’t…


Karen Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: If you put a knife – if you put a knife in that woman, [JASON CARROLL SOBS] I want to know! You stabbed her, didn’t you?! 


Jason Carroll, Crying: Yes, I did, BLEEP.


Karen Carroll: How many times did you stab her?!


Jason Carroll, Sobbing: I stabbed her three times!


Karen Carroll: Alright!


Lamy: Who else stabbed her? [JASON CARROLL SOBS] Who else stabbed her, truthfully? [FADE OUT]


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Michael Ramsdell told the jury, “That emotion is powerful. It's compelling. It allows you to feel with every fiber in your body he did kill Sharon Johnson.”


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Steve Maynard argued the closing for Jason. He pointed to that same emotion as the reason the jury shouldn’t believe the confession. Steve called Jason’s interrogation a “psychological bludgeoning.” He said, “There is no way you can listen to that tape and believe that kid had anything left – any free will left. He was destroyed. He was destroyed by his mother. He was destroyed by Sergeant Lamy.”


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Dan Philie: We listened to that recording many, many times, over and over, that I remember.


Moon, Narrating: The jurors in Jason’s second trial deliberated for four days. Dan Philie was one of them. As Dan remembers it, he and the rest of the jurors all believed Jason’s confession was the truth. 


But another juror, Debra Carr, remembers it differently.


Debra Carr: Um, we took a vote right off the bat and it was… pretty much split down the middle.


Moon, Narrating: Debra says some of the jurors had concerns about the way the police interrogated Jason.


Carr: We did all agree that it was coerced, it was pressured. He had his mother and the, I believe it was the state police detective hounding him, so we didn’t even take that into consideration. 


Moon, Narrating: But despite her belief that Jason’s confession was coerced, Debra, like Dan, still thought it was the truth.


Carr: I don’t think it was false, but I do believe that he was pressured into confessing. The defendant knew something that wasn’t out in the public eye. It was something only somebody who had been there would’ve known.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: The day before they started deliberating, the judge agreed with state prosecutors that the jury could have the option of finding Jason guilty of second-degree murder instead of first-degree. First-degree murder is premeditated. Second-degree is not.


Now, to the state, the truth was that Jason accepted money to commit a murder – clearly first-degree. But prosecutors were willing to have Jason convicted, even if it wasn’t on their theory of the case.


As jurors like Dan and Debra were trying to come to consensus, Jason waited in a holding cell at the courthouse. When I asked him what he remembered about waiting for the verdict, he told me a story about a spider.


Jason Carroll, On the Phone: I’d be layin’ down and then one day, I noticed a spider on the floor walkin’ towards me.


Moon, Narrating: Jason says in the long hours of waiting, alone, to find out what was going to happen to his life, a spider kept walking towards him.


Carroll: So, it kept comin’ my way and I’m not a big fan of spiders. So, I got up and went to the other si– to the other bench on the other side of the holding cell. And I’m sitting there and the next thing I know, I notice that damn spider coming at me again from the other direction. 


Moon, Narrating: At first it was just a nuisance, just a spider that he happened to be trapped with. But the longer it went on, the more Jason started to think, “Is this what the rest of my life is going to be?”


Carroll: And I remember thinkin’ to myself, “What’s this, a sign to come or somethin’? You know, I’m gonna countin’ bricks and spiders all day long?” And then, ya know, they bring you upstairs ‘cause they found a verdict. And then… y-y-you stand up and they find you guilty and you’re lookin’ over at them and they’re cryin’… And… it-it didn’t even seem like I was standing there… I couldn’t believe it.


Kinghorn: Jason took it just the way I would’ve expected him to. Um, he wasn’t shocked. He took it on the chin, but I mean, he didn’t become emotional about it… Um, I always thought Jason should’ve been in the Marine Corps, for God sakes. He could be so stoic sometimes, it drove me crazy. Sometimes it was hard to get him to be emotional.


After 30 hours of deliberation, the jury found Jason Carroll guilty of second-degree murder. Later, a judge sentenced him to 40 years to life in prison, in addition to his earlier sentence.


Here’s juror Dan Philie again.


Philie: That’s, that’s a big accusation for someone to come out and admit that they did something when they didn’t do it. Ya know, robbing somebody or, ya know, stealin’ something out of a grocery store is one thing, but, you know, the consequences are heavy here, so you want to really think about that. I don’t think that someone would just come out and say, “Yeah, okay, I did it.”


Moon, Narrating: Juror Debra Carr says in the years since Jason’s trial, she’s come to understand that people do falsely confess to crimes they didn’t commit. Debra spoke with my colleague Paul Cuno-Booth at her home. The dog was in the next room.


Carr: I don’t think that happened here. [SOUND OF DOG BARKING]


Paul Cuno-Booth, Off Mic: Why not?


Carr: I just believe that he was part of that. That he was there and he was part of it. [DOG BARKING] They strangled her and stabbed her.


Moon, Narrating: After the jury convicted Jason, they were allowed to learn for the first time that Tony and Ken had not been convicted. For some, it was a shock.


Philie: It was kinda… It kinda takes you back a little bit. I mean, here’s this one individual who seemed to be like a straight-going guy and, um, bein’ convicted of this and the actual person who hired him to do the deed got away. Ya know, it was just kind of frustrating to see that somebody like this actually got away with it and this individual got life in prison or whatever it was, 30 years or whatever.


Moon, Narrating: It’s something I heard from jurors in Jason’s first trial, too. Like Tom Dufresne. A sense of imbalance in the justice that was meted out.


Dufresne: I-I remember havin’ a conversation with a couple of gentlemen as we left, and sayin’, that is, it’s not right, you know? I remember tellin’ people the kid got screwed and uh, I was not, not happy with the results after the fact, but, ya know, given the circumstances, I wouldn’t, I don’t think I’d change my mind today. But, uh… especially the fact that he’s still in prison – that’s ridiculous. That’s… That ain’t right.


Moon, Narrating: But this was exactly why the jurors weren’t allowed to know this information. In the eyes of the court, justice shouldn’t be relative. Although, it sometimes can seem arbitrary.


Kinghorn: After the jury returned its verdict – about a year or so afterwards, the second jury – I was at Southern New Hampshire for a medical, a minor medical procedure and the nurse that was working with me said to me, “Do you remember me?” And I said, “No, I'm sorry. I don't.” She said, “I was one of the jurors on the second Jason Carroll murder case.” She said, “I was on, I was chosen as an alternate. I didn't take part in the deliberations.” And she said, “I have to tell you, if I had been on that jury, hell would have frozen over before I would have convicted that kid.” I'll never forget that as long as I live. That's the luck of alternates. She said, “I listened to that confession. I listened to him sobbing, and I have a young son and I just said, ‘There's no way I'm going to pay any attention to that.’”


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: In 1994, the New Hampshire Supreme Court took up Jason’s case on appeal. Jason’s lawyers argued his confession should never have been allowed in because he was coerced by his mother.


Wilson: And the decision that the Supremes came down with, they acknowledge, had Karen been acting as a police officer, then Jason's will would certainly have been overborne. But they… they said that, um, she was acting in the capacity as a mother, not a police officer.

 

Moon, Narrating: In their decision, the state Supreme Court writes, “Without Karen Carroll’s frenzied, emotional, and insistent questioning of her son, the defendant may well not have confessed. Consistently, it was her questioning, not Lamy’s, that reduced the defendant to tears and preceded his crucial admissions. Our constitution would not tolerate such conduct by a State actor, but here, Karen Carroll conducted herself in her private capacity as a mother.”


Moon, Narrating: Jason says he was outside on the prison baseball field when he found out in the newspaper that the appeal had failed. His options had run out.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: For the next few decades, virtually nothing happened with Jason’s case. Cliff, Steve, and Eric didn’t represent him anymore, and he couldn’t afford to hire anybody. As far as Jason could tell, it was over. But outside the prison walls, it was not. 


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Two things were in motion that would lead us to where we are now. One – Jason’s sister, Jackie.


She helped push Jason to write to the New England Innocence Project. And when the lawyers showed interest, Jackie knew what she had to do. The binders of discovery documents, the symbols of what had happened to her family that Jackie had obsessed, grieved, and pored over. It was time to let them go.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: In 2016, Jackie packed the binders in a car and made a road trip from Texas, where she lived at the time, to Massachusetts to meet with the innocence lawyers. She brought her eldest daughter with her.


Carroll Hughes, On the Phone: When she finally realized, when these four women approached us in the lobby, she realized just exactly what I was handing over. This was, like, my life’s work and she knew what that meant to me. And she looked at me, and she literally had tears in her eyes. She says, “Mommy, are you sure?”


Moon, Narrating: Jason’s attorney with the New England Innocence Project tells me the fact that Jackie saved the discovery documents was huge. In cases this old, documents often go missing. The binders jump-started the work on getting Jason’s case back into court.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: The other thing in motion over the past 30 years – our understanding of confessions.


While Jason sat in prison, a revolution was underway. Alarming evidence, from research and real-life examples, was teaching us how and why and how often people were falsely confessing to crimes they didn’t commit. Things we simply did not know when Jason was on trial.


Dr. Fabiana Alceste: What has to happen? What is the order of events? What kinds of situational pressures do you have to face in order to do something that goes against your own self-interest so much that you confess to a crime – to the police – that you did not actually commit, that you had nothing to do with?


Moon, Narrating: Like genetic genealogy transformed how cold cases would be solved, this science transformed what we believed was possible about confessions. Thirty years later, could it amount to new evidence in Jason’s case?


That’s next time on Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: A True Crime Story is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon.


It’s edited by Katie Colaneri.


Additional reporting and research by Paul Cuno-Booth. And an extra shoutout to Paul this episode for doing most of the work it took to track down jurors from Tony and Jason’s trials.


Editing help from Lauren Chooljian, Daniela Allee, Sara Plourde, Taylor Quimby, Mara Hoplamazian, and Todd Bookman. 


Our News Director is Dan Barrick. Our Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie.


Fact-checking by Dania Suleman.


Sara Plourde created our original artwork, as well as our website, bearbrookpodcast.com.


Additional photography and videos by Gaby Lozada.


Original music for the series was created by me, Jason Moon.


Bear Brook is a production of the Document team at New Hampshire Public Radio.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Transcript of S2 Episode 4: 'Promises Have Been Made'

Note: episode transcripts are radio scripts - please keep that in mind as you come across notations and errors in the text.

[THEME MUSIC IN]


Lauren Chooljian, Narrating: Previously on Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story…


[SOUND OF CASSETTE TAPE TURNING ON]


Karen Carroll, On Outline Tape: You told us that Jason had admitted moving the car and was involved somewhat.


[SOUND OF TAPE STOPPING, THEN RESTARTING]


Roland Lamy, On Interrogation Tape: …the truth? The essence of the truth! I have not seen the breaking point in you!


[SOUND OF TAPE STOPPING, THEN RESTARTING]


Jason Carroll, On Interrogation Tape, Sobbing: I can’t…


Karen Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: If you put a knife – if you put a knife in that woman, [JASON CARROLL SOBS] I want to know! 


[SOUND OF TAPE STOPPING, THEN RESTARTING]


Jack Carroll, On Outline Tape: He stood up and he just said it was a bunch of bullcrap and that anything that he had said wasn’t true.


[SOUND OF TAPE STOPPING]


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Jason Moon, Narrating: It’s November 27th, 1989, the Monday after Thanksgiving. Tony Pfaff lands at the airport in Manchester, New Hampshire. Tony walks off the plane and waves hello to Detective Roland Lamy and the other officers who are waiting for him.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Tony has no idea that just two days ago, on Saturday, Jason Carroll confessed on tape to murdering Sharon Johnson. And Tony has no idea that while he was in the air, police taped a second confession from Jason.


Neal Scott, On Interrogation Tape: Alright, from the top again, Jason. When were you first contacted?


Jason Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: July 27th, 1988.


Scott: To do what?


Carroll: Kill Sharon Johnson.


Scott and David Eastman: By whom?


Carroll: Tony Pfaff.


Moon, Narrating: And Tony has no idea that on both of those tapes, Jason says Tony is guilty, too. When Tony got on the plane in North Carolina that morning, he thought he was coming to team up with detectives again. Just like he had several months earlier, when he wore a wire and tried to get Ken Johnson to admit to the murder.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Detective Lamy and the other cops lead Tony outside to Lamy’s car. It’s November and there’s snow on the ground. Tony is wearing shorts and a t-shirt.


He sits in the front seat. And Lamy says, as a precaution, he’s gonna read Tony his Miranda rights – you know, just since they’re going to be talking about the murder. Tony says he understands, it’s just a precaution.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: After about 15 minutes, they pull into a construction site. The construction site where Sharon’s body was found. Detective Lamy tells Tony, "There's someone here that has something to say to you.”


It’s Jason. He’s standing there in the construction site, surrounded by about a dozen cops. Police cruisers are parked all over.


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: It’s at this moment that Tony must have realized – this trip to see the New Hampshire State Police was not gonna be like that last one. Last time, Tony was one of the guys. This time, he’d walked right into a trap – a scene staged by Detective Lamy on the very spot where Sharon Johnson’s body was found.


That day, Lamy hoped he could turn one confession into two – and finally use that evidence to take down Ken Johnson. 


This is Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story. I’m Jason Moon.


[THEME MUSIC UP, THEN ABRUPTLY WARPS OUT]


Moon, Narrating: According to the police reports, Detective Lamy and Tony get out of the car and walk over to Jason. Lamy stands in between Jason and Tony in case it gets physical. He tells them, “I don’t want this turning into a freak show.”


Detective Lamy then has Jason repeat his confession to Tony. He’s betting the surprise of being confronted by a co-conspirator confessing to the crime at the spot where Lamy says they committed crime, surrounded by a dozen cops – it will all convince Tony that the game is over.


It was the kind of scene that would make for the perfect climax in a TV cop show. But it doesn’t go according to plan. Tony says he doesn’t even know who Jason is, even though they worked together at High-Tech. He says Jason is crazy.


Tony asks, “What’s going on?” Lamy says if he wants to talk about it, he’ll have to come with him to the police station. Tony is standing in a snow-covered construction site in rural New Hampshire, wearing just shorts and a t-shirt. He was flown here on the state police’s dime, he has no car of his own, and no way to reach anyone else. He agrees, and gets back in the car with Lamy.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Once they get to the Bedford police station, Tony spends three hours in an interrogation room with Detective Lamy and other officers. And then Lamy’s partner turns on a tape recorder.


Scott, On Interrogation Tape: This is Sergeant Neal Scott, New Hampshire State Police speaking. The time is 1900 hours. The date is November 27, 1989. The following recorded conversations are that of Anthony “Tony” Pfaff. Present is Sergeant Roland Lamy of New Hampshire State Police and myself, Neal Scott. Tony, are you aware that this is being recorded?


Pfaff: Yes.


Scott: Would you speak up, please?


Pfaff: Yes!


Scott: Thank you.


Moon, Narrating: It’s taken detectives a lot of work to get there. But Tony now tells them he’s finally ready to make a confession.


Lamy: You have indicated to me, prior to us turning this tape on, that you are now ready to tell the whole truth, so help you God, about your involvement in the killing of Sharon Johnson on July 28, 1988. Is that correct?


Pfaff: Yes.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Tony begins to tell a new story about his involvement in Sharon’s murder. Tony says the story starts with a conversation between him and Ken one week before she was killed.


Pfaff, On Interrogation Tape: He asked me if I could help him figure out a way to kill his wife. And I thought–


Lamy: And her name is?


Pfaff: Sharon Johnson


Lamy: Okay.


Pfaff: At first, I thought he was kidding. And I suggested a few ways, just playin’ along, and then he told me he wasn’t joking, he was serious.


Lamy: Mmhm.


Moon, Narrating: Tony says Ken offered him $10,000 to kill his wife. Tony says he thought about it for a day, then agreed to the job. Tony says he then reached out to Jason and offered him half the money – $5,000 – to help him carry it out.

Tony says it was his idea for Jason to play the role of “Bob.” He says he and Jason met Sharon at the mall.


Pfaff, On Interrogation Tape: We met her in the mall. And we asked her to go outside – come outside with us.


Lamy: Where in the mall?


Pfaff: In the middle of the mall by the food court, somewhere around there, I don’t remember nothin’, I don’t…


Lamy: Okay.


Moon, Narrating: The mood of Tony’s interrogation could not be more different than what happened with Jason and his mom. There’s no shouting on the tape. In fact, it’s so quiet you can hear what sounds like a clock ticking throughout the whole thing.


And Tony… I’m not sure what the right word is to describe his affect. Flat? Unremorseful? Resigned? Exhausted? 


Tony can’t seem to remember all that much about the day of the murder. The interrogation is a halting, tedious process. But Lamy, who yelled at Jason to reach his breaking point as Jason sobbed, is patient… even gentle, as he coaxes Tony to keep talking. At one point, Lamy tellsTony, “Don’t be ashamed to cry.”


Pfaff, On Interrogation Tape: Then we drove. I don’t remember the places we drove. 


Lamy: Mmhmm.


Pfaff: Jason told you where we drove.


Lamy: Mmhmm.


Pfaff: And then… we went down… to uh… [MUMBLES] I don’t remember the road.


Lamy: Tell you what–


Pfaff: I don’t remember. It’s hard for me to remember things, alright?


Lamy: Well, do your best. This is very serious, as you know… [SIGHS] I mean, there has to be, you have to explain how it is that that site was chosen ‘cause Johnson shows up there and he has to know where it’s going to be. Who chooses that place and how’d he get there?


Pfaff: He’s the one that chose it ‘cause I didn’t know where it was.


Lamy: How do you– you don’t just accidentally run into him. I mean, how do you people get out there? [LONG PAUSE] Come on, Tony. [LONG PAUSE]


Moon, Narrating: Tony is not giving police the kind of detailed play-by-play they’re looking for. But still, he is confirming the broad strokes of Jason’s confession.


Tony says after they meet Sharon at the mall, they force her into her car. Then, Tony says he holds Sharon at knifepoint and makes her drive to the construction site.


Pfaff, On Interrogation Tape: Anyway, we got there, she struggled. Jason drove a knife in her back, stabbed her again. I choked her. She fell to the ground. And I, I – her shirt was pulled off, but I didn’t pull it off. I don’t know how it got pulled off, but I didn’t pull it off.


Lamy: Mhmm, okay. How many times did you stab her, truthfully? Truthfully, now, Tony. This is a one-time shot to tell the truth, ‘cause that’s what you want to be doing. You don’t have to have the exact number of times. I want to know how many times that you think you may have stabbed her.


Pfaff: A coupla times.


Moon, Narrating: Tony tells police the knife used in the murder belonged to Lisa Johnson. Ken’s adopted daughter, the mother of Tony’s child. Tony says she might’ve known about the plot to kill Sharon, but can’t say for sure. Tony says he got the knife from Ken and then gave it to Jason.


That’s all a pretty significant difference from Jason’s confession, where he eventually says the knife was his and never mentions Lisa. Lamy, no doubt recognizing this discrepancy, asks Tony, “Were there two knives used or just one?” Tony says, “Just one.”


Lamy, On Interrogation Tape: W-was Johnson there? Explain how – Where’s Johnson?


Pfaff: Ken Johnson, he did show up. I don’t know where he came from, but he was… I mean, I didn’t see which direction he came from, but he was there. 


Lamy: Okay and did he come before this began or after? Or during?


Pfaff: He must’ve been there, already, because he came out right after it was over.


Lamy: Oh, he came out after it was over?... Okay…. Okay, continue. And now, what was said? Was Sharon, uh, beggin’ you to stop? Was she cryin’?


Pfaff: She was c– of course, she was crying, she was in hysterics.


Lamy: Tell me things that she was saying.


Pfaff: Why are we doing this to her?


Lamy: What did you say?


Pfaff: I don’t remember.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: That’s another difference from the story Jason told. Jason said Ken and Sharon had a whole argument before she was stabbed. And now, Tony is saying Ken emerged from somewhere nearby only afterwards.


Tony says after they killed Sharon, he and Jason drove her green Subaru back to the mall and left it in the parking lot. Then, he says they both drove in Jason’s truck to Ken’s house where he paid them the $10,000. At that point, Tony says he and Jason parted ways.


Near the end of the interrogation, Lamy uses a technique on Tony that he also used on Jason. He invokes the presence of a theoretical jury that will one day listen to the tape they’re making.


Lamy, On Interrogation Tape: I want you to explain to the jury, if you will, and I know it’s very difficult to do this, but I must ask you to express how you feel as a human being, as Tony Pfaff – how does Tony Pfaff feel about having participated in the murder of Sharon Johnson?


Pfaff: I feel bad, and I’m sorry it took place. And I wish it’d never even happened. And if there was any way if I could switch, I could switch places, I’d do it. [TAPE FADES OUT]


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Tony’s taped interrogation finishes around 8 p.m. Tony landed at the airport at 3, so he’s spent five hours with the cops by this point. And it’s not over. Police keep talking to him that night, periodically, though they never turn on another tape recorder.


Two hours later, Tony changes his story. Now, he says Lisa Johnson was involved in the murder. He says she was there and saw Sharon die.


Then, 40 minutes later, Tony tries to recant everything. He says none of it is true. Not even what he told Detective Lamy months ago about moving Sharon’s car as a favor for Ken.


It’s somewhere around 11 p.m. Finally, according to the police report, Tony says, “Look, everything I told you on the tape was the truth. I feel bad. I’m tired. That’s why I went backwards. Don’t bother asking me anything more because I don’t remember anything more.”


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: All this time Jason has been at the police station, too. He recorded that second taped confession while Tony was flying in. Then, after the showdown at the construction site, police also brought Jason back to the Bedford PD. For the rest of the day, Lamy has been bouncing back and forth between questioning Jason and Tony.


Around midnight, Tony and Jason are both arrested. Tony has been with the police for nine hours this day. Jason, for about 12 hours. By the way, you can see a timeline of all the interrogations on our website bearbrookpodcast.com.


But Lamy is not done with Jason yet. He has one last scene to stage with him. This one, down in Rhode Island, with Ken Johnson.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: The next morning, just after 10 a.m., police in Warren, Rhode Island arrive at the Country Inn Restaurant. Ken is apparently at work inside.


The Warren police chief told the newspapers, Ken showed, quote, “no surprise or shock whatsoever” at being arrested. Ken is brought to the local police station. And not long after he gets there, Detective Lamy arrives from New Hampshire. He’s brought Jason with him.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Lamy brings Jason into the room where Ken is being held. According to Lamy’s police report, Ken stares at Jason.


Lamy then has Jason repeat his confession again to Ken. He gets as far as the part where he says he saw Ken at the construction site. At the mention of this, Ken flings his arms out in disgust and tells Lamy to get Jason out of his sight.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Over a year after Sharon was murdered, Lamy’s investigation had produced two confessions and an alleged murder weapon – Jason’s pocket knife. And it all pointed to the original prime suspect, Ken, as the mastermind behind the plot to kill Sharon.


It was front page news. Tony Pfaff, Ken Johnson, and Jason Carroll were all charged with capital murder. At the time, the penalty was death.


Detective Roland Lamy had lived up to his reputation. He’d solved the case. He’d crafted the narrative about who killed Sharon Johson.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Thanks for listening to Bear Brook Season 2. This podcast took more than a year to report and a lot of resources. One way to show how much you value local journalism and longform investigative reporting is by giving to New Hampshire Public Radio. It takes just a few minutes and makes a big difference. To give now, click the link in the show notes. And thank you.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: You’ve now heard the official narrative of Sharon Johnson’s murder. How it was put together out of a few clues and a tangle of changing and sometimes conflicting confessions from two 19-year-olds. To recap, here’s what the police say happened.


Ken Johnson wanted his wife dead because he was deep in gambling debt and Sharon’s pension would cover that debt and then some. He hired Tony Pfaff, the 19-year-old who dated his daughter, to kill Sharon. Tony recruited his coworker Jason Carroll to help. The three of them used a story about a fictional “Bob” to lure Sharon to the mall. Tony and Jason kidnapped her there and brought her to a construction site where Ken was waiting. And then, Jason and Tony stabbed Sharon with Jason’s pocket knife and Ken and Tony strangled her.


If some of that sounds different than what Jason and Tony confessed to, that’s because it is. Jason made yet more changes to his confession during his final taped interrogation, including that Ken choked, but never stabbed Sharon.


But if the state was gonna take these confessions to trial, they had to settle on a single narrative. Did Ken stab her or didn’t he? Was Lisa involved or wasn’t she? And so, they made some storytelling choices. They made choices about when to use the details from one confession over another when those details conflicted. And they made choices about what statements were true or false when Jason and Tony gave multiple different answers to the same question. So, some things got cut, like Ken stabbing Sharon himself or Lisa being involved.


And to be clear, as far as Lisa goes – there is no evidence besides Tony’s brief statement that she had anything to do with Sharon’s murder. Lisa wasn’t even living in New Hampshire at the time. She’d moved to Rhode Island a few months before Sharon’s murder. We reached out to Lisa, but never heard back.


Together, those storytelling choices add up to the narrative the state still stands by to this day.


But of course, it was not the only version of the story to be told. The official narrative was challenged, just as soon as Jason Carroll got a lawyer.


Moon: Can you talk to me about your first introduction to the case?


Kinghorn: The, the first thing that happened was Jason’s mom came in to meet with me and I knew right away there was gonna be a problem.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: This is retired judge and criminal defense attorney Cliff Kinghorn. He’s an ex-marine. Got a purple heart in Vietnam.


Until Cliff was appointed to represent Jason, no one outside law enforcement really knew what role Jason’s parents had played. How his mom Karen and his stepdad Jack allowed Jason to be questioned by police without an attorney for at least 13 and a half hours over a four day period. How Karen Carroll actively and aggressively participated in one of Jason’s interrogations.


When Cliff learned what had happened, he was horrified. Then he took a meeting with Jason’s parents that stunned him even more.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: In Cliff Kinghorn’s office, Karen and Jack Carroll share a detail no one else knows about. Something allegedly left off the police reports. Something that would help explain why Karen and Jack did what they did. 


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Karen tells Cliff a deal for Jason’s cooperation has already been worked out with police. As long as Jason testifies against Ken, Karen says Jason has been promised a very light sentence – something like seven or eight years at a federal prison where he could even get a college degree while inside. Karen says she and Jason’s stepfather had been promised this by Detective Roland Lamy.


Kinghorn: And, and I’m thinkin’ to myself, “What la-la-land are we living in? That’s never goin’ to happen.”


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Cliff and Jason’s parents start to argue.


Kinghorn: Karen basically said to me, “We’re going to do this my way. All kinds of promises have been made to him and I trust Roland Lamy explicitly,” and we got into kind of a heated discussion.


Moon, Narrating: Karen and Jack Carroll actually described this meeting with Cliff in the Outline Tape – the conversation Karen and Jack recorded with Detective Lamy just 11 days after this meeting with Cliff. And Karen tells Lamy just how terribly the meeting went.


Karen Carroll, On Outline Tape: He just, he really started in very hard on me. My being in law enforcement seemed to be quite an issue. Um, how could I possibly sit there and let my son spill his guts and tell everything without consulting an attorney? Um, whose side was I on? Ya know, was I on Jason’s side or was I on the police’s side?


Kinghorn: I mean it was basically, you know, “I know he needs a lawyer, I suppose, but we’re– I’m calling the shots, we’re calling the shots. We know what we’re doing and this is the way it’s going to be.” And I said, “I’m sorry Karen, but you need to understand somethin’. I don’t represent you, I don’t represent your husband. We’re gonna represent Jason and that’s our job!”


Jack Carroll, On Outline Tape: We walked out very upset. I don’t think we said three words together, to each other all the way home. This was supposed to be our defense attorney for our son and we felt that he was going to hang him out to dry. He was out for his own glory and we didn’t want that. We, we told him…


Karen Carroll, On Outline Tape: Yup.


Jack Carroll, On Outline Tape: We told him that Jason wanted to turn state’s evidence and he insisted not.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: The argument in Cliff Kinghorn’s office was an epic clash of worldviews. A cop and a defense attorney, each with fundamentally different understandings of how the criminal justice system works. Both believing their approach was in Jason’s best interest.


A little context here. Generally speaking, cops don’t have the authority to make promises of immunity. An offer like that can only come from a prosecutor. And it’s also risky for the police. A promise of immunity could render a suspect’s confession involuntary in the eyes of the court.


But it matters exactly what is said. A detective who makes an explicit promise of immunity? That’s usually not ok. But a detective who suggests that cooperation might lead to leniency? That’s not uncommon and it’s a legal gray area.


Detective Lamy, for his part, flatly denied ever making promises of any kind to Jason or his parents. But the Carrolls would later testify to a jury that Lamy made the promise the morning after Jason’s first interrogation.


In that testimony, the Carrolls say immunity for Jason became their objective. And to make that happen, they needed to make sure he cooperated.


So, later that same day, when Karen is brought into the room during Jason’s second interrogation, and Detective Lamy is yelling at him that he’s not telling the truth, Karen said, it scared her. If Jason held something back, he wouldn’t get immunity. He needs to talk. He needs to tell them everything for his own good.


Karen Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: These guys are gonna help you! We’re not going to sit and jump on your ass and shoot you down!


Jason Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: But I feel like I’m getting jumped on my ass and shot down now!


Karen Carroll: We want the truth outta you! 


Jason Carroll: I–!


Karen Carroll: Nobody is going to be able to help you any more [JASON CARROLL SOBS] until you come forth with all of the information that they need! 


Moon, Narrating: Later in the interrogation, you can hear Karen tell her son, “You still have a chance to save your ass. My dear, I don’t want to see you go to prison.”


Karen Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: The longer you hold off telling the truth…


Roland Lamy, On Interrogation Tape: Come on…


Karen Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: …the harder it’s going to be and the worse it’s going to be on yourself. You still have a chance to save your ass. My dear, I don’t want to see you go to prison. [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Jason says, “I don’t want to go to prison either, Ma.” [INTERROGATION TAPE FADES OUT] 


Here’s what Karen told me about what she was thinking during Jason’s interrogation.


Karen Carroll: What was going through my mind was, if Jason had something to tell them, then he was going to tell them. But it was that word “immunity” rolling around in my head. I’m not thinkin’ that that’s got to come from the AG’s Office. I’m just thinkin’, “This is my son. They’re trying to pin this murder on him.” And the word “immunity” is rolling around in my head.


Moon, Narrating: As Jason’s confessions change and becomes more and more incriminating, the Carrolls say Lamy’s promise changes, too – from full immunity to a short prison sentence. Still, to Karen and Jack, it felt like the best option for Jason who otherwise could face the death penalty.


When Jason’s attorney Cliff Kinghorn told the Carrolls that Lamy’s promises were a fantasy, they simply didn’t believe that. Karen trusted Lamy, a fellow police officer, the one many considered the best.


And so, for weeks after that meeting, Karen continued to collude with Detective Lamy. 


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: She actively worked to undermine Jason’s attorneys.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Karen would talk to Jason in jail, learn what his attorneys were telling him, then she’d call Detective Lamy and relay that information to him.


She even convinced Jason to write a letter in jail to the prosecutors. In the letter, Jason says he wants to testify for the state, but his attorneys weren’t letting him. Karen dictated the letter to Jason over the phone. With the help of Lamy, Karen delivered the letter by hand to the Attorney General’s office – to the lawyers who were prosecuting her son.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: And then, there’s the Outline Tape.


Roland Lamy, On Outline Tape: Today, uh, we have prepared an outline, uh, on a board in a conference room by which, uh, uh, uh, the outline will be utilized to present this, um, taped statement.


Moon, Narrating: Lamy hoped the tape would undermine any potential argument from Jason’s attorneys that the confessions were coerced. And Karen and Jack Carroll helped make it. They recorded it with police in December of 1989, just weeks after Jason’s arrest and 11 days after the Carrolls’ big fight with Jason’s lawyer.


Lamy, On Outline Tape: Uh, you understand that the reason we’ve made this tape today is because, uh, we know by other forces and, uh, uh, their activity that in the long road ahead, that, uh, there are going to be continued and repeated attacks that the police coerced, intimidated, promised, threatened, made deals with Jason at any time during the confession taking or the confession, uh, decision making process.


Moon, Narrating: Detective Lamy knew the voluntariness of Jason’s confessions would be an issue – possibly from the intel he was getting from Karen about the legal strategy of Jason’s lawyers. And so, to protect his investigation, Lamy got Jack and Karen Carroll on record, saying that the police made no promises or threats to Jason. 


The thing Cliff and Karen would later say the whole fight at his office was about – Karen tells Lamy, it never happened. Jack tells Lamy in the Outline Tape a promise to Jason wasn’t so much as insinuated. And Karen agrees that when she took part in Jason’s second interrogation, she was acting as Jason’s mother – not as a police officer.


These were all statements that would later help the state fight off challenges by Jason’s lawyers to the validity of his confession.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: For Lamy, the Outline Tape was a rare instance of two people putting their personal and familial relationships aside in the interest of justice.


Lamy, On Outline Tape: Uh, uh, I must tell you that it’s extremely re– rewarding to sit here and listen to two parents who are as conscientious and as fair in their judgment and appraisal of this entire situation as you two have been and we do appreciate that.


Moon, Narrating: For people who believe Jason is innocent, the Outline Tape is tragic. Here are Jason’s parents – the people supposed to protect him – helping police put the finishing touches on his wrongful conviction.


Maybe most damning of all, from this point of view, is how Karen and Jack both describe Jason calling them from jail and again, trying to tell them he didn’t do it, to which his parents basically say, “Knock it off.”


Karen Carroll, On Outline Tape: He went on to tell us that he wasn’t guilty, and again, his father and I stressed to him the importance of telling the truth.


[MUSIC IN]


Jack Carroll, On Outline Tape: He said – He tried to compromise with the truth. He says, “Well, what would happen if I, if I am really innocent of this and I just go and try to make a deal on that statement?” And he says, “Down the road a year or two, say the state investigators find the real man who did this, ya know, what would they do then?” And we tried to explain that to him. At that point, we both knew that he was just pussyfootin’ around.


[MUSIC POST]


Jack Carroll, On Outline Tape: And it’s my opinion – I’m not going to speak for my wife, but it’s my opinion that the boy is guilty.


Lamy: Right.


Jack Carroll: And I’ve known him for 19, 20 years now. And it’s my – he is guilty and he needs to be punished.


Lamy: Right. 


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: People in Jason’s camp today have a lot to say about what his parents did. Most of the criticism is directed at Karen because of her role in the interrogation.


Debbie Dutra: She was a cop! She of all people knows better. My, my children are 30 and 26. If they were ever hauled off to a police department, first thing I would say is, “Lawyer up.” Done.


Debbie Richer: I’ve told Jason this, there’s a part of me that doesn’t have a whole lot of respect for his mom. He had nobody on his side to protect him. Where were his protectors?


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: For Jason, the feelings are more complicated.


Jason Carroll, On the Phone: I mean, I still, I still talk to her… but it’s… it’s not quite the same, nor will it ever be.


Moon, Narrating: Jason says he and his mom have never really been able to talk about what happened freely. Their only contact since the arrest has been in jail and prison visiting rooms with guards watching. Or on prison phones where they could be listening. Not the best environment for a painful heart-to-heart.


Jason Carroll, On the Phone: The story and the saga is not done between her and I. It’s, it’s far from it. For now, it’s just on hold. What’s going to ha– What’s gonna happen is, if I walk out of here, her and I are going to sit down and have a long, long talk. And she’s probably not gonna like some of the things I got to say.


Moon, Narrating: Jack Carroll died in 2006. Karen, for her part, now acknowledges the role she played and says she deeply regrets it. But she also lays much of the blame at the feet of Detective Roland Lamy.


Karen Carroll, On the Phone: I was not only a police officer, but I was a mother. You know? And mothers will do whatever they have to do to try to protect their kids. And things affect everybody differently. And I think he just took full advantage of… my noodle just slipped off the plate into the abyss.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Cliff Kinghorn, Jason’s lawyer who argued with Karen that day in his office, who once questioned whose side Karen was on, today says that this was not her fault.


Kinghorn: Y-You know, Karen helped them, but in my heart I always thought she felt she was doing the right thing for Jason. Um, and, I mean, Roland knew what he was doin’. And he realized he had someone who had a great deal of influence on her son that he could use to get what he wanted. I never doubted for a minute that she was made promises. Lamy made promises to her that he could never possibly keep.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: About seven weeks after the Carrolls had their blowup with Cliff, the reality of Jason’s situation takes hold. Lamy’s alleged promises of leniency do not come to pass. The state of New Hampshire indicts Jason on charges of capital murder. Lamy and the prosecutors Karen had put her trust in are now trying to execute her son.


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Meanwhile, Jason is back to denying any involvement in the murder – a position he will maintain for the next 34 years. Jason refuses to testify against Ken or Tony.


Karen and Jack start to cooperate with Jason’s attorneys. Eventually, they will testify several times as witnesses for the defense.


On the stand, they will say that the Outline Tape was a huge lie, orchestrated and scripted by Detective Lamy. They will beg a judge and jury, sometimes through tears, to believe them that Detective Lamy promised their son immunity.


But it won’t work. The prosecutor will simply point out that the Carrolls are admitting they are willing to lie if they think it will help Jason. And the prosecutor will say, that’s exactly what they’re doing now.


Jack and Karen Carroll will be too late to stop what they helped start. Jason Carroll will be convicted of murder.


Karen Carroll, On the Phone: I am like, why did I let this happen? Why wasn’t I stronger? Why couldn’t I see what he was doing? Why, why, why, why?


[THEME MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Coming up in the second half of A True Crime Story…


Jackie Carroll Hughes: I was just reading and laying out the case. I knew something wasn't right, but I didn't know what wasn't right. 


Moon, Off Mic: And what did you think it was leading to? Like, did you have an objective in mind as you were doing this?


Jackie Carroll Hughes: The truth.


Dan Philie: That’s a big accusation for someone to come out and admit that they did something when they didn’t do it.


Robert Hoglund: I thought he was guilty. I thought there was no question about whether he was guilty or not.


Mark Sisti: I mean, one of the best things that came out of Pfaff’s mouth was when they were filming him coming out of the police station in the morning and they were like, “Do you have anything to say?” or somethin’, and he says, “Yeah, not guilty.”


Huwe Burton: When they started to suggest that this is the only way that this is going to work, your mind says, “Well, Okay, you have to trust them.” You believe that you’re helping your accusers help you.


Fabiana Alceste: People have a really, really hard time reconciling with the fact that someone would confess to something that they didn’t do. And they assume that if they say that they did it, it’s because they actually did it.


[THEME MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: A True Crime Story is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon.


It’s edited by Katie Colaneri.


Additional reporting and research by Paul Cuno-Booth.


Editing help from Lauren Chooljian, Daniela Allee, Sara Plourde, Taylor Quimby, Mara Hoplamazian, and Todd Bookman. 


Our News Director is Dan Barrick. Our Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie.


Fact-checking by Dania Suleman.


Sara Plourde created our original artwork, as well as our website, bearbrookpodcast.com.


Photos and videos by Gaby Lozada.


Original music for the series was created by me, Jason Moon.


Bear Brook is a production of the Document team at New Hampshire Public Radio.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Transcript of S2 Episode 3: The Breaking Point

Note: episode transcripts are radio scripts - please keep that in mind as you come across notations and errors in the text.

[MUSIC IN]


Lauren Chooljian, Narrating: Previously on Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story…


Karen Carroll, On the Phone: I wanted to trust him… I wanted to trust him.


Tom Dufresne: I think he thought he was Telly Savalas. He had a shaved head. He’s suckin’ on a lollipop, and he’s struttin’ around the courtroom like he owned it.


Eric Wilson: He had a reputation for solving cases.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Jason Moon, Narrating: When I first met Jason Carroll inside the prison, I could feel my brain trying to reconcile two different Jasons. There was the 19-year-old I’d gotten a sense of through interviews, police reports, and old tapes, and then, there was the 52-year-old in front of me.


Jason’s bald, a goatee that’s mostly gray. And he’s huge, like he’s spent the last three decades lifting weights, which is kinda true.


Jason’s not big on reporters. He remembers how the newspapers covered his trials. How they reprinted, again and again, the most damning quotes from his confessions. So, it took some time for Jason to relax around me, if only a little.


There’s a lot I could tell you about Jason. He’s polite. Despite his obvious physical strength, he has a gentle presence. He’s apparently quite good at handball. He enjoys the woodworking program at the prison. He’s made dozens and dozens of bowls and vases and pieces of furniture – a set of wooden lamps with little animal shapes cut out of them. He gives them away to people he cares about. People like Debbie Richer.


Debbie Richer: I met Jason back in 1989 and we kinda cruised Elm Street. [LAUGHS] Back in the day, that’s kinda what everybody did.


Moon, Narrating: Cruising Elm Street. It was something I’d seen references to in police reports and court testimony. But it wasn’t until Debbie explained it to me, that I could really picture it.


Richer: When you cruised Elm Street, people were cruising Elm Street from anywhere from 7 o’clock at night to until 1 and 2 in the morning. And then you’d go hang out at Dunkin’ Donuts!


[‘80S VERSION OF THEME MUSIC IN]


Richer: If you’ve ever been to a car show, okay? That’s kinda what it was. But you would have cliques everywhere. You would have people who have louder stereos. 


[‘80S GUITAR RIFF]


Richer: If you had Jeeps, all your Jeeps were over here to the right. If you had a Camaro, they were to the left. It was, the guys would hang out at Meineke and they would wait for the hot lookin’ girls to come on cruisin’ by.


Moon, Narrating: It was on one of these 1989 cruising nights, when Americana overflowed, that Debbie met Jason.


Jason Carroll, On the Phone: I’m in the passenger seat and there she was, blond hair flowin’ with California girl blue eyes, smilin’ a big smile, and we’re goin’ down the road and I about broke my neck lookin’ at this woman.


Richer: Jason was known on Elm Street as, um, I’m going to put it as a pretty boy. Like, “Oh, wow, he’s hot. Let’s go after him.” ‘Cause he had the nice brown hair, nice smile, tan. So, he was a good looking kid. He really was.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Unfortunately, for both of them, Debbie already had a boyfriend. But Debbie and Jason – who she sometimes calls Jay – struck up a flirtatious friendship anyways.


Richer: We had a lot in common. My dad was military, Jay was military. We like mechanical things. Yes, I can put the dress on and high heels, but I can also get under and get my hands dirty, and I think that that’s why Jason and I became friends because I wasn’t just that little delicate girl. I was somebody he could relate to.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: It was around the time Jason and Debbie met, in 1989, that Jason says his life was starting to get on track. Jason’s family had moved to New Hampshire a few years before from South Carolina. Jason’s stepdad, Jack Carroll, was in the military, so they moved a lot.


Jason was 17 when they got to New Hampshire, and he says he quickly realized his new high school was way ahead academically of his old one, so he dropped out. He said money was tight in the family, so he started working. And for a while, he bounced around from job to job.


Carroll, On the Phone: I tried going back to school – it just wasn’t happenin’. Nothin’ was working for me. So, I was like, “Okay, military it is.” And that was the best thing I ever did. And I would’ve made a career out of it.


Moon, Narrating: When he was 18, Jason joined the National Guard. He went to bootcamp at Fort Dix in New Jersey, then moved back home to New Hampshire. He got a job as a mechanic at the National Guard Armory in Manchester – the same place his stepdad worked.


Carroll: Uh, I was proud. I was proud to serve my country, even in what little capacity I did. I was actually, I was proud as a peacock about it.


Moon, Narrating: Jason finally felt like his life had a direction. He was fixing National Guard trucks by day, cruising Elm Street and making eyes at Debbie by night.


But things at home weren’t always so great. Jason says he and Jack didn’t get along. Jack has since died, but Jason’s mom, Karen Carroll, told me he treated Jason differently than the other three kids, who were all biologically his.


Jason says with a cop for a mom and a soldier for a dad, the house was strict. A lot of “yes sirs” and “no ma’ams.” According to one of Jason’s sisters, the family wasn’t great at communicating. She told me things just weren’t discussed.


Home life was bad enough that Jason says he was considering asking his commanding officer to ship him off to Germany, or really anywhere that wasn’t New Hampshire. He was ready for something bigger. Jason’s favorite movie was “Top Gun.” He had dreams of going through the Army’s elite Ranger School.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon: And how long were you, were you there, before…


Carroll: Just a year. I was only in a year, and then all this happened.


Moon, Narrating: 1989 was the last time Jason was free. He’s spent the last 34 years or so in prison. That’s longer than I’ve been alive. A few more years and Jason will have been inside prison twice as long as his life before it.


Nineteen-year-old Jason was like so many other teenagers – interested in girls, adventure. Jason in his 50s is harder to read. Probably because his life today is so profoundly different than most people’s. He’s separated from the world – literally, physically – but also sometimes emotionally.


I got a window into this when I talked with Jason about how he’s handling the renewed attention on his case. How, after living three decades in the obscurity of a New Hampshire prison, the spotlight is on him again.


He told me, over the years, most of his family moved out of state. And friends drifted away. And sometimes, that was because Jason told them to. He says it was too painful to hear about their lives on the outside, while he was stuck in there.


Carroll: I said, “Listen, you know. Listen, you got kids, you got a wife, and I love you to death, you’re my friend, but, go be with your family.” And unfortunately, I’ve pushed a few people away like that. It was easier for me and, like, in a sense, selfish, now that I think back on it, because I don’t, I don’t have to live out there. I don’t have to know what’s going on. I don’t have to hear about, “Oh yeah, we went out and did this, ya know, got the motorcycles out, did the–” I don’t want to have to hear about that ‘cause all it does is brings back… It puts a pit in your stomach.


Moon, Narrating: This is part of how Jason has survived in prison. He withdrew – from most other people and from his feelings about what had happened to his life.


Of course, he was angry about what he says happened to him. But he couldn’t get by in this new, terrifying world of prison and be mad about it every second. So, Jason made a kind of grudging ceasefire agreement with his emotions.


Carroll: You know, you kinda realize after a while nothing’s going to be done, nothin’ can be done, nobody has – you don’t have the money to do anything, you can’t fight anything, nobody tells you anything… So, you know, you just adapt to the situation you’re in and you go forward.


Moon, Narrating: Jason adapted, he went forward. He got used to saying, “It is what it is,” to describe his life.


And then, Jason heard about the New England Innocence Project from another guy at the prison. It’s a nonprofit based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that works to exonerate people it believes are wrongfully convicted across New England.


Jason allowed himself to briefly imagine that his life was not simply what it is.


[THEME MUSIC IN]


In 2016, Jason wrote the New England Innocence Project a letter. The innocence lawyers reviewed his case. They believed him. And now, they fight for him. And he’s back in court. And reporters like me are calling to talk with him.


And with each step, Jason’s emotional ceasefire gets harder and harder to maintain.


Carroll: I never knew an– what an anxiety was, and now I have it. Eh, there’s just a lot going through my mind – it’s just a whirlwind. Because I thought that you know, this was it, you know, this was done. Um… this is what I’m faced with. And now, to have hope for an opportunity to, to live…? But it’s hard. You know, you want to, you want to invest and put yourself into everything that’s goin’ on, but in the back of your mind you know you can’t.


This is Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story. I’m Jason Moon.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: By the fall of 1989, Detective Roland Lamy suspects Tony Paff had played him. He thinks when Tony wore a wire and talked to Ken Johnson in Rhode Island, they were both acting. He thinks Tony and Ken must both be involved in the murder.


So, Lamy starts to dig deeper on Tony’s background. And that’s how he ends up looking at work records for a place called High-Tech Fire Prevention. Where Tony worked with Jason Carroll, during the time of Sharon’s murder.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: High-Tech was one of the several jobs Jason had between dropping out of high school and joining the military.


It was a dirty job. High-Tech cleaned commercial kitchen exhaust systems at restaurants and fast food places. One guy who worked there said the chemicals they used could put holes in your skin. And because they could only worked when restaurants were closed, the hours could be terrible.


Because of all this, it wasn’t unusual for people to quit High-Tech. An employee would later testify that turnover there was always high.


But when Detective Lamy got his hands on Tony Pfaff’s work schedule for the week of Sharon’s murder, he noticed something. The night Sharon was killed, Tony and Jason were both scheduled to work together, but Jason never showed.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: So, this is why Lamy wanted to talk to Jason.


Lamy goes to interview Jason when he’s at work at the National Guard Armory. Their first meeting lasts five hours. Unfortunately, none of it is tape-recorded. But there is another tape about what happened that day.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: A bizarre, astonishing tape made a few weeks later by an unlikely group of people: Detective Roland Lamy, his partner, Detective Neal Scott, and Jason’ parents.


[MUSIC OUT]


Roland Lamy, On Recording: [FADES UP] [COUGHS] Okay, this is Sergeant Lamy, State Police. Today, prior to this taping, Sergeant Scott and I met with Mr. and Mrs. Carroll, who came to state police headquarters voluntarily to meet with us. [CLEARS THROAT] The Carrolls have expressed a concern about Jason’s wellbeing, as well as his safety. In discussing this entire situation with the Carrolls, um, a joint decision has been made, uh, to establish a permanent record of [CLEARS THROAT] all the events that have transpired to date in this case.


Moon, Narrating: “A joint decision to make a permanent record,” says Detective Lamy.


This is another tape I couldn’t wrap my head around when I first heard it. In a case that’s all about the power of words on tape, these words on this tape might be the most powerful – and certainly, the most surprising.


This tape was recorded a few weeks after Jason’s first meeting with Lamy, after Jason has been arrested for murder. So, here’s the lead detective in a murder case, sitting down with the parents of the suspect he just arrested – and they’re all working together.


[MUSIC IN]


Lamy, On Recording: Today, uh, we have prepared an outline, uh, on a board in a conference room by which the outline, uh, uh, will be utilized to present this, um, taped statement.


Moon, Narrating: Later, this tape would be dubbed “the Outline Tape” because of the way Lamy uses an outline on a chalkboard to structure the discussion. Using that outline, Lamy, his partner, Neal Scott, and Jason’s parents together narrate the story of Jason’s interrogations and arrest. They start that story on November 24th, 1989. The day of that first meeting between Jason Carroll and Detective Lamy.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: It’s a Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. That afternoon, police arrive at the armory to talk to Jason.


Jason’s mom Karen also happens to come by the armory that afternoon to drop off some keys for Jason. Here’s Karen describing this moment in the Outline Tape to Detective Lamy. And remember, the Outline Tape was recorded just a few weeks after the events Karen is describing.


Karen Carroll, On Outline Tape: I asked where Jason was and one of the officers in the office told me that Jason was in the break room with state police. He then proceeded to take me to the tape – to the break room. I went in and saw Jason sitting at the table with three other individuals.


Moon, Narrating: Karen sees her son sitting with three cops – Detectives Dana Finn, Neal Scott, and Roland Lamy. They're sitting around a wooden table that feels a little too big for the room.


Remember, Karen’s also a cop in the town where Sharon’s body was found, Bedford. And she already knows two of these guys. Detective Finn is with the Bedford PD, so he’s Karen’s coworker. And Detective Scott with state police had interviewed Karen for a job earlier that year. The only person Karen hadn’t met was Detective Lamy.


In the Outline Tape, Karen says the detectives told her they were there to talk with Jason about the Sharon Johnson murder. And she says they told her she was welcome to stay if she wanted.


Lamy, On Outline Tape: And you remember that, uh, uh, Jason was asked if he wanted you to stay or not?


Karen Carroll, On Outline Tape: Yes, he was asked.


Lamy, On Outline Tape: And do you remember his answer?


Karen Carroll, On Outline Tape: I believe he said that he’d be okay. There was no need of me being there.


Moon, Narrating: So, Karen leaves. Now, it’s just Jason and the police. According to the police reports and the officers’ testimony under oath, here’s what they say happens.


The interview starts at 1-25 p.m. The detectives tell Jason why they’re there. The Sharon Johnson murder. Tony Pfaff. The night of July 28th, 1988. Then, Lamy says Jason surprises them all by saying he remembers that night well.


Jason says that night, he was hanging out at one of the usual spots – the Meineke Muffler on Elm Street in Manchester. Jason says Tony drove up in a green Subaru – the same kind of car Sharon drove. Jason says Tony told him the car belonged to a girl who worked at the mall. Then, Jason says Tony asked him if he’d follow him to the mall so he could leave the car there for this girl when she got out of work. Jason agreed.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Detective Lamy is hearing what sounds like a firsthand account of Tony driving the victim’s car the night of the murder. This is big.


Although, it doesn’t quite line up with what police know about the movement of Sharon’s car. Remember, they didn’t find the car at the mall until early Saturday morning. Here, Jason is telling them he helped Tony move the car to the mall on Thursday night.


Jason makes a handwritten statement of this story. It’s just a few paragraphs long. It’s now 3-15 p.m. Almost two hours have passed since the interview began.


At this point, Detective Lamy says Jason is acting nervous. He says he looks frightened, shaky. Lamy starts to push Jason for more details. Jason starts to cry. And then, Jason changes his story.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: According to police, Jason now says the night before the murder, Tony came to him with an idea to play a practical joke on a woman that Tony knew. Jason says Tony wanted him to pretend to be someone named “Bob.” Jason agreed.


Jason says he and Tony met Sharon at the mall. He says Tony convinced her to drive to a construction site. Jason says he drove behind them in his truck.


Lamy stops the interrogation. He later testifies this moment stunned him. At the mention of a construction site, the type of area where Sharon’s body was found, Lamy reads Jason his Miranda Rights. Jason waives his rights and continues the story.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: At the construction site, Jason says Tony and Sharon met with two men. Jason says he stayed back by his truck about 75 feet away and watched.


Jason says he saw one of the men with a black beard pull out a knife and stab Sharon in the back. Jason says he panicked. He got in his truck and drove away.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: According to the detectives, Jason is shaking and crying intermittently as he tells this story.


Detectives ask him to write out the story on paper, but Jason is shaking so badly he can’t. So, Detective Neal Scott writes out Jason’s statement for him. Later, Jason copies the statement again in his own handwriting.


It’s now almost 6-30 in the evening. Jason’s been talking to the detectives for 5 hours. Jason says he’s tired. He wants to go home. The detectives call Jason’s parents to come pick him up.


When Jason’s parents arrive, they talk with the police. Here’s Detective Lamy and Karen Carroll talking about this moment in the Outline Tape, recorded just a few weeks later.


Lamy, On Outline Tape: Do you remember generally, uh, what we told you that Jason had or had not admitted at that point?


Karen Carroll, On Outline Tape: You told us that, uh, Jason had admitted moving the car and was involved somewhat, as to what degree we didn’t know, but he was involved somewhat with the Johnson murder.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: It’s a Friday night. Jason’s parents agree with police to continue the interrogation on Monday. Then, they drive him home.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Jason Carroll just told police he helped lure Sharon Johnson to the site where she was killed. The next morning, Jason tries to take it back.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Lamy, On Outline Tape: [FADES UP] Okay, now, on the outline, moving on to the next day, Saturday, the 25th of November.


Moon, Narrating: The day after Jason’s first interrogation, Saturday, at about 11 a.m., the Carrolls have something of a family meeting. Jason and his parents, Karen and Jack, all sit down at the kitchen table. Jack Carroll, Jason’s stepdad, recapped the conversation for Detectives Lamy and Scott in the Outline Tape.


Jack Carroll, On Outline Tape: We just asked him what kinda questions were being asked and he started tellin’ us. And, uh, at that time, he, uh, he stood up and he said it was a bunch of bullcrap, to keep it clean. And that anything that he had said wasn’t true. He just said it because he felt that’s what the police wanted to hear, basically.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Later, Jack would say he tried to identify with Jason in this moment by saying that, as a Vietnam veteran, he had killed people and that if Jason had killed someone, he should get it off his chest. Jack says Jason became furious at this – slammed his fist on the table, stood up, and said he had nothing to do with it.


Jack Carroll, On Outline Tape: So, we, um, we got concerned. So, at that time we tried to call, as a matter of fact, Jason tried to call the state police to talk to either one of you two.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Jason calls Detective Lamy. But it’s a Saturday and he’s not in. So, Jason tries the local police department in Bedford. Captain Leo Morency comes to the Carrolls’ house.


Jason tells him the story about being there when Sharon Johnson was murdered was, quote, “a bunch of shit.” Jason says he made it up from the questions the detectives asked him. Jason says the only part that was true was that he helped Tony move a green Subaru to the mall.


Captain Morency tells Jason he doesn’t believe him. Then, the phone rings. It’s Detective Lamy.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Lamy learns what’s going on. And then, he suggests they all meet up at the Bedford Police Department to talk it over. Jason agrees. Jason and his mom, Karen, drive over to the police station together. Jason is brought into a room with detectives, Karen waits out by her desk.


The second interrogation of Jason Carroll begins at 1-30 that Saturday afternoon. It starts with Jason telling detectives most of what he told them the day before was a lie. Here’s Detective Neal Scott, Lamy’s partner, describing that moment in the Outline Tape.


Neal Scott, On Outline Tape: Jason was still, uh, uh, standing by his recanted statement insomuch that what he had told us the previous day was a bunch of bull. We knew that he was now lying.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: For about an hour, Jason tries to convince the detectives that the story he gave them was false. But it’s not working. And then, Jason tells the detectives he wants to see his mom. Lamy leaves the room to go talk to Karen Carroll. In the Outline Tape, Lamy says Jason’s request put him in a tough spot.


Lamy, On Outline Tape: This is a situation that, if we allowed her to come into the room we’d be open to scrutiny. And if we didn’t allow her to come into the room, we’d be open to scrutiny.


Moon, Narrating: Lamy decides it’s better to bring Karen in than not. She enters the room just before 3 p.m. According to the police, Jason’s denials started to waver just before Karen came in. And then…


Neal Scott, On Outline Tape: Approximately 3:05, uh, Captain Morency activates a, uh, microcassette recorder and, uh, Jason’s, uh, statement and the activities in that room are recorded from that point on.


[CASSETTE TAPE HISS IN]

Lamy, On Recording: …a willingness. It’s not fair!... [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Police interrogated Jason for a total of six hours this day. But only a little more than half an hour was recorded. You’ll remember the audio quality of that recording is not great, and occasionally people’s names are bleeped. So, I’ll read some parts of it.


From almost the minute the tape recorder is turned on, Karen takes an active role in the  interrogation.


Karen Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: It’s over and it’s done with… [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Karen asks her son, “Will you tell these three men every last detail? Everything!”


Karen Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: Everything!


Lamy, On Interrogation Tape: You don’t look willing…


Moon, Narrating: Then, Detective Lamy jumps in: “You don't look willing to tell the truth. You don't look as if you've concluded that you have got to let it go. There is that breaking point.” Jason says, “I’ve got to let it go, I’ve got to.”


Jason Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: I've got to let it go.


Lamy, On Interrogation Tape: Well, let it go! [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Lamy tells Jason again and again he knows Jason isn’t telling the truth.


Lamy, On Interrogation Tape: You’ve got to tell it!


Jason Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: That night… no. How do you want me to start it?!


Lamy, On Interrogation Tape: How did it start?! How did the whole deal start?! [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Lamy yells at Jason to tell him how the whole thing started. Jason says, “The whole fucking thing started when I was supposed to be, to play a practical joker, as ‘Bob’ to some woman by the name of Sharon Johnson, who you guys know.” Jason says Tony offered him $500 to do this. He says he and Tony met Sharon at the mall and then, Tony talked Sharon into going to the construction site.


Jason says Tony and Sharon rode in her green Subaru and Jason followed in his truck. But this time, Jason says when they all arrived at the construction site, he didn't stay back by his truck.


Jason says Ken Johnson met them all there. He says Ken and Sharon had a big argument. He says Ken accused Sharon of cheating on him. Then, he says Sharon turned away and Ken pulled out a knife and stabbed her in the back.


Jason Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: And she turned her back and he pulled out a knife. [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Jason says he watched as Ken continued to stab Sharon, while Tony took off her shirt and fondled her breasts. Lamy asks if anyone else stabbed Sharon. Jason says Tony did.


Lamy doesn’t believe it. He tells Jason he keeps making himself look like an angel in the story. He says, “The jury will tear you apart if you’re not telling the truth, here.”


Lamy, On Interrogation Tape: The jury will tear you apart if you’re not telling the truth, here.


Jason Carroll, On Interrogation Tape, Crying: I’m telling the truth, Sergeant. I don’t want to go through no more bullshit. I just want to get this over and out of my life. [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Jason says, “I’m telling the truth, Sergeant. I don’t want to go through no more bullshit. I just want to get this over and out of my life.” 


Still, Lamy doesn’t buy it. He says, “But, Okay, you can help us out more than this. Where is the shirt and where is the knife?” Police hadn’t been able to find either. Jason says he doesn’t know. 


Lamy asks, “Who moved the car? Why did the car show up Saturday morning at Sears?” Jason doesn’t have an answer. He says, “I want so much to get this over with.” Lamy is getting frustrated.


Lamy, Interrogation Tape: Why, in God’s name, would you tell us this much and still leave out the truth? The essence of the truth! I have not seen the breaking point in you! What in God’s name is the matter with you? Your mother’s sitting right here! The captain of detectives of the Bedford Police Department is here, Sergeant Scott is here, and I’m here! What is it going to take?!


Jason Carroll, On Interrogation Tape, Crying: I was threatened! I was told that if I opened my mouth I would be dead!


Lamy, On Interrogation Tape: By whom?


Jason Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: Johnson! [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Jason says after Sharon was killed, Ken threatened to do the same to Jason if he told anyone. Jason says that’s the reason he’s been scared to tell the whole story. He’s afraid for his life. Detective Lamy and Jason’s mom Karen tell him they can protect him. But, they keep saying, they need the truth. Jason says, “I am trying to be so fucking truthful.” Lamy fires back, “But why don’t you skip trying and just be truthful?”


Lamy says, “Come on, Jason! If you were paid $500 by Ken Johnson, you did a lot more than what you told us.” Then, Lamy adds, “And I suspect that is not the accurate amount you got.” Jason says, “That’s right” and then says, “I got about two grand.”


Then, Karen jumps in and asks what Jason did with the money. Lamy says, “Tell us that. Make something believable.” Jason tells them he spent it on marijuana.


And here, it seems like Lamy just totally loses his patience. He starts to raise his voice, telling Jason to imagine that a jury is listening. And meanwhile, judging by the sound of Jason’s voice, it feels like that “breaking point” that Lamy keeps mentioning is just around the corner. At one point, Jason is crying on his knees, arms wrapped around his mother’s legs.


Lamy, On Interrogation Tape: The jury is listening. The jury is listening to you! You sound like a criminal, not a guy that’s made a terrible mistake!


Jason Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: Sergeant, it’s not that easy. I hope you can understand that.


Lamy, On Interrogation Tape: I understand that, but what I don’t…


Jason Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: It’s not going to be just, like, I can spit it out. I can’t. I want to so much.


Karen Carroll, On Interrogation Tape: Then do it! Why can’t you?! What are you holding back?!


Jason Carroll: I’m scared! I’m fucking scared!


Karen Carroll: Of course, you’re freakin’ scared! These guys are gonna help you! We’re not gonna sit and jump on your ass and shoot you down!


Jason Carroll: But I feel like I’m getting jumped on my ass and shot down now!


Karen Carroll: We want the truth outta you! 


Jason Carroll: I–!


Karen Carroll: Nobody is going to be able to help you any more [JASON CARROLL SOBS] until you come forth with all of the information that they need! Do you think I’m gonna love you any less?!


Jason Carroll, Sobbing: I don’t know! I don’t know! 


Karen Carroll: And I’m going to stand by you through this! [JASON CARROLL SOBS] You are the link that they need to put Johnson and Pfaff behind friggin’ bars! [JASON CARROLL SOBS] 


Jason Carroll, Sobbing: I can’t…


Karen Carroll: If you put a knife – if you put a knife in that woman, [JASON CARROLL SOBS] I want to know! You stabbed her, didn’t you?! 


Jason Carroll, Crying: Yes, I did, BLEEP.


Karen Carroll: How many times did you stab her?!


Jason Carroll, Sobbing: I stabbed her three times!


Karen Carroll: Alright!


Lamy: Who else stabbed her? [JASON CARROLL SOBS] Who else stabbed her, truthfully?


Carroll, Crying: Johnson! Johnson and Pfaff stabbed her… [SOBS]


Lamy: How many times?... [JASON CARROLL SOBS] [TAPE FADES OUT]


[MUSIC IN]


Karen Carroll, On Outline Tape: I-I… I just wanted him to be truthful. 


Moon, Narrating: Just a few weeks later, Karen described her role in that interrogation in the Outline Tape.


Karen Carroll, On Outline Tape: And the only way that anyone could help him get over these fears was they had to know the truth so they would know what they were, uh, were dealing with. And I showed him that no matter what happened, that, um, [VOICE BREAKS] I still loved him.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Jason Carroll started the day recanting one confession about witnessing a murder. By the end of the day, he’s given a second confession about committing the murder. It’s one of the many ways Jason’s story changes during his second interrogation. With each change, the story gets more and more incriminating.


Detectives ask Jason again and again about the murder weapon. At first, Jason says he destroyed the knife in a fire, along with the shirt Sharon was wearing – the one police never found. Then he says he threw the knife in a river. He says the knife belonged to Ken Johnson. And finally, he says it belonged to him. Jason’s mom asks, “Is it a small brown pocket knife?” Jason says yes. Karen realizes she has the knife at home. She’d recently found it in the laundry.


Jason also changes his story about who stabbed Sharon first. By the end of his second interrogation, after being questioned by police for about 11 hours over two days, Jason says he stabbed Sharon first.


When asked why Ken wanted to kill Sharon, at first, Jason says he doesn’t know. Then, he says it was because Sharon had caught Ken raping his adopted daughter, Lisa. Then he adds to that she’d caught him raping his daughter and discovered that Ken had murdered someone else.


For the police, all these changes in Jason’s story were evidence of its authenticity. They saw a young man who didn’t want to admit what he’d done. Who was fighting at every stage to not admit to the cops, to his mother, maybe to himself, the full extent of his involvement in a horrific killing.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Almost a year after Detective Lamy took over the Sharon Johnson investigation, he finally had the evidence he needed to take down the person he felt was most responsible: Ken Johnson.


At one point during Jason’s second interrogation, Lamy even airs his frustration about how Ken had so far eluded him. He tells Jason, “Ken Johnson is on the street in Warwick, Rhode Island laughing in our face with his lawyer, coaching him on how to avoid proper police homicide investigative technique. And that’s a fact of life. That’s what we in the police department have to put up with today.”


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Detective Lamy let Jason’s parents take him home again that night after the interrogation. A pretty remarkable thing for a police officer to do. Two nights in a row, Jason had admitted to some level of participation in a murder, and police didn’t arrest him. They let him go home.


The thing is, when people get arrested, the constitution guarantees them lawyers. The first piece of advice any defense lawyer gives to a client who’s held in police custody, “Shut up. Stop talking to the cops.” Lamy, of course, would’ve known all this.


So, Lamy let Jason go home that Saturday night, November 25th, 1989. It was one of the last nights Jason was free.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: It took several conversations before Jason would really talk to me about what happened during his interrogations.


Moon: I know this is a dumb question, but were you scared during that interrogation?


Jason Carroll, On the Phone: Are you fucking kidding me? You’re being accused of first degree homicide. Wouldn’t you be scared, knowing you didn’t do nothin’?


Moon, Narrating: I get the feeling that Jason’s emotions about it, even after 34 years, are so raw, so vivid, that he figures it’s just best not to go there.


But Jason also knows, for his innocence claim to have a chance, he’s gonna have to talk about it. People want to know, if you’re innocent, why did you say all of that?


Still, it’s really hard for Jason. The first time he and I talked about the interrogation, I asked him a question that kind of set him off. I’m not going to tell you what the question was, only because it’s about something we haven’t gotten to yet. But just know, the way I asked it – listening back, I get why it got under Jason’s skin.


Carroll, On the Phone: When you’re fuckin’ – You’re constantly being told, you know, “You did this and you did this,” when you know you didn’t, but you’re being told you did, after and after – See now you’re pissin’ me off. See, this is where the PTSD kicks in, Jay. I cannot – I get so frustrated and I get so fuckin’ angry because of what’s been done to me. And nobody gives a fucking shit what this fuckin’ punk bitch did to me! And to sit here and try to describe it and explain it to you?! I fucking can’t.


Moon, Narrating: The spotlight that has swung back on to Jason’s case, the possibility of finally being believed, my casual sounding questions about possibly the most traumatic event in his life. It all finally broke the ceasefire.


There was an awkward silence. I suggested we talk about something else. And we did, or tried to, for a few minutes. But then, Jason wanted to explain more about how he was feeling.


Carroll On the Phone: So I want to go back to my little outburst. And I guess I want to apologize for that. Sometimes, this is what happens when I try to talk about it. It’s the scars that I have, and I don’t know – I don’t know any other way… It just frustrates me so much. It just… [SIGHS] I don’t know. I don’t how to – and it only lasts for a quick second… It just…


Automated Voice On Prison Phone System: You have one minute remaining.


Moon, Narrating: The prison phone system, with its terrible timing, reminded us our hour was almost up.


Carroll, On the Phone: This lady is going to cut us off, so, before she does, I hope you have a good day. And again, I apologize. [SOUND OF PHONE HANGING UP]


Moon, Narrating: The next time we spoke, Jason apologized again, even though I kept telling him he didn’t need to. He told me the anger comes from a place of feeling humiliated by what happened to him.


Carroll, On the Phone: For me, it’s an embarrassing time in my life because, like I told you last time, I let somebody else take my will and bend it to theirs. And I, I feel embarrassed and I feel fuckin’ ashamed. You know, they took a fucking kid and, and they bent it to what they wanted. You don’t know how fucking ashamed I am of that. 


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: According to Jason, Detective Lamy started bending his will from almost the moment they sat down together at the National Guard Armory back in 1989.


Carroll, On the Phone: I’m at the armory and they come, they come in. And I’m stuck in a tiny ass breakroom. And I remember them talking to me about Anthony Pfaff. I said, “Okay.” And then the next thing you know, I’m being accused of murder.


Moon: How did it turn to that? Like, take me…


Carroll, On the Phone: I have no idea! You know, I don’t remember, they turn it to… “Your tire tracks down.” I’m like, “That’s impossible!”


Moon: What did they say about tire tracks?


Carroll, On the Phone: Yeah, they tried to say they found my tire tracks. I’m like, “That’s impossible!”


Moon, Narrating: Jason says Detective Lamy told him police found his tire tracks at the construction site, which is not true. At trial, Lamy denied ever telling Jason this. But either way, Jason says that was the dynamic of the interrogations. Lamy had all the answers and he was just guessing at what was right and what was wrong.


Carroll: They were already dead set – In my opinion, they were already dead set on tearin’ me a new ass. I’m in there on my own. I got no help, no nothing – nothing. I’m trying to dig myself out of something I didn’t do, and nobody’s listening. I was already in over my head.


Moon, Narrating: After his parents took him home from the armory that Friday, Jason says his mom gave him a valium to help him sleep. The next morning, when Jason tried to take back his confession at the kitchen table, he says his parents didn’t really believe him. Then, Lamy called and Jason and his mom went to the Bedford Police Department for Jason’s second interrogation.


[MUSIC OUT]


Carroll, On the Phone: I do remember bein’ yelled and screamed at. I do remember that asshole asking me questions and any time I answered the wrong way, he’d be like, “Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope.” And it just kept going on and on and on. I remember bein’ so wiped out, I tried to go to sleep under the table. They wouldn’t let me.


Moon, Narrating: Jason describes the experience as having his world turned upside down. It didn’t make sense to him. He was a soldier, with a soldier for a dad and a cop as a mom. He was conditioned to revere authority. But now, he says they were forcing him down a path that he knew wasn’t right. Jason says the interrogations were more intense than anything he’d ever been through, including basic training in the military.


Carroll, On the Phone: It was nothing. Nothing! Because you figure, you know, they take a person, they break you down, and they build you back up. But what I went through with these fucking people… ssshhhit. Military got nothing on that.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Here’s what Jason says he remembers about what actually happened the night Sharon Johnson was murdered.


Jason and Tony were scheduled to work together that night at High-Tech. They had a Burger King in Boston to clean out. Tony needed a ride to work, so Jason gave him one. But Jason decided that night he was done with High-Tech. He decided to quit. So, he dropped Tony off, but he didn’t go in himself.


Carroll, On the Phone: I hated that job. And that’s why I remember that part of it because I’d never quit a job… I hated that job.


Moon, Narrating: Jason says it’s possible he gave Tony a ride to the mall that night to help him move a car, but he’s not sure. And that’s pretty much all he can remember… which is either suspicious or totally reasonable, depending on whether you buy his confession.


But if Jason didn’t do it, why would he remember that night? The first time he was interrogated about that night was almost a year and a half after the fact. There would’ve been no particular reason to keep a detailed timeline or to have an alibi handy.


Or, of course, Jason could simply be lying. Or, of course, Detective Lamy could simply be lying. But almost always, the word of a cop wins out.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT, THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: On the next episode of Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story, another interrogation seems to add to the evidence against Jason and Ken Johnson.


Tony Pfaff, On Interrogation Tape: I need some help ‘cause I can’t remember everything that happened.


Lamy, On Interrogation Tape: Okay, well, what you do remember–


Pfaff: I don’t – The specific things you want to know I can’t remember.


Lamy: Okay, and tell us what you do remember, then, okay? Let’s continue what you’re doin’–


Pfaff: I remember stabbin’ her and chokin’ her, that’s the only thing I remember doing, okay?


Moon, Narrating: And Karen Carroll shares an alleged secret that changes everything.


Cliff Kinghorn: Jason’s mom came in to meet with me. And I knew right away that there was going to be a problem.


[THEME MUSIC POST]


A True Crime Story is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon.


It’s edited by Katie Colaneri.


Additional reporting and research by Paul Cuno-Booth.


Editing help from Lauren Chooljian, Daniela Allee, Sara Plourde, Taylor Quimby, Mara Hoplamazian, and Todd Bookman. 


Our News Director is Dan Barrick. Our Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie.


Fact-checking by Dania Suleman.


Sara Plourde created our original artwork, as well as our website, bearbrookpodcast.com.


Additional photos and videos by Gaby Lozada.


Original music for the series was created by me, Jason Moon.


Bear Brook is a production of the Document team at New Hampshire Public Radio.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Transcript of S2 Episode 2: The Pursuit

Note: episode transcripts are radio scripts - please keep that in mind as you come across notations and errors in the text.

[MUSIC IN]


Lauren Chooljian, Narrating: Previously on Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story…


Judge William Delker: To cut you a break would utterly undermine the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system.


Cynthia Mousseau, On the Phone: Convictions take on this mythical power. Once this conviction happens, it’s like that story is what happened.


Connie Howard: Who came up with that version of the story, you know what I mean? Then how do we – Who said that, that that’s how it happened? Somebody had to say that that’s how it happened, so, obviously, it happened.


[MUSIC OUT]


Jason Moon, Narrating: The larger-than-life detective. It’s such a crime story trope. Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Elliot Stabler. Their personalities are as much a part of the story as the crime itself. But as often happens, life imitates art. And in this case, the line separating them is especially blurry.


Detective Roland Lamy made an impression on almost everyone I talked to about the Sharon Johnson case. Thirty-odd years later, people forget a lot of the finer points, but they remember the lead investigator. And over and over again, people would compare Lamy to the same guy.


Karen Carroll, On the Phone: All I, all I could think of was… remember the TV detective, Kojak?


Moon, Narrating: Maybe you remember Kojak. I didn’t. But thanks to YouTube, I now know that Kojak was a TV detective in the 1970s.


[KOJAK THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Kojak was big, bald, wore nice suits, and seemed to always have a lollipop in his mouth. He was a cop with an attitude. The kind who liked to grab the crooks by their lapels, who didn’t seem too concerned about their civil liberties.


Male Voice: This is private property!


Kojak: Ah, put a zipper on your mouth and shut up!


Moon, Narrating: Kojak, and a thousand other shows like it, do their own kind of mythmaking. What some today might call “copaganda.” Sure, Kojak skirts the line, he roughs up suspects, but in the show, he’s always the good guy. The ends always justify the means.


Kojak: Every foot soldier! Every hit man! Every streetwalker! They sneeze in the subway – bust their chops! If they ask you for the time of day, you lock 'em up! Let the word go out loud and clear! That’s the way it’s gonna be until Eddie Ryan’s killer is in the tombs!


Male Voice: Right on, man! [FADES OUT]


Debbie Dutra: [SLAPS TABLE] That is him! Bald guy, glasses… ass.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: I get why people make the comparison. Lamy even looks a lot like Kojak. He’s big, he’s bald…


Tom Dufresne: He had a shaved head. He’s suckin’ on a lollipop, and he’s struttin’ around the courtroom like he owned it. “I’m comin’ in to straighten you all out and this is the way it went down!”


Moon, Narrating: Honestly, I sometimes couldn’t tell if people’s memories of the TV character, played by Telly Savalas, and the real-life detective had all mixed together. Either way, that’s kinda the point. Roland Lamy was a certain detective – he was also a certain brand of detective.


Jim Lawson: I could see why he would just scare the hell out of somebody. I think he could intimidate anybody with his bald head. He didn’t look nice.


Moon, Narrating: At the center of Lamy’s legend was the idea that he was one of the best. Roland Lamy – though most people just call him “Lamy” – was the guy New Hampshire State Police put on the cases the other detectives couldn’t solve. By 1989, Lamy had been a New Hampshire State Police detective for 17 years. He’d worked on roughly 40 homicide investigations – eight as lead investigator.


Eric Wilson: He had a reputation for solving cases.


Cliff Kinghorn: Yeah, he had a reputation for s– He got things done. He had a reputation for getting to the bottom line.


Moon, Narrating: You might remember in season one, when a barrel was found in the woods near Bear Brook State Park in 1985, Lamy was one of the detectives not assigned to the case. A fact some people pointed to when we asked why that case took so long to solve.


Kevin Flynn: Probably the, the best detective of that era on the state police was a guy by the name of Roland Lamy. And they were over in Hooksett. They weren’t over in Allenstown.


Moon, Narrating: And while some people read Lamy as arrogant and intimidating, others saw the attitude of a tough, do-what-it-takes veteran. As in, he didn’t care about being liked. He cared about solving the crime.


A newspaper article from 1989 quotes Sharon Johnson’s brother as saying, “Lamy could get a rock to talk if he wanted to. I would not want the man after me.”


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: That same article describes a moment between Lamy and his partner with the state police, Neal Scott. Scott had written a quote by Daniel Webster on the chalkboard in their office. “There is nothing so powerful as the truth.”


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Not Lamy’s style, apparently. He erases the quote, and writes over it his own philosophy. A line from the ancient Greek playwright, Sophocles. “He escapes who is not pursued.”


This is Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story. I’m Jason Moon.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: It was a story, true or false, that convicted Jason Carroll. It matters where that story came from, how it was created, who created it. So, before we get to why some people are convinced that Jason Carroll is innocent, we need to know the story of why some people are convinced that he’s not.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Sharon Johnson’s body was discovered in July of 1988. A construction worker found her around 8-30 on a Friday morning. The area was in the early stages of a transformation from forest into housing development. A large clearing had been cut, dirt roads connected a series of housing plots. In some places, the ground was freshly chewed by excavators.


Sharon’s body was found at the end of the construction site furthest from the main road, at the edge of a small pond that workers were digging.


She had been stabbed 14 times and strangled, probably by a light rope or something similar, according to the medical examiner. She was naked from the waist up. Her bra was still draped over her shoulders, but it had been sliced open in the front with a knife. Her shirt and purse were missing. But her watch and three rings were found nearby. 


Each detail was its own mystery. Why were her rings off? Why was her shirt missing? Why this construction site?


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: The day before Sharon’s body was discovered, a Thursday, Sharon left work at 6-30 p.m. She went to a gas station and cashed some lottery tickets at 6-58 p.m. That’s her last confirmed location. And it’s pretty much all we know for sure about Sharon’s whereabouts after she left work that night.


One of Sharon’s coworkers told police she said she was going shopping at the Mall of New Hampshire – a big mall in Manchester, about 30 minutes from her job. But another co-worker later testified Sharon said she was going shopping at the Bedford Mall, a different mall only a few miles away from the Mall of New Hampshire.


To make things more complicated, witnesses at both malls told police they saw Sharon, or someone who matched her description, the night of the murder.


So, on Thursday, Sharon left work, cashed a few lottery tickets, and then, maybe went to one or two malls. The construction site, where Sharon’s body was found, is in Bedford, about 15 minutes from the two malls.


Whatever happened to Sharon, happened between 7 p.m. on a Thursday, and 8 a.m. on a Friday. By the way, you can see a timeline of Sharon’s last day on our website bearbrookpodcast.com.


The early investigators were puzzled by two things in particular.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: The first mystery was about a guy named Bob.


One of Sharon’s coworkers said Sharon was going to the mall that day, not just to shop, but also to meet a guy named Bob. According to this coworker, Bob owed Sharon and her husband Ken Johnson $4,000. The coworker said Sharon and Bob had been trying for a few weeks to arrange a time to meet to talk about the money.


Bob was an obvious first suspect. But all police had was a first name. Detectives spent months looking for Bob. They put a sketch of him in the newspaper. But they never found him.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: The second mystery was about Sharon’s car, a green Subaru.


Sharon didn’t come home on Thursday night. The next day, Friday, her brother said he went and looked for her car at both malls. He told police he scoured the parking lots – looked in every aisle, but didn’t find Sharon’s green Subaru anywhere.


Then, Saturday morning, police found the car at the Mall of New Hampshire. The car was undamaged, a bit of dirt around the tires, and it was locked.


It was parked in an unusual spot at the Mall of New Hampshire. It was parked in a narrow strip of parking spaces in front of the Sears automotive entrance. You might park there if you were leaving your car for an oil change, but probably not if you were just going shopping inside the mall.


A Sears mechanic told police on Thursday, the day Sharon went missing, when he left at 9:30 p.m., there were no cars parked there. On Friday night, he said there was a car there, but couldn’t say for sure if it was a green Subaru.


Three different Manchester police officers, who all patrolled the mall parking lot on Thursday and Friday, said they didn't see the car.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: And so, Sharon went missing on Thursday night, her body was found Friday morning, and yet, police were confident her green Subaru wasn’t back at the Mall of New Hampshire until Friday night at the earliest.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Who was Bob? Was someone moving Sharon’s car after she was murdered?


The early investigators couldn’t answer those questions. But they believed they knew someone who could. Sharon’s husband, Ken Johnson.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Ken was always the prime suspect. First of all, he was the husband. But police also thought he was faking his grief. And then, he didn’t have a solid alibi. And then, he changed his story about where he was the night of the murder. And also, he had a lot of mud on his car – as in, maybe he’d been driving in an unpaved construction area recently.


It wasn’t just the police. Sharon’s family and many of her friends also suspected Ken. They’d been skeptical of him for years. Many of them didn’t understand what Sharon saw in him.


[MUSIC OUT]


Lucy Holt: Nobody liked him. Nobody. Nobody liked him.


Moon, Narrating: Lucy Holt was close with Sharon. But when Sharon and Ken were married, Lucy refused to go to the wedding.


Holt: A lot of her friends did not go. One of them sent her a sympathy card.


Moon, Narrating: The police reports are full of interviews with people who do not like Ken Johnson. People thought he was rude, a deadbeat who couldn’t hold a job. Some said he had a drinking problem.


And Ken always seemed to have some new scheme to make money that rarely panned out. Like, in 1985, when the New England Patriots were in the superbowl, Ken went all in on an idea to resell Patriots t-shirts. Then, the Pats lost, and apparently, Ken lost a lot of money.


But Sharon’s friends and family also said he could be controlling of Sharon. If she was at their house, they say Ken would always call and ask when she’d be leaving.


Police tracked down Ken’s ex-wife. She told them he had once grabbed her by the throat, and that when she decided to leave Ken, he said, “It’s too bad the kids will never see you again,” which she took as a threat on her life.


So, when Sharon was killed, everyone from Ken’s ex-wife, to Sharon’s friends like Lucy Holt were telling the cops, “Look at Ken.”


Holt: And I remember the detectives coming and they said, “Do you think he had anything to do with it?” And I said, “If he didn’t, hands on, then he, he made sure it got done.”


Moon, Narrating: Another friend of Sharon’s, Connie Howard, says after the murder, police asked her to wear a wire and have Ken over for dinner to see if he would incriminate himself. Connie says she was too nervous to wear a wire, but she had her own questions for Ken, so she did invite him over. She remembers being anxious just to have him in her house.


Connie Howard: I didn’t know what he would do or how – what, you know, what kind of reaction he would have to the questions I was asking him. Just asking him to, about, questions about, “How come you didn’t know Sharon was home? And what do you think about everything?” He didn’t have any answers. He was a black, black hole. And I really didn’t get answers from him, except that I don’t ever want to see this man again. And I never did. Never talked to him after that.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Unfortunately, you won’t hear from Ken in this story. He died, according to multiple people who knew him. Though, I’ve never found an obituary, so I can’t tell you exactly when.


But back in 1988, Ken started off in a bad place as far as the investigation into his wife’s murder went. He was the husband no one liked, with no alibi, and mud on his car.


And then, police discovered a possible motive. 


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Ken had a gambling habit. Ken’s ex-wife described it as an addiction. She said on their honeymoon, Ken took her to Atlantic City and then gambled the whole time. Ken was into sports betting, which was illegal back then. And police began to suspect he was deep in the hole.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: When police first asked Ken about Bob, the guy who apparently owed him and Sharon $4,000, Ken said he had no idea what police were talking about.


The next day, Ken called the police to say he had lied. Police had asked Ken about Bob in front of one of Sharon’s friends, and Ken said he didn’t want to reveal that Bob was actually someone he knew from gambling.


Now, Ken told the police yes, he knew Bob, and yes, Bob owed him money – actually $7,000. And yet, Ken had no way of getting in touch with Bob. Didn’t even know his last name.


Police were suspicious. They talked to another guy who Ken gambled with, who told them that Ken owed him $5,000. This other guy said he’d heard Ken talk about Bob before, would even place bets on his behalf, but he’d never met him.


And eventually, police began to suspect that Bob was simply an invention of Ken’s. A fake character that Ken used to hide his gambling habits, and now maybe to help him get away with murder.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Out of this tangle of gambling relationships, alleged debts, and possibly fake characters, the original investigators developed a theory – Ken was in much more gambling debt than he was letting on, and he was desperate to get out of it. And his wife Sharon had a pension that would go to him if she died.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: But police didn’t have any direct evidence pointing to Ken. They had no murder weapon. They had no witnesses placing him at the site where Sharon’s body was found or at the mall that night. The forensic lab couldn’t link the mud on Ken’s car to the mud at the scene. There was no blood in Sharon’s car. And key evidence – Sharon’s shirt and pocketbook – were still missing.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: There were some clues from the scene where Sharon’s body was discovered. Drag marks led from Sharon’s body to a pool of blood near some tire tracks. To the original investigators, the marks suggested Sharon’s body had been removed from the trunk of a car, and then dragged to the spot where she was ultimately found. As in, the murder had happened elsewhere and the construction site was simply a place to hide the body.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: There were also clues from Sharon’s autopsy. Her bra had been cut open with a knife in the front before she was stabbed. There was evidence of a fierce struggle. Sharon had a split lip and bruises on her face, and she had defensive wounds on her hands. She also had blood under her fingernails, which could mean Sharon wounded her attacker.


But without more, the police didn’t really have a case – against Ken or anyone else. And they were stuck with those two lingering questions. Was Bob real? And who was moving Sharon’s green Subaru after she was killed?


The investigation stalled. After six months, it was turned over to a new detective – Roland Lamy. Within a year, he would have a story that explained it all.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Before we take a quick break, a reminder that this podcast is only possible because listeners like you support it. You do that by listening, by telling your friends and family to listen, too – and if you can, by donating to New Hampshire Public Radio. You can click the link in the show notes to give now – and thanks, really.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]



Moon, Narrating: Detective Lamy takes charge of the investigation into Sharon’s murder in January of 1989. By March, he’s chasing a lead. A 19-year-old named Tony Pfaff.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Tony Pfaff was tangentially connected to the Johnson family. He used to date Ken Johnson’s daughter, Lisa Johnson. Lisa was 17. She was Ken’s adopted daughter from his first marriage. And she had just had a baby.


As Detective Lamy reinterviewed witnesses and searched for a thread to pull on, he later testified that some people made a disturbing suggestion about Lisa’s pregnancy. Lamy said some people told him they thought Ken had gotten his own adopted daughter pregnant. 

Lamy later testified, “There was a feeling at some point that perhaps Ken Johnson could be the father of Lisa Johnson's baby.”


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: It was a salacious accusation. But maybe, Lamy thought, it was the real motive. Maybe Ken wanted Sharon dead because she’d found out.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: So, this is why Detective Lamy wants to talk to Lisa’s ex-boyfriend, Tony Pfaff. Maybe Tony will know something about this. Lamy tracks him down in North Carolina. He gets him on the phone. But Tony quickly pours cold water on this theory. Tony says he is the father of Lisa’s child – not Ken. He says Lisa never said anything about being sexually abused by her father.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: The phone call is a dead end for Lamy. But then… something happens. I’m going to read straight from Lamy’s police report here. It’s written in third person. “Sergeant Lamy asked him if there was anything at all about Sharon Johnson's murder that he had not reported to the police. Sergeant Lamy told Tony what the possible charges were for any individual who holds back information in a homicide case. Pfaff hesitantly and nervously told Sergeant Lamy the following information.”


And then, Tony drops a bombshell. Tony Pfaff tells Lamy the Friday Sharon’s body was found, he moved the green Subaru.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Tony says Ken called him at his apartment and asked him to do it as a favor before Tony knew Sharon was dead. Tony says Ken asked him to move Sharon’s car from the parking lot of a sporting goods store, to the parking lot of the mall, where it was discovered by police.


It was Detective Lamy’s first break. The mystery of the car was finally unraveling.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Lamy wastes no time. Lamy arranges for Tony to fly up to New Hampshire. He wants Tony to wear a wire and help police ensnare Ken. Tony agrees.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Lamy’s trap for Ken will be set in Rhode Island. That’s where Ken moved after his wife’s murder.


So, Detective Lamy, Tony, another state trooper, and a prosecutor with the Attorney General’s Office pile into a few cars and drive the two and a half hours from New Hampshire to Warwick, Rhode Island.


During the trip to Rhode Island, according to the police reports, Tony seems like he’s havin’ a great time. Detective Lamy would later say that Tony would sing, or he would tell the cops his favorite movie is “Scarface,” and he can quote the whole thing – and then, Lamy says, he kinda does the whole trip.


At one point during the drive down, Tony grabs the police radio and does an impression of an old TV cop show called “Highway Patrol.”


Broderick Crawford: [FADES UP] [LOW SOUND OF SIRENS] Have 31-70 stay one mile below at junction 40. Alert the emergency crews. Do not approach the station. 10-4?


Voice on the Radio: 10-4. [FADES OUT]


Moon, Narrating: I wish I could tell you more about how Tony Pfaff saw all this. How he saw himself. He died in 2021. But from what people told police about Tony in 1989, and Tony’s own words, a picture emerges.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Family friends told police Tony’s father had a drinking problem. They said Tony would sometimes call them or move in with them when things got bad.


As Tony got older, he developed his own problem with alcohol. He started getting arrested for things like trespassing, driving without a license. At 16, according to police, he took part in an armed robbery for $500. But also according to police, Tony quickly confessed and gave cops the name of the person who had held the gun.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Tony lived in Manchester, New Hampshire before he moved to North Carolina. And he had a reputation around town.


Debbie Richer: Tony had a big mouth. 


Moon, Narrating: Debbie Richer was around the same age as Tony, and knew him back in the ‘80s. She told me what many teenagers told police in 1989: Tony wanted people to think of him as the big-man-on-campus.


Richer: Anything he did, if he went into a store and he called somebody a jerk, he’d be down to Supreme Roast Beef – “Oh yeah, I saw this guy and I called him a jerk and tut-tut-tut…” He was a loudmouth. He was just somebody who liked to insert himself in things to make himself feel bigger, larger than life.


Moon, Narrating: But as you can maybe tell from Debbie’s voice, Tony's desire to be respected didn’t always pan out. In the police reports, people called Tony “weird.” One high school senior told police Tony was, quote, “heavily into ninja stuff.”


A few people told police this one story about how one night, Tony was humiliated during a fight on the street in downtown Manchester. According to one person who said they saw it, the other guy was making Tony kiss his shoes, but when Tony would try to, the guy would kick him in the face. A crowd of 20 or 30 kids watched.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Later, a friend of Tony’s turned over to the police two letters that Tony wrote when he was 19. They’re addressed only to, quote, “Whom It May Concern.” The letters are a window onto Tony’s anguish. Maybe they were cries for help that Tony didn’t know who to send to. In the letters, Tony is reeling – from teenage heartbreak, substance abuse, and ongoing problems with the law.


He writes, “I guess it is hard for me to understand and I want to, but I don’t know how to ask for help. Why? Because everytime I let someone get close, they end up hurting me. Sometimes, I feel like blowing my brains out. One day, I will get fucked up enough to do it. I feel sorrow all of the time and I am tired of feeling it all the time and also getting into trouble, too. Well, that’s it for now, thank you for listening. Yours truly, Tony Pfaff.”


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: So, this is the 19-year-old Detective Lamy has brought with him to Rhode Island. Who keeps quoting “Scarface” at them and grabbing the police radio.


Once they arrive, they set up shop at a motel in Warwick, Rhode Island. Here’s Lamy’s plan. Tony will call Ken and try to set up a meeting. And Tony has a script. Lamy wants him to tell Ken that police have found Tony’s fingerprints on Sharon’s car. That’s not true, but Lamy wants to see if Ken will react and maybe incriminate himself on the phone.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Tony dials the number. Detectives listen in on another line.


But things get off to a bad start. Lisa answers, not Ken. And Lisa is not happy with Tony. They argue about the child support Tony owes. Lisa hangs up.


Tony calls several more times over two days. A few times, he does manage to get Ken on the phone. But again, things don’t go the way detectives hope. I don’t have the audio of these calls, but I do have the transcript. Here’s an excerpt of one of the conversations between Tony and Ken. It starts with Tony.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Reading Transcript: 


“Hey Ken.

Hey what.

Uh, I've got to talk to you.

About what?

Uh, about a car.

About what?

About the car…

About what?

About the car.

What car?

About the car that you asked me to move.

Who's this?

It's Tony.

What car I asked you to move?

Sharon's car.

What are you talking about?

What am I talking about?

Yeah.

Okay, look, you and I both know exactly what I’m talking about. Uh, they got my prints on the car.

Excuse me?

They have my fingerprints on the car.

Yeah…

Yeah and I want to know, you know, what to do, I just drove all the way down here to talk to you about it.

I don’t understand what you’re talking about.

You don’t understand.

No, I don’t. I have no idea.

Well, on, uh, Friday night, uh, I believe you asked me to move the car for you.

I don't, I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about. The car is sitting right here.”


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: It goes on like this for a while. Ken gets mad, tells Tony to stop calling, threatens to get a restraining order against him. Tony, who, remember, is 19 years old, sitting in a motel room with cops all around him, keeps pushing. And eventually, he gets Ken to agree to meet him in a motel parking lot.


Ken shows up and Tony meets him outside. Detectives, hiding in cars nearby, are filming. But the conversation goes the same as before. Ken says he has no idea what Tony is talking about.


After meeting with Tony, Ken goes home and calls the New Hampshire State Police. He tells them what just happened. As in, this 19-year-old who had a baby with my daughter just showed up in Rhode Island and is telling me he moved Sharon’s car. You guys should look into this.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Detective Lamy’s sting operation with Tony Pfaff is a total bust. Lamy goes back to New Hampshire and Tony eventually goes back to North Carolina, and the two don’t speak again for months.


Until, eventually, Detective Lamy has a thought. Was Ken Johnson really so clever and disciplined as to not incriminate himself when Tony called? To not react at all? Or… was he tipped off?


[MUSIC IN]

 

Moon, Narrating: Detective Lamy thought he’d been using Tony to fool Ken. But now he wondered, what if the whole time Tony had been playing him?


Lamy thought Tony must have slipped word to Ken before they drove down to Rhode Island. The whole thing was a farce – the call from the motel room, the meeting in the parking lot. Tony and Ken were both acting.


To Detective Lamy, it was the only explanation. As far as I can tell, Lamy never entertained the possibility that Ken was simply telling the truth on the phone.


Remember that quote Lamy wrote on the chalkboard? “He escapes who is not pursued?” Lamy wasn’t about to stop pursuing Ken.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: But the thing about that quote is, just like the evidence in this case, there are different ways to interpret it.


The line comes from the play “Oedipus Rex” by Sophocles, written more than 2,400 years ago. The play is a kind of ancient Greek murder-mystery. The king, Oedipus, sets out to discover who killed the previous king whose murder unleashed a plague on the kingdom.


Oedipus gets some advice passed to him from the Oracle, and this is where the line comes. Here’s another translation of it. “Search reveals things that escape an inattentive man.”


In the story, it’s a subtle bit of foreshadowing. By the end, Oedipus discovers he was the murderer all along. Oedipus was looking for a suspect, when he should’ve been looking at himself.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: But I’m going to go out on a limb and say Detective Lamy was probably not thinking about the overtones of “Oedipus Rex” when he wrote that quote on the board. I could see how this line – which is also used in some law enforcement agencies’ wanted posters by the way – seemed pretty straightforward to him.


I asked Lamy to tape an interview, to tell his own story about what happened here. And there were times when he told me he would. But in the end, he didn’t. He didn’t want to be recorded or talk about the details of the Sharon Johnson case on the record. And after I left a message for Sergeant Neal Scott – Lamy called me back, saying he heard I was trying to reach his old partner.

But still, Lamy and I ended up talking a lot over the last year or so – in phone calls and in person over breakfast at a diner he frequents. Enough to get an impression.


Lamy is in his 80s now. He wears a state police baseball cap. The Kojaky attitude everyone told me about? That’s still there. He told me other detectives were too cautious, too concerned about covering their asses, as he put it. He still carries a big chip on his shoulder about that. Lamy told me, you have to know how to walk up to the line without crossing it.


For Lamy, it wasn’t about being reckless, it was about really caring. He said if a detective arrives at a murder scene and isn’t moved by what he sees, he should be out on the highway catching speeders. Sometimes he would gently poke my hands to emphasize a point like that.


It all fit with the Detective Lamy I’d gotten to know in the police reports. A guy who led with his intuition, who wasn’t concerned about stepping on toes. A guy who hates to let a case go.


In 1989, Lamy had hit a roadblock, but he trusted his gut.


Ken Johnson had motive and opportunity. And now, to Lamy it seemed he had a co-conspirator – Tony Pfaff. In the fall of that year, Lamy sets about trying to find Tony again. But it’s been months since their sting operation. Tony is in the wind.


Still –


[MUSIC ABRUPTLY STOPS]


Moon, Narrating: Lamy keeps pursuing and eventually, he finds what he's looking for.


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Roland Lamy, On Recording: This is a situation that, if we allowed her to come into the room we’d be open to scrutiny. And if we didn’t allow her to come into the room, we’d be open to scrutiny.


Karen Carroll, On Recording: I, I just wanted him to be truthful. 


Jason Carroll, On the Phone: I’m trying to dig myself out of something I didn’t do. And nobody’s listening. I was already in over my head.


Moon, Narrating: That’s next time on Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story.


[THEME MUSIC POST]


A True Crime Story is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon.


It’s edited by Katie Colaneri.


Additional reporting and research by Paul Cuno-Booth.


Editing help from Lauren Chooljian, Daniela Allee, Sara Plourde, Taylor Quimby, Mara Hoplamazian, and Todd Bookman. 


Our News Director is Dan Barrick. Our Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie.


Fact-checking by Dania Suleman.


Sara Plourde created our original artwork, as well as our website, bearbrookpodcast.com.


Photos and videos by Gaby Lozada.


Original music for the series was created by me, Jason Moon.


Special thanks this episode to Paul Christesen, professor of Ancient Greek History at Dartmouth College, Francis Dunn, professor of Classics at UC Santa Barbara, and Kirk Ormand, professor of Classics at Oberlin College, for their help with the Sophocles translation.


Bear Brook is a production of the Document team at New Hampshire Public Radio.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Transcript of S2 Episode 1: Extraordinary

Note: episode transcripts are radio scripts - please keep that in mind as you come across notations and errors in the text.

Jason Moon, Narrating: A lot of stories have been told about Sharon Johnson. My favorite ones are the ones told by her friends.


Connie Howard met Sharon in 1977. Probably, Connie says, in the laundry room of their apartment building in Manchester, New Hampshire. Connie was 17 and living on her own with a newborn baby. Sharon was 25, another young single mom.


Connie Howard: I think I thought I could maybe learn a lot from her. She was just really smart and had her act together. 


[MUSIC IN]


Howard: You know, she had a good job, she had a nice apartment, and seemed to be climbing the ladder.


Moon, Narrating: Sharon was an engineer at a computer manufacturing company. Connie says back then, in the late ‘70s, she’d never met a woman who was an engineer. Sharon had her own car, was saving to buy her own house. To Connie, Sharon just seemed confident, in control of her own life.


Howard: Made you think that you could do it. You know, a 17-year-old girl with a baby, I didn’t have any direction, so it, you know, really was a good thing to see another woman like that.


Moon, Narrating: The two of them hit it off. Connie felt herself nestling in under Sharon’s wing.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Connie needed a driver’s license. So. Sharon let her borrow her car to take the test. Connie needed a job. So, Sharon got her one at the computer company. Connie felt aimless in life. So, Sharon gave her a shove.


[MUSIC OUT]


Howard: She said, “If you don’t have a career, you’ll amount to nothing, so you need to do something.” It was blunt. At first, I was kinda hurt by it, but then it motivated me.


Moon, Narrating: Connie went to school and became a hair stylist. Made a long career of it.


Howard: So, I think I did her hair even before I had a license. I think that [LAUGHS] we kind of, maybe had a bottle of wine, and I cut her hair. Yeah. But I think about her a lot. I’ve thought about her a lot over the last 30 years.


Lucy Holt: The absolute laughter that we had when I was learning the computer. I was terrified of that thing!


Moon, Narrating: Lucy Holt was another friend of Sharon’s.


Holt: She would call me up, twice to three times a week, and we would go over another aspect of using the computer. She showed me where to go to play solitaire and I said, “Oh, my gosh, it’s in color!” [LAUGHS] And so, I called her the next day and said, “Sharon, guess what? I set up the printer all by myself!” We just, we were just rolling on the floor, laughing so hard. 


Moon, Narrating: Lucy, like Connie, viewed Sharon with a mix of admiration and fascination. Sharon could do things that just seemed out of reach to Lucy.


Holt: I thought she was funny. I thought she was brash. She was, she was one of the guys. She could tell a raunchy joke. She could just relax with the guys, and they accepted her like that. She was, uh, more… and I can’t say masculine, because she wasn’t. It’s just a different – It’s just different than what everybody had been brought up to be at the time. And I was… I was such a… um, I could hide in plain sight. Did my entire life – I hid in plain sight, so somebody that open was extraordinary. I wish I had known her better. I wish I had known her longer. Yeah.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: In 1988, Sharon Johnson was pregnant with her second child. Her friends were planning a baby shower. Then, one day in July, Sharon didn’t come home from work.


The next morning, Sharon’s body was found in a wooded, rural construction site in Bedford, New Hampshire. She’d been stabbed and strangled.


Howard: When I heard the news, it was devastating. I had nightmares. I couldn’t sleep. It was horrible. And then, I think about the horror that she must have been going through at the time, when that is being done to you… I can’t imagine what was going through her… her mind.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: For the people close to Sharon, it was the beginning of an excruciating time. Over the next few years, as police investigated and news stories were written, and court hearings were held, they learned what happened: Sharon had been killed by her own husband, with the help of two teenagers.


Howard: I always think about how happy she was and how tragic that that happened at the happiest time of her life.


Moon, Narrating: Connie and Lucy grieved. For years, then for decades. It’s now been 35 years. Sharon’s friends each figured out, in their own way, how to come to terms with the fact of her death, with the story of how she was killed.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: And now, people are telling them they’re wrong. They don’t know how their friend died.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Only one of the three men charged with Sharon’s murder is still alive. Jason Carroll. At 19 years old, he confessed to the crime. But for the three decades since, he’s maintained his innocence from inside prison.


And now, Jason has a new team of lawyers and advocates, and his case is back in court.


For people close to Sharon, it’s a hard thing to swallow. For some, it’s offensive. For some, it’s confusing. I think for all of them it feels like a violation. This is their story. Who are these strangers to rewrite the history of a person they loved?


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Lucy Holt is wrestling with all of that – and also wrestling with the part of her that’s open to another version of this story. A version where Jason Carroll was not involved.


[MUSIC OUT]


Holt: I don’t want him to be guilty. If he says, “I really didn’t do it…” I mean… We, we, we all expect proof for things. You know, we expect proof. How do you prove something… How do you prove… an “I didn’t do it?” And then, of course, we hear, we hear that everyone in prison is innocent. Everyone says, “I didn’t do it… I didn’t do it.” Um, so, he really has an uphill fight. You know?


I hope he understands that it’s not just for himself. We have been under the understanding that the person who did it was in prison, and we didn’t have to think about it anymore. Um, but if he didn’t… you know, we have, uh, we have to share that guilt… that the wrong person is there. And we can’t be satisfied anymore. We can’t be satisfied with the endings.


Moon: So, the stakes are high for you, too.


Holt: The sta– yes, they are. It’s our guilt. And it has been right along, we just didn’t know it. We were satisfied – some very happy. Some like, “Yes, we got him!” But what if we didn’t?


Moon, Narrating: As for Connie Howard, she’s pretty blunt about how she feels.


Howard: They think none of that ever happened?


Moon, Off Mic: Yeah.


Howard: Hmm…


Moon, Off Mic: Yeah, how does that make you feel?


Howard: Disgusted. 


Moon, Narrating: Connie aims that disgust right at Jason Carroll.


Howard: What are you gonna – nothing ever happened? What happened? She just… died? I think it’s wrong. ‘Cause it did happen. And you were involved.


Moon, Off Mic: Why do you believe in that, that version of the story?


Howard: [LONG PAUSE] I, I don’t know why I believe that. As opposed to… what? As opposed to… [LONG PAUSE] Who came up with that version of the story? You know what I mean? Then, how do we – who said that, that that’s how it happened? Somebody had to say that that’s how it happened, so, obviously, it happened.


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: In the late 1980s, police and prosecutors told a true crime story about what happened to Sharon Johnson.


Tony Pfaff, On Recording: We got there, she struggled. Jason drove the knife in her back.


Moon, Narrating: For 35 years, that story has profoundly shaped the lives of many people – from Jason Carroll, to Sharon’s friends and family, to the people who worked on this case.


Roland Lamy, On Recording: There are going to be continued and repeated attacks that the police coerced, intimidated, promised, threatened…


Mark Sisti: Psychologically, I think they ripped him to shreds. It was just sending a shark out on a bloody piece of bait.


[THEME MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: What happens when the official story is challenged after all these years? When alternate versions are told by new storytellers?


Rabia Chaudry: I just hope there's less complete and utter trust in the system after this series.


Melonie Eaton: Jason Carroll is where he belongs, where deserves to be, and he needs to stay there. He took away my mother’s life – my life!


Cynthia Mousseau, On the Phone: This story has been told about Jason for 33 years and he cannot escape it. It’s just a… story! It’s just a story!


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: This is Bear Brook Season 2 – A True Crime Story. I’m Jason Moon.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]


[SOUND OF COURTROOM FADES UP, PEOPLE TALKING IN LOW VOICES]


Moon, Narrating: Last November, Jason Carroll was appearing in court for the first time in three decades. I was there, sitting in the back of the courtroom.


For over a year-and-a-half, I’d been poring over thousands and thousands of documents in Jason’s case and interviewing many of the people involved – the ones who are still alive. I’d gotten used to thinking of the case as something that had already happened, a story from the ‘80s that I knew all the endings to.


But today… was uncharted. Something new was about to happen in Jason’s case.


[COURTROOM SOUND UP, SOUND OF THROAT CLEARING, DOOR CLOSING]


Moon, Narrating: The courtroom was full. Jason’s family and friends. Sharon’s family and friends. It was a kind of tense reunion. Many of them were just kids the last time Jason was before a judge.


Before the hearing, the court staff did their best to make sure the two sides didn’t bump into each other in the hallways. But now they’re sitting in the same small, modern looking courtroom, divided only by the center aisle.


Bailiff: All rise for the honorable court. [SOUND OF PEOPLE STANDING UP]


William Delker: Good morning, this is the matter of State of New Hampshire vs. Jason Carroll. This is a hearing… [FADE OUT]


Moon, Narrating: We’re all here because Jason has applied for early release from prison. You can do that in New Hampshire after you’ve served at least two-thirds of your sentence.


The judge who will decide is William Delker. He’s soft-spoken, wears glasses and a bowtie. You could mistake him for, say, a prep-school debate coach. But in reality he’s a former prosecutor, who handled some of the most serious homicides in recent New Hampshire history – including the case involving the state’s only death-row inmate.


Delker: So, why don’t I have both sides introduce themselves for the record, please?


Delker, Quietly: Good morning.


Charles Bucca: Good morning, your honor. Charles Bucca, appearing on behalf of the state.


Cynthia Mousseau: Cynthia Mousseau, your honor, on behalf of Jason Carroll who appears to my left.


Delker, Quietly: Morning.


Moon, Narrating: Jason is dressed in a forest green prison jumpsuit. One arm is in a sling from a recent surgery; the other arm is handcuffed to a leather strap around his waist. His bald head reflects the fluorescent lighting.


Jason’s lawyer, Cynthia Mousseau, is with the New England Innocence Project. Cynthia is a former public defender. And she’s no stranger to this courtroom. Half the bailiffs and clerks seem to recognize her. Her hair is dyed with deep red streaks. One side of her head is buzzed.


Cynthia is the first to speak.


Mousseau: This is an extraordinary hearing, for the court to consider whether an extraordinary person, who was involved in an extraordinary case, should be given extraordinary relief. [FADE UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: It only takes her a few minutes to tell the court: Jason was wrongfully convicted. And the state is not telling the whole story.


Mousseau: …However, this narrative that the state has woven is inaccurate and incomplete. [FADE UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Cynthia says this is a clear case of a coerced, false confession.


Mousseau: I could point out how Jason’s statements were so inconsistent with the undisputed forensic evidence in this case, that it was more probable that he was guessing in response to interrogation questions, than he had any actual knowledge. In fact, looking at these inconsistencies, it is shocking that Jason was ever even a credible suspect, let alone convicted.


Moon, Narrating: But, Cynthia says, today is not about Jason’s guilt or innocence. It’s about whether he’s ready and whether it’s safe to reintegrate him into society.


Jason has a series of witnesses here who say, yes. One of them is a corrections officer, Joseph Laramie, who supervised Jason for over 20 years in the prison.


Joseph Laramie: It was during my time in the North Unit that I began to notice that Jason has become a leader and a mentor. Not the type that preaches to people, but the type that leads by example, through his actions. One of my duties in the visiting room was purchasin’ toys. And Jason would put all the toys together. Groaning and grumbling the whole time he was doing it because he didn’t want to be puttin’ together doll houses, but I could tell he liked it, he enjoyed it, because he knew the kids were going to enjoy it.


Moon, Narrating: Another witness for Jason is a man who was incarcerated with him for 13 years, Joseph Lascaze. He’s now a respected advocate with the ACLU of New Hampshire. Joseph says Jason was a mentor to him, who left him with a powerful message the night before Joseph left prison.


Joseph Lascaze: He said, “I want you to promise me that you will never come back here. I want you to promise me that you will spend as much time with your family as you can because they are the most important thing. And I want you to promise me that you’re gonna go out there and make a difference with who you’ve become.”

Moon, Narrating: As he says this, he motions to the pews on Jason’s side of the room, where a few young men that Joseph mentored are sitting.


Lascaze: Jay, I’m doin’ that. I promise you I’m doing everything that you asked me to do. This is proof that it’s working.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: When Joseph finishes his statement, the prosecutor for the state, Charles Bucca, cross-examines him. Charles wears black-framed glasses, his dark hair just graying at the edges. And he uses the moment to make a point that he’ll make again and again during this hearing.


Bucca: Based on what you’ve told us here today, uh, you were convicted of some criminal offenses?


Lascaze: Correct.


Bucca: And you did your time?


Lascaze: I did.


Bucca: And you took responsibility for your actions.


Lascaze: I did.


Bucca: And in fact, you even actually just told us you apologized to one of the victims of your criminal offenses.


Lascaze: Correct.


Bucca: And that was helpful to you in taking responsibility, right?


Lascaze: Yes, that came from the counsel of Jason.


Bucca: Right. And that was helpful for you to move on with your life and become the man you’ve become today.


Lascaze: That is correct.


Bucca: And be successful reintegrating into society. Is that correct?


Lascaze: That is correct.


Bucca: Okay, and do you think that it would be detrimental for someone who’s trying to reintegrate into society to not accept responsibility for their criminal conduct?


Mousseau, Interrupting: I would object to that, judge. He can speak to his personal experience, which he’s done… [FADE OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Jason Carroll will not accept responsibility for the crime. In the face of that fact, Charles, the prosecutor – and some in Sharon’s family – say Jason’s achievements in prison ring hollow. Thomas Eaton is Sharon’s nephew.


Thomas Eaton: I’ve heard all day how good somebody’s doin’ in jail and how good they’re helping others. And I can appreciate that. That’s great. But that whole time all that’s been going on, there are two people that are no longer with us. There’s a woman, a young woman, with all the promise in the world, that never had a chance to display any of that. I was raised to have accountability and responsibility. I have not been perfect in my life, but I certainly would not do this to someone. And if someone does this to somebody, they should take some accountability and responsibility. Thank you.


Delker, Quietly: Thank you.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: After both sides have had their say, Judge Delker calls a recess. And he says he’ll come back in a few minutes with his decision. He’s going to decide Jason’s fate right then and there.


I was shocked by this. I think everyone was. The attorneys had written motions that were  hundreds of pages, there was more than two and a half hours of testimony. It wouldn’t be unusual to wait weeks or longer for a decision on something like this. Instead, we waited just 15 nervous minutes. [PAUSE]


Finally, the bailiff tells us to rise. Judge Delker comes back to his seat. He tells Jason to remain standing to receive his ruling.


Delker: Um, this is, to this date, one of the most notorious crimes in recent New Hampshire history. You confessed to your participation in, uh, this murder-for-hire plot and you and your accomplice, Mr. Pfaff, kidnapped and murdered a seven and a half month pregnant woman and you stood by while your accomplice sexually assaulted her as she lay dying – dead or dying there in that gravel pit. And you were paid $5,000 for those inhuman acts – and I don’t say inhumane, but inhuman acts – by the victim’s own husband.


[MUSIC IN]


Delker: Your failure to accept responsibility and to cooperate when you had the opportunity to do so meant that your co-conspirators have escaped justice for this brutal, brutal murder that has taken Sharon Johnson from her family and her loved ones. To cut you a break would utterly undermine the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Jason Carroll’s petition for early release is denied. Judge Delker orders him back to prison. The hearing is over.


Sharon’s half of the room lets out a sigh of relief and silent celebration. Just outside the courtroom, Sharon’s daughter Melonie Eaton speaks tearfully to local reporters. Her cousin stands by her, his arm wrapped protectively around Melonie’s shoulder. Melonie says in the run-up to the hearing, too much attention had been paid to Jason and his innocence claims. She feels like her mother had been forgotten.


Melonie Eaton, Tearfully: People need to see the other side of the story. They need to understand, she was a good person – more than anybody will understand. And she deserved to be here, but, unfortunately, she’s not.


Moon, Narrating: Meanwhile, Jason’s side of the room is also in tears. Most of them leave quickly and silently after the ruling comes down. When I try to talk to Jason’s lawyer, Cynthia, she tells me, “Not today.” Later though, we did talk on the phone.


Mousseau, On the Phone: Jason has never been believed in court ever. Ever. Not once.


Moon, Narrating: Cynthia was heartbroken. And angry. Cynthia says the ruling was punishment for Jason maintaining his innocence. She says he could’ve lied and shown remorse and he may well have been let out.


Mousseau, On the Phone: People perceive that everyone in prison says that they’re innocent, which is not true. And also, that it’s this, like, thing that selfish people do. Jason just lost this hearing because he maintains his innocence.


Moon, Narrating: As an innocence lawyer, Cynthia is used to people not believing her clients. But it still stings – the utter confidence many judges, prosecutors, or just people in general have in criminal convictions. For Cynthia, the odds can feel insurmountable – even metaphysical.


Mousseau, On the Phone: Convictions take on this mythical power. You know, I, I was raised Catholic, and although I’m not now, I will reference a Catholic… [LAUGHS] There’s this belief that when you are Catholic and the priest gives you communion that the bread turns into the body of Jesus, like, literal human flesh. This is essentially the same thing as what happens. Once this conviction happens, it’s like that story is what happened.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Is the state of New Hampshire’s story, the one Judge Delker just retold, the one that led to Jason Carroll’s conviction, is that what really happened to Sharon Johnson? Or is it just an illusion? To find out, we have to go back to the beginning. That’s after the break.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: I’ll never forget the first time I heard the tape. I’d read the transcripts, but they didn’t hold a candle to actually hearing the words.


The tape is a partial recording of a police interrogation of Jason Carroll in 1989. I’ve spent the last year-and-a-half studying it, wondering about it, thinking – even dreaming about it. The tape is memorable partly because of its intensity. Two of the detectives who were there called it one of the most emotional interrogations they’d ever seen.


But here’s the biggest reason I’m fascinated by it. For over 30 years, Jason Carroll has been locked in a prison because of the power of the words on this tape. And only the power of words on tape. There is no other evidence that ties him to the murder of Sharon Johnson. So, the question of whether you believe what he’s saying in the tape, becomes everything. 


Jason is held in a state prison in Concord, New Hampshire that’s about five minutes from where I live. Whenever I drive by the prison, I wonder, is every passing day that Jason wakes up inside there adding to the weight of a staggering injustice? Or is Jason simply guilty?


Sometimes I think, if I just listen hard enough to the tape… [CASSETTE TAPE TURNS ON, HISS] I’ll be able to tell.


Male Officer, On Recording: [FADES UP] …You’re not really – you’ve got to – I’ve told you before, when you tell the truth, you have to want to tell the truth.


Jason Carroll, On Tape Recording: I want so much to get this over with.


Male Officer, On Tape Recording: But you’re not doing it!


Carroll, On Tape Recording: It’s not that easy. [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: The audio quality of the tape isn’t great. So, I’ll repeat some parts of it as we go. The tape has also been partially redacted. Sometimes people’s names are bleeped out.


In the tape, you can hear Jason being interrogated by four officers. They’re at the police station in Bedford, the town where Sharon Johnson’s body was discovered. The day before, police interrogated Jason for five hours. By this point in the tape, they’ve been at it for another three hours.


Female Officer: [FADES UP] Jason, if you had the friggin knife in your hand and you stabbed her, tell ‘em!


Male Officer: Yeah, he’s hiding something.


Female Officer: If you got back with Tony and you guys moved the car later on that night, tell ‘em! [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Over the many hours of interrogations, Jason has gone from denying any involvement, to now saying he witnessed Sharon Johnson’s murder. But the police still believe Jason is holding something back. They’re frustrated. They don’t understand why Jason won’t just spit it out. One of the detectives launches into a monologue.


Male Officer: What is it going to take? [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: The detective asks, “What is it going to take? On tape – now listen to me clearly. One day in the future, this tape, which can never be destroyed or altered, will be played before a jury of people that will have, on tape – listen to me clearly – that will have understood the horror of the type of killing that Sharon Johnson was subjected to…”


[TAPE FADES BACK IN]

Male Officer: …the horror of the type of killing that Sharon Johnson was subjected to… [FADES OUT]


Moon, Narrating: “They will hear a voice that we will identify as Jason Carroll. A person that we are looking to to help us bring forth those people…” Jason jumps in and finishes the detective’s sentence. He says, “Who did it.”


Then, the detective goes on. “Who actually did this entire, uh, ugly, unforgivable, horrendous act. And they will have to conclude if Jason Carroll has the decency…” [FADES OUT]


[MUSIC IN]


[TAPE FADES BACK IN]

Male Officer: …to express any remorse and that expression must come forth by a willingness to be truthful. Why, in God’s name, would you tell us this much and still leave out the truth! The essence of the truth! I have not seen the breaking point in you!


Moon, Narrating: “I have not seen the breaking point in you!” the detective shouts.

 

[MUSIC POST]


Female Officer: If you put a knife in that woman, [CARROLL SOBS] I want to know! You stabbed her, didn’t you?!


Carroll, Crying: Yes, I did, [BLEEP].


Female Officer: How many times did you stab her?!


Carroll, Crying: I stabbed her three times!


Female Officer: Alright! [CARROLL SOBS]


Male Officer: Who else stabbed her? [CARROLL SOBS] Who else stabbed her, truthfully?


Carroll, Crying: Johnson! Johnson and Pfaff stabbed her… [SOBS]


Male Officer: How many times? Don’t tell me any of your funny stories… 


Carroll, Crying: I don’t know that… [TAPE FADES OUT]


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: If you had to pick one moment that started all of this, that was it. Depending on what you believe, this was the moment the truth was wrenched free, or the moment a lie that refuses to die was born.


For the rest of this series, we’re going to unpack that moment. And believe me, there is so much to unpack… including one thing I haven’t told you yet. One of the cops you heard interrogating Jason Carroll… was his mom.


Karen Carroll, On Recording: We want the truth out of you! Do you think that I’m going to love you any less?!


Jason Carroll, On Recording, Sobbing: I don’t know! I don’t know!


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: People who tell true crime stories – people like me – do this kind of stuff all the time. We save a surprising detail for when we need to make sure you stay interested. It can make for better storytelling. It can be manipulative.


In this case, I did it, and I’m telling you I did it, as a demonstration, because journalists are not the only people who tell true crime stories.


Detectives, lawyers, witnesses, suspects – they all tell stories about what happened in a given case. And like every storyteller, they make choices about what to put in and what to leave out, what to emphasize and what to ignore. And sometimes, those choices can change everything.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: How did Officer Karen Carroll end up extracting a murder confession from her own son? In Karen’s version of the story, it’s a lot more complicated than just what you hear in the tape.


Karen Carroll, On the Phone: Ugh. It’s been a nightmare. A total nightmare.


Moon, Narrating: Karen told me, I needed to understand that she was caught between two roles.


Karen Carroll, On the Phone: I was not only a police officer, but I was a mother. Ya know? And mothers will do whatever they have to do to try to protect their kids.


Moon, Narrating: Karen became a police officer in 1984, a few years before Sharon Johnson’s murder. Karen was a patrol officer in Bedford. Back then, it was a mostly rural town in southern New Hampshire.


Karen Carroll, On the Phone: I enjoyed it. Yeah, I enjoyed it. It was, um… It was different. I am not one that can sit behind a desk at a computer. That’s not for me.


Moon, Narrating: Her husband, Jack Carroll was in the National Guard. A Vietnam vet. Together, they were raising four kids. Jason was the oldest, Karen’s son from a previous relationship.


Then, in July of 1988, Karen’s job at the police station got really interesting. The biggest case the town had ever seen – the murder of Sharon Johnson. The first homicide in Bedford in at least 20 years, maybe more.


Karen had a front row seat. The gossip around the station, the flood of tips coming in, the reporters descending on the town. These were dramatic times in Bedford – even if it didn’t have all that much to do with Karen. She was a patrol officer, not a detective. So, she didn’t have a part to play…


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: …until she met the detective in charge of solving the case – that other voice you heard on the tape. A man named Roland Lamy.


Roland Lamy, On Recording: [FADES UP] …The truth, the essence of the truth! I have not seen a breaking point in you!


Karen Carroll, On the Phone: Sergeant Lamy, I wanted to trust him. I wanted to trust him.


Moon, On the Phone: What do you think of Lamy now?


Karen Carroll, On the Phone: [LAUGHS] I can’t say what I think of him… He’s just a bald headed, big feelin’ motherfucker.


Moon, Narrating: That’s next time, on Bear Brook, Season 2 – A True Crime Story.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: A True Crime Story is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon.


It’s edited by Katie Colaneri.


Additional reporting and research by Paul Cuno-Booth.


Editing help from Lauren Chooljian, Daniela Allee, Sara Plourde, Taylor Quimby, Mara Hoplamazian, Jeongyoon Han, and Todd Bookman. 


Our News Director is Dan Barrick. Our Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie.


Fact-checking by Dania Suleman.


Sara Plourde created our original artwork, as well as our website, bearbrookpodcast.com, where you can see pictures of Sharon Johnson and other materials from the case.


Additional photography and video by Gaby Lozada.


Original music for the series was created by me, Jason Moon.


Bear Brook is a production of the Document team at New Hampshire Public Radio.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Transcript of Episode 7: The In-Between

Jason Moon, In Cemetery, Reading: “Here lies the mortal remains, known only to God, of a woman, age 23 to 33, and a girl child, aged 8 to 10. Their slain bodies were found on November 10th, 1985 in Bear Brook State Park. May their souls find peace in God’s loving care.”


[MUSIC IN]


Taylor Quimby, Narrating: Previously on Bear Brook…


George Kamenov, On the Phone: What we saw was that the three victims that are related by DNA, they kind of have the same oxygen isotopic signal, which tells us that they were all living together. 


Jeff Strelzin, At Press Conference: And in the case involving the four murder victims in Allenstown, we believe we’ve identified their killer.


Ronda Randall: It was fascinating about Lisa, um, and to know his other, his other life, but, but to still not know who they were and know so much was difficult.


Peter Headley: I’ll, I’ll work every lead that I can… until I’ve tapped everything out.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Jason Moon, Narrating: Sometimes, when people go missing, it’s obvious. They didn’t come home from work. Their car is found abandoned on the side of the road. The police are called. The last hours before their disappearance are scrutinized for clues. Who were they talking to? Where were they going?


There’s another way that people go missing, where they fade slowly from the lives of the people around them, where their absence grows until it’s expected, where there are no final moments to pour over – just a sense that you haven’t heard from them in a while. 


[LOW TONE IN]


Moon, Narrating: How do you find a relative who’s gone missing like that, someone who you’re not even really sure is missing? You probably wouldn’t call the police, but you might go online to forums and message boards where tens of thousands of other people also come to look for someone. 


Woman: Looking for my brothers, Curtis and Dale Prosise. Please reply… [FADE UNDER]


Man 1: I’m looking for Elsa De Jesus… [FADE UNDER]


Man 2: …Looking for half-brother, Jason Wayne Hale. Jason, I’m your brother… [VOICES CONTINUE OVER EACH OTHER, THEN FADE UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: One of the most popular of these forums is Ancestry.com. It’s called simply “Lost Family and Friends.” Scrolling through it can be overwhelming. It’s like looking at a bulletin board for people missing after a natural disaster – only there was no disaster. 


[TONE, VOICES BRIEFLY UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: In some ways, these forums are kind of the unofficial version of the missing persons reports that police rely on. The difference is that the posts aren’t standardized. Some have a lot of detail, some have very little. Others are inaccurate and a lot of them are just out of date.


Becky Heath: And that, and that’s kind of the tricky part, is because you could find a listing and when you follow up on it, it could be like, “Oh, no, no. We found them.” Or, there could, a lot of times with the older ones, they’re just broken email addresses.


Moon: It’s messier.


[LOW TONE IN, SOFTLY]


Becky: Mmhmm. It’s like the in-between.


Moon, Narrating: Becky Heath spends a lot of time in these forums, in the in-between. Becky is a research librarian, but in her free time, she becomes what you might call a websleuth. I met with Becky several months ago because of something she found in the in-between. 


[TONE OUT, THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Three names. Names that we now know belong to the Bear Brook victims. 


On June 6th, 2019, authorities officially announced their identities at a press conference in Concord, New Hampshire. You may have heard about it on the news. We’re gonna take you to that press conference and tell you everything we learned from it. 


But first, I want to walk you through how that discovery was made because just like in every other piece of this story, it does not go the way you think it does. Becky Heath solved it, but she wasn’t the only one. 


[THEME MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: This is Bear Brook, I’m Jason Moon.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: When I met Becky Heath at her home in Connecticut, the first thing I noticed was how well decorated it was. It was like walking into a magazine cover. Everything seemed perfectly in its place, carefully chosen. Becky's the same way with her words. When she speaks, it's almost like she's tiptoeing from one word to the next.


Becky Heath: I… do… love… mysteries. Uh, any type of real life… murder mysteries.


Moon, Narrating: Becky first came across the Bearbrook murders about 10 years ago. Four unidentified victims found in two barrels 15 years apart. She was at work looking through newspaper archives. She saw an article about the case from the ‘80s, and she realized that the first barrel was found just three days before she was born. 


Heath: Like, oh, that's interesting. I've got to check that out later. And little by little, I would look more into it.


Moon, Narrating: Little by little became more and more. And by the time police announced in 2017 that they knew the Killer, Terry Rasmussen, but not the victims, Becky was obsessed with the case.


Heath: [LAUGHS] This is, is kind of embarrassing, but I would go to work and I'd come home, and I would just research and research and research. It's like there's got to be – there's got to be something. There's, there's something here.


Moon, Narrating: Becky was convinced that somewhere in the online forums of people looking for people, someone was looking for the Bear Brook victims, even if they didn't know it. And she tried to imagine who would be searching for them. The parents of the adult victim could be dead or estranged. Maybe it would be a cousin of one of the child victims or a stepsibling. Maybe they weren't searching for the whole family. Maybe they only knew the adult victim or one of the girls.


Heath: There's certain terms that I'll use. Stepdaughter, stepsister, half sister. Uh, nieces. 


Moon, Narrating: Casting this wide net, Becky started scanning through the online posts. Each time she came across something that looked like it could possibly match one of the victims, she would see if she could rule it out.


Heath: I'll try and look through, like, public records, um, birth certificates through different websites and see, okay, can I find a record of this person? And is it recent?


Moon, Narrating: If Becky was able to find a record of that person from later than 1985, she moved on. If they were generating records, they probably weren't dead. Becky did this over and over again, ruling out names for months. 


Moon: [FADES IN] How, um, how many was it – 82,000 messages?


Heath: Yeah.


Moon: So, how many of these did you look through?


Heath: [BOTH LAUGH] Lots. [BOTH LAUGH] Lots.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Finally, in the fall of 2017, Becky came across a name that she couldn't rule out. It came from a post dated February 11th, 2000. It's written by someone searching for their long lost half-sister. The poster says their half-sister was born in California in the mid-1970s, that both of the half-sister’s parents are dead, and that the mother died in a car accident. 


Now, you might not make much of that, and I probably wouldn't have. But this detail triggered something for Becky. She remembered that a car accident was one of the lies Rasmussen had told about one of his other presumed victims – Lisa's mother, Denise Bowden. So, Becky decided to fact check that story of the mother dying in a car accident. She searched the mother's name in California death records.


Heath: I said, “Ok, well, if they passed away, they’re gonna be in the death index.” [TYPING] Hers, there is no– there is none.


Moon, Narrating: Death records are generally pretty easy to find. Pulling up nothing got Becky even more interested. So, she went back to the post and she kept reading.


In 2003, someone replies to the original post. It’s a man who’s looking for his sister and her two kids. He thinks his sister might be the mom who supposedly died in a car accident. So, now we’re talking about three missing people, a mother and her two daughters.


In 2013 – a decade later – someone posts the marriage records of the missing mother. Then, in 2014, there’s another reply. This time, it’s from someone who thinks the missing mother might be her sister. She says she’s been looking for her for years.


Three separate people, rooting around on the internet for someone they’d lost. Each of them helping to outline the silhouette of a missing family.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


[LOW TONE IN]


Moon, Narrating: Becky was able to find the dates of birth for each member of the missing family. And they all fit within the estimated age ranges for the three related Bear Brook victims – the adult, the oldest child, and the youngest child.


Becky started to think this really could be something. So, in the fall of 2017 she shared all this with some of her fellow websleuths in a Facebook group. And then… 


[LOW TONE QUICKLY UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: …Nothing happened.


Heath: I don’t know why I didn’t pursue it more the first time? Um.... I didn’t really get feedback from anyone, so I didn’t really pursue it more.


Moon, Narrating: The post about the half-sister just kind of fizzled. Either the websleuth community was focused on something else, or maybe they just didn’t think it was a very good lead. So, Becky went back to searching the message boards for other posts that might line up with the Bear Brook case. And for almost a year, she didn’t think too much about it.


Then, late last year, Becky heard about something that got her thinking about that post again. Becky started listening to this podcast.


[‘80S MUSIC IN, TAPE RECORDING EFFECT]

Jesse Morgan: Ya know, growin’ up, it was probably, ya know what, a good two or three… [FADES DOWN]


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Becky knew most of the twists and turns in the case already. But she listened anyway. Listened closely for any tiny details she didn’t already know about that might help her refine her search. She even kept notes of each episode.


Heath: [PAPERS SHUFFLING] ...This is the last podcast. It’s in here somewhere...


Moon, Narrating: Becky says it was listening to episode three – the one about the isotopic testing and the updated composite images of the victims. It triggered something. 


Heath: I remember stopping the podcast, [LAUGHS] going back, listening to what he said again, writing it down again.


Benjamin Agati, At Press Conference: [TAPE RECORDING EFFECT] Our first child victim, also found in the same barrel with her, her age is closer to 9 to 10 years old.


Heath: Stop. Go over it again.


Agati, At Press Conference: [TAPE RECORDING EFFECT] 9 to 10 years old.


Heath: Stop. Go over it again… [FADE OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Her mind went back to the post, the one that had fizzled out. The more she listened, the more she remembered. The ages had lined up. The location had lined up. All the details fit. It was almost like she was getting the feedback she hadn’t gotten when she first found the post and what it was saying was that she just might have a lead.


Heath: After that one, I was like, “You know what? Listening to this podcast makes me think it is this person, this, these, these girls!” 


[MUSIC OUT]


Heath: Just… it fits. It just fits!


Moon, Narrating: There was still a small specter of doubt, that it would be another dead end. But eventually, Becky decided she had to do something about it. Becky reached out to the person who was looking for their half-sister. She showed me how the conversation played out on her phone.


Heath: So, here it says, uh, 9-04 p.m. on October 10th. And I said, “I'm trying to track down this post. Could this be you?” And almost instantly, she responded back, and she said that she was the person, and she said, “You have my heart pounding.”


Moon, Narrating: This person tells Becky that the family has wondered for years about what happened to their half-sister, but they've never been able to find any answers. Then, Becky asks if they had any more information about the half-sister's mother.


Heath: And this is where you can see right there. She says she married again to a man with the last name Rasmussen. 


[MUSIC IN]


Heath: And, like… 


Moon: Oh, my God. 


Heath: That right there was like, where they say your stomach just, like, like something just hits. And I was like, “There is no way. There is no way there’s, that's a coincidence.”


Moon: Wow. 


Heath: I actually started, I was shaking. It was just like, “Woooow. What?!”


Moon, Narrating: Becky then quickly tracked down some siblings of the missing mother. She asked them if they remembered anything about their sister's husband.


Heath: And one of the sisters was like, “I think his name was Terry.” And it was just like, okay, there's just this, no, there's no way that she remembers Terry. This side remembers Rasmussen. That's too crazy. So, that happened on Wednesday night, and by Friday, I was talking to Detective Hedley from San Bernardino. And as I was talking to him, I said, you know, “I, you probably get this all the time.” I was like, “But I truly think that this is the break.”


Moon, Narrating: What Becky didn't know was that at the same time she was poring over internet message boards, genetic genealogist Barbara Rae-venter was also narrowing in on the identities. 


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: And by this point, Barbara had been working on this case for four years. She, along with Detective Peter Hedley from San Bernardino, identified Lisa, the girl Rasmussen abandoned at an RV park. Barbara was the one who identified Terry Rasmussen's real name. 


Then, she went on to identify the alleged Golden State Killer and has provided breakthroughs in lots of other cases, too. But all the while, she's also been working to identify the Bear Brook victims. But there was a problem. 


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Forensic scientists hadn't been able to get an autosomal DNA sample that was complete enough to be used for genetic genealogy. Remember, the remains of the Bear Brook victims had been exposed to the elements for years. 


Barbara Rae-Venter, On the Phone: Yeah, everything was coming back so contaminated. And we're talking 98% bacterial DNA and 2% human.


Moon, Narrating: But then, through pure luck, Barbara gets an idea for how to get around this problem. It happens while she's in the hospital.


Rae-Venter, On the Phone: I'm recovering from open heart surgery. I'm, you know, lying in bed, bored to death and, you know, so scrolling through stuff and and then, see this article.


Moon, Narrating: The article she sees is about a new technique for extracting autosomal DNA from rootless hair. It caught her eye because that's supposed to be impossible. But a scientist named Richard Green at the University of California at Santa Cruz had apparently found a way. And Barbara realized this could be the key to getting a good DNA sample from the Bear Brook victims.


Rae-Venter, On the Phone: If I had not been confined to my bed at that time, I would have been up in his lab instantly. As it was, I had to, you know, phone him and, um, you know, have lunch later on.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Richard Green's new technique is a very complex process that reassembles broken shards of autosomal DNA that exist in rootless hair. Now, Barbara and Richard knew it could work, but it wouldn't be easy. 


For months, the two of them worked together to try and get a DNA profile that could be used in genetic genealogy. There were many false starts and failed attempts, but finally last fall, they succeeded. They had genetic profiles for the three related victims that could be uploaded to GEDmatch. 


The same week Barbara uploaded the DNA to GEDmatch, Becky sent in her tip. Barbara hadn't even had a chance to look over their matches when the names Becky submitted were passed along to her.


Rae-Venter, On the Phone: Uh, since we already had stuff uploaded, it was just easy enough then to really quickly do a family tree and sure enough, just confirmed that yeah, this is who we had. That was who the adult female was.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: The final twist in the Bear Brook case is that after 34 years of dead ends, it was solved by two different people using two different techniques at almost exactly the same time. 


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: And now, we can confirm the identities of the three related Bear Brook victims. 


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: The adult was Marlyse Honeychurch. The oldest child was Marie Vaughn. The youngest child was Sarah McWaters. 


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: In the days after she submitted the tip, Becky stayed in touch with the family of the victims. She got to know them a little bit. And if she had any doubts about whether these were the correct identities, she says they disappeared once the family sent her some photos.


Heath: It's [SIGHS] it's… I wasn't ready for that. I wasn't ready for that. It's really, it's really heartbreaking. And seeing pictures of the girls and how, like, how they look. Like, that's… You just know. It's, it's, it's insane how how close the composites were.


Moon, Narrating: Becky's right. The photos of Marlyse and her two daughters bear a stunning resemblance to the composite images released in 2015. And she's also right about how heartbreaking it is to see those photos, to see Marie at her birthday party, ready to blow out candles on the cake. To see Sarah as a baby in a diaper and a Mickey Mouse t-shirt. To see their mom, Marlyse with a big smile as she gets ready to lick batter off a mixer.


Heath: It makes it really real. 


Moon: “Really real” is a really good way to put it. I didn't, I'd never imagined – I'd never thought about the day that like, “Oh, one day I might see actual photos of them.” And now seeing them, it's, like, a lot.


Heath: It's real, it's really heartbreaking. I've, you know, had, like, this high feeling of, “Oh my goodness, this is going to get solved. There's going to be closure.” And it's, like, the reality is, like, what the family is going to have to endure. That's really… it's, it's not going to be easy. It's not a happy ending.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Becky and Barbara both discovered the identities in October of last year. I interviewed Becky at her home just a few weeks later. 


I left the interview that day personally convinced that Becky had it right, but we didn't report any of this until now because there was a chance she was wrong, or that police could have found out more after the tip came in. Until the identities could be totally confirmed with DNA testing, we couldn't risk publishing the story. And more importantly, if it was true, then the family of the victims deserved to know before anyone else. And so we waited. 


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: On June 5th, 2019, something happened that I'd been waiting for for seven months. I was sitting in the New Hampshire Public Radio newsroom when I got an email from the state Attorney General's office announcing that there would be a press conference the next day to discuss new information in the Bear Brook case. 


[PRESS CONFERENCE SOUND FADES IN, PEOPLE TALKING]


Moon, Narrating: It was held at the same place where I had learned about Terry Rasmussen in 2017, in an auditorium at the main offices of the New Hampshire DMV. I got there early, just like before. And just outside the auditorium, it was a normal day. People were waiting in line to take driving tests or renew their licenses. But inside, there was a nervous energy. Like, everybody knew what was about to happen. And for at least some of the people there, like Becky Heath, they did.


Moon, At Press Conference: Um, can I ask how, how you're feeling right now?


Heath, At Press Conference: Uh, overwhelmed. It's… emotional, but… good, but bad, ya know? [TALKING FADES UNDER]


Moo, Narrating: When I'd been here in 2017, I'd been working on the Bear Brook story by myself. And now, there were three other producers from NHPR there with me. And like Becky, we all had a pretty good idea of what was coming.


[TALKING FADES BACK UP]


Taylor Quimby, At Press Conference: Hey. Is this, uh, is this a lot busier than the last time?


Moon, At Press Conference: It's, um. It's. Yeah, it is a little busier, actually. We've got, um, Becky Heath is here. Ronda Randall should be here any second. Uh, I can see Jeff Strelzin up at the podium. Um, it's a little bit of a reunion, yeah. All here to see the next chapter.


[TALKING FADES OUT, MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Ronda Randall, the amateur sleuth who's been following the Bear Brook case longer than most of the people in this room, got to the briefing just a few minutes before it started. Next to her was Andrea Rasmussen, one of Terry Rasmussen's living daughters. 


Ronda brought with her some stones from Bear Brook State Park. She's had them for years in hopes of one day writing down the names of the victims as a sort of memorial.


Moon: Ronda, did you, did you bring the rocks?


Ronda Randall: I did, they're in my bag. [LAUGHS] Yeah.


Moon: Do you have, like, the Sharpie ready to go? 


Randall: I think so.


[TALKING FADES DOWN, MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: After a few more minutes, the crowd instinctively hushed. And then, just like before, Jeff Strelzin with the New Hampshire Attorney General's office, walked up to the podium.


Moon, Whispering: Okay, here we go. 


Jeff Strelzin, At Podium: Good afternoon again. We've called this press briefing today because we have additional information regarding the Allenstown, New Hampshire murder case. 


In 2017, we knew the identity of the Allenstown killer, but his victims’ identities remained a mystery. We're here to report that for three of the four Allenstown victims, that's now changed. [SOUND OF CAMERA SHUTTERS]


The mother has been identified as Marlyse Elizabeth Honeychurch. [FAINT SOUND OF PHONE RINGING] The photo on the left is her high school photo from 1970. Marlyse was born in Connecticut in 1954. At the time this picture was taken, we estimate she was about 16 years old. [SOUND OF CAMERA SHUTTERS]


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Up on the screen were some of the same photos that I'd seen in Becky's living room in October. A blurry yearbook photo of Marlyse smiling at the camera. Little Sarah, just a baby, sleeping in someone's arms.


Strelzin: The oldest Allenstown child victim has been identified as her oldest daughter. And here she is. Marie Elizabeth Vaughn. This is Sarah Lynn McWaters. Her life photo is on the left and her facial reconstruction is on the right.


Moon, Narrating: For so long, police were only able to call them by their age. The adult victim. The middle child. But now, these… baby pictures and birthday photos. 


Since Becky's tip and Barbara Rae Venter's DNA work, police had been interviewing family members, collecting stories and establishing timelines. And what they learned was that Marlyse has always had a complicated family history.


Matthew Kohler: She was the second oldest of five girls. In approximately 1961, Marlyse’s parents separated. Her mother took the three younger girls to the state of California, while Marlyse and her older sister remained in the state of Connecticut with their father.


Moon, Narrating: Marlyse moved around a lot. In 1969, when she was 15, she moved back in with her mom in California and enrolled in a local high school. She married young, at 17, and had Marie not long after. Later, there were custody battles. Another marriage, and then, baby Sarah.


Matthew Kohler: In the summer of 1973, Marlyse traveled to Lakewood, California and took, took custody of Marie… [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Sergeant Matthew Kohler from the state Cold Case Unit outlined Marlyse’s life and the lives of her two kids, Marie and Sarah. It was like a memorial service led by someone who only knew the deceased from pictures and second-hand stories.


Kohler: This is a photograph of Marlyse and Marie Vaughn. We believe it was taken around the holidays.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: And then, the last detail in her timeline. A scene that, after all that had come before, sounded eerily familiar.


Kohler: Thanksgiving time of 1978, in La Puente, California. Marlyse and her children went to a family event at Marlyse’s mother's house with a man she identified as Terry Rasmussen. She identified him as Terry Rasmussen to multiple people at that event. An argument ensued between Marlyse and her mother over a trivial matter. Marlyse left that event with her children and Terry Rasmussen and was never seen by her family again. [SOUND OF CAMERA SHUTTERS]


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: In 2000, Eunsoon Jun had taken Rasmussen under a different pseudonym then to a New Year's party. It was the last time her family ever talked to her too. And Denise Bowden, another Thanksgiving party. The last time she would ever have contact with her family. 


We don't know what the argument was that Marlyse had with her mother in 1978, but in each of the other cases, Rasmussen found a way to separate his victims from the people who loved them. And it's hard to imagine he wasn't taking advantage of the same situation with Marlyse.


[MUSIC POST, PRESS CONFERENCE AUDIO FADES BACK IN]


Unidentified Male Official, Low Volume: …The last contact with him occurred around Christmastime of either 1975 or 1976. The family was residing… [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: After that, the rest of the press conference sort of blurred into the ones that had been held before. A parade of different officials, describing all the twists and turns that had gotten us to this point, and all the loose ends that are yet to be tied up.


Unidentified Male Official: …February 11th, 1980. At the time of his arrest, he wrote down Elizabeth as a spouse. Again, it could be Marlyse.


Moon, Narrating: They credited various agencies and individuals that had taken part in the investigation, amateur and professionals alike.



Unidentified Female Official: They never stopped trying to identify the four victims in these barrels… [FADES UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: And then, towards the end. FBI Agent Phil Christiano acknowledged that all the work done could never undo the reasons we were all there.


Phil Christiano: But make no mistake, today is bittersweet. While we're proud to be here, to stand before you to announce that this decade old homicide has been solved, we also recognize the pain and anguish that the subject of this investigation has caused to the family and friends.


Moon, Narrating: In the hushed moment just before the press conference began, a line of seven people had walked from the back of the room and quickly taken seats in the front row of the auditorium.


Christiano: Several of those family members have come to New Hampshire today and are here. They've asked us to read a statement on their behalf. “On behalf of our families, we would like to thank everyone who has spent decades working tirelessly to identify our loved ones. This day comes with heavy hearts. Marlyse, Marie, and Sarah were so loved by our families and they are greatly missed. We take solace in finally having the answers we have longed for. Thank you to everyone who never gave up on the Allenstown victims. During this difficult time, we are asking for privacy as we process the events that have unfolded over this week.” That concludes our presentation, and at this point, we'd be happy to take any questions that people have.


[MUSIC IN]


Christiano: Yes, sir. 


Moon: Can you talk about the role of genetic genealogy since… [PRESS CONFERENCE AUDIENCE FADES OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Despite all the information police shared at the press conference, there is so much we don't know about Marlyse, Marie, and Sarah. Sure, we know where they lived and when. Some of the details that might get listed on court records or in City Hall. But we don't know what kind of movies Marlyse liked to watch. What Sarah's laugh sounded like. Or whether Marie struggled with her math homework. 


But that's okay. They deserve the dignity of being buried with a name. But I'm not sure we've earned the right to know everything about them. Those decisions are up to their families. 


[MUSIC POST, LOW SOUND OF PEOPLE TALKING IN]


Moon, Narrating: After the press conference ended, the family got up silently and filed out of the room. After the crowd thinned, I was left standing with Ronda Randall and Becky Heath. 


[MUSIC OUT,  LOW SOUND OF PEOPLE TALKING UP]


Moon, Narrating: Rhonda got out the rocks, the ones she'd been saving for just this occasion, and put them down on the empty auditorium stage. [LOW THUMPING SOUNDS]


Moon: Yeah. So, what's it been, eight years, right?


Randall: Eight years, yeah. Memorial Day weekend was eight years.


Moon, Narrating: She handed the Sharpie to Becky, who wrote a name on each stone. [SOUND OF SHARPIE WRITING ON STONES]


Heath: That was kind of emotional. [SIGHS] Sarah. [SOUND OF SHARPIE WRITING] Thanks. I appreciate that. Where are they goin’?


Randall: They're going to go back, back to Allenstown. And, um, we'll hold on to the last rock until, until that little girl has her name back, too.


Heath: I hope, I actually hope to visit Allenstown before I leave.


Moon: Mmm.


Heath: I've never…


Randall: …Been out there?


Heath: Mmm.


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Jesse Morgan, On the Phone: I mean, I was just a young kid that, you know, stumbled upon a barrel. You know, I don't, and I'm, I’m speechless to the fact of, you know, how sad and crazy that this, that it is, you know?


Moon: Yeah, you can't make this stuff up, um…


Morgan: No, no.


Ron Montplaisir, On the Phone: It's been a long, long time. I can picture that first, that day when I, when I responded to that, that call and, uh, um, I, I guess that'll take me to my grave. I'll never forget that.


Moon: Would you like to hear their names?


Montplaisir: Yeah, sure. Yes, yes. [SOUND OF PHONE CRACKLING]


Moon: So, the adult was Marlyse Honeychurch.


Montplaisir: Oh, wow!


[MUSIC POST]


Anne Morgan, On the Phone: It's a sad… It's a sad day, Jason. The day they were found was sad and all the, all the in-between. But when it's all said and done, it's very sad. I haven't talked to Jesse, um, because I know once I do, I'm going to cry. [HER VOICE BREAKS] She does have a family. She did have a family that were looking for her, that missed her, that loved her.


Moon: Yeah, it's not a happy ending. No. No.


Anne Morgan: Good luck to you, and we'll be in touch. 


Moon: Yeah, that'd be great. 


Anne Morgan: We'll be in touch.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: This news was a huge leap forward in the Bear Brook case, but it was also a painful reminder of the many unanswered questions that still remain. The middle child victim is still unidentified. The middle child's mother. Another presumed victim is still unidentified. Denise Beauden's body has never been recovered. Rasmussen may have had other victims. 


[RONDA RANDALL TALKING FADES IN]


But the mysteries of the Bear Brook case have attracted some tenacious investigators. And they're the sort of people who I don't think will ever give up trying.


Ronda Randall, In Bear Brook State Park: … in the house right there. You've got a path coming through the woods here, from the mobile home park, where the kids would walk up to the store and get cigarettes for their parents and buy candy and soda. And the barrel was right there, tipped over on its side.


Becky Heath: So, it was this close to the road!


Moon, Narrating: Just a couple of hours after the press conference, Ronda Randall and Becky Heath, along with Andrea Rasmussen, Terry Rasmussen's daughter, took a walk out near Bear Brook State Park about a 20 minute drive away.


Randall: This is the blueberry patch with some birch trees growing there. Really serene spot. You know, when I came in and saw it, it just looked so peaceful and hard to kind of equate it with its history.


Heath: I feel like there's still answers here. 


Randall: Yeah. 


Heath: You know. I don't feel, like, really done with this property.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Meanwhile, genealogist Barbara Rae-venter continues her work on the unidentified middle child. Barbara has already uploaded the middle child's DNA to GEDmatch, but unfortunately, she found only extremely distant relatives – not enough to get a foothold on a family tree. 


But in the time since we released the last episode, there's a new genetic database available to law enforcement. It's called Family Tree DNA. Barbara says they'll be uploading the middle child's DNA there as early as next week. 


If Barbara is lucky, some of the middle child's family is already there, waiting for her.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT, THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Bear Brook is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon. 


Additional reporting in this episode by Todd Bookman. 


Taylor Quimby is senior producer. 


Editing help for this episode came from Cori Princell, Dan Barrick, and Maureen McMurray. 


The executive producer is Erika Janik. 


Dan Barrick is NPR's news director. 


Director of Content is Maureen McMurray. 


Photos for this episode were taken by Allie Oshinsky. 


Additional photography and video for this series by Allie Gutierrez. 


Interactives and graphics by Sarah Plourde. 


Original music for this show was composed by me, Jason Moon, and Taylor Quimby. Additional music in this episode by Blue Dot sessions and Lee Rosevere.


Bear Brook is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Transcript of Update 2: Eric Rasmussen

Jason Moon, Narrating: Many people know what it's like to live in the shadow of their parents. But some shadows are longer and darker than others. 


Before Terry Rasmussen killed four people and dumped them in the woods near Bear Brook State Park, before he was a serial killer, a chameleon, he had a family. In my reporting, I was able to speak to one of his children, his daughter Diane. You heard from her in episode six. Terry Rasmussen also had a son. 


Moon: Let's, um. Could I have you just introduce yourself? Your name and your, your relationship to this case and why we're talking.


Eric Rasmussen: Um, my name is Eric. Uh, Terry Rasmussen is my father. Um, and I guess we're talking about it to try and find some answers.


Moon, Narrating: I couldn't find Eric when I was first reporting this series, but a few months after we released the podcast, an email sent by someone with a last name Rasmussen caught my eye. Eric wrote to say that he had listened to the podcast. He said he was glad to hear that with the breakthroughs in genetic genealogy, at least some good had come from the case. But listening to it also had him thinking about his father. 


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Ever since Eric learned about Terry Rasmussen's crimes, he's been holding up an image of his father's life next to his own. And what he's seen has changed him. 


This is Bear Brook, update number two, a conversation with Eric Rasmussen. I'm Jason Moon.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon: Uh, Eric, you can hear me okay and everything? 


Rasmussen: I can. 


Moon: Okay. Um, great! I think… [FADE UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: A few weeks ago, Eric and I sat down to talk about what this story has meant for him. I started by asking him about the day this all began for him. Remember, like Diane, Eric grew up not knowing all that much about his father. As far as he knew, he was just a deadbeat dad who left him when he was 5 years old.


And since then, Eric grew up, joined the Marine Corps, then the Army, had some kids, got married and divorced a few times. Then, in 2017, four decades after he last saw his dad, Eric got a phone call from the New Hampshire State Police.


Rasmussen: I mean, it was very surreal. I mean, it was, it's, it was, you know, you, you just you can't… It's nothing life prepares you for a phone call like that. I mean, it's just, I guess the only way I really dealt with it at that first moment was that it… it just wasn't true.


Moon, Narrating: Eric says it didn't fully sink in until later, when the detectives sent him an email with some more information about the case.


Eric Rasmussen: It, it really became real when I clicked on the link to the interview that he did in California, and I heard his voice.


Terry Rasmussen, On Recording: Now, I haven't talked anymore about Eunsoon's problems or my problems because frankly, you're not my priest…


Detective, On Recording: No. 


Terry Rasmussen, On Recording: …And you're not my doctor… [FADE UNDER]


Eric Rasmussen: That's when it really just became 100% real for me, is I heard that voice that… from the past, that… It's hard to explain, you know? Um, uh, I guess the closest I could put it – uh, and forgive me if I go off on a tangent here, um – is when I was in Desert Storm. Uh, we had been across the Kuwaiti border for about a day, and we were moving towards Kuwait City, and we had, uh, uh, camped for the night, basically, with a bunch of tanks laid out, and we were digging foxholes, and, uh, there was machine gun fire that starts up, and then all the sudden, there's this call of gas because this missile had landed, and my gas mask wouldn't seal. 


[MUSIC IN]


Eric Rasmussen: And the sheer terror of that, of, of… of your mask and not sealing. You, you think you're gonna die. You're, you're starting to panic somewhat, and you're trying to keep cool at the same time. And just that feeling that builds up in you of, of, of all this stress, this anxiety, this… terror. And that's what I felt when I heard his voice.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon: Well, let's go back to that phone call if we can, for just a minute. Did he have any questions for you?


[MUSIC OUT]


Eric Rasmussen: He, he asked me what I remembered about my father, you know.


Moon: And what did you tell him?


Rasmussen: Well, I, I told him the two prominent memories I have of my father. I remember, um, when he came to visit us in Arizona after my mother had left him.


Moon, Narrating: Just a reminder. This is the unexpected visit that Terry Rasmussen made sometime in 1975 or 76. It was the last time his family saw him. Terry had with him an unidentified woman who investigators believe may be another victim.


Rasmussen: And I remember him being with a, a brunette woman. You know, uh, I remember that. I remember him not saying much. He said something to my mother and that he kind of looked at us. But, you know, uh… I, I'm a father myself. And, you know, the first thing you do when you, when you, when you contact your children after not seeing them for a while, is you want to physically be there for them. And he just didn't seem to hold that connection.


Moon, Narrating: The other memory Eric has of his father is something that Diane also mentioned to me. She said it was the moment that finally convinced their mother to leave Terry.


Rasmussen: I remember the day that he, uh, he burned me with cigarettes. I don't remember if it was one or two, but I remember feeling burnt. And I remember crying, you know? Um… And I just remember the look he gave me. It just, it was just so… [SIGHS] It's hard to, it's hard to describe. It was just… it was like a dead man looking at you in some ways.


Moon: Mm. D-do you remember how old you were at that time?


Rasmussen: I think this was… I was right about 3 and a half to 4. Right in there.


Moon: Wow. Any, any recollection or idea as to, as to – not that there's a good reason, but why he would have been doing that to you?


Rasmussen: I, you know, um, yeah– That goes to the question I think everybody has is, is how does a man like that exist? And how does a man like that do anything? 


[MUSIC IN]


Rasmussen: I guess it doesn't make sense to me, but I kind of really need to know in, in a, in kind of a morbid sort of way.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: This is the shadow that Terry Rasmussen casts over Eric Rasmussen. Ever since he learned about his father's crimes, Eric has been gripped by questions of how and why, questions that I think we all try to answer when we hear a story like this. But the difference for Eric is that whatever answers he comes to also say something about him. Not just because Terry was his father, but because Eric has come to realize that he and his father's lives have in some ways moved along a parallel trajectory.

[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Rasmussen: It's a really odd parallel because, you know, there were two things that he was heavily interested in and that was mechanical and electronics. And, and the way that my unknowingly, my, my path directed was exactly down those same ways. You know, I spent time as an auto mechanic. I spent time in the dyno field, which is heavily electronic. I mean, he went into the Navy. I spent time in the Marine Corps. Um… I don't want to be like him, but unfortunately, I mean, I kinda am, in a way. And that, that is a scary thought in itself. 


Moon: Yeah.


Rasmussen: I mean, that's, that's the one when I can't sleep at 3 o’clock in the morning that draws me. You know? I know I'm not going to do what he did, but I don't want to get anywhere close to that line. And that's the one that keeps me up.


Moon, Narrating: It's not only the outlines of a career path that Eric and Terry share. They also bear a striking physical resemblance. Diane told me that when the state troopers were first breaking the news to her, one thing that helped convince her it was real were the mugshots of Terry and how much they looked like Eric.


Rasmussen: You know, you read about, you know, the people that talked to him and the detective in California said, “Oh gosh, those, those crystal blue eyes.” I get that every week. At least once a week, somebody says, “Oh my God, you have the most gorgeous crystal blue eyes.” And I'm like, I just don't want them. But, um, you know, I, I look like him.


Moon: Yeah. I wonder what was your idea of your father as you were growing up? And, you know, after he had left, what was your sense of him?


Rasmussen: You know, my mother, which has never been very forthcoming with a lot of details constantly reinforced the idea he was a bad man, but she couldn't quite say why. Sometimes it would be because he drank. Sometimes it would be because he slept around with all the babysitters, you know? Uh, well, I mean, there were some times she said to me, ”You're just like him,” which really is a phrase that kind of drags home now. So, you know, I – and she would tell me how I looked like him, how I was just like him. And then she would take it out on me physically.


Moon: But you wanted to – you were curious despite all that.


Rasmussen: Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, you have to, you know, you're growing up in a, in a single, single parent home. I mean, you want to know the other half of you?


Moon: Yeah. So, has this led to other conversations within your extended family? I mean, I know, obviously, that, um, your relationship with your mom is, is fraught, for obvious reasons, but have you found yourself talking to family members from his side or reconnecting with folks?


Rasmussen: I have, I, I have found a few family members from his side that are willing to talk, and the one story that came out that really struck me as intuitive was, uh, they were at a picnic and he was maybe 8, 9.


Moon: You mean, Terry was 8 or 9?


Rasmussen: Yeah. And he, he chased someone around at the picnic with a knife he'd been using to cut watermelon because he became so angry. So, um, talked to other members on that side of the family who talk about a darkness that flows in the uh, in the Rasmussen family, and they don't call it depression. They call it darkness.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Hearing stories about Terry's childhood has helped Eric to fill in some sections of his father's portrait. But the more Eric has learned, the more he's come to place meaning on a different part of Terry's life. His time in the Navy. It's a chapter that Eric can relate to because he recognizes the effects of it in himself. Remember when one of Terry's coworkers at the mill in New Hampshire heard him screaming in his sleep?


Eric Rasmussen: That's a PTSD moment. I mean, that's classic. That's chronic signs. You know, I suffer from that. What did he suffer from? Did that push him across the line?


Moon, Narrating: Terry Rasmussen served in the Navy from 1961 to 1967. He was stationed at bases along the West Coast and also at Okinawa in the Pacific. Eric has been studying his discharge paperwork, a form called a DD214. It has some details about Terry's military career, but it also raises a lot of questions. Like, how from 1961 to 1964, there's little mention about what Terry was actually doing. Those were the early years of the Vietnam War, and it was before the Navy trained Terry as an electrician. And Eric wonders if that's when Terry saw something or did something that changed him.


Rasmussen: There had to be this defining moment where it all became nothing, when the value of human life became zero with him, because you don't – It's one thing to shoot a man you don't know. Trust me on that. It's another thing to harm someone that you know, that you're around every day. Something pushed him.


Moon, Narrating: There's no proof that Terry Rasmussen ever never saw any action. But then, you don't necessarily have to. To get PTSD. And there are some clues on Terry's DD214 that point to. Signs of trouble – a few periods classified as “lost time.” It's usually code for being away without leave or being confined in the brig. And his form also has a reenlistment code that basically amounts to the Navy telling him, “Don't come back.” In any case, this idea that something pushed Terry is what ultimately convinced Eric to change his life. After learning about all this in the summer of 2017, he left a lucrative career in engineering to work with vets.


Rasmussen: You know, he did so many bad things in this world. I had to do something positive, something, something good, not to redeem him, but to redeem myself. And um, so, you know, I just, I, I got a job at the VA. I figured at least I could help other vets. You know, maybe, maybe in a, in an instant, maybe one word, maybe one moment, a handshake, a “Hey, the coffee's over there” – something would, would make their day just a little bit more. And maybe they want to push themselves over the edge, you know?


Moon: So, how much is Terry on your mind when you're, when you're there and talking to vets? Do you, do you see sort of shades of him or versions, uh, you know, of him in the, in the vets you're speaking to?


Rasmussen: Oh, God. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't see somebody in a Navy Seabees hat. And so, it's always on my mind. Unfortunately, you know, uh, ‘cause I wish it wasn't so much, but it is.


Moon: Yeah. Well, it's, it's interesting to me because one thing that we have tried to do, um, in telling this story is, is not to focus too much on him and his story in the, in the way that sometimes, um, stories about serial killers can get sensationalized to an extent where it seems to be more about that person's life than the lives of the victims they had. And in a weird way, they can almost end up being glorified. But you find it – you're in a situation where you can't help but want to know everything you can about him, because it's, in a strange way, also about you.


Rasmussen: It is about me. It's about at least half of me. You know, there's no other, um… There's no other thing for me to do except for move forward and try to find at least some answers. Because… what I know now isn't enough for me. And it's not because I'm fascinated by this… killer. Um, it's because I want to know what drove him. And that's, that's really what I have to know is what drove him.


Moon: It almost sounds like that, that has become the new purpose of your life, if I can put it so bluntly.


[MUSIC IN]


Rasmussen: Yeah. It’s to not be him. To do whatever I can to not be him.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: For all the ways that Eric seems to be reaching for meaning in all this, it strikes me that there probably are no good answers waiting for him in the thicket of his father's past. No moment of truth in the Navy, no family medical predisposition that could ever fully explain who Terry Rasmussen was and why he did what he did. How much of his father is in himself is a question that Eric may always wrestle with. 


But then, Eric isn't just looking for meaning in his father's life. He's creating meaning in his own by having honest conversations like this, by helping other veterans to find themselves. 


And in that way, the way that matters, Eric has already answered his own question. He's nothing like his father. 


[MUSIC UP, MIXES WITH THEME MUSIC]


Moon, Narrating: Stay subscribed to Bear Brook to hear future updates in the case. We're hoping to bring you more episodes soon. 


Bear Brook is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon. 


Taylor Quimby is senior producer. 


Editing help this episode came from Dan Barrick, Maureen McMurray, Cori Princell, and Erika Janik. 


Special thanks this episode to Professor Edward Miller at Dartmouth College. 


Original music for this show was composed by me, Jason Moon, and Taylor Quimby. 


Bear Brook is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Transcript of Update 1: Ripple Effects

[MUSIC IN]


Taylor Quimby, Narrating: I'm producer Taylor Quimby, and this is the first in an unknown number of updates to the story of the Bear Brook murders that we'll be producing to let listeners know about any breaking news in the case. For quick updates, I'm going to be interviewing Jason to find out what is happening. And down the road, should there be any big breaks – and we expect there will be – we will likely put out another full episode of Bear Brook. 


So, just to temper expectations, I want to say off the bat that this is not the information that Jason and I are expecting to come down eventually, which is to say, police have not discovered any new victims of Terry Rasmussen, nor have police determined the identities of the unknown Bear Brook victims. 


[MUSIC OUT]


Quimby, Narrating: The new information that we do have that just came out of the New Hampshire Attorney General's office yesterday, November 15th, is that while searching for more possible victims of the serial killer Terry Rasmussen, police followed a tip that led to the identification of an unconnected murder victim. In other words, someone who was murdered, but not by Rasmussen. A young woman who went missing in Manchester in the 1980s. 


Quimby: So, Jason, what did we learn? Who is this woman?


Jason Moon: Yeah, her name is, uh, Elizabeth Lamotte. Apparently, she went by Liz. She went missing on November 22nd, 1984, from Manchester, New Hampshire. She was, um, at the Youth Development Center. Today, it's called the Sununu Youth Center. It's basically juvenile lockup in the state. 


Quimby: Okay. 


Moon: And she was released for some sort of trip to a baseball stadium in Manchester, and she never returned. And so again, that was on November 22nd, 1984– 


Quimby: And it was a youth detention center. So, how old is she?


Moon: She would have been 17 when she went missing. 


Quimby: Okay. 


Moon: Um, a missing persons report was not filed uh, until, until recently, until 2017, as a result of the investigation into the Bear Brook case. And a-, and according to the New Hampshire Attorney General's office, it came in the aftermath of that big press conference in January 2017 that we visit in episode five of the podcast, where we were getting all the connections to the California cases for the first time.


Jeff Strelzin, At Press Conference: We're going to start our presentation by going through a PowerPoint this morning. Uh, we're gonna do that to try and explain all the new information that we have that pertains… [FADE UNDER]


Moon: During that press conference, police were also asking for any tips regarding other possible victims of Terry Rasmussen. And um, here's some, some tape we didn't actually include in that episode, and something to remember. Police back then were still calling Rasmussen by his New Hampshire alias, Bob Evans.


Unidentified Male Voice, At Press Conference: During the time that, uh, Mr. Evans had been living at 925 Haywood Street, uh, an interesting note, uh, there were some certified mail sent to that residence, and it had been signed for by somebody purporting to be Elizabeth Evans. We don't know who Elizabeth Evans was, whether or not she, in fact, uh, was a real person, or if it, the mail had been signed for by somebody else. Also, what's interesting, during the time, uh, in the 1980s, Bob Evans had been arrested three different times, uh, by local authorities. He was arrested in February and June of 1980, and he gave his spouse's name, uh, as being Elizabeth, as you can see here in the, in the slide.


Moon: And so, sometime after that press conference, they got a tip from someone who said, “Well, I knew a Liz who went missing from Manchester during that same time period, Liz Lamotte”. And so, I think initially the thinking was, could Liz Lamotte be Elizabeth Evans? Once they listed her as a missing person, she wa– her case was uploaded to NamUs, which is sort of the national database of missing persons cases and unidentified bodies. Um… 


Quimby: Yup.


Moon: …And some of the, Liz Lamotte's family members provided DNA to that database. And they did find a match in NamUs to a previously unidentified murder victim from Tennessee who was found on April 14th, 1985. 


Quimby: Okay, so, less than a year after she went missing in Manchester, New Hampshire, Elizabeth Lamotte's body is found in Tennessee. But then it was unidentified, just like the Bear Brook victims for over 30 years.


Moon: Exactly. So, this has been a Tennessee cold case that began in 1985…


Quimby, Under His Breath: God…


Moon: …A murdered, unidentified woman found along the side of a road. And when her body was found, it appears that it had only been there for maybe two to three weeks. Um…


Quimby: How was she killed?


Moon: Blunt force trauma to the head. 


Quimby: Yeah, you can imagine that. Police would have right away been thinking, “What if this is the mother of Rasmussen's daughter? The, the the middle child found in the barrels.” 


Moon: Oh, yeah. And that was basically my first question when I called the AG's office last night. I spoke with Susan Morrill. She's now the chief of the Cold Case Unit. 


Moon, On the Phone: Are we ruling out that this murder was, could have been committed by Terry Rasmussen or is that still an open question? 


Susan Morrill, On the Phone: Well, I don't think that there's any information that would connect the two. It just happened that the press conference about Terry Rasmussen and our request for information about an Elizabeth Evans generated this tip.


Quimby: So, law enforcement is confident that this is not another Rasmussen victim.


Moon: Well, the big reason that it's probably not is the timeline. It just doesn't quite match up. So, she went missing in 1984 from Manchester. 


Quimby: Uhuh.


Moon: According to what we know about Rasmussen's timeline, he was already in California by that time with Lisa. So, he's already gone from New Hampshire when Liz Lamotte goes missing. And in terms of the connection to, um, Elizabeth Evans, the evidence that she existed comes from 1980. So, that's when that package was signed.


Quimby: I see. And, and at that point, Elizabeth Lamotte would have been like 13. 


Moon: Exactly. 


Quimby: Yeah, okay.


Moon, On the Phone: Um, on the Lamotte case, is there any, do we have any leads as to who was responsible for this? Um, or is that something that the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is, is, um, gonna be handling, I assume?


Morrill, On the Phone: Right. Now that they have an identity for the victim, they will probably, um, look at this case again and, um, bring more energy and focus to it. They've sent out their own press release in Tennessee, and they're asking for the public's help. Um, if they have any information to let them know, and they would be the agency to investigate her death. 


Moon, On the Phone: Okay.


Quimby: Well, we talked about in episode six how the genetic genealogy that was pioneered in the Bear Brook case… you know, it's had all these ripple effects on all these other cold cases. But it's not just the science, because this is an example of another ripple effect that, that hasn't had anything to do with the work of Barbara Rae-venter, who we talk about extensively in the podcast. This is like… just plain old tips comin’ in.


Moon: Yeah, well, it's a ripple effect in terms of the interest that the case has generated. Folks looking into answers in this case have been turning up answers to other cases just through sheer coincidence, you know, sheer coincidence that Liz Lamotte went missing at a similar time frame as some of the other victims. Um, and it's not the only other case that's been solved. There was a missing, uh, unidentified child abandoned at an airport that some people thought might have been somehow related to Terry Rasmussen in his trip across the country. Turns out, that child abandoned at an airport was this other woman who was adopted after being found in Idaho. And…


Quimby, Laughing: Yeah… 


Moon: She, you know, she learned her name basically through, because of the interest and work by citizen sleuths, by websleuths on the Bear Brook case. So, yeah, here we are again with just like another ripple effect.


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Quimby: Thanks, Jason, for letting us know what's going on. 


Moon: You bet. 


Quimby, Narrating: We'll continue to let you know what's happening in the Bear Brook case, either in the form of these breaking news updates or if there is ever a big enough break in the case, possibly with another full episode of Bear Brook. We really expect that is going to happen sometime in the near future. But you know, nothing is confirmed yet. We're still waiting on details and so, we can't make any guarantees, but really, do stay subscribed. We'll be back as soon as we've got something more to say. Thanks a lot.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Transcript of Episode 1: Hide and Seek

Jason Moon, Narrating: You know those ‘80s movies where a bunch of kids wander the neighborhood on bicycles and then stumble into a mystery? This story starts kinda like that.

[‘80S MUSIC IN]

Jesse Morgan: Ya know, growin’ up, there was probably a good two- or three-dozen kids that lived in the park and we just roamed the place like we owned the place.

Moon, Narrating: That’s Jesse Morgan. In the movie version of this story, he’d probably be the leader of the group. The scrappy one. The Corey Feldman.

Morgan: The way that trailer parks work… I mean, there’s a lot of people that come in and go out. I mean, I was one of the few kids that moved in when I was 2 and moved out when I was 18.

[‘80S MUSIC FADES OUT]

Moon, Narrating: In the summer of 1985, Jesse was 11 years old. It was the year the Nintendo came to North America. New Coke hit the shelves and “Calvin and Hobbes” started running in newspapers. That year, Jesse and his friends came up with a game. It was basically hide and seek, except the seeker rode around on a four-wheeler.

[ENGINE REVVING SOUND]

Morgan: All the kids would hide, and the last one that got found would be able to ride the four-wheeler. Just do that over and over. And we played, we played that all summer long.

Moon, Narrating: The trailer park where Jesse grew up – it’s in a town so small that half of it’s Main Street is technically in another village. And right next to the trailer park, covering more than half the entire town, is 15 square miles of tall red pines and swampy, tangled forest. Bear Brook State Park.

Morgan: We were able to roam because we weren’t in a city. We weren’t – you know, my parents weren’t worried so much about me because they just figured I was over there or over there. You know, there was only many places to go when we were kids.

[‘80S MUSIC FADES BACK IN]

Moon, Narrating: Then, one day, in the middle of this game, something strange happened. Jesse was riding the four-wheeler. His friends, Scott and Keith, were supposed to be hiding. And then one of them gave himself away by yelling out.

Morgan: I believe it was Keith said that he found a barrel…

[MUSIC IN]

Morgan: …just out in the woods, you know, there was a barrel out there.

Moon, Narrating: The barrel was a blue, 55-gallon steel drum. It was covered up with a lid, but whoever closed it hadn’t gotten a tight seal. Something was squeezing through, underneath the top. It was a plastic bag.

Morgan: Scott and Keith both got off the four-wheeler. And Keith was, like, trying to pull the top of the barrel off. And when he got the edge of the tarp off, we got hit with, like, this smell of, like, rotten milk.

Moon, Narrating: The kids weren’t really sure what to make of this. So, they did the only thing a group of 11-year-old boys could think to do – they kicked it over.

Morgan: When we knocked the barrel over. The top came open a little more. We didn’t see into it or anything, but we saw, like, something white was starting to drizzle out of the top of the barrel. And again, I’m thinking it’s rotten milk.

Moon, Narrating: And then, they left. They rode away on the four-wheeler without ever looking inside the barrel.

[MUSIC OUT, LOW ENGINE VROOMING SOUND]

Morgan: That was it. That was… we left.

[VROOMING SOUND FADES OUT]

Moon, Narrating: This is the moment where the story stops being like an ‘80s movie. Jesse and his friends walked away from the mystery.  

[MUSIC IN]

Moon, Narrating: Had they looked inside the barrel, what they would have found were two bodies. Heavily decomposed, partially dismembered.

[MUSIC POST]

Moon, Narrating: This moment in the woods is the first in a case where every convention about how true crime stories usually unfold is upended. Where everything about how a murder investigation is supposed to work, happens in reverse. Where each break in the case seems to raise more questions than it answers. It’s the first clue that this story is not going to go the way you think it is.

John Cody: How does an entire family just go missing?

Moon, Narrating: This is the story of a serial killer police would come to know as “The Chameleon.”

Elaine Ramos: I’m sure she fought. 

Moon: That’s very…

Elaine: I have to believe that she fought.

Moon, Narrating: The story of victims. Some of them well-remembered, some of them nameless.

Ronda Randall: What grandmother let this happen, or what neighbor, or what bus driver or, you know, I mean, where were all of you? I mean, where were you, you know?

Moon, Narrating: And it’s the story of a frustrating investigation that after decades of failure led to a forensic breakthrough that has forever changed the science of solving murders.

Billy Jensen: I mean this is the biggest step forward for solving crimes since the discovery of DNA itself.

This is Bear Brook. I’m Jason Moon.

[MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Moon, Narrating: I am not a crime reporter. Or, I wasn’t, until I discovered this story.

I first learned about the Bear Brook murders in late 2015 when I was assigned to cover a press conference about the case. I had only been living in New Hampshire for about six months. I didn’t know anything about the case.

At the time I was more concerned with covering the New Hampshire presidential primary. The week before, I was being crushed by a throng of other reporters while trying to follow Hillary Clinton down a hallway.

But aside from the primary, New Hampshire is pretty quiet. There isn’t the same urgency to news that there is in some other places. It’s the sort of state where a rogue bear can… and has… dominated a news cycle.

So, when I learned that in 1985,  bodies were discovered only 20 minutes or so from the NHPR newsroom, and that police still hadn’t identified them 30 years later, it stuck with me. How is that possible, with all the DNA testing and modern forensic techniques? How could they not even know who the victims are?

After the news conference, I filed a short story for the newsroom and went back to my usual beat. But I never forgot about the Bear Brook case. It became a kind of side project, something to look into when I wasn’t sitting at a town hall meeting, or covering the state legislature. 

And one of the first things I wanted to learn more about was the town where the bodies were found. The town where Jesse Morgan, who found the barrel as a kid grew up. A town with a population just shy of 4,300. 

Kevin Morgan: You got it?

Jason Moon: Sounded good.

Moon, Narrating: Allenstown, New Hampshire.

Ann Morgan: We were only going to be there a few years…

Kevin Morgan: Yup.

Ann Morgan: …and then he started the business, and then life went on, and before you know it…

Moon, Narrating: Jesse’s parents, Ann and Kevin Morgan moved to Allenstown in the 1970s into a trailer park called Bear Brook Gardens. The Morgans have been married a long time. They’re not exactly finishing each other’s sentences, but they do have a way of talking at the same time.

Kevin Morgan: I mean, the only secrets would be behind the walls of the – in the homes. But, you know, to socialize…

Ann Morgan: And you heard things…

Kevin Morgan: ...and we used to have neighborhood parties…

Ann Morgan: ...you heard things...

Kevin Morgan: ...the neighborhood was always invited, and we, I would say we partied a little more than I would like my kids to, but…

Ann Morgan: ...We um, we heard things that would go around the park. [FADE UNDER]

In Bear Brook Gardens, the Morgans were the center of gravity for the community. They threw the big barbecues, had all the neighborhood kids over for sleepovers.

Kevin Morgan: We were all just friends. 

Ann Morgan: Yup.

Kevin Morgan: And we helped each other. I can remember helpin’ people cut wood…

Ann Morgan: Yup, and Eddie, I mean, you would go up to…

Kevin Morgan: On a hard winter… I mean, there were winters 10-below up there. It was nothing in the winter. And ya know, none of the cars in the neighborhood would start, except maybe one car. We would go over, I remember goin’ to our friend’s house, and that one car would go around and start all our cars, so we could get up and go to work. [ANN LAUGHS] You know, we were all just young families, we didn’t have money, ya know? [ANN LAUGHS]

Moon, Narrating: The Morgans don’t live in Allenstown anymore, but they remember it fondly. I think in their minds they picture it like a postcard of country living. But that’s not exactly how everyone remembers it. 

Moon: So, say your name real quick. It’s Mont…

Ron Montplaisir: Ron Montplaisir.

Moon: Montplaisir. 

Montplaisir: It can be pronounced differently.

Moon, Narrating: Ron Montplaisir was a police officer in Allenstown for 23 years.

Montplaisir: It was [LAUGHs] to describe it… On a Saturday afternoon, warm Saturday afternoon, people would start drinking about 10 o’clock in the morning.

Moon, Narrating: Ron wears a beanie. He’s got a big laugh that he covers with one hand. After retiring in 2002, he opened a cleaning supply shop about 20 minutes from Allenstown. We spoke standing behind the counter of that shop, surrounded by vacuum cleaner parts and bottles of cleaning spray. Montplaisir enjoys talking about his days on the force. He liked being a cop.

Montplaisir: I think every kid in the neighborhood either wanted to be a police officer or a firefighter.

Moon, Narrating: And he liked Allenstown, even if it wasn't a model community.

Montplaisir: You talk about noise complaints, the country music was, was blaring! [LAUGHS] Not that I don’t like country music. I do like country music. But, uh, as, as the alcohol flew, the music got louder and louder and the calls – ha! – started to come in.

Moon, Narrating: When the calls did come in, Montplaisir answered many of them on his own. Back then, there was usually only one officer on patrol in Allenstown at any given time. One cop for 20 square miles.

[MUSIC IN]

Montplaisir: That’s a lot of area of patrolling and there’s only one patrolman on and it’s real, real hard to find, to cover everything.

Moon, Narrating: That was particularly true when it came to the state park.

[MUSIC POST]

Moon, Narrating: Bear Brook State Park. It covers more than half of Allenstown. The trailer park where Ann, Kevin, and Jesse Morgan lived hugs the Northern edge of the state park. If you walked out the Morgan’s back door in a straight line, it would be more than five miles before you saw another house.

It’s hard to capture just how dense and tangled the park is. There are some areas of Bear Brook that are easy to get to. A fly-fishing pond, an archery station, a spiderweb of mountain-biking trails. 

But most of the 15 square miles is thick and marshy. Aside from a couple of viewless hills, much of the park is flat, so you never have a good idea where you are or where you’ve been. And it’s wild, even for New Hampshire. Officer Montplaisir says his old police chief used to take him out into the park, just for the fun of it.

Montplaisir: He used to take me to catch rattlesnakes, timber rattlesnakes. And I never believed that there were rattlesnakes in New Hampshire, and sure enough he goes, “Come on, we’re going to go catch some rattlesnakes.” And I’m like, “We are?!” And, um, sure as heck, we come back with a couple of timber rattlers.

Moon, Narrating: What he’s trying to say is… this place is big.

Montplaisir: It’s huge! It’s not the kinda place you just drive cars into.

[MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Moon, Narrating: Officer Ron Montplaisir had been on the force in Allenstown for about five years, dealing mostly with drunk drivers, domestic disputes, and noise complaints. Small-town cop stuff. Until 1985.

Montplaisir: I was on duty. I was the officer that received the call.

Moon: Oh, so you were the first–

Montplaisir] I was the first one on the scene.

Moon, Narrating: The call was from a hunter. Montplaisir drove out to meet him at the edge of the woods.

Montplaisir: And I met him and he said, “I think you need to go up on the hill and take a look in the barrel. I think there’s a body up there.”

Moon, Narrating: Montplaisir remembers that the hunter looked pale. He told him to stay behind with the squad car while he headed out into the woods alone.

Montplaisir: I… knowing the area, uh, knew that a lot of people disposed of their pets back there. Thinking nothing of it – “Eh, it’s probably an animal.” And it was hunting season, somebody maybe had, ya know, gotten a deer and brought the carcass out there.

[MUSIC IN]

Moon, Narrating: He struck out through the woods – first along a path, and then eventually bushwhacking a bit through the scrub.

Montplaisir: The barrel was on the ground. And there was a bag and when I opened the bag, the face was – the decomposed face was lookin’ right at me.

Moon, Narrating: It was November, 1985. A few months after Jesse Morgan and his friends had kicked over the barrel. Now Officer Montplaisir was looking at that same barrel. But unlike the kids, he knew what was really inside.

[MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Moon, Narrating: Allenstown Police Officer Ron Montplaisir found himself alone in the woods, confronted by the face of the human remains he had just discovered. The weight of the situation began to press down on him.

Montplaisir: You know, this is major. This is, this is, this isn’t somebody parking in the fire lane. This, this is… You got bodies, you got people!

Moon, Narrating: Ron says his training from the police academy suddenly kicked in. He knew what to do.

Montplaisir: I’m like, “Secure the area.”

[MUSIC IN]

Moon, Narrating: He began staking out the perimeter of a crime scene. But aside from the barrel, there wasn’t much else to see. Trees. And how exactly do you stake out a perimeter in a forest this big? How far do you stretch the police tape? Montplaisir radioed for backup. He was the only patrolman on duty, so Allenstown officers must’ve been called in from their homes. And even then, cops turned to local residents for help.

Kevin Morgan: I think I was still in bed. And, uh, I– We heard a knock on the door and it was the police, and he said, “Kevin, we need to deputize you to keep the press out.” And he told me that they found bodies up at the pit.

Moon, Narrating: As Kevin Morgan put on his boots to go help the police, his wife Ann was suddenly reminded of something their son Jesse had told her a few months earlier, about a game of hide-and-seek and a barrel that they’d found in the woods.

Ann Morgan: It just came to me, you know, the smell. “It came out like milk,” he said.

Moon, Narrating: How long was the barrel lying there? How many times had people walked right by, never realizing what was out there?

Ann Morgan: And I just knew that that was the one.

[MUSIC FADES OUT]

Moon, Narrating: The barrel contained two bodies. One was a woman, the other a young girl. Investigators haven’t released photos of the remains, so I haven’t seen them. The details they have released, though, are grim. 

The remains were almost entirely skeletal. They were nude, they were dismembered – apparently to fit inside the barrel – and they were wrapped in plastic tied together with electrical wire. Their skulls revealed that they were both killed by blows to the head with a blunt instrument.

Based on the level of decomposition, investigators guessed the bodies had been in the barrel for anywhere from several months to a few years.

[MUSIC IN]

Moon, Narrating: Investigators often say that in a missing persons case, the first 48 hours are the most important. That’s because if you don’t find the person by then, your odds of ever finding them are really small.

In a murder case, the first priority is to identify the victims. Most victims know their killers. But to know who the victim knew, you have to know who the victim is. And just like in a missing persons case, if investigators don’t get this part figured out, their odds of success are really small.

New Hampshire State Police took the lead in the Bear Brook investigation. And they immediately began by trying to ID the victims. Their working theory was that, given the ages, the victims were likely a mother and daughter. So, they started searching for missing persons reports that matched.

Meanwhile, the Allenstown PD started canvassing the town. Montplaisir says that’s usually how crimes in Allenstown were solved. With all those neighborhood barbeques, not to mention all the drinking, gossip had a way of getting around. And he had his ways of getting it out of people.

Montplaisir: We used to call it, “Let’s go fishing.” Ya know, you’d make a motor vehicle stop and you knew somebody that may know some information about a crime. My, my line was, “Ya know any good fishing spots?” And, uh, they knew what I was talking about. We weren’t actually going fishing. But, ya know, that meant the difference between receiving a warning and receiving a summons, or just helping me out. And there was always somebody who knew a good fishing spot – always!

Moon, Narrating: Whether it was a murder or a petty theft, this is how policework went in Allenstown in 1985. No high-tech forensics team. No criminal psychologists coming up with a suspect profile. Just a few patrol officers like Montplaisir rattling the bushes, hoping something would fall out. Only, nothing did.

Montplaisir: And that was the first thing that threw me off is like… This was strange, because everybody knew everything over there.

[MUSIC OUT]

Moon, Narrating: Meanwhile, the state police were having their own issues. They couldn’t find any reports of a missing mother and daughter. Not in New Hampshire, not in neighboring states, not anywhere. Whoever these people were, it seemed that no one was looking for them.

As the months started to roll by, police tried lots of ways to get any sort of a foothold in the case. They checked the records of every elementary school in the state for some trace of the child victim. They examined five years of campground records at Bear Brook State Park. They sent out nationwide bulletins to law enforcement agencies with descriptions of the victims. They looked for matches to the adult victim in FBI databases of dental records. None of it worked.

One corporal in the New Hampshire State Police called it the most frustrating case of his life.

In 1986, several months after the barrel was discovered, composite sketches of the victims were made. The artist didn’t have a lot to go on – just their hair and bone structure, so there was a lot of room for interpretation.

But however inaccurate they may be, the sketches do manage to give the victims some measure of identity. 

[MUSIC IN]

Moon, Narrating: Since no one knew what they looked like in life, seeing the drawings was kind of like seeing them for the first time.

The adult victim looks tired. Her face is long, her cheeks a little gaunt. A shadow falls across her face. Detectives estimated she was in her mid-to-late 20s when she died. She was between 5-foot-2 and 5-foot-8. She had wavy light brown hair.

The girl is drawn in profile. She has a small upturned nose. She wears a ponytail of dirty blond hair with bangs swept across her forehead. Detectives think she was somewhere around 9 or 10 years old when she was murdered.

When these sketches were released, calls started coming in. Investigators thought they might have something. But none of the tips panned out.

Back in Allenstown, all anybody could do was speculate. Theories about the victims and who killed them were all over the place, ranging from organized crime to runaways and carnival workers. It seemed like everyone had a guess.

Jessie Morgan: I, I can’t see them not being local. Ya know, it, it could’ve been someone that lived up the street from me.

Kevin Morgan: I always had it in my mind that it was a trucker living a double life.

Ann Morgan: I don’t feel that they, they took them from the park, although they could have–

Kevin Morgan: Yeah.

Ann Morgan: –because it abutted that area.

Montplaisir: Pure speculation. I mean, I’m playin’ the Ouija board, but, but it’s my gut feeling, you’re gonna find that, I would say, within a 200, 250 mile radius of New Hampshire and I would say South, Southwest. 

Moon: It’s like, it’s irresistible for people to just start speculating. You just wanna, like, know, right?

Montplaisir: You wanna know.

Moon, Narrating: As the months turned to years, investigators started to run out of ideas. To some, it seemed their best hope was to simply wait for the killer, or someone who knew them, to come forward on their own.

[MUSIC OUT]

Moon, Narrating: In 1987, less than two years after the barrel was found, state police decided to release the victim’s bodies so they could be buried.

Officer Ron Montplaisir’s chief – the one who had shown him the rattlesnakes in the state park – organized the funeral. He told a local reporter at the time, quote, “Just because we don’t know their names doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the same respect we do.”

Parishioners of St. John the Baptist Church in Allenstown pooled their money and paid for a gravesite at the church cemetery. A Catholic priest and a Methodist minister led a burial ceremony where the bodies were laid to rest in a single steel casket. Just a handful of town officials and reporters were there to see it.

Montplaisir: Every time I used to patrol and go by that tombstone, ya know, the wheels kept on turning. “Was I on patrol that night when these bodies were dumped?” And all the officers would think that. “When did this happen? How did I miss this?” You start second-guessing yourself.

Moon, Narrating: Burying the bodies seemed like the right thing to do, especially given that two years in, the case was going nowhere. But it also must have seemed like law enforcement had given up hope.

Ann Morgan: I was disappointed. All of a sudden, now, the next thing I know, the town’s getting together to put a headstone on these bodies and… what the hell? These… Where, who are these people?!

[MUSIC IN]

Moon, Narrating: For years, Jesse Morgan’s parents kept the sketches of the victims pinned to their fridge. Like a lot of people in Allenstown, they’d always thought of their town as a good place. Now, they struggled to reconcile that idea with what happened.

Ann Morgan: It was a whole different, different world for us. Ya know, it was like two worlds. Like, there was this evil world going on that we had no idea about, and there was this good, wholesome world that was going on with, with the rest of the, with the families and the children.

Moon, Narrating: For Jesse Morgan, who, as a kid stumbled across the bodies without really knowing it, the episode changed the woods of his childhood forever.

Jesse Morgan: I do remember going out myself, like, on rainy days or whatever, and walking around, like, out there, out in the where we never went, to see if I could find something. You know, like, is there more?

[MUSIC POST]

Moon, Narrating: Turns out, there was.

[MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Moon, Narrating: In the year 2000, John Cody was a detective in the state police’s major crime unit. The unit handles most of the homicides in New Hampshire and Cody had worked a long time to make it there.

By that time, 15 years had passed since the barrel in Allenstown was discovered, and that mystery was just one on a long list of the state’s unsolved cases. And the way those cases were handled back then, it was pretty informal.

John Cody: Basically, what used to happen is, when you got assigned to the Major Crime Unit, you would get assigned one or two or sometimes three cold cases. And when I picked up the Allenstown case, um, I, I didn’t know anything about this case.

Moon, Narrating: Cody was expected to work on the case, basically in his free time, whenever he wasn’t working an active case. But Cody says the details of the Bear Brook murders just kept gnawing at him.

Cody: It’s just, it’s the type of case where you start reading it – you know, it’s sort of like getting into an engrossing book. You start to read the first chapter and you just want to go on to the second, which makes you go on to the third, etcetera.

Moon, Narrating: Cody decided to get a look at the evidence in person. He went to the evidence storage area, where he saw the blue barrel, the plastic, the electrical wire. Clues that had been sitting idle for 15 years.

Cody: I’m a very visual person. So, I decided one day, it was actually a Friday, and I said, “I’m gonna to go out, I’m gonna go see the area and try to, try to get an idea of what it is I’m looking at through words.”

Moon, Narrating: Cody drove out to Allenstown and walked into the woods. He brought the case file with him as a sort of map. First, he tried to find the area where Jesse Morgan and his friends had first found the barrel as kids. He pictured the kids on the four-wheeler. The barrel in the brush.

Cody: I was walkin’ through that – I’d been out there for quite a while and then I kinda just widened my area a little bit. Almost like throwing a rock into a pond, you have those concentric rings that come out.

Moon, Narrating: Cody ventured further and further from the spot where the barrel was found, his eyes scanning the forest floor for anything that didn’t belong.

It was getting late in the afternoon, the sun was sinking behind the hills. And the canopy of trees overhead in Bear Brook State Park made it even darker. Cody was thinking about how he might need to go back out to his car for his flashlight.

Cody: And, uh, that’s when I came across… um, the barrel.

[MUSIC IN]

Moon, Narrating: A barrel was on its side next to a small boulder in some brush. Cody recognized it right away. He had been looking at a barrel just like it in evidence storage a few days before. Dark blue. Fifty-five gallons.

[MUSIC POST]

Moon, Narrating: Cody decided now was a good time to get the flashlight after all. He made his way back out to the edge of the woods, his mind racing the whole time.

Cody: You know, I think I was trying to talk myself out of it the whole way to the car, going, “This is definitely not what I think it is.”

Moon, Narrating: When Cody returned with his flashlight, he shined it inside the barrel. And all he could see was some kind of plastic.

Cody: I tore the plastic away and there was something white that was shining towards me – you know, it kind of sticks out with the dark background. Um, when I looked at it I said, “Umm… This does not look good.”

Moon, Narrating: It was a stunning discovery, one that raised a whole new set of questions, some of them uncomfortable for police. 

John Cody was standing just 300 feet from where the first barrel was found, a full 15 years before. Inside the second barrel were two more bodies.

[MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Moon, Narrating: Coming up on Bear Brook…

[THEME MUSIC IN]

Taylor Quimby: When you hear the phrase “a stone’s throw away,” [MOON LAUGHS] this is what they’re talking about.

Kevin Morgan: Why wasn’t that barrel found?

Ann Morgan: We don’t know.

Kevin Morgan: How could it– Ya know, I don’t under– to me, that’s…

Ann Morgan: It’s crazy!

Benjamin Agati: I want to thank everybody for coming today. We have some new testing results that we want to share with basically the world.

Elaine Ramos, On the Phone: I opened the door and saw his face. I had a chill run down my back that I’ve never in my life ever had before.

Roxane Gruenheid: Sometimes it’s that dumb luck that you just come across somethin’ and it just opens a door for you. And once you open the door, it’s like, “Ahhh!” The lights come on and you can see everything, you know what I mean? The jigsaw puzzle comes together.

[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]

[CREDITS MUSIC IN]

Moon, Narrating: Bear Brook is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon.

Taylor Quimby is Senior Producer.

Editing help from Cori Princell, Todd Bookman, Lauren Chooljian, Sam Evans-Brown, Britta Green, and Annie Ropeik.

The Executive Producer is Erika Janik.

Dan Barrick is NHPR’s News Director.

Director of Content is Maureen McMurray.

NHPR’s Digital Director is Rebecca Lavoie.

Photography and video by Allie Gutierrez.

Graphics and interactives by Sara Plourde.

Original music for this show was composed by me, Jason Moon, and Taylor Quimby.

Additional music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions, and Simple Minds.

To see a timeline of the Bear Brook investigation from 1985 until 2015, go to our website bearbrookpodcast.org.

Bear Brook is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

[CREDITS MUSIC FADES OUT]

Transcript of Episode 2: Known Only To God

[NATURE SOUNDS - WIND BLOWING, BIRDS CHIRPING]

Jason Moon, Narrating: For 15 years, the second barrel was sitting just 300 feet away from where the first barrel was found in the woods of Allenstown, New Hampshire.

It was 300 feet away when the Morgans’ son, Jesse and his friends pushed over the first barrel in the summer of 1985. It was there later that year when a hunter saw the bodies and called the police. It was there, 100 yards away, as detectives searched in vain for clues about the first two victims. And it was there when detectives left, when the case went cold and people started to forget. 

[MUSIC IN, NATURE SOUNDS CONTINUE]

Moon, Narrating: It sat there, as Jesse Morgan grew up and left the trailer park for college. As Ron Montplaisir, the officer who first found the barrel, neared his retirement. It sat there through 15 New Hampshire winters, the blue paint slowly turning brown with rust. It sat there until State Trooper John Cody spotted it late one spring afternoon, as dusk was settling in.

John Cody: The first thing going through my mind is, “Do we have a dump site here? Is somebody using this area to, to dump, um, the bodies of people they’ve, uh, killed?” And… And I was kind of like, “No, no. This is New Hampshire. We don’t expect this stuff.”

Moon, Narrating: For people like Anne and Kevin Morgan, who lived on the edge of the park, it was startling to think that police had missed something so important.

Kevin Morgan: I mean, it’s hard to believe, isn’t it?

Ann Morgan: I was mortified that it had been there that long. 

Kevin Morgan: I, I mean, what does that tell you about the investigation? Really, I mean… It says something about the investigation. There basically was none!

[MUSIC POST]

Ann Morgan: Fifteen years. Fifteen years!

Kevin Morgan: Why wasn’t that barrel found?

[MUSIC POST]

Moon, Narrating: This is Bear Brook. I’m Jason Moon.

[MUSIC UP AND OUT, NATURE SOUNDS FADE OUT]

Moon, Narrating: Before we talk about what happened after the second set of bodies were found, we’re going to spend some time trying to answer that uncomfortable question. Why did it take so long to find?

The second barrel has always been an awkward topic for police in New Hampshire. They know the fact that it took them 15 years to find it doesn’t look good.

Here’s Ron Montplaisir, the officer who found the first barrel in 1985.

Ron Montplaisir: Um… I, I kinda said, “Jeez! Uh, ya know, I set up the perimeter! I, I guess I didn’t set it up…” Kind of… kind of slapped myself saying, “Wow, why, why didn’t we do a bigger perimeter?” But we were just focused on, ya know, that first barrel. I mean, you have to understand that this is a wooded area, this is a very thick forest, and there was a lot of clutter, and, um, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, ya know? [COUGHS] Who would think, ya know?

Moon, Narrating: In case you’re wondering, investigators today are confident both barrels were there in 1985. 

But it’s not just Montplaisir who argues that finding the second barrel was easier said than done. Authorities at the state level who are in charge of the case today will say pretty much the same thing. This came up at a press conference a few years ago, when a reporter with the state’s largest newspaper put the question to Benjamin Agati, a prosecutor with the New Hampshire attorney general’s office.

Mark Hayward: It took 15 years to find the second oil drum.

Benjamin Agati: Mhmm.

Hayward: Um… What happened there? It was only 300 feet away. Was it buried or was it hidden or was it just overlooked? It doesn’t seem like it was that far away.

Agati: Well, I think if we were talking about an area that had more of, let’s say, bike trails, where it was more marked, then I could certainly see your point on that. But with regards to this, it was 300 feet away. Um, we’re also talking about an area that’s just heavily wooded and uh, and quite frankly, I don’t think that finding that second barrel sooner would change the information that we have to present today.

[MUSIC IN]

Moon, Narrating: So, either the barrel was only 300 feet away, or it was 300 feet away. As you can hear, your opinion on this is open to interpretation.

Taylor Quimby: And uh…

Jason Moon: Ok, so you’re barrel one.

Quimby: Ok, I’m barrel one.

Moon: And you’re found… [FADE UNDER]

Moon, Narrating: It is hard to imagine what 300 feet looks like. So, producer Taylor Quimby and I went to a local high school football field to get a better idea. Taylor stood at one goal line, while I walked across the length of the football field to the other.

[MUSIC IN]

Moon, Shouting: Can you hear me?!

Quimby, Calling from a Distance: Just barely!

Jason Moon, To Himself: Just barely.

Quimby, Calling from a Distance: I can definitely see you!

[MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Moon, Narrating: At this point, 300 feet was feeling like an absurdly short distance for someone to have missed the second barrel. But of course, the barrels weren’t found in an open field with clear lines of sight. They were found in the woods.

[FADE UP NATURE SOUNDS]

Quimby: This will be a good test because we’re both wearing very brightly colored flannel.

Moon: Yeah. [LAUGHS]

Moon, Narrating: I paced out the same number of steps in the woods, with Taylor again staying behind to mark the location of the first barrel.

Moon: [SOUND OF FOOTSTEPS IN LEAVES] One, two, three, four, five, six, seven... 98. Whew… Okay, turning around and… I cannot see Taylor at all.

Moon, Narrating: In the woods, with trees and brush and boulders in between, 300 feet seemed to mean something different than it did on the football field.

Quimby, Calling from a Distance: Shout if you see me moving!

Moon, Narrating: Even when we tried to find our way back to each other, it took a while just to figure where that was.

Moon: I’m at the top of the hill now. Can you see me?

Quimby, From a Distance: I… I… I’m not sure! I can’t see you. Can you see me?

Moon, Calling Out: Nope!

[SOUND OF FOOTSTEPS IN LEAVES]

Quimby, Closer: Where the hell are you? I thought your shirt was – ope! There you are.

Moon: That’s a… a bit different.

Quimby: Yeah, that is.

Moon: It, um… I think… yeah. In terms of, like, how far would I search? I’m now thinking, like, I would never go that far. You know what I mean? Like, if, if I take that distance and, like, imagine, like, the radius, circling it around in every direction from the crime scene? You know, that’s huge. That’s a lot of like…

[MUSIC FADES IN]

Quimby: Well, you can’t do it one person.

Moon: That’s true. 

Quimby: ‘C-cause I, I disagree. Like, I, I think… I would like to think that if you found two bodies in a barrel…

Moon: Hmm.

Quimbly: …anywhere, you would do at least that much. But, I, I’m picturing a team of people and maybe some dogs, ya know? Like…

Moon: Yeah.

Quimby: I’m picturing this… like, “Prison Break” scene [MOON LAUGHS] where you got a whole bunch of people combing through fields and forests and what have you… [FADES OUT]

[MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Moon, Narrating: So, it’s definitely much harder to find something 300 feet away in the woods, even when that thing is shouting at you.

But clearly the barrel wasn’t impossible to find. And in the end, it was a single investigator on his first trip to the crime scene who found it.

Which brings us back to the same question… Why didn’t they find it in 1985 with the other barrel? Why weren’t there large teams of investigators walking shoulder to shoulder through the woods after the first barrel was found? Why wasn’t it more like that “Prison Break” scene Taylor was imagining?

One explanation – maybe you’d call it an excuse – is that the Allenstown PD was just a small town police force, with few officers and few resources. Remember, they were deputizing local residents just to secure the area.

But then, state police didn’t find it either. And they were the ones ultimately in charge of the investigation.

In either case, there’s a big reason why investigators may have felt in over their heads. Just before the first bodies were found in Bear Brook, there was another murder just a few miles away.

[MUSIC IN]

Moon: Uh, let’s just go through the whole case. Where do you want to – What’s the best place to start?

Kevin Flynn: Yeah, so I guess we start on November 9th, 1985.

Moon, Narrating: Kevin Flynn is a true crime author and a longtime reporter in New Hampshire.

Flynn: Danny Paquette was a welder who lived in Hooksett, New Hampshire. He was working in his backyard welding a bulldozer and two of his friends were in his garage, repairing and restoring a car. And they heard a noise. They came out, they found Danny lying on the ground. They thought that he had electrocuted himself with the arc welder. But he was bleeding from the chest.

Moon, Narrating: Danny Paquette had been shot and killed. It wasn’t exactly clear from where or by whom, but the only explanation seemed to be that the bullet came from the woods near his house.

When state police first arrived at the scene, they wondered if Danny Paquette had died in a hunting accident. But they couldn’t be sure, so a homicide investigation was opened. That was Saturday. On Sunday, the first barrel in the Bear Brook case was discovered.

[MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Moon, Narrating: New Hampshire averages only about 15 murders a year, so starting two cases on the same weekend put a real strain on state police. Some of the detectives who started on the Paquette case were called off the next day to go work the Bear Brook murders.

It was the beginning of two parallel investigations. Two separate mysteries that would end up influencing each other for decades to come.

In Allenstown, officers began by interviewing people in town, but no one seemed to know anything.

In Hooksett, people seemed to know a lot. Investigators quickly realized that if Danny Paquette’s death was a homicide, there would be no shortage of plausible suspects.

Flynn: Danny was a really interesting character because there were a lot of folks who had reason to, ya know, want to hurt him. He was a ladies man. He had a black book that was filled with the names of girlfriends and wives of people in town.

Moon, Narrating: On the Bear Brook case, detectives were going through stacks of missing persons reports, still just trying to identify the victims.

On the Paquette case, police had the victim’s ID and a half a dozen people who might have a grudge against him. They had plausible theories and potential evidence. Lots of potential evidence.

Flynn: One of the weirdest details was… In their investigation, they had found out that somebody had been in a hot air balloon…

[MUSIC IN]

Flynn: …and was videotaping the scenery and went right over Danny’s house, you know, about the time of the shooting. I saw the videotape, there’s nothin’, there was nothing on it, but it’s just like, could this get any weirder?

Moon, Narrating: The hot air balloon camcorder tape would turn out to be a giant waste of time. But at least in the Paquette case, there was stuff like this to sift through. It had momentum, where the Bear Brook investigation was spinning its wheels. So, maybe it makes sense then that, according to Flynn, the Paquette investigation ended up receiving more attention from state police.

Flynn: Probably the best detective of that era on the state police was a guy by the name of Roland Lamy and he was on this case along with John Barthelmes, who is the current commissioner of safety. Those were the two sharpest guys and they were over in Hooksett – they weren’t over in Allenstown.

[MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Moon, Narrating: Meanwhile the two cases weren’t just dividing the attention of state police, they were also creating false leads for each other.

Flynn: There aren’t so many homicides in New Hampshire. And when you have two on the same weekend, a relatively short distance apart, you gotta at least think, “Well, I dunno, could this somehow have one thing to do with the other?

Moon, Narrating: It wasn’t a totally crazy idea. A mysterious shooting and discovering two bodies in a blue barrel on the same weekend only a few miles apart – it was a coincidence that couldn't be ignored.

But in the end it was just a coincidence and another dead end that detectives found themselves in.

Eventually, after enough of these dead ends, both cases ground to a halt. In the Bear Brook investigation, detectives felt there was nothing else they could try. In the Paquette case, investigators just decided their initial hunch was right. 

[MUSIC IN]

Moon, Narrating: It was a hunting accident. No arrests. Just a stray bullet. Case closed.

[MUSIC POST]

Moon, Narrating: For months, the Bear Brook and Paquette investigations had fought over resources. And who knows how things might have gone differently if that hadn’t been the case. But ironically, the same case that distracted investigators from Bear Brook, would later give them hope that it could be solved. That’s because in 1999, 14 years later, the Paquette investigation was reopened. It wasn’t a hunting accident, after all. Danny Paquette was murdered.

The case was solved by a private investigator. He had been hired by the Hooksett police chief, who didn’t have the manpower to assign one of his own detectives to work a cold case full time.

That private investigator found a hole in the alibi of Danny Paquette’s teenage step-daughter and a friend of hers from school. That revelation ultimately led to a confession – and a conviction.

[THEME MUSIC IN]

Flynn: And I think that, you know, after the, the Hooksett case, after the Paquette case, you know, there was really a feeling that, yeah, you know, we – this could be done if the resources were set aside.

Moon: Mhmm. Is this the biggest, most famous cold case in New Hampshire, the Paquette case, you think?

Flynn: I think up until yours. [MOON LAUGHS]

[THEME MUSIC UP AND FADE OUT]

Moon, Narrating: Before I started reporting this story, it had never really occurred to me just how hard it is to solve a murder when you don’t know who the victim is.

That might sound obvious, but I think it’s easy to underestimate just how much of a hurdle it is to finding a suspect. When you don’t know the victim, there’s no motive. There are no neighbors to talk to. No friends, no enemies, no disgruntled exes.

There’s a line from a local news article written about the Bear Brook case that reads, “Police hope to solve the mystery in three steps. Learn where they’re from, discover who they are, and then, find the killer.”

When State Trooper John Cody found the second barrel in 2000, police were 15 years into the case, and still very much at step one.

Cody: I ended up seeing this, um, plastic, and I peeled it back, and then, I saw, um, what appeared to me to be a bone, and of course, you’re trying to talk yourself out of it, saying, “There’s no way this is happening.”

Moon, Narrating: On that day, after he peered into the second barrel with his flashlight, Cody immediately called his superiors. And at first, they didn’t really believe him.

Cody: You know, I think it was probably one of those things where they figured, you know, it’s close to the weekend. They’ll come out, they’ll take a look, they know it’s not what I thought it was [MOON LAUGHS] and they’ll be on their way home. But it just didn’t turn out like that.

Moon, Narrating: Instead, officers found the remains of two young girls in the second barrel. One was about 3 years old, the other only about 2. The remains were skeletal and wrapped in some sort of plastic. Like the other victims, they were killed by blunt force trauma to the head.

This put the total number of victims in the Bear Brook case to four, a woman and three kids. Their estimated ages… late 20’s for the adult, 9 for the oldest child, 3 for the middle child, and 2 for the youngest child. The adult and the oldest child were found in the first barrel. The two youngest in the second barrel.

Cody: It became apparent. I mean, we’re talking about, how does… an entire family… just go missing?

[MUSIC IN]

Moon, Narrating: Several years later, DNA testing of the remains would sketch the rough outline of a family. The results showed the adult female is maternally related to the oldest and youngest children. Most likely their mother, though it’s possible she’s a cousin or a sister.

But interestingly, those DNA tests showed no relationship between the middle child and any of the other victims. Investigators have speculated that she might have been a step-child or an adoption.

[MUSIC POST]

Moon, Narrating: Back in 2000, after State Trooper John Cody discovered the second barrel, he and other investigators went back over everything they knew about the case.

They re-interviewed people in town, entertained new theories, and searched again through national databases of missing persons.

Investigators hoped the second barrel would be the key. That one of the new victims would be matched to a missing persons report, an identity, then a timeline, a list of possible suspects, finally a motive. They hoped it would become like a normal homicide investigation.

Instead it was a tedious case of deja-vu. Investigators in 2000 combed through the same information as detectives in 1985 had with the same disappointing results.

Cody: Couple, ya know, couple little specks here and there, which would lead to a couple of other things, but it was sorta like getting lost in the city and you take a right, you take a left, and you end up on dead end streets or alleyways, um, at every turn and that’s pretty much where this case goes.

Moon: Did you guys ever get as far as to have any suspects?

Cody: No. Not even close. No.

[MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Moon, Narrating: As important as Cody’s discovery of the second barrel was, in the end it did little to move the case forward. If anything, it was like the case was moving backwards, getting worse as time went on. In 1985, there were two bodies in a barrel and no leads. Fifteen years later, all investigators had to show for their efforts were four bodies in two barrels with no leads.

But that didn’t mean that people gave up on the case. In fact the daunting nature of the challenge even attracted new people. While the official investigation into the Bear Brook murders remained pretty much static, an amateur investigator named Ronda Randall picked up the case.

Ronda Randall: Certainly there’s a lot of people looking for people in this country, for one reason or another.

Moon, Narrating: Ronda is someone who knows how to find someone. By day, she’s a social worker. In the rest of her time, she’s a genealogist, who specializes in adoption searches – that’s reuniting adopted people with their biological parents.

Randall: Um, well, in the 80’s when I first started doing it, I didn’t have a personal computer at home. It was a lot of phone calls. I mean, there was a time when my phone bill for a month ran at about $1,100 and my husband was like, “I don’t know about this hobby,” you know?

Moon, Narrating: I first met Ronda through her blog, Oakhill Research. It chronicles the history of the Bear Book murders and her own efforts, since 2011, to identify the victims.

I should mention two things here. First, Ronda isn’t really the true-crime type. She wasn’t interested in criminology before this case. She wasn’t binge watching episodes of “Forensic Files.” In fact, she doesn’t really watch TV. 

Second, she grew up in New Hampshire but didn’t hear about the murders until later in life after she had moved to a town in Maine, about two hours from Allenstown. She says she really only became interested in the Bear Brook case after the internet came around and online messaging boards starting making adoption searches too easy.

Randall: I think right around the time my kids left home I was looking for something a little bit different, but still in a genealogy and research world and had come across the story of the Allenstown victims and being unfamiliar with it I – and a genealogist – I thought, “Surely, we can turn up some identities for these folks,” and that’s really where it began.

Later, Ronda would tell me she had a 2-year-old niece who died of leukemia not long before she started on the Bear Brook case. Now, she wonders if that may have had something to do with how she felt about the mystery.

Randall: I just thought of the process that our family went through in fighting to keep her alive and then grieving her death and, and then to think of a little child about her age who nobody seems to be coming forward for. And you know, I’ve looked back sometimes and wondered if the case struck me so hard because I saw those little unidentified children, you know, and felt like, “Who’s mourning for them?”

[MUSIC IN]

Moon, Narrating: The way Ronda looked at it, this wouldn’t be all that different from an adoption search. Over the years, Ronda says she has identified upwards of 150 people using public records, a phone, and a lot of hard work. In this case, the only difference was that the people she wanted to identity were murder victims.

So, Ronda got to work. I don’t think Ronda would disagree if I said she can get a little obsessive about her research projects. The first time we spoke on the phone, she told me she’s just well suited for it. She doesn’t mind doing the kind of grinding, monotonous research that most people hate.

Randall: One time I went to the New Hampshire State Library and I read the Concord 1984 phonebook. Every name, every page. It took me 14 hours. It took 2 days. And I was motion sick by the end of every day. Like, severely motion sick.

[MUSIC POST]

Randall: I, I’ve been called, whether it’s a compliment or not, a pitbull. [LAUGHS] That kind of thing. I tend to be tenacious. I sink my teeth into something and I don’t let go.

[MUST POST]

Moon, Narrating: Ronda began her research on the Bear Brook case with her usual level of dogged interest. But it became something more than just a research project in the summer of 2011. That’s when she decided she needed to see the area where the barrels were found in person.

Randall: It was Memorial Day weekend of 2011. I enlisted one of my brothers, Scott Maxwell – he lives in New Hampshire – to accompany me. And we kind of just figured we’d go out to the area and talk to some neighbors and just learn a little bit more about it. But it was that trip that day out there that really, um, kind of sparked an obsessive interest in the research on this case.

[SOUND OF FOOTSTEPS IN LEAVES]

Moon, Narrating: I wanted to see what Ronda and her brother Scott saw that day when they first visited the area where the bodies were found. So, one day, we parked on the shoulder of a winding road in Allenstown and then set off into the woods.

Moon: It’s beautiful out here.

Randall: It really is. It’s kind of an interesting juxtaposition of a terribly morbid event in a beautiful setting.

Moon, Narrating: It was December 2015 and I can remember my hand was freezing from holding the mic. But I was also riveted. It was my first trip out here, just a few weeks after I first learned about the case.

Randall: You know, the first time I came I think it just had a really profound impact on me. There was kind of a hush out here and I felt… like there was a spirit, and kind of a sacred feel to where they were found.

[FOOTSTEPS]

Moon, Narrating: Ronda and Scott led me down a snowmobile trail toward the site of the first barrel. They had pieced together the approximate location based on interviews with retired Allenstown cops like Ron Montplaisir and his former chief, as well as residents of the trailer park like Kevin Morgan who was deputized to keep the press away from the site.

The snowmobile trail led down a slight incline. All around us, the forest floor was covered in a thick blanket of leaves. Only a few boulders peaked through here and there.

[FOOTSTEPS, LEAVES RUSTLING]

Then, suddenly, we had arrived.

Randall: And by all accounts, it was about 20 feet off to the left from this area. So, I’m not sure, in this little strip, was it here or there, but…

[MUSIC IN]

Moon, Narrating: I was struck by just how quickly we reached the spot. 

[NATURE SOUNDS - BIRDS CHIRPING, WIND BLOWING]

Moon, Narrating: We had set out from the side of a road along the northern edge of the state park. From there it had taken us less than five minutes to reach the site of the first barrel. Bear Brook State Park may be vast and unknowable, but from where the first barrel was found, you can look back toward the road, and catch glimpses of passing cars.

[SOUND OF CARS DRIVING]

Moon, Narrating: On top of that, I learn, we’re not even technically in Bear Brook State Park. The victims in the case commonly known as “the Bear Brook murders” weren’t actually found in Bear Brook State Park. They were found on a narrow lot of private property that sits in between the trailer park and the state park.

The lot is small – not even a tenth of a square mile. On a map, it looks like a little rectangular bite taken out of the top of Bear Brook State Park.

[CAR DRIVING SOUNDS FADE OUT]

Moon, Narrating: The private lot is owned by a guy named Ed Gallagher. In the early 1980s, he also owned and ran a small camp store on the property. It was called the Bear Brook Store. People camping in Bear Brook State Park could stop in for a couple bags of ice or a case of beer. And people who lived in the nearby trailer park could walk here for a gallon of milk.

Randall: So, right over there, this dip is where the foundation of the store was and where, you know, there was an apartment above it that the property owner lived in… [FADE OUT]

Moon, Narrating: The Bear Brook store burned down in 1983, just two years before the first barrel was found. Today, there’s almost no sign of the old store unless you know what to look for. A foundation that’s mostly overgrown. An old disconnected power pole standing in the woods.

Ronda’s brother Scott says the fact that the barrels were found so near the site of the former store, on private property, was one of the things that caught his interest on that first trip out here.

Scott Maxwell: You, You’ve got hundreds of acres of state park and, and old logging roads that go in, and why you would choose to come in past a, uh, burned out building, so close to a trailer park to dump the bodies when you had all that area where you could, you know, no fear of anybody seeing you.

Moon, Narrating: It changed how I thought about the case, too. Before, in the version of the story where the barrels were found deep in the forest, the mystery of the Bear Brook murders seemed impenetrable… like a maze. 

But standing in the spot where the bodies were actually found, in this place where people used to come and go, I found myself thinking… there must be something that someone remembers, even if they don’t realize it. A name, or a face, or a family that came through the park years ago – some clue that could begin to unravel the case after all these years.

On their first trip here in 2011, Scott and Ronda also knocked on a few doors in the Bear Brook Gardens trailer park and found another surprising detail. Many people who had vivid memories of when the first barrel was found told them they had never even heard about the second barrel.

Randall: Um, you know, there were times when I almost felt like we were arguing with people. “No, really, there were a second set of bodies found.” And they’d be like, “Well, I’ve lived here 32 years, I think I’d know.”

Moon, Narrating: They figured that if there were longtime residents of the trailer park who had never even been told about the second barrel, maybe someone who used to live there knew something and just hadn’t been asked the right question.

So, Ronda and Scott decided to embark on a massive project to track down every single person who lived in the Bear Brook Gardens trailer park from 1977 to 1985.

[MUSIC IN]

A few weeks after we visited the area where the barrels were found, I took a trip up to Ronda’s home in Maine, about two hours northeast of Bear Brook. I wanted to get a better sense of the scale of their project and what they’d been able to find. It didn’t take long to see they’d collected an overwhelming amount of information about the case.

Randall: Because we never knew where it would go, we were never prepared for what happens when you have 5,000 pages of interviews and information and how best to organize it. That’s still a work in progress, but…

Moon, Narrating: Hanging on the wall in the dining room of Ronda’s home is a huge aerial photo of the Bear Brook Gardens trailer park. It’s the sort of thing you’d expect to see in an episode of a police procedural… like those cork boards with strands of yarn connecting all the evidence. The photo is maybe 6 feet across, 4 feet high. It’s black and white, taken sometime in the late ‘80s. In the photo you can make out each lot in the trailer park. Ronda and Scott have them labeled with the names of the families and the years that they lived there.

Randall: You know, we found that 1979 a George Moore lived there, 1980 Patrick and Alice Moore, and so forth, and so we would plug them in for the years we knew they lived there… [FADE UNDER]

Moon, Narrating: I like to imagine Ronda staring at the map over her breakfast, or maybe pacing in front of it after dark. The excitement of discovering another name, of coming that much closer to tracking them all down.

But Ronda and Scott have been more than armchair investigators on this case. They’ve done a lot of hands-on detective work, too – something police generally discourage.

When it comes to Ronda and Scott and the New Hampshire State Police, they actually enjoy a pretty good relationship. I think detectives figured out early on they wouldn’t be able to talk Ronda out of researching the case. And for their part, Ronda and Scott, generally share whatever they find with state police… transcripts of phone calls, photos from the area where the bodies were found. More than a few times, state police have followed up on information they provided.

Over the past seven years since their first trip to Allenstown, Scott and Ronda’s work on the case has taken many shapes.

When they learned motorcycle gangs were active in the trailer park during the ‘80s, Ronda and Scott passed out flyers with info on the victims at the Laconia Bike Week, an annual event where hundreds of thousands bikers from around the country meet in New Hampshire.

There was the time they flew down to Florida to interview the retired Allenstown Police Chief who told them he never stopped thinking about the case.

They’ve made a number of trips back out to Allenstown, following up on things they’d heard from the former trailer park residents they were tracking down. Ronda shows me a plastic ziplock bag with something she found on one of those trips. A child’s white shoe.

Randall: You know, just in the leaves and dirt under a tree, you know… We see this shoe, an old school little child’s shoe. And I’m sure it couldn’t have lasted for 30 years out there probably, even though it is quite worn. But it still just, it was really ominous to see it. You know, I picked it up and put it in a bag and brought it home and you know, I sometimes wonder what it’s story is and hopefully, it had nothing to do with the victims but…

Moon, Narrating: I’d like to tell you that one of these trips led somewhere. I’d like to tell you that this shoe was the missing key that investigators needed. That it had a worn initial on the inside of the tongue, or some other small detail that would lead them to ID the Bear Brook victims. But of course, that wasn’t the case. Ronda and Scott gathered more information, but it was never the information they needed. The shoe wasn’t even found near where the barrels were. More than anything, it was a symbol of what drove Ronda. Still, she sent photos of the shoe to state police. It’s just the sort of thing she would do. Just in case.

All their time spent working on this has changed both Ronda and Scott’s lives.

Randall: This is my brother, who, you know, I probably spoke to once a year on the phone, prior to this, and now sometimes I speak to him like seven times a day, you know… [RANDALL LAUGHS]

Moon, Narrating: If you haven’t noticed, Scott doesn’t talk as much as Ronda. It’s just one of the ways they seem to balance each other out. Ronda is always ready to dive in, while Scott’s more measured. And somehow those contrasts seem to add to the bond they’ve formed over the case. A bond that can be hard for others to understand.

Randall: I, I think for a year or two, like, at family get-togethers, no one wanted to sit near us, you know, [RANDALL LAUGHS], ‘cause that’s all we talked about. [RANDALL LAUGHS]

Maxwell: Those that know us well know that we have OCD. [MAXWELL, RANDALL LAUGH]

Randall: Well, here’s a picture that might illustrate this a little bit. So, this is Scott’s wife… [FADE UNDER]

Moon, Narrating: Ronda reaches for a photo and hands it to me. It shows two people standing next to two different size barrels. 

Randall: [FADES UP] Where would you cut to fit in barrels? So, yes, you know… [FADES UNDER]

[MUSIC IN]

Moon, Narrating: They were using them as stand-ins – in place of the corpses of the victims – so they could get a sense of how you might dismember them to fit inside.

Randall: …And what is that a 35? 

Maxwell, Off Mic: Thirty-five.

Randall: ‘Cause we were trying to figure out. And you can tell they’re just like, “Oh, brother, here they go again!” [RANDALL LAUGHS] But, you know, we just… So, they’ve helped us along the way, but…

Maxwell, Off Mic: Not as enthusiastically.

Randall: Nope. Right, right.

Moon, Narrating: When I first spoke with Ronda, to be honest, I wasn’t sure what to make of her or this project. I mean, who reads the phone book for 14 hours? And could her research really be helpful or was it just getting in the way of the real investigation?

But the more I spent time with Ronda and Scott, the more I felt like they were playing an important role. They hadn’t solved the case, but they had done a lot.

They reunited a whole community of neighbors from Allenstown, some of whom didn’t even know about the second barrel, who are all now invested in solving the case.

They’ve collected a huge repository of information about the case on their blog – all the media coverage, all the theories that have been floated, the fruits of their own research. A lot of my own reporting for this series was built on the work that Ronda and Scott had already done.

But perhaps most importantly, they stepped into the role of victims’ advocate – something that would usually come from the victim’s family. Today, Ronda and Scott are as close to being the victim’s family as it gets in this case, pestering police to look into things, handing out flyers about the victims.

Since 2011, they have refused to let anyone forget about this case. Ronda and Scott kept the torch lit.

Randall: And some days I find myself a little… maybe even angry, thinking, you know, “What grandmother let this happen, or what neighbor, or what bus driver or, you know – I mean, Where were all of you?”

[MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Moon, Narrating: I understood Ronda and Scott a little better after I did something that they and others I’ve talked to also felt compelled to do at some point.

[SOUND OF CAR KEYS JINGLING, CAR DOOR SLAMMING]

Moon, Narrating: I paid a visit to where the first two victims were buried back in 1987.

Moon, Walking in the Cemetery: Okay, well, I’m in the cemetery. Um, there’s probably 1,000 gravestones here and… So, now, I just have to find it.

Moon, Narrating: The Saint Jean the Baptiste Cemetery in Allenstown is on a quiet road, lined with tall cypress trees. The headstones are neatly arranged into a grid. I started at one corner and began making my way up and down the rows… until finally.

Moon, In the Cemetery: [SOUND OF FAINT FOOTSTEPS] Oh my God, here it is… Wow… [FOOTSTEPS] So, this is tucked in almost the very back, almost the very back row of this cemetery. And it’s, um, it’s… got a rose on top of it, of the headstone. And it reads, “Here lies the mortal remains, known only to God, of a woman, age 23 to 33, and a girl child, aged 8 to 10. Their slain bodies were found on November 10, 1985 in Bear Brook State Park. May their–” And it’s really faded here at the bottom. “May their souls find peace in God’s loving care.” [LONG PAUSE, SOUND OF WIND BLOWING] It’s one thing to know it. It’s another to see, see this in person.  

Moon, Narrating: Standing there by the grave, I tried to imagine what that day was like in 1987 when the woman and the oldest child were buried here.

And then, I tried to imagine the day their bodies were exhumed.

[THEME MUSIC IN]

Moon, Narrating: In the 15 years after the second barrel was found, investigators had failed to find a single solid lede in the Bear Brook murders. But, while they were checking databases, and wearing out shoe leather, a parallel investigation was taking place. One that required all four bodies to be held by the state medical examiner. This investigation is more like the high-tech ones you might see on a TV crime show, employing scientific techniques rarely used in criminal cases. And it was this investigation that led to the first break in the Bear Brook murders, 30 years after the first bodies were found.

Benjamin Agati: Um, I want to thank everybody for coming today. We have some new testing results that we want to share with, basically, the world.

[THEME MUSIC POST]

Moon, Narrating: That’s next time on Bear Brook.

[THEME MUSIC OUT]

[CREDITS MUSIC IN]

Moon, Narrating: Bear Brook is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon.

Taylor Quimby is Senior Producer.

Editing help from Cori Princell, Todd Bookman, Lauren Chooljian, Sam Evans-Brown, Britta Green, and Annie Ropeik.

The Executive Producer is Erika Janik.

Dan Barrick is NHPR’s News Director.

Director of Content is Maureen McMurray.

NHPR’s Digital Director is Rebecca Lavoie.

Photography and video by Allie Gutierrez.

Graphics and interactives by Sara Plourde.

Original music for this show was composed by me, Jason Moon, and Taylor Quimby.

Additional music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions, and Lee Rosevere.

To see a video of some of the locations from the first two episodes, like Bear Brook State Park and the cemetery where the first two victims were buried, go to our website, bearbrookpodcast.org.

To learn more about the fascinating and complicated story behind the Danny Paquette murder, check out the book “Our Little Secret” by Kevin Flynn and Rebecca Lavoie.

Bear Brook is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

[CREDITS MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Transcript of Episode 3: A Smaller Haystack

[SOUND OF SLIDES BEING INSERTED INTO A PROJECTOR]


Taylor Quimby, Narrating: Previously on Bear Brook…


[SOUND OF SLIDE PROJECTOR WHIRRING]


Jason Moon, In Cemetery, Reading: “Here lies the mortal remains, known only to God, of a woman, age 23 to 33, and a girl child, aged 8 to 10.”


[SOUND OF SLIDE PROJECTOR CLICKING]


Jason Moon, In Cemetery, Reading: “May their souls find peace in God’s loving care.” 


[MUSIC IN, SLIDE PROJECTOR CLICKS]


John Cody: How does… an entire family… just… go missing?


[SLIDE PROJECTOR CLICKS]


Ronda Randall: What grandmother let this happen, or what neighbor, or what bus driver or, you know – I mean, Where were all of you?


[SLIDE PROJECTOR CLICKS]


Moon: Did you guys ever get as far as to have any suspects?


Cody: No. Not even close.


[SLIDE PROJECTOR CLICKS]


Kevin Flynn: After the Paquette case, you know, there was really a feeling that, yeah, you know, we – this could be done if the resources are set aside.


[SLIDE PROJECTOR CLICKS]


Ron Montplaisir: There’s always some link. Someday… somebody will come forward. 


[SLIDE PROJECTOR CLICKS TWICE]


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


[AMBIENT ROOM SOUND, PEOPLE TALKING, TAKING SEATS]


Benjamin Agati: Everybody all set? Ok? Alright... First of all, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you all, uh, very much for coming today. My name is Benjamin Agati. I am a senior assistant attorney general here at the Department of Justice. We have some new testing results, some significant new testing results, I think you’ll see, that we want to share, basically, with the world.


Moon Narrating: In November 2015, New Hampshire state law enforcement officials held a press conference. This is actually how I first learned about the Bear Brook murders. I was one of about a dozen or so reporters from New Hampshire and Boston who showed up. We all crowded into a small carpeted room at the New Hampshire Department of Justice. Benjamin Agati, with the AG’s office, stood behind a podium. 


Agati: Thirty years ago this month, a mystery began when the remains of an adult and what we will found out will be the oldest child were discovered in a bag next to an overturned 55-gallon drum in great Bear Brook State Park. In 2000, the remains of two more victims, both young girls, were found not far away, having been located in a second 55-gallon drum.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon Narrating: The discovery of the second barrel in 2000 was really the last big development in the Bear Brook case, and that was 15 years before this press conference.


In 2009, the case had been handed over to the state’s new Cold Case Unit. The unit was the first of its kind for New Hampshire with a mandate to focus exclusively on old murders, disappearances, and suspicious deaths. It was formed thanks, in part, to the investigation into the shooting of Danny Paquette, which we talked about in the last episode.


The Cold Case Unit was just as stumped as the investigators that came before them though. So, in 2012, they took the Bear Brook mystery to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, called NCMEC [SOUNDS LIKE “NECK-MECK”] for short. NCMEC experts pored over the case alongside New Hampshire authorities, brainstorming ideas on how to move the investigation forward.


Three years later, in the fall of 2015, the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit was ready to share some of the work that came as a result of that collaboration.


Agati, At Press Conference: These are our new images. And we’ll have, uh, individual shots of each of our victims later on. [SOUND OF CAMERA SHUTTER]


Moon Narrating: They started the presentation with a closer analysis of the information investigators already had on hand. Facial reconstruction experts at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children had created new composite images of the victims. The victims’ faces are rendered in grayscale and they look a little computer generated. But certainly a lot more lifelike than the simple sketches that once hung on the refrigerator at the Morgan’s home in Allenstown.


Agati: I’d like to go through each one in particular...


Moon Narrating: Agati clicked through slides of these new images, one by one.


Agati: Our first one is our adult victim. She is a female, likely to be within her mid-20s. 


Moon Narrating: The adult victim’s hair looks almost wet, like it was still drying from a shower.


Agati: Our first child victim, also found in the same barrel with her, her age is closer to 9 to 10 years old. 


Moon Narrating: The oldest child victim has a few freckles on her nose. 


Agati: Uh, she was approximately 4-feet-3-inches tall, had light brown dirty blonde hair.


Moon Narrating: Her mouth is slightly parted, like her photo was taken while she was lost in thought.


Agati: We do not know what her weight was specifically and we do not know her eye color. Child victim number two...


Moon Narrating: The middle child’s expression reads almost as surprise, like someone just called out her name.


Agati: She– Her age is anywhere between 2 to 4 years old. 


Moon Narrating: Her hair is darker than the others, her eyes set a little further apart, details that really drive home the fact that she’s not related to the other victims.


Agati: She had a dental overbite, and this has been remarked about before, that may be noticeable to others.


Moon Narrating: The image of the youngest child shows a cute kid. 


Agati: The last child. She had a very large gap between the upper two front teeth.


Moon Narrating: Big chubby cheeks and a tiny little nose. Wispy strands of dirty blond hair falling down to her shoulders.


Agati: We are trying to get these images out there. Through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, they have not had one single case like this with four individual victims that have been unidentified for such a period of time.


[MUSIC POST]


This is Bear Brook. I’m Jason Moon.


[MUSIC FADES OUT]


Moon Narrating: For me, this was my first time hearing about the Bear Brook case, so everything – the barrels, the trailer park, the faces of the victims – everything was brand new to me. But the real showcase of this press conference were the results of long-awaited scientific testing.


Agati: Today we want to announce results of new radio-isotope testing that has been conducted on the bones, the teeth, and the hair of our four unidentified persons. [CAMERA SHUTTER SOUNDS]


Moon Narrating: Radio-isotope testing: it’s a scientific process usually reserved for geologists. Many of the reporters in the room that day, including me, struggled at first to understand it. But as we slowly came to realize, the technique can offer surprising details about a human life based on nothing more than the type of environment a person lived in. 


And almost exactly three decades since the Bear Brook mystery began, it finally gave investigators their first lead.



[PHONE RINGS]


Jason Moon, On the Phone: Hi, this is Jason with New Hampshire Public Radio. How are you? 


George Kamenov: Ugh, I’m getting sick. My, my son brought some kind of virus.


Moon: Oh, sorry to hear that. Did you get your flu shot? 


Kamenov: I got it, but looks like it’s something else. 


Moon: Uh oh. 


Moon Narrating: When George Kamenov was studying to become a geologist, he never imagined he would one day use his training to solve murder cases. But then again, he says, all science is about solving mysteries.


Kamenov: What we do in geology is often like forensic chemistry. We’re trying to identify, let’s say, where this water comes from or what this water interacts with. It’s sort of like this is the same thing now, we’re just applying it to, to humans.


Moon Narrating: Kamenov, who’s with the University of Florida, analyzed the remains of the Bear Brook victims with a technique that relies on the science of isotopes.


Before we get into this, I want to point out just how important forensic science has been to the Bear Brook case. In the absence of witnesses or missing persons reports, the only information that detectives have been able to glean about the victims – what they look like and where they might be from – has come by way of pushing the boundaries of forensic science. Whether that’s cutting edge facial reconstruction or using a high-tech chemical analysis of the atoms from within the victims remains.


Ok, isotopes.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon Narrating: Isotopes are atoms with either too few or too many neutrons. Basically, they’re just different versions of the same element.


You’ve probably heard of radioactive isotopes. But there are also other less-dramatic isotopes that can be really useful for scientists.


A handful of isotopes that are stable and naturally occuring are known as environmental isotopes. And geologists like Kamenov like them because they can be linked to geographic regions.


Kamenov: They can be used sort of like an inorganic DNA tracer. They can tell you about geographical place of origin.


Moon Narrating: Take oxygen-18. It's an isotope that is heavier than your standard oxygen atom. When rain clouds move from over water to over land, the water with oxygen-18 in it is the first to fall out as rain. That means that areas near the coast end up with more oxygen-18 than areas further inland.


So, a geologist can look at the amount of oxygen-18 in, say, a rock sample and get a clue about the type of environment the rock was formed in. But environmental isotopes aren’t found only in rocks.


Plants and animals also absorb environmental isotopes through their diet. So, an animal who lived in a region with lots of oxygen-18 will have more of it stored in their bones than an animal who lived elsewhere.


In other words, living things carry an imprint of their environment, recorded in isotopes.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Scientists first started using the technique on human remains in archaeology – think ancient burials. That’s how Kamenov first started doing this.


Kamenov: ‘Cause you can do isotope analysis and you can figure out where these people were from and then you can use that for, uh, ancient human migrations and things like that.


Moon Narrating: Then one day, in 2012, one of Kamenov’s colleagues, a forensic anthropologist, came to him with a question.


Kamenov: She came one day into my office and she asked me if we could apply the same technique to modern cold cases and I said, “Well, let’s try and see what’s gonna happen.”

[MUSIC IN]


Moon Narrating: It didn’t take long to see they were on to something. The first case Kamenov looked into involved the remains of a woman found murdered in Florida in 1971.


Kamenov: All the leads were exhausted and they could not identify her. And now basically 40-some years later, we can show why that was the case, basically, because she was not local. She was a foreigner, most likely from Europe. And that’s how basically we started. We tried with one cold case and then we started working on other cold cases.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon Narrating: Kamenov is quick to point out that isotope testing alone can’t identify individual victims, but it can give you some broad clues about where to take an investigation. In the Florida cold case, it told investigators they should be looking through missing persons reports from a totally different continent. As one researcher put it, isotope testing doesn’t find the needle in the haystack, it shrinks the haystack down to a manageable size.


With the Bear Brook victims, given what little we knew about them, the haystack was essentially the entire globe. They could have been from anywhere.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon Narrating: But by looking at four isotopes in the bones, teeth, and hair of the victims, Kamenov was able to narrow down the possibilities.


One of those isotopes came from a source you’d never expect.


Kamenov: The main reason that works is because for many, many years we used leaded gasoline.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon Narrating: That’s right. One of the first real clues about where the Bear Brook victims came from is thanks to leaded gasoline. Here’s how.


From the 1920s until it started getting phased out in the 1970s, cars all over the world were using leaded gasoline – basically spraying lead all over the environment.


Kamenov: So, wherever you go, let’s say you take a soil sample pretty much anywhere in the world, it still will contain tiny amounts of this, uh, lead.


Moon Narrating: But not all of the lead used in gasoline was the same. In America, the lead came from one mine in Mississippi. And in Europe, the lead came from a different mine in Australia. 


[MUSIC POST]


The two different lead mines have different ratios of lead isotopes, making it easy for a scientist like Kamenov to tell them apart. And meanwhile, we are absorbing small amounts of the leftover lead in the environment into our bodies over the course of our lives.


Kamenov: So, we as live, let’s say you live in New Hampshire, you go around, you drink the water, you eat the food. So, tiny amounts of this lead that’s in the soil gets recorded in our bodies.


Moon Narrating: So, basically anyone who lives in North America has lead in their bodies with one isotopic signature, while Europeans have lead with a different isotopic signature in their bodies. This is how Kamenov was able to tell the victim in his first case was European. And this is how we know the Bear Brook victims are from North America.


Ok, not the biggest reveal. But a start.


After lead, other isotopes helped Kamenov narrow down the area even further.


Strontium and carbon isotopes, which hold clues about someone’s diet, helped eliminate Canada and Mexico as possibilities. Oxygen isotopes shed light on the water they drank, giving hints about how far from the coast they lived and how far north. It was here that Kamenov started to see something interesting, differences between the isotopic signatures of the victims.


[MUSIC OUT]


Kamenov: What we saw was that the three victims that are related by DNA, they kind of have the same oxygen isotopic signal, which tells us that they were all living together. But then, the fourth girl that was not related, she, uh, shows distinct oxygen isotopes, which tells us that she came from somewhere else.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon Narrating: Back at the press conference, this was summed up for reporters in two color-coded maps.


Agati, At Press Conference: The specific areas highlighted in green behind me are the areas in the United States where the adult and the oldest and the youngest child were both raised in and were living in at the time of their death. [FADE UNDER]


Moon Narrating: The map for the related victims includes a swath that covers all of New England and stretches down as far as West Virginia.


Agati: So, you can see the area here on the Eastern Seaboard. Any of the green is a possibility.


Moon Narrating: It also includes parts of the upper Midwest and West Coast. The second map, for the unrelated child, highlights four very specific areas in the Northeast. Two different regions in Upstate New York, one on the border between northern Vermont and New Hampshire, and one in northern Maine.


Agati: She spent most of her childhood further inland, and mostly likely further North. [FADE UNDER]


Moon Narrating: Her map also includes different sections of the Midwest and West Coast than the other victims. But notably, her map does not include the area directly around Bear Brook State Park, which means, according to the isotope results, she was not from the immediate area.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon Narrating: I’d like to pause for a moment here to think about what exactly this means. Kamenov had reduced the global haystack to areas within the U.S. equivalent in size to a handful of states.


If this was the starting point of the Bear Brook investigation, it probably wouldn’t have seemed like a lead at all. The areas highlighted on this map, they are home to millions of people. But if you’ve been watching this case gather dust, wondering how on Earth four people could disappear so completely from the world without anybody noticing, this map is the first new piece of information in 30 years.


It wasn’t a slam dunk. Not even close. But it told investigators where to focus their efforts. And there was one more thing that Kamenov was able to find. A tantalizing clue about how the victims spent the last few weeks of their lives.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon Narrating: Isotope testing can tell us a lot about where someone lived, thanks to regional variations of isotopes and human pollution. But while the isotopes themselves are important, scientists can also learn a lot from where the isotopes are found within the body.


For instance, your teeth. The isotopes there only reflect the environment from your early life, since teeth stop forming by your mid-20s. That means the isotopic signature of your childhood environment is forever locked in your enamel, even if you spend the rest of your life somewhere else.


Isotopes found in hair, on the other hand, tell a different story.


[MUSIC IN]


Because hair grows continuously, it provides a record of the recent past. Each strand of hair is like a timeline of the final months of someone’s life. How far the timeline goes back depends on the length of the hair.


And because hair grows pretty quickly, it records changes in someone’s environment with a surprising level of detail.


In a case from Seattle, isotopes from an unidentified victim’s hair showed she had been moving back and forth from two regions several times in the last few months before her death. That information helped police match her to a missing persons report and ultimately to identify her.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon Narrating: The hair of the adult victim in the Bear Brook case offered a similar clue about her movements just before the murder.


Kamenov: Her hair showed that the last few months before death, she was living in the area. However, about five to seven months before death, she went somewhere, either to the North or to the West, to, like, a colder climate where the oxygen isotopes are lower. And what’s interesting is that the unrelated victim, the fourth girl that is not related by DNA, her teeth also show these lighter oxygen isotopes. So, one possible interpretation is that that’s the time when the non-related girl joined the group.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon Narrating: While the isotope maps for the related victims and the non-related child showed they grew up in different areas, testing of their hair showed that all four victims were together for the last two weeks to three months of lives, most likely in New England.


So, what happened? Where did the adult victim go six months before she died? Was that when the non-related child joined the family? Was it an adoption? A kidnapping? Where is the non-related child’s family?


After that press conference in 2015, I’d asked Benjamin Agati, the prosecutor assigned to the Cold Case Unit, how they would try to answer those questions. Now that they’d inched the case forward with the isotope testing, what was next? What else could they do?


Agati: Somebody told me the other day, uh, that they saw the photos on the news and said, “Wow, the adult female, the victim, she looks like somebody back in high school.” They went to their old yearbook and looked. They were completely wrong. It wasn’t that person. But the fact that they thought to go look, tells me we’ve got something going down the right road. And so, even something like that, if somebody says, “I’m not too sure.” Pull out your yearbook. Look up that old friend or person that you knew and see if they are there. Take a look. Is it a possibility that this is a match? Give us a call. Let us do the work.


[VERY LOW CREEPY TONE IN]


Moon Narrating: This theory of how the case would be solved seemed totally reasonable to me at the time. Remember, this was the first time I had ever even heard about the Bear Brook murders. 


But looking back, it must have been hard, calling that press conference, explaining how years of work had resulted in two simple maps and a set of images, putting that information out into the world, and then just hoping for a tip. Nothing useful had come in before. I wonder if they really thought anything would be different this time.


Agati, At Press Conference: We’re encouraging everybody to reach out to us through those contacts, and the people who have been involved in this case, they have been great. They have done that and given that information to the Cold Case Unit, given it to NCMEC and we’re following up on it it as fast as we can… Alright , if there are no further questions, I do have handouts for anybody who wants them and they contain the entire presentation.


[SOUND OF PEOPLE TALKING, LEAVING PRESS CONFERENCE UP AND OUT, LOW CREEPY TONE GETS LOUDER]


Moon Narrating: Since we spoke in 2015, Agati has been reassigned out of the Cold Case Unit. But I imagine he still thinks about the Bear Brook case, frustrated that the victims, even now, remain unidentified.


In that sense, all of his work, and the work of investigators at NCMEC, was for nought. The new composite images and the maps went out on the news and people called in, but they mostly gave the same tips investigators had already ruled out. If there is an old yearbook out there somewhere with a photo of one of the Bear Brook victims, it’s probably still sitting in a closet, or tucked under a bed.


The release of the isotope testing results was in some ways the final Hail Mary in the Bear Brook case. The Bear Brook investigation was reaching the end of the line.


But meanwhile, another mystery thousands of miles away in California was just beginning to unravel. This case had also stumped police for decades, and it would also push the boundaries of forensic science. And by the end, it would lead all the way back to New Hampshire.


Elaine Ramos, On the Phone: The minute I met him… I… it was… it was like meeting the devil.


Moon, On the Phone: Have you ever felt that way about anybody else?


Ramos, On the Phone: Never. Never in my life have I ever, ever, ever had the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I met somebody.


[LOW CREEPY TONE GROWS INTO RUMBLING SOUND, UP AND OUT]


Moon Narrating: That’s next time on Bear Brook.


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon Narrating: If you have any information about the Bear Brook murders, or if you think you recognize any of the victims, contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST. That’s 1-800-843-5678.


You can see the latest composite images of the victims and the isotope maps released in 2015 at our website bearbrookpodcast.com.


Bear Brook is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon. 


Taylor Quimby is Senior Producer.


Editing help from Cori Princell, Todd Bookman, Lauren Chooljian, Sam Evans-Brown, Britta Green, and Annie Ropeik.


The Executive Producer is Erika Janik. 


Dan Barrick is NHPR’s News Director.


Director of Content is Maureen McMurray.


NHPR’s Digital Director is Rebecca Lavoie.


Photography and video by Allie Gutierrez.


Graphics and interactives by Sara Plourde.


Original music for this show was composed by me, Jason Moon, and Taylor Quimby.


Additional music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions.


Bear Brook is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Transcript of Episode 4: Eunsoon Jun

Jason Moon, Narrating: Elaine Ramos was planning a big party. It was 1999, New Year’s Eve was coming soon, and she wanted to celebrate Y2K with friends and family at her home in Monterey, California. She was excited. Even more so when her cousin, Eunsoon Jun, called with some big news.


Elaine Ramos, On the Phone: She called to say that she had met somebody and asked if she could bring him. And I thought, “Sure! This is somebody that she’s finally met that she’s in love with. Of course, you could bring him.”


Moon, Narrating: Elaine and Eunsoon were close. Their families both immigrated to the U.S. from Korea when they were young and they grew up together. Elaine knew that Eunsoon had a hard time when it came to dating. So, when Eunsoon, now in her mid-40s, called to say she had met someone, it was a big deal. Elaine couldn’t wait to meet him.


Elaine’s house in Monterey sits at the end of a cul de sac in a suburb full of nice, ranch-style houses. When Eunsoon and her new boyfriend arrived on the day of the party, Elaine stepped outside to greet them.


Ramos, On the Phone: First of all, when they drove up, it was in this… dirty, white van. Didn’t have windows on it. It was one of those cargo vans. And I thought, “Wow.” But then, when they came up to the door and I opened the door and saw his face, I had a chill run down my back that I’ve never in my life, ever had before. And he stuck out his hand to shake my hand and I saw the, the long dirty fingernails that just… just creeped me out.


[LONG, WARPING TONE UP AND UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Eunsoon’s new boyfriend, Larry Vanner, looked ragged, dirty. He seemed a lot older than Eunsoon. He was bald on top, with patches of messy brown hair sprouting out on the sides. He wore a mustache, and his voice was a deep drawl. 


The only thing inviting about him, Elaine remembers, were his eyes. They were a shade of deep blue that seemed to sparkle in the light. Elaine says it was almost like they were made of glass.


[TONE UP AND OUT]


Elaine was unsettled by her first impression of Vanner, but she wanted to be supportive.


Ramos: Eunsoon was just beaming. She was so happy to introduce him to the family.


Moon, Narrating: Later in the evening, as the party got going, Elaine tried again with the new boyfriend. She sat across a bar from Vanner and started chatting.


Ramos: And so, I asked him, you know, “So, what have you done?” And he just stared at me and he said, “I’m a retired colonel in the army.” And I said, “Really? Because my boss is a retired full bird colonel, and maybe you two know each other ‘cause I think you’re about the same age.”


Moon, Narrating: Vanner leaned over the bar close to Elaine and said…


Ramos: “Don’t ever question me or ask me again about my past.”


[TONE, GROWS FROM LOW TO HIGH, UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Before Elaine could react, Vanner brightened back up, smiling and making small talk as if it never happened. It was one of many red flags Elaine remembers from that night.


Vanner claimed to own properties all over the West Coast, but couldn’t explain why he had never taken Eunsoon to see any of them. He said he onced worked for the CIA and could disappear if he ever needed to.


At the end of the night, Elaine offered Eunsoon and Vanner a room to stay in. They’d been drinking and she didn’t want them driving home.


Ramos: And she goes, “No, we’re going to sleep in the van.” And that’s when we went outside and we saw the van and it was, just had dirty blankets and pillows thrown in the back and I thought, ‘‘Eunsoon, you can’t sleep here!” She goes, “No, I love it. I’m fine!”


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: A few days after the party, Elaine got a phone call from Eunsoon. She wanted to know what she thought of the new boyfriend.


Ramos: And I said, “Eunsoon, I don’t really know him. I tried to get to know him, but he didn’t want to answer my questions.” I go, “Please before you get too involved with him, make sure everything he is telling you is the truth. Please do that for me.” And then, she got angry at me. She said, “Nobody wants me to be happy. I’ve finally found somebody who loves me and nobody wants me to be happy!” And I said, “That’s not it – I just don’t want you to get involved with somebody who isn’t telling you the truth.” And that was the last time I spoke with her.


This is Bear Brook, I’m Jason Moon.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Ramos, On the Phone: Eunsoon was a free spirit. Um… We always said she was like a Bohemian. She loved to explore religions, explore people, different cultures.


Moon, Narrating: Eunsoon Jun was a chemist by profession. For years, she worked at a biotech company near Richmond, California. But Elaine says she was more of an artist at heart. She made pottery and loved to travel. She was interested in Buddhism.


Ramos, On the Phone: One thing about Eunsoon was, as much as she was spiritual, and loved meeting people, she was lonely. She didn’t find the love of her life. And I think that opened her up to be vulnerable to people who would take advantage of her.


Moon, On the Phone: W-Why do you, why do you think that is? Did she have trouble meeting people?


Ramos: I think that for a lot of us that are immigrants, we sometimes don’t feel like we fit in. And I think that was… it was harbored in her longer than maybe for some other people who could adjust easier.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: By the time Eunsoon turned 40, pressure was mounting for her to find someone and settle down. Then, she met Larry Vanner. Eunsoon needed some work done on her house and an acquaintance recommended him as a handyman. From there, it somehow became a relationship.


After the New Year’s Party, Eunsoon drifted away from her family. Elaine wasn’t the only relative to disapprove of the new boyfriend. A few family members tried to talk to Eunsoon about it, but it only seemed to make things worse.


Ramos: Eunsoon’s brother was getting letters and emails from Eunsoon, saying that she didn’t want anything more to do with the family. Nobody wants her to be happy, just leave her alone, let her live her life.


Moon, Narrating: To Eunsoon’s relatives, it almost seemed like she was under a spell.


Ramos, On the Phone: It didn't sound like her. 


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: By 2001, a year later, Vanner had moved in with Eunsoon. Later that year, they got married, though it wasn’t official, there was no marriage certificate. The ceremony was held in a backyard. It had a Star Trek theme. Elaine wasn’t invited.


Eunsoon wasn’t talking with most of her family by then. But she was still in touch with her good friend, Renee Rose. Rose was also a potter and the two of them would sometimes go to pottery classes and art shows together. They usually spoke at least a few times a week.


I wasn’t able to speak with Rose for this story. But she did give an interview to a local paper back in 2003. Between that and the account of law enforcement officers who have spoken with her, here’s what we know.


In May of 2002, Rose called Eunsoon to work out the details for a trip they had planned for the following week. Eunsoon sounded anxious when she picked up the phone. She spoke quickly and ended the conversation abruptly, saying, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”


But Eunsoon didn’t call the next day and she didn’t show up for the trip they were supposed to take.


Worried, Rose left messages for Eunsoon on her answering machine. After a few days, she got a call back. It was Vanner. He said Eunsoon’s mother was dying and that she had flown to Virginia to see her. Rose asked if there was a way to reach Eunsoon in Virginia. Vanner said, “No.”


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Rose kept calling in the days and weeks that followed. And each time, Vanner’s explanation for why she couldn’t talk to Eunsoon was different. He said she was too emotionally fragile to talk, that her family had made her depressed. He said she was in Virginia, then Oregon. Once, he told Rose that Eunsoon had come home, but only for a day before leaving again.


Still, Rose kept calling. Something didn’t seem right. She wanted to know more about what was going on with Eunsoon. She wanted to know more about what was going on with Vanner. She offered to come over and cook him chili. She offered to clean the house ahead of Eunsoon’s return. And Vanner refused. He seemed annoyed. At times, flashing with anger.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Finally, after several weeks, Rose gave Vanner an ultimatum. She was leaving on vacation for 10 days and said she wanted to hear Eunsoon’s voice on her answering machine when she got back. If she didn’t, she would call the police. 


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: And in the end, that’s what she did.


[SOUND OF DOOR CLOSING, PEOPLE WALKING]


Moon, Off Mic: Yeah, that’s a little bit better. That will be fine. Alright, well, could you just introduce yourself first?


Roxane Gruenheid: Sure, my name is Roxane Gruenheid, and it’s spelled R-O-X… [FADE UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: As far as I can tell, Roxane Gruenheid is everything you want in a police officer. She’s tough and smart, and she’s got a real eye for detail.


Gruenheid: It was kind of funny, when I was working patrol, when I was first going through the training program, some of my training officers, I would write reports and he would say I’m too detailed.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: I spoke with Roxane just as she was entering retirement. After more than 25 years as a police officer in California, she decided to buy a house on Long Island to be closer to her family. She invited me over to talk, so I made the drive a few hours south to catch a ferry.


When I arrived Roxane was still moving in. There was hardly any furniture around and a contractor was installing some new cabinets in the kitchen. Roxane found a couple of lawn chairs for us. She set them up in an empty room that looked out over her new swimming pool. Outside, a soft rain was falling.


[SOFT MUSIC, SOUND OF RAIN]


Moon, Narrating: Roxane and I ended up spending about two-and-a-half hours in those lawn chairs. She’s a good storyteller. I also noticed she has this verbal quirk.


Gruenheid: So, it was pretty goofy.


Moon, Narrating: It’s almost like a catchphrase, something a TV cop might have. 


Gruenheid: But then, there’s this other story… Doing goofy things.


Moon, Narrating: Whenever something doesn’t quite add up, or she gets a gut feeling about a person or a place, she calls it “goofy.”


Gruenheid: Some stories are goofier than others and uh, um…


[SOUND OF RAIN]


Moon, Narrating: I get the impression it’s sort of a coping mechanism. A view of the world that she’s had to adopt, after working so many years in homicide.


Gruenheid: You know, you either talk to your colleagues, you find ways of trying to deal with it, you talk to your spouse, and some gallows humor... and some funny looks from people at parties of things that you think are funny as hell, that other people don’t think are very funny at all! [LAUGHS] And, um, and goofy stories and you just try to take care of yourself.


Moon, Narrating: By 1999, Roxane’s attention to detail had gotten her promoted to the homicide division at the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department. Contra Costa is just across the bay from San Francisco. 


Roxane thrived as a homicide detective, solving not only the active cases assigned to her, but cold cases, too. She likes to tell the story of one of those cold cases in particular because it proves how even the smallest detail can unlock a mystery.


[MUSIC IN]


The case was an unsolved murder from the ‘80s. A woman was found shot to death near her car on the side of the road. Roxane dug around and found an old recording of an interview with one of the suspects. It was a Betamax tape that she had to take to the local public access TV station to play. In the video, the suspect denies even knowing the victim.


Gruenheid: At the end of the videotape, the, uh, detective gets up and he goes, “Alright, we’ll take you back to the jail now” or whatever – the guy was in custody. And the lights go off, so there’s no more video, but there’s still audio.


Moon, Narrating: On those last few seconds of tape, Roxane heard the detective casually ask the suspect what kind of cigarettes he smokes.


Gruenheid: And the suspect responds, and he goes, “Pall Malls.” And he goes, “Filters or no filters?” And he goes, “No filters.” And then, shht! The door closes and there’s no more, but I listened to the entire tape.


Moon, Narrating: The Pall Malls triggered something Roxane had read in the case file. Detectives had taken the contents of an ashtray in the victim’s car into evidence.


Gruenheid: And there were, like, three Pall Mall no-filter cigarettes in her ashtray. And I was like, “Holy crap!” You know what I mean? And I went back and I called the crime lab and was like, “Do you still have these cigarettes?” “Yes, we have ‘em.” “Great. Put in a request to see if there’s DNA on ‘em.” That was his DNA [CLAPS] on the cigarettes and that was it! That one little detail opened that case wide open. And he went to prison for, for murderin’ that woman.


[MUSIC OUT]

Moon, Narrating: I get the feeling Roxane lives for those kinds of details. The kind that seem to insignificant, until they don’t. Anyways, that’s where Roxane was in 2002, solving cold cases, making a name for herself, when a call came in about a missing woman.


Gruenheid: Our patrol division had been contacted by a woman by the name of Rose and she had called the Sheriff’s Office to report her friend, Eunsoon Jun, missing.


Detective, On Recording: Do you need another coke?


Vanner, On Recording: No. 


Detective, On Recording: You sure?


Vanner, On Recording: I’m fine. [FADE UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Within a few days, detectives brought Larry Vanner, Eunsoon Jun’s new live-in boyfriend, in for questioning. The video of the interview shows Vanner sitting in an office chair in a small windowless room in front of a tiny desk. Vanner is wearing a t-shirt and gray slacks. A pair of eyeglasses are propped up on his balding head.


Detective, On Recording: Maybe she hurt herself a-and you’re concerned about that getting out, that she’s harmed herself?


Vanner, On Recording: …No.


Detective: There’s no truth to that?


Vanner: If you’re If you’re, uh, if you’re thinking, is she suicidal? No, she’s not… Uh, but she’s not as aggressive as she used to be.


Detective: Mmhmm.


Moon, Narrating: Vanner seemed evasive to detectives. He was willing enough to talk, but when he did, he would end up issuing vague platitudes. [FADE UNDER]


[MUSIC IN]


Vanner: Now, I’ve always tried to live by the motto that there’s no defense against the truth. But sometimes it’s hard to find out what the truth is. You got one side, the other side, and something down the middle that some people might perceive to be the truth. [FADE UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Or, he would tell rambling stories that seemed to be building to a point that never came.


Vanner, On Recording: When these guys get a chance to go work for the Forest Service for $28.50 an hour, paid 24 hours a day… I gotta eat small meals about four times a day, five times a day… If you had a pair of shoes and you were close to the fire, you’d get, uh, what would you call it. You’d get, uh, “Park your car, mister. You’re gonna be a firefighter.”


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Vanner claimed that Eunsoon was in Oregon. She was overseeing the construction of a cabin on one of his properties, he said. But he wouldn’t give police a way to contact her.


Then later, his story changed. He said the real reason Eunsoon was in Oregon was to see a therapist because she’d suffered a mental breakdown. Vanner said a call from police could trigger an anxiety attack.


[MUSIC OUT]


Vanner, On Recording: Now, I haven’t talked anymore about Eunsoon’s problems or my problems because frankly, you’re not my priest and you’re not my doctor. And bullshit stories have their place. You know, gossip has its place in society sometimes. But I’m just not going to say anymore about Eunsoon or myself right now, because…


Detective, On Recording: With the understanding that…


Vanner: I mean, frankly… No, I’m not gonna cut you off. 


Detective: Hmm?


Vanner: I’m not gonna cut you off. 


Gruenheid: They kinda played this – he played this kind of cat-and-mouse game with them. Um… At one point in the interview, I know they provided him with a telephone and he dialed a number and then n- didn’t talk to anybody and then hung up. But because it was on videotape, we could slow it down and get the, get the phone number that he was dialing and when a detective called that number it actually did go to a, a psychiatrist’s office in Eugene, Oregon. 


[MUSIC IN]


Gruenheid: And so, we were thinkin’, “Okay, you know, maybe….” You know, he didn’t have a piece of paper. He had this phone number in his head!


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Over the phone, detectives asked the psychiatrist if Eunsoon was there. The doctor said federal patient privacy laws didn’t allow them to reveal that.


Detectives looked for a way around the privacy law. Finally, they worked out a compromise with the doctor. They would give a physical description of Eunsoon, and the doctor would say if they were treating a patient who matched it.


After hearing the description, the psychiatrist said, “No.”


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: The Oregon story was looking pretty shaky. But there was another reason why detectives were suspicious.


Gruenheid: So, the goofy thing that kinda – The big red flag in the room was the fact that he had given us this name of Lawrence William Vanner with a date of birth.


Moon, Narrating: Roxane says when they ran that name through the system, instead of coming back with a driver’s license like they would expect, it came back with something called an index number. Index numbers are basically placeholders for someone’s identity in official records. They’re assigned to people who don’t have a valid form of ID.


Gruenheid: Yeah, and that’s all we had on him. There was no, no criminal history, nothing in our – no prior mention in a police report. There was nothing in any database, there was no driver’s license, there was no – like, nothing. Like nothing.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Detectives asked Vanner if they could fingerprint him. He agreed.


To do that, they had to take him to a separate facility across town. Roxane volunteered to ride along in the backseat with Vanner while another detective drove.


On the way over, Roxane started chatting with Vanner. She says it was smalltalk with a purpose.


Gruenheid: You know, I kinda worked into the conversation to see where I could go with it. You know what I mean?


Moon, Narrating: Roxane wanted to see if she could figure out where Vanner was from. She started by talking about accents. She brought up her own Long Island accent. How it was often commented on here in California. And then, she said it sounded like he had an accent, too, but she couldn’t place it. Where was it from?


Gruenheid: He stopped dead in his conversation, looked at me, and then got really closer to me, looked me straight in the eye and he says, “That’s none of your damn business.”


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Vanner then abruptly returned to casual smalltalk. Roxane says the mood change was so fast, it was like a lightswitch. The same thing Elaine had seen at the New Year’s party.


Vanner was fingerprinted and then detectives drove him back to the station. By the time they returned, the results of the prints were already waiting for them. They would change everything.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT, CREEPY RUMBLING TONE UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: When detectives got back to the police station with Larry Vanner, they left him alone in the same interrogation room as before. Then, the video shows two detectives entering the room, one of them holding a slim manilla folder with the results from Vanner’s fingerprints. They included a criminal record and a list of known aliases.


[SOUND OF FOLDER BEING PLACED ON A DESK ON TAPE RECORDING]


Detective 1, On Recording: Alright, Larry, your prints came back. You know your other name, right?


Detective 2, On Recording: Curtis or Gerald or Gerry or whatever name you’re going by this week.


Detective 1: Curtis Kimball.


Detective 2: Curtis Kimball! Or Gerald, uh, Mocker… What’s the other one?


Detective 1: Mockerman.


Detective 2: Mockerman, right.


Detective 1: Ring a bell?


Vanner: No.


Detective 1: Yeah that’s who you are, man.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Larry Vanner’s fingerprints belonged to a man whose name was not Larry Vanner. The prints came back under the name Curtis Mayo Kimball. In the video, you can actually see the surprise splash across Vanner-slash-Kimball’s face as detectives list off his other names. Detectives assumed that Curtis Kimball was itself an alias, but at this point, it was the earliest name they had. For Roxane Gruenheid, it was hard to know what to make of this new information. 


Gruenheid: The goal of any missing persons investigation is to determine whether that person, where they are and if they’re okay, ya know what I mean? But now, we just had a added piece to it. Like, why is… Who, who is this guy, that’s given us one name… that’s not really a name… that’s not even him… that is now, purportedly this other guy who’s been on parole for 12 years!


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: That last part – that Curtis Kimball was on parole – was a big deal. I’ll explain why in just a minute. 


In 1989, Kimball was convicted of child abandonment and spent a year and a half in a California state prison. Then, on the day he was released, he skipped town, violating his parole.


Looking back, Roxane thinks that Larry Vanner-slash-Curtis Kimball didn’t know his prints would come back so quickly. The last time he was arrested was over 10 years ago, before the process was handled by computers. She thinks he agreed to get fingerprinted assuming it would take at least a few days for the results to come back. Plenty of time to leave town, adopt a new name, and start over again.


But that plan didn’t work.


Gruenheid: So, I read him his Miranda rights and at that time, he chose not to talk to us and, and he shut down the, uh, the interview. 


Moon, Off Mic: Did he have any objection at all as you were reading his rights?


Gruenheid: Nope, nothin’. Just, “I want, I want an attorney.” “Okay.” And that was it. 


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: In California, parolees and their property are subject to police searches for any reason at any time – no warrant required.


Now that Roxane had Curtis Kimball’s record in hand – and had discovered that he’d violated parole – she had a new opportunity. She could legally search his home.


So, Roxane and another detective named Mike Costa drove out to Eunsoon Jun’s house where she and Curtis Kimball had been living together to have a look around.


Eunsoon lived in an area called East Richmond Heights. It’s a middle class neighborhood, with small houses packed right next to each other along winding roads that work their way up a hillside. From the top of the hill, on a clear day, you can see all the way across the bay to San Francisco.


Roxane and Mike arrived at the house and knocked at the front door. No one answered. Using the keys they’d taken from Kimball, they went inside. 


Gruenheid: We were working a missing persons case, so, I, you know, we didn’t open any drawers or anything like that because no human being could be in a drawer, you know what I mean? So, we were just… walked around the house to make sure that A, that there wasn’t anybody in there that was going to hurt us, and at the same time, just making that, if she was in there, we would try to find her, right? So, we were looking for somebody human-sized, her human size, in the general areas of the house.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Roxane and Mike made their way through the house room by room. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but that changed as the search moved outside.


Gruenheid: We went in the backyard and we found a dead kitten that had been thrown over the fence in the back. Um… There was an area inside the shed that looked like it had recently been, um, tried to be dug up inside the shed.


Moon, Off Mic: Like a dirt floor?


Gruenheid: Yeah, like a dirt floor inside the shed.


Moon, Narrating: Roxane and Mike took note of the dead cat, of the disturbed soil in the shed. Then, they made their way around the outside of the house to the garage. It was the one place they hadn’t looked yet. A sliding garage door had a padlock on it, but Roxane found the key on Kimball’s keychain. She threw up the door and found Eunsoon’s pottery studio.


Gruenheid: She had several kilns, like, almost, like, nice big, nice kilns. There was pottery in various stages of being f-f-, created – fired, glazed.


Moon, Narrating: The walls of the garage were lined with Eunsoon’s pottery. Bowls, vases, sculpted figures, and masks. Roxane and Mike slowly moved through the space, still careful not to touch anything.


In the back of the garage, they found a doorway. It led down a few steps to an unfinished part of the house – a sort of basement crawl space with a dirt floor. It was about 8 by 10, not quite tall enough to stand up in.


Gruenheid: My partner, Mike, uh, went in there and he looked around and he goes, “Y-y-you need to come take a look at this.” [PAUSE] 


[MUSIC OUT, CREEPY TONE IN, SOUND OF RAIN FALLING]


Gruenheid: And I stepped into that area and looked with my flashlight, and I could see that there was a huge pile of cat litter, probably that tall, so, a good three feet tall.


Moon, Narrating: Cat litter. The pile was almost waist-high, and maybe 5 feet across. Enough to fill the bed of a truck.


Gruenheid: I’d never seen anything like that. It was perfect. It was just like, like you’d pile up a pile of sand.


Moon, Narrating: On the ceiling above the pile, a couple of work lights were clamped onto an exposed beam. The lights were aimed down at the pile, like the cat litter was part of some kind of bizarre home improvement project.


Gruenheid: There was some shop kind of tools and equipment there… reciprocating saw. There was a, uh, a small, like a, not a hatchet small, but like a small axe, like a child’s axe, like a smaller axe leaned up there. Um… there was some bottles of like, um, some green substance, like spray bottles… So, it was goofy.


[CREEPY, RUMBLY TONE]


Moon, Narrating: Roxane called for the forensic team. For an hour and a half, they photographed the scene in detail. The cat litter, the work lights, the tools. Then, finally, they started to sift through the pile of cat litter.


Gruenheid: And within a few swipes of, of, of the pile, the thing that emerged was a human foot that was still in a, uh, like a rubber, like, a flip flop.


[MUSIC IN]


Gruenheid: But it was mummified, like you’d see in a museum. Like, a mummified foot. Human foot, obviously human foot.


Moon, Narrating: The forensic team found blood splatter on the heating and air conditioning ductwork above the pile of cat litter. It suggested that Eunsoon had been bludgeoned to death there in the crawlspace. They also discovered that her body had been dismembered.


Elaine Ramos, On the Phone, Tearful: She wanted to be loved, that’s all she wanted. And I think that’s – She found out about him or found out that somethin’ wasn’t right and confronted him. You know, I’m sure Eunsoon confronted him. I’m sure she fought. [SNIFFS] I have to believe that she fought.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Joe Motta, On the Phone: The case stuck with me because he was so frickin’ creepy.


Moon, Narrating: Joe Motta was a prosecutor with the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s office for 17 years.


Motta: I-it was just an unusual kind of case, just the nature of it. I’d never seen anything like that.


Moon, Narrating: In 2003, he had what seemed like an open and shut case against Kimball. He had lied about Eunsoon Jun’s whereabouts. Her body was found in the house he was living in. And Roxane had uncovered lots of evidence that he’d been spending Eunsoon’s money after her death. But as he prepared for trial, Motta was worried.


Motta: My opponent was a pretty well-respected public defender, probably their toughest advocate at the time. He was a noble adversary. He was a brawler.


Moon, Narrating: Motta knew this experienced defense attorney would try to argue that Kimball wasn’t directly involved in Eunsoon’s death. To try to negotiate a plea deal on a lesser charge, like accessory to murder.


Motta: My big concern is there’s not enough evidence to show how it went down. There wasn’t. There wasn’t any evidence. There wasn’t a murder weapon. There wasn’t a… you know, what if she fell down the stairs and he felt bad and he didn’t want anyone to know about it? You know, who knows what they could’ve come up with.


Moon, Narrating: Motta needed something connecting Kimball to the scene in the basement. And he figured their best shot was the cat litter. It was so much cat litter that a store employee might remember the purchase and who made it. If Motta could show the jury that Kimball had worked to cover up Eunsoon’s death, it would help tie him to the crime itself. It wouldn’t be a smoking gun, but it would help.


He put Detective Roxane Gruenheid on the case.


Gruenheid: I couldn’t even – I can’t even imagine. There’s gotta be 1,500 dog and cat boutique stores – you could buy that anywhere, you know.


Moon, Narrating: Roxane wasn’t sure how she was going to find the right pet store. But then, she remembered a detail.


[MUSIC IN]


Gruenheid: When I was tracking back some of the fiduciary crimes that he was committing, there was, he actually had used Eunsoon’s ATM card at this ATM down in, um, kinda right on the edge of El Sobrante, Richmond area in California. And I used to work in that beat.


Moon, Narrating: Roxane realized she knew that ATM. And she knew there was a pet store right next to it.


Gruenheid: So, I go, “Okay.” So, I roll up there, and I go in, and I just to talk to the manager, and I go… “Anybody buy a large quantity of cat litter in the past?” And he goes, “Yeah! There was this guy and he came in!” And so, basically, he tells me this story that this old guy, twinkly blue eyes, drives up with his car, pays cash, loads ‘em in his car, and his story to the employees was something to the effect of he had a little bit of oil that he spilled in the driveway, changing the oil in his car, or somethin’ like that. But I was like, “Anybody ever buy 250 pounds of cat litter,” you know? And they were like, “No, that was pretty unusual!”


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: The cat litter wasn’t Kimball’s only attempt at covering up evidence of the crime. A neighbor told Roxane that Kimball had been out hosing the driveway one day when he casually mentioned that he was dealing with a rat infestation, and that if there were any strange smells coming from his garage, not to worry about it.


So, Motta had more than enough to prosecute the case. But as the trial approached, Roxane kept digging anyways. 


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: She got in touch with Kimball’s former parole officer and had all the documents on his criminal record faxed over. Roxane read through them all.


His criminal record began in 1986, about 15 years before he met Eunsoon, with a warrant issued for child abandonment. According to the police reports, he had left his 5-year-old daughter at an RV park with an elderly couple and then fled. At the time, he was using the name Gordon Jensen.


A few years later he was pulled over driving a stolen car. He gave officers the name Gerald Mockerman, but his fingerprints linked him back to the child abandonment case. He was convicted on that charge and served about a year and a half of a three-year sentence in a California state prison before being released on parole. The parole officer told Roxane he never showed up for his first meeting.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Roxane was getting more and more interested in Kimball’s past – the trail of aliases, his daughter at the RV park. She couldn’t let it go. Even as Kimball headed to court for a murder trial he was sure to lose.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Eunsoon Jun’s cousin, Elaine Ramos, can remember the first day of the trial. It was the first time any of the family had seen Curtis Kimball, a man they had known as Larry Vanner, since the murder.


Ramos, On the Phone: As he walked past us, uh, we all had buttons, pins with Eunsoon’s face on it. And we were all sitting there in the, in the jury box or whatever that is, and he passed us by, and he just gave us this smirky smile. It wa– it was disgusting.


Moon, Narrating: The trial was hard on Eunsoon’s family. And not just because Kimball seemed to be taunting them. Eunsoon Jun and Curtis Kimball met in November of 1999. He was arrested for her murder in November 2002. During the years in between, Kimball had so successfully isolated Eunsoon that her family was forced to grieve someone that they didn’t know as well as they once had. The emails from Eunsoon telling her family to leave her alone – they hadn’t sounded like Eunsoon because it turns out that Kimball wrote them. He made sure that for many of Eunsoon’s relatives, their last conversation with her was an argument about her new boyfriend.


Ramos, On the Phone: Everybody felt guilty for not trying harder to protect her. And um, her mother had dementia, so that was a good thing that she never learned what happened to Eunsoon. 


Moon, On the Phone: Hmm.


Ramos: You know, she would ask about her and her daughter would just say that she was busy. And, uh, that was, that was a blessing.


Moon, Narrating: Elaine says most of the family doesn’t like to talk about this anymore. It’s too painful to relive. But Eunsoon is well remembered by her family, often through her pottery.


Ramos: I have a couple of pieces in my garden and a coupla pieces that we used when, one piece that when holidays come I use. And then she made this man. This kind of funny looking man [MAN LAUGHS IN THE BACKGROUND] that I, I have outside. I call her my “Eunsoon Man.”

Man Off Mic: It wasn’t very good!


Ramos: [LAUGHS] It wasn’t… My husband says it wasn’t very good, though!


Moon: It sounds, was she, before all this happened, was she was very um… It sounds like she was very loved.


[MUSIC IN]


Ramos: She was. I mean, there was family issues, but there is with most families, you know?


Moon: Yeah.


Ramos: You have your differences and get mad at your siblings. But in the end, we all love each other.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: The first day of Curtis Kimball’s trial ended with few surprises. Things were going more or less as Motta had planned. But that changed the next morning on the second day of trial. Curtis Kimball stood up and told the judge he wanted to change his plea – to guilty.


Moon: W-when he pled, uh, guilty, did it seem like h-his attorney was caught off – caught by surprise?


Motta: Oh yeah, his attorney, he said, “He’s doing it against –” He said on the record, I’m pretty sure that he said, “This plea is against my advice.”


Moon: How unusual is that?”


Motta: Pretty darned unusual. Nobody ever pleads guilty to murder.


Moon, Narrating: Nobody pleads guilty to murder. But Curtis Kimball did. He willingly accepted a sentence of 15 years to life.


Detective Roxane Gruenheid thinks she might know why. The day before, on the first day of trial, she’d been talking with Prosecutor Joe Motta during the courtroom recess. She was updating Motta on all the things she was finding in Kimball’s past. Kimball, meanwhile, was sitting not too far away at the defendant’s table. Close enough to maybe overhear.


Gruenheid: He wanted me to stop my investigation. Like, he didn’t want me to continue to go down that rabbit hole. And he thought if he pled guilty, maybe I would go away.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Moon, Narrating: But Roxane didn’t go away. Back at her desk, she kept reading through the old police reports of Kimball’s criminal history. The part she found the most puzzling was the charge that had put Kimball behind bars in the late ‘80s: abandoning his own 5-year-old daughter at an RV park. In the files, there were photographs of her.


Gruenheid: They were xerox copies, so they weren’t very clear but she was little! Like, she was a little, little tiny girl, you know what I mean? And there was a fingerprint card, like a, like a booking fingerprint card, but with these little tiny fingerprints on ‘em. You know, like little fingerprints. And footprints! You know? ‘Cause in the hospital, right? They take the baby’s footprint.


Moon, Narrating: Roxane became fixated on this little girl. Her name was listed as Lisa. But actually, Roxane wasn’t so sure about that.


[MUSIC IN]


When Curtis Kimball and “Lisa” were staying at the RV park, he was using the name Gordon Jensen. But Roxane knew that Gordon Jensen was an alias, that it wasn’t his real name. For that matter, she was pretty sure Curtis Kimball was a fake name, too. And this got her wondering, if he’d been lying about his own name to hide his past, maybe he’d been lying about the little girl’s name, too. Maybe, this “Lisa” didn’t know her real name. Maybe she wasn’t even really even his daughter.


Gruenheid: I was sittin’ there at my cubicle and I’m reading all this stuff, and it just – I felt like now that I had, I had not only my homicide case and who this guy was, but then there’s all this backstory to him and who the heck is this guy, really? And who’s that little girl?


Moon, Narrating: Roxane wanted to do a paternity test to know for sure. She had Kimball’s DNA from her homicide investigation. And she learned that detectives investigating Lisa’s abandonment had taken a blood sample from her back in the ‘80s. Roxane convinced the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department to split the blood sample, which they still had, then they FedExed it to her in Contra Costa County. Roxane ordered the paternity test as soon as it arrived.


Gruenheid: And I got the report back that was scientifically definitive, like, this person is not biologically related to this person. And I’m like, “Holy moly!” You know what I mean? Like, “This is crazy right now! Like, there’s like… there’s… San Bernardino has like a, a, like has a, a live, like, like an Elizabeth Smart or like a… Who is she?! She’s not Lisa… I’m like, who is she?!


[MUSIC GROWS LOUDER]


Moon, Narrating: It had taken almost 20 years since Lisa was abandoned for someone to find out that she was a living Jane Doe. That she had a real family and a real name somewhere out there. That she was a missing person.


By ordering that paternity test, Roxane revealed a mystery that was not unlike the one that had mystified police in Bear Brook. Though Lisa was alive, she was just as unidentified as the victims found in those barrels.


It may be hard to see now, but the struggle to find Lisa’s true identity would lead all the way back to Bear Brook State Park. It would also lead to a breakthrough in criminal forensics that is being used right now to solve some of the country’s most notorious cold cases.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: That’s next time on Bear Brook.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Bear Brook is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon. 


Taylor Quimby is Senior Producer.


Editing help from Cori Princell, Todd Bookman, Lauren Chooljian, Sam Evans-Brown, Britta Green, and Annie Ropeik.


The Executive Producer is Erika Janik. 


Dan Barrick is NHPR’s News Director.


Director of Content is Maureen McMurray.


NHPR’s Digital Director is Rebecca Lavoie.


Photography and video by Allie Gutierrez.


Graphics and interactives by Sara Plourde.


Original music for this show was composed by me, Jason Moon, and Taylor Quimby.


Additional music in this episode by: Blue Dot Sessions, Lee Rosevere, Podington Bear, and Daniel Birch.


To see a timeline of the cases mentioned in this episode, go to our website: bearbrookpodcast.org.


Bear Brook is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Transcript of Episode 5: Bloodline (Parts 1 & 2)

[CREEPY TONE, SOUND OF CLOCK TICKING]



Taylor Quimby, Narrating: Previously on Bear Brook…



Detective, On Recording: Do you need another coke?



Larry Vanner, On Recording: No. 



Detective: You alright?



Detective 1, On Recording: Alright, Larry, your prints came back. You know your other name, right?



Detective 2, On Recording: Curtis or Gerald or Gerry or whatever name you’re going by this week.



Detective 1: Curtis Kimball.



Detective 2: Curtis Kimball! Or Gerald, uh, Mocker… What’s the other one?



Detective 1: Mockerman.



Roxane Gruenheid: [ECHO EFFECT] Who the heck is this guy really? And who’s that little girl? [“GIRL” ECHOES]



Larry Vanner, On Recording: Now, I’ve always tried to live by the motto that there’s no defense against the truth. But sometimes it’s hard to find out what the truth is. [ECHO EFFECT] You got one side, the other side, and something down the middle that some people might perceive to be the truth.



[CLOCK TICKING SLOWS, CREEPY, RUMBLY TONES GROW LOUDER]



Jason Moon, Narrating: Most stories like to be told chronologically. This happened, and then this happened, and so on.



But in so many ways this is not your typical story. The narrative arc is more like a four-dimensional  maze, one that bounces around through time and around the country. It’s all connected, but it’s hard to know where to start. The beginning, middle, and end – they all change, depending on where you come in.



All of which is to say: We’re going back to the ‘80s again…



[TONES OUT, 80S MUSIC IN]



Jason Moon, Narrating: …to another beginning of this story. To another mystery, that by the end will lead us back to our beginning... in the woods of Bear Brook State Park.



[80s MUSIC UP AND OUT, THEME MUSIC IN]



Jason Moon, Narrating: This is Bear Brook, I’m Jason Moon.



[THEME MUSIC FADES OUT]



Jason Moon, Narrating: In 1986, a man calling himself Gordon Jensen arrived at an RV park in Scotts Valley, California. He had a 5-year-old girl with him, a girl he said was his daughter. Her name was Lisa.



Gordon Jensen and Lisa lived out of a small truck camper at the RV park, which was called the Holiday Host RV park. The owners called it that because it was on the site of what used to be a weird theme park called Santa’s Village. 



Clip from Santa’s Village Jingle, Kids Singing: You’ll believe, when you see Santa’s Village – Come on! [FADES OUT]



Jason Moon, Narrating: In its heyday, Santa’s Village was 25 acres of Christmas on steroids. There were gingerbread houses, a toy factory, even a refrigerated North Pole that kids could stick their tongues to.



[MACHINE DYING SOUND]



Jason Moon, Narrating: But the theme park went out of business and all that had been left to rot. By the time Gordon Jensen and Lisa arrived, it was like a Christmas ghost town in the woods.



[CREEPY LOW RUMBLING TONE]



Jason Moon, Narrating: Also at the Holiday Host RV park in 1986 was an elderly couple, Richard and Katherine Decker. They were from San Bernardino, California about seven hours south. They were only staying for a few months – Richard had landed a temporary job with the state.



The Deckers became friendly with Gordon Jensen and Lisa. They had a grandson. He and Lisa became playmates. Before long, the Deckers started keeping an eye on Lisa while Gordon Jensen was busy. They grew fond of Lisa, started to really care for her.



Years later, a detective named Peter Headley would tell the Deckers their relationship with Lisa  probably saved her life.



Peter Headley: They did. If they hadn’t been there at that particular time, said the right things, she would not be here today.



Moon, Narrating: Headley works in the Crimes Against Children Detail at the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department. It’s a line of work that he sums up in his characteristically terse way.



Headley: It can be very… difficult.



Moon: What do you mean?



Headley: How do I put that in words?… J-Just seeing the effects on victims can be – it’s tough.



Moon, Narrating: Detective Headley’s understated style strikes me as being at odds with the rest of his life, which involves chasing criminals and his favorite hobby, skydiving.



I should say that Detective Headley would eventually come to play a pivotal role in Lisa’s life and today, he’s one of the only people who is alive and willing to tell this part of the story. But back in 1986, when Gordon Jensen and 5-year old Lisa first came to the Holiday Host, he had nothing to do with it.



In any case, Detective Headley says that back then, the Deckers were becoming concerned about Lisa. They noticed how thin she looked, that she didn’t seem to have any toys. And living out of that tiny truck camper – it was hard living for a 5-year-old.



Gordon Jensen told the Deckers that Lisa’s mother died of cancer when Lisa was just a baby. In fact, Katherine Decker would later tell reporters that he openly cried about it. She says she felt horrible for him. And Gordon Jensen also admitted to the Deckers that he was having a hard time raising Lisa on his own.



[MUSIC IN]



Headley: And they had told him that their daughter had trouble conceiving and she’d like to adopt children and he ended up saying, “Well, here, take her on a trial adoption.”



Moon, Narrating: The idea was that the Deckers would take Lisa to their daughter and her husband down in San Bernardino for a period of three weeks. If things went well, they would come back to the RV park with an attorney and make the adoption legal.



It wasn’t the most well thought-out plan. But Gordon Jensen seemed eager to get Lisa off his hands and the Deckers were confident their daughter could offer Lisa a better life than the one she had. 



[MUSIC POST]



Moon, Narrating: So, they went ahead with it. The Deckers headed south to San Bernardino with their new granddaughter.



Headley: They were just down here a matter of weeks and they realized that something was very wrong and that she had been molested.



[MUSIC POST]



Moon, Narrating: Away from Gordon Jensen and the RV park, Lisa started showing signs of abuse. She started touching the Deckers’ son-in-law inappropriately. And she was beginning to talk about the things Gordon Jensen had done to her.



I don’t know the exact details of the abuse. But one police department would later describe what happened by saying that Lisa was, quote, “severely molested and tortured.”



Getting Gordon Jensen to sign legal adoption papers now seemed more important than ever. But the Deckers soon realized that was no longer an option.



Headley: Uh, they brought her back down here and when they tried to re-contact him, he was gone.



[MUSIC OUT]



Moon, Narrating: Gordon Jensen had vanished from the Holiday Host RV park.



The Deckers didn’t know what to do. But eventually, they decided to turn to the police. In the summer of 1986, they brought Lisa to the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department. Detectives questioned the Deckers and Lisa.



Then, they took Lisa into protective custody. The Deckers had to say goodbye. Even if they had rescued her, had saved her life, she wasn’t legally their child.



Headley: I talked to Mrs. Decker – her husband had passed on. Uh, basically, I told her, “You saved her life.” She did. They did.



[MUSIC IN]



Moon: What – How did she take that when you told her that?



Headley: She was very emotional, um… She had always wondered what had happened to Lisa, and really cared about her. 



Moon: Do, do – As far as you know, have they ever reconnected?



Headley: I have talked to Mrs. Decker and told her what had happened afterwards, and I passed on information to Lisa about Mrs. Decker. I told know if they ever connected or not.



[MUSIC POST]



Moon, Narrating: Lisa went into foster care and was eventually adopted.



Today, she’s married with three children of her own. She has asked for privacy from reporters, but in a statement released through law enforcement, she says she’s living a, quote, “happy and secure life.”



[MUSIC OUT]



Moon, Narrating: Of course, that’s not the end of the story though. Back in 1986, after the Decker’s handed Lisa over to the police, a warrant was issued for Gordon Jensen’s arrest. It was for two charges, child molestation and child abandonment. But when detectives tried to track him down, they quickly hit a dead end. All of the records he left behind at the RV park were fake.



The truck camper he and Lisa had lived out of had a Texas license plate, but it was registered to an address that turned out to be a motel room. The social security number on his job application to work at the RV park was fake. And even the name he’d been using at Holiday Host, Gordon Jensen, was also phony. 



Detectives were able to pull a fingerprint from the RV Park. It came back with a different name.



[MUSIC IN]



Moon, Narrating: Curtis Kimball.



[MUSIC IN]



Moon, Narrating: At first, they thought they had caught a break. Curtis Kimball had an arrest record from a few months before he arrived at the RV park. It was from Cypress, California near LA. Curtis Kimball was pulled over for drunk driving. Lisa was in the car with him at the time.



But that was it. Beyond that one arrest, the name Curtis Kimball didn’t seem to go anywhere. There was no driver’s license or real social security number attached to it. Nothing that could tell detectives where he was from. Peeling back one fake name seemed to lead to another, which left detectives with no idea how to find him.



[MUSIC OUT]



Headley: And it wasn’t until 1988 that those charges were brought up to him.



Moon, Narrating: In 1988, two years after abandoning Lisa, Curtis Kimball was arrested again. But not because police had tracked him down. He was pulled over for driving a stolen car in San Luis Obispo, California, about three hours south of the RV park. At the time, Kimball gave police another phony name. He said he was “Gerald Mockerman.” Again, here’s Detective Peter Headley.



Headley: They got his fingerprints. He was still in custody for the stolen vehicle. So, when the prints came back he was still there. And that’s when they found the previous warrant under the other name Curtis Kimball.



Moon, Narrating: So, in 1988, police had figured out that Curtis Kimball and Gordon Jensen were the same guy. And they had him in jail, facing charges for molesting and abandoning Lisa and for driving a stolen car.



[MUSIC IN]



Moon, Narrating: And this is an important moment in the timeline, because it’s here that detectives came so close to figuring out the truth. So close to establishing the fact that, as we learned in the last episode, Lisa wasn’t actually his daughter. That she had been kidnapped.



In 1989, an investigator working the child abandonment charge told a reporter, quote, “My guess is he picked her up somewhere and was keeping her as a sex slave.” One prosecutor even said he would try to force Curtis Kimball into taking a paternity test to establish their relationship once and for all.



But that paternity test never happened. At least, not all the way. They got as far as taking a blood sample from Lisa, but they never got one from Curtis Kimball.



I’m not exactly sure why that paternity test was never finished. But my best guess is that it was because Curtis Kimball took a plea deal. In 1989, he pled guilty to child abandonment. In return, the child molestation and stolen vehicle charges were dropped.



This is pretty standard, in case you’re wondering. The vast majority of convictions in America – over 90 percent – are the result of plea deals. It helps prosecutors avoid lengthy trials and work through more cases, more quickly. But in this instance, it worked out pretty well for Curtis Kimball, too. By avoiding a trial, he avoided that paternity test and further scrutiny into his past.



Curtis Kimball was sentenced to three years in prison for child abandonment. In 1990, about halfway through his sentence, he was released on parole. He fled almost immediately, and became a fugitive. The next time police had him in custody was in 2003 after he had changed his identity once more, to Larry Vanner, and murdered Eunsoon Jun.



[MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Moon, Narrating: It’s hard not to wonder how things might have gone differently if that paternity test had been finished back in 1989. Prosecutors could’ve charged Curtis Kimball with kidnapping and child abduction, charges which could have put him away for a lot longer than a few years. Maybe most importantly, the investigation into Lisa’s true identity could’ve gotten started right away.



Instead, it wasn’t until 2003, some 14 years later, that the investigation into Lisa’s identity began. And if not for Contra Costa County Detective Roxane Gruenheid, it might never have began. Remember, she was investigating her own case, the murder of Eunsoon Jun, when she first learned about Lisa. And for whatever reason – a hunch, an intuition – she decided to finish that paternity test that detectives had began so many years earlier.



Gruenheid: And I got the report back that was scientifically definitive, like, this person is not biologically related to this person. And I’m like, “Holy moly!” You know what I mean? Like, “This is crazy right now! Like, there’s like… [FADE UNDER]



Moon, Narrating: Once Roxane saw the results of the paternity test, she called the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department. That was the police department where the Deckers had brought Lisa back in the ‘80s, so they had jurisdiction over the case.



But by 2003, the detectives in San Bernardino who first worked on the Lisa case, who had spoken to the Deckers, were gone. The new detectives didn’t know that their predecessors had once openly speculated that Lisa was a sex slave. Roxane says all they knew was the official story that ended up in the case file.



Gruenheid: They had a little girl. Her father hurt her, gave her away to these, this couple. He went to prison. Her mother’s purportedly deceased. She goes to foster care and is adopted. For all intents and purposes, back then, their case was closed. And so, here I am calling from 20 years later going, “Hey, you guys have a – there’s a, you gotta work this! You gotta find out who she is!” And the response at first was like, “We don’t have an open found child case,” and I’m like, “Yeah, you do!”



[MUSIC IN]



Moon, Narrating: Remember, at this point, Kimball was serving 15 years for the murder of Eunsoon Jun. So, once Roxane convinced police in San Bernardino to reopen the Lisa case, she decided to have one more conversation with Curtis Kimball. She went to the Pleasant Valley state prison in Coalinga, California, and asked him point blank, “Where did Lisa come from? Where were her real parents?”



Gruenheid: He knew exactly what he was doing and basically, he was just playing us. He was saying stuff like, “They said I had a daughter back in the day, but, you know, I don’t remember. You know, they said I gave her away, you know, but I can’t imagine I would’ve done that, but, you know, but I’m an alcoholic and I drank a lot and I don’t have any mem– my memory’s shot.” And I, you know, I was just thinking, “You’re lyin’ your, your left foot off right now,” you know what I mean?



[MUSIC POST]



Moon, Narrating: Roxane didn’t get anything useful out of Curtis Kimball. And no one ever will.



That’s because In 2010, Curtis Kimball died at the High Desert State Prison in Northern California. 



[MUSIC POST]



Moon, Narrating: According to his death certificate, the cause of death was a mix of pulmonary emphysema, pneumonia, and lung cancer.



His body was cremated. His ashes were thrown into the ocean off the coast of Santa Cruz.



Curtis Kimball had no visitors while he was in prison. Not even a single phone call. He never tried to make a deal with prosecutors with the information he had. He never bragged about it to other inmates. As far as we can tell, he never told anyone the truth about his life.



Whatever he knew about who Lisa really was or what happened to her mother, he kept it all inside. And when he died, it was gone.



[MUSIC UP AND OUT]



Moon, Narrating: In 2003, when the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department opened a new investigation aimed at finding her true identity, Lisa was 22 years old.



But that investigation quickly went nowhere, for all the same reasons the Bear Brook investigation did. No identity of the victim, nowhere to begin.



And for 10 years, there was little movement on the case. Then in 2013, when Lisa was 32 years old, Detective Peter Headley took over the case. He’s the understated skydiving detective we heard from earlier.



When Detective Headley took over, the road to solving the case was as steep as ever. Nearly everything Curtis Kimball had said to anyone was a lie. And Lisa was so young when she was abandoned that she couldn’t offer much help to detectives.



Meanwhile, Lisa’s identity wasn’t the only mystery detectives were trying to look into. When the case was reopened, detectives had looked back over the story of Lisa’s abandonment with the knowledge that Curtis Kimball was capable of murder. Under this new light, new questions arose. Like, where was Lisa’s mother? Had Curtis Kimball killed her?



And there was also a story that 5-year-old Lisa had told detectives back in the ‘80s when the Deckers brought her in. A story that in retrospect, seemed much more ominous than it had when Lisa was a child.



Headley: When she was first recovered she was asked about other siblings. And she had said that she did have other siblings, but they had died while they were out camping from eating, quote unquote, “grass mushrooms.”



[OMINOUS TONES IN]



Moon: Hrm. When you hear that story from Lisa as a child about the mushrooms, what do you, what do you hear as an investigator when you hear that?



Headley: There’s more victims.



[OMINOUS TONES OUT, MUSIC IN]



Moon, Narrating: So, not only were they searching for Lisa’s identity, but for evidence of other potential murders.



Detective Headley started his work on the case by doing pretty much the same thing his predecessors had, trying to find a missing persons report from somewhere around the country that matched Lisa. Anyone who fit the right age range, who could’ve possibly been in the path of Curtis Kimball before he pops up in California in the mid ‘80s.



Detective Headley found a handful of missing toddler cases from around the country that might be matches. He reached out to the families of the missing children and asked for DNA samples to compare against Lisa. One by one, he ruled them all out.



[MUSIC POST]



Moon, Narrating: Detective Headley wondered if maybe the problem was that Lisa had been abducted somewhere outside the U.S. and that’s why she wasn’t showing up in a missing persons report. One of the stories Curtis Kimball had told about Lisa’s mother was that she was a nurse from Canada. Maybe there was some truth in there. So, Detective Headley reached out to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who told him they had a case of a missing toddler that might match. Again, Headley tracked down a family member, got a DNA test, and ruled it out.



Detective Headley tried switching tacks and turned his focus to Lisa’s mother. At different times, Kimball had told people her name was either Donna or Denise. Headley pored over thousands of records of Canadian nursing licensing boards looking for either of those names. But again, nothing.



[MUSIC OUT]



Moon, Narrating: Detective Headley tried switching focus again, this time to Curtis Kimball. With him at least there was some sort of paper trail, even if it was full of aliases and fake social security numbers. Detective Headley thought if he could just find one kernel of truth in there, it might eventually lead back to the real Curtis Kimball. His best lead was a set of phone records.



Headley: He had made some phone calls from the RV park where he abandoned Lisa. One of them was to an RV park in Texas. And I actually found the previous owner of that RV park and he had kept all the records for the park, all the people that had stayed there. And I figured if he made a phone call there, somebody there knew him, and that was a piece farther back in time to track him.



Moon, Narrating: This could be big. If Detective Headley could find somebody who knew Curtis Kimball before he arrived in California, maybe they would know something about where he was from and who he was with.



The former owner of that Texas RV park told Detective Headley he had sold the park to the company Kampgrounds of America. Detective Headley reached out to the company, only to learn that after they bought the RV park, they had thrown away all the records from the previous owner.



Headley: So, it’s been a very frustrating case, when you’re going back in time on a cold case, cause records are gone, people are deceased, and just can’t remember.



Moon: Yeah, that must’ve been a rough day, when they told you they’d thrown all those records away.



Headley: I thought I had it. It was a step further back in time and then, yeah, it was a big letdown.



Moon, Narrating: Throughout all these frustrating dead ends, Detective Headley had been in touch with Lisa.



Headley: Ya know, she’s – I have talked to her numerous times during this investigation and she really wanted to know who she was.



Moon, Narrating: It was during one of these conversations, in 2014, that Lisa offered up a new suggestion to Detective Headley. Why not try one of those genealogy websites, like 23andMe or Ancestry.com? One of those sites where you send in a DNA sample, and they tell you where your ancestors came from, and connect you with long lost relatives.



At first, Detective Headley dismissed the idea. Genealogy websites probably seemed a little amateurish to him. Something meant for hobbyists and retirees. They had never been used in a criminal investigation, the way Lisa was suggesting.



Headley: And then, one day, I was just talking to Lisa again and I had made her a promise that I wasn’t going to give up, that I was gonna keep tryin’. And she brought up, again, the genealogy sites. And I said, “Alright, let’s try it.” And we put her on several different sites and we started getting a hit of a fourth cousin, a fifth cousin. I’m like, “This might just work.”



[MUSIC IN]



Moon, Narrating: Lisa and detective Headley didn’t know it yet, but what they were doing would soon change the face of forensic investigations. It was the beginnings of an investigative technique that would solve not only the mystery of Lisa’s identity, but also cases from all around the country, some of which had baffled police for decades.



[MUSIC UP AND OUT]



Moon, Narrating: To understand how Lisa’s suggestion led to all that, you need a brief overview of the ways police use DNA testing in criminal investigations.



Clip from “Jurassic Park,” DNA Explainer Video: “Oh! Ah! Mr. DNA! Where did you come from?” “From your blood!” [FADE DOWN]



Moon, Narrating: And just know that we’re going to explore some of this in greater detail in the next episode, so for now, we’re just going over the basics.



Clip from “Jurassic Park,” DNA Explainer Video: “A DNA Strand like me is a blueprint for building a living thing!”



Moon, Narrating: Let’s start with the kind of DNA test that you’re probably most familiar with. The kind you see in TV cop shows all the time. Police have a DNA sample from a crime scene, they run it through a database to see if they find a match.



TV Clip, Computer Voice: Processing. [DRAMATIC MUSIC]



Moon, Narrating: This type of standard DNA matching test landed its first conviction in 1987 and it’s been a mainstay of criminal investigations, and TV shows, ever since.



TV Clip, Computer Voice: DNA Match.



Moon, Narrating: Then, there are paternity and maternity tests. Pretty straightforward. Investigators have two samples. They want to know if they are related. This kind of test is also on TV a lot. 



The Maury Show Clip, Maury Povitch: When it comes to 1-year-old Isaiah... Jay, you are NOT the father! [AUDIENCE SCREAMS]



Moon, Narrating: This is the type of DNA testing that told us that the three of the four Bear Brook victims are maternally related.



Then, there’s one other kind of DNA test that some police departments have at their disposal. 



[MUSIC IN]



Moon, Narrating: It’s called familial DNA testing. This kind of testing searches a police DNA database for near misses instead of exact matches. The basic idea is that if police don’t find a match for a suspect’s DNA in the database, a familial search might find someone related to the suspect, who is in the database. Generally speaking, familial testing can detect relatives only as far as the immediate family.



And that’s pretty much it for law enforcement. 



[MUSIC UP AND OUT]



But over the last 10 years or so, a newer and more advanced kind of DNA test has been developed and honed by people outside of law enforcement. This new test comes from a world with its own separate interest in DNA testing – genealogy.



Genealogists study family lineages by researching ancestors and descendents, and building out broad family trees. And they were quick to realize the potential for DNA testing in their work. 



Clip from 23andMe Ad: [COMMERCIAL MUSIC] 23andMe is reinventing the way you look at your ancestors using the science of genetics, your DNA. With just a small saliva sample… [FADE DOWN]



[MUSIC IN]



Moon, Narrating: Commercial DNA testing turned out to be a huge hit. Today, as many as 12 million people have sent their DNA in to a genealogy website, according to an industry estimate.



Clip, Woman 1: Oh wooow, this is crazy!



Clip, Woman 2: You are 19.9 percent Japanese.



Clip, Woman 1: Did not guess any of this.



Moon, Narrating: At first, the kinds of DNA tests genealogists were using were the same ones police had. Paternity and maternity tests to trace those lines of a family tree.



But, over time, the commercial DNA tests grew more advanced as companies like Ancestry.com and 23andMe competed with each other to squeeze more and more information out of each DNA sample. 



[MUSIC POST]



Moon, Narrating: Before long, the commercial databases made a big breakthrough.



Clip from 23andMe Explainer, Man with British Accent: Using Relative Finder to compare his DNA with other 23andMe members, George found out that Renee could be his fifth cousin. [FADE OUT]



Moon, Narrating: What 23andMe calls “Relative Finder” is a new kind of DNA test called an autosomal DNA test.



It works on the same principle as the familial DNA testing that some police departments use -- it searches a DNA database for relatives instead of exact matches. But the big difference is that autosomal DNA tests are much, much more sensitive.



[MUSIC IN]



When police run a familial DNA test they are usually examining 20 different genetic markers to see how well two samples match. Think of it like a low-resolution photograph. It’s why familial testing can only detect close family members.



By contrast, the autosomal DNA tests being offered by genealogy companies today examine more than 700,000 markers on each DNA sample. With this high resolution test, genealogists can detect relatives as distant as fourth, or even fifth cousins.



Speaking of cousins, you have a lot more of them than you probably realize. Let’s assume you have a really simple family tree where each set of parents has just two or three kids. In that scenario, you have 4,700 fifth cousins. 



Clip from 23andMe Explainer, Man with British Accent: You can discover ancestors from all branches of your family tree. You never know who you might find! [ECHO EFFECT]



[MUSIC UP AND OUT]



Moon, Narrating: This is where things were at in 2013 when Lisa suggested a genealogy website as a way to find her family.



Headley: And we started getting a hit of a fourth cousin, a fifth cousin. I’m like, “This might just work.”



Moon, Narrating: The matches were a starting point. The first blood relatives Lisa had ever known about. But they were distant relatives, people so far removed, that they didn’t know anything about her parents, or or what her real name might be. Think about it. Do you know any of your fifth cousins? Do you know the names of your great, great, great, great grandparents?



[MUSIC IN]



Moon, Narrating: To go from these distant relatives to finding Lisa’s immediate family, Detective Headley would have to climb all the way up the family tree find the common ancestor between Lisa and her fifth cousin, and then travel back down the tree, search through all the connected generations, and every branch, looking for the one that Lisa belongs to. It’s like trying to find out where one particular leaf grew on a tree, after that tree has been cut into pieces and piled in a heap.



To do this, you need more than just a match in a database. You need to be well schooled in the ways of traditional genealogy – birth and death records, wedding announcements, obituaries, social media. Detective Headley realized he was gonna need some help. 



[MUSIC OUT]



Moon, Narrating: Headley reached out to a non-profit called DNAAdoption.com which had been using genealogy for years to help adoptees find their biological parents, which is how he met this woman.



Barbara Rae-Venter: I’m Barbara Rae-Venter and I’m a genetic genealogist and search angel.



Moon, Narrating: That’s genetic genealogist and “search angel.” Barbara is originally from New Zealand, though she now lives in California. She picked up genealogy as a hobby in retirement, like so many others do. She put her own DNA online in 2012 and found a cousin from the U.K. she’d never met before. The cousin was a 70-year-old man who told Barbara he had just learned from his DNA test that the man he’d always thought was his father wasn’t.



Rae-Venter: I had no idea how to help him. And so what I did is, I went online and found an online course that was offered by DNA Adoption and I took that class. Um, and that’s actually the technique that I use for all of the work that I’m doing now.



Moon, Narrating: From one online class, Barbara quickly rose to become an expert in the field. Her PhD in biochemistry, which she has in addition to her law degree, may have helped. Barbara started volunteering with DNAAdoption.com and before long, she was teaching that class she took, along with other duties like answering all the emails that came in to the website.



Rae-Venter: And so back in March of 2015, there was a webmail that came in from Peter. 



[MUSIC IN]



Moon, Narrating: And he basically asked the question: is the technique that you are teaching to adoptees to find their birth relatives, could that be used to identify somebody who didn’t know either who she was or where she was from?



Peter Headley: And she said, “Yes, but since you don’t have any geographical information, it’s going to be a lot harder.” Usually with an adoptee, they’ll know that they were from this state or this area just from where they were adopted. And with Lisa, we had nothing.



[MUSIC POST]



Moon, Narrating: The task was daunting. It would be a real test of what genetic genealogy was capable of. But Detective Headley was out of options and Barbara enjoys a good challenge. So, they dove in. And together, they formed a new kind of investigative team. Part civilian, part law enforcement. Part cutting edge genetic genealogy, part oldschool detective work. A soft spoken genealogist and an understated detective. They were made for each other, really.



Rae-Venter: First step is you’re building these trees. 



Headley: As she followed the family trees down, I would contact the living folk.



Rae-Venter: Because you know if these folks are sharing DNA, that person has to be a descendant of that common ancestor.



Headley: Call them up and say, “You’re related to our victim. Will you test?’”



[MUSIC UP AND OUT]



Moon, Narrating: “Will you test?” Asking that question became a big part of detective Headley’s job during the search. As Barbara followed out the family trees of Lisa’s fifth cousins with traditional genealogy, she would run into what genealogists call a “brick wall.” 



[MUSIC IN]



Moon, Narrating: Basically, a dead end in the records. Whenever that happened, Detective Headley would try to get those people nearest the brick wall on the tree to take a DNA test with one of the genealogy sites. The new matches from those people would help Barbara get around the brick wall and continue building out Lisa’s family tree. But just getting those tests proved to be a big challenge.



Headley: It was difficult. People would think it was a scam. There was some people that just flat – “No way.” I changed my approach as I went, depending on the feedback I was getting. And I ended up telling people, “Please contact your local department and have them verify me.”



Moon, Narrating: Earning people’s trust was one challenge. Another hurdle was the sheer size of the family tree they were dealing with. 



Rae-Venter: Well, there were actually two trees. So, there was a maternal tree and that one ended up being something like 18,000 people in it.



Moon, Narrating: Add that to the other side of the family tree and that makes 25,000 relatives to sift through. Twenty. Five. Thousand. 



Rae-Venter: Um, I mean, basically, I would get up in the morning, I would start working on it and I would work on it all day until late into the night. Uh, I was just determined that I was going to figure this one out.



Moon: Hrm. Why do you think you were so driven to work like that on this case?



Rae-Venter: Oh, I do that with everything. [BOTH LAUGH] I guess I’m a little obsessive.



[MUSIC UP AND OUT]



Moon, Narrating: Barbara wasn’t paid for any of this, by the way. To her, the project was just like any of the dozens of adoption searches she had done using the same basic technique.



Rae-Venter: Although, of course, there was, in the back of everybody’s minds, that Lisa’s parents may not be alive, and she may have been killed at the time that Lisa was abducted. We weren’t really sure what we were going to find. So, there was sort of that lurking in the background.



Moon, Narrating: Barbara didn’t do all of this work alone, though. She had help from volunteers at her local genealogy society. And she also picked up new volunteers along the way from an unexpected source. From Lisa’s extended family. As Lisa’s family trees grew, some of her newfound cousins offered to help Barbara with the project.



Rae-Venter: So, we probably had over 100 people who were actually helping build trees and do research and brainstorm and so on.



Moon, Narrating: It took a little more than a year, and what they estimate was about 10,000 hours of work, but in the summer of 2016, Barbara Rae-Venter and her army of volunteers did it. They narrowed down the genealogical possibilities of who Lisa’s mother was to just one person. Barbara immediately called and left a message with Detective Headley.



Rae-Venter: And he called me back a couple of hours later and he said, “Mm – No such person, she doesn’t exist.” And so, we, we knew that she did exist because we had her grandmother’s obituary and we had her brother’s obituary and so, of course, immediately, Pete figures out what it is. Unfortunately, it meant that she was probably deceased.



[MUSIC IN]



Moon, Narrating: The police databases detective Headley was looking at are made up of things like DMV and voting records. So, if a person hasn’t been driving or voting in a long time, they’re not likely to show up.



Detective Headley contacted the closest living relatives of Lisa’s mother that he could find. And for the first time, he spoke with someone who could remember Lisa herself.



Headley: I was talking to one of her relatives and they remembered her mother and her moving away and they never heard from them again. That’s when the pieces fell together. And it, it felt great.



Moon: What was, what was their reaction? Were they happy to hear that there was some information about that, uh, about that baby in the family that had sort of gone missing?



Headley: Actually, when I explained the circumstances she was very shocked. And horrified.



[MUSIC POST]



Moon, Narrating: Thirty years after she was abandoned at the Holiday Host RV park, Detective Peter Headley called Lisa to tell her her real name.



Headley: Just being able to tell Lisa who she is, that was tremendous. That, that was tremendous satisfaction. It was very– It made it all worth it.



Her name was Dawn. Dawn Beaudin. She was from New Hampshire.



[MUSIC OUT, NEW MUSIC IN]



Moon, Narrating: That’s the end of part one of this episode of Bear Brook.



If you want to keep going, part two is available in your feed right now.



[MUSIC UP AND OUT]




Taylor Quimby, Narrating: This is part two of Bear Brook, Episode Five – Bloodlines. If you missed the first part, go back to your feed and listen to it now.


Jason Moon, Narrating: In January of 2017, something happened that, to be honest, I didn’t think ever would.


I was sitting in the New Hampshire Public Radio newsroom when I got an email from the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office, announcing that there would be a press conference – the next day – to discuss new information in the Bear Brook case. The email cryptically mentioned something about a missing persons case from New Hampshire, a murder case from California, and how they were both connected to the Bear Brook murders.


At that point, in 2017, I’d been working on a story about the Bear Brook murders for about a year-and-a-half. All I knew was one child not related and the results of the isotope testing. The names Eunsoon Jun and Lisa didn’t mean anything to me yet.


As far as I could tell, the Bear Brook investigation didn’t really seem to be going anywhere. I figured, whether I finished my story in a month or in six months, the facts of the case probably would be the same. 


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Then, I got this email.


The press conference was scheduled to take place in an auditorium at the New Hampshire DMV office. I think it was the largest space for a press conference that they could come up with. A sign that they were expecting a lot of reporters. In other words, that this was something big.


[MUSIC POST, AMBIENT ROOM SOUND IN, PEOPLE TALKING SOFTLY]


Moon, Narrating: The morning of the press conference, I arrived early and found maybe 40 people already there. Reporters and cops milling about, talking in low voices. Close to a dozen TV cameras lined the back of the room, which felt a lot like a high school auditorium.


I scanned the crowd for faces I knew. There was retired trooper John Cody, who found the second barrel speaking with a handful of other police officers. And sitting about five rows back from the stage, I spotted Ronda Randall and her brother, Scott Maxwell. The amateur investigators who had invested so much of themselves in the case.


[MUSIC FADES OUT]


Ronda Randall: [SOUND OF MIC JOSTLING] I’m mostly just curious. You know, I don’t even know how to feel about it ‘cause I don’t know what the information is, so, um…


Moon, Off Mic: How, wha–, how, how early did you guys have to wake up to drive down here?


Randall: Well, actually, we came, I came down from Maine last night and slept in Manchester so I could be here good and early, but, you know, pretty hopeful that this is it and… yeah. [LAUGHS]


Moon, Off Mic: I’m nervous. I would imagine you guys must be nervous.


Randall, Laughing: Yeah.


Scott Maxwell: That’s one word for it. 


Randall, Laughing: Yeah.


[ROOM SOUND, TALKING FADES DOWN]


Jeff Strelzin: We’re going to start our presentation by going through a Powerpoint this morning… 


Moon, Narrating: From up on the auditorium stage, Jeff Strelzin, a prosecutor with the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, began the press conference.


Strelzin: We’re here today because in almost every homicide case that we work on, probably the most important starting point that we have is the identity of the victim or the victims. It’s that information that usually leads you to the killer. In the case involving the four murder victims in Allenstown, we believe we’ve identified their killer.


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Over the next hour and a half, investigators laid out four stories.


The Bear Brook murders in Allenstown, New Hampshire.


The murder of Eunsoon Jun in Richmond, California.


The abandonment of 5-year-old Lisa in Scotts Valley, California.


And the last story, the one that would tie them all together. The disappearance of a woman named Denise Beaudin from Manchester, New Hampshire.


Denise was Lisa’s mother. She was last seen in 1981 with Curtis Kimball,  though she knew him by a different name – Bob Evans.


Strelzin: This man Bob Evans is not only connected to Denise Beaudin’s disappearance and the California murder of Eunsoon Jun, he’s also connected to the four Allenstown murder victims. Through DNA testing, we’ve determined that this man, this killer, Bob Evans, is the father of the middle child victim in Allenstown. This young girl. He is not the father or related to the other victims, but he is in fact the father of this middle child victim.


Moon, Narrating: The middle child. The 3-year-old girl who wasn’t related to the other victims. Whose isotope results showed she had lived the majority of her life in a different climate. She was the daughter of Bob Evans. Of Curtis Kimball. Of the man police now believe killed all four of the Bear Brook victims.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: So, how, after so many years, did police finally figure it all out? 


A few weeks after that big press conference, I met with Prosecutor Jeff Strelzin and a New Hampshire state police detective named Mike Kokoski to talk about how all the pieces finally came together.


Strelzin has been with the New Hampshire AG’s office since 2001. He’s handled some of the more high-profile murder cases in the state over the last 15 years. Remember the Danny Paquette case that pulled resources away from the Bear Brook investigation? Strelzin prosecuted the murderer after the case was reopened.


Strelzin is slender, with dark, close-cropped hair and facial features that make it hard to guess his age. He told me he first learned about the Bear Brook murders as he was getting ready to leave the office one day to go mountain biking. A colleague asked him where he liked to ride. He said Bear Brook State Park.


Strelzin: And she said, “Oh, be on the lookout for some barrels with bodies in them.” And I’m like, “What are you talkin’ about?” And she told me the, she told me the story. I’d never heard it before. Ever. And I’d lived in New Hampshire my whole life.


Moon, Narrating: The breakthrough in the Bear Brook case ultimately came from forensics. From the genetic genealogy work that Barbara Rae-Venter and Detective Peter Headley had done on the Lisa case. In 2016, when they found out that Lisa’s mother, Denise Beaudin, was from New Hampshire, they contacted New Hampshire State Police.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: New Hampshire detectives then interviewed some of Denise Beaudin’s relatives, the ones Barbara Rae-Venter had found with genetic genealogy. One of them was Denise Beaudin’s grandfather. He said he had last seen Denise on Thanksgiving in 1981 in Manchester, New Hampshire.


She was 23 at the time. She had a 6-month-old daughter – that’s Dawn/Lisa – and an older boyfriend named Bob Evans. But when detectives showed the grandfather a mugshot of Curtis Kimball, he recognized him as Bob Evans.


No one in Denise Beaudin’s family ever saw her again after that Thanksgiving. But despite that, they’d never reported her missing to police.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: After Lisa was connected to New Hampshire in 2016, a missing persons case on Denise Beaudin was finally opened, more than 30 years after she disappeared.


In January of 2017, police went to the house where Denise Beaudin and Bob Evans had lived together in Manchester. With the murder of Eunsoon Jun in mind, they did a thorough search of the basement.


[MUSIC FADES OUT, TV NEWS MUSIC FADES IN]


WMUR TV Clip, Male Anchor: Good Afternoon, everybody. Thanks for joining us here on the web. Manchester police along with state police are searching a home on Hayward Street in relation to a woman who was last seen decades ago. It was just last month, December 28th, that investigators announced a new investigation in the search for Denise Beaudin. She has not been seen or heard from since 1981, but no one ever filed a missing persons report, so the search is less than a month old. Investigators say… [FADES OUT]


[TONE IN]


Moon, Narrating: Police didn’t find Denise Beaudin’s body in the basement. That might sound like good news, but really it was a disappointment, because now it’s unlikely police will ever find her remains.


Strelzin: Ya know, we’re confident that he killed Denise at some point. The question is where. Did he arrive in California with her or not? But we know he arrived out there with Lisa.


WMUR TV Clip, Male Anchor: [FADES BACK IN] Police say this probe into the Hayward Street house could last for days. A delay in the case against the man stealing two vehicles and leading police… [FADES OUT]


[TONES IN]


Moon, Narrating: We may never know exactly what happened to Denise. But her story does tell us something about the Bear Brook case that’s been bothering me ever since I first learned about it. A question that’s bothered a lot of people.


John Cody: [SOFT, WITH ECHO EFFECT] How does an entire family just go missing?


Ronda Randall: [SOFT, WITH ECHO EFFECT] What grandmother let this happen, or what neighbor, or what bus driver or, you know, I mean, where were all of you, you know?


Strelzin: How is it four people could go missing? And we say, well, Denise Beaudin did. I know for me, I think I’ve come to realize yup, people can go missing and nobody says a word, and Denise Beaudin is living proof that that can happen.


Moon, Narrating: People go missing and nobody says a word. It seems crazy until you think about it. A lot of people have a sibling, or cousin, or great-uncle that hasn’t been heard from in years. Families can become estranged. Friends can lose touch – especially in a world before Facebook, before email, before cell phones.


So, if you, like me, couldn’t help but ask… Why didn’t Denise Boudin’s family report her missing? The answer is, it’s complicated. 


Strelzin: She’d had a child. She wasn’t married. Um, I think her life had gone off in a little bit of a different direction than her parents expected. I think the fairest way to say it is that, there, there, there are different dynamics in families, and there was a dynamic with this family, and because of that dynamic, they never officially reported her as missing.


[TONES FADE OUT]


Moon, Narrating: I wasn’t able to find any of Denise Beaudin’s family in New Hampshire who would talk to me. Maybe that had something to do with those “family dynamics” Prosecutor Jeff Strelzin told me about. Or maybe they just didn’t want to talk. I don’t know.


But when I heard Strelzin obliquely describe Denise Beaudin’s strained relationship with her family, I couldn’t help but think of Eunsoon Jun and her family. How Bob Evans, living then as Larry Vanner, managed to drive a wedge between Eunsoon and her cousin, Elaine Ramos. How he wrote fake emails pretending to be Eunsoon.


[TONE IN]


Moon, Narrating: It’s a tactic employed by many abusers, to isolate and estrange the victim from the people who might help them. To cut them off from the outside world so the abuse seems more normal.


Bob Evans excelled at this in part, because he was somehow able to present dramatically different personas depending on what he wanted from a situation.


To most people who met him, Evans was… repellant. He looked dirty, even threatening. So, they kept their distance. But to the people he targeted, who he wanted to bring in close, Evans had another side, a side with sparkling blue eyes that spun gripping tales about his life history, who could summon tears about the woman he had murdered, whose child he kept captive.


San Bernardino Detective Peter Headley called Bob Evan an incredibly good conman. New Hampshire Prosecutor Jeff Strelzin has another name for him.


The Chameleon.


Strelzin: I said Chameleon just in the, the way he’s able to adopt different – the names and kinda conform himself around the people he’s with to ingratiate himself around those people. I mean, this is a guy who was able to pick his targets, uh, and, and get what he wanted and that says that that is someone of terrifying intelligence.


[TONE UP]


Larry Vanner: [SOFT, WITH ECHO EFFECT] I’ve always tried to live by the motto that there’s no defense against the truth. But sometimes it’s hard to find out what the truth is.


[TONE FADES OUT]


Moon, Narrating: By this point, investigators had connected three of the four mysteries with each other. Eunsoon Jun’s murder, the identity of Lisa, and the disappearance and presumed murder of Denise Beaudin. But as far as investigators knew, the Bear Brook case was still completely unrelated to the other three.


Then a case manager at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Virginia noticed something. NCMEC had been involved with the Lisa case. And as they learned that Lisa had been taken from New Hampshire, the case manager looked at a map. Manchester, where Denise Beaudin was last seen, was only about 25 minutes from Bear Brook State Park, and another case that NCMEC had worked on. The case manager checked the dates again. Denise went missing in 1981. The first barrel was discovered in 1985.


At first, they thought Denise Beaudin might be the adult victim from the first barrel. But after that test came back negative, they ran another test using the DNA of Bob Evans.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: This is when everything finally came together – when they figured out that the middle child victim was Bob Evan’s daughter, and eventually concluded that Bob Evans had been behind the Bear Brook murders. 


By the time this DNA test came back, Bob Evans had been dead for seven years, so investigators will never be able to question him about the Bear Brook case. But the evidence connecting him to the Bear Brook murders goes beyond his relationship to one of the victims.


Bob Evans arrived in New Hampshire in the late ‘70s. He got a job as an electrician helping to shut down one of the old mill buildings in downtown Manchester, removing electrical equipment and cleaning out old debris.


He worked on that job with a man named Ed Gallagher. Remember him? He’s the owner of the property where the Bear Brook camp store used to be in Allenstown. The property where the barrels were found. 


Randall: [SOFT, WITH ECHO EFFECT] So, right over there, this dip is where the foundation of the store was and where… [FADE OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Investigators learned that Gallagher had allowed for some of the waste from the mill, including old barrels, to be dumped on his property in Allenstown. 


Strelzin: [SOFT, WITH ECHO EFFECT] We know the barrels were brought from one, one back to the property and we think that’s likely where… [FADE OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Gallagher also hired Bob Evans to do some electrical work at the Bear Brook store. So, there’s a direct link between Bob Evans and the site where the bodies were dumped. He knew that area. He knew Allenstown.


Kevin Morgan: [SOFT, WITH ECHO EFFECT] …That must have been familiar with the area. 


Ann Morgan: [SOFT, WITH ECHO EFFECT] …That must have been, have been there before…


Kevin Morgan: [SOFT, WITH ECHO EFFECT] …Had lived in the park at one time… [FADE OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Then, there’s the fact that the cause of death in the Bear Brook murders was the same as in Eunsoon’s.


Benjamin Agati: [SOFT, WITH ECHO EFFECT] Uh, blunt force trauma to the head…


Strelzin: [SOFT, WITH ECHO EFFECT] …Blunt force trauma… [FADE OUT]


Moon, Narrating: And perhaps the most chilling detail linking Evans to the crime scene is that the plastic bags the victims were wrapped in were tied up with electrical wire.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: This was the story laid out at that press conference in 2017. That finally, after all these years, we had learned who was behind the Bear Brook murders. That he was a chameleon, a serial killer likely responsible for at least six murders: Eunsoon Jun, Denise Beaudin, and the four victims found inside the barrels.


Stelzin, At Press Conference: Thank you all for coming today. Again, there are written materials out back in a disk. Uh, If you have any questions, you have my contact information… [FADE OUT]


Moon, Narrating: It was a huge break in the case. But it wasn’t everything. Ronda Randall, the amateur investigator who had been on the case for years, remembers how she felt that day.


Randall: You know, we went to that press conference and even though it was tremendously exciting to hear the backstory and get an ID, I, I have to tell you, I walked out of that press conference kind of feeling kicked in the stomach that we still didn’t know who they were. It was fascinating about Lisa, um... and to know his other, his other life, but to still not know who they were and know so much was difficult.


Moon, Narrating: After everything – decades of work by half a dozen law enforcement agencies, cutting edge isotope testing, and a revolutionary new genetic genealogy technique – the only new information we have about the Bear Brook victims is that one of them was the daughter of a serial killer. We still don’t know who they are.


[FADE UP OUTSIDE SOUNDS]


Randall, At Vigil: We have some flowers here for each of the victims. Um, we’ll start with the ones… [FADE OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Ronda isn’t alone in trying to keep the focus on the victims. In November of 2017, several months after that press conference, on the 32nd anniversary of the discovery of the first barrel, Ronda and about a dozen others held a vigil at the cemetery in Allenstown where the first two victims were once buried. Their bodies were still being held by authorities, so we were standing over an empty grave. It was on a night that a cold front swept in. It was barely 20 degrees – colder when the wind blew.


Randall, At Vigil : [FADE UP] We didn’t have anything big or fancy planned for tonight. We just really wanted to be here to honor their memory, to think about them, to…


Moon, Narrating: A few work lights were aimed at the headstone and several people in the group held candles, but otherwise, it was pitch black that night. It was hard to make out the faces of the people gathered in a half circle around the gravesite.


Ronda said a few words, thanking people for coming out. She played a Billy Joel song on a small boombox that she said always reminded her of the young girl victims.


[“LULLABYE” BY BILLY JOEL PLAYS ON BOOMBOX]


Moon, Narrating:  There was no agenda for this meeting. It was a little awkward. There were times when no one knew quite what to say. But it was earnest. During one moment of silence, a voice from somewhere in the group asked if it was ok to pray.


Woman At Vigil: Father in heaven, we ask you to please, please shed some light on this story. These girls deserve to have their identities known. There are people out there, there has to be somebody out there that loved them. Somebody out there that wonders, “Whatever happened to my girls?” Please, Father in heaven, you are the one who can put the power to… [FADE UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: Fifteen minutes in, we were all shivering from the cold and the group decided it was time to go. As the gathering broke up, I turned to the man who’d been standing next to me in the circle.


Moon, At Vigil: Could I get your name?


Paul Chevrette, At Vigil: Paul Chevrette.”


Moon: You live in Allenstown?


Chevrette: I did. I lived, um… In the late ‘70s I lived about 300 yards from where the first barrel was found.


Moon: No kidding. In Bear Brook Gardens?


Chevrette: Yes. And then, in 2000, when the second one was found, I lived about a quarter mile up the road in a farmhouse. [CLEARS THROAT]


Moon: I can’t imagine what that must’ve felt like, to be so close.


Chevrette: Well, yeah, ‘cause we all played – As early teenagers, we all played in the woods there. And we never saw anything. To know that they were there, it was kind of… unsettling.


Woman: Want me to take your candle or…?


Chevrette: No, you can have it.


Moon: Why is it important enough, um, for you to come back here and be at this vigil?


Chevrette: Um… I have four daughters and three step-daughters and I couldn’t imagine a day without any of ‘em. And here we have this woman and these three children and nobody knows who they are. You know, and it’s just, like I said, unsettling. You know… a small town. Back in the day, everybody knew everybody, everybody what everybody was doing. When this happened, it was a shock. 


[OUTSIDE SOUNDS FADE OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Everybody knew everybody in Allenstown. It made me think of all the theories that people had about the case. How those theories either seemed to hinge on the idea that the crime was so heinous it couldn’t possibly have been someone from Allenstown. Or that because of where the barrels were dumped, it had to be someone local. And in the end, it was kind of both. 


Bob Evans only arrived in New Hampshire in the late ‘70s as far as investigators can tell, and in so many ways, he was an outsider – using a fake name, a fake history, and disappearing a few years after he arrived. But on the other hand, he knew people in Allenstown. He worked at the convenience store a short walk from where the barrels were found. Remember when Ann Morgan, who lived in the trailer park, talked about two worlds? 


[MUSIC IN]


Ann Morgan: [SOFT] Ya know, there was this evil world going on that we had no idea about, and there was this good, wholesome world… [FADE OUT]


Moon, Narrating: The one before and the one after the first barrel was found. Bob Evans lived in both.


As it turns out, he lived in a lot of other worlds, too. In places like Virginia, Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Oregon, and more. As investigators tried to piece together a timeline of Evans’ life, they began to suspect there could be even more beginnings to this story. More murders that bore the fingerprints of a chameleon.


To help solve them, and to learn who Bob Evans really was, authorities turned to genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter. When she identified Lisa, she had accomplished what seemed impossible. Now, police wanted her to do it again. Within a matter of months, she did. And in doing so, she brought us as close as we’ve ever been to the Bear Brook victims, to meeting one of their living relatives.


Moon: They weren’t only telling you about your father, but also that you had this half-sister who was one of the victims, and I just wonder how that hit you.


Woman on the Phone: I, uh, I don’t know what her name is. [SNIFFS, BEGINS CRYING] Sorry, this upsets me.


Moon: That’s okay, take your time.


Woman on the Phone: Based on the, uh, on the artist’s rendering, she looks a lot like my little girl when she was that age. 


Moon, Narrating: The Chameleon’s true identity is revealed. That’s next time on Bear Brook.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT, DIFFERENT MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Bear Brook is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon. 


Taylor Quimby is Senior Producer.


Editing help from Cori Princell, Todd Bookman, Lauren Chooljian, Sam Evans-Brown, Britta Green, and Annie Ropeik.


The Executive Producer is Erika Janik. 


Dan Barrick is NHPR’s News Director.


Director of Content is Maureen McMurray.


NHPR’s Digital Director is Rebecca Lavoie.


Photography and video by Allie Gutierrez.


Graphics and interactives by Sara Plourde.


Original music for this show was composed by me, Jason Moon, and Taylor Quimby.


Additional music in this episode by: Blue Dot Sessions, Lee Rosevere, Daniel Birch, Joe Andrioli, and I Am This Big Black Cloud.


Bear Brook is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]

Transcript of Episode 6: Chameleon

Jason Moon: How do we think about him? Is he a sociopath, is he, uh… ya know, what is he?


[MUSIC IN]


John Cody: Ya know, I’ve asked this before and I… hmm… [LAUGHS] How do I put this so you can put it on the air? 


[SLOW CLOCK TICKING SOUNDS IN]


John Cody: I would put him as a pure evil person.


[MUSIC UP]


Taylor Quimby, Narrating: Previously on Bear Brook.


Jeff Strelzin, At Press Conference: Through DNA testing, we’ve determined that this man, this killer, Bob Evans, is the father of the middle child victim in Allenstown. This girl right here.


Rondal Randall: It was fascinating about Lisa um, but, but to still not know who they were and know so much was difficult.


Barbara Rae-Venter: You know if these folks are sharing DNA, that person has to be a descendant of that common ancestor.


Peter Headley: She had said that she did have other siblings, but they had died while they were out camping from eating, quote unquote, “grass mushrooms.”


Moon: What do you, what do you hear as a, as an investigator when you hear that?


Headley: There’s more victims.


[CLOCK TICKING SLOWS DOWN, THEN STOPS, MUSIC FADES OUT]


Moon, Narrating: For 20 years, Diane worked as a 911 call operator and in that time, she’s taken just about every kind of call you could imagine.


Diane, On the Phone: I’ve delivered a baby over the phone. I’ve saved lives. I’ve also been the last person that people have talked to before they decided to take their own.


Moon, Narrating: Diane lives in a suburb outside Chicago. I reached her by Skype a few weeks ago. We’re not using her last name. I’ll explain why in just a second.


Moon: You, you said your profession is full of, like, dealing with really heavy stuff. And we’re going to talk about some really heavy news that was dropped on you. So, I wonder if you felt prepared in any sort of way because of your job?


Diane, On the Phone: Uh. I don’t know that anything… In my whole realm of possibilities and reality, I’m not sure that that ever came up as even a possibility on my spectrum of, of what the hell possibly happens.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: The news that Diane received came in the summer of 2017. On a day that she calls “the Monday where everything changed.” It started when Diane got a call from her mother, who said detectives from New Hampshire, from the Cold Case Unit, wanted to talk to them.


Diane, On the Phone: So, I ass– I assumed – I know this may sound strange to you, but I assumed that she had done something in her past. [LAUGHS] But my mother said she had a feeling that it was about my father.


Moon, Narrating: The New Hampshire detectives agreed to meet Diane and her mother at the police station in Illinois where Diane now works as a records clerk. When they arrived, they all sat down in one of the station’s interrogation rooms.


Diane: And we sat there and they just deluged us with information.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: The state troopers told them the story of two barrels found near a state park in New Hampshire. The story of a woman named Eunsoon Jun in California and the boyfriend who murdered her. The story of a kidnapped girl named Lisa and the yearslong search to find out where she came from. 


Then, the state troopers asked Diane for a DNA sample. 


Diane: And, uh, then I just waited for the slight possibility that this did not match up. I was just hoping that maybe they were… wrong.


[THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: But the detectives weren’t wrong. Diane’s DNA was the last step in identifying the so-called Chameleon Killer.  The Larry Vanner who met Eunsoon Jun, the Curtis Kimball who stood trial for murdering her, the Gordon Jenson who abandoned Lisa at the RV park, the Bob Evans who disappeared from New Hampshire with her mom. The real name behind all of those aliases was Terry Peder Rasmussen. Diane’s father.


[MUSIC POST]


This is Bear Brook. I’m Jason Moon.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: There was a lot for Diane to process from that day. And we’ll hear more about that later in this episode and more about Rasmussen's life from before he became a serial killer. 


But for now, I want to focus on the way that police found Diane. How investigators were able to determine her father’s identity. Diane says the detectives never really explained it to her.


Diane: However they got to me, I’m not really sure.


Moon, Narrating: It’s likely the detectives didn’t explain it, or explain it well, because the method used to identify Terry Rasmussen was entirely new to criminal investigations. It was genetic genealogy.


Genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter used the same technique to identify Terry Rasmussen that she did to identify the girl he kidnapped – Lisa.


But there was one important difference. With Lisa, Barbara had identified someone who wanted to be identified, who was the victim of a crime, and who actively participated in the search. In a lot of ways, it was the same as the dozens of adoption searches Barbara had done for people hoping to find their biological parents.


But when she identified the suspected Bear Brook killer, the Chameleon, as Terry Rasmussen, it was the first time a criminal suspect had ever been identified with genetic genealogy.


This was a huge breakthrough in criminal forensics. So far, the news hadn’t really reached the outside world. But word was spreading within law enforcement circles. And it wouldn’t be long before genetic genealogy as a crime fighting tool would be thrust into public view in a big way.


Billy Jensen, On the Phone: It was so… It just baffled me. You don’t see that. A woman and three children dead and they don’t know who they are. That doesn’t happen.


Moon, Narrating: This is Billy Jensen. He’s a veteran crime reporter turned crime investigator who has been fascinated by the Bear Brook case for years, but he’s probably best known for his work on a book called “I’ll be Gone In The Dark.” It was written by his friend and fellow true crime author, Michelle McNamara.


Jensen, On the Phone: I was friends with Michelle, we were friends for about four or five years. We would meet every month and I would talk about my cases. She would talk about the Golden State Killer.


Moon, Narrating: The Golden State Killer, a serial rapist and murderer who terrorized California in the 1970s and 80s.


Michelle died before finishing her book, but Jensen and a few others took on the project. It was published posthumously in February of 2018.


And the Golden State Killer case had baffled police for decades. Longer than the Bear Brook murders. And by the numbers, it was an even more horrible story. At least, 13 murders, 50 rapes, 100 burglaries. 


But in 2017, an investigator on the case heard about the recent breaks in the Bear Brook investigation. How a serial killer, Terry Rasmussen, was finally identified through the use of genetic genealogy. And he thought, maybe just maybe, it could work here.


So, he picked up the phone and called Barbara Rae-Venter.


Female TV Anchor: [TV NEWS MUSIC FADES IN IN] A major breakthrough in a cold case dating back to the late ‘70s as authorities arrest a suspect…


Male TV Anchor: …Enduring mysteries. They announced an arrest in the case of the Golden State Killer…


Female Anchor 2: …They now have the Golden State Killer in custody. 


[MUSIC IN]


Male Anchor 2: …And they used DNA testing to find him…


Male Anchor 3: ...a former police officer. He’s accused of going down a 10-year rape and murder spree...


Female Anchor 3: ...at least 12 murders and more than 50 rapes.


Golden State Killer, Phone Recording: ...Gonna kill you, gonna kill you…


Woman: As soon as I screamed, he said, “Shut up or I’ll kill you.” Finally, after all this time, I know that he’s behind bars and that’s where he belongs.


Moon, Narrating: Less than a year after she identified Terry Rasmussen, Barbara Rae-Venter used genetic genealogy again to identify Joseph James DeAngelo, a 72-year old former police officer and the man police now believe is the Golden State Killer.


[MUSIC OUT]


Jensen, On the Phone: The fact that this monster, the Allenstown Four Monster, actually helped in a weird way solve the Golden State Killer case blew my mind.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Two mysteries that had gone unsolved for decades were both cracked open by the same genetic genealogist in a matter of months. To Billy Jensen, the implications of this were clear. A new era of forensic investigation had just begun.


Jensen, On the Phone: I mean, this is the biggest step forward for solving crimes since the discovery of DNA itself. We’re gonna look back on these 20 years 30 years from now and say, “This is where it started.”


Moon, Narrating: Jensen sees a future where genetic genealogy will be as routine as fingerprinting for serious crimes like rapes and murders, a time when police departments might have genealogists on staff.


That hasn’t happened quite yet, but the genetic genealogists who are skilled enough to do this, like Barbara Rae-Venter, are suddenly finding themselves in high demand .


Barbara Rae-Venter: I actually have been approached about quite a large number of cold cases. Basically, everybody’s favorite cold cases.


Moon: So… pretty busy it sounds like?


Rae-Venter: I do keep out of trouble, yes. [MOON LAUGHS]


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: You can see why police are so excited about this. Basically any unsolved violent crime where police have DNA from a suspect now has new hope of being solved. 


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: In the months since the suspected Golden State Killer was identified, genetic genealogy has already led to breakthroughs in at least 15 other cases around the country. And many, many more are expected. One DNA lab called Parabon has already created a genetic genealogy unit to contract with police departments. Within just a few weeks of the Golden State Killer news, Parabon said it had received DNA samples from almost 100 different police departments from around the country.


Detectives working on some of the most infamous cases in the country, like the Zodiac Killer, are now reportedly turning to genetic genealogy.


Jensen, On the Phone: People see this as a tool. There are so many murders out there!


Moon, Narrating: Meanwhile genetic genealogy itself is only getting more powerful. Shockingly more powerful. Remember how in 2014, it took Barbara Rae-Venter and a huge team of volunteers an estimated 10,000 hours to track down the identity of Lisa?


Rae-Venter: Earlier this year, I asked her if I could go in. There are some new techniques available that take advantage of the fact that there are just huge numbers of people now testing. And so, I went through, pretending that I didn’t know who her parents were – just went through using the new technique. It’s called pedi-,uh, pedigree triangulation, and it took me 10 hours to identify her father.


Moon: No. From 10,000 hours to 10 hours?!


Rae-Venter: Correct.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: And this isn’t just theoretical. Earlier this year, genetic genealogy solved a notorious 1981 cold case from Ohio. An unidentified woman found murdered in a ditch wearing a distinctive buckskin jacket. For 37 years, she was known only as the Buckskin Girl. Genetic genealogy identified her as Marcia King in just four hours.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Meanwhile, each day, as more and more people upload their genetic information online, the odds that any given person will have relatives in a commercial database increase.


Moon: So, someone related to me is almost assuredly in the database right now?


Rae-Venter: Oh absolutely. Yeah. 


Moon: Wow.


Rae-Venter: In fact, there’s gonna be probably thousands of people in the database that are gonna be related to you. [MOON LAUGHS]


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: We’ll talk more about all the thorny ethical implications of all this in just a second. But first, I wanted to know if Barbara was right. Would I have thousands of relatives already in one of the commercial DNA databases?


I ordered a DNA kit from 23andMe. When it arrived, producer Taylor Quimby joined me in a studio here at New Hampshire Public Radio and… I spit.


[JASON SPITS INTO A CUP]


Quimby, Laughing: Don’t be embarrassed. It’s just me.


Moon, Laughing: Should you turn around?


Quimby: No! I’m takin’ pictures. What are you kiddin’ me?[FADE OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Next, we mailed the kit with my spit back to 23andMe, and then, a couple weeks later I got an email saying my results were ready.


Moon: Okay, so, what does it say? Ancestry composition. I’m 40.8% British and Irish, so…


Quimby: Wait, hold on, does that say you’re 60% Neanderthal?


Moon: I am more Neanderthal than 60% of customers.


Quimby, Laughing: Okay that makes more sense. [QUIMBY LAUGHS] ‘Cause that would be a lot.


Moon, Laughing: That would be quite Neanderthal. That would be like my dad was Neanderthal. [QUIMBY, MOON LAUGH]


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Okay. Anyways, what we were really here to see was how many other 23andMe users I’m related to. I clicked through a few more screens. And…


Moon: Okay, so they’ve saved my preferences… Oop! Wow!


Quimby: Whoa! 


Moon: Boom! …Here they are, their names and everything. I have 998 DNA relatives.


Quimby: Just on 23andMe. 


Moon: Just on 23andMe.


Quimby: Wow. 998.


Moon, Narrating: So, there you have it. If I was an unidentified person like Lisa, Barbara Rae-Venter could probably identify me in a matter days – maybe even hours because one of my matches was a first cousin. Hey David.


And for most of the people I’ve spoken to for this podcast, this is all great news. But not everyone is so enthusiastic about all this. 


Albert Scherr: I mean, it’s really… At, at once, it’s really cool and it’s really, really creepy stuff!


Albert Scherr is a law professor at the University of New Hampshire. He goes by Buzz.


Moon, Narrating: Buzz and forensic DNA testing go way back. In fact, he was defense counsel in the first case in New Hampshire to ever use DNA evidence.


Almost 30 years later, Buzz says the law is still catching up with the science of DNA. And he’s skeptical that we know what we’re really getting into with genetic genealogy.


Scherr: The information that is in your genes far exceeds any other repository of information that exists about your life. It contains information about certain behavioral disorders. Do you have a predisposition to alcoholism.


[MUSIC IN]


Scherr: Do you have the Huntington’s gene? Are you a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis? Do you have a predisposition to schizophrenia? [FADE UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: What Buzz is getting at here is that with all that information up for grabs, people, and corporations, and governments will find lots of ways to exploit it. For blackmail. For insurance discrimination. For... ways we haven’t even thought of yet.


After all, that’s basically what happened here with genetic genealogy solving crimes. People put their DNA online to learn about their ethnic background or to build out their family tree, and then, suddenly, someone found a new use for it – solving violent crimes. We may generally like this new use for genetic genealogy, but Buzz warns, we may not like the next one.


Scherr: The cool use of a technique is the scary use of a technique. And not every police department and not every investigator, uhhhh, plays by the rules the way we want them to.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: You might say, “Well, just don’t put your DNA online.” But that’s where it gets really interesting. Because when it comes to genetic genealogy, your privacy is not only up to you. It’s up to you and all of the people that you share DNA with. Every time one of your cousins puts their DNA online, in a way, they’re putting some of yours in there, too – with, or probably without, your consent. And that’s what makes genetic genealogy so powerful. The Chameleon or the Golden State Killer – they never put their DNA online. Some of their relatives did.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Scherr: Nobody knows what the rules are. 


Moon: Hmm.


Scherr: Ya know, they are, in devising these really cool investigative techniques, they’re makin’ the rules up in terms of how… “What does the constitution tell us about this?” They’re makin’ it up as they go along, too.


Moon, Narrating: Now, it’s really important to point out here that most genealogy databases are not being used by police right now. In fact, most of the major genealogy companies say they will go as far as possible to restrict police access to protect the privacy of their users.


This means the biggest databases, like Ancestry and 23andMe, are more or less off limits to police. Now, Lisa’s case, by the way, was a little different. Because she was alive and was submitting her own DNA, she could use those sites in the search for her identity.


But there is one database that does allow police to use it. One database that’s made identifying criminal suspects with genetic genealogy possible. It’s called GEDmatch. And it’s what Barbara Rae Venter used to identify the suspected Golden State Killer. 


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: GEDmatch was started in 2010 by two genealogy enthusiasts in Lake Worth, Florida. It’s not a DNA testing company like Ancestry or 23andMe. GEDmatch is just a website that hosts a digital DNA database. In other words, you don’t send GEDmatch your spit. You just upload a file with the results of a DNA test that you took somewhere else.


GEDmatch is popular with genealogists because, among other things, it lets you compare results from different genealogy companies against each other. Say you tested on 23andMe, but your sister tested on Ancestry. Now, before GEDmatch, one of you would’ve had to pay for a new DNA kit to compare your results. Now, you can just upload your results to the GEDmatch database for free.


The GEDmatch founders didn’t know that cold case investigators would be among the people using their website. But they did understand the risks that come with putting your genetic information online. Here’s an excerpt of the terms of service, written before GEDmatch was used to identify the Golden State Killer.


Female Voice, Reading: [COMPUTERIZED EFFECT] “While the results presented on this site are intended solely for genealogical research, we are unable to guarantee that users will not find other uses. If you find the possibility unacceptable, please remove your data from this site.”


Scherr: To me, it’s just completely unsatisfactory to say, “And we could use this for other research purposes.” I think you need much clearer notice that, “And we may give the government access to this.”


Moon, Narrating: The GEDmatch founders, for their part, said they didn’t know police were using their database for this. It wasn’t until the news of the Golden State Killer arrest that they found out. And in the months since, they have issued an update to their terms of service. Now, under the list of possible ways your DNA might get used on GEDmatch, there is a new bullet point.


Female Voice, Reading: [COMPUTERIZED EFFECT] “Searching by third parties, such as law enforcement agencies to identify the perpetrator of a crime, or to identify remains.”


Moon, Narrating: The GEDmatch founders could have decided to try and keep police off of their site, but instead they’ve opted for disclosure upfront, which means, for the time being at least, GEDmatch is the de facto police DNA database for genetic genealogy. It’s the one being used right now, to search for serial killers and rapists and unidentified murder victims.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Which creates an interesting choice for all of us. If you want to help police investigate cold cases by volunteering your DNA, you can. And in fact, that’s exactly what genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter invites you to do.


Rae-Venter: If people are interested in helping law enforcement, then it would be really good if you went out and did DNA testing, autosomal DNA testing, at any of the testing companies, and then upload your DNA to GEDmatch. It will help catch criminals and it will also help identify folks who are unknown victims.


Moon, Narrating: Your DNA could be the key to apprehending a serial killer who has evaded police for decades. Or to identifying a victim who’s been nameless for years.


But, by putting your DNA in GEDmatch, you’ll also be making a decision for your entire extended family. For the thousands of cousins you have out there. For your children and their children. Whatever comes next in genetic genealogy, your family’s DNA will be along for the ride.


That is, if it isn’t already.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: And this brings us back to Diane. 


Diane only has a few memories of her father. Her mother left Terry Rasmussen when Diane was just 6 years old. There were times growing up when Diane wondered about who her father was. But she says her mom just wouldn’t say that much about him.


Then, in her 40s, married with kids, Diane finally got some answers about her father – some horrible answers – from a New Hampshire state trooper. 


Now, we’ve agreed not to use Diane’s last name because she doesn’t want her children to be associated with a serial killer, which is understandable.


Moon: What did you, what did you do like right after the interview? Did you go back to work? Did you go for a walk?


Diane: Uh… My mother was very shaken. So, I got her calmed down and back home, and uh, then, I took a walk. We have a lovely facility behind my place of employment with a little walking path and a pond. It’s very serene. But yeah, I took a little walk and then, yep! Right back to work.


Moon: Wow.


Diane: Because I think in all my years of… Sadly, all my years of 911 have taught me to put these terrible things, uh, into little boxes and deal with them later.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: But Diane says compartmentalizing it didn’t work for long.


Diane: In the, like, three weeks that came after that, I would find myself just crying… at, uh, inappropriate times… [VOICE BREAKS] and that’s when I decided to go see a therapist.


Moon, Narrating: Diane says she’s heard a lot of horrible things over the years as a 911 operator. But she just couldn’t wrap her mind around what her own father had done.  


Diane: I could not imagine what kind of mental fracture that he must have had to be able to uh… kill his own child!


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: By discovering the Bear Brook Killer’s true identity, investigators were finally able to piece together l large chunks of his life – details that up until this point, were shrouded in mystery. 


Terry Rasmussen was born in 1943. He grew up in Colorado and Arizona. He dropped out of high school after his sophomore year and joined the Navy in 1961. He was trained as an electrician and served for six years at bases around the West Coast and at Okinawa.


After leaving the Navy, Rasmussen moved to Hawaii where he worked at a shoe shop that was owned by his parents.


He married Diane’s mother in 1968. The next year, they moved to Arizona and Diane and her twin sister were born. They were the first of what would be four children.


Diane doesn’t remember a lot from that early period when her parents were still together. But what she can recall is a house that was full of conflict.


Diane: Ya know, I, I do remember some arguments that they got into from when I was younger. Her and Terry I guess made a sport of fighting and always tried to, like, outdo each other.


Moon, Narrating: There was fighting and there was also abuse, according to Diane. Diane says it was the abuse that eventually prompted her mother to leave Terry Rasmussen sometime around 1975.


Diane: My mother says that she, the final straw was when she came home from work one day and he, he had burned my brother with a cigarette. And she knew that she then had to get out.


Moon, Narrating: But the story is more complicated than a mother simply protecting her children from an abusive husband. Remember when Diane said that at first, she thought the New Hampshire state troopers were there about something her mother had done in the past?


Moon: Do you mind if we talk a little bit more about your relationship with your mom?


Diane: Uh… You know what, go ahead.


Moon: Well, it just sounds like it was pretty rocky. Is that a fair way to characterize it?


Diane: If any neighbor had paid attention, we probably would have been removed from the home.


Moon: Oh, wow.


Diane: She drank a lot. And I can remember us being left nothing but, um, a box of oatmeal and a loaf of bread and we wouldn’t see her for three or four days.


Moon: Wow.


Diane: And, you know, she was very quick to hit you for any perceived slight that you may have done. I quit wearing my hair in a ponytail for many years because if she didn’t like how your ponytail looked she would grab it and cut if off with scissors.


Moon: She would just grab your ponytail?


Diane: Ponytail and say, “This looks terrible.” And she would cut it off.


Moon: Um, well, I’m beginning to understand why when you first heard that New Hampshire State Police wanted to talk to you that you thought it would be about your mother.


Diane: [LAUGHS] Yes! For the longest – Okay, seriously, I don’t mean to make light of this, but for the longest time I really thought that she had killed him because I’ve seen my mom angry enough to do that.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Diane’s mother declined to be interviewed for this story.


In spite of everything, Diane and her mother have managed to maintain a relationship with each other. In fact, Diane says she’s the only one of the children who still talks to her mom. They live not far from each other. Diane calls her once a week. She says she even takes her own children over to see her every once in a while.


Still, the relationship is strained.


[MUSIC OUT]


Diane: Uh, it got strained even more after the state police, because I want to know. And I know that she knows things. And that I think is a bone of contention because I – she certainly must remember something that she has not disclosed.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon: And why do you think she wouldn’t? Because she is embarrassed by it? Because she was complicit in something? What do you think?


Diane: Well, I think that she thinks that because she left with his children, she broke him.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Back in 1975 or 76 – we’re not exactly sure – Terry Rasmussen arrived unexpectedly to visit Diane and her siblings in Payson, Arizona. This was just months after Diane’s mother had left with the kids. And it’s a moment that investigators today are very much focused on. Because on that visit, there was a woman with Terry Rasmussen.


Diane: Now remember that I was 6, so everyone is tall. She was tall. She was slim. She had, like, bouncy hair – not like Farrah Fawcett hair, but bouncy. You know what I’m saying? You may not. And I think it was brown with some highlights. She wore glasses and that’s all I have. [SLAPPING SOUND]


Moon, Narrating: Investigators are desperate to find out who this person is, because she could be the adult Bear Brook victim. Or she could be the mother of the middle child victim in the Bear Brook murders. Rasmussen’s daughter, Diane’s half-sister.


Moon: One, one of the things that honestly didn’t even really occur to me at first was that they weren’t only telling you about your father, but also that you had this half-sister who was one of the victims. And I just wonder how that hit you.


Diane: Well, she didn’t have much of a childhood… um… [SNIFFS, VOICE BREAKS] Sorry this upsets me.


Moon: That’s alright. That’s alright. We can… Take your time.


Diane: Based on the, uh, on the artist’s rendering, she looks a lot like my little girl when she was that age. [SNIFFS, SIGHS]


[MUSIC IN]


Diane: You know if it’s ever possible and they release her remains, if there’s no other family, I will make sure that she is buried appropriately... You know, I always, it’s not that… I think I’ve mourned her every day since I found out. 


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


[SOUND OF CAR KEYS JINGLING, CAR DOOR SLAMMING, BEEPING, FOOTSTEPS, DOOR CREAKS OPEN]


Moon: Hey!


[DOG BARKS]


Mark Gelinas, Off Mic: Milo, come on! Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey…


[DOG BARKS, MOON LAUGHS]


Gelinas, Off Mic: Come on in.


Moon: Thank you.


[SOUND OF WALKING INTO A HOUSE]


Gelinas, Off Mic, Talking to Dog: You better be good. We’ll put you in your crate…


[DOOR SLAMS]


Moon: Hey, how are you? You must be Mark?


Gelinas: Yes, I am.


Moon: Jason. Nice to meet you.


Gelinas: Hi, Jason. Who are you with again?


Moon: New Hampshire Public Radio


Gelinas: Yep!


Moon: NHPR.


Gelinas: Yeah. Um…


Moon: Well, thanks for, uh…


Gelinas: My wife told me it was Bob Evans you wanted to talk about? [FADE UNDER]


Moon: Yeah, yeah… [FADE UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: A few months ago, I drove out to Epsom, New Hampshire, just north of Allenstown, to meet this man. Mark Gelinas.


[DOG BARKING IN THE BACKGROUND]


Moon: What kinda dog…?


Gelinas: It’s my daughter’s dog. She’s in Hawaii.


Moon: Oh… [MOON LAUGHS]


Gelinas: She’s uh…

Moon: Lucky you, huh? [FADE UNDER, DOG KEEPS BARKING]


Moon, Narrating: Mark was 19 years old when he met Terry Rasmussen in the late 1970s, though he knew him as Bob Evans.


Gelinas: Yeah, Bob, he was… he was different. You knew, he [LAUGHS] You knew when you were talkin’ to him he was, he was kinda different… He wasn’t a grouchy guy. He was just… he was, he was weird. [LAUGHS] That’s how I took him anyway.


Moon, Narrating: After Rasmussen showed up unexpectedly with the unidentified woman in Arizona in 1975 or 76, investigators believe he headed for Texas. He worked for a company called Brown and Root, possibly on an oil rig. Then, around 1978, he pops up in New Hampshire using the name Bob Evans.


Back then, Mark Gelinas worked for his dad’s construction company. In the late ‘70s, they were working in Manchester, New Hampshire at one of the city’s old textile mills. The job was to decommission the mill, to dismantle and scrap all the old machinery still inside.


Mark says his dad got the contract from Ed Gallagher, the owner of the Bear Brook store and the private property in Allenstown where the barrels were found. Gallagher was overseeing the job along with Bob Evans.


Gelinas: [DOG BARKING IN THE BACKGROUND] Well, they were friends. ‘Cause, uh, I remember seeing Bob at his store, ‘cause I lived in town at the time. And, uh, if I went into the store, you know, Bob would be there.


Moon, Narrating: The mill that Mark Gelinas worked at with Bob Evans is known as the Waumbec Mill. It’s 5 stories tall and over 600 feet long. Today, it holds offices and luxury apartments. But once upon a time, the Waumbec Mill was part of one of the largest cotton textile plants in the world.


By the late ‘70s, the mill had been out of use for decades. Shutting it down was dangerous work. The old machinery inside was enormous. And then, there was the problem of the electricity. Mark says that’s where Bob Evans came in.


Gelinas: [DOG BARKING IN THE BACKGROUND] Whenever we went to dismantle a machine, we would go get him, or I would go get him to make sure the electricity was dead because it was 550 volts to the machine.


Moon, Narrating: Mark says Bob was weird, but not really threatening. He just did odd things, like he wore the same green coat every day – even when it was warm out.


Gelinas: [DOG BARKING IN THE BACKGROUND] He always had it on. It was a green, green coat. Always. Always had – never took it off. Never. Never seen him with it off.


Moon, Narrating: As Mark described this to me, he actually stood up from the kitchen table where we were sitting to do an impression of Bob Evans.


Gelinas: [SOUND OF CHAIR SCRAPING] Oh, I’d – I remember he’d walk through that mill, that… The coat would be behind him. It had that big – Ah, it was a longer coat, too.


Moon, Narrating: He struck a pose with his shoulders back, coat tail swept behind the hand in his pocket. I could see Mark clearly picturing it in his head. Bob Evans sauntering through the mill in his green coat, like a captain on a ship’s deck.


[MUSIC IN]


Gelinas: [DOG BARKING IN THE BACKGROUND] I remember him telling us a story one day that he, uh… He lived by one of the parks in Manchester, and he was actually stealin’ electricity from the park. [LAUGHS] Um, I think he said he tied in to, like, one of the lights or somethin’ at one of the ball fields or whatever it was.


Moon, Narrating: Rasmussen was actually caught for this. It’s one of the charges he had on his record in Manchester that helped police connect the Bob Evans alias to his California identities.


[MUSIC OUT]


Moon, Narrating: I’ve often wondered about this. Why would he steal electricity from the lights at a baseball field?


One possible explanation is that Rasmussen was already on the run by the time he arrived in New Hampshire. Why else would he be using a fake name? And maybe he thought by not signing up with the electric company he would leave one fewer bread crumb for police.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Or maybe it was more of a compulsion. A narcissism that rejected the idea of being anything less than completely independent. A feeling that he should be able to do whatever he wants.


Gelinas: There’s one other thing I remember Bob did. [LAUGHS] At the end, there were these transformers. They were big. They were bigger than the ones on the telephone poles. Matter of fact, we had a tractor trailer come in to pick it up.


Moon, Narrating: Mark remembers he and Bob Evans loaded the giant transformer from the mill onto the truck. But then, there was a problem. The transformer was full of PCBs, an industrial chemical that’s known to cause cancer. The scrap yard wouldn’t take the transformer with the PCBs inside. But Rasmussen knew there was a plug down at the bottom of the transformer that kept the PCBs inside from spilling out.


Gelinas: And Bob went over there and took the plug out of it and told the truck to “go” [LAUGHS] And that thing leaked all the way – I forget which scrap yard it went to. [LAUGHS]


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: Years later, when Mark first heard about the barrel discovered on Ed Gallagher’s property, it didn’t occur to him that Bob might’ve had anything to do with it. In fact, it wasn’t until just a few years ago, when New Hampshire cold case detectives showed up at his door, that he learned Bob Evans wasn’t his real name.


Gelinas: And it didn’t dawn on me… until they came in and opened that book and showed me a picture of Bob Evans and they mentioned Ed Gallagher and I said, “No way.” Then, they explained to me the barrels, and yeah.


Moon: Once you saw that and learned all that… [FADE UNDER]


Moon, Narrating: I asked Mark if, looking back, there was anything suspicious that Bob Evans said, or did. Or anything he remembers differently, now that he knows the whole story. Mark told me about an electrical room that Bob Evans always kept padlocked. How he wouldn’t let any of the other workers inside.


But worse than the padlocked room, were the trips Mark made to Ed Gallagher’s property in Allenstown. Trips, where they loaded up whole truck-beds of debris, and dumped them on the edge of Bear Brook State Park. All sorts of junk. Scrapped parts. Broken concrete. Maybe even a few 55 gallon barrels.


Gelinas: And it bothers me that I don’t remember… ‘cause I remember the truck I brought the stuff up there. It was an old civil defense truck. It was a Dodge. It was a rack body. It was a really long truck, and I remember bringing the stuff up there in that. Um… but I don’t remember exactly everything that was on the truck.


Moon: Do, do you worry that they could’ve been in that truck?


Moon, Narrating: When I asked this, Mark looked up at me with a pained expression on his face, a deep grimace, and he nodded.


Gelinas: Yeah. Um… I just… I don’t remember. Um… [FADE OUT]


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: The locked room. That strange saunter. The green coat. I’d like to think that I could have recognized that something wasn’t right about Bob Evans. But, then again, maybe I wouldn’t have.


[DOG BARKING IN THE BACKGROUND] 


Gelinas: Never had a clue. 


Moon: Yeah.


Gelinas: [LAUGHS] Um… I dunno… what to say. You don’t know people.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Mark Gelinas may not have known Bob Evans that well. But one person who probably knew him best in New Hampshire is Ed Gallagher, the owner of the Bear Brook camp store and the property where the barrels were found.


Ed Gallagher didn’t want to talk to me for this story.


I spoke with him just once on the phone, a few years ago now. He didn’t sound happy to hear from me. He said he didn’t have anything to add to the story, but we ended up chatting for a few minutes anyways.


I got the feeling he was sick of being asked about the murders. He mentioned something about being misquoted and that people, including police, thought he was a liar. Then, he hung up.


But someone that Ed has spoken to is amateur investigator Ronda Randall. Not at first – it took Ronda years of pestering to get him to open up.


Ronda says she would call Gallagher periodically to ask about different theories people were floating on her blog. Did anyone ever camp out on the property behind the Bear Brook store? Did he ever meet this person or that person?


Ronda Randall: Finally, one time he just got so annoyed with me and he said, “You’re barking up the wrong tree. The person you need to be focused on is Bob Evans.”


Moon, Narrating: I’m bringing all this up because Ed Gallagher gave Ronda that name in the summer of 2014 – about two years before the Lisa case would point police toward Bob Evans.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Ronda shared her notes from the phone call with me. According to those notes, Gallagher told Ronda about working with Bob Evans at the Waumbec Mill in some detail – including one story that still sticks with me. 


He said he came into the mill one day and heard screams coming from inside an office. When he opened the door, he said he saw Bob Evans lying on the floor. Bob Evans said he’d been napping on the floor because his back was hurting him. When Gallagher asked about the screams, Bob Evans said that he sometimes had nightmares. Ed Gallagher told Ronda he’d never heard anyone have a nightmare like that before.


According to Ronda’s notes, Gallagher also said in 2014 that he had not shared his suspicions about Bob Evans with police. At the time, Ronda didn’t make that much of all this. People had offered up lots of names and wild theories over the years. But still, she passed along the theory to state police in 2014.


And of course, a few years later, in 2017, Ronda would realize that Ed Gallagher was right. It was Bob Evans, which raises the question… If Ed Gallagher had a hunch, a correct hunch, about who was responsible for the Bear Brook murders, why didn’t he tell someone sooner?


Randall: One thing that he said was that his wife never wanted him to get involved in this. She told him to stay out of it, that he would be blamed for it. And it wasn’t until she was really sick that he even mentioned that to me and then, you know, she died that November and so whether that has kind of freed him up a little bit – hard to say.


Moon, Narrating: I’ve wrestled a lot with just what to make of all this.


And it is totally possible that Ed Gallagher knows nothing more about the case than what he’s already said. Totally possible that after years of phone calls from Ronda he just blurted out a name to satisfy her and he happened to be right.


And I know that by raising this question in the story I may end up subjecting Ed Gallagher to the very things he complained about in our short phone conversation. That people will hear this and think he was somehow involved. That I am proving his belated wife right.


But in the end, I decided we should raise this question because I think it’s reasonable. Reasonable to wonder whether Ed Gallagher, who was described to me as a friend of Bob Evans, who hired Bob Evans to work at the Bear Brook store, who allowed barrels to be dumped on his property, who waited almost 30 years after the first victims were found to tell someone he thought he knew who did it and was right – I think it’s reasonable to wonder whether he might know something else about the case.


And New Hampshire State Police have interviewed Ed Gallagher, at least a few times. And he’s given them his DNA.


But still, I wanted to know if the fact that Gallagher had dropped the name Bob Evans years before the Lisa connection had raised any new questions for New Hampshire investigators.


So, shortly after I learned about all this, I called up Jeff Strelzin, the homicide chief at the Attorney General’s office.


Moon, On the Phone: What about, um, Ed Gallagher? Where does he fit into this story at this point for you guys? Is, is he, um… Does he have anything else to add?


Strelzin, On the Phone: No, not that we can tell at this point, no. I mean, obviously, you know, there were some connections there, but beyond that, nothing really to add.


Moon: I, I guess I’m asking because he mentioned that name as early as 2014, um, according to what I’ve been told. And it just strikes me as… um, you know, odd, that, that someone, years before police had these connections, sort of, seemed to, seemed to at least guess correctly about the case. Uh… I don’t – what do you make of that?


Strelzin: Yeah, I can’t speculate on that. I mean, it took a lot of information before the pieces came together. And you know, sometimes, information floats out there, names float out there, but again, you need other pieces before you can connect it. Especially a case like this that had just gone on for so long and, ya know, we just knew so little about, about… and still know so little about the people who were involved. So, you know, that can happen sometimes. Names can float up, but they just don’t mean anything at that point. 


Moon: I see.


Strelzin: It’s looking back that you go, “Aha.” You have those aha moments.


Moon: So, it doesn’t – In other words, it doesn’t raise any suspicions in you or anyone else at the, at the department?


Strelzin: No. 


Moon: Okay.


Strelzin: No. I mean, we certainly have considered, and whether or not – we’ll call him Bob Evans ‘cause that’s who he was in New Hampshire – whether this was something he did all on his own and all indications are that his criminal activities were done on his own.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: Detective Peter Headley, who worked for years to identify Lisa, now spends his days studying the past of the man who abducted her.


And for all that we’ve learned about Terry Rasmussen, there’s still so much we don’t know. And Detective Headley believes what we don’t know includes other murders.


But finding out for sure is a daunting task. Rasmussen was dubbed “The Chameleon” for a reason.


Peter Headley: Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to identify all of his victims. I was hoping at one point we would, but the more time goes on, I, I don’t think we will get ‘em all.


Moon, Narrating: There are several moments in Rasmussen’s timeline that detective Headley and other investigators remain focused on. Here are just a few.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: In 1980, when Rasmussen was living in Manchester, New Hampshire under the name Bob Evans, a certified letter addressed to his address was signed for by an Elizabeth Evans. Rasmussen also listed his spouse’s name as Elizabeth on two separate occasions when he arrested on minor charges in Manchester.


And investigators still aren’t sure if Elizabeth Evans is a real person. But some have wondered if Elizabeth Evans might be the name of the adult victim in the Bear Brook murders. At this point, we just don’t know.


Another moment that raises serious concern is from a few years later, in the mid 1980s, from the period after Rasmussen had left New Hampshire with Lisa, but before they arrived at the Holiday Host RV park in Northern California. During that time, Rasmussen was staying at yet another RV park. This one in Orange County in Southern California.


Headley: Yeah, in the mid 1980s when he was Orange County with Lisa, he was seen dating a woman. Uh… She was seen in a car with him. There were other children in the car. We don’t know exactly how many kids. And we’re trying to identify who she was. Odds are she’s another victim.


Moon, Narrating: One reason Headley thinks she and the children are likely victims – Rasmussen was fired from his job at the local electric company in Orange County. Not for being a bad electrician, but for stealing a bandsaw.


Then, there’s the case known as the lady in the refrigerator.


In 1995, someone looking for metal cans along the side of the road in Holt, California found a refrigerator dumped in an irrigation ditch. The fridge was tied shut with a rope. Inside, the scavenger found the body of woman. She was wrapped in a sleeping bag and stuffed into one of the refrigerator’s compartments. Her hands were bound with electrical tape. She was gagged with a sock and that was held down by electrical tape. She died from a blow to the head.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT]


Moon, Narrating: The similarities are striking, but again, we just don’t know for sure if Rasmussen is connected. And unfortunately, we may never know the answers to any of these loose ends.


Terry Rasmussen may have lived in as many as13 different states over the years, and he used at least five different aliases. The only way to connect some of these dots is if someone recognizes a picture of him or remembers a story about a woman who suddenly vanished with her new boyfriend.


Headley: If there’s a woman who moved away suddenly, you had a relative and they were dating some guy and then you never heard from them again, a neighbor… Um, i-it’s worth a second look. 


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: If you have any information about Terry Peder Rasmussen or any of his other possible victims, please contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. We’ll have a timeline of Rasmussen’s life, including his confirmed locations, on our website bearbrookpodcast.com.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: In telling this story, I’ve struggled to make sense of Terry Rasmussen. What is he?


He was likely an alcoholic. He often looked dirty and unkempt. And looking at his various mugshots from over the years, the word that often comes to my mind is deranged.


But I think that’s probably an over-simplification. A lot of what we know about Terry Rasmussen suggests that he was intelligent and disciplined.


Intelligent because of his skill as an electrician. Because he was fluent in French. Because he could think on his feet, juggle half a dozen false identities, and lie his way out of almost every encounter he had with police.


Disciplined because he never talked. He never let slip his real name in a moment of weakness on a drunken night over all the years he was on the run. Even when he was in prison for Eunsoon’s murder, when he had so much information to trade with prosecutors – he never said a thing.


Rasmussen got away with the majority of his crimes. And as far as I can tell, he only ever made two mistakes. One, I understand, and the other I don’t.


The one I understand was when he gave his prints to detectives after Eunsoon Jun’s disappearance, not knowing they’d come back the same day.


The mistake that makes less sense to me, that is maybe the most confusing part of his story, is that he let Lisa live.


Roxane Gruenheid: I-if, if I could ask him that, I’d, I’d ask him, like… “Why-why?”


Here’s former Contra Costa County detective Roxane Gruenheid.


Gruenheid: You know, Lisa ultimately was the connection. Lisa’s the connection. Lisa is the mistake that he made, thank goodness, keeping her alive in his trail of murder, that made that connection from Contra Costa to Santa Cruz to San Bernardino to New Hampshire, and to where it’s going to lead, I don’t know.


[MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: The mystery of the Bear Brook murders has taken so many twists and turns over the last three years that I’ve reported on it that I’ve almost learned not to be surprised by them anymore.


But the one twist that does still get to me is the one thing that’s never changed, even as everything else around it has. The fact that we still don’t know who the people found in those barrels are. The fact that a whole family is dead and we don’t know their names.


You may have been wondering why haven’t detectives used genetic genealogy to identify the Bear Brook victims in the same way they used it to identify Lisa. And the answer is they’ve tried, but there’s one big obstacle in the way. The quality of the DNA samples from the victims.


I asked Barbara Rae-Venter about this. She says unlike Lisa’s DNA sample, the DNA from the Bear Brook victims’ is severely degraded.


Rae-Venter: They’ve, the-they’ve been difficult from the beginning. We’re talking about bodies that were out there exposed to the New Hampshire winters for between 5 and 20 years.


Moon, Narrating: With almost no soft tissue remaining by the time they were discovered, forensic scientists have been forced to turn to the victims’ bones and hair to look for DNA. And they have been able to get some. Samples taken so far have retrieved mitochondrial DNA, which is the kind of DNA needed to test for maternal relationships. That’s how we know three of the victims are maternally related.


But to do genetic genealogy, you need autosomal DNA. So far, they haven’t been able to get a clean sample from the victims’ bones.


Rae-Venter: Bacteria have apparently infiltrated into the bone. Um, we’ve done multiple extrac– extractions and unfortunately, they’ve typically been heavily contaminated. So, um, when they looked at what percentage was human and what was bacterial, there was like 2% or 3% human and the rest was all bacteria.


So, for now, the Bear Brook mystery remains just that – a puzzle that sits just out of reach of the forensic technique it helped to establish. A case that continues to move in reverse, where each new piece of information suggests there may be even more victims. A case that has changed so much, and yet hasn’t changed at all.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: But it might not always be that way. 


That’s because recently, scientists have been applying a new cutting edge technique to the victims’ remains. One that reconstructs autosomal DNA from rootless hair. One that may provide a sample suitable for genetic genealogy. One that could be the key to unlocking the final mystery of the Bear Brook murders.


Rae-Venter: It’s difficult and time consuming, and so, but we’re hoping that it will work. So, we do have hair on the remaining three victims from Allenstown. 


Moon: So, once this, if this process works, will you be waiting at the ready to take the sample and do the same thing?


Rae-Venter: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.


Moon, Narrating: For maybe the first time ever, investigators now believe that learning the identity of the Bear Brook victims is simply a matter of time.


If and when that time comes, we’ll be back with another episode of Bear Brook.


[MUSIC POST]


Moon, Narrating: If you want to be updated on any future developments in the Bear Brook case, you can subscribe to our email list at our website bearbrookpodcast.com.


[MUSIC UP AND OUT, THEME MUSIC IN]


Moon, Narrating: Bear Brook is reported and produced by me, Jason Moon. 


Taylor Quimby is Senior Producer, and I can’t really say enough about him because he not only edited Bear Brook scripts, but also mixed and scored the episodes and made them sound way, way better than I ever could have on my own.


We had editing help from Todd Bookman, Lauren Chooljian, Sam Evans-Brown, Britta Green, and Annie Ropeik – friends and colleagues whose reporting chops I aspire to one day match. 


The Executive Producer is Erika Janik, who deserves a lot of credit for somehow working on three other podcasts besides Bear Brook at the same time. Outside/In, Civics 101, Word of Mouth – you should check them all out. They’re all really good.


NHPR’s news director is Dan Barrick and the managing editor is Cori Princell, and I owe them both thanks and apologies for being away from my beat in the newsroom for so long. I am back on spot duty now, I promise.


NHPR’s Director of Content is Maureen McMurray. Thanks to her for taking a big risk on a true crime podcast hosted by the station’s education reporter. 


A very special thanks to NHPR’s Digital Director Rebecca Lavoie. A coupla years ago, she said to me, “This should be a podcast.” So, thanks for that. 


Photography and video for Bear Brook were done by Allie Gutierrez, who managed to make me feel comfortable on camera, despite all those mountain bikers who wondered what we were doing on their trails in Bear Brook State Park.


Graphics and interactives were created by Sara Plourde, who politely listened to all my half-baked ideas about how the website should look and then, went away and made something that actually looked really, really good. 


Original music for this show was composed by me, Jason Moon, and Taylor Quimby.


Additional music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions.


And finally, a special super thanks to Mia Phillips, who has spent the last several months listening to me go on and on about the podcast after work each day. Thanks, Ba.


Bear Brook is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.


[THEME MUSIC UP AND OUT]