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…
[Judge Delker] To cut you a break // would utterly undermine the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system.
[Cynthia Mousseau] 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.
…
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] All I could think of was, remember the TV detective, Kojak?
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 mux in]
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.
[Guy] This is private property!
[Kojak] Ugh, put a zipper on your mouth and shut up!
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!
[Guy] Right on, man!
[Debbie Dutra] (slaps table) That is him! Bald guy, glasses… ass.
[mux in]
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, sucking on a lollipop, and he’s strutting around the courtroom like he owned it. // “I’m comin’ in to straighten you all out and this is the way it went down!”
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.
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. He got things done. He had a reputation for getting to the bottom line.
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 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.
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.”
[mux out]
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 mux in]
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 mux up & out]
…
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.
[mux in]
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?
[mux post]
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.
[mux post]
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.
[mux post]
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 lot – looked in every aisle, but didn’t find Sharon’s green Subaru anywhere.
[mux out]
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: 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.
[mux in]
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 until Friday night at the earliest.
[mux post]
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.
[mux post]
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.
[mux out]
[Lucy Holt] Nobody liked him. Nobody. Nobody liked him.
Lucy Holt was close with Sharon. But when Sharon and Ken were married, Lucy refused to go to the wedding.
[Lucy Holt] A lot of her friends did not go. One of them sent her a sympathy card.
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.
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.
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.
[Lucy 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 made sure it got done.”
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 kind of reaction he would have to the questions I was asking him. Just asking him 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.
[mux in]
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.
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. 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.
[mux post]
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 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.
Eventually, police began to suspect that Bob was simply an invention of Ken’s. A fake character that Ken used to help hide his gambling habits, and now maybe to help him get away with murder.
[mux out]
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.
[mux in]
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.
[mux post]
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.
[mux post]
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 had 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.
[mux up]
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.
[mux out]
************************MIDROLL***************************
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.
[mux in]
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 re-interviewed 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.”
[mux post]
It was a salacious accusation. But maybe, Lamy thought, it was the real motive. Maybe Ken wanted Sharon dead because she’d found out.
[mux post]
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.
[mux out]
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.
Sgt. Lamy asked him if there was anything at all about Sharon JOHNSON's murder that he had not reported to the police. Sgt. Lamy told Tony what the possible charges were for any individual who holds back information in a homicide case. PFAFF hesitantly and nervously told Sgt. 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.
[mux in]
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.
[mux post]
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.
[mux post & fade out]
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 having 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] 21-50 to headquarters.
[Voice on the radio] Headquarters, bye.
[Broderick Crawford] We’re proceeding to railway station number 9. Have 38-50 meet us at that 10-20. 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.
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.
[mux in]
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.
[mux post]
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.
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.
[Debbie 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.
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 “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.
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 “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 the time and I am tired of feeling it all the time and also getting into trouble, too. Well, that is it for now, thank you for listening, yours truly, Tony Pfaff.”
[mux out]
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. 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.
[mux in]
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.
[Tony] Hey Ken.
[Ken] Hey what.
[Tony] Uh, I've got to talk to you.
[Ken] About what?
[Tony] Uh, about a car.
[Ken] About what?
[Tony] About the car…
[Ken] About what?
[Tony] About the car.
[Ken] What car?
[Tony] About the car that you asked me to move.
[Ken] Who's this?
[Tony] It's Tony.
[Ken] What car I asked you to move?
[Tony] Sharon's car.
[Ken] What are you talking about?
[Tony] What am I talking about?
[Ken] Yeah.
[Tony] Okay, look, you and I both know exactly what I’m talking about. Uh, they got my prints on the car.
[Ken] Excuse me?
[Tony] They have my fingerprints on the car.
[Ken] Yeah
[Tony] 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.
[Ken] I don’t understand what you’re talking about.
[Tony] You don’t understand.
[Ken] No, I don’t. I have no idea.
[Tony] Well, on, uh, Friday night, uh, I believe you asked me to move the car for you.
[Ken] I don't, I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about, the car is sitting right here.
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.
[mux out]
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?
[mux in]
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.
[mux post & fade]
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.”
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.
[mux in]
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.
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 Kojak’y 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, Lamy keeps pursuing and eventually, he finds what he's looking for.
[mux up]
[Roland Lamy] 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] I just wanted him to be truthful.
[Jason Carroll] I’m trying to dig myself out of something I didn’t do. And nobody’s listening. I was already in over my head.
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.
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.