January 29, 2025 • 51 mins
On today’s episode, the first part of a two-parter, Paul and Kate travel to 1975 England where a young heiress is kidnapped. When the ransom instructions prove increasingly difficult, the case takes a drastic turn.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is buried Bones.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hi, Kate, how are you?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I'm doing well. I have wanted to ask you something
for a long time. You cheat on me with another show.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
That's one way to put it.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
He cheats on all of us. Although you guys listen,
I'm sure too. It's a small town Dick's great show.
One of your co hosts is very, very famous, you know,
Yardley Smith, who is Lisa Simpson and it does many
other things I know, but is best known for Lisa
Simpson on The Simpsons, and so I have not met
her in person yet, but I've sort of awestruck that
(01:34):
you can even put together a sentence when you're doing
a crime show with Lisa Simpson. I mean, she is
just Yardly to you because you say you're not like
some massive Simpsons fan like I am.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
No, you know, I watched a few episodes when it
first came out, and that may have even been I
think it was the Tracy Allman Show, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Back when they looked funny. I think, right, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
So that is thirty plus years ago, and I never
really followed it since. And then I met Yardley out
in d C for a true crime conference and Yardly
and then her now husband Dan and his twin brother
Dave were to interview me on stage, and then that's
when I got to know him, and obviously we just clicked,
(02:21):
you know, Dan, Dave and I being law enforcement, and Yardly,
even with her celebrity status, is just so down to
earth and you know. And so that has been a
great part of my life to get to know them
and eventually become part of the podcast Smalltown Dicks.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
And I think you all have like a very easy
way of having a conversation but still being professional. Everybody's
professional there and being very serious. But I feel like
it seems like you're all very comfortable with each other,
which is which is you know, how you and I
are too.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I think, oh, yeah, no, you know, and I think
that that really is what helps drive is success podcast
is you know, the co host being able to relate
to each other just in a very natural, friendly way.
I am not a listener of podcasts, but I could
only imagine that if there's awkwardness between the co hosts,
that that probably doesn't come off very well. And so,
(03:17):
of course, you know, our listeners hear you and I
and the great relationship we have. But also a small
town dicks, it's just a natural thing. You know. We
of course record the episodes, but even if we get
together and it's we're not recording, we're just, let's say,
hanging out in a hot tub.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
All right. That's good to know. Well, I am jealous,
very jealous, because I am a huge Simpsons fan and
I try to get my kiddos into the Simpsons also
they get looped into the Halloween specials, and so I
really admire her as an actress and as a voice actress,
(03:55):
and I just think it's great. I'm super happy, and
I hear she's a super fan, maybe not a super fan,
and she's a fan fan of Buried Bones, so that's good.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, she listens to Buried Bones. I think she's a
fan of yours. So you know, let's see if you've
got some sort of mutual thing going on there.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Well, what a wonderful way to start an episode. I
like to start on a you know, positive note here,
because you know, we now are pivoting into a well,
I think is a really complicated kidnapping case, and we've
had those before. I mean, I just feel like the
more kidnapping episodes we cover, the nuttier these people get
(04:35):
and the requests that they make it And I feel like,
you know, we've covered kidnappings from all all different sorts
of decades and we're going to be in the nineteen
seventies in England for this one. But the requests from
kidnappers just get stranger and stranger. So I always am
fascinated about your reaction. You always have like a quizzical
look on your face. I wish listeners could see it
(04:56):
every time we talk about some of these weird us
that the kidnappers make. So this will be a good
one for you.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, you know. And I can remember we had the
one episode where the mail that was kidnapped and I
was really suspicious of him, like he had staged his
own abduction and turned out to be very very wrong,
you know. But I do remember some of the requests
in that particular episode were so bizarre. I'm like, oh,
(05:23):
this this just doesn't sound right. Well it turns out
it was right, you know, And so I'm kind of
curious to see, you know, this case and what kind
of requests the kidnappers are going to make.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, well, let's go ahead and set the scene. So
this is nineteen seventy five England, and this is a big, big, big,
big one. I mean, there's lots of evidence, I have
good photos, there's lots to talk about. It's a double episode,
too big. Once I saw the prep document, I thought, man,
this is really big. So this will be a good
episode for us to really dig into. I think the
(05:56):
way that kidnappers work and what they're thinking when they
do stuff like this, so we won't like, you know,
dink around with this. As I say, my kids don't
think around like this. We're not going to dink around
this is let me tell you who the victim is,
which just already sets me on edge. It is a
seventeen year old girl, which is already you know, my
kids are almost fifteen, so that's already I'm already kind
(06:18):
of on edge to begin with with a story about
a teenager. She's very small, she's five foot tall, and
that kind of plays into this. I mean, what would
you say, Paul, So she's if you have a kidnapping
victim who's small, five feet it's just like you're going
to assume that this is somebody who's not going to
put up as much of a fight.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I guess, well, I wouldn't necessarily say that. I mean,
you could in terms of putting up a fight versus
being effective at the fight as probably how I differentiate that. Then,
of course, when you start dealing with evaluating the victim
who's five foot nothing, you know, sounds like a petite
seventeen year old girl. And let's say the kidnapper is
(06:58):
a more robust male. Obviously, the male has a size
and strength advantage, which gives that offender greater latitude in
terms of how to conduct the abduction versus you know,
is it an offender who's having to use charm and
lowering the victim versus an offender who could literally pick
(07:20):
this girl up, sling her over his shoulder and walk
her out to a vehicle. You know. So that's going
to be part of As I hear the details, I'm
going to be starting to assess, well, you know, how
did the offender approach the victim and how was she abducted?
Because that speaks volumes to certain attributes of the offender.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Okay, yeah, well here we go. This was a case
recommended by a listener. Thank you listener. This involves, as
I said at petit seventeen year old girl. Her name
is Leslie Whittle and she lives in highly Shropshire hopefully
I said that right, which is a village in the
West Midlands of England. She has a very comfortable life.
(08:00):
We are talking upper class because her father is a businessman.
His name is George Whittell, and he runs a sizable
and successful bus company coach company in the United States,
we'd say bus company. When he died in seventy two,
he left behind a fortune of three hundred thousand British
pounds to his surviving family. This is I'm going to
(08:22):
convert things to American dollars. This is like just south
of five million, I would say four and a half
million maybe dollars today. This includes his wife, Dorothy, she's
in her fifties, and he has a son named Ron
who is in his early thirties. And then there's Leslie
who's seventeen. So she actually gets a portion that is
substantial eighty two thousand, which is you know, about a
(08:44):
million pounds now, which is you know, one and a
half million dollars. I would say, So she gets us
at seventeen. Here's the problem. It's widely reported that she
got this inheritance in local newspapers. I've never understood this,
you know, I mean, don't you think that would make
her a target? And I'm not, like I said, I'm
not dinking around with this one. She's the target here.
(09:04):
So a seventeen year old who has about a million
and a half dollars to day dollars in an inheritance.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Well, I think just the family wealth is driving any
of them to be a target her inheriting the money.
Of course, maybe an offender would be evaluating this as
a seventeen year old girl. Is there a way I
can steal from her, rob from her if in an
abduction situation, it's not unheard of her offenders will force
(09:34):
victims to withdraw from their bank right checks, you know,
so this is a direct robbery of the victim's financial assets. However,
in this scenario, there's greater assets with the other family members.
And so now is Leslie when she gets abducted. Is
(09:54):
the offender or offenders utilizing her safety as leverage to
get access to the larger sums of money that the
family has.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Let's see what happens. This family's worth a lot of money.
And now the patriarch has gone, and there is a
son who's in his thirties but not around. It doesn't
sound like he lives somewhere else. And then Leslie. This
is January fourteenth, nineteen seventy five, and we are at
the Wittell home. Dorothy is wondering, so this is the mother.
(10:26):
Dorothy wonders why Leslie hasn't come down for breakfast yet.
That morning, she goes upstairs to look for Leslie, but
she's not in her bedroom and she doesn't seem to
be anywhere in the house. Dorothy is really nervous. She
calls to the adult son, Ron, who lives nearby, but
her phone isn't working, so she rushes over to Ron's
(10:47):
house and returns to her own house alongside him, and
together they start looking for Leslie, but they don't find her.
They do discover that what you probably have silently suspected
that someone cut the phone lines to the house.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
They also find a box of candy that has been
left in front of the homes fireplace, which seems odd.
They look in this box of candy and there are
several messages created with a Dimo label maker, which is
a device that punches letters and numbers onto a plastic tape,
like you know, I mean, I have a label maker
at home. Yeah, so this is a message, right, and
(11:24):
the message demands a ransom of fifty thousand pounds for
Leslie's safe return, which is quite a lot of money today,
about a million, maybe a little less than a million
American dollars. I have a photo of the house, and
I have a photo of this Dimo label maker message.
If you want to see those, or if you want
to keep going.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
No, I'll go ahead and take a look at this.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Okay, So let's start with the house. You know, it's
a big house. It's as fancy as I thought it
could be. But still, I mean, you know, it's a
big house. What do you think.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, Well, when you're telling me that Leslie is not
inside the how and that it appears that the offender
or offenders left this box of candy with the message,
you know, the first thing I thought about is okay,
so even with Mom Dorothy inside the house, it sounds
like the offenders somehow gained entry into the house and
(12:17):
took Leslie without Mom hearing a thing. So now I'm
looking at a photo of this house, and you know,
in the foreground it appears that there this is a
photo taken during some sort of search. There are men,
numerous men with dogs that are out. I'm assuming this
is the front yard. It's you know, doesn't look like
a traditional street. And directly behind the men with the
(12:40):
dogs is a fairly tall hedge, is how I describe it.
And then beyond that hedge is a two story house.
What strikes me about at least this side of the house,
and I can't tell if this is the front side
or not, but there's very large windows all across this
side of the house.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
I would bet Paul, this is the back because look
that ugly antenna is right there, yeah, you know, sticking
up above. I would bet this is the back. And
I also wonder if there's a building to the upper
left or if that's one of their buildings.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, you know, the to the left of the house,
I'm guessing that's maybe a garage, maybe a detached garage.
I think you're right, you know, this is likely the
back of the house. I'm not seeing anything even that
suggests that there is a a an entrance, you know,
that would be what would be considered a front entrance.
(13:35):
So the house looks like it has some size. It
does appear that it's a visibility into the house. Is
it's significant, you know, these large windows. I'm not seeing curtains.
It appears that at least with the windows that I
can see that there's plane view into the house, and
that would be a significant portion of the interior of
(13:57):
the house and an offender could see from the outside.
You know, this is a wealthier family. I'm assuming that
this house is something that is fitting with their lifestyle.
So the size of the house definitely aids the offender.
If Leslie, let's say she was last seen going into
(14:18):
her bedroom or in her bedroom. And Mom's bedroom is,
you know, on the other side of the house. And yes,
I could easily see an offender coming in and abducting
a petit seventeen year old girl, keeping her quiet either
by force or fear, and getting her outside of the house.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
And it's just these two women. It's Dorothy and her daughter.
So that's it in this house. You know you had
mentioned this hedge. This is what I would call a
privacy hedge, and it is substantial. I mean it's tall
and taller than these men who are standing next to it.
I don't know if there's a wire above it or something.
It definitely looks like some kind of privacy like security.
There's a gate there. But then you're right, I mean,
(14:56):
the upper floors are completely exposed right below the I
don't know if those are terracotta tiles. But let me
show you this message, so I don't know. You see
where the chimney is, which was on the left hand
side of the house. I don't know if Leslie's room
is right above where the chimney is. And you know,
whoever took her went downstairs and just sort of dropped
(15:17):
this candy box on the ground, but this is what
was inside. So this is it says, well, why don't
you read it? Tell me what you think.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
So this is a single strip of this dimo plastic
you know, and I remember utilizing these in you know,
when I was much younger. You know, the offender is
having to rotate a wheel and then press on a
handle that causes like a crimping aspect where the plastic
(15:46):
where it gets crimped. Now it changes color in the
shape of the letter. So this is a dark background
with white letters, single strip, and it says only after
fifty thousand pounds has been cleared will victim be released.
So obviously this is an essence a ransom note in
(16:07):
a very unusual format.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
I mean, obviously he doesn't want to do this with handwriting,
because it's seventy five. Everybody knows that there's handwriting analysis.
This is an odd choice, right, I mean, I've seen
kidnappers do everything from you know, newspaper clippings to make
the letters, to obviously using a typewriter or computer. I
don't know if this choice is going to be significant
(16:30):
using a label maker, but this is certainly what he did,
and there's obviously more lines than just this one that
they just wanted to just show an example here.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Sure, well, you know, this is an offender who is
trying to think about physical evidence, and so in the
offender's mind, by utilizing this DIMO device to craft the
ransom note, he's avoiding leaving physical evidence. However, he's not
knowledgeable enough about how forensics can actually get a ton
(17:00):
of evidence from this type of material. You know, of
course we're seeing the investigator's hands, assuming it's investigators are
some you know, authorities, hands with no gloves on. You know,
this plastic is a very good surface for latent prints.
It's so narrow that you'd only get partial prints. But
(17:22):
of course now we have some contamination from whoever bare
fingers are showing here to kind of hold on to
this strip, you know, But this this device, there may
be characteristics that, due to the wear of this device
previously being used, might be unique to this particular device.
(17:44):
The finding of the source material for this ransom you know, plastic,
if you will, if it's with the device and the
fender's home, you know that significant fingerprints, of course could
be recovered from this material. And in this ana, it
also would be a source of DNA, but you know,
it informs me that the offender is trying in his
(18:07):
mind to limit the amount of evidence that law enforcement
can use to identify him or her.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Okay, So these are messages that demand a ransom as
you had read, of fifty thousand pounds for Leslie's safe return,
and they instruct a member of the family to go
to a specific telephone box like the classic red payphones
that you find, you know, in the United Kingdom, at
the Swan shopping center later that night. So this is
(18:39):
in a town, at a shopping center that's about ten
to fifteen miles away from where they are. Once at
the payphone, the family member has to wait for a
call from the kidnapper, who will then give further instructions
that will culminate in a ransom drop and Leslie's release.
So the kidnappers call will come so time between six
(19:01):
pm and one am on this night. You know that
she's been kidnapped in January. There's another message printed on
dimo tape that the kidnapper says, you are on a
time limit if police or tricks death. What do you
think so far? Besides he doesn't want to type too anymore,
(19:22):
and he's losing. He's leaving out a lot of words
in these messages. I guess that's what happens when you
use a label maker as your ransom note generator.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Yeah. Well, I mean this is, right now, pretty prototypical language.
You know. It is leveraging Leslie's safety for money, the
use of the dimo. You know. I remember having to,
you know, twist each letter for the word crimp it off,
go to the next letter. It is a kind of
a time consuming process to do, and that possibly contributes
(19:53):
to the curtness, if you will, of the message. But
the message is effective. It's not like it's leaving out
any clarity of what the intent is. And at least
with the previous strip, it looked like all the words
were spelled correctly, you know, so that might indicate something
about the offender too.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Okay, so we're thinking this one might be of the
range of offenders that we've had, this might be one
of the more intelligent ones. I guess we're going to
find out then, right, Well.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I want to go that far. At least it's not
so because we've had some you know, ransom letters in
which the grammar and the spelling of the words is
just so poor, and sometimes it's purposely done as a
form of staging, so the offender is making him look
like somebody else that he's not, or it's just that
(20:43):
the offender is just not very well educated.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
So Ron and Dorothy, so the mother and the son
are prepared, they're ready to pay this ransom. But despite
the threat, they always call the police. You know, despite
the threat from the capers, Ron decides he's going to
call the police. And I'm never quite sure what the
right answer is here, because we have never seen anything
(21:09):
good come from calling the police in any of our
ransom stories. But you know, Ron calls the police and
they start quietly working with the police. So what do
you think about that it's always a good idea to
call investigators. I'm assuming I.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Think, yeah, you know, I think in most instances, you know,
to have the types of resources that authorities have in
order to be able to investigate and monitor, you know,
do surveillance. I think there's a greater ability with bringing
(21:44):
law enforcement in right off the bat of being able
to possibly catch the offenders prior to the loved one
suffering harm or more harm. You know, it would be
a tough one though. You know, if your your loved
one is abductive and now there's threat of that loved
one's life if you do notify authorities, you know, you
(22:05):
kind of are You've got to be second guessing. Well,
how are the offenders monitoring me?
Speaker 1 (22:12):
You know?
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Could I do something that inadvertently I have no idea
that the offenders would be able to find out, and
now my loved one is hurt, so I can see
where the dilemma is. My position would be is, yeah,
I think it is more favorable to pull in law
enforcement up front than to try to handle this situation
(22:34):
just as a family.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Well that's what Ron wants to do. So they called
the police. They start working with the family. The officers
don't find very much physical evidence at all. They think
that Leslie was basically taken right from her bedroom, and
they said the only items that Dorothy say are missing
from the room were Leslie's blue robe and her pair
of slippers. It's the dead of winter, it's very very cold,
(22:58):
so they said she didn't even have a She is
not willingly leaving the house with a boyfriend or some
you know anything. She was taken. They really feel pretty
strongly about that. There's no substantial clothing taken along. So
once the police become involved, then the press becomes involved.
And this is the big problem. And we've seen this
(23:18):
with other stories too. There is a leak somewhere. Somebody
is leaking in all of our stories. Somebody leaks to
the press just hours after she's discovered missing. Paul, listen
to this. The BBC breaks in on the evening news
because she's an heiress, very wealthy, young teenage girl, an heiress,
and she is missing, and the BBC breaks in and
(23:41):
the police freak out, as would anybody, and they say,
this obviously is going to spook the kidnapper, and they
call off the plan to have Ron wait at this
designated payphone with the ransom money. So you know, the
kidnappers had given him specific instructions, and the police say,
we're not going to do that. I'm not sure that's
a great idea, But what do you think.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, I'm not sure why they would have him not
do it unless the media got a hold of the
information as to which telephone booth and that window of
time that he was supposed to receive a phone call.
I would imagine with the high profile nature of this
family that now you know what we've seen over there
(24:24):
in Britain with the paparazzi. You know, they're very, very aggressive.
So I imagine you possibly have media that's following we're
on around you now that they know about it, and
that maybe why law enforcement is saying, okay, hold on,
you know, we can't have this. This just isn't going
to work because the media is going to see what
telephone booth we're on is going to and that he
(24:44):
has I mean, the kidnappers said anywhere. I think he
said like from six pm to one am, like some
huge window of time that they might be calling within
that whole plan is shot. I'm now understanding why law
enforcement would call this off.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Okay, so now we kind of have to deviate into
a little bit of a different storyline that works with
the main storyline. So Ron does not call one am
passes A few hours after that, in the very early
hours of January fifteenth, there is a security guard named
Gerald Smith. He's on shift at a rail yard in Dudley,
(25:21):
which is about twenty five miles east of highly He's
forty four, and during his shift he sees a man
driving around the property and he approaches this guy. He
doesn't belong here. It's unclear if at this point the
man is in the vehicle or if he's outside of it,
but Gerald confronts him, says, you're not supposed to be here,
it's late, and he is shot six times. The gunman
(25:44):
then flees on foot, leaving the car that he was
driving behind, and I have a picture of that car.
It is related to this case. Gerald survives, He makes
it back to his office and he calls for help,
and the newspaper reports say that what the gunman wanted
and why he acted with such ferocity when challenged is
(26:08):
puzzling to police. And then they start searching for this,
you know, countrywide hunt for this man. Of course, they're
not quite connecting it. I know they're connected, but they're
not quite connecting this yet. So we have had some
really dumb kidnappers, you know, where things have happened and
it's they've been sort of not accidental, but they're kind
of bumbling kidnappers. These are connected, and this is violent.
(26:31):
So this is somebody who is using a gun and
almost killed someone.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Well, I think it's you know, we're talking over there
in Britain where there aren't a lot of guns. Right,
of course, I'm kind of curious if the security guard
got a description of the type of firearm, description of
the offender who shot him. You said, you have a
photograph of the car, you know, so this is in
many ways. Of course, you know, law enforcements treated it
(26:55):
as a standalone seeing a standalone case and know it's
related to Leslie's subduction, But there could be a lot
of evidence that could help solve who this offender was
in the security guard shooting.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I'll show you the car in a second, because I
have a second photo that goes with the car that
makes the connection for us between Leslie's kidnapping and this
shooting of this guard at this freightline yard. Okay, so
the kidnapper does not apparently know that the police are
working with this family, so he connects with the family.
(27:32):
So he kidnaps her on the fourteenth of January. Two
days later, he gets in touch with the family with
a phone call to her house. You know, he cut
their phone lines. We're assuming so I guess he thought
they were getting him fixed. He calls Dorothy's house and instead,
so listen to this instead of talking to the family.
(27:52):
He when they pick up, he plays a tape recording
of Leslie's voice, which must have just been terrifying. Sure,
I'll tell you what she said, but you tell me
what you think first.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Well. I think using the victim's voice in part is
to try to convince the family that Leslie is still
alive and is still cognisant. However, by using a tape recording,
you know, that is something that could have been recorded
earlier and Leslie could have suffered harm where she is
(28:25):
no longer alive, you know, Yet the offender can utilize
that recording to convince the family to move forward with
the ransom aspect. Of course, you know, the offender is
also using Leslie's voice to pull out the heartstrings. You know. Okay,
there's my loved one is on the other end, and
I have to double down and get the money out
(28:47):
so I can get Leslie back. Is probably part of
the reason to use her voice and the offender. By
recording Leslie as opposed to having Leslie just talk on
the phone, the defender has absolute control over what is
said over that phone call, versus Leslie blurting something out
(29:07):
that the offender doesn't want blurted out during let's say
a live phone call.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Well, this is terrifying, I'm sure to her mother. This
is what the taped message says in Leslie's voice, Mum,
you are to go to the Kidsgrove Post office telephone box.
That's another town. The instructions are inside behind the backboard.
I'm okay, but there's to be no police and no tricks. Okay.
(29:37):
And he plays it twice. So what do you think
about that?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
It's completely in line with the first instructions that had
been left that weren't followed through on. This appears to
be a process that the offender has got worked out
in his head that he's comfortable with. And I wonder,
you know, the these telephone booth they have a they're
(30:02):
somewhat spread out, right, you know, because they're they're standalone.
You don't have like a cluster of these where you
have a bunch of people, you know, like we'll see
like banks of payphones back in the day here in
the United States, and so you have people that are
just constantly flowing up to these payphones. These telephone booths
are stand alone, and I would imagine that he's selecting
(30:26):
telephone boosts that he can observe without being seen himself,
just to see is let's say Dorothy alone and if
it's not him, you know, do we have do we
have a group that's involved with this? Is is there
a member of the group that would be able to
observe this telephone booth from afar and see and evaluate
(30:49):
whether or not Dorothy's following instructions and doesn't appear that
there's any law enforcement or any any shenanigans going on
on Dorothy's.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Part, Well, let's continue on. They put a wae him,
which I'm not sure in seventy five, what do you
think that would have been, Like, what's a wire from
the police in seventy five, Well.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
You know, it would be a microphone that would feed
into a recording device. And back in the seventies, likely
some sort of cassette tape. And I'm not sure if
this would have been you know, the standard size cassettes
that we used to buy our music on, or they
actually had microcassettes. You know that they could at least
(31:30):
have a smaller device on there, but I don't think
they had anything more sophisticated than that. In the mid seventies.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Well, Ron must be petrified. Also, they put a wire
on him and he has to drive to this payphone
in kids Grove as instructed and according to the Stoke
on Trent Live news website, this is sixty miles away.
Police discreetly, I mean discreetly. I have no idea if
they're really doing that. They discreetly follow him as he
goes along and Ron gets lost. He doesn't get there
(32:01):
until three am, and then it takes him another half
an hour to find the instructions behind this you know,
phones backboard. When he finds him, he's directed to another location.
It's a really pretty spot in Bathpool Park and the
kidnapper leaves this message for Ron. So he finds this message.
(32:23):
Go to the top of the lane and turn into
no entry, so I'm assuming the lane that says no intrigue.
Go to the wall and flashlights. Look for torch. Run
to torch. Further instructions on torch is a flashlight in
the UK. Ron is totally confused by this and I'll
just stop here. He does not know and it's not
(32:46):
just you. Ron is also confused by this message.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah I'm not sure. So Ron is to drive basically
down this what we would say here in the United States,
you know, wrong way road, and then come to a
dead end and flash his headlights. If flashlights would be
signaling him back by being turned on and off, I mean,
(33:10):
that's kind of what I gathered, but then there would
be further instructions after those flashlights.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
That's what Ron thinks. But nothing happens when he does
exactly what she just said. He doesn't see one. He's
very frustrated, and after about an hour of flashing his
lights and waiting for a signal, which I mean, I
know he's in a more isolated area, but flashing your
lights at three in the morning is going to get
somebody's attention. No response. He says that he gets out
(33:38):
of the car. The police watch him do this, and
he screams, this is Ron Whittle. Is anybody there? And
nobody responds smartly, He eventually leaves without dropping the ransom
money or obviously finding Leslie. So this has become a mess,
what the police involved and this kidnapper, These kidnappers who
don't know what they're doing obviously, I mean, they're making
(34:00):
it difficult for him to find the message in the
phone booth to begin with, and then they leave behind
a confusing message. It's like cloak and Dagger, but sort
of the stupid version. I guess.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Well, that's kind of what I'm debating in my head
is you know, how incompetent are these kidnappers? You know,
on one hand, you know, the way that they are
having Ron take these steps obviously is they're not getting
what they're after. The money isn't showing up because they're
making it too hard, and Ron getting lost on the
(34:31):
way to you know that one location with the telephone booth. Well,
I mean, yeah, you know, you think about before Google
Maps and if he had just as a paper map,
and you know the types of roads that are out
there in England. You know, I think it would be
expected that he would struggle to find the right location. However,
you know, something that I'm chewing on is this this
(34:54):
kind of this wrong way road that they have Ron
turned down. Was this a counter surveillance move that they're doing?
You know? Was the configuration of where Ron had to
drive to get to that road and then go onto
that road such that if there had been you know,
(35:15):
law enforcement somewhat tailing him from Afar, that it would
kind of expose that that tale was present, that there
was some active surveillance of Ron occurring by law enforcement,
you know. So that would tend to suggest that the
offenders are are thinking, Okay, hold on, we got we
got some issues with this whole kidnapping and the ransom demands.
(35:38):
What is going on with the family, Let's do something
to see if we can expose is law enforcement involved
or not?
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah, and this is turned into a nightmare. I feel
like the police are making questionable decisions. Let me tell
you what they do next, and you tell me what
you think. So they feel like this place, Bathpool Park,
where they were directed, is a hotspot. They feel like
Leslie could be here or there is a big clue here.
They were drawn here and the police have a discussion
(36:08):
with the family, and the police decide they're going to
do a discrete sweep of Bathpool Park the next morning.
So this is probably four hours, seven maybe five hours
after the family goes home. They don't find anything useful.
So when we say discrete, we mean they are not
doing a full on search, you know, for this young
(36:29):
woman in the park. They are concerned that a big,
high profile operation like that would make the kidnapper aware
of their involvement. On the other hand, if she's there
and alive, wouldn't a full scale search maybe find her.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
We would discover her, you know, I think, you know,
if it is a full scale search, the concern would
be they don't know where she's at. They make their
presence obvious. Now the offenders have the advantage going up
law enforcements here, and now you know, Leslie could be
(37:04):
killed and the offenders you know, run off. So I
can understand where using a more discrete option might be preferable,
though obviously you can't be as thorough in any location.
I just kind of question when they say discrete, you know,
I is this you know, where they just have a
(37:26):
few people that are milling about and kind of you know,
knocking on some doors. Are we talking about full blown
spy versus spy where now you have what appears to
be utility work going on with men in uniforms, and
they're having to notify all the neighbors, Hey, we're about
to shut down your electrical or your phone lines, whatever else.
(37:48):
And now they can actually be much more aggressive in
terms of thoroughness by contacting all these places because they're
using a full blown ruse that might throw off the
offenders from suspecting this is a law enforcement operation.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Let's go with option number one, okay, which is men
in playing clothes, probably with sticks, poking around at bushes.
I do not think that is the kind of operation
that this police force is unfortunately operating under, because you know,
they are trying to be discreete they're scared. They don't
know what they're doing. I don't know why. You know,
Scotland Yard or someone bigger is not involved. But let's
(38:28):
keep going. So Dorothy and Ron are really really, of
course upset, and they're getting desperate, so they turn to
the media, hoping to issue a plea to the kidnappers directly. Unfortunately,
what happens is, you know, they say, of course we've
got you know, we've got ransom money here for you.
What ends up happening is scammers and hoaxers and they
(38:50):
are derailed because of this situation. And I know you're
nodding your head. And that is the risk with going
to the media sometimes, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
No, Yeah, you know, And now this is where the
general population nut jobs who want to have some notoriety
because they inserted themselves into the investigation just can cause
this case to go off the complete rails, you know.
You know, the complexity in this case, of course, is
early on the media got a hold of this, and now,
(39:20):
you know, law enforcement is trying to work behind the
scenes without alerting the media of what their operations are
and work with the family, and then family gets frustrated
with however, how these things are turning out, and now
it's just like, okay, you know, poor Leslie. At this point,
I think the killers, you know, this is where they
(39:40):
should be cutting bait and running. You know, they just
either leave Leslie or probably kill her to eliminate her
as a witness and get the hell out of Dodge.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Basically, well, that's not what happens with these guys. So
let's move forward. We're going to go back to Gerald Smith,
poor Gerald who was shot. So no idea why this
is happening, I guess you know, they have not made
this connection yet between the man who shot Gerald Smith
the guard at the railroad yard. They have not made
(40:11):
that connection yet. They have not searched this stolen car
that had been abandoned. The man who shot Gerald had
a car there. They finally searched it eight days later,
and listened to what they found. There's a gun that
was used to shoot Gerald, There's a box of bullets,
a foam mattress, a flashlight, several unused Dimo labels, a
(40:34):
tape recorder with cassettes, and her parents confirmed Leslie's slippers.
So now they've made the connection eight days later, and
I have photos of the car and of the tape recorder.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Is this the same law enforcement jurisdiction handling both Leslie's
abduction as well as this shooting.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
That's the impression I'm getting.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Yes, Okay, yeah, I'm surprised, you know, I mean, especially
in Britain, when you have a shooting of a security guard,
I would have thought that that would be a high
priority case. And they don't pursue the evidence, you know,
search the offender's car for eight days. It's like, Okay,
(41:14):
either they really drop the ball on that inexcusably, or
is so much law enforcement resources being tied up with
Leslie's abduction that they don't have the manpower to do
some of what should be timely and routine tasks in
the investigation of the security guard shooting.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
And keep in mind, this is not London, I mean,
and this is not a major city. This is a
series of small towns with I don't know how experienced
these folks are. I'm not reading the description Scotland yard
anywhere on this document, so you know this is not
as sophisticated I think as we think it could be,
(41:52):
or we wish it could be.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Yeah, and that's my guess. And I mean both types
of cases, the abduction of a seventeen year old girl
and a shooting, particularly a shooting in Britain, these are
cases that would be probably once in a career for
most of these investigators for this small department, So you know,
they may be just kind of fumbling around because they've
(42:16):
never experienced anything any one of these cases at a time,
let alone both of these types of cases. Kind of concurrently.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Let me show you the car. It's kind of a
cool little car. So there's the kidnappers car. It's stolen.
You know, he left it there, He shot the guard
and left it there. We don't know why he was
at this railway yard to begin with. We don't know.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Okay, well I'm you know right now, I'm just seeing
a picture of a looks like an old style four
doors at Anne that has the brand Morris on the
front grill. I just see the headlights, the bumper, the windshield,
The windows are rolled up. I was half expecting to
see some damage from bullets passing out of the vehicle
(42:57):
at the security guard. So maybe you know, a window
was down or the door was open. I don't know,
you know, but this is just its nondescript to me.
It just looks like a car that's just sitting, you know,
in a parking lot.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Yeah. So here down here is the tape recorder. You'll
probably recognize this type of tape recorder.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
I had one pretty close to that, you know, when
I was younger.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
This does date you, yes, So this is.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
A photograph of a standard cassette player from from back
in the day. Yeah. I can't tell if there's a
cassette in there. Maybe there is a cassette. Yeah, in fact,
I think there is a cassette in that photograph, but
I'm not entirely sure, you know. So, this obviously would
be how they could record Leslie's voice to say that
(43:46):
message and then replay it several times during the phone call. Yep,
obviously they found, you know, evidence that's tying this car
to the abduction. But I mean in terms of the
evidents to identify the offender who's involved in the shooting,
you know, from Layton print processing on and inside the car,
(44:06):
Layton print processing on that cassette recorder. You know, there's
scores of evidence, you know that could be pursued, you know,
using the technologies of the mid nineteen seventies. And is
this car even registered to the person that's that abducted
Leslie or is it a stolen vehicle?
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yeah, I mean, this is really it gets so convoluted.
Now you know why this is a double episode. I
have a confusing thing piece of evidence here. Remember I
told you there are cassettes in this car, So they
did not discover anything inside this car until eight days
after Gerald was shot. They find the cassettes in the car.
The cassettes play more messages in Leslie's voice, which instruct
(44:49):
the family to head to a specific payphone in another
English town. One says this, please, Mum, go onto the
M six north to junction ten and onto the A
five four five towards Walsall instructions are taped under the
shelf of a telephone box. There's no need to worry, Mom,
I'm okay. I got a bit wet, but I'm quite
(45:12):
dry now. I'm being treated very well. Okay. So one,
I need your reaction to the reassurance he's obviously trying
to make her say to her mother. But number two,
I'm not quite sure what the point of these cassettes
are because they're laying. I know they were recorded, they're
laying in this car. They haven't been delivered. These are
(45:33):
undelivered instructions essentially.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Well, it sounds like the offenders had several different plans
depending on the circumstances that they were going to be
confronted with as the days went on. So they had
Leslie pre record Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, whatever
it was, and then implemented one of those plans with
(45:58):
the actual phone call with Leslie's voice telling Dorothy, this
is what I want you to do now right now.
Of course, we don't know why they chose that particular
plan over the others, but this gives me a little
bit of concern, you know, I know Leslie's voice is
saying that she's being treated well. That only she got
(46:18):
a little bit wet, which I'm assuming is during the abduction.
Maybe it was raining that night or something. No, it
was winter, Okay, yeah, January. But to record these plans,
all these plans ahead of time and right now, maybe
I'm exaggerating in terms of the number of plans that
they recorded, But are they capturing Leslie's voice because their
(46:40):
plan was that she was going to be dead very
shortly afterwards. You know, That's where I'm getting a little
bit concerned about that.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Well, there's even more to be concerned about. So there
are some fingerprints that they are able to match from
Jerald's crime scene where he has been shot, to a
series of violent robberies that include murders starting in nineteen
seventy four. These are all postal workers. These are all
(47:10):
murders that were connected, like I said, through fingerprints and
some ballistics. They said, so the last postal worker who
was murdered, robbed and murdered was killed in November of
seventy four, and that's just two months before Leslie was kidnapped.
So these are really, I mean, it sounds like just
(47:31):
like awful violent robberies. And because these have all been
nearly identical and there are at different locations across the country,
the investigators believe the perpetrator is the same man they're
just they all feel the same, and of course now
they have these fingerprints. He's eventually dubbed the Black Panther
by the press because of his knack for wearing all black,
(47:52):
including a you know, like a head covering that covers
you know, his entire head except from two eye holes,
and witnesses he says he moves very swiftly during the robberies.
You know, the press loves a good moniker. So the
bottom line is now the main suspect here, who's connected
to the car, who's connected to Gerald, who is still
(48:13):
in critical condition but awake, connected to the kidnapping of Leslie.
All of these surround this one man that they've dubbed
the Black Panther.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Yeah, so they're finding Layton's from these various robbery scenes
and homicide scenes of postal workers that they are able
to interconnect. They don't know who this man is, this
black Panther man. And then now with the security guard shooting,
they get latens I'm assuming either from the car or
(48:45):
from objects that they collect out of the car that
have that they're able to connect to these prior robberies
and homicides of the postal workers. So now black Panther
is suspect number one. They just don't know who black
panther there is. When you think about these robberies, you know,
robbery is typically a financially motivated crime, you know, And
(49:08):
why go after postal workers? Are you going after you know,
paychecks that are in the mail? Are you going after
other items of value that these postal workers would have
had in on their routes?
Speaker 1 (49:21):
You know?
Speaker 2 (49:22):
But typically it's a financially motivated crime, and of course
this kidnapping if Leslie, is a financially motivated crime, even
though it's a it's a very different type of financially
motivated crime, but the fundamental motive is there, you know.
And now you have you have fingerprints that are are
matching everything up.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
It's just who is it? Who is this black panther?
Speaker 1 (49:43):
That's what we're going to have to find out next week, Paul,
Who is it? And where is Leslie? Where is she?
What happened? Does he ever make a connection with the family. Again,
Ron and Dorothy are just beside themselves. The police are
not doing a great job. It sounds like I things
are going to get better, but we're going to have
to find out next week.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
Yeah, things are not looking good for Leslie because you
have the black panther who is willing to kill prior
is he willing to kill her? So I will wait
and hear the rest of the story.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Okay, I'll be back with you in a week.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
Sounds good.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
This has been an exactly right production for our sources
and show notes go to exactlyrightmedia dot com slash Buried
Bones sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Emosi.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark, and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Barry Bones Pod.
Speaker 2 (50:56):
Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Age story of and the race to decote the criminal mind,
is available now
Speaker 1 (51:03):
And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's
Cold Cases is also available now
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is buried Bones.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hi, Kate, how are you?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I'm doing well. I have wanted to ask you something
for a long time. You cheat on me with another show.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
That's one way to put it.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
He cheats on all of us. Although you guys listen,
I'm sure too. It's a small town Dick's great show.
One of your co hosts is very, very famous, you know,
Yardley Smith, who is Lisa Simpson and it does many
other things I know, but is best known for Lisa
Simpson on The Simpsons, and so I have not met
her in person yet, but I've sort of awestruck that
(01:34):
you can even put together a sentence when you're doing
a crime show with Lisa Simpson. I mean, she is
just Yardly to you because you say you're not like
some massive Simpsons fan like I am.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
No, you know, I watched a few episodes when it
first came out, and that may have even been I
think it was the Tracy Allman Show, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Back when they looked funny. I think, right, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
So that is thirty plus years ago, and I never
really followed it since. And then I met Yardley out
in d C for a true crime conference and Yardly
and then her now husband Dan and his twin brother
Dave were to interview me on stage, and then that's
when I got to know him, and obviously we just clicked,
(02:21):
you know, Dan, Dave and I being law enforcement, and Yardly,
even with her celebrity status, is just so down to
earth and you know. And so that has been a
great part of my life to get to know them
and eventually become part of the podcast Smalltown Dicks.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
And I think you all have like a very easy
way of having a conversation but still being professional. Everybody's
professional there and being very serious. But I feel like
it seems like you're all very comfortable with each other,
which is which is you know, how you and I
are too.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I think, oh, yeah, no, you know, and I think
that that really is what helps drive is success podcast
is you know, the co host being able to relate
to each other just in a very natural, friendly way.
I am not a listener of podcasts, but I could
only imagine that if there's awkwardness between the co hosts,
that that probably doesn't come off very well. And so,
(03:17):
of course, you know, our listeners hear you and I
and the great relationship we have. But also a small
town dicks, it's just a natural thing. You know. We
of course record the episodes, but even if we get
together and it's we're not recording, we're just, let's say,
hanging out in a hot tub.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
All right. That's good to know. Well, I am jealous,
very jealous, because I am a huge Simpsons fan and
I try to get my kiddos into the Simpsons also
they get looped into the Halloween specials, and so I
really admire her as an actress and as a voice actress,
(03:55):
and I just think it's great. I'm super happy, and
I hear she's a super fan, maybe not a super fan,
and she's a fan fan of Buried Bones, so that's good.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, she listens to Buried Bones. I think she's a
fan of yours. So you know, let's see if you've
got some sort of mutual thing going on there.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Well, what a wonderful way to start an episode. I
like to start on a you know, positive note here,
because you know, we now are pivoting into a well,
I think is a really complicated kidnapping case, and we've
had those before. I mean, I just feel like the
more kidnapping episodes we cover, the nuttier these people get
(04:35):
and the requests that they make it And I feel like,
you know, we've covered kidnappings from all all different sorts
of decades and we're going to be in the nineteen
seventies in England for this one. But the requests from
kidnappers just get stranger and stranger. So I always am
fascinated about your reaction. You always have like a quizzical
look on your face. I wish listeners could see it
(04:56):
every time we talk about some of these weird us
that the kidnappers make. So this will be a good
one for you.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, you know. And I can remember we had the
one episode where the mail that was kidnapped and I
was really suspicious of him, like he had staged his
own abduction and turned out to be very very wrong,
you know. But I do remember some of the requests
in that particular episode were so bizarre. I'm like, oh,
(05:23):
this this just doesn't sound right. Well it turns out
it was right, you know, And so I'm kind of
curious to see, you know, this case and what kind
of requests the kidnappers are going to make.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, well, let's go ahead and set the scene. So
this is nineteen seventy five England, and this is a big, big, big,
big one. I mean, there's lots of evidence, I have
good photos, there's lots to talk about. It's a double episode,
too big. Once I saw the prep document, I thought, man,
this is really big. So this will be a good
episode for us to really dig into. I think the
(05:56):
way that kidnappers work and what they're thinking when they
do stuff like this, so we won't like, you know,
dink around with this. As I say, my kids don't
think around like this. We're not going to dink around
this is let me tell you who the victim is,
which just already sets me on edge. It is a
seventeen year old girl, which is already you know, my
kids are almost fifteen, so that's already I'm already kind
(06:18):
of on edge to begin with with a story about
a teenager. She's very small, she's five foot tall, and
that kind of plays into this. I mean, what would
you say, Paul, So she's if you have a kidnapping
victim who's small, five feet it's just like you're going
to assume that this is somebody who's not going to
put up as much of a fight.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I guess, well, I wouldn't necessarily say that. I mean,
you could in terms of putting up a fight versus
being effective at the fight as probably how I differentiate that. Then,
of course, when you start dealing with evaluating the victim
who's five foot nothing, you know, sounds like a petite
seventeen year old girl. And let's say the kidnapper is
(06:58):
a more robust male. Obviously, the male has a size
and strength advantage, which gives that offender greater latitude in
terms of how to conduct the abduction versus you know,
is it an offender who's having to use charm and
lowering the victim versus an offender who could literally pick
(07:20):
this girl up, sling her over his shoulder and walk
her out to a vehicle. You know. So that's going
to be part of As I hear the details, I'm
going to be starting to assess, well, you know, how
did the offender approach the victim and how was she abducted?
Because that speaks volumes to certain attributes of the offender.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Okay, yeah, well here we go. This was a case
recommended by a listener. Thank you listener. This involves, as
I said at petit seventeen year old girl. Her name
is Leslie Whittle and she lives in highly Shropshire hopefully
I said that right, which is a village in the
West Midlands of England. She has a very comfortable life.
(08:00):
We are talking upper class because her father is a businessman.
His name is George Whittell, and he runs a sizable
and successful bus company coach company in the United States,
we'd say bus company. When he died in seventy two,
he left behind a fortune of three hundred thousand British
pounds to his surviving family. This is I'm going to
(08:22):
convert things to American dollars. This is like just south
of five million, I would say four and a half
million maybe dollars today. This includes his wife, Dorothy, she's
in her fifties, and he has a son named Ron
who is in his early thirties. And then there's Leslie
who's seventeen. So she actually gets a portion that is
substantial eighty two thousand, which is you know, about a
(08:44):
million pounds now, which is you know, one and a
half million dollars. I would say, So she gets us
at seventeen. Here's the problem. It's widely reported that she
got this inheritance in local newspapers. I've never understood this,
you know, I mean, don't you think that would make
her a target? And I'm not, like I said, I'm
not dinking around with this one. She's the target here.
(09:04):
So a seventeen year old who has about a million
and a half dollars to day dollars in an inheritance.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Well, I think just the family wealth is driving any
of them to be a target her inheriting the money.
Of course, maybe an offender would be evaluating this as
a seventeen year old girl. Is there a way I
can steal from her, rob from her if in an
abduction situation, it's not unheard of her offenders will force
(09:34):
victims to withdraw from their bank right checks, you know,
so this is a direct robbery of the victim's financial assets. However,
in this scenario, there's greater assets with the other family members.
And so now is Leslie when she gets abducted. Is
(09:54):
the offender or offenders utilizing her safety as leverage to
get access to the larger sums of money that the
family has.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Let's see what happens. This family's worth a lot of money.
And now the patriarch has gone, and there is a
son who's in his thirties but not around. It doesn't
sound like he lives somewhere else. And then Leslie. This
is January fourteenth, nineteen seventy five, and we are at
the Wittell home. Dorothy is wondering, so this is the mother.
(10:26):
Dorothy wonders why Leslie hasn't come down for breakfast yet.
That morning, she goes upstairs to look for Leslie, but
she's not in her bedroom and she doesn't seem to
be anywhere in the house. Dorothy is really nervous. She
calls to the adult son, Ron, who lives nearby, but
her phone isn't working, so she rushes over to Ron's
(10:47):
house and returns to her own house alongside him, and
together they start looking for Leslie, but they don't find her.
They do discover that what you probably have silently suspected
that someone cut the phone lines to the house.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
They also find a box of candy that has been
left in front of the homes fireplace, which seems odd.
They look in this box of candy and there are
several messages created with a Dimo label maker, which is
a device that punches letters and numbers onto a plastic tape,
like you know, I mean, I have a label maker
at home. Yeah, so this is a message, right, and
(11:24):
the message demands a ransom of fifty thousand pounds for
Leslie's safe return, which is quite a lot of money today,
about a million, maybe a little less than a million
American dollars. I have a photo of the house, and
I have a photo of this Dimo label maker message.
If you want to see those, or if you want
to keep going.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
No, I'll go ahead and take a look at this.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Okay, So let's start with the house. You know, it's
a big house. It's as fancy as I thought it
could be. But still, I mean, you know, it's a
big house. What do you think.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, Well, when you're telling me that Leslie is not
inside the how and that it appears that the offender
or offenders left this box of candy with the message,
you know, the first thing I thought about is okay,
so even with Mom Dorothy inside the house, it sounds
like the offenders somehow gained entry into the house and
(12:17):
took Leslie without Mom hearing a thing. So now I'm
looking at a photo of this house, and you know,
in the foreground it appears that there this is a
photo taken during some sort of search. There are men,
numerous men with dogs that are out. I'm assuming this
is the front yard. It's you know, doesn't look like
a traditional street. And directly behind the men with the
(12:40):
dogs is a fairly tall hedge, is how I describe it.
And then beyond that hedge is a two story house.
What strikes me about at least this side of the house,
and I can't tell if this is the front side
or not, but there's very large windows all across this
side of the house.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
I would bet Paul, this is the back because look
that ugly antenna is right there, yeah, you know, sticking
up above. I would bet this is the back. And
I also wonder if there's a building to the upper
left or if that's one of their buildings.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, you know, the to the left of the house,
I'm guessing that's maybe a garage, maybe a detached garage.
I think you're right, you know, this is likely the
back of the house. I'm not seeing anything even that
suggests that there is a a an entrance, you know,
that would be what would be considered a front entrance.
(13:35):
So the house looks like it has some size. It
does appear that it's a visibility into the house. Is
it's significant, you know, these large windows. I'm not seeing curtains.
It appears that at least with the windows that I
can see that there's plane view into the house, and
that would be a significant portion of the interior of
(13:57):
the house and an offender could see from the outside.
You know, this is a wealthier family. I'm assuming that
this house is something that is fitting with their lifestyle.
So the size of the house definitely aids the offender.
If Leslie, let's say she was last seen going into
(14:18):
her bedroom or in her bedroom. And Mom's bedroom is,
you know, on the other side of the house. And yes,
I could easily see an offender coming in and abducting
a petit seventeen year old girl, keeping her quiet either
by force or fear, and getting her outside of the house.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
And it's just these two women. It's Dorothy and her daughter.
So that's it in this house. You know you had
mentioned this hedge. This is what I would call a
privacy hedge, and it is substantial. I mean it's tall
and taller than these men who are standing next to it.
I don't know if there's a wire above it or something.
It definitely looks like some kind of privacy like security.
There's a gate there. But then you're right, I mean,
(14:56):
the upper floors are completely exposed right below the I
don't know if those are terracotta tiles. But let me
show you this message, so I don't know. You see
where the chimney is, which was on the left hand
side of the house. I don't know if Leslie's room
is right above where the chimney is. And you know,
whoever took her went downstairs and just sort of dropped
(15:17):
this candy box on the ground, but this is what
was inside. So this is it says, well, why don't
you read it? Tell me what you think.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
So this is a single strip of this dimo plastic
you know, and I remember utilizing these in you know,
when I was much younger. You know, the offender is
having to rotate a wheel and then press on a
handle that causes like a crimping aspect where the plastic
(15:46):
where it gets crimped. Now it changes color in the
shape of the letter. So this is a dark background
with white letters, single strip, and it says only after
fifty thousand pounds has been cleared will victim be released.
So obviously this is an essence a ransom note in
(16:07):
a very unusual format.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
I mean, obviously he doesn't want to do this with handwriting,
because it's seventy five. Everybody knows that there's handwriting analysis.
This is an odd choice, right, I mean, I've seen
kidnappers do everything from you know, newspaper clippings to make
the letters, to obviously using a typewriter or computer. I
don't know if this choice is going to be significant
(16:30):
using a label maker, but this is certainly what he did,
and there's obviously more lines than just this one that
they just wanted to just show an example here.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Sure, well, you know, this is an offender who is
trying to think about physical evidence, and so in the
offender's mind, by utilizing this DIMO device to craft the
ransom note, he's avoiding leaving physical evidence. However, he's not
knowledgeable enough about how forensics can actually get a ton
(17:00):
of evidence from this type of material. You know, of
course we're seeing the investigator's hands, assuming it's investigators are
some you know, authorities, hands with no gloves on. You know,
this plastic is a very good surface for latent prints.
It's so narrow that you'd only get partial prints. But
(17:22):
of course now we have some contamination from whoever bare
fingers are showing here to kind of hold on to
this strip, you know, But this this device, there may
be characteristics that, due to the wear of this device
previously being used, might be unique to this particular device.
(17:44):
The finding of the source material for this ransom you know, plastic,
if you will, if it's with the device and the
fender's home, you know that significant fingerprints, of course could
be recovered from this material. And in this ana, it
also would be a source of DNA, but you know,
it informs me that the offender is trying in his
(18:07):
mind to limit the amount of evidence that law enforcement
can use to identify him or her.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Okay, So these are messages that demand a ransom as
you had read, of fifty thousand pounds for Leslie's safe return,
and they instruct a member of the family to go
to a specific telephone box like the classic red payphones
that you find, you know, in the United Kingdom, at
the Swan shopping center later that night. So this is
(18:39):
in a town, at a shopping center that's about ten
to fifteen miles away from where they are. Once at
the payphone, the family member has to wait for a
call from the kidnapper, who will then give further instructions
that will culminate in a ransom drop and Leslie's release.
So the kidnappers call will come so time between six
(19:01):
pm and one am on this night. You know that
she's been kidnapped in January. There's another message printed on
dimo tape that the kidnapper says, you are on a
time limit if police or tricks death. What do you
think so far? Besides he doesn't want to type too anymore,
(19:22):
and he's losing. He's leaving out a lot of words
in these messages. I guess that's what happens when you
use a label maker as your ransom note generator.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Yeah. Well, I mean this is, right now, pretty prototypical language.
You know. It is leveraging Leslie's safety for money, the
use of the dimo. You know. I remember having to,
you know, twist each letter for the word crimp it off,
go to the next letter. It is a kind of
a time consuming process to do, and that possibly contributes
(19:53):
to the curtness, if you will, of the message. But
the message is effective. It's not like it's leaving out
any clarity of what the intent is. And at least
with the previous strip, it looked like all the words
were spelled correctly, you know, so that might indicate something
about the offender too.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Okay, so we're thinking this one might be of the
range of offenders that we've had, this might be one
of the more intelligent ones. I guess we're going to
find out then, right, Well.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I want to go that far. At least it's not
so because we've had some you know, ransom letters in
which the grammar and the spelling of the words is
just so poor, and sometimes it's purposely done as a
form of staging, so the offender is making him look
like somebody else that he's not, or it's just that
(20:43):
the offender is just not very well educated.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
So Ron and Dorothy, so the mother and the son
are prepared, they're ready to pay this ransom. But despite
the threat, they always call the police. You know, despite
the threat from the capers, Ron decides he's going to
call the police. And I'm never quite sure what the
right answer is here, because we have never seen anything
(21:09):
good come from calling the police in any of our
ransom stories. But you know, Ron calls the police and
they start quietly working with the police. So what do
you think about that it's always a good idea to
call investigators. I'm assuming I.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Think, yeah, you know, I think in most instances, you know,
to have the types of resources that authorities have in
order to be able to investigate and monitor, you know,
do surveillance. I think there's a greater ability with bringing
(21:44):
law enforcement in right off the bat of being able
to possibly catch the offenders prior to the loved one
suffering harm or more harm. You know, it would be
a tough one though. You know, if your your loved
one is abductive and now there's threat of that loved
one's life if you do notify authorities, you know, you
(22:05):
kind of are You've got to be second guessing. Well,
how are the offenders monitoring me?
Speaker 1 (22:12):
You know?
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Could I do something that inadvertently I have no idea
that the offenders would be able to find out, and
now my loved one is hurt, so I can see
where the dilemma is. My position would be is, yeah,
I think it is more favorable to pull in law
enforcement up front than to try to handle this situation
(22:34):
just as a family.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Well that's what Ron wants to do. So they called
the police. They start working with the family. The officers
don't find very much physical evidence at all. They think
that Leslie was basically taken right from her bedroom, and
they said the only items that Dorothy say are missing
from the room were Leslie's blue robe and her pair
of slippers. It's the dead of winter, it's very very cold,
(22:58):
so they said she didn't even have a She is
not willingly leaving the house with a boyfriend or some
you know anything. She was taken. They really feel pretty
strongly about that. There's no substantial clothing taken along. So
once the police become involved, then the press becomes involved.
And this is the big problem. And we've seen this
(23:18):
with other stories too. There is a leak somewhere. Somebody
is leaking in all of our stories. Somebody leaks to
the press just hours after she's discovered missing. Paul, listen
to this. The BBC breaks in on the evening news
because she's an heiress, very wealthy, young teenage girl, an heiress,
and she is missing, and the BBC breaks in and
(23:41):
the police freak out, as would anybody, and they say,
this obviously is going to spook the kidnapper, and they
call off the plan to have Ron wait at this
designated payphone with the ransom money. So you know, the
kidnappers had given him specific instructions, and the police say,
we're not going to do that. I'm not sure that's
a great idea, But what do you think.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, I'm not sure why they would have him not
do it unless the media got a hold of the
information as to which telephone booth and that window of
time that he was supposed to receive a phone call.
I would imagine with the high profile nature of this
family that now you know what we've seen over there
(24:24):
in Britain with the paparazzi. You know, they're very, very aggressive.
So I imagine you possibly have media that's following we're
on around you now that they know about it, and
that maybe why law enforcement is saying, okay, hold on,
you know, we can't have this. This just isn't going
to work because the media is going to see what
telephone booth we're on is going to and that he
(24:44):
has I mean, the kidnappers said anywhere. I think he
said like from six pm to one am, like some
huge window of time that they might be calling within
that whole plan is shot. I'm now understanding why law
enforcement would call this off.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Okay, so now we kind of have to deviate into
a little bit of a different storyline that works with
the main storyline. So Ron does not call one am
passes A few hours after that, in the very early
hours of January fifteenth, there is a security guard named
Gerald Smith. He's on shift at a rail yard in Dudley,
(25:21):
which is about twenty five miles east of highly He's
forty four, and during his shift he sees a man
driving around the property and he approaches this guy. He
doesn't belong here. It's unclear if at this point the
man is in the vehicle or if he's outside of it,
but Gerald confronts him, says, you're not supposed to be here,
it's late, and he is shot six times. The gunman
(25:44):
then flees on foot, leaving the car that he was
driving behind, and I have a picture of that car.
It is related to this case. Gerald survives, He makes
it back to his office and he calls for help,
and the newspaper reports say that what the gunman wanted
and why he acted with such ferocity when challenged is
(26:08):
puzzling to police. And then they start searching for this,
you know, countrywide hunt for this man. Of course, they're
not quite connecting it. I know they're connected, but they're
not quite connecting this yet. So we have had some
really dumb kidnappers, you know, where things have happened and
it's they've been sort of not accidental, but they're kind
of bumbling kidnappers. These are connected, and this is violent.
(26:31):
So this is somebody who is using a gun and
almost killed someone.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Well, I think it's you know, we're talking over there
in Britain where there aren't a lot of guns. Right,
of course, I'm kind of curious if the security guard
got a description of the type of firearm, description of
the offender who shot him. You said, you have a
photograph of the car, you know, so this is in
many ways. Of course, you know, law enforcements treated it
(26:55):
as a standalone seeing a standalone case and know it's
related to Leslie's subduction, But there could be a lot
of evidence that could help solve who this offender was
in the security guard shooting.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I'll show you the car in a second, because I
have a second photo that goes with the car that
makes the connection for us between Leslie's kidnapping and this
shooting of this guard at this freightline yard. Okay, so
the kidnapper does not apparently know that the police are
working with this family, so he connects with the family.
(27:32):
So he kidnaps her on the fourteenth of January. Two
days later, he gets in touch with the family with
a phone call to her house. You know, he cut
their phone lines. We're assuming so I guess he thought
they were getting him fixed. He calls Dorothy's house and instead,
so listen to this instead of talking to the family.
(27:52):
He when they pick up, he plays a tape recording
of Leslie's voice, which must have just been terrifying. Sure,
I'll tell you what she said, but you tell me
what you think first.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Well. I think using the victim's voice in part is
to try to convince the family that Leslie is still
alive and is still cognisant. However, by using a tape recording,
you know, that is something that could have been recorded
earlier and Leslie could have suffered harm where she is
(28:25):
no longer alive, you know, Yet the offender can utilize
that recording to convince the family to move forward with
the ransom aspect. Of course, you know, the offender is
also using Leslie's voice to pull out the heartstrings. You know. Okay,
there's my loved one is on the other end, and
I have to double down and get the money out
(28:47):
so I can get Leslie back. Is probably part of
the reason to use her voice and the offender. By
recording Leslie as opposed to having Leslie just talk on
the phone, the defender has absolute control over what is
said over that phone call, versus Leslie blurting something out
(29:07):
that the offender doesn't want blurted out during let's say
a live phone call.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Well, this is terrifying, I'm sure to her mother. This
is what the taped message says in Leslie's voice, Mum,
you are to go to the Kidsgrove Post office telephone box.
That's another town. The instructions are inside behind the backboard.
I'm okay, but there's to be no police and no tricks. Okay.
(29:37):
And he plays it twice. So what do you think
about that?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
It's completely in line with the first instructions that had
been left that weren't followed through on. This appears to
be a process that the offender has got worked out
in his head that he's comfortable with. And I wonder,
you know, the these telephone booth they have a they're
(30:02):
somewhat spread out, right, you know, because they're they're standalone.
You don't have like a cluster of these where you
have a bunch of people, you know, like we'll see
like banks of payphones back in the day here in
the United States, and so you have people that are
just constantly flowing up to these payphones. These telephone booths
are stand alone, and I would imagine that he's selecting
(30:26):
telephone boosts that he can observe without being seen himself,
just to see is let's say Dorothy alone and if
it's not him, you know, do we have do we
have a group that's involved with this? Is is there
a member of the group that would be able to
observe this telephone booth from afar and see and evaluate
(30:49):
whether or not Dorothy's following instructions and doesn't appear that
there's any law enforcement or any any shenanigans going on
on Dorothy's.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Part, Well, let's continue on. They put a wae him,
which I'm not sure in seventy five, what do you
think that would have been, Like, what's a wire from
the police in seventy five, Well.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
You know, it would be a microphone that would feed
into a recording device. And back in the seventies, likely
some sort of cassette tape. And I'm not sure if
this would have been you know, the standard size cassettes
that we used to buy our music on, or they
actually had microcassettes. You know that they could at least
(31:30):
have a smaller device on there, but I don't think
they had anything more sophisticated than that. In the mid seventies.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Well, Ron must be petrified. Also, they put a wire
on him and he has to drive to this payphone
in kids Grove as instructed and according to the Stoke
on Trent Live news website, this is sixty miles away.
Police discreetly, I mean discreetly. I have no idea if
they're really doing that. They discreetly follow him as he
goes along and Ron gets lost. He doesn't get there
(32:01):
until three am, and then it takes him another half
an hour to find the instructions behind this you know,
phones backboard. When he finds him, he's directed to another location.
It's a really pretty spot in Bathpool Park and the
kidnapper leaves this message for Ron. So he finds this message.
(32:23):
Go to the top of the lane and turn into
no entry, so I'm assuming the lane that says no intrigue.
Go to the wall and flashlights. Look for torch. Run
to torch. Further instructions on torch is a flashlight in
the UK. Ron is totally confused by this and I'll
just stop here. He does not know and it's not
(32:46):
just you. Ron is also confused by this message.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah I'm not sure. So Ron is to drive basically
down this what we would say here in the United States,
you know, wrong way road, and then come to a
dead end and flash his headlights. If flashlights would be
signaling him back by being turned on and off, I mean,
(33:10):
that's kind of what I gathered, but then there would
be further instructions after those flashlights.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
That's what Ron thinks. But nothing happens when he does
exactly what she just said. He doesn't see one. He's
very frustrated, and after about an hour of flashing his
lights and waiting for a signal, which I mean, I
know he's in a more isolated area, but flashing your
lights at three in the morning is going to get
somebody's attention. No response. He says that he gets out
(33:38):
of the car. The police watch him do this, and
he screams, this is Ron Whittle. Is anybody there? And
nobody responds smartly, He eventually leaves without dropping the ransom
money or obviously finding Leslie. So this has become a mess,
what the police involved and this kidnapper, These kidnappers who
don't know what they're doing obviously, I mean, they're making
(34:00):
it difficult for him to find the message in the
phone booth to begin with, and then they leave behind
a confusing message. It's like cloak and Dagger, but sort
of the stupid version. I guess.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Well, that's kind of what I'm debating in my head
is you know, how incompetent are these kidnappers? You know,
on one hand, you know, the way that they are
having Ron take these steps obviously is they're not getting
what they're after. The money isn't showing up because they're
making it too hard, and Ron getting lost on the
(34:31):
way to you know that one location with the telephone booth. Well,
I mean, yeah, you know, you think about before Google
Maps and if he had just as a paper map,
and you know the types of roads that are out
there in England. You know, I think it would be
expected that he would struggle to find the right location. However,
you know, something that I'm chewing on is this this
(34:54):
kind of this wrong way road that they have Ron
turned down. Was this a counter surveillance move that they're doing?
You know? Was the configuration of where Ron had to
drive to get to that road and then go onto
that road such that if there had been you know,
(35:15):
law enforcement somewhat tailing him from Afar, that it would
kind of expose that that tale was present, that there
was some active surveillance of Ron occurring by law enforcement,
you know. So that would tend to suggest that the
offenders are are thinking, Okay, hold on, we got we
got some issues with this whole kidnapping and the ransom demands.
(35:38):
What is going on with the family, Let's do something
to see if we can expose is law enforcement involved
or not?
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah, and this is turned into a nightmare. I feel
like the police are making questionable decisions. Let me tell
you what they do next, and you tell me what
you think. So they feel like this place, Bathpool Park,
where they were directed, is a hotspot. They feel like
Leslie could be here or there is a big clue here.
They were drawn here and the police have a discussion
(36:08):
with the family, and the police decide they're going to
do a discrete sweep of Bathpool Park the next morning.
So this is probably four hours, seven maybe five hours
after the family goes home. They don't find anything useful.
So when we say discrete, we mean they are not
doing a full on search, you know, for this young
(36:29):
woman in the park. They are concerned that a big,
high profile operation like that would make the kidnapper aware
of their involvement. On the other hand, if she's there
and alive, wouldn't a full scale search maybe find her.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
We would discover her, you know, I think, you know,
if it is a full scale search, the concern would
be they don't know where she's at. They make their
presence obvious. Now the offenders have the advantage going up
law enforcements here, and now you know, Leslie could be
(37:04):
killed and the offenders you know, run off. So I
can understand where using a more discrete option might be preferable,
though obviously you can't be as thorough in any location.
I just kind of question when they say discrete, you know,
I is this you know, where they just have a
(37:26):
few people that are milling about and kind of you know,
knocking on some doors. Are we talking about full blown
spy versus spy where now you have what appears to
be utility work going on with men in uniforms, and
they're having to notify all the neighbors, Hey, we're about
to shut down your electrical or your phone lines, whatever else.
(37:48):
And now they can actually be much more aggressive in
terms of thoroughness by contacting all these places because they're
using a full blown ruse that might throw off the
offenders from suspecting this is a law enforcement operation.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Let's go with option number one, okay, which is men
in playing clothes, probably with sticks, poking around at bushes.
I do not think that is the kind of operation
that this police force is unfortunately operating under, because you know,
they are trying to be discreete they're scared. They don't
know what they're doing. I don't know why. You know,
Scotland Yard or someone bigger is not involved. But let's
(38:28):
keep going. So Dorothy and Ron are really really, of
course upset, and they're getting desperate, so they turn to
the media, hoping to issue a plea to the kidnappers directly. Unfortunately,
what happens is, you know, they say, of course we've
got you know, we've got ransom money here for you.
What ends up happening is scammers and hoaxers and they
(38:50):
are derailed because of this situation. And I know you're
nodding your head. And that is the risk with going
to the media sometimes, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
No, Yeah, you know, And now this is where the
general population nut jobs who want to have some notoriety
because they inserted themselves into the investigation just can cause
this case to go off the complete rails, you know.
You know, the complexity in this case, of course, is
early on the media got a hold of this, and now,
(39:20):
you know, law enforcement is trying to work behind the
scenes without alerting the media of what their operations are
and work with the family, and then family gets frustrated
with however, how these things are turning out, and now
it's just like, okay, you know, poor Leslie. At this point,
I think the killers, you know, this is where they
(39:40):
should be cutting bait and running. You know, they just
either leave Leslie or probably kill her to eliminate her
as a witness and get the hell out of Dodge.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Basically, well, that's not what happens with these guys. So
let's move forward. We're going to go back to Gerald Smith,
poor Gerald who was shot. So no idea why this
is happening, I guess you know, they have not made
this connection yet between the man who shot Gerald Smith
the guard at the railroad yard. They have not made
(40:11):
that connection yet. They have not searched this stolen car
that had been abandoned. The man who shot Gerald had
a car there. They finally searched it eight days later,
and listened to what they found. There's a gun that
was used to shoot Gerald, There's a box of bullets,
a foam mattress, a flashlight, several unused Dimo labels, a
(40:34):
tape recorder with cassettes, and her parents confirmed Leslie's slippers.
So now they've made the connection eight days later, and
I have photos of the car and of the tape recorder.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Is this the same law enforcement jurisdiction handling both Leslie's
abduction as well as this shooting.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
That's the impression I'm getting.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Yes, Okay, yeah, I'm surprised, you know, I mean, especially
in Britain, when you have a shooting of a security guard,
I would have thought that that would be a high
priority case. And they don't pursue the evidence, you know,
search the offender's car for eight days. It's like, Okay,
(41:14):
either they really drop the ball on that inexcusably, or
is so much law enforcement resources being tied up with
Leslie's abduction that they don't have the manpower to do
some of what should be timely and routine tasks in
the investigation of the security guard shooting.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
And keep in mind, this is not London, I mean,
and this is not a major city. This is a
series of small towns with I don't know how experienced
these folks are. I'm not reading the description Scotland yard
anywhere on this document, so you know this is not
as sophisticated I think as we think it could be,
(41:52):
or we wish it could be.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Yeah, and that's my guess. And I mean both types
of cases, the abduction of a seventeen year old girl
and a shooting, particularly a shooting in Britain, these are
cases that would be probably once in a career for
most of these investigators for this small department, So you know,
they may be just kind of fumbling around because they've
(42:16):
never experienced anything any one of these cases at a time,
let alone both of these types of cases. Kind of concurrently.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Let me show you the car. It's kind of a
cool little car. So there's the kidnappers car. It's stolen.
You know, he left it there, He shot the guard
and left it there. We don't know why he was
at this railway yard to begin with. We don't know.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Okay, well I'm you know right now, I'm just seeing
a picture of a looks like an old style four
doors at Anne that has the brand Morris on the
front grill. I just see the headlights, the bumper, the windshield,
The windows are rolled up. I was half expecting to
see some damage from bullets passing out of the vehicle
(42:57):
at the security guard. So maybe you know, a window
was down or the door was open. I don't know,
you know, but this is just its nondescript to me.
It just looks like a car that's just sitting, you know,
in a parking lot.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Yeah. So here down here is the tape recorder. You'll
probably recognize this type of tape recorder.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
I had one pretty close to that, you know, when
I was younger.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
This does date you, yes, So this is.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
A photograph of a standard cassette player from from back
in the day. Yeah. I can't tell if there's a
cassette in there. Maybe there is a cassette. Yeah, in fact,
I think there is a cassette in that photograph, but
I'm not entirely sure, you know. So, this obviously would
be how they could record Leslie's voice to say that
(43:46):
message and then replay it several times during the phone call. Yep,
obviously they found, you know, evidence that's tying this car
to the abduction. But I mean in terms of the
evidents to identify the offender who's involved in the shooting,
you know, from Layton print processing on and inside the car,
(44:06):
Layton print processing on that cassette recorder. You know, there's
scores of evidence, you know that could be pursued, you know,
using the technologies of the mid nineteen seventies. And is
this car even registered to the person that's that abducted
Leslie or is it a stolen vehicle?
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yeah, I mean, this is really it gets so convoluted.
Now you know why this is a double episode. I
have a confusing thing piece of evidence here. Remember I
told you there are cassettes in this car, So they
did not discover anything inside this car until eight days
after Gerald was shot. They find the cassettes in the car.
The cassettes play more messages in Leslie's voice, which instruct
(44:49):
the family to head to a specific payphone in another
English town. One says this, please, Mum, go onto the
M six north to junction ten and onto the A
five four five towards Walsall instructions are taped under the
shelf of a telephone box. There's no need to worry, Mom,
I'm okay. I got a bit wet, but I'm quite
(45:12):
dry now. I'm being treated very well. Okay. So one,
I need your reaction to the reassurance he's obviously trying
to make her say to her mother. But number two,
I'm not quite sure what the point of these cassettes
are because they're laying. I know they were recorded, they're
laying in this car. They haven't been delivered. These are
(45:33):
undelivered instructions essentially.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Well, it sounds like the offenders had several different plans
depending on the circumstances that they were going to be
confronted with as the days went on. So they had
Leslie pre record Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, whatever
it was, and then implemented one of those plans with
(45:58):
the actual phone call with Leslie's voice telling Dorothy, this
is what I want you to do now right now.
Of course, we don't know why they chose that particular
plan over the others, but this gives me a little
bit of concern, you know, I know Leslie's voice is
saying that she's being treated well. That only she got
(46:18):
a little bit wet, which I'm assuming is during the abduction.
Maybe it was raining that night or something. No, it
was winter, Okay, yeah, January. But to record these plans,
all these plans ahead of time and right now, maybe
I'm exaggerating in terms of the number of plans that
they recorded, But are they capturing Leslie's voice because their
(46:40):
plan was that she was going to be dead very
shortly afterwards. You know, That's where I'm getting a little
bit concerned about that.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Well, there's even more to be concerned about. So there
are some fingerprints that they are able to match from
Jerald's crime scene where he has been shot, to a
series of violent robberies that include murders starting in nineteen
seventy four. These are all postal workers. These are all
(47:10):
murders that were connected, like I said, through fingerprints and
some ballistics. They said, so the last postal worker who
was murdered, robbed and murdered was killed in November of
seventy four, and that's just two months before Leslie was kidnapped.
So these are really, I mean, it sounds like just
(47:31):
like awful violent robberies. And because these have all been
nearly identical and there are at different locations across the country,
the investigators believe the perpetrator is the same man they're
just they all feel the same, and of course now
they have these fingerprints. He's eventually dubbed the Black Panther
by the press because of his knack for wearing all black,
(47:52):
including a you know, like a head covering that covers
you know, his entire head except from two eye holes,
and witnesses he says he moves very swiftly during the robberies.
You know, the press loves a good moniker. So the
bottom line is now the main suspect here, who's connected
to the car, who's connected to Gerald, who is still
(48:13):
in critical condition but awake, connected to the kidnapping of Leslie.
All of these surround this one man that they've dubbed
the Black Panther.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Yeah, so they're finding Layton's from these various robbery scenes
and homicide scenes of postal workers that they are able
to interconnect. They don't know who this man is, this
black Panther man. And then now with the security guard shooting,
they get latens I'm assuming either from the car or
(48:45):
from objects that they collect out of the car that
have that they're able to connect to these prior robberies
and homicides of the postal workers. So now black Panther
is suspect number one. They just don't know who black
panther there is. When you think about these robberies, you know,
robbery is typically a financially motivated crime, you know, And
(49:08):
why go after postal workers? Are you going after you know,
paychecks that are in the mail? Are you going after
other items of value that these postal workers would have
had in on their routes?
Speaker 1 (49:21):
You know?
Speaker 2 (49:22):
But typically it's a financially motivated crime, and of course
this kidnapping if Leslie, is a financially motivated crime, even
though it's a it's a very different type of financially
motivated crime, but the fundamental motive is there, you know.
And now you have you have fingerprints that are are
matching everything up.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
It's just who is it? Who is this black panther?
Speaker 1 (49:43):
That's what we're going to have to find out next week, Paul,
Who is it? And where is Leslie? Where is she?
What happened? Does he ever make a connection with the family. Again,
Ron and Dorothy are just beside themselves. The police are
not doing a great job. It sounds like I things
are going to get better, but we're going to have
to find out next week.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
Yeah, things are not looking good for Leslie because you
have the black panther who is willing to kill prior
is he willing to kill her? So I will wait
and hear the rest of the story.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Okay, I'll be back with you in a week.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
Sounds good.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
This has been an exactly right production for our sources
and show notes go to exactlyrightmedia dot com slash Buried
Bones sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Emosi.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark, and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Barry Bones Pod.
Speaker 2 (50:56):
Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Age story of and the race to decote the criminal mind,
is available now
Speaker 1 (51:03):
And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's
Cold Cases is also available now
Hosts And Creators
Kate Winkler Dawson
Paul Holes
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