October 2, 2024 • 51 mins
In this first part of a two-parter, Kate and Paul head to 1929 Detroit, Michigan where a successful Italian businessman is found murdered alongside his entire family. With a bloody fingerprint and some investigation of the victim's business dealings, the case starts to take shape.
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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.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm a journalist who's spent the last twenty five years
writing about true crime.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
works some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is buried bones.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Hey, Kate, how are you?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I'm great, Paul, how about you?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I am doing good. Do I hear construction sounds in
the background? What's going on?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Listen?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
If I'm in here with you, you do not hear
construction sounds. Because I am the construction crew in this
project of mine. It's just me and well, my dad,
but he doesn't do anything when I'm not here. We
are building a cottage. It's a shed, it's a she shed,
but it's a cottage in my backyard. I have kind
(01:31):
of a wooded area in my backyard and I have
a little Cotage's going to be one hundred and twenty
square feet and it'll be where you know, I do
some taping and stuff with you, and I do some
book writing with me. But I'm doing it in Victorian style,
nineteenth century cottage.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Well there's you know, that seems appropriate, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I mean, we're not gonna have a chamber pot or anything,
but it's definitely it's going to be decked out. I'm
in love at that time period. I love the eighteen hundred.
So I've been collecting different antiques. I just picked up
a pair of chairs, Victorian style chairs, king and Queen
style from like a Facebook marketplace for one hundred and
(02:13):
fifty bucks for this pair. And they're beautiful. They're beautiful, beautiful.
They're red, deep red, and I'm very excited. I've always
thought I should sit in a king or a queen chair,
and now my dream has become a reality.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well, now that's all regarding interior design. I'm kind of
interested in the construction. Are you swinging your own hammer?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I am, I'm swinging. Well, it's probably more going to
be like a Neil gun.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
But it's okay about that still that's impressive.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, and I get to do so.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
My dad has done construction for a large part of
his life and so he's gonna really help me get
it up. And we're setting the foundation now and figuring
all of that out kind of the peer and being foundation.
We have a good section in our backyard that is
very deceiving. It's just trees, cedar trees, oak trees, elm
(03:03):
trees that are beautiful, and so you can't really tell
how deep our backyard is, but it's very deep, and
it's just a I call it the forest or the
woods back there. So I thought, I'm going to make
this cottage and I have a faux fireplace, and I'm
going to have a He's going to build me a
faux chimney, a chimney because of course I have to
have a chimney. And I'm doing all this Paul, because man,
(03:26):
I love my kids, but they are bugging me a
lot when I'm trying to get writing done, and they,
you know, they're in constantly sort of in my room,
which is fine, that's not a problem, but it can
be kind of, you know, distracting when I'm trying to write.
So I said to my kiddos. I'm creative making this cottage,
and it's going to be in the forest. It's, you know,
(03:48):
two or three minute walk back there. And one of
my girls said, do you really think putting a cottage
in the backyard is going to stop us from coming
out there and bugging you to go for a drive
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
I mean, just to see like a TikTok dance they did.
And she said, do you really think that's gonna stop us?
I said, I guess suppose not. I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I guess I'm having visions of certain fairy tales like
Little Red riding Hood or what is it, Handsel and.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Cradle, Cansel and Gretel.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Maybe I should tell them that story and I'll be
like the woman with the gingerbread house. Yeah, I'm going
to have to scare them a little bit. I told
them that they were going to need to spend the
night out there because the forest gets so dark at night,
and we have like huge owls that live in it,
and I'm sure all kinds of critters that our dogs
scare away during the day but not at night, so
(04:40):
we'll see. I think one good scare will send them
back in. But I'm prepping. I'm getting it ready. It'll
be done before Halloween, which is great. But I'm excited
just because that eighteen hundreds is just where my heart
is and I've never been able to really have a
space of my own to be able to create it. So,
you know, the men, the vanity drawings I showed you
(05:01):
my I found of my dad.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
My dad had one, and I have like fifteen.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
They're going to go up, okay on the walls, and
I'm excited about it. It's well, I have a Lionel
train set that I'm excited to put up on some shelves.
We're going to bookshelves, and it's going to feel like
a cottage. So hopefully at some point our listeners are
actually going to be able to check it out, you know,
and see where I'm going to be taping from from
now on. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
You know, I've got my man cave and you've got
your woman's retreat out there. That's going to be cool.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I'm going to have the globe of gas light and
you have the glow of your aquarium.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
That's right there, you go.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
It's the major parts of our life. I think that's important.
But you know, I told you. I'm an atmosphere kind
of person, so that's where I head.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Is that.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
So I'm very excited.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
I'm looking forward to it, just for your sake.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Thank it for my sanity.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yes, yes, Like I said, I adore my kids and
they support what I do. They support my writing, but
they just want to be with me all the time,
and I love that.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
I thought that as.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Teenagers they were not going to be with me all
all the time, but they are as of right now.
So I'm gonna be grateful for that. But at the
same time, mama does need to have a cottage for sure.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Well, this story that I'm getting ready to tell you
is wild. This is a big case. Everybody has asked
us to do this case. So this is a big case.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
We're making it a double Okay, good, okay good. I
wish this were set in the eighteen hundreds. It's not.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
It's nineteen twenty nine, gritty Detroit, Michigan, which is a
great place to be. And so you know, I need
you to help me sort out a really really confusing,
wacky scene with this story.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
All right, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
I need to start out with a trigger warning. This
is definitely a violent story, even more I think than usual.
But this is a story that I have had probably
no less than ten listeners over the last four years
email me about because in Detroit it's pretty well known.
It's the Saint alban Street massacre, and it's a very
(07:04):
dramatic story, and it's part of this area's history. Nineteen
twenty nine, for me, is very recent compared to what
we usually talk about. So this will be one that's
going to be hard to untangle, but I think you're
going to enjoy talking about it.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
And obviously this is set during the Great Depression, right.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Right before Oh okay.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
We're kind of getting into it, but it is happening
literally months before Black Thursday happens, which is the stock
market crash. I mean, the country's already starting to feel it,
but the stock market crash is the thing that really
triggers a lot of what happens afterward with the Great Depression.
And so this is right before this happens.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Got it in Detroit.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
So if I were to label this story in a
neat little glass jar and put a label on it,
I would call this Things are not always as they seem.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
This is that story so I can expect to be
misled at some point during the story.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Not by me.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
You're going to march me down the wrong path. I
can tell it already.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
So it is nineteen twenty nine, Detroit, Michigan. I don't
know a ton about Detroit. I've never been to Detroit.
Have you done a trip to Detroit before?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I bet you have.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
You know, I've only passed through the airport during my
book tour, so I have never personally visited Detroit. I've watched,
you know, some historic things about the auto industry in Detroit,
you know, and then of course how things have changed
dramatically over the decades in that city. But I imagine
(08:38):
in nineteen twenty nine, Ford and some of these other
automakers are probably this is a booming business in Detroit.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
YEP.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
The auto industry has provided quite a lot of decent
paying jobs, which is something that's very appreciated, especially right
before the Great Depression really comes down. It's a draw
for a lot of people who want better economic opportunities,
and that includes immigrants. So in the early twentieth century
there was a very large population that came from Poland
(09:08):
and Germany and Russia and Italy, and today we're going
to talk about a family, the patriarch who was born
in Italy and he comes to the United States around
the turn of the century. So his name is Bennie Evangelista,
and he was just nineteen years old when he came
to the United States, and he eventually shortens his name
(09:30):
to Evangelist. So that's what we're going to kind of
go with, Bennie Evangelist. He spent a chunk of his
time in Philadelphia, but by nineteen twenty nine, which is
when we're really getting into the story, he's in Michigan.
And then he moves to Detroit in the twenties, early
twenties because of the reputation of being an economic hot spot,
and again three months before the big stock market crash
(09:52):
in the beginning of the Great Depression. So let me
tell you who is in this house which is our
crime scene. It is Bennie. He's forty four and he
has made a small fortune in Detroit in the real
estate business. He's very successful. He has a business partner
well known, you know, kind of a well known person
in the community. He's married to a woman named Santina.
(10:13):
She's thirty eight and there's a daughter, Angeline who's seven,
a daughter Margaret, who's five, another one who is named Jane.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
And she's four.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And then they have a boy who is eighteen months
named Mario. I wonder if Benny I see this, listen.
I wonder if Bennie just said, we're gonna keep going
till we get a boy, because he has three girls.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
And then he ends up with a boy. But who knows.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
They had been recently married, and the family doctor is
not quite sure about the origin of where the kids
are coming from.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
There's a little bit of speculation.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
That she, you know, she had been married before, whether
or not these were her kids from a previous marriage,
or whether or not these were Benny's kids. But at
least Mario was so we have these kids. He seems
like a great dad. She seems like a good mom.
They live in a nice sized two story house on
Saint Auban Street near mac Avenue, which is in Detroit's
(11:08):
Eastern Market neighborhood. And let me tell you a little bit.
I know I'm whipping through all this information, but let
me tell you a little bit about the house. It's,
like I said, a pretty nice sized house, five rooms
in a bathroom on the upper level. There's two front
rooms upstairs that are bedrooms that are connected by a door,
and then the back three rooms are unused and not
(11:28):
really furnished. And then they have four rooms on the
lower floor. You know, this is where Benny offices with
his real estate business. And there is also an attic
and a basement, so they have a big amount of space.
But they've got four kids. So you've got, you know,
a husband and a wife who in their four children,
who are all small. I mean the oldest kid is seven,
(11:51):
Angelina's seven.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
So you ready to hear more? Do you have any questions?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
No, you know, I'm just now looking where Saint Aubin
Street is located in Detroit. It looks like it's just
a couple of blocks north of the Detroit River. And
you mentioned Mac Street.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Is that right, Yes, near Mack Street, and that's in
the Eastern Market neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
So yeah, I'm seeing it. Obviously, Detroit today has a
major freeway system that wasn't present in nineteen twenty nine.
But it does appear that this Saint Aubin's Street is
somewhat surrounded by some industrial areas. Okay, I'm seeing like
the Rivertown warehouse district. It's an interesting location. I just
(12:36):
you know, of course, I always look at the geography
as I assess cases, and I'm trying to just get
a sense there's some harbors or some parks. Okay, I've
got a better feel.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Got a good feel. Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
I like it when you do that, because the research
that you like, do you immediately like to hop on.
We've had some stories where it's been pretty key, Like
remember the story about the man who was from Cuba
but purported to be from China and dead in New
York and you were able to look at the street
and even currently today and you could tell how close
(13:07):
a witness when we say the witness was across the street,
and I'm going, that's bs, there's no way this witness
is going to have the kind of a detail. And
then you said, now look at the street. It's a
very narrow street and you're going to be able to
see whatever you want from across the street. I like
that you immediately kind of go to that.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Well.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
It really is part of my process, you know, even
with cases that I've worked that are decades old and
maybe the location of the crime has changed considerably, but
the space is still there and sometimes it can be
very informative.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Well, I have a photo of the house, but it's
more of like because this is a very dramatic story.
It's more of the crowd.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
And you can see the house, but it'll give you
a better idea of how residential it is. And then
I have a photo of the family, So let me
show you. There is the evangelist family. So there's been
in the upper left hand corner and his wife and
then the four in the little baby she's holding.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah, so their house.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
They're pointing. You can see how many people are standing
in front of here. They say homes in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
No longer exist.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
And I don't know how old this newspaper clipping is,
but this is what it was like to tell me
what you think.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Well, in terms of the house, this is a photo
from across the street looking at the front of the house,
but it's not directly in front. It's at an angle,
so I can see that the other houses that are
next to the victim's house. It looks like there's at
least the three stories above ground. You have the main
floor or second floor, and then maybe an attic, there's
(14:37):
a large balcony off the second floor. And I think
you also said that this house had a basement, so
there's no question that this is this is a sizeable house. Now,
the street, it looks like a fairly wide street, almost
as if it's a main thoroughfare in the area at
the time. There's automobiles that are parked on the curb
(14:59):
opposite from the side of the street of the house.
And then, as you mentioned, a very large crowd and
what is going on? There is this photo like after
the crime scene is found.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Yes, okay, so this is everybody once they've read about
it in the newspaper.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
These are people gathering to gawk. Essentially.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
These are luki loose, the.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Looky lose, These you know, well to do people. This
is a great example, Paul. I mean, how many people
do you think are out there? It's just sort of
a eyeball. A couple hundred or more, what do you
think somewhere.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
In that range? I mean, this is this is not
a small crowd. This looks like there's like a major
event going on, you know. And somebody is standing up
on the porch of the victim's house almost like he's
presenting to this crowd. It's really bizarre.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Well, this is what I've said many times when people say,
why are we so all of a sudden everybody is
so crazy about true crime? And it's this is a
genre that's exploded. No, it hasn't. We've always been like,
this is a great illustration. We've always been fascinated with
the stories. It's just the mode of communication, you know,
the creative aspect of it, how we can deliver these stories,
(16:10):
has exploded. It's not our interest in it. And this is,
like I said, a great illustration of that. Look at
all these people coming out. I'm sure there are kids
in the crowd. So this is this was definitely a
big story at the time.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Well, these people are reading something in the newspaper. They're
not watching the news, right, they're actually reading it in
the newspaper, and they're taking time out of their lives
to go to this crime scene.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
And of course you have to think about it.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
This is before the Internet, of course, and this is
where they probably thought they would get the most authentic
information would just be going down there and seeing what
the police are saying, versus googling every you know, news
source or blogger YouTube, you can think of what is
what we would do now people would just show up
at these crime scenes. So let's get to the crime
(16:54):
that made this a crime scene. So all of this
happened on the night of July third, nineteen twenty nine,
but it's not discovered until the next morning when Bennie's
real estate colleague shows up for a meeting because Bennie's
office is in the house. So this guy named Vincent
(17:14):
Alias shows up for this meeting and he comes inside
and then he sees the scene. So he sees Bennie's wife.
After he goes upstairs, he sees Bennie's wife who is Santina,
and her body is slumped over the bed. Her head
is described as horribly mutilated and nearly severed from her body.
(17:36):
Her arm also has a very deep cut in it,
as if the murderer was attempting to amputate it. So
when he doesn't see people downstairs, he goes upstairs and
the first bedroom he encounters is where Santina is. So
just that part I will tell you that these injuries
are repeated with the kids basically decapitated. She slumped over
(18:00):
the bed and a very deep cut as if the
murderer was trying to amputate her without me going into
where Bennie is or you know, the scene or anything
like that. What do you think just of that sort
of level of brutality, they immediately think it's an axe
that has done it.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Is that a mad person or god? It just seems
awful against a woman.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Well, with this type of injury work cases that include
a machete, you know, which can produce similar types of injuries.
So you know, it appears that the killer is utilizing
this type of weapon, which today is relatively unusual. But
we've done a fair number of stories from this timeframe. Yeah,
(18:46):
this is a much more readily available weapon, it seems
back during this era. So it's hard to really extrapolate
anything behaviorally about the offender by choosing to use this weapon.
This may have just been the weapon that was most
immediately available to this particular offender versus a firearm or
(19:06):
a knife or something else. I think this idea that
the offender is trying to purposefully amputate Santina's arm, now
that doesn't sound right when somebody is being attacked with
a weapon like an axe or a machete, and they
go into a defensive posture. It is common to see
(19:26):
this type of injury to the arms. You know, people
are familiar like if somebody is warding off blows. Let's
say somebody has a hammer or a bat and is
beating on somebody and the arms go up. The forearms
will get a lot of bruising, just like if somebody
has a knife and is now stabbing against the victim.
(19:49):
The defensive injuries you get the incisive injuries of the
knife on the hands and on the forearms as they
try to protect themselves. When somebody is attacking you with
an axe and your arm goes up, that axe is
going through the arm. My interpretation right now is Santina
is aware she is being attacked and is going into
(20:10):
a defensive posture, and that's when the axe hits the arm,
and an axe will produce an injury in which literally
the arm could be completely severed or it can go
through the bones. And let's say it's at the forearm level.
Skin is the only thing holding part of the arm
to the body. So that's what it sounds like. She's
(20:31):
aware she's being attacked, goes into a defensive posture, and
then of course, her head is receiving blows either from
the blade of the axe or the back of the axe,
as well as sounds like her neck is hit with
the axe, probably as almost like a coup de gras,
you know, where this could be the last blow, which
now the offender. She's lost consciousness, and the offender ends
(20:54):
up basically taking the axe to the neck and nearly
cutting her head off.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Well, of course much worse.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
So we are not thinking that this is what they
say an intentional amputation of the arm. We're thinking that
these were defensive wounds, which definitely tallies with I think
what's coming up. She is protecting her baby, Mario, who's
eighteen months old. He dies too. She is holding him,
and he has several gashes on his head. So I
(21:25):
don't think it's clear whether or not the killer is
targeting both, you know, Santina and Mario, or Mario just
gets some gashes accidentally. But I will tell you the
other three kids are dead also well.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
I think if the killer is purposely moving through the
house and is killing the other kids, then Mario may
not just be ancillary. I think the killer, knowing that
Santina is trying to protect Mario was able to inflict
sufficient injuries to Mario to kill the eighteen month old
(22:00):
in addition to being able to inflict the injuries on Santina.
And this also plays into how Santina is going to
be responding to the offender, because you imagine, if she's
got her baby, you know, she is going to be
trying to hold onto the baby in a way to
prevent the offender from hurting the baby, and maybe has
(22:22):
the baby in one arm with the other arm up
in a defensive posture at some point, and then that's
when that arm gets the blow from this axe, you know.
And if you imagine if she's hugging onto this baby,
the offender has free rein to her head, she's not
able to put her arms up above her head to
help shield. Not that it would do much good, but
this is all part of just thinking about the dynamics
(22:45):
of how this crime would occur, how Santina would be
responding physically to trying to protect her baby as well
as warding off the offender, and then how the offender
has access to be able to inflict certain types of
blas or certain locations of blows with an axe while
you know, Santinez is trying to do two things, keep
(23:06):
herself safe and keep her baby safe.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Well, it's an awful scene.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
It's very, very bloody, and when investigators eventually move over
to the next bedroom, this is where they find the
three girls, the ones that are ranging from seven years old.
So there's a seven year old, a five year old,
and a four year old. They're all in the same bedroom,
which is right next door to the parents' bedroom, and
(23:31):
two of them are in the same twin bed. And
I don't know why I thought that that was interesting,
because it's a huge house with lots and lots of bedrooms.
I mean, because they're young, It's possible that they just
wanted the kids right next door and kind of grouped
them in there.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
They could have heard something.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
You know, if we take Benny out of the picture
for a minute, the killer probably would have targeted of course,
if you know, if she's the only adult upstairs, the
killer would have targeted the mom first, and maybe the
kids huddle together. But you know, these three girls are
all together in one room and they are all found dead.
They have several gashes on their faces. One of the
(24:08):
children has a very similar injury to her mom. We
don't know which one could have been the oldest. It
appears like the killer tried to cut her arm off
according to investigators in nineteen twenty nine. And you know, everybody,
their faces specifically seem to have been targeted. So now
you've got a mom and four children who were all
(24:29):
dead upstairs.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
I would postulate that the killer goes in and I
don't know the sequence mom versus the three girls in
the other room in terms of who was killed first.
But my suspicion is as these girls are, as you mentioned,
at least two of them were laying in a twin
bed together. The offenders taking the axe to them. Whether
they're cowering and they're aware that there's something bad going
(24:53):
on because they heard their mom screaming, or they're asleep,
but he's just taking the axe and striking them in
the head, whether they're face up, face down, you know
that's what the killer is doing. This one girl who
has her arm which appears to be partially amputated. I
again go back to this girl as likely in a
defensive posture. So you know, this devious killer who's trying
(25:19):
to amputate his victim's arms. This just tells. With those
investigators forming that opinion, that speaks to I think they're
inexperience with this type of violence.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Okay, you know, before we get to the man in
this situation, Benny, investigators say nothing was taken if we're
talking about motive just right now, before you know anything more,
no money, It doesn't seem to be there's any money taken.
But you know, one thing I had not thought that
was a good note in here was listen, people kept cash,
lots of cash all the time. You know, with the
(25:51):
girls and the mom dead, there's nobody there right now
to say whether or not there was you know, five
thousand dollars worth of cash hidden in somebody too. But
investigators are saying that robbery seems to be off the table.
If that's the case, and if this is not a
family annihilation story, what is the motivation of a stranger
(26:13):
with an axe to kill little kids who are unlikely
to ever be witnesses? Could that be something sort of
inside that person, a desire or is it a frenzy?
They describe it as a frenzy. I just don't understand.
I still don't understand the motivation for killing kids who
will never identify you if you're a stranger.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Let's say this is truly a stranger that's the killer.
It's not unheard of. And I've got one case that
I didn't go out on, but I reviewed, which kind
of similar, not with an axe, but basically a toddler
was killed in his crib and then the parents were
also killed, and that offender happened to have a what
(26:54):
I would call a psychosis. This is your psychotic type
of offender. Something internally is driving the offender to think that,
you know, must go in and kill this family. And
what that thought process is is something that can be
just so bizarre because these types of offenders are not
(27:16):
thinking right. Richard Trent and Chase. You know, the vampire
killer out of Sacramento back in nineteen seventy seven timeframe,
you know, he had aliens tell him I think that
you know, when you pick up a bar of soap
in the shower and it's all gooey underneath, that means
that she had soap dish poisoning. And the only cure
for soap dish poisoning is to drink somebody's blood, you know.
(27:38):
So this is the type of you know, psychotic mindset
that you know, an offender such as in this case,
you could have somebody who is suffering from something like
that and ends up, you know, killing this you know
this mother and the four kids. So there's that possibility.
Then there's possibly a vindictive offender seeking revenge, and part
(28:06):
of that revenge is maybe Santina or Benny were the
primary targets of this vindictive aspect, but decides to wipe
out the entire family just as part of this whole
revenge mindset. It doesn't sound like, at least with the
way that you set this case up, this does not
sound like a fantasy motivated offender at this point in time.
(28:28):
Somebody who's got some sort of fantasy, either sexual fantasy
or violent fantasy that they need to commit for their
own self gratification. Now I wouldn't take that off the
table yet, but it sounds less likely given the circumstances.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Right, and investigators say there's not evidence of sexual assault
on anybody, but you know, of course there's always the
caveat there. But from the onset, that's what they're saying.
So let's talk about the only male in the house
besides little Maria Bennie. So Benny has an office, and
everybody else was, you know, dressed in their nightgowns and
(29:07):
were upstairs in bed at sleep. Presumably whenever this happened,
Bennie was not, so this could have been. And when
I started reading this, I was thinking this is a
family annihilator story. It doesn't sound like it. Bennie's lifeless
body is found slumped over in a chair in his office.
He's fully dressed in the clothes that he had been
(29:28):
wearing that day, his hand so he's slumped in this chair.
But they find his hands folded in his lap together
as if he's praying, and his head is laying on
the floor beside his chair. He's been decapitated. So my
main suspect is now out the window.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Well, that'd be hard to be a self inflicted wound.
And I'm assuming they didn't find any weird apparatus that
you know, you know, Benny set up a little guillotine
to take his own.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Life, not that I can tell.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
But this is where this story gets super weird when
I get into the details about Benny and his life.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Okay, it gets weird.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
So I told you that the police throw the robbery
theory kind of out the window, because there's nothing that
anyone can tell is really missing. When they start bringing
people in who know the family and who know the
house really well, they search the home. They think that
the murderer left through an exterior door in the kitchen.
There's a set of men's bloody shoeprints that lead through
(30:26):
the kitchen and go upstairs to the wife's bedroom and
then back down. And there's a bloody fingerprint and a
thumbprint on the kitchen door's latch. So this is good news.
We have fingerprints, which you know, from writing American Sherlock
set in the nineteen twenties, I know that they were
actively doing fingerprinting at this time period. We need a suspect,
(30:50):
but you know, at this point at least we've got
some kind of forensics moving forward.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
So, yeah, bloody shoeprints that appear to originate out of
where Benny is located, and then those shoe prints go
up to where Santina, his wife is, or vice versa.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
No, it's a kitchen, so it's an exterior door in
the kitchen. So somebody goes through the outside into an
exterior door, walks through the kitchen, goes upstairs. I'm assuming,
you know, killing Benny first. I don't know if this
is someone who needed to be familiar with the layout
of the house. It's a huge house. And then they
go upstairs, there's blood, and then they come back down
(31:31):
and leave.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
So let's let's assume the offender comes in with an axe.
I would be surprised that with a single strike with
an axe that that would completely decapitate Benny, especially if
he's just sitting in the chair. You know, the offender
comes up behind him. You know, Benny's positioning is odd,
you know, sitting there with his hands folded like maybe
(31:54):
he was just sitting there. Is he being controlled by
this offender? And Benny's just now acknowledging my life, life
is over? You know, if the offender and the autopsy
would also be able to help answer this question. But
if the offender is doing my multiple strikes to Benny's neck,
you know that would be seen in the wounding pattern
(32:15):
if a single strike went through Benny's neck. This is
either a very very sharp axe with a very broad
blade like almost like your executioner acts that you see,
you know, or are you dealing with a sword of
some type which right now, you know, I can't eliminate
(32:37):
that as a possibility.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
It's such an odd scene, especially with all of the blood,
and you know they're saying a man's fingerprint.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Well, I do want to underscore though, this is a
this is going to be a very bloody scene. All
these injuries, you know, the decapitation, that could be very bloody,
you know, with the heart pumping, the injury to the
forearms where the near amputation. If these are still alive
and their hearts are pumping, you're going to have a
lot of blood. And some of this blood if you
(33:05):
have what's called arcurial spurting, which is an absolute possibility
with these neck injuries. You know, now you have blood
that's gushing a distance, you know, away from where the
victims are, that the offender could possibly be stepping in
or on the offender's person, you know, his clothing, or
(33:25):
he ends up getting something on his hands, you know.
And of course I'm kind of curious that he manipulated
any of these victims after they receive bleeding injuries. But
I'll let you continue.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah, and so I have a question a little bit
about the sequencing. I know, we don't really know it.
He's on the first floor. Everybody else is asleep upstairs.
You would normally assume that if this killer is somebody
who knows who lives in this house, because they're targeted
it's not robbery, that they would go for Benny first, right,
That's what we would think. And plus he's on the
(33:57):
first floor.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Well, generally, you know, Benny is going to be perceived
by the killer as the biggest threat, and so the
killer is going to try to eliminate that threat before
moving on. However, right now, I can't say you're dealing
with a single offender in this case. You know, even
with the blood evidence that you've detailed, you can have
(34:19):
multiple offenders go in and then now they divide and
conquer one offender, multiple offenders go in to deal with
Benny in his office, and another offender, other offenders, you know,
go upstairs to take care of mom and the kids
don't know this right now, you know. So at this point,
with the defensive injury to Santina, while she's holding her
(34:42):
eighteen month old son, I imagine she is, She's going
to be quite vocal while she's being attacked, you know,
and that's going to alert potentially the other family members.
Now we know kids can sleep through a lot, you know,
so the kids next door may or may not have
heard mom. Would Benny have heard mom? Is in part
of you know, is this a simultaneous attack or is
(35:04):
Benny dead at the time Mom's being attacked or vice versa.
You know, that's just part of the complexity I think
in evaluating this case.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
To me, it's so complex because you have, you know,
the wife who has defensive wounds. We've got at least
one of the kids who has defensive wounds. It does
not say that Bennie has any defensive wounds. He is
simply sitting in his chair. Santina was obviously moving. I mean,
she had a defensive wound, and she's slumped over the
(35:33):
bed in a way that's not normal. It's not like
she was found in the fetal position or on her stomach,
as if she were sleeping and this happened. This seemed
like a fight in some way. Why would that not
be the case with Bennie. They really make it sound
like it was like a kind of a clean clip
off of his head. The head's on the ground, he's
not fighting, and his hands are in a prayer position.
(35:54):
I don't understand how you have all these other people fighting.
But Bennie, that's why I was asking you about, is
there any way this could be a suicide? Because this
gets so weird right now.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
I'm going to table the suicide possibility on Benny, and
I'm going to put out three options that I can
think of off the top of my head with Benny.
One is is Benny has just happens to be sitting
in the chair and the offender is able to sneak
up and basically do a blitz attack. Benny has no idea,
you know, the offenders behind him and now wields an
(36:29):
axe or a sword and cuts his head off. The
second possibility is Benny is basically under such fear and
control by the offender or the offenders in the room.
You know, he is recognizing I can't I can't fight,
you know, he's given up the ghost. Imagine a fender
(36:50):
standing in front of him with a gun and then
you have another offender behind him with an axe and
Benny's just there not knowing that the guy behind him
is going to cut his head off. There's that type
of scenario. And then that could be with a single
offender or multiple offenders. The other possibility and this goes
to you know, victimology and understanding the family dynamics. Is
(37:12):
that mom and the kids are up and it looks
like they're putting themselves to bed or in bed. Was
it routine for Benny to stay up later than the family?
And is he somebody who's in biby. You know, he's
got his bourbon, He's sitting there, He's got a fair
amount of bourbon inside of him, and now he's in
a slumber and offender comes in and Benny's just you know,
(37:34):
kind of out of it, and the offender ends up
killing Benny. Those are three options that I can think
of off the top of my head to kind of
account for Benny Big in this really bizarre position. And
then if you look at the suicide, that's where for
Benny to have done this to himself, where he's cutting
his head off, absence somebody else coming in and staging
(37:57):
the scene after Benny kills himself his head off in
terms of removing whatever apparatus Benny used to decapitate himself.
This really right now, I have to wait until you
tell me something where I go aha, Okay, I can
see how this happened to Benny if he's the one
who's responsible for killing his family and himself. But then
(38:17):
it's also assessing the bloody fingerprints, the bloody shoe, Prince.
Does it appear that Benny has those evidence of that
on his person? Did he have a possibility of cleaning
up that blood before he takes his own life? Is
there the possibility that somebody else came in under Benny's
direction in order to be able to stage this as
(38:39):
a you know, I guess this would be a x
tuple homicide of six people are dead, right, so in
order for let's say life insurance policies to pay out,
you know, and who's going to be the beneficiary of that.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Right, They start exploring different possibilities. Of course, they're going
into different theories. One is there wondering about his business practices,
of course, so they are trying to figure out if
there are any lawsuits. He has been at the center
several different lawsuits because of the real estate dealings. So
the police initially think this is a good lead. But
(39:14):
according to Benny's lawyer, he said, these are nothing. Even
if we lost, we'd be able to pay these off.
In a millisecond is no big deal. Of course, you
and I talk about all the time. No big deal
in our heads is pretty different than no big deal
in a killer's head, right.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
Absolutely, it's not necessarily anything that an offender to have
motive doesn't mean that there's all some sort of legal
action going on. You could have an offender that has
felt slided by Benny in a business practice and is deciding, Okay,
I'm going to take you out. You've got somebody who's
so vindictive, and this would be maybe to Benny or
(39:50):
to us evaluating what could possibly be perceived as such
a trivial business issue. Yet to that person, for whatever reason,
it's like the biggest thing in their life that they
feel slighted on or they're mad at Bennie. So there's
always that weird motive that doesn't just bubble to the
surface when you evaluate these business transactions, and the same
(40:14):
thing on the interpersonal side. You know, maybe Benny and
somebody else got into a fight, whether it be the
week before or five years before, and that person has
just harbored that anger all this time, has decided tonight's
the night I'm going to go in and take care
of Benny and his family. Who knows. You know, those
are all possibilities, you know, and I know investigators are
(40:38):
looking at Bennie's real estate transactions. But something you opened
up the case with is that it's possible, like three
of the children aren't Benny's.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
We aren't sure about the origin I guess of some
of these kids. The family doctor said that, you know,
he wasn't sure because they had been married recently.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
But that doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
And I'll get to a kind of a weird fact
about a kid who died several years ago who definitely
was Bennie's and his wife's. So yeah, you're I mean,
I know where you're going with this. Yeah, we don't
know about any if there is a biological father walking
around out there.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Actually, yeah, what you know this is, you know, Santino's
victimology is you know, did she have a you know,
horrible breakup with whoever the bile dad is of these
other kids? Is there another man on the side, you know,
there's all of that where now you can see somebody
who feels spurned by Santina is deciding to come in
(41:37):
and take out this entire family. Yeah, but that's again it,
you know right now, it's I think all possibilities are
out there. The oddity for me is, you know Benny
in his office. You know that does seem a little
bit strange. And again, more details, keep feeding them to me.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Okay, let me move through some of what I would
consider to be the quote unquote normal theories that might
have happened here. The first theory, or the first line
of investigation, is that the day before the murders, Benny
had made a phone call to a man who was
a hired hand.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
But this was a guy who Benny.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Had hired to watch over this demolition of a house
that was happening about sixty miles away from Detroit. So
Benny wanted to see the demolition of this house. He
wanted to step in and buy lumber from the demolition site,
and so he told the watchman, when you can confirm
that this demolition happened, I'll hire a delivery company to
(42:41):
hold all the material to the house. The demolition happened,
and the delivery was expected to arrive on July fourth,
which is just hours after the family was discovered murdered,
and it's never showed up, which the investigator thought was
really suspicious. The night watchmen or the watchman was presumably cleared,
(43:02):
but we don't have a lot of details on that
part of the investigation. The delivery service was never identified,
so they would have to talk to you know. However,
many different delivery services there were out there, and Benny
never told the watchman the name of the delivery company,
so no one ever picked up this lumber to begin with,
and the police are sort of theorizing that somehow the
(43:25):
delivery company did pick up or found out that this
is where this wealthy real estate guy lived, because they
had his address and they're the ones who got involved
and you know, wanted to steal money, steal cash, but
nothing was taken from the house. It seems like a
week theory to me. But we do talk about opportunistic
crimes like this.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Now, what does the benefit to the offenders under that scenario,
you know, if they didn't take anything out of the house,
And of course there's always the do we even really
know that because the entire fan family is dead, and
so what you had said at the beginning in terms
of is there five thousand dollars in cash that was
(44:08):
just hidden away and something that you know, offender could
open up, grab and close it back, you know, like
a drawer. It's like, yeah, there's no way investigators are
going to be able to know if anything was taken,
you know, unless there's a you know, bloody fingerprints inside
a drawer. Under this particular theory, the value let's say
it's a robbery slash theft aspect is going to be
(44:30):
the lumber and whatever else from the demolition of the house.
You know. So maybe that's why that never showed up,
is that this was such of such value to the
offender's mind. Is that they decided, well, we're going to
take this and we're going to kill this family. So
nobody can report that this never made it. I think
it's weak, you know, It's just it's one of those things,
(44:52):
like I always say, I never eliminate any possibility. I
just put more or less weight on based on maya
the case and the information as it comes in. Maybe
something comes down the pipe for all of a sudden,
this becomes the prime theory.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
And I will say though about the cash, like the
nothing has been taken, so this isn't robbery theory. This
is a man who was an immigrant from Italy. This
is nineteen twenty nine, where people are starting to feel
the inkling that something's happening with the economy. I would
be absolutely shocked if he did not have cash in
(45:27):
his house.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Shocked. They didn't find anything that I read.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
You know, this is the amount of money that was here,
and the thief stepped over it and it completely ignored
it and decided to go ahead and kill all these
people instead. But they also didn't find a big chunk
of money. So I don't know, but I suspect there
is money somewhere in that house. Maybe the police just
couldn't locate it.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Yeah, you know, this really falls under It's just like
the phrase no signs of forced entry doesn't mean that
there wasn't forced entry. It's just that there weren't any
signs of it. It's the same thing with this financial
motive aspect. Whether it be a robbery or some sort
of theft that the offenders were looking at doing, is
it's possible that they did accomplish a robbery. You know,
(46:09):
Benny's sitting in his chair and he's saying, yeah, in
my desk is all the cash. And they go and
they open up the drawer to the desk grab the cash,
close the drawer, and then cut his head off. You know,
investigators would never be able to piece that together.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
Well, let's talk about obvious suspects. We have a few
of them.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
One is the man who discovered Benny and his family dead,
Vincent alias I told you he is the colleague, the
real estate colleague of Benny. He had been brought in
for questioning. Reportedly his thumbprint match the one found on
the kitchen door, which was bloodied. And we've talked about that,
like the sequence of course, you know, Vincent I'm sure
(46:46):
has been at the house a million times. There are
probably thumb prints of his everywhere, but not in the
blood right, and so that would make this, you know,
really kind of a unique situation. But they said it's
not conc inclusive. They think that it looks close, but
you know, pattern matching in the nineteen twenties was not
(47:06):
particularly reliable unless you had just an outstanding sample.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
So they released him. They didn't have enough information.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
I mean, even in nineteen twenty nine they knew they
didn't have enough on Vincent to say, you know that
this is conclusive that he was there. But what do
you think about that? Mean is a business colleague. You know,
he probably had been to the house many times. Seems
like a good suspect to me.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Well potentially, you know part of you know, this bloody fingerprint,
you know, this is all part of the interview. What
did Vincent do once he found the bodies? Did he
actually go up and touch Santina or touch Benny? You know,
this is part of the crime scene contamination that we
always have to account for. The first thing I do
when I arrive at a crime scene is okay, how
(47:49):
is this crime scene discovered? Who discovered it? What did
they do? When officers arrived or deputies arrived or paramedics arrived,
what did they do? What did they touch? So, by
the time the scene is being processed, typically there is
some type of contamination that is normal just because of
(48:09):
the sequence of events that happens after the offender has
left and by the time the scene is actually being investigated.
So this is where looking at Vincent in this bloody print,
the interview process of Vincent has to see if his
activities inside that house after discovering the scene could account
(48:32):
for that bloody print. And of course, as you were
mentioning how good of a print is it sounds like
they weren't able to make a good identification and is
this a very partial bloody print, and maybe the examiner
just overstretched by saying it could be Vincent.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Well, we have two more suspects who met with Benny
the night before when it sounds like the family was murdered.
We don't know an zact timeframe, but they were probably
the last people to see him alive, and they are
very suspicious that police are wanting to close in and
(49:11):
make an arrest because when they search the barn of
one of these two men, they find weapons that could
have inflicted the kinds of injuries that the family sustained.
And I will have to give you more details in
our next episode.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
You're going to lead me hanging again, I am?
Speaker 1 (49:31):
I mean, when do I not Paul?
Speaker 2 (49:32):
It's pretty much every time we do a double episode,
I have to it's my job.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
I'm about to lose my head over this one.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Oh God, you guys tweeted him not me. Okay, next
week we will wrap this case up, which is still
so much to talk about, because if you think some
of this stuff is weird, just waiting until you hear
what Benny has been doing in this neighbor, which is
(50:00):
gonna really for me throw the case into the wind,
and it feels like sometimes we have to start all over.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
With this stuff. So I can't wait to tell you
what's happening next.
Speaker 3 (50:10):
Oh, it sounds like there's some juicy victimology coming, so yeah,
I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
Okay, see you next week.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
Sounds good.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
This has been an exactly right production for.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
Our sources and show notes go to exactly Rightmedia dot
com slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
Our senior producer is Alexis Emosi.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
Research by Maren mcclashan, ali Elkin, Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia hard Stark and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Buried Bones pod.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Age story of murder and the race to decode the
criminal mind, is available now
Speaker 2 (51:01):
And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My Life solving America's
cold cases is also available now
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm a journalist who's spent the last twenty five years
writing about true crime.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
works some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is buried bones.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Hey, Kate, how are you?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I'm great, Paul, how about you?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I am doing good. Do I hear construction sounds in
the background? What's going on?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Listen?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
If I'm in here with you, you do not hear
construction sounds. Because I am the construction crew in this
project of mine. It's just me and well, my dad,
but he doesn't do anything when I'm not here. We
are building a cottage. It's a shed, it's a she shed,
but it's a cottage in my backyard. I have kind
(01:31):
of a wooded area in my backyard and I have
a little Cotage's going to be one hundred and twenty
square feet and it'll be where you know, I do
some taping and stuff with you, and I do some
book writing with me. But I'm doing it in Victorian style,
nineteenth century cottage.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Well there's you know, that seems appropriate, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I mean, we're not gonna have a chamber pot or anything,
but it's definitely it's going to be decked out. I'm
in love at that time period. I love the eighteen hundred.
So I've been collecting different antiques. I just picked up
a pair of chairs, Victorian style chairs, king and Queen
style from like a Facebook marketplace for one hundred and
(02:13):
fifty bucks for this pair. And they're beautiful. They're beautiful, beautiful.
They're red, deep red, and I'm very excited. I've always
thought I should sit in a king or a queen chair,
and now my dream has become a reality.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well, now that's all regarding interior design. I'm kind of
interested in the construction. Are you swinging your own hammer?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I am, I'm swinging. Well, it's probably more going to
be like a Neil gun.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
But it's okay about that still that's impressive.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, and I get to do so.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
My dad has done construction for a large part of
his life and so he's gonna really help me get
it up. And we're setting the foundation now and figuring
all of that out kind of the peer and being foundation.
We have a good section in our backyard that is
very deceiving. It's just trees, cedar trees, oak trees, elm
(03:03):
trees that are beautiful, and so you can't really tell
how deep our backyard is, but it's very deep, and
it's just a I call it the forest or the
woods back there. So I thought, I'm going to make
this cottage and I have a faux fireplace, and I'm
going to have a He's going to build me a
faux chimney, a chimney because of course I have to
have a chimney. And I'm doing all this Paul, because man,
(03:26):
I love my kids, but they are bugging me a
lot when I'm trying to get writing done, and they,
you know, they're in constantly sort of in my room,
which is fine, that's not a problem, but it can
be kind of, you know, distracting when I'm trying to write.
So I said to my kiddos. I'm creative making this cottage,
and it's going to be in the forest. It's, you know,
(03:48):
two or three minute walk back there. And one of
my girls said, do you really think putting a cottage
in the backyard is going to stop us from coming
out there and bugging you to go for a drive
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
I mean, just to see like a TikTok dance they did.
And she said, do you really think that's gonna stop us?
I said, I guess suppose not. I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I guess I'm having visions of certain fairy tales like
Little Red riding Hood or what is it, Handsel and.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Cradle, Cansel and Gretel.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Maybe I should tell them that story and I'll be
like the woman with the gingerbread house. Yeah, I'm going
to have to scare them a little bit. I told
them that they were going to need to spend the
night out there because the forest gets so dark at night,
and we have like huge owls that live in it,
and I'm sure all kinds of critters that our dogs
scare away during the day but not at night, so
(04:40):
we'll see. I think one good scare will send them
back in. But I'm prepping. I'm getting it ready. It'll
be done before Halloween, which is great. But I'm excited
just because that eighteen hundreds is just where my heart
is and I've never been able to really have a
space of my own to be able to create it. So,
you know, the men, the vanity drawings I showed you
(05:01):
my I found of my dad.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
My dad had one, and I have like fifteen.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
They're going to go up, okay on the walls, and
I'm excited about it. It's well, I have a Lionel
train set that I'm excited to put up on some shelves.
We're going to bookshelves, and it's going to feel like
a cottage. So hopefully at some point our listeners are
actually going to be able to check it out, you know,
and see where I'm going to be taping from from
now on. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
You know, I've got my man cave and you've got
your woman's retreat out there. That's going to be cool.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I'm going to have the globe of gas light and
you have the glow of your aquarium.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
That's right there, you go.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
It's the major parts of our life. I think that's important.
But you know, I told you. I'm an atmosphere kind
of person, so that's where I head.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Is that.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
So I'm very excited.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
I'm looking forward to it, just for your sake.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Thank it for my sanity.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yes, yes, Like I said, I adore my kids and
they support what I do. They support my writing, but
they just want to be with me all the time,
and I love that.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
I thought that as.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Teenagers they were not going to be with me all
all the time, but they are as of right now.
So I'm gonna be grateful for that. But at the
same time, mama does need to have a cottage for sure.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Well, this story that I'm getting ready to tell you
is wild. This is a big case. Everybody has asked
us to do this case. So this is a big case.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
We're making it a double Okay, good, okay good. I
wish this were set in the eighteen hundreds. It's not.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
It's nineteen twenty nine, gritty Detroit, Michigan, which is a
great place to be. And so you know, I need
you to help me sort out a really really confusing,
wacky scene with this story.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
All right, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
I need to start out with a trigger warning. This
is definitely a violent story, even more I think than usual.
But this is a story that I have had probably
no less than ten listeners over the last four years
email me about because in Detroit it's pretty well known.
It's the Saint alban Street massacre, and it's a very
(07:04):
dramatic story, and it's part of this area's history. Nineteen
twenty nine, for me, is very recent compared to what
we usually talk about. So this will be one that's
going to be hard to untangle, but I think you're
going to enjoy talking about it.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
And obviously this is set during the Great Depression, right.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Right before Oh okay.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
We're kind of getting into it, but it is happening
literally months before Black Thursday happens, which is the stock
market crash. I mean, the country's already starting to feel it,
but the stock market crash is the thing that really
triggers a lot of what happens afterward with the Great Depression.
And so this is right before this happens.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Got it in Detroit.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
So if I were to label this story in a
neat little glass jar and put a label on it,
I would call this Things are not always as they seem.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
This is that story so I can expect to be
misled at some point during the story.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Not by me.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
You're going to march me down the wrong path. I
can tell it already.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
So it is nineteen twenty nine, Detroit, Michigan. I don't
know a ton about Detroit. I've never been to Detroit.
Have you done a trip to Detroit before?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I bet you have.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
You know, I've only passed through the airport during my
book tour, so I have never personally visited Detroit. I've watched,
you know, some historic things about the auto industry in Detroit,
you know, and then of course how things have changed
dramatically over the decades in that city. But I imagine
(08:38):
in nineteen twenty nine, Ford and some of these other
automakers are probably this is a booming business in Detroit.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
YEP.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
The auto industry has provided quite a lot of decent
paying jobs, which is something that's very appreciated, especially right
before the Great Depression really comes down. It's a draw
for a lot of people who want better economic opportunities,
and that includes immigrants. So in the early twentieth century
there was a very large population that came from Poland
(09:08):
and Germany and Russia and Italy, and today we're going
to talk about a family, the patriarch who was born
in Italy and he comes to the United States around
the turn of the century. So his name is Bennie Evangelista,
and he was just nineteen years old when he came
to the United States, and he eventually shortens his name
(09:30):
to Evangelist. So that's what we're going to kind of
go with, Bennie Evangelist. He spent a chunk of his
time in Philadelphia, but by nineteen twenty nine, which is
when we're really getting into the story, he's in Michigan.
And then he moves to Detroit in the twenties, early
twenties because of the reputation of being an economic hot spot,
and again three months before the big stock market crash
(09:52):
in the beginning of the Great Depression. So let me
tell you who is in this house which is our
crime scene. It is Bennie. He's forty four and he
has made a small fortune in Detroit in the real
estate business. He's very successful. He has a business partner
well known, you know, kind of a well known person
in the community. He's married to a woman named Santina.
(10:13):
She's thirty eight and there's a daughter, Angeline who's seven,
a daughter Margaret, who's five, another one who is named Jane.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
And she's four.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And then they have a boy who is eighteen months
named Mario. I wonder if Benny I see this, listen.
I wonder if Bennie just said, we're gonna keep going
till we get a boy, because he has three girls.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
And then he ends up with a boy. But who knows.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
They had been recently married, and the family doctor is
not quite sure about the origin of where the kids
are coming from.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
There's a little bit of speculation.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
That she, you know, she had been married before, whether
or not these were her kids from a previous marriage,
or whether or not these were Benny's kids. But at
least Mario was so we have these kids. He seems
like a great dad. She seems like a good mom.
They live in a nice sized two story house on
Saint Auban Street near mac Avenue, which is in Detroit's
(11:08):
Eastern Market neighborhood. And let me tell you a little bit.
I know I'm whipping through all this information, but let
me tell you a little bit about the house. It's,
like I said, a pretty nice sized house, five rooms
in a bathroom on the upper level. There's two front
rooms upstairs that are bedrooms that are connected by a door,
and then the back three rooms are unused and not
(11:28):
really furnished. And then they have four rooms on the
lower floor. You know, this is where Benny offices with
his real estate business. And there is also an attic
and a basement, so they have a big amount of space.
But they've got four kids. So you've got, you know,
a husband and a wife who in their four children,
who are all small. I mean the oldest kid is seven,
(11:51):
Angelina's seven.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
So you ready to hear more? Do you have any questions?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
No, you know, I'm just now looking where Saint Aubin
Street is located in Detroit. It looks like it's just
a couple of blocks north of the Detroit River. And
you mentioned Mac Street.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Is that right, Yes, near Mack Street, and that's in
the Eastern Market neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
So yeah, I'm seeing it. Obviously, Detroit today has a
major freeway system that wasn't present in nineteen twenty nine.
But it does appear that this Saint Aubin's Street is
somewhat surrounded by some industrial areas. Okay, I'm seeing like
the Rivertown warehouse district. It's an interesting location. I just
(12:36):
you know, of course, I always look at the geography
as I assess cases, and I'm trying to just get
a sense there's some harbors or some parks. Okay, I've
got a better feel.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Got a good feel. Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
I like it when you do that, because the research
that you like, do you immediately like to hop on.
We've had some stories where it's been pretty key, Like
remember the story about the man who was from Cuba
but purported to be from China and dead in New
York and you were able to look at the street
and even currently today and you could tell how close
(13:07):
a witness when we say the witness was across the street,
and I'm going, that's bs, there's no way this witness
is going to have the kind of a detail. And
then you said, now look at the street. It's a
very narrow street and you're going to be able to
see whatever you want from across the street. I like
that you immediately kind of go to that.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Well.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
It really is part of my process, you know, even
with cases that I've worked that are decades old and
maybe the location of the crime has changed considerably, but
the space is still there and sometimes it can be
very informative.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Well, I have a photo of the house, but it's
more of like because this is a very dramatic story.
It's more of the crowd.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
And you can see the house, but it'll give you
a better idea of how residential it is. And then
I have a photo of the family, So let me
show you. There is the evangelist family. So there's been
in the upper left hand corner and his wife and
then the four in the little baby she's holding.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah, so their house.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
They're pointing. You can see how many people are standing
in front of here. They say homes in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
No longer exist.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
And I don't know how old this newspaper clipping is,
but this is what it was like to tell me
what you think.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Well, in terms of the house, this is a photo
from across the street looking at the front of the house,
but it's not directly in front. It's at an angle,
so I can see that the other houses that are
next to the victim's house. It looks like there's at
least the three stories above ground. You have the main
floor or second floor, and then maybe an attic, there's
(14:37):
a large balcony off the second floor. And I think
you also said that this house had a basement, so
there's no question that this is this is a sizeable house. Now,
the street, it looks like a fairly wide street, almost
as if it's a main thoroughfare in the area at
the time. There's automobiles that are parked on the curb
(14:59):
opposite from the side of the street of the house.
And then, as you mentioned, a very large crowd and
what is going on? There is this photo like after
the crime scene is found.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Yes, okay, so this is everybody once they've read about
it in the newspaper.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
These are people gathering to gawk. Essentially.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
These are luki loose, the.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Looky lose, These you know, well to do people. This
is a great example, Paul. I mean, how many people
do you think are out there? It's just sort of
a eyeball. A couple hundred or more, what do you
think somewhere.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
In that range? I mean, this is this is not
a small crowd. This looks like there's like a major
event going on, you know. And somebody is standing up
on the porch of the victim's house almost like he's
presenting to this crowd. It's really bizarre.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Well, this is what I've said many times when people say,
why are we so all of a sudden everybody is
so crazy about true crime? And it's this is a
genre that's exploded. No, it hasn't. We've always been like,
this is a great illustration. We've always been fascinated with
the stories. It's just the mode of communication, you know,
the creative aspect of it, how we can deliver these stories,
(16:10):
has exploded. It's not our interest in it. And this is,
like I said, a great illustration of that. Look at
all these people coming out. I'm sure there are kids
in the crowd. So this is this was definitely a
big story at the time.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Well, these people are reading something in the newspaper. They're
not watching the news, right, they're actually reading it in
the newspaper, and they're taking time out of their lives
to go to this crime scene.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
And of course you have to think about it.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
This is before the Internet, of course, and this is
where they probably thought they would get the most authentic
information would just be going down there and seeing what
the police are saying, versus googling every you know, news
source or blogger YouTube, you can think of what is
what we would do now people would just show up
at these crime scenes. So let's get to the crime
(16:54):
that made this a crime scene. So all of this
happened on the night of July third, nineteen twenty nine,
but it's not discovered until the next morning when Bennie's
real estate colleague shows up for a meeting because Bennie's
office is in the house. So this guy named Vincent
(17:14):
Alias shows up for this meeting and he comes inside
and then he sees the scene. So he sees Bennie's wife.
After he goes upstairs, he sees Bennie's wife who is Santina,
and her body is slumped over the bed. Her head
is described as horribly mutilated and nearly severed from her body.
(17:36):
Her arm also has a very deep cut in it,
as if the murderer was attempting to amputate it. So
when he doesn't see people downstairs, he goes upstairs and
the first bedroom he encounters is where Santina is. So
just that part I will tell you that these injuries
are repeated with the kids basically decapitated. She slumped over
(18:00):
the bed and a very deep cut as if the
murderer was trying to amputate her without me going into
where Bennie is or you know, the scene or anything
like that. What do you think just of that sort
of level of brutality, they immediately think it's an axe
that has done it.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Is that a mad person or god? It just seems
awful against a woman.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Well, with this type of injury work cases that include
a machete, you know, which can produce similar types of injuries.
So you know, it appears that the killer is utilizing
this type of weapon, which today is relatively unusual. But
we've done a fair number of stories from this timeframe. Yeah,
(18:46):
this is a much more readily available weapon, it seems
back during this era. So it's hard to really extrapolate
anything behaviorally about the offender by choosing to use this weapon.
This may have just been the weapon that was most
immediately available to this particular offender versus a firearm or
(19:06):
a knife or something else. I think this idea that
the offender is trying to purposefully amputate Santina's arm, now
that doesn't sound right when somebody is being attacked with
a weapon like an axe or a machete, and they
go into a defensive posture. It is common to see
(19:26):
this type of injury to the arms. You know, people
are familiar like if somebody is warding off blows. Let's
say somebody has a hammer or a bat and is
beating on somebody and the arms go up. The forearms
will get a lot of bruising, just like if somebody
has a knife and is now stabbing against the victim.
(19:49):
The defensive injuries you get the incisive injuries of the
knife on the hands and on the forearms as they
try to protect themselves. When somebody is attacking you with
an axe and your arm goes up, that axe is
going through the arm. My interpretation right now is Santina
is aware she is being attacked and is going into
(20:10):
a defensive posture, and that's when the axe hits the arm,
and an axe will produce an injury in which literally
the arm could be completely severed or it can go
through the bones. And let's say it's at the forearm level.
Skin is the only thing holding part of the arm
to the body. So that's what it sounds like. She's
(20:31):
aware she's being attacked, goes into a defensive posture, and
then of course, her head is receiving blows either from
the blade of the axe or the back of the axe,
as well as sounds like her neck is hit with
the axe, probably as almost like a coup de gras,
you know, where this could be the last blow, which
now the offender. She's lost consciousness, and the offender ends
(20:54):
up basically taking the axe to the neck and nearly
cutting her head off.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Well, of course much worse.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
So we are not thinking that this is what they
say an intentional amputation of the arm. We're thinking that
these were defensive wounds, which definitely tallies with I think
what's coming up. She is protecting her baby, Mario, who's
eighteen months old. He dies too. She is holding him,
and he has several gashes on his head. So I
(21:25):
don't think it's clear whether or not the killer is
targeting both, you know, Santina and Mario, or Mario just
gets some gashes accidentally. But I will tell you the
other three kids are dead also well.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
I think if the killer is purposely moving through the
house and is killing the other kids, then Mario may
not just be ancillary. I think the killer, knowing that
Santina is trying to protect Mario was able to inflict
sufficient injuries to Mario to kill the eighteen month old
(22:00):
in addition to being able to inflict the injuries on Santina.
And this also plays into how Santina is going to
be responding to the offender, because you imagine, if she's
got her baby, you know, she is going to be
trying to hold onto the baby in a way to
prevent the offender from hurting the baby, and maybe has
(22:22):
the baby in one arm with the other arm up
in a defensive posture at some point, and then that's
when that arm gets the blow from this axe, you know.
And if you imagine if she's hugging onto this baby,
the offender has free rein to her head, she's not
able to put her arms up above her head to
help shield. Not that it would do much good, but
this is all part of just thinking about the dynamics
(22:45):
of how this crime would occur, how Santina would be
responding physically to trying to protect her baby as well
as warding off the offender, and then how the offender
has access to be able to inflict certain types of
blas or certain locations of blows with an axe while
you know, Santinez is trying to do two things, keep
(23:06):
herself safe and keep her baby safe.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Well, it's an awful scene.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
It's very, very bloody, and when investigators eventually move over
to the next bedroom, this is where they find the
three girls, the ones that are ranging from seven years old.
So there's a seven year old, a five year old,
and a four year old. They're all in the same bedroom,
which is right next door to the parents' bedroom, and
(23:31):
two of them are in the same twin bed. And
I don't know why I thought that that was interesting,
because it's a huge house with lots and lots of bedrooms.
I mean, because they're young, It's possible that they just
wanted the kids right next door and kind of grouped
them in there.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
They could have heard something.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
You know, if we take Benny out of the picture
for a minute, the killer probably would have targeted of course,
if you know, if she's the only adult upstairs, the
killer would have targeted the mom first, and maybe the
kids huddle together. But you know, these three girls are
all together in one room and they are all found dead.
They have several gashes on their faces. One of the
(24:08):
children has a very similar injury to her mom. We
don't know which one could have been the oldest. It
appears like the killer tried to cut her arm off
according to investigators in nineteen twenty nine. And you know, everybody,
their faces specifically seem to have been targeted. So now
you've got a mom and four children who were all
(24:29):
dead upstairs.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
I would postulate that the killer goes in and I
don't know the sequence mom versus the three girls in
the other room in terms of who was killed first.
But my suspicion is as these girls are, as you mentioned,
at least two of them were laying in a twin
bed together. The offenders taking the axe to them. Whether
they're cowering and they're aware that there's something bad going
(24:53):
on because they heard their mom screaming, or they're asleep,
but he's just taking the axe and striking them in
the head, whether they're face up, face down, you know
that's what the killer is doing. This one girl who
has her arm which appears to be partially amputated. I
again go back to this girl as likely in a
defensive posture. So you know, this devious killer who's trying
(25:19):
to amputate his victim's arms. This just tells. With those
investigators forming that opinion, that speaks to I think they're
inexperience with this type of violence.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Okay, you know, before we get to the man in
this situation, Benny, investigators say nothing was taken if we're
talking about motive just right now, before you know anything more,
no money, It doesn't seem to be there's any money taken.
But you know, one thing I had not thought that
was a good note in here was listen, people kept cash,
lots of cash all the time. You know, with the
(25:51):
girls and the mom dead, there's nobody there right now
to say whether or not there was you know, five
thousand dollars worth of cash hidden in somebody too. But
investigators are saying that robbery seems to be off the table.
If that's the case, and if this is not a
family annihilation story, what is the motivation of a stranger
(26:13):
with an axe to kill little kids who are unlikely
to ever be witnesses? Could that be something sort of
inside that person, a desire or is it a frenzy?
They describe it as a frenzy. I just don't understand.
I still don't understand the motivation for killing kids who
will never identify you if you're a stranger.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Let's say this is truly a stranger that's the killer.
It's not unheard of. And I've got one case that
I didn't go out on, but I reviewed, which kind
of similar, not with an axe, but basically a toddler
was killed in his crib and then the parents were
also killed, and that offender happened to have a what
(26:54):
I would call a psychosis. This is your psychotic type
of offender. Something internally is driving the offender to think that,
you know, must go in and kill this family. And
what that thought process is is something that can be
just so bizarre because these types of offenders are not
(27:16):
thinking right. Richard Trent and Chase. You know, the vampire
killer out of Sacramento back in nineteen seventy seven timeframe,
you know, he had aliens tell him I think that
you know, when you pick up a bar of soap
in the shower and it's all gooey underneath, that means
that she had soap dish poisoning. And the only cure
for soap dish poisoning is to drink somebody's blood, you know.
(27:38):
So this is the type of you know, psychotic mindset
that you know, an offender such as in this case,
you could have somebody who is suffering from something like
that and ends up, you know, killing this you know
this mother and the four kids. So there's that possibility.
Then there's possibly a vindictive offender seeking revenge, and part
(28:06):
of that revenge is maybe Santina or Benny were the
primary targets of this vindictive aspect, but decides to wipe
out the entire family just as part of this whole
revenge mindset. It doesn't sound like, at least with the
way that you set this case up, this does not
sound like a fantasy motivated offender at this point in time.
(28:28):
Somebody who's got some sort of fantasy, either sexual fantasy
or violent fantasy that they need to commit for their
own self gratification. Now I wouldn't take that off the
table yet, but it sounds less likely given the circumstances.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Right, and investigators say there's not evidence of sexual assault
on anybody, but you know, of course there's always the
caveat there. But from the onset, that's what they're saying.
So let's talk about the only male in the house
besides little Maria Bennie. So Benny has an office, and
everybody else was, you know, dressed in their nightgowns and
(29:07):
were upstairs in bed at sleep. Presumably whenever this happened,
Bennie was not, so this could have been. And when
I started reading this, I was thinking this is a
family annihilator story. It doesn't sound like it. Bennie's lifeless
body is found slumped over in a chair in his office.
He's fully dressed in the clothes that he had been
(29:28):
wearing that day, his hand so he's slumped in this chair.
But they find his hands folded in his lap together
as if he's praying, and his head is laying on
the floor beside his chair. He's been decapitated. So my
main suspect is now out the window.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Well, that'd be hard to be a self inflicted wound.
And I'm assuming they didn't find any weird apparatus that
you know, you know, Benny set up a little guillotine
to take his own.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Life, not that I can tell.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
But this is where this story gets super weird when
I get into the details about Benny and his life.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Okay, it gets weird.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
So I told you that the police throw the robbery
theory kind of out the window, because there's nothing that
anyone can tell is really missing. When they start bringing
people in who know the family and who know the
house really well, they search the home. They think that
the murderer left through an exterior door in the kitchen.
There's a set of men's bloody shoeprints that lead through
(30:26):
the kitchen and go upstairs to the wife's bedroom and
then back down. And there's a bloody fingerprint and a
thumbprint on the kitchen door's latch. So this is good news.
We have fingerprints, which you know, from writing American Sherlock
set in the nineteen twenties, I know that they were
actively doing fingerprinting at this time period. We need a suspect,
(30:50):
but you know, at this point at least we've got
some kind of forensics moving forward.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
So, yeah, bloody shoeprints that appear to originate out of
where Benny is located, and then those shoe prints go
up to where Santina, his wife is, or vice versa.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
No, it's a kitchen, so it's an exterior door in
the kitchen. So somebody goes through the outside into an
exterior door, walks through the kitchen, goes upstairs. I'm assuming,
you know, killing Benny first. I don't know if this
is someone who needed to be familiar with the layout
of the house. It's a huge house. And then they
go upstairs, there's blood, and then they come back down
(31:31):
and leave.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
So let's let's assume the offender comes in with an axe.
I would be surprised that with a single strike with
an axe that that would completely decapitate Benny, especially if
he's just sitting in the chair. You know, the offender
comes up behind him. You know, Benny's positioning is odd,
you know, sitting there with his hands folded like maybe
(31:54):
he was just sitting there. Is he being controlled by
this offender? And Benny's just now acknowledging my life, life
is over? You know, if the offender and the autopsy
would also be able to help answer this question. But
if the offender is doing my multiple strikes to Benny's neck,
you know that would be seen in the wounding pattern
(32:15):
if a single strike went through Benny's neck. This is
either a very very sharp axe with a very broad
blade like almost like your executioner acts that you see,
you know, or are you dealing with a sword of
some type which right now, you know, I can't eliminate
(32:37):
that as a possibility.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
It's such an odd scene, especially with all of the blood,
and you know they're saying a man's fingerprint.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Well, I do want to underscore though, this is a
this is going to be a very bloody scene. All
these injuries, you know, the decapitation, that could be very bloody,
you know, with the heart pumping, the injury to the
forearms where the near amputation. If these are still alive
and their hearts are pumping, you're going to have a
lot of blood. And some of this blood if you
(33:05):
have what's called arcurial spurting, which is an absolute possibility
with these neck injuries. You know, now you have blood
that's gushing a distance, you know, away from where the
victims are, that the offender could possibly be stepping in
or on the offender's person, you know, his clothing, or
(33:25):
he ends up getting something on his hands, you know.
And of course I'm kind of curious that he manipulated
any of these victims after they receive bleeding injuries. But
I'll let you continue.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah, and so I have a question a little bit
about the sequencing. I know, we don't really know it.
He's on the first floor. Everybody else is asleep upstairs.
You would normally assume that if this killer is somebody
who knows who lives in this house, because they're targeted
it's not robbery, that they would go for Benny first, right,
That's what we would think. And plus he's on the
(33:57):
first floor.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Well, generally, you know, Benny is going to be perceived
by the killer as the biggest threat, and so the
killer is going to try to eliminate that threat before
moving on. However, right now, I can't say you're dealing
with a single offender in this case. You know, even
with the blood evidence that you've detailed, you can have
(34:19):
multiple offenders go in and then now they divide and
conquer one offender, multiple offenders go in to deal with
Benny in his office, and another offender, other offenders, you know,
go upstairs to take care of mom and the kids
don't know this right now, you know. So at this point,
with the defensive injury to Santina, while she's holding her
(34:42):
eighteen month old son, I imagine she is, She's going
to be quite vocal while she's being attacked, you know,
and that's going to alert potentially the other family members.
Now we know kids can sleep through a lot, you know,
so the kids next door may or may not have
heard mom. Would Benny have heard mom? Is in part
of you know, is this a simultaneous attack or is
(35:04):
Benny dead at the time Mom's being attacked or vice versa.
You know, that's just part of the complexity I think
in evaluating this case.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
To me, it's so complex because you have, you know,
the wife who has defensive wounds. We've got at least
one of the kids who has defensive wounds. It does
not say that Bennie has any defensive wounds. He is
simply sitting in his chair. Santina was obviously moving. I mean,
she had a defensive wound, and she's slumped over the
(35:33):
bed in a way that's not normal. It's not like
she was found in the fetal position or on her stomach,
as if she were sleeping and this happened. This seemed
like a fight in some way. Why would that not
be the case with Bennie. They really make it sound
like it was like a kind of a clean clip
off of his head. The head's on the ground, he's
not fighting, and his hands are in a prayer position.
(35:54):
I don't understand how you have all these other people fighting.
But Bennie, that's why I was asking you about, is
there any way this could be a suicide? Because this
gets so weird right now.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
I'm going to table the suicide possibility on Benny, and
I'm going to put out three options that I can
think of off the top of my head with Benny.
One is is Benny has just happens to be sitting
in the chair and the offender is able to sneak
up and basically do a blitz attack. Benny has no idea,
you know, the offenders behind him and now wields an
(36:29):
axe or a sword and cuts his head off. The
second possibility is Benny is basically under such fear and
control by the offender or the offenders in the room.
You know, he is recognizing I can't I can't fight,
you know, he's given up the ghost. Imagine a fender
(36:50):
standing in front of him with a gun and then
you have another offender behind him with an axe and
Benny's just there not knowing that the guy behind him
is going to cut his head off. There's that type
of scenario. And then that could be with a single
offender or multiple offenders. The other possibility and this goes
to you know, victimology and understanding the family dynamics. Is
(37:12):
that mom and the kids are up and it looks
like they're putting themselves to bed or in bed. Was
it routine for Benny to stay up later than the family?
And is he somebody who's in biby. You know, he's
got his bourbon, He's sitting there, He's got a fair
amount of bourbon inside of him, and now he's in
a slumber and offender comes in and Benny's just you know,
(37:34):
kind of out of it, and the offender ends up
killing Benny. Those are three options that I can think
of off the top of my head to kind of
account for Benny Big in this really bizarre position. And
then if you look at the suicide, that's where for
Benny to have done this to himself, where he's cutting
his head off, absence somebody else coming in and staging
(37:57):
the scene after Benny kills himself his head off in
terms of removing whatever apparatus Benny used to decapitate himself.
This really right now, I have to wait until you
tell me something where I go aha, Okay, I can
see how this happened to Benny if he's the one
who's responsible for killing his family and himself. But then
(38:17):
it's also assessing the bloody fingerprints, the bloody shoe, Prince.
Does it appear that Benny has those evidence of that
on his person? Did he have a possibility of cleaning
up that blood before he takes his own life? Is
there the possibility that somebody else came in under Benny's
direction in order to be able to stage this as
(38:39):
a you know, I guess this would be a x
tuple homicide of six people are dead, right, so in
order for let's say life insurance policies to pay out,
you know, and who's going to be the beneficiary of that.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Right, They start exploring different possibilities. Of course, they're going
into different theories. One is there wondering about his business practices,
of course, so they are trying to figure out if
there are any lawsuits. He has been at the center
several different lawsuits because of the real estate dealings. So
the police initially think this is a good lead. But
(39:14):
according to Benny's lawyer, he said, these are nothing. Even
if we lost, we'd be able to pay these off.
In a millisecond is no big deal. Of course, you
and I talk about all the time. No big deal
in our heads is pretty different than no big deal
in a killer's head, right.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
Absolutely, it's not necessarily anything that an offender to have
motive doesn't mean that there's all some sort of legal
action going on. You could have an offender that has
felt slided by Benny in a business practice and is deciding, Okay,
I'm going to take you out. You've got somebody who's
so vindictive, and this would be maybe to Benny or
(39:50):
to us evaluating what could possibly be perceived as such
a trivial business issue. Yet to that person, for whatever reason,
it's like the biggest thing in their life that they
feel slighted on or they're mad at Bennie. So there's
always that weird motive that doesn't just bubble to the
surface when you evaluate these business transactions, and the same
(40:14):
thing on the interpersonal side. You know, maybe Benny and
somebody else got into a fight, whether it be the
week before or five years before, and that person has
just harbored that anger all this time, has decided tonight's
the night I'm going to go in and take care
of Benny and his family. Who knows. You know, those
are all possibilities, you know, and I know investigators are
(40:38):
looking at Bennie's real estate transactions. But something you opened
up the case with is that it's possible, like three
of the children aren't Benny's.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
We aren't sure about the origin I guess of some
of these kids. The family doctor said that, you know,
he wasn't sure because they had been married recently.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
But that doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
And I'll get to a kind of a weird fact
about a kid who died several years ago who definitely
was Bennie's and his wife's. So yeah, you're I mean,
I know where you're going with this. Yeah, we don't
know about any if there is a biological father walking
around out there.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Actually, yeah, what you know this is, you know, Santino's
victimology is you know, did she have a you know,
horrible breakup with whoever the bile dad is of these
other kids? Is there another man on the side, you know,
there's all of that where now you can see somebody
who feels spurned by Santina is deciding to come in
(41:37):
and take out this entire family. Yeah, but that's again it,
you know right now, it's I think all possibilities are
out there. The oddity for me is, you know Benny
in his office. You know that does seem a little
bit strange. And again, more details, keep feeding them to me.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Okay, let me move through some of what I would
consider to be the quote unquote normal theories that might
have happened here. The first theory, or the first line
of investigation, is that the day before the murders, Benny
had made a phone call to a man who was
a hired hand.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
But this was a guy who Benny.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Had hired to watch over this demolition of a house
that was happening about sixty miles away from Detroit. So
Benny wanted to see the demolition of this house. He
wanted to step in and buy lumber from the demolition site,
and so he told the watchman, when you can confirm
that this demolition happened, I'll hire a delivery company to
(42:41):
hold all the material to the house. The demolition happened,
and the delivery was expected to arrive on July fourth,
which is just hours after the family was discovered murdered,
and it's never showed up, which the investigator thought was
really suspicious. The night watchmen or the watchman was presumably cleared,
(43:02):
but we don't have a lot of details on that
part of the investigation. The delivery service was never identified,
so they would have to talk to you know. However,
many different delivery services there were out there, and Benny
never told the watchman the name of the delivery company,
so no one ever picked up this lumber to begin with,
and the police are sort of theorizing that somehow the
(43:25):
delivery company did pick up or found out that this
is where this wealthy real estate guy lived, because they
had his address and they're the ones who got involved
and you know, wanted to steal money, steal cash, but
nothing was taken from the house. It seems like a
week theory to me. But we do talk about opportunistic
crimes like this.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Now, what does the benefit to the offenders under that scenario,
you know, if they didn't take anything out of the house,
And of course there's always the do we even really
know that because the entire fan family is dead, and
so what you had said at the beginning in terms
of is there five thousand dollars in cash that was
(44:08):
just hidden away and something that you know, offender could
open up, grab and close it back, you know, like
a drawer. It's like, yeah, there's no way investigators are
going to be able to know if anything was taken,
you know, unless there's a you know, bloody fingerprints inside
a drawer. Under this particular theory, the value let's say
it's a robbery slash theft aspect is going to be
(44:30):
the lumber and whatever else from the demolition of the house.
You know. So maybe that's why that never showed up,
is that this was such of such value to the
offender's mind. Is that they decided, well, we're going to
take this and we're going to kill this family. So
nobody can report that this never made it. I think
it's weak, you know, It's just it's one of those things,
(44:52):
like I always say, I never eliminate any possibility. I
just put more or less weight on based on maya
the case and the information as it comes in. Maybe
something comes down the pipe for all of a sudden,
this becomes the prime theory.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
And I will say though about the cash, like the
nothing has been taken, so this isn't robbery theory. This
is a man who was an immigrant from Italy. This
is nineteen twenty nine, where people are starting to feel
the inkling that something's happening with the economy. I would
be absolutely shocked if he did not have cash in
(45:27):
his house.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Shocked. They didn't find anything that I read.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
You know, this is the amount of money that was here,
and the thief stepped over it and it completely ignored
it and decided to go ahead and kill all these
people instead. But they also didn't find a big chunk
of money. So I don't know, but I suspect there
is money somewhere in that house. Maybe the police just
couldn't locate it.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Yeah, you know, this really falls under It's just like
the phrase no signs of forced entry doesn't mean that
there wasn't forced entry. It's just that there weren't any
signs of it. It's the same thing with this financial
motive aspect. Whether it be a robbery or some sort
of theft that the offenders were looking at doing, is
it's possible that they did accomplish a robbery. You know,
(46:09):
Benny's sitting in his chair and he's saying, yeah, in
my desk is all the cash. And they go and
they open up the drawer to the desk grab the cash,
close the drawer, and then cut his head off. You know,
investigators would never be able to piece that together.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
Well, let's talk about obvious suspects. We have a few
of them.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
One is the man who discovered Benny and his family dead,
Vincent alias I told you he is the colleague, the
real estate colleague of Benny. He had been brought in
for questioning. Reportedly his thumbprint match the one found on
the kitchen door, which was bloodied. And we've talked about that,
like the sequence of course, you know, Vincent I'm sure
(46:46):
has been at the house a million times. There are
probably thumb prints of his everywhere, but not in the
blood right, and so that would make this, you know,
really kind of a unique situation. But they said it's
not conc inclusive. They think that it looks close, but
you know, pattern matching in the nineteen twenties was not
(47:06):
particularly reliable unless you had just an outstanding sample.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
So they released him. They didn't have enough information.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
I mean, even in nineteen twenty nine they knew they
didn't have enough on Vincent to say, you know that
this is conclusive that he was there. But what do
you think about that? Mean is a business colleague. You know,
he probably had been to the house many times. Seems
like a good suspect to me.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Well potentially, you know part of you know, this bloody fingerprint,
you know, this is all part of the interview. What
did Vincent do once he found the bodies? Did he
actually go up and touch Santina or touch Benny? You know,
this is part of the crime scene contamination that we
always have to account for. The first thing I do
when I arrive at a crime scene is okay, how
(47:49):
is this crime scene discovered? Who discovered it? What did
they do? When officers arrived or deputies arrived or paramedics arrived,
what did they do? What did they touch? So, by
the time the scene is being processed, typically there is
some type of contamination that is normal just because of
(48:09):
the sequence of events that happens after the offender has
left and by the time the scene is actually being investigated.
So this is where looking at Vincent in this bloody print,
the interview process of Vincent has to see if his
activities inside that house after discovering the scene could account
(48:32):
for that bloody print. And of course, as you were
mentioning how good of a print is it sounds like
they weren't able to make a good identification and is
this a very partial bloody print, and maybe the examiner
just overstretched by saying it could be Vincent.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Well, we have two more suspects who met with Benny
the night before when it sounds like the family was murdered.
We don't know an zact timeframe, but they were probably
the last people to see him alive, and they are
very suspicious that police are wanting to close in and
(49:11):
make an arrest because when they search the barn of
one of these two men, they find weapons that could
have inflicted the kinds of injuries that the family sustained.
And I will have to give you more details in
our next episode.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
You're going to lead me hanging again, I am?
Speaker 1 (49:31):
I mean, when do I not Paul?
Speaker 2 (49:32):
It's pretty much every time we do a double episode,
I have to it's my job.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
I'm about to lose my head over this one.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Oh God, you guys tweeted him not me. Okay, next
week we will wrap this case up, which is still
so much to talk about, because if you think some
of this stuff is weird, just waiting until you hear
what Benny has been doing in this neighbor, which is
(50:00):
gonna really for me throw the case into the wind,
and it feels like sometimes we have to start all over.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
With this stuff. So I can't wait to tell you
what's happening next.
Speaker 3 (50:10):
Oh, it sounds like there's some juicy victimology coming, so yeah,
I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
Okay, see you next week.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
Sounds good.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
This has been an exactly right production for.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
Our sources and show notes go to exactly Rightmedia dot
com slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
Our senior producer is Alexis Emosi.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
Research by Maren mcclashan, ali Elkin, Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia hard Stark and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Buried Bones pod.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Age story of murder and the race to decode the
criminal mind, is available now
Speaker 2 (51:01):
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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