# The Haystack Murder

An episode of [Buried Bones - a historical true crime podcast with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1455668750), 4 Feb 2026, 1 h 06 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/976825e3-37d8-4387-a0cd-b24b002d91e5/cae6976b-783a-4dc7-9af0-b3e1013f8c95/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3df02c7c-f75a-4bea-abe8-b24b002d91ff

In this week's episode, Kate and Paul take us back to 1920s rural California, where a large fire is reported and ultimately where a body is found. After investigators identify the remains, the suspicious nature of the scene intensifies. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/4buCoMc See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:03] Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
[0:06] Speaker 1: last twenty five years writing about true crime.
[0:09] Speaker 2: And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
[0:12] Speaker 2: worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
[0:16] Speaker 1: Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
[0:19] Speaker 1: compelling true crimes.
[0:21] Speaker 2: And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
[0:24] Speaker 2: new insights to old mysteries.
[0:26] Speaker 1: Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
[0:31] Speaker 1: cases through a twenty first century lens.
[0:34] Speaker 2: Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
[0:38] Speaker 1: This is buried Bones.
[1:01] Speaker 2: Hey Paul, Hey Kate, what's going on with you?
[1:04] Speaker 1: Well, I have this case that I'm going to present
[1:06] Speaker 1: to you that has a little story attached to it.
[1:10] Speaker 1: And I don't think i've told you this story yet.
[1:13] Speaker 1: About five years ago or something, when I had tenfold
[1:16] Speaker 1: more wicked, I had, you know, several people, a lot
[1:19] Speaker 1: of people actually would email me and say, Hey, do
[1:20] Speaker 1: you want to do the story that story? And there
[1:24] Speaker 1: was a woman who said, I think you should look
[1:26] Speaker 1: into a story called the Haystack Murders, and I think
[1:30] Speaker 1: you'll really like it, so I look up haystack murders
[1:33] Speaker 1: and it points me towards what turned out to be
[1:36] Speaker 1: my fourth book.
[1:36] Speaker 2: You know, the.
[1:37] Speaker 1: Listener's all bell about Sarah Maria Cornell who was found
[1:41] Speaker 1: hanging from a haystack poll.
[1:42] Speaker 2: This is different then, because we did an episode that
[1:46] Speaker 2: involved a male that died with haystacks that caught fire, right.
[1:50] Speaker 1: So that's a different You're right, that's a different one, okay.
[1:53] Speaker 1: And she wasn't talking about that one. What she was saying,
[1:55] Speaker 1: you know what I was led to, Sarah Maria Cornell,
[1:59] Speaker 1: you know the subject of my book, hanging from a
[2:01] Speaker 1: haystack poll in Fall River, Massachusetts in eighteen thirty two.
[2:05] Speaker 1: And I dig into this and I said, this is
[2:07] Speaker 1: not a Tenfold story, this is a book book. I
[2:10] Speaker 1: think it was really I felt so significant to me,
[2:12] Speaker 1: very female centric, and I had not written a book
[2:15] Speaker 1: like that before. And so I emailed her back and
[2:17] Speaker 1: I said, just so you know, you know, I have
[2:19] Speaker 1: a book contract based on this idea that you told me,
[2:22] Speaker 1: the haystack murder. And I said, I just really appreciate
[2:25] Speaker 1: you passing it on. You won't hear it on Tenfold,
[2:27] Speaker 1: but you can read it in a book in a
[2:29] Speaker 1: few years, and thanks for passing on Sarah Maria Cornell's story.
[2:33] Speaker 1: And she said, what are you talking about. That is
[2:35] Speaker 1: not what I was talking about. That's not the Haystack
[2:38] Speaker 1: murder I was discussing. Really, she had only said one line,
[2:42] Speaker 1: he Haystack murder. And she said, that's not what I meant, okay,
[2:45] Speaker 1: And so I said, what the hell did you mean?
[2:47] Speaker 1: And then she sent me the link, And that is
[2:50] Speaker 1: the story we are doing today. So if she had
[2:53] Speaker 1: told me the correct story what I'm going to tell you,
[2:57] Speaker 1: I would have had a completely different book. So now
[3:01] Speaker 1: I said that, I thought, okay, well I might as
[3:02] Speaker 1: well do the real Haystack what this woman intended for
[3:05] Speaker 1: me to do.
[3:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, instead of a book, you got an episode. There
[3:08] Speaker 2: you go.
[3:08] Speaker 1: I got an episode. There you go. And it's a
[3:10] Speaker 1: good story too. So let's go ahead and set the scene.
[3:15] Speaker 1: So we are in Lodi, California.
[3:18] Speaker 2: I know, load eye well, well good.
[3:20] Speaker 1: This is nineteen twenty three. Love the time period, Love Love, Love.
[3:24] Speaker 1: It in the middle of Prohibition, right before people were
[3:26] Speaker 1: spending stupid amounts of money and the Roaring twenties, and
[3:29] Speaker 1: then of course the crash in twenty nine and the depression.
[3:33] Speaker 1: So this is in load Eye, which was an agricultural
[3:36] Speaker 1: city in San Joaquin Valley. So at this time, and
[3:40] Speaker 1: you can tell me if this is the case now too.
[3:42] Speaker 1: At this time there were flour mills, vineyards orchards, and
[3:46] Speaker 1: a lot of cattle ranching, and that's what the area
[3:48] Speaker 1: was known for in nineteen twenty three. How would you
[3:51] Speaker 1: describe it now?
[3:52] Speaker 2: You know, I can't. I can't speak to the flour
[3:55] Speaker 2: mills vineyards for sure, which is surprising because you know
[4:00] Speaker 2: where I lived in California. I was twenty minutes away
[4:03] Speaker 2: from Napa, Sonoma, you know, world renowned wineries. But load Eye,
[4:10] Speaker 2: which is Central Valley, I would never have thought that
[4:13] Speaker 2: that would be a good place for vineyards. But they
[4:16] Speaker 2: have a lot of vineyards, huge vineyards, and in fact,
[4:19] Speaker 2: I became quite a fan of what they call old
[4:24] Speaker 2: vine Zenfandel. So they have these old, old vineyards with
[4:30] Speaker 2: these gnarled up vines of grapes of zenvidel variety, and
[4:37] Speaker 2: then they produce you know, wine from that, and I
[4:41] Speaker 2: loved it, you know, so I was you know, there's
[4:44] Speaker 2: multiple different vineyards that I would drink, but I would
[4:50] Speaker 2: go through load eye all the time to get down
[4:53] Speaker 2: to Stockton when I was investigating Golden State Killer, and
[4:57] Speaker 2: I'd be driving through these vineyards, you know. And again
[5:00] Speaker 2: it's central Valley. It gets super hot in the summertime.
[5:05] Speaker 2: There's a huge wind turbine farm right outside of Lodi. Now,
[5:13] Speaker 2: as far as cattle, it wouldn't surprise me that there
[5:17] Speaker 2: would be a lot of cattle out there, because there's
[5:18] Speaker 2: cattle everywhere in northern California. But I don't recall that specifically.
[5:23] Speaker 2: But I also met with multiple people in Lodi or
[5:28] Speaker 2: lived in Lodi during the time of my investigation with
[5:32] Speaker 2: Golden State Killer.
[5:33] Speaker 1: Well that's where we are. It's Wednesday, September twelfth, nineteen
[5:37] Speaker 1: twenty three. So it's important for me to talk about
[5:40] Speaker 1: the history section of this just because I think this
[5:43] Speaker 1: is an interesting time. I told you Prohibition, it's before
[5:46] Speaker 1: this big infusion of money. So this is a few
[5:49] Speaker 1: years after World War One. The war was very hard
[5:52] Speaker 1: on San Juan Quing Valley community because and this was
[5:55] Speaker 1: what was interesting, the trickle down effect of a war. Okay,
[6:00] Speaker 1: during World War One, European farmers, many of them had
[6:04] Speaker 1: to leave or shut down. During World War One, because
[6:07] Speaker 1: they were either fighting or you know, the resources of
[6:10] Speaker 1: their farm had to be used for something else. So
[6:13] Speaker 1: this meant that the American specifically the farmers in San
[6:17] Speaker 1: Joaquin Valley were told to ramp up production. Okay, so
[6:20] Speaker 1: they ramped up production, they got a lot of bank loans.
[6:24] Speaker 1: And then when the war ended, that's what made some
[6:27] Speaker 1: things crash for these farmers because the European farmers came
[6:31] Speaker 1: back and the demand for American agricultural products plummeted, and
[6:37] Speaker 1: so the crop prices then crashed and there's a lot
[6:40] Speaker 1: of surplus. And so we have in nineteen twenty three
[6:44] Speaker 1: in this area a lot of people who had to
[6:46] Speaker 1: file for bankruptcy and you know, people who were in
[6:50] Speaker 1: tremendous amount of debt. So that's where we are. It sounds,
[6:53] Speaker 1: you know, it's beautiful and all. I love agricultural land,
[6:56] Speaker 1: but it was direstraits for a lot of people in
[6:58] Speaker 1: this area in this time.
[7:00] Speaker 2: No I could see that. And then what six years
[7:03] Speaker 2: later you have the Great Depression starting.
[7:06] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why I always say it's my favorite. It's
[7:08] Speaker 1: not the favorite for people who lived through it, but
[7:11] Speaker 1: it's my favorite time period because you know, you've got
[7:14] Speaker 1: early twenties prohibition crack down, it doesn't work. There's the
[7:18] Speaker 1: rise of criminal enterprise. You've got, oh, here's tons of money.
[7:22] Speaker 1: Any hairbrain scheme you want will give you the money
[7:24] Speaker 1: for it. And then the crash in nineteen twenty nine
[7:27] Speaker 1: and then the depression, all in a decade. It's just
[7:30] Speaker 1: pretty incredible. And the crime that's developed, you know, that's
[7:32] Speaker 1: what American Sherlock. My second book was about the crime
[7:35] Speaker 1: that happens and how how interesting it is to see
[7:38] Speaker 1: the way criminals adapt and they're always a step ahead
[7:42] Speaker 1: of you know, the investigators who then quickly have to
[7:45] Speaker 1: pivot too. And so you just see that like these
[7:47] Speaker 1: these investigators in the twenties just constantly like a half
[7:50] Speaker 1: a step behind because they think they've got a hold
[7:52] Speaker 1: of the criminals in the way they're doing something, whatever
[7:54] Speaker 1: the scheme is, and then the criminals go, Okay, well
[7:57] Speaker 1: we're going to figure out another way to do it.
[7:59] Speaker 1: And so that the kind of feel is like a
[8:01] Speaker 1: ketchup feeling for me that whole time period.
[8:04] Speaker 2: It's still the same today. I know, criminals do something
[8:08] Speaker 2: new and then law enforcement has to figure it out
[8:11] Speaker 2: and adapt.
[8:12] Speaker 1: Yep, Okay, here's the crime. It's nine pm. And as
[8:16] Speaker 1: I said, so if we're looking at we have an
[8:18] Speaker 1: outdoor scene. So that's why I'm telling you. It's September twelfth,
[8:22] Speaker 1: nineteen twenty three, so this would have been warm still right,
[8:25] Speaker 1: Central Valley would have been freezing still. I think he's
[8:27] Speaker 1: San Francisco, but warm right.
[8:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I will tell you September can be like
[8:33] Speaker 2: the hottest summer month in this part of California. I
[8:38] Speaker 2: wouldn't be surprised if it got over one hundred degrees.
[8:41] Speaker 1: Okay, let me tell you about this. So nine o'clock,
[8:44] Speaker 1: there's a farmer who sees a burning haystack on a
[8:47] Speaker 1: ranch called the William Lange Ranch. He rushes to help.
[8:52] Speaker 1: All he can see is a haystack. And this does
[8:54] Speaker 1: sound like our other story. Remember, like the two big
[8:57] Speaker 1: hay bales, massive hay bales and England are on fire
[9:01] Speaker 1: and nobody can see anything until it burns down a
[9:03] Speaker 1: little bit. And then in that case, you saw a
[9:04] Speaker 1: dead body. In this case, it's a car that's on
[9:08] Speaker 1: fire and in the back seat there is a smoldering body.
[9:15] Speaker 1: And I have a picture of the car, not of
[9:16] Speaker 1: the body. I'm sorry but I do have a picture
[9:19] Speaker 1: of the car. So if you open up what you have, listen,
[9:23] Speaker 1: I mean it's not the greatest photo, but I think
[9:25] Speaker 1: you'll get the idea. It has been just for the record,
[9:28] Speaker 1: burned to the metal is what they say, completely charred
[9:32] Speaker 1: the body and the car has been burned down to
[9:35] Speaker 1: the metal.
[9:36] Speaker 2: Okay, So what I'm looking at is and part of
[9:41] Speaker 2: it is, you know, the context we are talking about
[9:45] Speaker 2: nineteen twenty three, So what did cars look like in
[9:48] Speaker 2: nineteen twenty three? And so now that I'm adjusting to
[9:52] Speaker 2: that almost Model T type of vehicle, I'm seeing a
[9:57] Speaker 2: vehicle that from left to right in this photograph, the
[10:01] Speaker 2: left is the front of the vehicle. There's the engine compartment,
[10:05] Speaker 2: there's a passenger area. Then you have the rear wheel
[10:09] Speaker 2: and the rear part of the vehicle. The metal on
[10:12] Speaker 2: this vehicle has softened to the point to where the
[10:17] Speaker 2: rear wheels, not the tires, the tires are gone, they burned,
[10:22] Speaker 2: but the wheels themselves a metal part has softened to
[10:26] Speaker 2: the point to where, like the left driver's side wheel
[10:30] Speaker 2: is bent at a ninety degree angle just from the
[10:35] Speaker 2: weight of the vehicle itself. With this type of photo.
[10:38] Speaker 2: I can't see, you know, the charring of the vehicle
[10:41] Speaker 2: or anything like that, but I can see where there's
[10:43] Speaker 2: been structural compromise as a result of heat combustible aspects
[10:48] Speaker 2: of the vehicle, like let's say, a wooden steering wheel gone,
[10:53] Speaker 2: upholstery gone. You know, it is just a crippled hule
[10:58] Speaker 2: of what used to be a car.
[11:01] Speaker 1: So that's what this body was found in. And you know,
[11:05] Speaker 1: I guess one of my questions is we did do
[11:07] Speaker 1: the spontaneous combustion story where there's a body found in
[11:11] Speaker 1: between these two haystacks. Would this sort of destruction indicate
[11:16] Speaker 1: to you that this either this fire either had to
[11:19] Speaker 1: have gone on for a very long time or there
[11:22] Speaker 1: must have been an accelerant added to this fire. I
[11:25] Speaker 1: don't think this is spontaneous combustion.
[11:27] Speaker 2: You know, let's talk car fires. Have you ever been,
[11:32] Speaker 2: you know, driving on the freeway and seen a vehicle
[11:34] Speaker 2: on fire that's off to the side, right, you know,
[11:38] Speaker 2: So vehicles do have combustible materials in them, but they
[11:43] Speaker 2: also have an accelerant that is present with inside the
[11:47] Speaker 2: vehicle gasoline or diesel. Right, And the same thing with
[11:51] Speaker 2: vehicles in the nineteen twenties. Now I'm not sure there
[11:55] Speaker 2: was a transition at one point with vehicles from poscene
[12:00] Speaker 2: to gasoline, and I'm not sure when that transition occurred,
[12:04] Speaker 2: But for this discussion, I don't I don't think it matters.
[12:08] Speaker 2: You know, fundamentally, you do have an accelerant. So if
[12:11] Speaker 2: you're an arson investigator and looking at this vehicle, you know,
[12:15] Speaker 2: part of the complexity is, well, there's already an accelerant presence.
[12:18] Speaker 2: So if there was something that could ignite a fire
[12:23] Speaker 2: and then the onboard fuel as an accelerant enhance that fire,
[12:30] Speaker 2: it could potentially cover up you know, an offender, let's say,
[12:34] Speaker 2: dousing a vehicle, you know, with some sort of flammable material.
[12:40] Speaker 2: You know. So this is where now it's you know,
[12:43] Speaker 2: the the investigation. Like if I'm if I'm processing this vehicle,
[12:47] Speaker 2: you know, the body is first and foremost. And I've
[12:49] Speaker 2: literally had this scenario in my past. As far as
[12:53] Speaker 2: the case, I will tell you that bodies and vehicles
[12:57] Speaker 2: that have been burned this is not a fun thing
[13:00] Speaker 2: to deal with. But it's also working with fire marshals,
[13:04] Speaker 2: with arson investigators, you know, State Fire Marshal's office, you know,
[13:07] Speaker 2: whoever you can get out. Okay, So where is the
[13:10] Speaker 2: point of origin of the fire. Does it look like
[13:14] Speaker 2: it was caused by an accident, you know, something within
[13:17] Speaker 2: the vehicle that you know caused the fire to occur,
[13:21] Speaker 2: and then of course you know the onboard acceleerantic nights
[13:25] Speaker 2: or do we have evidence that there was intentional fire
[13:29] Speaker 2: setting that occurred in order to cover up a crime?
[13:32] Speaker 2: You know, and that's typically if you have a body
[13:35] Speaker 2: in a vehicle. Let's say the body is in the
[13:37] Speaker 2: trunk of the vehicle, good chance that, yeah, somebody set
[13:41] Speaker 2: fire to the vehicle in order to try to cover
[13:43] Speaker 2: up the crime and eliminate evidence.
[13:48] Speaker 1: Okay, So when the coroner shows up and the sheriff
[13:52] Speaker 1: show up at the haystack, the car so twisted that
[13:55] Speaker 1: nobody recognizes the car, even though this is a small town,
[13:58] Speaker 1: they are able to decipher or the license plate and
[14:01] Speaker 1: so they're able to figure out who this is registered
[14:04] Speaker 1: to number one, number two. There is a identifiable set
[14:10] Speaker 1: of keys that are in the fire, in some of
[14:13] Speaker 1: the clothing, and also the class from a coin purse
[14:18] Speaker 1: that's also identifiable. When I tell you who this person is,
[14:21] Speaker 1: it's confirmed by his wife who sees these items and
[14:23] Speaker 1: says this is it. Nobody can tell from the car.
[14:26] Speaker 1: They have to go and figure it out through the registration.
[14:29] Speaker 2: So would men back in the day carry a coin purse.
[14:33] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's more of a clasp, so it's like a
[14:36] Speaker 1: class from a coin purse. That would not have been unusual, okay,
[14:39] Speaker 1: because people use coins a lot more than you know
[14:42] Speaker 1: we do now, sure, obviously. So those were the two
[14:46] Speaker 1: things that stood out to you know, investigators. And they
[14:49] Speaker 1: know who it is, and they said, it's a guy
[14:52] Speaker 1: named Alexander Alex Kells. So he goes by Alex. So
[14:57] Speaker 1: he was very prominent Alex He was a member of
[15:01] Speaker 1: a lot of different social organizations and a lot kind
[15:06] Speaker 1: of set in agriculture type organizations. He was very well liked.
[15:10] Speaker 1: A lot of people said he was amazing because he's
[15:12] Speaker 1: a self made man. He came from Germany in eighteen
[15:15] Speaker 1: eighty five and he was a butcher, but a very
[15:18] Speaker 1: wealthy butcher. So he had apprenticed at several California butcheries
[15:24] Speaker 1: and had slowly built up his wealth and by nineteen seventeen,
[15:28] Speaker 1: so this is six years before he died, he was
[15:32] Speaker 1: in a position to buy his own ranch. So he
[15:34] Speaker 1: bought a ranch, and he also started two slaughterhouses. You know,
[15:38] Speaker 1: they were both meat markets essentially, but you know, he
[15:41] Speaker 1: would slaughter the animals himself. And he was very, very wealthy.
[15:45] Speaker 1: So one meat market was located in a modern brick building.
[15:49] Speaker 1: It was top of the line, had all the best equipment.
[15:52] Speaker 1: He had a lot of cold storage rooms for hanging meat,
[15:56] Speaker 1: and you know, enamel walls, and a modern sales floor.
[16:00] Speaker 1: And in nineteen twenty three when he died, his fortune
[16:04] Speaker 1: was estimated to be a quarter of a million dollars
[16:07] Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty three money, which is almost five million today.
[16:10] Speaker 1: So your victim has a lot of money. We don't
[16:12] Speaker 1: know anything else about him to think it was very
[16:13] Speaker 1: you know, well liked and he had a lot of money. Sure,
[16:17] Speaker 1: three days later, we've got two doctors who are going
[16:20] Speaker 1: to take a look at Alex's remains. They are only
[16:23] Speaker 1: three teeth present in Alex's skull, so they think that
[16:29] Speaker 1: the fire must have been so intense that it consumed
[16:32] Speaker 1: the rest of the teeth. They wonder if the skull
[16:35] Speaker 1: was crushed, but because of the fire, they can't tell,
[16:39] Speaker 1: and they don't find any bullet wounds. So the cause
[16:41] Speaker 1: of death is a mystery for them.
[16:43] Speaker 2: Teeth even like in crematoriums, you know, teeth end up
[16:48] Speaker 2: without mechanical disruption, end up surviving super high temperatures, much
[16:54] Speaker 2: more so than the surrounding bone. So that's where I'm
[16:58] Speaker 2: a little bit not sure what they're observing. There's only
[17:03] Speaker 2: three teeth present, why is that? And then the other
[17:08] Speaker 2: thing what ends up happening with a fire with a
[17:12] Speaker 2: human body when it is being superheated, the skull bursts,
[17:18] Speaker 2: you know, the brain in essence becomes like, for lack
[17:21] Speaker 2: of a better term, like a boiling liquid. And so
[17:25] Speaker 2: now that the skull will burst, and once the skull bursts,
[17:29] Speaker 2: it can collapse in and on itself. So this is
[17:32] Speaker 2: where Now are they recognizing that's the phenomena that they
[17:37] Speaker 2: are dealing with, or is there actual violence that occurred,
[17:42] Speaker 2: like let's say during a bludgeting. A competent pathologist can
[17:46] Speaker 2: determine this, you know, this is where you need to
[17:49] Speaker 2: know what you are looking at.
[17:51] Speaker 1: Well, I can tell you one thing they're looking at
[17:53] Speaker 1: when they look at this, I mean they kind of
[17:55] Speaker 1: describe it as a skeletal remains. When they look at
[17:58] Speaker 1: the remains, they find out that at his hands are
[18:01] Speaker 1: tied behind his back.
[18:02] Speaker 2: That's a clue.
[18:03] Speaker 1: There's a big funeral, three thousand people. That's how much
[18:07] Speaker 1: people like this guy Alex kills. They are questioning different
[18:10] Speaker 1: residents about Alex and trying to figure out what his
[18:14] Speaker 1: last movements were. Was he talking to somebody that people
[18:18] Speaker 1: did know or didn't know, what was his behavior like
[18:20] Speaker 1: all of that stuff, And they start to put together
[18:22] Speaker 1: a timeline because small town ye people saw him. So
[18:25] Speaker 1: this is what happens. So his body is discovered at
[18:28] Speaker 1: nine pm. So we go back twelve hours. Between eight
[18:31] Speaker 1: o'clock and nine o'clock am, he was at a public
[18:35] Speaker 1: employment office and he was hiring somebody, you know, which
[18:39] Speaker 1: is something he did often to feed stock on his ranch.
[18:43] Speaker 1: And then at ten o'clock he had met with an
[18:47] Speaker 1: unknown woman and they were spotted driving toward an abandoned ranch.
[18:52] Speaker 1: From eleven o'clock until four pm, he worked at his
[18:56] Speaker 1: butcher shop in Lode Eye, and he went to a
[18:59] Speaker 1: restaurant during a break, and at four twenty he and
[19:04] Speaker 1: another man waved at a fuller lumber driver. They were
[19:08] Speaker 1: headed north of town in Alex's car. The one who
[19:11] Speaker 1: ends up no one that ends up being burned up
[19:13] Speaker 1: about five o'clock. He has seen killing time and snacking on.
[19:17] Speaker 1: I don't mean to WinCE at the sardines.
[19:20] Speaker 2: Oh I can't. I can't eat sardines.
[19:22] Speaker 1: Don't get upset if you guys like sardines and he
[19:25] Speaker 1: is eating. He's snacking on sardines. In Loacheford, I've never
[19:30] Speaker 1: been there, which is about eight miles northeast of Lodi, Okay.
[19:34] Speaker 1: Six forty five, a carpenter saw Alex. He was alone
[19:37] Speaker 1: this time. He was driving south and he was the
[19:41] Speaker 1: last time he was seen alive was about seven thirty PM,
[19:44] Speaker 1: so about an hour and a half before his body
[19:46] Speaker 1: was discovered, and he was driving in the direction of
[19:49] Speaker 1: the haystack.
[19:50] Speaker 2: Okay, so he's taken himself out towards at least where
[19:57] Speaker 2: he ultimately is found, like maybe goes to meet somebody.
[20:02] Speaker 2: And what time was that again?
[20:04] Speaker 1: So the last time people saw him was at seven
[20:06] Speaker 1: point thirty. He was by himself, and the sheriff is
[20:09] Speaker 1: trying to track down the man who Alex hired at
[20:13] Speaker 1: the public Employment office. There's no record of this man,
[20:17] Speaker 1: which is unusual, but they said sometimes that happened, so
[20:20] Speaker 1: they don't have a name that they can look up
[20:22] Speaker 1: and say, Alex Kells hired this guy, and nobody knows
[20:25] Speaker 1: who who this woman is.
[20:27] Speaker 2: And it's also hard to say that that interaction earlier
[20:33] Speaker 2: in the day had anything to do with this homicide. Yep.
[20:36] Speaker 2: And I would say the fact that his hands are
[20:39] Speaker 2: bound behind his back. I think any pathologist looking at
[20:44] Speaker 2: this set of circumstances would probably say, yes, you know,
[20:47] Speaker 2: this is death at the hands of another homicide. But
[20:50] Speaker 2: now is it possible, you know, maybe he odeed and
[20:54] Speaker 2: now you got somebody who he was doing drugs with
[20:58] Speaker 2: freaking out and m h you know, binds him up
[21:02] Speaker 2: to transport him and then dumps the body or sets
[21:05] Speaker 2: you know, puts him in a hayfield and you know,
[21:07] Speaker 2: sets it on fire. But it doesn't sound like that's
[21:10] Speaker 2: what we are dealing with here, So so okay. So
[21:13] Speaker 2: seven point thirty is the last time he's seen alive,
[21:18] Speaker 2: and he's driving towards at least in the general direction
[21:22] Speaker 2: of the hayfield in which his body is found.
[21:26] Speaker 1: Yep. And his widow is describing what she believes his
[21:29] Speaker 1: day was like. The last time she saw him was
[21:31] Speaker 1: at noon, and he was collecting rent. So he had
[21:35] Speaker 1: a lot of property and he was renting out different
[21:38] Speaker 1: parts of the property to people, probably kind of sharecropping,
[21:41] Speaker 1: and he was collecting rent. That was the day he
[21:44] Speaker 1: did it. He would have had money, she said. He
[21:45] Speaker 1: would have had quite a bit of money on him, cash.
[21:48] Speaker 1: And she said that she had been worried because he
[21:52] Speaker 1: had said to her that he had been getting some
[21:54] Speaker 1: death threats and she was getting ready to call the
[21:57] Speaker 1: police when the police came to her and said, we
[22:00] Speaker 1: found her husband's body.
[22:01] Speaker 2: Okay, so tell me about the death threats.
[22:04] Speaker 1: She just said that he did not explain anything, that
[22:08] Speaker 1: he was scared about these, you know, supposed death threats,
[22:12] Speaker 1: but we don't know, we don't know anything about them.
[22:16] Speaker 1: And he was vague with her because he didn't want
[22:17] Speaker 1: to upset her. Everybody's concerned about the widow because she's pregnant.
[22:20] Speaker 2: So these death threats are aren't coming in like through
[22:23] Speaker 2: the mail. No, okay, So there's no written record.
[22:26] Speaker 1: It doesn't look like it now if there were, he
[22:29] Speaker 1: didn't hand him over to her. So that is you
[22:33] Speaker 1: know where we are right now. They don't know what
[22:36] Speaker 1: happened to him. They're still doing they still have one
[22:39] Speaker 1: more like physical exam to do. I have another doctor
[22:42] Speaker 1: coming in, and so the sheriff is alarmed because this
[22:45] Speaker 1: does not happen in Lodi. Of course, his widow is
[22:48] Speaker 1: really upset, and you know, the community's pretty shaken. They
[22:52] Speaker 1: don't know what's happening and what the reason was behind it.
[22:56] Speaker 1: They didn't find money on him, you know, anywhere would
[23:00] Speaker 1: have been burned up, but there's no evidence of that
[23:02] Speaker 1: except except that coin purse. So he might have had
[23:05] Speaker 1: that coin purse either taken or burned up. But there
[23:08] Speaker 1: was just the clasp and that was it. So any
[23:11] Speaker 1: other thoughts before I have the next big development because
[23:13] Speaker 1: it's a big one.
[23:14] Speaker 2: You know, fire scenes are in many ways the worst,
[23:19] Speaker 2: you know, when it comes to really having a good
[23:22] Speaker 2: sense as to what was present, what wasn't present, what happened.
[23:28] Speaker 2: You talk about, you know, money on his person. I
[23:32] Speaker 2: mean he could have had a briefcase full of money.
[23:34] Speaker 2: The offender took the briefcase and then set everything on fire.
[23:38] Speaker 2: You'd never know that, you know. So that's where right now,
[23:42] Speaker 2: we just don't know what is going on in this case.
[23:48] Speaker 1: Well, let me tell you about more advanced autopsy that
[23:52] Speaker 1: they do and I'll give you those results. And then
[23:55] Speaker 1: and then the big one comes. Okay, so we have
[23:58] Speaker 1: a doctor who comes into look at him, and they're
[24:02] Speaker 1: looking for stomach contents that kind of thing. First, the
[24:05] Speaker 1: investigators think something weird is happening because they find buttons
[24:11] Speaker 1: of overalls in the ashes. The next day, once this
[24:14] Speaker 1: thing has burned down, Alex was very successful. He had
[24:17] Speaker 1: a lot of money. He did not wear overalls, so
[24:19] Speaker 1: they were confused about why they would find the buttons
[24:22] Speaker 1: of overalls underneath the body at the time. Of course,
[24:25] Speaker 1: you know, he could have who knows why he had
[24:27] Speaker 1: those Maybe the worker who was with him and taken
[24:30] Speaker 1: off his overalls. They just make a note of it.
[24:32] Speaker 1: Then they get to the autopsy. So he only had
[24:36] Speaker 1: grapes in his stomach, and it sounds like he had
[24:39] Speaker 1: eaten at least one or two other restaurants during the day,
[24:43] Speaker 1: and so they thought that was a little bit weird.
[24:45] Speaker 1: And then the weirdest part is that they look at
[24:50] Speaker 1: his spine and Alex is taller than the person who's
[24:56] Speaker 1: spying this belongs to. And so now they start to say,
[25:00] Speaker 1: we don't know if this is Alex Kales.
[25:02] Speaker 2: So you know, like if I'm working a case and
[25:05] Speaker 2: I have a pathologist tell me, oh, these remains are
[25:10] Speaker 2: not in line with a stature of what is known
[25:14] Speaker 2: about the victim. It's okay, let's dig into that. What
[25:20] Speaker 2: happens to the human body when it is burned? Are
[25:23] Speaker 2: there any studies that show that human body either expands
[25:27] Speaker 2: or contracts? And can can you accurately estimate the height
[25:32] Speaker 2: of this body, the weight of this body, et cetera.
[25:35] Speaker 2: You know, after such dramatic impact on it, I would
[25:40] Speaker 2: need to know that. Now today, even with charred remains,
[25:45] Speaker 2: there's a chance we could do successful DNA testing. The
[25:49] Speaker 2: dentin inside the teeth that are protected by the hardest
[25:53] Speaker 2: substance in the body often can produce DNA results. When
[25:59] Speaker 2: other bones or other tissues in the body, you won't
[26:03] Speaker 2: be successful with you know. So we would be able
[26:06] Speaker 2: to definitively identify this body with modern technology in all likelihood,
[26:12] Speaker 2: But now nineteen twenties they couldn't do that. So now
[26:15] Speaker 2: you're you're relying on this pathologist. It's like, well, what
[26:18] Speaker 2: what are you telling me? Doc? Are you telling me
[26:21] Speaker 2: this is possibly isn't alex And now that opens up
[26:26] Speaker 2: the direction of the investigation. It's like, Okay, now, is
[26:32] Speaker 2: Alex staging his own death?
[26:34] Speaker 1: Have you had that before? Have you ever worked that
[26:36] Speaker 1: kind of a case?
[26:37] Speaker 2: Not directly, No, not that nothing that's popping into my head.
[26:42] Speaker 2: I'm aware of cases in which, you know, people have
[26:45] Speaker 2: done that, but I mean, obviously, in this scenario, it's
[26:49] Speaker 2: something that you have to consider. You know. It's like, well, yeah,
[26:53] Speaker 2: we got a body we can't visually identify due to
[26:57] Speaker 2: the you know, the fire damage, and now we have
[27:00] Speaker 2: a pathologist saying this body is not consistent with the
[27:03] Speaker 2: stature of who we presumed the body was Alex. So
[27:08] Speaker 2: it's like, okay, so what are the set of circumstances
[27:11] Speaker 2: in which this would happen? You know, And part of it,
[27:14] Speaker 2: of course, is going to be, well, maybe the victim
[27:17] Speaker 2: is staging his own death for whatever reason. But you
[27:20] Speaker 2: also have to consider, you know, is there other scenarios
[27:25] Speaker 2: in which, let's say an offender has abducted and or
[27:28] Speaker 2: killed Alex but wants authorities to believe that the car
[27:33] Speaker 2: possesses Alex's body so they no longer are trying to
[27:38] Speaker 2: find Alex. And there's there's a variety of different other reasons.
[27:42] Speaker 2: But you know, it does open the door in terms
[27:45] Speaker 2: of well, where are we going? You know, where is
[27:48] Speaker 2: this going? You know? And now, as I always say,
[27:54] Speaker 2: the victimology, what's going on? It's huge? What is going on?
[27:59] Speaker 2: You know? And you know, why would Alex stage his
[28:02] Speaker 2: own death or what would cause Alex to be killed?
[28:07] Speaker 2: But then a different body substituted for Alex? You know,
[28:12] Speaker 2: maybe he's kept alive, but he's been adducted for whatever reason.
[28:16] Speaker 1: Well, let's do a little victimology here. They look at
[28:19] Speaker 1: his finances, because they are everybody suspicious at this point.
[28:23] Speaker 1: I think the spine part, I think the stomach contents part.
[28:28] Speaker 1: I think the overalls. They thought that was really weird.
[28:30] Speaker 1: Then they look at his finances and they talked to
[28:32] Speaker 1: his banker. So he had a very large ranch, expensive slaughterhouse.
[28:37] Speaker 1: He had a bungalow home, very modern, and he was
[28:41] Speaker 1: over extended. And when the livestock prices dropped, like I
[28:45] Speaker 1: told you they did, there was so much strain on
[28:48] Speaker 1: him that it was clearly stressing him out. And his
[28:53] Speaker 1: wife had said that, yes, he was stressed out by
[28:55] Speaker 1: this doesn't mean that that's what happened with him. But
[28:58] Speaker 1: if you were trying to get in you know, the
[29:01] Speaker 1: victim's head here. He seems to have a pretty good
[29:04] Speaker 1: reason for staging his own death. Who is the guy
[29:06] Speaker 1: in the car? If that's what happened, I.
[29:08] Speaker 2: Would say during this era, it's like is there any
[29:11] Speaker 2: reported grave robberies? Right? And now you throw that body
[29:16] Speaker 2: into the car and make off. But Alex, he could
[29:20] Speaker 2: benefit by staging his own death and disappearing. Whoever he
[29:26] Speaker 2: owes money to. They don't benefit by killing him, right,
[29:31] Speaker 2: you know they want his money, so it's less likely
[29:35] Speaker 2: that they would off the person that they're trying to
[29:38] Speaker 2: extract money from, unless you know, Alex showed up again
[29:43] Speaker 2: with the briefcase full of all sorts of money, and
[29:46] Speaker 2: then they decided, you know what we got, We gotta
[29:48] Speaker 2: get rid of this guy after they got their their
[29:51] Speaker 2: proceeds from the briefcase.
[29:53] Speaker 1: So who would be motivated to kill him in this way?
[29:58] Speaker 1: Somebody is going to see this. It's on a remote ranch,
[30:00] Speaker 1: but obviously somebody saw it. The last time somebody saw
[30:03] Speaker 1: him was at seven thirty at night. His body's discovered
[30:06] Speaker 1: at nine pm. This obviously wasn't the best hiding place
[30:10] Speaker 1: and it's an open field, so you know, I'm trying
[30:14] Speaker 1: to climb inside the head of the offender here, and
[30:17] Speaker 1: why would this be a good ideal at all? I
[30:20] Speaker 1: know you've set fire is really destructive, but other than that.
[30:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, but this this scenario, you know, setting fire with
[30:28] Speaker 2: haste as you know, with a vehicle inside of it.
[30:31] Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's a huge signal that oh, something's
[30:34] Speaker 2: wrong and people are going to rush to it, and
[30:36] Speaker 2: the offender has to know that.
[30:39] Speaker 1: Why would an offender want to do that?
[30:41] Speaker 2: Though maybe it's to send a message. You know, Alex
[30:45] Speaker 2: is a prominent person the offend. Let's say the offender
[30:48] Speaker 2: has a relationship with Alex at whether it's you know,
[30:50] Speaker 2: financial whatever, and then Alex does something that the offender
[30:56] Speaker 2: doesn't like, and the offender needs to send a message
[30:58] Speaker 2: because the offender has other clients that he has similar
[31:03] Speaker 2: relationships with. I'm kind of in a different scale. I'm
[31:09] Speaker 2: thinking about a drug dealer who has somebody who's like,
[31:15] Speaker 2: let's say, hey, can I get a dime bagie? I'll
[31:18] Speaker 2: pay you next time? Can I get a dime Bagie?
[31:20] Speaker 2: I'll pay you next time? And never pays. Pretty soon,
[31:24] Speaker 2: that drug dealer has to send a message because he
[31:26] Speaker 2: can't have all his customers doing that because he'll never
[31:30] Speaker 2: make money. So he sends a message by killing the
[31:34] Speaker 2: person that owes him money, and then all his other
[31:37] Speaker 2: customers go, oh shit, I better step up. Is that
[31:42] Speaker 2: what's going on here? The offender is doing this dramatic
[31:46] Speaker 2: homicide with a fire in the middle of the hayfield,
[31:50] Speaker 2: So everybody knows what's going on, and now is sending
[31:54] Speaker 2: a message to whoever else you better get in line
[31:59] Speaker 2: or the same thing as happened to you.
[32:01] Speaker 1: Okay, Well, let's head next to people thinking they see
[32:07] Speaker 1: Alex around and this is where things really kind of
[32:10] Speaker 1: ramp up. So there's a call that comes in from
[32:13] Speaker 1: Nevada that Alex had been sighted there. Do people know
[32:17] Speaker 1: him in Nevada? I don't know, but he's spotted. A
[32:20] Speaker 1: couple days later, a man who does business with Alex
[32:23] Speaker 1: reports that Alex avoided eye contact with him in Reno.
[32:27] Speaker 1: So now we have somebody who says, I know this
[32:30] Speaker 1: guy and he wasn't looking me in the eye. There's
[32:33] Speaker 1: another local, George Williams, who says that he saw Alex
[32:36] Speaker 1: on board a westbound train. And so when you have
[32:40] Speaker 1: all of these people, you know who are saying, they
[32:43] Speaker 1: that we know Alex and he's there. Then, of course
[32:45] Speaker 1: the sheriff is now trying to put all of this together.
[32:48] Speaker 1: And on October first, the police in Eureka, California, there
[32:54] Speaker 1: are reports called in that there is an unknown man
[32:57] Speaker 1: carrying a rifle at the raiyard inside a box car.
[33:01] Speaker 1: They find the man. The gun is loaded, he has
[33:04] Speaker 1: it jammed in his mouth and he's trying to pull
[33:07] Speaker 1: the trigger with his toe and when they stop him,
[33:10] Speaker 1: he identifies himself as Alex Kills from Lodi. You still
[33:14] Speaker 1: don't believe it, Paul.
[33:16] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you know, I need proof. Do they establish
[33:19] Speaker 2: his identity? We're talking nineteen twenties. Fingerprints were available, you know,
[33:25] Speaker 2: but not necessarily for everybody. And then, of course, if
[33:29] Speaker 2: he's still alive, then you have people who know Alex
[33:33] Speaker 2: who could establish identity.
[33:35] Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, you have these business people who
[33:37] Speaker 1: had worked with him who saw him absolutely. So then
[33:40] Speaker 1: he gets taken to the Stockton County Jail on October
[33:43] Speaker 1: third and is identified. Now his wife is not brought down,
[33:48] Speaker 1: and they say it's because she's pregnant. She doesn't know
[33:50] Speaker 1: anything about it except the fact that he's dead. And
[33:53] Speaker 1: they don't want her to have a miscarriage or anything
[33:56] Speaker 1: like that. But the sheriff questions him, and Alex confesses
[34:02] Speaker 1: because of the financial situation he's in. And I'll tell
[34:04] Speaker 1: you what he's confessing too. He does say, and the
[34:07] Speaker 1: sheriff did find out that he had in nineteen twenty
[34:12] Speaker 1: three money, he had about one hundred thousand dollars worth
[34:16] Speaker 1: of insurance on himself, which is about almost two million
[34:19] Speaker 1: dollars today. Who's the beneficiary with the wife, his wife
[34:22] Speaker 1: and his daughter, And that's why he wanted to fake
[34:24] Speaker 1: his own death. So then the question is, you know,
[34:28] Speaker 1: how did this happen and who is this person and
[34:30] Speaker 1: all of this stuff. But I'm sure you have questions.
[34:32] Speaker 2: Too, Okay, So let's say, Okay, this guy who's failing
[34:38] Speaker 2: to kill himself with a rival by pulling the trigger
[34:41] Speaker 2: with his toe.
[34:42] Speaker 1: Get a different gut, buddy, I mean, golly, But.
[34:47] Speaker 2: Let's say that is truly Alex. Okay, So he has
[34:52] Speaker 2: staged his own death. There's a benefit to his family,
[34:58] Speaker 2: so there's a motive to do that for his family.
[35:00] Speaker 2: But generally people aren't going to do that unless there's
[35:03] Speaker 2: some other stressor in their life. So there is something
[35:07] Speaker 2: else going on. You know. Let's take the scenario of
[35:12] Speaker 2: Alex gets involved in the nineteen twenties. I wouldn't expect this,
[35:16] Speaker 2: but let's say Alex gets involved with the mob, you know,
[35:19] Speaker 2: and now he owes a ton of money. He knows that,
[35:24] Speaker 2: you know, if he doesn't pay up, you know, his
[35:27] Speaker 2: legs are going to be broken, his arms are going
[35:29] Speaker 2: to be broken. He's going to be and you know,
[35:31] Speaker 2: his reputation is going to be sullied however you want
[35:35] Speaker 2: to say it. And then he decides the only way
[35:38] Speaker 2: to escape that happening to me is me, you know,
[35:42] Speaker 2: I need to stage my death. And the positive is
[35:46] Speaker 2: is that the people I love, my wife and daughter,
[35:49] Speaker 2: you know, will will benefit from this. He's not doing
[35:53] Speaker 2: this just for insurance money, unless he has had a
[35:56] Speaker 2: history of suicidal ideations prior to this. So I would
[36:00] Speaker 2: say there is something else going on in Alex's life,
[36:03] Speaker 2: particularly considering his prominent nature, that is causing him distress
[36:10] Speaker 2: to where he has to resort to this.
[36:13] Speaker 1: Okay, I do have a side story because I'm talking
[36:16] Speaker 1: to you about this case. I think that I wish
[36:18] Speaker 1: I had known about this case when I was writing
[36:19] Speaker 1: American Sherlock. So in the middle of American Sherlock, I
[36:23] Speaker 1: have a story. It's called The Calculating Chemist, and it's
[36:26] Speaker 1: about a chemist named Charles Schwartz who was from France,
[36:30] Speaker 1: and he was in Walnut Creek and in nineteen twenty five,
[36:33] Speaker 1: when he got this massive infusion of money, he wanted
[36:37] Speaker 1: to make what would end up being nylon silk was
[36:41] Speaker 1: incredibly expensive, blah blah blah. So he received a large
[36:47] Speaker 1: infusion of money from a lot of different investors, including
[36:49] Speaker 1: his wife's family. He had a couple of kids with her.
[36:52] Speaker 1: They lived in Walnut Creek. He had a whole factory
[36:54] Speaker 1: set up. He is by himself. He has a security
[36:57] Speaker 1: guard because he's gotten threats also by himself, and the
[37:01] Speaker 1: factory catches on fire and basically he explodes right because
[37:06] Speaker 1: he's using some bad chemicals. And immediately the police chief
[37:12] Speaker 1: calls in my guy, Oscar Heinrich, who goes in and says,
[37:17] Speaker 1: this was not a chemical accident. He did not blow
[37:19] Speaker 1: himself up. The accelerant is right here. It is not
[37:22] Speaker 1: the same as any chemical that is found in this
[37:25] Speaker 1: whole factory. And then they do the autopsy, of which
[37:29] Speaker 1: I have the most disgusting photos of a completely burned body,
[37:34] Speaker 1: and Schwartz's wife said, well, you know, he just had
[37:38] Speaker 1: a tooth extracted, and the corpse was missing a tooth
[37:42] Speaker 1: and it wasn't burned enough where it was not identifiable
[37:46] Speaker 1: to my forensic scientist. He said, after the guy died,
[37:50] Speaker 1: it was chipped out. Based on the clotting, I guess
[37:52] Speaker 1: this was not something that was extracted, and with the
[37:55] Speaker 1: spine it was much shorter. And so Schwartz had done this.
[37:59] Speaker 1: He had found a doppelganger, itinerant minister. He put an
[38:03] Speaker 1: ad in, I want to hire you. The guy shows up,
[38:05] Speaker 1: he kills him.
[38:06] Speaker 2: No.
[38:06] Speaker 1: And Schwartz's plan, though, was to take money, not tell
[38:12] Speaker 1: his family, and take off because you know.
[38:15] Speaker 2: He established a separate life.
[38:17] Speaker 1: Yep, he had other girlfriends on the side. In fact,
[38:20] Speaker 1: he was getting ready to be sued with one of
[38:21] Speaker 1: those heartbomb suits. I told you about where he slept
[38:24] Speaker 1: with a woman and said I'll marry you and then
[38:26] Speaker 1: he dumps her after they sleep together, and she was
[38:29] Speaker 1: suing him. So there was a lot of stuff crumbling
[38:31] Speaker 1: in because he was not producing what he was supposed
[38:33] Speaker 1: to be producing. But it's almost the same thing. And
[38:35] Speaker 1: what it makes me think about is that, because this
[38:38] Speaker 1: is the case with Alex Kels was widely reported, I
[38:41] Speaker 1: wonder if this is where Schwartz got it from. Because
[38:43] Speaker 1: Schwartz did this in twenty five. Kell's happened in twenty three.
[38:48] Speaker 1: Schwartz was in Walnut Creek. This is Lodie, right, and
[38:53] Speaker 1: it's very similar, very similar circumstances and the way it
[38:57] Speaker 1: was kind of pulled off and everything he had. Schwartz
[38:59] Speaker 1: had a lot of life insurance and he did say
[39:02] Speaker 1: he had tons of death threats against him, and they
[39:05] Speaker 1: used stomach contents to prove it wasn't Charles Schwartz because
[39:09] Speaker 1: they knew what he ate for dinner and it wasn't
[39:12] Speaker 1: in the person's body. That's why it's funny because I
[39:15] Speaker 1: keep thinking, oh, who kills doppelgangers? I just think that's wild.
[39:18] Speaker 1: But if I hadn't written, if I hadn't written about
[39:20] Speaker 1: Charles Schwartz, now nothing surprises me.
[39:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, and this is where back before
[39:27] Speaker 2: modern technology, you know, everybody's relying on physical characteristics, and
[39:32] Speaker 2: is that that's what these offenders were taking advantage of.
[39:36] Speaker 2: You know, find somebody who looks like me, or looks
[39:40] Speaker 2: like so and so and killed them and set you know,
[39:44] Speaker 2: the circumstances up to where now you know, the authorities go,
[39:49] Speaker 2: oh yes, obviously he's missing a tooth, same tooth that
[39:52] Speaker 2: the known victim is missing, so it's got to be
[39:55] Speaker 2: the same guy. H This is easy. So you know,
[39:59] Speaker 2: with with Alex, he sets, he stages his own death,
[40:04] Speaker 2: but he's found I think you said up in Eureka, Yeah,
[40:10] Speaker 2: in a train. What's going on there? I always say,
[40:14] Speaker 2: when when you see contradiction, stop and think about it.
[40:20] Speaker 2: If he is merely staging his death for his wife
[40:25] Speaker 2: and daughter to get insurance money, and then he's found
[40:30] Speaker 2: later trying to kill himself, why doesn't he try to
[40:32] Speaker 2: kill himself in his own car in that hayfield. He
[40:37] Speaker 2: is trying to survive, and he's trying to maybe move
[40:42] Speaker 2: away from his life, you know, so his wife and
[40:46] Speaker 2: daughter receive insurance money. He feels good that, you know,
[40:51] Speaker 2: these people that were in his life are financially benefiting
[40:55] Speaker 2: from it, and now he's moving on. But then he's
[41:01] Speaker 2: getting cornered and he's recognizing, oh shit, I've been caught,
[41:04] Speaker 2: and now he wants to blow his head off, but
[41:06] Speaker 2: is completely incompetent to do that.
[41:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think what comes out is his wife
[41:12] Speaker 1: will say eventually that he's been mentally unstable for quite
[41:15] Speaker 1: a while. I don't know if people believe that. But
[41:19] Speaker 1: let me tell you what he says. He says, I
[41:21] Speaker 1: did it, can't take it anymore. He said that he
[41:25] Speaker 1: hired the stranger I told you about. Remember he went
[41:27] Speaker 1: to the employment office and said, I need to hire somebody.
[41:30] Speaker 1: That's who he hires. He called him a ragged stranger
[41:34] Speaker 1: from the public employment office. He called him Mac. He
[41:37] Speaker 1: doesn't remember the guy's name. He said he drove Mac
[41:40] Speaker 1: to his ranch and then he shot him twice in
[41:43] Speaker 1: the head with a thirty two automatic handgun. He said
[41:48] Speaker 1: Mac was still alive after he shot him twice, so
[41:51] Speaker 1: he beat him with an iron bar. He said he
[41:53] Speaker 1: put the body in a burlap sack, put it in
[41:56] Speaker 1: the back of the car, and continued with his day's
[41:58] Speaker 1: work as usual. Then he, at eight o'clock that night,
[42:03] Speaker 1: heads back to the ranch. He said he built a
[42:07] Speaker 1: haystack around Max's body and lit a candle. But then
[42:13] Speaker 1: he says he abandoned his car. I think he must
[42:16] Speaker 1: mean that they put maybe he put hay in or
[42:19] Speaker 1: near the body or around the body inside the car
[42:22] Speaker 1: and then set it on fire. Must have been what
[42:24] Speaker 1: he did. And then he said he left on foot
[42:27] Speaker 1: and went back towards Sacramento, and then he went to
[42:29] Speaker 1: Arizona and Texas and all over the place to try
[42:31] Speaker 1: to get away from all of this. And he said
[42:34] Speaker 1: he was ashamed by the financial situation he had been in.
[42:37] Speaker 1: That's what he said. The motivation was, it was shame.
[42:40] Speaker 1: But how overextended he was. He was going to have
[42:44] Speaker 1: to file for bankruptcy. So you know, that's kind of
[42:48] Speaker 1: the conclusion. The investigators believed everything he said.
[42:51] Speaker 2: So the autopsy on Max's body. He shot a couple
[42:57] Speaker 2: of times in the head with a thirty two. He's
[42:59] Speaker 2: been beaten, he said, with.
[43:01] Speaker 1: A hammer, he said, with an iron bar.
[43:03] Speaker 2: Iron bar. Okay, So a good evaluation of Mac's skull
[43:09] Speaker 2: should show the perforation by bullets. This is very distinctive,
[43:16] Speaker 2: and even the defects, the bullet hole defects will show
[43:21] Speaker 2: directionality coming from outside in now beaten by an iron
[43:26] Speaker 2: bar probably also is leaving distinctive aspects. But the complication,
[43:30] Speaker 2: of course is the fire. But the perforation of the
[43:33] Speaker 2: skull by bullets. That should be pretty obvious.
[43:37] Speaker 1: I have a conflicting information about that in my packet.
[43:40] Speaker 1: A source that I found said it was an old
[43:43] Speaker 1: newspaper article said, you know, the autopsy showed that he
[43:46] Speaker 1: had been shot, but my packet says that doesn't say that.
[43:50] Speaker 1: And you know, let me just see if there's any
[43:52] Speaker 1: other detail, because it's a pretty big difference.
[43:54] Speaker 2: Well, you know, in many ways, all this is doing
[43:57] Speaker 2: is either corroborating or refuting. Yeah, the details that Alex
[44:03] Speaker 2: is providing of what he did to Mac, you know,
[44:05] Speaker 2: and if if the pathologist is saying, yeah, I'm seeing
[44:08] Speaker 2: small caliber bullet holes into the skull and thirty two,
[44:14] Speaker 2: the thirty two is still with the body in all likelihood,
[44:17] Speaker 2: it's not like penetrating all the way through and going
[44:20] Speaker 2: to never never land. It's probably contained within that body.
[44:24] Speaker 2: They're probably not using X rays on the body, you know,
[44:27] Speaker 2: to find you know, metal objects inside. So if the
[44:31] Speaker 2: pathologist isn't aware, you know, I could see where that
[44:34] Speaker 2: would just be left behind. So you know, now it
[44:38] Speaker 2: kind of gets down. So Alex is making admissions he
[44:41] Speaker 2: killed this random who maybe physically somewhat matched him, and
[44:48] Speaker 2: staged it like his own death. It now is really okay.
[44:52] Speaker 2: You've made an admission to that. Are you telling the
[44:55] Speaker 2: truth about the motive what he.
[44:58] Speaker 1: Says his plan was, He said, you know, I was
[45:01] Speaker 1: totally humiliated. I'm going to have to file for bankruptcy.
[45:04] Speaker 1: I didn't want to do that to my family. He
[45:06] Speaker 1: said that his plan was that he would fake his
[45:12] Speaker 1: own death, murder an innocent man doing it. He was
[45:16] Speaker 1: going to set the scene up to make investigators believe
[45:18] Speaker 1: that the body was his, and then he was going
[45:19] Speaker 1: to go to Mexico. His wife and kids were going
[45:23] Speaker 1: to get you know, the insurance money so they would
[45:25] Speaker 1: be fine, his name would be saved, so you wouldn't
[45:29] Speaker 1: have to go into bankruptcy. And that he was cited
[45:34] Speaker 1: in Reno, and he knew it because he looked down,
[45:37] Speaker 1: and he knew that somebody was going to call, that
[45:39] Speaker 1: the business associate was going to call the police. And
[45:42] Speaker 1: he said, you know, I should have gone to Mexico immediately,
[45:46] Speaker 1: but he said I didn't. And I kept seeing, he said,
[45:49] Speaker 1: staring eyes everywhere, and he said I couldn't take it anymore.
[45:54] Speaker 1: And then when I got spotted, I thought, well, there's
[45:56] Speaker 1: only one way to end this now, and that's where
[45:59] Speaker 1: we had the suicide attempt. He said, he was just
[46:02] Speaker 1: tortured the whole time by what he did. He could
[46:05] Speaker 1: have gone Paul immediately. I mean this were on a
[46:07] Speaker 1: couple of weeks, two or three weeks. He could have
[46:09] Speaker 1: been in Mexico and nobody would have ever found him.
[46:11] Speaker 1: But he just kept coming back.
[46:13] Speaker 2: And there's no information about another life, No you know,
[46:18] Speaker 2: owing money to some entity that he would be afraid of,
[46:23] Speaker 2: nothing like that. This is literally, Oh, I suck. I
[46:27] Speaker 2: screwed up, and I'm now going to stage my death
[46:31] Speaker 2: and escape.
[46:33] Speaker 1: He said. This is a quote. He said. You know,
[46:36] Speaker 1: I saw these staring eyes everywhere I went. He said, sadly,
[46:39] Speaker 1: it seemed like everybody was staring at me. I couldn't
[46:42] Speaker 1: stand it. That's why instead of going to Mexico as
[46:44] Speaker 1: I planned, I wandered from place to place here, California, Nevada, Texas,
[46:49] Speaker 1: I mean just kind of all around California. And then
[46:52] Speaker 1: he said, I knew it was dangerous to come back
[46:54] Speaker 1: to this state, to California, but I couldn't help it.
[46:57] Speaker 1: My friends and family are here and I had to come.
[46:59] Speaker 1: I don't know if this is a criminal mastermind. I
[47:01] Speaker 1: think this was a desperate guy who did a terrible thing.
[47:04] Speaker 1: But I don't see anything about a second life or
[47:06] Speaker 1: anything like that. Charles Schwartz from my book, was an asshole.
[47:10] Speaker 1: That's different. I don't know. I feel differently for some
[47:13] Speaker 1: reason about this guy.
[47:15] Speaker 2: I'm not buying that everywhere he goes, you know, somebody
[47:18] Speaker 2: was staring at him, you know, that's how he felt. Yeah,
[47:21] Speaker 2: I mean, there may be a level of paranoia mm hm.
[47:25] Speaker 2: You know, like I think about myself, you know, in
[47:28] Speaker 2: the public notoriety that I've garnered over the last seven years,
[47:32] Speaker 2: and quite frankly, I'm rarely recognized out in public, let
[47:37] Speaker 2: alone put myself back in the nineteen twenties, you know
[47:42] Speaker 2: when I mean, it was just the newspapers. That's the
[47:44] Speaker 2: only place where you would actually see photographs of somebody.
[47:48] Speaker 2: And you know, so I'm thinking, okay, that that sounds
[47:51] Speaker 2: like BS. But if there's a level of paranoia that
[47:55] Speaker 2: he's developed, and there's a mental health aspect, then that
[47:58] Speaker 2: that's now starting to add up a little bit better,
[48:01] Speaker 2: you know, for me, for him committing this crime and
[48:04] Speaker 2: kind of explaining why he committed this crime.
[48:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, So he goes on trial. They don't tell his
[48:11] Speaker 1: wife about this. At the time of the trial, which
[48:14] Speaker 1: is at the Sanjuelquin Superior Court in Stockton. She's not
[48:18] Speaker 1: informed that Alex is alive or that he's been arrested
[48:23] Speaker 1: and put on trial for murder, and they're concerned that
[48:26] Speaker 1: it could jeopardize her pregnancy. Never have I ever heard
[48:30] Speaker 1: of people hiding that kind of information out of concern
[48:33] Speaker 1: for pregnancy For the offender's wife, I was a little
[48:37] Speaker 1: stunned by bat. Yeah, they tell her after she gives
[48:40] Speaker 1: birth to his son. That's when they find out.
[48:43] Speaker 2: It's almost, you know, erring on the wrong side of
[48:49] Speaker 2: what you should be doing. You know. It's like, yeah,
[48:52] Speaker 2: and I can I can understand. M hm oh. We
[48:55] Speaker 2: want to be sensitive, you know, to to her, you know,
[48:59] Speaker 2: and not disrupt her. But this is where actually, that
[49:04] Speaker 2: wasn't your husband in the hayfield. Your husband's so alive,
[49:08] Speaker 2: you know, at a curtain point, you just have to
[49:10] Speaker 2: be able to deliver that news, you know, as tactfully
[49:15] Speaker 2: as possible. I think that they were overly conservative, if
[49:21] Speaker 2: that was a real reason for not telling her.
[49:23] Speaker 1: They identify the man who Kell's killed, who was a
[49:28] Speaker 1: sixty year old man. He was the guy from the
[49:30] Speaker 1: public Employment office. His name was Edward ed Meserve. He
[49:36] Speaker 1: was an itinerant farmhand and he worked temporary jobs and
[49:40] Speaker 1: he had just gotten there that day. Wow, and they
[49:43] Speaker 1: have the proof. There's a note that basically has Kells's
[49:47] Speaker 1: name saying that he hired him for two dollars and
[49:51] Speaker 1: fifty cents. We should have been about fifty bucks today
[49:53] Speaker 1: for chores, you know. And then kel said, yeah, that
[49:56] Speaker 1: was him. So Kel's goes on trial and the white
[50:00] Speaker 1: doesn't know for a month. Can you believe that he
[50:02] Speaker 1: refuses counsel. He is convicted, and he is sentenced to death,
[50:06] Speaker 1: and then they tell her. She gets incredibly upset and
[50:10] Speaker 1: starts just I mean, ripping into everyone and says, we
[50:15] Speaker 1: need a new trial. If you had talked to me,
[50:17] Speaker 1: I would have said, number one, we're getting you an attorney,
[50:19] Speaker 1: and number two, you're mounting an insanity defense because you
[50:23] Speaker 1: have been unstable for a couple of years at least
[50:27] Speaker 1: that's where kind of we were heading. People ignore her,
[50:32] Speaker 1: and he ends up at fulsome state prison. After talking
[50:35] Speaker 1: to her, the warden says, we need to look at
[50:38] Speaker 1: Alex's case, and this is interesting. Tell me what you
[50:42] Speaker 1: think about this. They try to figure out whether or
[50:44] Speaker 1: not this guy is insane. This is their solution on
[50:48] Speaker 1: December twenty first, so this is two months after he
[50:50] Speaker 1: is put on death row. There's a doctor named Leo I. Stanley.
[50:55] Speaker 1: He is the San Quentin prison physician. He takes samples
[50:59] Speaker 1: of al Alex's spinal fluid and he's looking for neurological
[51:03] Speaker 1: infections or conditions that might cause this kind of distress.
[51:07] Speaker 1: But he doesn't find anything, and Alex is declared saying,
[51:10] Speaker 1: what do you think about that method? Spinal fluid?
[51:13] Speaker 2: You know, I don't know what would be found in
[51:14] Speaker 2: spinal fluid, especially with you know, nineteen twenties technology, which
[51:20] Speaker 2: is staining looking through a microscope. You know, it's so
[51:26] Speaker 2: limited versus like functional pet scanning of the brain, you know,
[51:31] Speaker 2: all sorts of things that we can do today. You know,
[51:35] Speaker 2: I think so buy loose definition. Innocence due to insanity
[51:43] Speaker 2: fundamentally indicates that the offender or the defendant did not
[51:48] Speaker 2: know right from wrong. In this case, Alex takes the
[51:54] Speaker 2: steps to lore and isolate an innocent victim and takes
[52:01] Speaker 2: the steps to obliterate that victim's identity through fire as
[52:07] Speaker 2: well as other physical evidence and disappears for self preservation.
[52:14] Speaker 2: I'm looking at that going he knew what he did
[52:16] Speaker 2: was wrong in many ways, he was hoping what he
[52:21] Speaker 2: did would get him to be able to live a
[52:25] Speaker 2: better life under a different identity. And a side effect
[52:32] Speaker 2: is that his family was benefiting from his own death
[52:37] Speaker 2: through the insurance. I don't see this as somebody who
[52:42] Speaker 2: is not knowing right from wrong. They knew it. Alex
[52:45] Speaker 2: knew it. My suspicion is Alex had other motives versus
[52:51] Speaker 2: just I was ashamed the bankruptcy and all that. I
[52:54] Speaker 2: think there may have been other motives. Maybe he was
[52:57] Speaker 2: unhappy in his current life living situation and decided, you
[53:03] Speaker 2: know what, I just need to get out, you know,
[53:06] Speaker 2: And he preserved his family's life versus the family annihilators
[53:11] Speaker 2: that you and I have both covered, and the family benefited,
[53:15] Speaker 2: but he's still harmed a family by you know, faking
[53:19] Speaker 2: his own death. Then you have ed it is an
[53:22] Speaker 2: innocent victim. Yeah, absolutely innocent victim. You know, and I've
[53:28] Speaker 2: often talked about this true crime genre. You know that
[53:32] Speaker 2: you and I are both in now and what stories
[53:35] Speaker 2: are typically covered is a lot of them are are
[53:38] Speaker 2: dealing with you know, women or maybe even children as victims. Well,
[53:43] Speaker 2: these are typically your true innocent victims. Men get themselves
[53:48] Speaker 2: involved with stupid things or do stupid things that cause
[53:51] Speaker 2: them to you know, be killed. And they're not very
[53:54] Speaker 2: interesting stories, you know, and they're often not innocent victims.
[53:59] Speaker 2: But here Ed is an innocent victim, and you know,
[54:05] Speaker 2: so Alex is you know, showing a selfishness to take
[54:09] Speaker 2: Ed's life, you know, to benefit Alex's own. So this
[54:13] Speaker 2: is where you know, this is truly, you know, a
[54:16] Speaker 2: horrific crime against an innocent victim.
[54:20] Speaker 1: Yeah. And both in my book and Charles Schwartz and
[54:23] Speaker 1: with Alex Kels, they target the same group, which is
[54:27] Speaker 1: what we talk about with serial killers. You're targeting a
[54:30] Speaker 1: group oftentimes of people who don't have someone keeping an
[54:34] Speaker 1: eye on them. Yes, And you know, like when we
[54:38] Speaker 1: talk about some of the ones in history with sex
[54:40] Speaker 1: workers and with itinerant ministers, which is what happened in
[54:44] Speaker 1: Charles Schwartz's case, and with an itinerant farmhand where nobody's
[54:49] Speaker 1: tracking them necessarily, and so you know, you have that
[54:52] Speaker 1: situation where he picked the right person who might have
[54:56] Speaker 1: never been identified if he had not made some mistakes,
[55:00] Speaker 1: I will say to wrap this up, the lowdie community
[55:03] Speaker 1: wants his sentence committed to life in prison. They do
[55:05] Speaker 1: not want him executed. The governor says, bug off, this
[55:09] Speaker 1: guy's dying. This is one of the most cold blooded
[55:11] Speaker 1: and deliberately planned murders in the history of the state,
[55:15] Speaker 1: says Governor Friend W. Richardson. He does not commute the sentence,
[55:21] Speaker 1: and on January fourth, alex Is hanged. His wife and
[55:26] Speaker 1: now two children do not get the almost two million
[55:29] Speaker 1: dollars payout. They get the equivalent of one hundred and
[55:33] Speaker 1: ninety thousand dollars in today money. And that is that
[55:36] Speaker 1: you look disturbed.
[55:38] Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think you know, this is where,
[55:42] Speaker 2: you know, because I've kind of got a raw spot,
[55:44] Speaker 2: you know, for for offenders. Families like the wife and
[55:50] Speaker 2: the kids are innocent.
[55:51] Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no belief that she knew any of this
[55:54] Speaker 1: at all.
[55:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, And so this is where in many ways, this
[56:00] Speaker 2: is where they're victims.
[56:02] Speaker 1: You know.
[56:02] Speaker 2: They they are now, you know, suffering from the loss
[56:06] Speaker 2: of a husband, a loss of a father, earning's potential.
[56:09] Speaker 2: You know, however, you say it, and you know, to
[56:14] Speaker 2: deny them something just because of their relationship to Alex.
[56:20] Speaker 2: You know, I think is wrong. And I've gotten to
[56:24] Speaker 2: know relatives of notorious killers, and you know, their life
[56:31] Speaker 2: is severely impacted and to the point where you have
[56:37] Speaker 2: the online trolls. I can say, and I have to
[56:41] Speaker 2: be somewhat careful, but let's say Golden State killer. But
[56:44] Speaker 2: Joseph DiAngelo, I mean he had three daughters, and I
[56:49] Speaker 2: will tell you that those daughters have been demonized online.
[56:54] Speaker 2: They have no idea what their father did, they have
[56:58] Speaker 2: no culpability of what their father did. Yet because of
[57:02] Speaker 2: their relationship, you know, they are impacted to a point.
[57:07] Speaker 2: I heard two of them the night that we arrested
[57:10] Speaker 2: DiAngelo and they were like, one of the daughters was going,
[57:14] Speaker 2: how am I ever going to get a job? Yeah?
[57:17] Speaker 2: You know, this is where family members of these types
[57:21] Speaker 2: of individuals are victims themselves. There's a few circumstances in
[57:25] Speaker 2: which family members are aware and or participated in the crimes,
[57:29] Speaker 2: and that's a different story. But many times these family
[57:32] Speaker 2: members are absolute innocent victims. And that's where what I'm
[57:36] Speaker 2: hearing about sort of the decision with Alex's wife and kids.
[57:42] Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, I'm disturbed by that. You know, they
[57:45] Speaker 2: should have received the full compensation they they could have
[57:48] Speaker 2: gotten because their lives have been forever altered as a
[57:53] Speaker 2: result of Alex's selfless actions. Yeah.
[57:57] Speaker 1: Well, I was checking to see what ended up happening
[57:59] Speaker 1: with an. I haven't gotten a ton of information, but
[58:02] Speaker 1: I know she died in nineteen seventy seven. Oh wow, Okay,
[58:06] Speaker 1: she was ninety and she died in Lodi. So she stayed.
[58:12] Speaker 1: And you know, they had two children, one of whom
[58:17] Speaker 1: just died in ninety seven, and had some kids. Their
[58:21] Speaker 1: son looks like he died aged thirty four, So I
[58:26] Speaker 1: hope it was a good life. But she stayed. And
[58:28] Speaker 1: to me, what that means, Paul, I don't know if
[58:30] Speaker 1: this is what that means to you is people really
[58:32] Speaker 1: did believe she was number one, a good person and
[58:34] Speaker 1: did not know about any of this. Do you think
[58:36] Speaker 1: she would have stayed in Lodi for another fifty something
[58:40] Speaker 1: years if people didn't believe that she was, as you
[58:45] Speaker 1: just said, a victim.
[58:46] Speaker 2: I have no doubt she was completely caught off guard,
[58:51] Speaker 2: you know, and Lodi even today, it's a small town,
[58:56] Speaker 2: you know, especially in northern California. You know, because as
[59:02] Speaker 2: I've traveled through the United States, you go to some
[59:05] Speaker 2: places and you're going, oh my god, how does this
[59:08] Speaker 2: even exist as a town. It's tiny that the department
[59:11] Speaker 2: has like three deputies, you know, but Lodi is still
[59:17] Speaker 2: small relatively speaking, and I can only imagine, you know,
[59:21] Speaker 2: back in the nineteen twenties, how small it was, and
[59:25] Speaker 2: everybody if there is any suspicion on Alex's wife, everybody
[59:31] Speaker 2: in that town would be whispering to each other and
[59:33] Speaker 2: it'd be unbearable for her to stay there.
[59:36] Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I will make another note. I don't know
[59:39] Speaker 1: if this has anything to do with this case, but
[59:41] Speaker 1: they're all buried in a Catholic cemetery in Laucheford, so
[59:46] Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if that's part of his religion,
[59:49] Speaker 1: and that explains why he didn't stay, you know, going
[59:52] Speaker 1: to Mexico and state. I guess I'm just sort of
[59:55] Speaker 1: I feel badly for him in a way because the
[1:00:00] Speaker 1: nation's circumstances at the time was set up in a
[1:00:04] Speaker 1: way where he was heading towards bankruptcy. He might have overextended.
[1:00:09] Speaker 1: You know, he had a ranch. But this is somebody
[1:00:11] Speaker 1: who came from Germany who wanted to make a better
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: life for himself. He sounded like an exemplary citizen. People
[1:00:17] Speaker 1: really liked him, that's why they said don't execute him.
[1:00:20] Speaker 1: And you know, probably he overextended, but also circumstances led
[1:00:25] Speaker 1: to all of this. But he also meticulously plotted the
[1:00:29] Speaker 1: death of an innocent man too. So I'm much more
[1:00:33] Speaker 1: conflicted about Alex Kels than I was about, you know,
[1:00:36] Speaker 1: the other doppelganger killer in my book. But it's still
[1:00:41] Speaker 1: it's like a reminder of just these sort of when
[1:00:44] Speaker 1: people are desperate, they what are they thinking?
[1:00:46] Speaker 2: You know, right, you know, and I think that there
[1:00:49] Speaker 2: is you know, you have to at least acknowledge the
[1:00:53] Speaker 2: potential for a mental health aspect. But like I said,
[1:00:57] Speaker 2: there's yeah, I mean there's a lot of self awareness
[1:01:00] Speaker 2: on Alex's part that what he was doing was wrong,
[1:01:03] Speaker 2: you know, and absolutely from a mental health For me,
[1:01:07] Speaker 2: what that does is that it negates the insanity defense, Yeah, absolutely,
[1:01:14] Speaker 2: but it does not negate the possibility that there's a
[1:01:18] Speaker 2: mental health influence on the decisions he made, and that
[1:01:21] Speaker 2: could be a mitigating factor in terms of how he
[1:01:25] Speaker 2: is treated in his sentencing.
[1:01:27] Speaker 1: I had been reading a lot, I was really interested
[1:01:29] Speaker 1: in the reason why people reacted the way they did
[1:01:32] Speaker 1: on that Black Friday, the crash of the stock market,
[1:01:35] Speaker 1: and I don't know if you remember reading this on
[1:01:37] Speaker 1: Wall Street people men were jumping out of buildings to
[1:01:40] Speaker 1: their deaths.
[1:01:41] Speaker 2: To a point, yeah, I remember that.
[1:01:43] Speaker 1: So that identity that's wrapped up, especially in that time period.
[1:01:47] Speaker 1: And I mean now too, with somebody like an Alex Kel's,
[1:01:52] Speaker 1: especially an immigrant coming here to make a better life,
[1:01:55] Speaker 1: with being a failure as a husband in business, and
[1:02:00] Speaker 1: it's just an epic failure. I can see that if
[1:02:04] Speaker 1: he already hasn't some instability to begin with. I mean,
[1:02:07] Speaker 1: she didn't say that he's always been like this. She said,
[1:02:09] Speaker 1: it's it's been, you know, as of recently, which is
[1:02:12] Speaker 1: probably when he's been under all this financial pressure.
[1:02:14] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:02:15] Speaker 1: Sure, So I have in no way defending him. I'm
[1:02:17] Speaker 1: just thinking of why people do desperate things, and the
[1:02:22] Speaker 1: idea of your whole business in your life coming crashing
[1:02:25] Speaker 1: down on you. I understand most of the other cases.
[1:02:29] Speaker 1: I don't understand that we do. I don't understand why
[1:02:31] Speaker 1: people doff like Black Dollia would be a really great example.
[1:02:34] Speaker 1: I don't understand it. I understand this. It's still awful
[1:02:38] Speaker 1: what he did, but I kind of get that desperation.
[1:02:41] Speaker 2: You know, everybody has life stressors and it's how do
[1:02:45] Speaker 2: you deal with those stressors? And Alex chose I'm gonna
[1:02:49] Speaker 2: kill somebody? Yeah, you know, so you know that, you know,
[1:02:53] Speaker 2: that's the fundamental truth of this particular case. And I
[1:02:58] Speaker 2: think that that's you know, you know, the reasons why
[1:03:01] Speaker 2: Alex made to that decision. You know, who knows are
[1:03:04] Speaker 2: they're mitigating circumstances from a mental health standpoint or anything else,
[1:03:08] Speaker 2: But fundamentally, Ed lost his life because Alex decided to
[1:03:14] Speaker 2: be selfish, and you know, that's that's what galls me.
[1:03:17] Speaker 2: You know, what Alex's punishment should have been, you know,
[1:03:21] Speaker 2: I think is debatable, but you know, ultimately, you know,
[1:03:26] Speaker 2: this is what crime is about. It's it's okay, you
[1:03:29] Speaker 2: committed a crime. What is your punishment and that's going
[1:03:33] Speaker 2: to be dictated based on the severity of the crime,
[1:03:36] Speaker 2: and when it's loss of life, and when it when
[1:03:38] Speaker 2: it is obviously a pre planned loss of life, then
[1:03:42] Speaker 2: you go, well, that's sort of the ultimate You decided
[1:03:45] Speaker 2: to go out and kill somebody for your own benefit?
[1:03:48] Speaker 1: Yep, Well, Paul holds, this has been very serious. This
[1:03:52] Speaker 1: has been my stressor you just talked about everybody else, Brosslors.
[1:03:55] Speaker 1: This case has been my stressor. Yeah, but it's been interesting.
[1:03:59] Speaker 1: And you know, I think that with every one of
[1:04:01] Speaker 1: these cases, we find things that are relatable to cases
[1:04:04] Speaker 1: into life today.
[1:04:06] Speaker 2: Oh for sure. Yeah, there's no difference. I mean, this
[1:04:09] Speaker 2: is I mean, you can find so many cases that
[1:04:11] Speaker 2: replicates this case with Alex today. Yep.
[1:04:15] Speaker 1: Okay, So next week we'll tackle something different. Go have
[1:04:19] Speaker 1: a good time with your seltzer.
[1:04:21] Speaker 2: To be frank, it's working, you know, because you know
[1:04:24] Speaker 2: with the bourbon whiskey, you know, obviously it's higher concentrations
[1:04:28] Speaker 2: of alcohol. I found a zero carb, zero sugar hard
[1:04:32] Speaker 2: Seltzer zero fun. I'm not touting it as a health drink,
[1:04:37] Speaker 2: but it's like, you know, so it's working.
[1:04:41] Speaker 1: Well, good, have another one for me next week when I.
[1:04:44] Speaker 2: See you, I will I'm looking forward to a case.
[1:04:46] Speaker 1: Okay, bye bye. This has been an exactly right production.
[1:04:54] Speaker 2: For our sources and show notes go to exactly Rightmedia
[1:04:57] Speaker 2: dot com slash Buried Bones sources.
[1:05:00] Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Alexis Amrosi.
[1:05:02] Speaker 2: Research by Alison Trumble and Kate Winkler Dawson.
[1:05:06] Speaker 1: Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
[1:05:08] Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
[1:05:11] Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
[1:05:13] Speaker 2: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Danielle Kramer.
[1:05:17] Speaker 1: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
[1:05:21] Speaker 1: Buried Bones pod.
[1:05:22] Speaker 2: Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
[1:05:25] Speaker 2: Age story of murder and the race to decode the
[1:05:27] Speaker 2: criminal mind, is available now.
[1:05:29] Speaker 1: And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's
[1:05:33] Speaker 1: Cold Cases is also available now.
[1:05:36] Speaker 2: Listen to Baried Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
[1:05:40] Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts,

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