# 4 True Crime Rabbit Holes

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 5 Oct 2025, 43 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO1313660142.mp3

Join me as we go down 4 true crime rabbit holes, and what you learn will shock you. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill True Crime Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8dVJtzeHcJgd_Z0bHrJTHQ Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇 Support My Work: 🛍️ Merch: https://lazy-chill-zone-shop.fourthwall.com ❤️ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lazychillzone 👇Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/lazychillzone/ 👇 Podcast links: ⚡History Video Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/7km5pLWpYWEj1mrPpEfRUr?si=0FHYnZf-Qs2FY1GyLevfig ⚡True Crime Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/0klIz08pAr7wR4we0Ia4sk?si=68qZxCeAQkysXzMZrHE0Iw 🍏 True Crime Podcast on Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-chill-true-crime/id1815534472 lazy chill zone, lazy chill true crime, asmr true crime, true crime for sleep, true crime, unsolved mysteries, cold cases, missing persons, murder investigations, serial killers, criminal profiling, forensic evidence, DNA breakthroughs, crime documentaries, historical crimes, criminal psychology, court trials, wrongful convictions, criminal justice system, police investigations, crime scene analysis, infamous criminals, mysterious disappearances, solved cold cases, forensic science, true crime podcast, shocking murders, unexplained deaths, notorious cases, crime history, criminal conspiracies, real crime stories, dark history, homicide cases, unsolved murders, criminal investigations, crime suspects, forensic breakthroughs, chilling true crime, mysterious deaths, high profile cases, true crime analysis, strange disappearances, criminal justice

## Transcript

[0:00] Hi, I'm Mike Pesca, host of The Gist, and I'm the kind of person
[0:02] maybe you are too, who likes to step outside the easy
[0:06] reinforcement of my own ideas. Maybe you actually like to have
[0:11] your beliefs tested and your perspectives expanded.
[0:14] I find that exciting, not unsettling.
[0:18] There are a lot of shows, ideologically driven shows, and
[0:21] networks whose audiences say thank you for telling me I'm not
[0:25] crazy. I don't really doubt my own
[0:27] sanity. I don't need affirmation and
[0:30] reassurance that my side or one side of the political or social
[0:34] debate is right. I'm more worried about being
[0:37] misinformed by lazily going along with the untested
[0:42] assumption or narrative. The gist is for people who know
[0:45] that being interesting starts with being interested.
[0:48] Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts.
[0:52] On the night of August 29th, 2002, 31 year old Audrey Heron
[0:58] finished her nursing shift in Catskill, NY and headed home.
[1:02] But she never arrived, leaving behind a dark mystery.
[1:08] Audrey, a mother of three, left work around 11:00 PM wearing her
[1:13] dark green medical scrubs and a blue turtleneck and drove off in
[1:17] her black 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
[1:21] She planned to make the roughly 15 mile trip from the Greene
[1:24] County Healthcare facility in Jefferson Heights back to her
[1:27] home in Freehold. This was a drive that should
[1:30] have taken at maximum 30 minutes.
[1:33] That late summer evening was rainy and foggy, which may have
[1:37] prompted Audrey to consider an alternate route for safety.
[1:41] By 11:30 PM, her family expected her to walk through the door,
[1:45] but Audrey Heron vanished without a trace, along with the
[1:48] entire SUV she was driving. More than 20 years later, her
[1:53] disappearance remains an unsettling mystery.
[1:58] Audrey's last known actions were utterly routine.
[2:02] There were no signs of distress as she departed from work, and
[2:06] in fact, it had been a good day for Audrey.
[2:08] She'd received news of a substantial pay raise at work
[2:12] and had excitedly phoned her husband, Jeff, earlier to share
[2:15] the good news. When midnight came and went with
[2:18] no sign of Audrey, Jeff initially wasn't alarmed.
[2:22] According to some reports, he woke up briefly around 2:00 AM
[2:26] and noticed his wife still hadn't returned.
[2:29] But it wasn't until dawn that concern truly set in.
[2:34] By 6:00 in the morning on August 30th, Jeff began calling around.
[2:39] He phoned Audrey's mother, Shirley Olmsted, hoping perhaps
[2:43] Audrey had decided to spend the night at her mom's on a whim.
[2:47] It wasn't unusual for Audrey to occasionally stay over with her
[2:50] mother, but if she had, she would have let her husband know
[2:53] first. Shirley hadn't seen or heard
[2:57] from Audrey either, and within the next hour, worry turned into
[3:01] action and Audrey was officially reported missing.
[3:07] Law enforcement wasted no time launching a search for the
[3:10] missing nurse in her vehicle. Police and volunteers fanned out
[3:14] across the area, covering nearly 120 miles of roads, Backcountry
[3:20] routes and trails, looking for any sign of Audrey's black Jeep.
[3:24] Helicopters buzzed overhead as authorities scanned the thick
[3:28] forests and fields of Greene County from above.
[3:31] Missing person Flyers bearing Audrey's face were posted
[3:35] throughout local communities, and everyone who may have seen
[3:38] her in the region would have been aware of her status from
[3:44] the outset. There were no easy clues to be
[3:46] found. There were no broken guard rails
[3:49] along the route she likely took, no skid marks or debris, and not
[3:54] a single trace of the Jeep Grand Cherokee she was driving.
[3:58] Adding to concerns, Audrey's personal items had effectively
[4:02] gone silent as well, and her cell phone never pinged any
[4:05] towers and her credit card saw no activity after she left work.
[4:11] The New York State Police soon classified Audrey's case as
[4:15] missing under suspicious circumstances, meaning foul play
[4:19] was a strong possibility. As in any disappearance,
[4:24] investigators took a hard look at those closest to Audrey.
[4:28] Naturally, Jeff Heron, Audrey's husband, was questioned
[4:31] extensively. Early news reports noted that
[4:34] Jeff initially declined a police request to take a polygraph test
[4:38] in the weeks after his wife went missing.
[4:41] Notably, as anyone familiar with true crime stories knows, there
[4:46] are a number of great reasons not to want to take a polygraph
[4:49] test, even if you're completely innocent.
[4:52] However, after he was labeled as uncooperative by the
[4:55] authorities, he eventually caved and took the lie detector test.
[5:01] After this test and extensive searches of the family property
[5:05] on multiple occasions, the authorities advised that he was
[5:08] no longer a suspect in her disappearance.
[5:13] With the obvious suspect essentially ruled out, the cops
[5:17] began to dig deeper into Audrey's life, and what they
[5:20] found was disturbingly ordinary. There were no secret affairs, no
[5:25] hidden problems with substances, no clandestine entanglements
[5:30] with shady individuals. She was a great employee and a
[5:34] stellar mother of three children, and everyone who the
[5:37] authorities interviewed insisted she would never intentionally
[5:40] leave her kids behind. Interestingly, her children
[5:44] remembered her as such a good mother that, according to an
[5:47] interview from 2025, I was able to find two of them were
[5:52] inspired to become nurses as well.
[5:56] In the absence of hard evidence, numerous theories have emerged
[5:59] about what could have happened on Audrey's drive home.
[6:02] Investigators and family have grappled with possibilities
[6:05] ranging from accident to abduction.
[6:08] One of the first possibilities considered was that Audrey
[6:11] wrecked her Jeep that night, skidding off the road due to the
[6:14] foggy, rainy conditions. Perhaps she took a Back Rd.
[6:18] detour to avoid bad weather and ended up in a ravine or a body
[6:22] of water where her vehicle simply hasn't been spotted.
[6:27] This theory gained traction because it's exceedingly rare
[6:30] for a vehicle as large as a Jeep Grand Cherokee to completely
[6:35] vanish without a trace. Despite extensive searches by
[6:39] ground and air, no trace has ever been found, leading some to
[6:43] doubt a simple accident. Still, police have treated this
[6:46] possibility seriously, and even in recent years they have sent
[6:50] dive teams to search local waters.
[6:53] For instance, in May 2022, the New York State Police Underwater
[6:58] Recovery Team scoured 3 Greene County water bodies for evidence
[7:03] of Audrey's Jeep, but came up empty handed.
[7:07] The complete lack of any debris or oil slicks after countless
[7:10] searches has made the accident theory seem less likely to many,
[7:15] but it can't be ruled out. Ultimately, the area she
[7:19] disappeared in has numerous bodies of water, and a search of
[7:23] three lakes is nothing in the grand scheme of things.
[7:29] Some have considered the possibility that she met with
[7:31] foul play at the hands of someone lying in wait.
[7:34] According to Shirley Olmsted, Audrey's mother, Audrey had a
[7:39] habit of leaving her car door unlocked.
[7:42] This theory suggests that someone snuck in and lay in wait
[7:46] with the intent of doing serious harm to Audrey.
[7:49] Under this theory, this person may have been a stalker who had
[7:53] become fixated on Audrey, perhaps completely unbeknownst
[7:57] to her. Another theory is that Audrey
[8:01] was the victim of a chance encounter with the wrong person
[8:04] on the road. This area of upstate New York is
[8:08] generally peaceful and quiet, but it's not impossible that a
[8:12] stranger could have crossed paths with Audrey after she left
[8:15] work. One possibility is that she
[8:18] might have stopped if she saw someone in distress on the
[8:21] roadside, given her helpful nursing instincts only to fall
[8:25] into a trap. Alternatively, a stranger could
[8:29] have intentionally caused her to stop or forced her vehicle off
[8:33] the road. However, without any 911 calls,
[8:37] witness sightings, or evidence left behind, this theory is
[8:41] impossible to substantiate. Although never labeled A
[8:46] suspect, Jeff Herron has unavoidably been part of the
[8:50] conversation in Audrey's case. While there has been continued
[8:54] focus on Jeff amongst online sleuths, the reality is that the
[8:59] authorities have confirmed that there is no evidence of
[9:02] wrongdoing by the husband. Notably, he didn't help in the
[9:06] search efforts, which some people find highly unusual, and
[9:10] quite honestly, I do as well. All that said, having covered so
[9:16] many of these cases, I find that in cases where the husband did
[9:20] it, he's usually very much out there and involved in the search
[9:24] effort. After all, this serves a dual
[9:27] purpose of appearing to be the perfect grieving spouse.
[9:31] Along with also obtaining Intel about the efforts made by search
[9:34] teams. The investigation into Audrey
[9:39] Herron's disappearance remains active, albeit as a cold case.
[9:44] Law enforcement agencies led by the New York State Police
[9:49] continue to follow leads as they emerge.
[9:55] In 1946, the quiet communities along Oregon's Willamette River
[10:00] were shaken by a gruesome discovery that would become one
[10:03] of the state's most perplexing cold cases.
[10:07] Over the course of that year, dismembered remains surfaced in
[10:10] and around the river near Oak Grove, just South of Portland.
[10:15] The victim, an unidentified woman, came to be known only as
[10:19] the Oak Grove Jane Doe, and in the years following, her remains
[10:24] went missing. Nearly 80 years later, her case
[10:28] remains unsolved, but advances in forensic science and
[10:31] persistent investigators are still striving to piece together
[10:35] what happened. And trust me when I say it, this
[10:39] case just had the most unexpected and bizarre twist in
[10:42] September 2025, which will almost certainly lead to her
[10:47] identity being restored. On April 12th, 1946, three
[10:54] friends walking along the east Bank of the Willamette River
[10:57] near Oak Grove stumbled upon a strange burlap sack caught in
[11:01] the river. Drawn by curiosity and a foul
[11:05] odor, they dragged the bundle ashore, initially thinking it
[11:08] might contain drowned animals. To their horror, inside they
[11:13] found the torso of a human female along with clothing, all
[11:17] tightly wrapped with rope and wire and weighted down.
[11:20] This shocking find was quickly reported to authorities and a
[11:24] full on search of the area began.
[11:28] The very next day, April 13th, 1946, more body parts surfaced.
[11:34] 2 fishermen at Willamette Falls a few miles upriver, retrieved
[11:38] another burlap bundle that had been floating near a lock
[11:41] system. Inside were the victim's arms
[11:44] and a thigh, also severed and weighted down in similar fashion
[11:48] to the first package. The fishermen later revealed
[11:52] they had seen that burlap parcel bobbing in the water for weeks,
[11:56] but only upon hearing news of the torso did they realize its
[12:00] significance. Investigators scoured the muddy
[12:03] banks near the falls and even made plaster casts of footprints
[12:07] found near where the bundle might have been thrown into the
[12:10] water. The search for the woman's
[12:14] remains continued throughout 1946 as spring turned to summer
[12:18] and fall. In late July 1946, roughly 3
[12:23] months after the initial discoveries, the victim's other
[12:26] thigh was found floating under a bridge near Oregon City.
[12:30] Further downstream around the same time, detectives recovered
[12:35] bundles of women's clothing from the nearby Clackamas River, a
[12:39] tributary of the Willamette. The scattering of body parts and
[12:43] personal items across two rivers LED police to suspect the
[12:48] perpetrator had tried to dispose of evidence in multiple places
[12:51] to confuse investigators. In September, there was a report
[12:56] of what appeared to be a fragment of scalp retrieved.
[12:59] Finally, on October 13th, 1946, the victim's head was discovered
[13:06] in the river not far from where the torso had initially been
[13:10] found. This package, like the others,
[13:13] had been weighted and wrapped and was spotted by a local
[13:17] couple walking along the water's edge.
[13:20] Despite extensive searches, the woman's hands and feet were
[13:22] never recovered. By year's end, authorities had
[13:26] collected nearly the entire body of the unknown victim in pieces
[13:30] from the Oregon waterways. From the moment the remains were
[13:35] found, police and medical experts work to assemble a
[13:39] profile of the victim and clues to her death.
[13:42] Initially, she was described as being in her late teens or early
[13:46] 20s by a local coroner. However, the authorities had
[13:50] some doubts and sent the remains to a forensic pathologist.
[13:55] His analysis revealed the victim was actually a middle-aged
[13:58] Caucasian woman, likely between 40 and 50 years old, with a
[14:02] moderate build. This further medical examination
[14:06] uncovered disturbing details about the crime.
[14:09] The lower portion of the torso had unusual burn marks that
[14:13] appeared to be caused by a blowtorch.
[14:16] Once the skull was recovered and examined, the cause was
[14:20] determined. The victim had suffered a
[14:22] massive blunt force trauma injury to the head.
[14:26] Authorities believe that the dismemberment took place after
[14:29] this occurred, but given the signs of violence, they couldn't
[14:33] say for sure. Notably, within days of the
[14:38] Torsos discovery, the case attracted not only concerned
[14:41] citizens, but also pranksters and false confessors.
[14:45] On April 14th, 1946, a man in a nearby town phoned police
[14:51] claiming he knew the victim's identity and where the crime had
[14:54] happened. This dramatic confession turned
[14:58] out to be a hoax by an attention seeker, which authorities
[15:01] quickly dismissed as a cruel prank.
[15:05] The case captured some national headlines which only encouraged
[15:08] more of this sort of behavior, and credible leads were non
[15:12] existent. Evidence collection in the 40s
[15:17] lacked many of the advantages of modern forensics, yet the
[15:20] investigators did what they could.
[15:23] They trace the burlap sacks and ropes for any identifying Marks
[15:27] and examine the woman's clothing for laundry labels or
[15:30] distinctive features. Despite these attempts, the
[15:34] investigation ended up stalling out, and by the early 50's the
[15:39] Oak Grove Jane Doe case had gone cold.
[15:44] Crucially, many physical pieces of evidence disappeared from
[15:47] police custody at some point in the 1950's.
[15:52] The victim's remains and other critical evidence were lost or
[15:55] destroyed without any clear documentation and for no
[15:59] apparent reason. This included the bones and
[16:02] skull of the Jane Doe herself, which had been retained for
[16:06] analysis. How such evidence went missing
[16:09] remains an unsettling mystery of its own, and one that has led to
[16:13] rumors of a cover up, but I'll come to that in a moment.
[16:19] With no body to examine and only old case files to work from,
[16:23] investigators in later years had little to go on.
[16:26] Despite these challenges, the case was never completely
[16:29] forgotten. In 2004, the Clackamas County
[16:33] Sheriff's Office formally reopened the Oak Grove Jane Doe
[16:37] investigation, treating it as an active cold case review.
[16:41] Detectives revisited the old reports and searched for any
[16:45] remaining evidence that might have been overlooked.
[16:48] Unfortunately, they ran into the same problem of the evidence
[16:51] simply having been destroyed. Then a breakthrough came from an
[16:57] unexpected direction, an old cemetery record.
[17:01] In September 2025, nearly 79 years after the slaying,
[17:07] officials with the Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office made a
[17:10] startling discovery. While combing through historical
[17:14] burial documents and even crowd sourced grave databases, they
[17:18] found a reference to an unidentified woman buried in
[17:21] 1951. The name on the headstone
[17:24] indicated that she was, quote Unknown Woman, 1946.
[17:30] The burial site was in Mountain View Cemetery in Oregon City,
[17:34] not far from where the last of the remains had been found.
[17:38] This clue suggested that some portion of the Jane Doe's
[17:41] remains had indeed been interred locally, presumably after the
[17:45] initial investigation concluded. Acting quickly on this, lead
[17:50] authorities located the grave and on September 22nd, 2025,
[17:56] exhumed the remains of the woman in the grave for forensic
[18:00] analysis. This exclamation marked the
[18:03] first tangible progress in the case in almost 80 years.
[18:07] Given this development, I anticipate that the authorities
[18:10] will be able to use modern genetic genealogical techniques
[18:14] to give this woman her identity back after 80 years.
[18:19] With her identity returned, this will also present a unique
[18:22] opportunity to solve this cold case.
[18:26] There are a lot of sensationalistic theories out
[18:28] there on who this Jane Doe was in life.
[18:31] One of the most discussed theories in recent years is that
[18:34] the victim may have been Anna Schrader, a Portland woman who
[18:38] indeed vanished around 1946. Anna Schrader's background
[18:43] suggests she was a one time police informant and the
[18:46] mistress of a Portland cop in the 1920s.
[18:50] According to some researchers, she had publicly claimed she had
[18:54] kept records of all the corruption in the Portland
[18:56] Police Department. Intriguingly, in April 1946, the
[19:03] same time the Jane Doe's remains began appearing, a classified ad
[19:07] ran in The Oregonian newspaper seeking information on Anne
[19:10] Schrader. And no, you didn't hear me
[19:13] incorrectly there. I said Anne and not Anna.
[19:16] It's unclear if these two are the same individual or not, and
[19:20] Schrader isn't an uncommon name. And personally, I think the name
[19:24] rocks. I'll just insert a little pause
[19:27] there to let that one sink in. I suspect that sometime over the
[19:33] next year, we'll have word on whether this Jane Doe was Anna
[19:37] Schrader or not. For now, though, we have to play
[19:41] the waiting game while those forensic Wizards do their thing.
[19:47] On July 18th, 1988, sixty four year old Jane Gilboy, A longtime
[19:53] resident of Franklin, MA, was found brutally slain in her own
[19:57] home. Despite the passage of more than
[20:00] 35 years, authorities continue to actively pursue leads in this
[20:05] unsolved case. Determined to obtain justice for
[20:08] Jane, Jane Gilboy was by all accounts an ordinary hard
[20:14] working woman. She lived in Franklin with her
[20:17] long term boyfriend, held a job as a bookkeeper at Camger
[20:21] Chemical in nearby Norfolk, and also worked part time keeping
[20:25] books for a local liquor store. Just prior to the tragedy, she
[20:29] had enjoyed a weekend getaway on Cape Cod with a friend,
[20:33] returning home Sunday evening, July 17th, 1988.
[20:39] The next day, Monday, July 18th, began routinely for Jane.
[20:44] She went to work as usual and clocked out around 4:00 PM to
[20:47] drive home, following her normal route through Norfolk into
[20:51] Franklin. As was her habit, she stopped at
[20:55] the Horace Mann Plaza in Franklin to pick up a newspaper
[20:58] and some items before heading home.
[21:02] Nothing seemed out of the ordinary during her commute, and
[21:05] it appeared to be a typical summer afternoon for Jane.
[21:10] Sometime shortly after 4:15 PM, Jane arrived at her house at 783
[21:15] King St. in Franklin and parked in her usual spot in the
[21:19] driveway. She entered through the rear
[21:21] door of her home, likely carrying the newspaper and items
[21:25] she'd just bought, and stepped inside.
[21:28] Tragically, Jane only made it a few steps into her living room
[21:33] before she was violently attacked from behind.
[21:36] Evidence later showed that she was ambushed almost immediately
[21:39] after entering. The assailant struck with brutal
[21:43] force, inflicting a severe beating and slashing Jane's
[21:46] throat. During the assault, her fully
[21:49] clothed body was discovered on the floor with her house keys
[21:52] dropped near her hand. It was Jane's boyfriend who
[21:57] found her later that same day. He arrived home in the early
[22:01] evening and stumbled upon the horrific scene, then urgently
[22:05] called for an ambulance. Shortly after six O clock.
[22:08] First responders rushed to the house, but it was immediately
[22:11] clear that Jane was already deceased and that her death was
[22:15] the result of extreme violence. Aside from the devastation
[22:19] wrought on Jane herself, the crime scene didn't initially
[22:23] reveal many clues. Notably, the only item reported
[22:27] missing from the home was Jane's purse.
[22:30] There were no obvious signs of ransacking or a prolonged
[22:33] struggle throughout the house, and the attack had been swift
[22:36] and focused. The fact that Jane's purse was
[22:39] gone raised the possibility of a robbery, but nothing else of
[22:43] value appeared to be taken. Franklin police, along with the
[22:49] Massachusetts State Police, launched an intensive
[22:52] investigation immediately. From the outset, it was a
[22:56] challenging case and there was no known eyewitness to the
[23:00] attack, and in the immediate aftermath, no obvious suspect
[23:05] emerged. Investigators naturally
[23:08] interviewed Jane's boyfriend and others close to her, but no one
[23:12] was charged or officially named a suspect in those early days.
[23:16] In fact, even decades later, authorities have never publicly
[23:21] identified any individual as a prime suspect or person of
[23:25] interest in this case. Notably, Jane's boyfriend was at
[23:30] work at the time of the attack and appears to have had an
[23:33] airtight alibi. At any rate, even if he was the
[23:37] responsible party, which all evidence says he was not, he
[23:41] passed away a few years later. Over time, as the trail grew
[23:46] cold, the case became what authorities prefer to call
[23:50] unresolved rather than truly closed.
[23:54] Detectives continued to work the case for years, periodically
[23:58] reviewing evidence and re interviewing anyone who might
[24:01] know something. A major development in the
[24:03] Gilboy investigation came in 2003, about 15 years after the
[24:08] attack. Detectives decided to submit a
[24:12] blood sample from the crime scene for DNA testing, hoping
[24:16] that modern forensic science might provide a break in the
[24:19] case. At the time, officials were
[24:22] tight lipped about specifics, saying only that the results
[24:26] were quote, not as expected. In the immortal words of Bart
[24:30] Simpson, what an odd thing to say.
[24:35] This cryptic statement suggests that the sample was too
[24:38] degraded, or it turned out to be Jane's, or it didn't match any
[24:42] profile on record, and more on that last point in a second.
[24:46] Whatever the case, the DNA analysis did not lead to an
[24:50] arrest or any public breakthrough.
[24:54] Now, I have a completely speculative idea on why they may
[24:58] have issued this statement, and I'm not really basing this on
[25:01] anything here, but I suspect that there's a non zero chance
[25:05] that there may have been ADNA sample from an unknown woman
[25:09] recovered from the scene. Such brutal random attacks are
[25:12] very rarely committed by a female attacker, and given how
[25:16] tight lipped the investigators are, I suspect they may not want
[25:19] to release this information. That said, again, this idea is
[25:24] completely speculative on my part, but it would explain the
[25:28] very unusual and cryptic behavior of the investigators.
[25:33] For example, if it was from her boyfriend, who was then
[25:36] deceased, I imagine they would have just come out and released
[25:39] that information, even if it was unexpected.
[25:45] With no arrests and scant publicly revealed evidence, the
[25:49] slaying of Jane Gilboy has prompted speculation about who
[25:53] eliminated her and why. Investigators have kept many
[25:57] details confidential, but they have provided some insight that
[26:01] guides the leading theories. Notably, the extreme violence of
[26:05] the attack and the relatively minor apparent theft suggests
[26:09] that robbery was not the primary motive.
[26:13] The police have gone on record as believing this to be the
[26:16] case, and it tracks well since you really don't see this level
[26:20] of brutality and thefts in general.
[26:25] Many believe instead that it was a targeted personal attack
[26:28] perpetrated on Jane. This is the theory that I
[26:31] personally subscribe to as well. Under this theory, the ferocity
[26:36] of the beating and throat slashing indicates rage or
[26:39] intent beyond what would be needed to incapacitate a victim
[26:43] for the purposes of a purse snatching.
[26:46] This indicates that there may have been someone in Jane's life
[26:49] who bore an incredible grudge against her.
[26:52] However, the investigators are extremely tight lipped about
[26:56] this case, which makes it hard to analyze whether this was the
[26:59] case or not. Others have speculated that the
[27:04] attack might have been the work of a stalker who essentially
[27:07] chose to target Jane at random. What is known is that the
[27:11] attacker clearly struck immediately as she entered the
[27:14] house. This suggests to some that the
[27:18] attacker may have been extremely familiar with her schedule and
[27:21] lurking nearby the entrance to her house.
[27:26] After all these years, Jane Gilboy's case remains unsolved,
[27:30] but it is far from a forgotten cold case.
[27:33] Investigators today emphasized that they consider it an active
[27:37] but unresolved case, meaning they are waiting for the right
[27:40] evidence or tip to finally crack it.
[27:43] Modern forensic techniques may offer renewed hope, and it's
[27:47] always possible that the cryptic surprise from the first DNA
[27:50] attempt in 2003 was that it was too degraded.
[27:55] Modern forensic technology has come a long way since that time,
[28:00] and it's possible that this may be the clue that closes out this
[28:03] tragedy once and for all. In the early 1980s, Rodger
[28:10] Wheeler spent millions buying a business that he hoped would be
[28:13] the basis for his sports empire. What he didn't know is that this
[28:17] purchase meant that he had entered into a fatal
[28:20] entanglement with the Boston Mob and Whitey Bulger, one of the
[28:23] most feared gangsters in American history.
[28:28] Wheeler was a self-made multimillionaire who came from
[28:31] humble beginnings, who had established himself as a well
[28:34] known figure in Tulsa, OK. By 1981, the 55 year old father
[28:40] of five had built a business empire, notably as the chairman
[28:44] of Telex, a communications company that employed thousands
[28:48] in the Tulsa area. Wheeler had a reputation as a
[28:51] shrewd, confident businessman who thrived on competition and
[28:55] always seemed to come out on top.
[28:58] Beyond Telex, he had diversified his ventures and a few years
[29:03] earlier he made a fateful decision.
[29:05] He purchased World High Lye, a Florida based gaming and sports
[29:10] entertainment company. At first glance, World High Lye
[29:16] might have seemed like an exciting new opportunity.
[29:19] High Lye is a fast-paced sport that was popular in parts of
[29:23] Florida and New England, drawing crowds who enjoyed betting on
[29:26] the games. As the new owner and president,
[29:30] Wheeler aimed to legitimize and grow the business and attract
[29:34] mainstream audiences to the game.
[29:36] However, what he didn't know was that the organization he
[29:40] purchased was harbouring an extremely dark secret behind the
[29:45] scenes. An organized crime group from
[29:47] Boston, the Winter Hill Gang, led by the notorious James
[29:51] Whitey Bulger, had infiltrated the company.
[29:55] They were running a lucrative skimming scheme, siphoning off
[29:58] cash from the operations proceeds, particularly from
[30:02] parking lot revenues and concessions.
[30:05] The scheme was made possible by an inside man, H Paul Rico, a
[30:10] former FBI agent who had retired and taken a job as head of
[30:14] security for the organization. As a former FBI man, Roger
[30:19] Wheeler initially trusted Rico implicitly in what would turn
[30:23] out to be a grave mistake right from the start.
[30:27] Rico had once cultivated Bulger and other mobsters as informants
[30:30] in Boston, and now he was helping them line their pockets
[30:34] by stealing from Wheeler's new venture.
[30:39] Roger Wheeler wasn't someone to let money slip away unnoticed,
[30:43] and within a couple of years of buying World High Lie, he grew
[30:47] suspicious. He noticed irregularities in the
[30:50] financial records, profits that didn't add up and cash that
[30:55] vanished before it could be reported.
[30:58] Wheeler voiced concerns that something wasn't right at the
[31:00] company, and he even confided to family that he was considering
[31:04] selling the business. Sensing deeper problems, in
[31:09] early 1981 he fired several key employees at the companies
[31:13] Connecticut and Florida operations, including financial
[31:17] officers. Suspecting them of involvement
[31:19] in an embezzlement ring. He sent his own son on a
[31:23] discreet trip to Florida to inspect the books and the
[31:26] computer systems for evidence of theft.
[31:30] Wheeler's relentless probing into the company's affairs
[31:33] signaled to Rico that the scheme was in jeopardy.
[31:38] The Winter Hill Gang ended up catching wind of this and
[31:41] decided to eliminate the problem at its source.
[31:46] On May 27th, 1981, a sunny Wednesday afternoon in Tulsa,
[31:52] Roger stuck to his routine. Each week he enjoyed a round of
[31:56] golf at the exclusive Southern Hills Country Club, where he was
[31:59] a prominent member. That day, Wheeler played golf
[32:03] with friends, had his usual drink at the clubhouse, and then
[32:07] headed to the parking lot to leave.
[32:10] He walked to his Cadillac, likely tired from the game but
[32:14] relaxed in the familiar comfort of his club.
[32:18] As he sat in the driver's seat, something unexpected and
[32:21] horrifying happened. A man approached the car and,
[32:25] without any warning or chance for Wheeler to react, raised a
[32:29] weapon and fired a single blast at point blank range through the
[32:32] window. The bullet struck Roger Wheeler
[32:35] between the eyes. Club patrons nearby heard a loud
[32:39] crack echo across the lot, but no one immediately investigated
[32:43] what was going on. By the time anyone realized what
[32:48] happened, the shooter had calmly walked away.
[32:52] Within minutes, club staff and friends rushed to Wheeler's
[32:55] Cadillac. They found him slumped in the
[32:58] front seat, unresponsive. Paramedics and police were
[33:01] called, but there was little anyone could do.
[33:04] Roger Wheeler died at the scene, the victim of a professional
[33:08] job. Tulsa police launched an
[33:13] investigation immediately, but they faced A perplexing mystery.
[33:18] Who would want Rodger Wheeler dead, and why?
[33:21] Initially, detectives looked for local enemies or business
[33:24] disputes that might have led to this brutal act.
[33:28] Wheeler was powerful and straightforward.
[33:30] Perhaps someone held a grudge from a business deal gone bad.
[33:35] Yet from the start, signs pointed away from the typical
[33:38] motives. This was a meticulous,
[33:41] calculated slaying by an unknown assailant who appeared to vanish
[33:45] without a trace. One of the Tulsa detectives
[33:48] assigned to the case quickly sensed this wasn't a simple
[33:51] local crime. The method, a single shot
[33:55] between the eyes, and the lack of obvious personal motive
[33:59] suggested a pro had been retained.
[34:02] There were composite sketches made from witness descriptions
[34:05] of 2 middle-aged men, one believed to be the shooter, the
[34:09] other the driver, but these yielded no immediate matches.
[34:14] The two men wore the same glasses, the same style of
[34:18] beards, and had their hair done in a similar way, suggesting
[34:22] that they may have been members of an organized crime syndicate.
[34:28] Detectives learned from Wheeler's family and colleagues
[34:31] that he had been worried about the Florida operation of his
[34:34] high live business. When they dug into this angle,
[34:38] they uncovered evidence of skimming at the company's
[34:40] Connecticut venue. The fraudsters had skimmed money
[34:44] from parking and concessions in a way that pointed to a
[34:47] sophisticated organized fraud. In the early 1980's.
[34:52] The notion that the Boston mob could reach into the heart of
[34:55] Oklahoma seemed far fetched to some.
[34:59] Despite these suspicions, the case went cold and a cloud of
[35:02] fear and silence hungover anyone with knowledge.
[35:06] Potential informants were terrified, and for good reason.
[35:11] In the months following Wheeler's death, other gangland
[35:14] executions hinted at a wider issue in the high lie world.
[35:21] One was Brian Halloran, a low level Boston criminal who
[35:25] reportedly approached the FBI claiming he had information on
[35:28] Wheeler's slaying and that a man named John Callahan was
[35:32] involved. Halloran was executed on a South
[35:35] Boston waterfront in May 1982 alongside an innocent friend who
[35:41] just happened to give him a ride that night.
[35:44] The other was John Callahan himself, the former president of
[35:47] World High Lie, who had sold the business to Roger Wheeler.
[35:51] In August 1982, Callahan's body was found stuffed in the trunk
[35:56] of his Cadillac in a Miami airport parking garage.
[36:00] It appeared that anyone who knew too much about the skimming
[36:03] operation was being systematically eliminated, but
[36:07] unsurprisingly, no one seemed willing to talk about it
[36:11] anymore. As the 1980s progressed, the
[36:17] Roger Wheeler case remained unsolved, frustrating his family
[36:21] and the Tulsa police. Eventually, Tulsa detectives
[36:25] began to suspect that the very people who should have been
[36:29] their allies were hindering the investigation.
[36:33] The FBI had jurisdiction over Interstate crime and organized
[36:37] crime, and given the emerging Boston mob connection, one would
[36:41] expect federal agents to be deeply involved in helping Tulsa
[36:45] police. However, they were largely kept
[36:48] in the dark about the investigation.
[36:51] Unbeknownst to Tulsa detectives at the time, this reluctance had
[36:55] a sinister explanation. Agents in the FB is Boston
[36:59] office were themselves compromised.
[37:02] It later emerged that certain Boston FBI agents had
[37:05] extraordinarily close relationships with Whitey
[37:08] Bulger. Bulger, incredibly, had been
[37:12] acting as an FBI informant since the 1970s, feeding agents
[37:16] information on rival gangs while he was effectively given license
[37:20] to commit crimes. Throughout the investigation,
[37:26] one name kept surfacing, H Paul Rico, the former FBI agent
[37:32] turned world high lie security chief.
[37:35] By 1982, Tulsa detective suspected that Rico might have
[37:40] played a role in Wheeler's demise and that the FBI may be
[37:43] compromised. That said, at the time, more
[37:48] level headed investigators in Tulsa dismissed this as a
[37:51] virtual impossibility. As time went on though, those
[37:57] suspicions were bolstered as the truth about the Winter Hill
[38:01] gangs infiltration of the FBI trickled out.
[38:04] In the late 1990s, John Connolly, a Boston FBI agent who
[38:10] was a handler for Bulger, was arrested and later convicted of
[38:14] multiple charges related to his corruption and protection of
[38:18] Bulger. Investigations by the Justice
[38:21] Department exposed that Bulger had been shielded for years.
[38:26] This shift finally gave the Rodger Wheeler case new momentum
[38:29] after almost 2 decades. What had once been dismissed as
[38:33] a crazy theory that Boston mobsters ordered a hit done in
[38:37] Tulsa and that FBI insiders might have been complicit was
[38:41] proving to be reality. And with Bulger on the run since
[38:45] 1995 to avoid an indictment, some of his former cronies began
[38:49] to talk, hoping to avoid life or the chair.
[38:57] The breakthrough in the Wheeler case came as the new Millennium
[38:59] dawned. In the late 1990s and 2000,
[39:04] federal prosecutors and investigators managed to flip
[39:07] some key Winter Hill Gang members.
[39:10] One of them was Johnny Martorano, A feared enforcer who
[39:13] had been part of Bulger's inner circle.
[39:17] Martorano had been implicated in a string of gangland slayings.
[39:21] Facing the possibility of the chair or life behind bars, he
[39:25] agreed to cooperate. In a plea deal, Martorano
[39:29] admitted to carrying out over 20 slayings at the behest of the
[39:32] crew, and one of those was Rodger Wheeler's.
[39:36] He revealed the chain of events behind it all.
[39:39] Whitey Bulger and his closest allies were alarmed that
[39:42] Wheeler's investigation was getting too close to their
[39:44] skimming operation and decided that Wheeler had to be
[39:48] eliminated. Mardarano flew to Oklahoma under
[39:52] an alias, and it was Rico who helped by providing inside
[39:56] information of the details of Wheeler's habits and schedule.
[40:01] On that fateful day at Southern Hills, Mardarano lay in wait and
[40:06] executed the plan. He then slipped away, returned
[40:09] the rental car and flew out, leaving Tulsa authorities
[40:13] baffled. In March 2001, nearly 20 years
[40:20] after the slaying, a Tulsa grand jury finally indicted all those
[40:24] responsible for the slaying of Rodger Wheeler.
[40:27] By that time, two other men allegedly central to the crime
[40:31] were already dead. By way of refresher, Brian
[40:35] Halloran, the low level Boston career criminal, had been
[40:40] snuffed out in 1982 on that South Boston shoreline, while
[40:45] John Callahan, the former World High Lie president, was stuffed
[40:49] into a trunk in Miami. Bulger, the mastermind of the
[40:55] operation, was still a fugitive when the indictments came down,
[41:00] and he had slipped away in 1995 after a tip off about pending
[41:04] charges. Another stunning development was
[41:08] the indictment of former agent Paul Rico.
[41:10] In 2003, at age 78, Rico was arrested and charged with aiding
[41:16] in the slaying of Roger Wheeler. Rico maintained his innocence
[41:21] and he would never face trial. He died of natural causes in
[41:24] 2004 while in custody awaiting proceedings.
[41:29] Notably, Martyrano, with 20 bodies to his name, including
[41:34] Roger Wheeler's, was given only a 15 year sentence as part of
[41:38] his plea bargain. In June 2011, thirty years after
[41:44] Rodger Wheeler was slain in that Tulsa parking lot, news broke
[41:48] that Whitey Bulger had been captured.
[41:51] He was arrested in Santa Monica, CA where he had been living and
[41:55] hiding with his long time girlfriend.
[41:59] Bulger's arrest made headlines worldwide.
[42:01] After years of being one of the most high profile wanted people
[42:05] in the country, federal authorities decided to try all
[42:09] his cases together. As is usual in such complex
[42:12] interjurisdictional matters. In 2013, Whitey Bulger went on
[42:18] trial for the slaying of Roger Wheeler amongst numerous others.
[42:23] The jury found he had participated in Wheeler's
[42:25] slaying and he was sentenced to two life terms plus five years,
[42:30] ensuring the 83 year old mobster would die in prison.
[42:34] Bulger would go on to meet a violent and horrific end behind
[42:38] bars in 2018 at the hands of his fellow inmates, his life of
[42:42] crime finally having caught up to him in his old age.
[42:46] Hey everyone, it's Jimmy here thanking you for listening.
[42:48] And remember if you want the full experience you can check
[42:51] out my YouTube channels Lazy Chill Zone and Lazy Chill True
[42:55] Crime. Also don't forget to take a
[42:58] moment to rate my podcast and also click that follow button so
[43:02] you get notifications when I drop new content.

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