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1:42

I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson. I'm a journalist

1:45

who's spent the last 25 years writing

1:47

about true crime. And I'm Paul Holes,

1:50

a retired cold case investigator who's worked

1:52

some of America's most complicated cases

1:54

and solved them.

1:55

Each week, I present Paul

1:57

with one of history's most compelling true

1:59

crime. And I weigh in using modern

2:02

forensic techniques to bring new insights

2:04

to old mysteries. Together, using

2:06

our individual expertise, we're

2:09

examining historical true crime cases through

2:11

a 21st century lens. Some are solved and some

2:14

are cold. Berry cold. This

2:18

is Buried Bones. Hey

2:32

Paul. Hey Kate, how are you today?

2:35

I'm doing well. How about you? I

2:37

am hanging in there. I want to

2:39

jump into

2:41

talking about a main character in the case that we're

2:43

going

2:43

to talk about. And it's a pathologist

2:44

named Bernard Spillsbury who I'm sure

2:46

has resonated with you because he

2:52

was in two of our cases. So he was in

2:54

the Crumbles Beach case and he was in the

2:57

Dr. Crippen case. So

3:00

Spillsbury has come up and I've said that

3:02

he's just been incredibly respected. Do

3:05

you remember him and kind of hearing his name? Yeah,

3:07

you know the name's very familiar. I do vaguely

3:09

remember his role and most notably the Crippen case. And

3:14

I think that's

3:14

a very interesting thing. He's very familiar.

3:18

I do vaguely remember his role and most notably

3:20

the Crippen case. However, in

3:22

terms of his career, everything

3:24

he's done, I really am at a loss.

3:27

That's okay. You know, he was well known in his time

3:30

and I'm sure he pops up for pathologists

3:32

in history when they're studying pathology. My

3:35

question to you is, you know, when you first

3:37

started to explore the idea

3:39

of being in law enforcement, education, forensics,

3:41

all of that stuff, did you

3:44

veer towards pathology or

3:46

what was your biggest interest at first when you started

3:48

thinking, oh, this is a field I'd like to go into?

3:51

Oh, you really don't know, do you? No.

3:54

Well, I'm supposed to know. Is everybody going to say how come

3:56

you don't know this about Paul? No,

3:59

you know, so... So when I was young,

4:02

there was a TV show called Quincy, and

4:05

you know Quincy M.D., he was a forensic pathologist

4:07

down in Los Angeles. He had his

4:10

superhero pathology assistant sidekick,

4:12

Sam, and Quincy was

4:15

not just a pathologist. He was a crime scene

4:17

investigator. He's a forensic scientist. He was an

4:19

investigator. He was everything rolled into one

4:21

character, which we know today doesn't really

4:23

exist. But

4:26

watching that show, that inspired

4:28

me. I really thought when I was going

4:31

through school, I was studying biochemistry,

4:33

but at UC Davis, I ended up

4:35

going and taking human anatomy,

4:38

as well as having access to the UC Davis

4:41

Medical Library. And I ended up

4:43

spending more time looking at forensic

4:45

pathology books than actually studying my

4:47

biochemistry major textbooks.

4:50

But needless to say, I didn't go to med

4:52

school, and thank God I didn't, because once I

4:55

started my career

4:57

and having to go to the morgue and seeing what

4:59

forensic pathologists do day in and day out,

5:02

it's a job I would not have enjoyed. But

5:04

I really did study both at

5:07

the college level, but most notably

5:09

after I got working, I

5:11

studied forensic pathology. And it's so critically

5:14

important to understand

5:17

what can be discerned from the violence,

5:19

the injuries to the victim, and how that correlates

5:22

to the crime scene evidence, as well as what

5:25

it could potentially indicate as to

5:27

who the offender might be. There's a lot of information

5:29

that

5:29

can be discerned from

5:32

what we would consider this discipline of forensic

5:34

pathology.

5:35

And it's all thanks to Quincy, M.D.

5:37

Well,

5:40

and in many ways, even though I

5:42

said he had all these roles that don't exist

5:44

in real law enforcement, well, I kind of

5:46

made it exist. So I kind

5:48

of, being inspired by Quincy,

5:51

took it upon myself not just to stay in my

5:53

lane, but get into other people's lanes.

5:56

You know, I've noticed that, that you are

5:58

in other people's lanes. Thank you.

5:59

I need you to be in everybody's lane for

6:01

these stories. So

6:03

it's funny that you were inspired

6:05

by a TV show because I was

6:08

too. You want to know the reason I went

6:10

into journalism that became

6:11

really excited about journalism? Oh,

6:13

do tell. I'm trying to, right now I'm trying to scroll

6:16

through some shows I watched when I was younger to

6:18

see if there was one in which there was a

6:21

journalist that would have inspired you. But nothing

6:23

is coming to mind. Was Mary

6:25

Tyler Moore a journalist?

6:26

Listen, I know you think I'm old, but

6:28

I'm not.

6:29

Well, maybe I just

6:31

revealed my age now. Okay. Okay.

6:34

Think a blonde woman, big

6:36

mouth, loud, outspoken, Washington,

6:39

D.C. and she

6:41

was a television journalist. Can you think about

6:43

who I'm talking about?

6:45

Murphy Brown? Yes. Oh,

6:47

I got it.

6:50

Now you know I watched The Real Housewives,

6:52

specifically of New Jersey, and I used

6:54

to watch Murphy Brown, and I watched The Revival of

6:56

Murphy Brown too. And it was. It

6:59

was inspiring. I really loved seeing, you know, whatever your

7:01

opinion was about the character. I loved seeing

7:03

a woman who was really outspoken and

7:05

together and, you know, had personal problems.

7:08

But that was really inspiring to me that she

7:10

was just such a go-getter in every

7:13

aspect of her life. So you

7:15

know, I never ever, when

7:17

I have students come to me and say, oh, I really,

7:19

you know, I used to watch this TV show and this is

7:21

what inspired me to go into Mindhunters.

7:24

And this is why I want to go into criminal profiling. I

7:26

never dismissed that because you and I both came from

7:28

that. We are, you are inspired by the

7:31

art, you know, by Hollywood sometimes. So

7:34

whatever gets you to where

7:36

you are sitting across from me, telling

7:39

me facts about cases, that's all

7:41

I care about. Yeah, you know, and everybody,

7:43

and we've talked about this before and how

7:45

this true crime genre we're in is

7:48

just so huge, you know, and the

7:50

reality is, is that, well, the genre

7:52

has always been there. Even though Quincy

7:55

technically wouldn't be true crime, you

7:57

know, it's a fictional show,

7:59

crime stories, that's

8:02

the ultimate human drama. And of course, that's

8:04

what people watch, and they always have

8:06

and they always will. Yup.

8:08

Well, now that we have our inspirations

8:10

made public, I want to get into this case

8:12

because really Bernard

8:15

Spillsbury is just a rock

8:17

star of a pathologist. Even though

8:19

he worked in the 30s and 40s

8:21

and 50s, he worked on the John Reginald Christie

8:23

case, which my first book was about. You

8:26

know, I'm familiar with his work. He did

8:28

some really serious work on this case

8:30

coming up. And this is such a big case that it's a

8:32

two-parter and it's also

8:35

unsolved. And there's forensics everywhere.

8:37

And you have to tell me what makes sense. This is 1931 London.

8:41

You have to tell me what makes sense and what doesn't make

8:43

sense. But I think you'll be impressed with

8:45

some of the stuff that he did. I think it's pretty interesting

8:48

and we're going to learn a lot from the story.

8:50

Okay, well I'm looking forward to it. Anytime there's

8:52

an unsolved case, you've got my

8:54

attention.

8:56

So the good news is we're in London in 1931, which

8:58

is for me a

9:00

wonderful time period to explore,

9:02

especially in London. My first book took

9:05

place in 1952, which was very dreary London. And 1931 is to me such

9:07

an electric

9:11

time period. The bad news

9:14

is that this is involving a 10-year-old

9:16

girl. You know, I hate the stories

9:18

about children, but I picked them specifically

9:21

because they're important. They

9:23

show us a lot about history and we learn a lot.

9:25

So as I've said a million times, this

9:27

is not haphazard how we choose these cases.

9:30

You know, I'm doing it specifically for a reason.

9:32

So I just wanted to warn the audience and you up

9:34

top that this

9:35

is a really brutal crime involving

9:37

a 10-year-old girl. Okay, you know,

9:39

and this is just something where even

9:41

though I'm in the true crime space, and I've said this over

9:43

and over, I come out of real crime. And unfortunately,

9:46

real crime does occur with children.

9:49

And I've worked plenty of cases involving kids

9:51

in real life and they are tough for

9:53

sure.

9:54

Yeah, this is a hard one. And

9:56

Bernard Spillsbury does an excellent job outlining

9:59

what happens. happens in this case in his book. So

10:02

we went to him to figure out what

10:04

the area was like. This is a Notting Hill,

10:06

and Notting Hill is also the centerpiece

10:08

of my first book in Death in the Air. Not

10:11

a similar case, but the same sort

10:13

of feeling, which is sort of

10:15

this shabby, genteel, not

10:17

wealthy people, but people who had

10:19

some means, who are merging into

10:22

what is quickly becoming more of a slum. Notting

10:25

Hill now in London is beautiful. I love

10:27

it, love it, love it. But in the 30s,

10:29

40s, and 50s, it was harder. It was a harder time,

10:31

particularly after the war. So

10:34

we are in an area that would be predominantly

10:37

working class, lots of shops around,

10:39

but you picture London, and I know

10:41

you've been there enough. We're in an area

10:43

where there's sort of row houses, these

10:46

old Victorian houses that are stacked right

10:48

close to each other, sharing a wall.

10:50

Oftentimes, there's gardens out front.

10:53

This is a congested,

10:55

tight-spaced area, which I

10:58

would think is not the easiest place to commit

11:00

a crime in privacy

11:02

unless you are in your own

11:05

flat.

11:06

Yeah, you know, I had a family vacation a

11:08

few months ago, and that's when I really

11:10

started to get much more familiar with

11:12

the layout of London. And though I didn't

11:14

spend any time in the Notting Hill area,

11:17

I do recall riding the underground and

11:19

seeing the Notting Hill station. And

11:22

I'm just passing through. I never got off the underground.

11:25

But it appeared that there was a lot of professionals

11:28

today that were getting off

11:30

and on at that station, as if

11:32

this was their residence. And they were commuting

11:35

from the Notting Hill area into downtown

11:38

or out of Notting Hill. Is that accurate

11:40

for today?

11:41

Yeah. I mean, I think back then, there

11:43

were a lot of people who were working locally, and I think

11:45

you're right. There's people who are commuting out

11:47

and in of Notting Hill all the time now.

11:50

This is, like I said, predominantly a working-class

11:53

area. The crime rate is,

11:55

I would say, like at a medium. This is not a high,

11:57

high crime rate area. But there are and

12:00

we are close to a shopping district where

12:03

there are people, as you said, coming in

12:05

and out, and this is about

12:08

a week and a half-ish before Christmas. So

12:10

now you're talking about even more people who

12:13

are in the area, who are shopping. So

12:15

let's talk about the family first. It

12:17

begins with a family called the Pages,

12:20

and they live on the ground floor

12:22

flat at 22 Blenheim Crescent Street.

12:27

And this is a multifamily working-class house

12:29

in the area of Notting Hill. They

12:31

haven't been there very long. It's been about a year

12:34

or so, and there are five people who are there. So

12:37

there is a husband named Charles,

12:39

a wife named Isabel, and

12:41

then they have only one child, is a 10-year-old

12:44

who's at the center of this named Vera Page. This

12:47

became one of Spillsbury's more publicized

12:49

cases because of Vera, because

12:52

this is our victim. She was 10 years old. Also

12:54

in the house Isabel has a niece, and

12:57

the niece lives with the boyfriend.

12:59

So the niece has a boyfriend who lives with them. So

13:01

there are five of them in this working-class building,

13:04

and again, they're on the ground floor. And then you've

13:06

got one other family, and they're

13:08

an elderly couple named Arthur and Annie

13:10

Rush, and they live on the top floor,

13:13

and they've been there for 20 years. So

13:15

long-term couple, friendly

13:17

with the Page family. Everything seems to

13:19

be fine. The time period

13:22

that we're talking about is Monday, December

13:25

14th of 1931. In the house, about 4.30

13:27

p.m., Vera, the 10-year-old, asks

13:30

her mother if she can walk to Aunt Minnie's

13:32

house. So, you know,

13:35

her aunt lives nearby, 10 or 15-minute

13:37

walk. Vera had gotten two swimming

13:40

certificates that she was very proud of, but she showed

13:42

them to Aunt Minnie, and then left them

13:44

behind the day before, so she wanted to go back.

13:47

Vera's mom said, okay, but

13:49

because it was wintertime, she said, you know, you need

13:51

to put on these heavy layers. So she

13:53

put on a coat, and she grabbed a

13:55

red beret. You know, this would be kind of a key

13:58

clue, unfortunately, later on. So

14:01

she was walking 15 minutes

14:03

away. You know, I like

14:05

now I am nervous if my

14:08

kids are 13 or 15

14:10

minutes away and I can't see them the

14:13

whole time. But this was a different

14:15

time and I'm sure Vera

14:17

had made this trip before. But

14:19

it sort of informs the independence

14:21

that she felt even at age 10.

14:24

And

14:24

I'm the same way. You know, today when

14:26

I see young children and I'm not

14:29

seeing adult anywhere around, you

14:31

know, I immediately I'm

14:33

looking. I'm saying, okay, where is

14:35

the parent or where is the guardian?

14:38

You know, and almost always

14:40

I am seeing, okay, there's this

14:43

adult that's protecting that child. But

14:45

every now and then I get really hinged

14:48

up when I see a young kid out there

14:50

riding their bike or just walking because even

14:52

though it's rare, it's such a high-risk

14:54

situation for somebody

14:57

driving by who's a bad character to

14:59

see a victim of opportunity.

15:01

When we are thinking about history, when

15:04

did the child snatching thrown

15:06

into the van, when did that sort

15:08

of panic set in in this country?

15:11

Is there one case that you know of

15:13

in the 70s or the 80s where it just

15:15

became kind of like the satanic panic

15:18

or some of the other trends that hit you know when women

15:20

started going missing when they were hitchhiking,

15:22

I feel like there are decades kind of assigned

15:25

to that awareness. When

15:27

did we really start seeing kids be snatched

15:29

off the street in a highly publicized

15:31

way? Yeah,

15:32

you know, that's actually

15:34

a very interesting question because

15:37

there have been different eras when

15:39

it comes to the victimology,

15:41

you know, and how offenders are

15:44

gaining access to the victims.

15:46

I can't speak for across the nation. I can only

15:48

speak for the cases that I got involved

15:50

with out in the East Bay,

15:52

California. In the 1960s, there were abductions

15:58

and abduction homicides of children. And

16:00

it would make the headlines in the local newspaper

16:03

for a few days, and then it would just

16:05

disappear. And it didn't seem like

16:08

those cases really caused

16:11

a cultural shift right away.

16:14

And that seemed to continue through the 70s. I

16:17

would say it was more into the 80s

16:19

in my jurisdiction where now

16:22

people realized our kids are vulnerable

16:24

when they're outside playing or they're at the park

16:27

or they're out of view of the

16:29

parent or the guardian. And just

16:31

like you mentioned, it was

16:34

with the coeds, the women that were hitchhiking

16:36

in the late 60s and early 70s, and

16:38

the predators were picking them up. And

16:41

today, it's very rare to see a woman

16:44

by herself hitchhiking just because

16:46

it is such a dangerous activity

16:49

for them to do. With

16:51

the child abduction cases

16:53

occurring through the 80s, that's when

16:55

I think he started to see more

16:58

protection instead of the kids just go,

17:00

hey, go play at the park by yourselves with the other

17:02

neighborhood kids. Now you see all the parents

17:05

sitting on the park benches watching their kids at

17:07

the park, and that's

17:09

persisted to this day. And what's happened

17:12

is because now you have these guardians

17:15

at the parks or wherever the kids kind

17:17

of congregate where predators

17:19

used to go, now the predators are having

17:21

to shift their tactics. And

17:24

now it's the online space where they

17:26

can anonymize. And their ultimate

17:28

goal is to lure these children

17:30

to some location away from

17:32

the house, away from their guardian, so

17:34

they can now do what they want with

17:37

them physically.

17:38

I remember in the

17:41

80s, when I was Vera's

17:43

age, it would have been 84, 85. And

17:46

I remember playing in our neighborhood, riding

17:48

my bike, but I also remember my mom

17:50

driving up every once in a while. I was about a block

17:53

away in a cul-de-sac maybe, and there

17:55

were parents all around us. So

17:57

I think you're right. I think it really was in the 80s where

17:59

people... started to become a lot more alert

18:02

and I started hearing about the white van and

18:04

stranger danger and things like that but

18:07

we're in the 30s and her parents

18:09

Vera's parents say okay go on ahead and

18:12

she walks out the door and she ends up actually

18:15

going and making it all the way to Minnie's

18:18

house she gets the certificates within

18:20

a 15-minute period and then she leaves and

18:23

then she isn't seen alive again. Okay

18:24

so she makes she actually is

18:26

successful in the first leg of the trip but

18:29

then the second leg which as far as

18:31

we know her intent was to go right back

18:33

home. Exactly that's what she told her parents

18:35

I'm gonna

18:35

go get these certificates and I'll come right

18:38

back home and we have to presume that this is a

18:40

trip that she's made before and

18:42

they felt very safe that it's 4.30 in

18:45

the afternoon and it's daylight and

18:47

it hasn't gotten dark yet even though it's December. So

18:50

Vera's parents are waiting and waiting they

18:52

are expecting her to be home

18:55

by probably 5-5.15 at the latest

18:57

and at dinner time which

19:00

was 6 o'clock they become very concerned. Her

19:02

father walks over to Aunt Minnie's house

19:05

to investigate and he finds out from

19:07

Aunt Minnie that Vera as I said made

19:09

it there she grabbed her swimming certificates

19:12

and then turned around and left at 4.45.

19:14

So 15 minutes as predicted. This

19:17

is not a good sign right between 4.45

19:20

and now 6 p.m. we have no idea

19:22

where this little girl is. Charles starts

19:25

knocking on doors of nearby friends

19:27

and relatives no one has seen Vera.

19:30

I don't know if he's thinking she might have popped in

19:32

or gotten hurt and looked for help but

19:36

later that evening when this 10 year

19:38

old is still not home he and

19:40

his wife go to the Notting Hill police station

19:42

and report her missing. So later

19:45

in the evening is probably 7 or 8 o'clock.

19:47

I'm not sure what's going on with them and I don't want to judge

19:49

what parents do in that way but

19:52

later in the evening for a teenager maybe

19:55

but for a 10 year old after dark

19:57

to be gone and they waited to go to the

19:59

police.

19:59

That is kind of tough to assess considering

20:02

the anxiety that

20:05

today a parent would have for

20:07

such a young child to not be where they

20:09

need to be, you know. I

20:12

do have an observation and a

20:14

question, though. So, dad, it

20:16

sounds like about an hour and 15

20:19

minutes roughly after Vera

20:22

left her aunt's house. Mm-hmm. He

20:24

walks the same path as his daughter,

20:27

and he doesn't see anything. Nope. And

20:29

now the question that I have is, is

20:31

these streets that he's walking

20:33

along in 1931, is

20:36

this mostly automobiles

20:39

that would be on these streets? Would this

20:41

be horse carriage or just, you

20:43

know, people walking, pedestrians? It

20:45

would be

20:46

mostly walking. Cars did not

20:48

become really popular

20:51

in London until the mid

20:53

to late 1930s, and this

20:55

is 1931. So, it's not like anybody

20:57

would own a car. You'd have to be pretty wealthy

21:00

to own a car. And so, this is, you know,

21:02

still walking potentially.

21:04

If you're

21:04

a worker, you're using a wheelbarrow

21:06

an awful lot. You might

21:09

have carriages, but predominantly people

21:11

are walking in this part. It's mixed residential and

21:13

commercial this area.

21:15

Okay. Part of the threat

21:17

are the residents along the path

21:19

that Vera walked. You see

21:22

somebody who's looking out the window or out front

21:24

and sees this little girl by herself, and

21:27

it's very easy to grab the girl

21:29

and bring her inside. So, that's something

21:32

that I would be considering. And the father

21:35

did the right thing, knocking on doors. But

21:37

also, you have these pedestrians. It's just

21:39

that, you know, if this was a really busy

21:42

street with a lot of people walking,

21:45

if somebody doesn't have a shelter

21:47

to pull the victim into right away,

21:50

really takes a risk that there would be witnesses.

21:53

You're right. And no car, of course. I mean, it's

21:55

really risky, but she

21:57

is gone. Nobody has an idea. about

22:00

what happened to her, the police start immediately

22:03

looking for Vera, a 10-year-old girl. This doesn't

22:05

happen all the time. The pages

22:07

don't receive any updates that

22:10

night. So let's just say 8 p.m.

22:12

in the next day either.

22:14

So not at all Monday night and

22:16

not at all Tuesday night. This has

22:19

to be absolutely horrible for her

22:21

family. How do police know

22:24

how much they need to update

22:26

the family? When it is clear that

22:28

this little girl has either been

22:30

drawn away by someone or has gotten

22:32

hurt, this is most likely not a runaway

22:34

situation. How do the police

22:37

balance keeping the family updated

22:39

if they really don't know what's going

22:41

on? I would think they're going crazy.

22:43

Well, yeah, most early, you know,

22:45

the parents have just got to be,

22:48

you know, besides themselves. Not

22:50

being able to sleep, not being able to eat, you

22:52

know, just absolute fear as to, you know, where

22:54

their daughter's at and still maintaining hope

22:57

that she's going to show up or she's

22:59

going to be found and be okay.

23:01

You know, in terms of law enforcement,

23:03

you know, of course, today there's more formalized

23:06

child abduction protocols. And

23:09

of course, when law enforcement responds,

23:11

you know, the first people that are

23:13

contacted are the residents inside

23:15

the house where the child has gone missing out

23:17

of. And of course, they are being

23:20

interviewed. The house is being searched. Oftentimes

23:22

the kids have, you know, hidden themselves, you

23:25

know, inside the house. In this situation,

23:27

you have this young

23:29

girl that is walked away from the house.

23:32

And so now, law enforcement is

23:34

going to be doing a canvas of the area.

23:36

Today, we likely

23:38

would have a dedicated officer

23:41

who is the point person to contact

23:43

the parents. Sometimes, you

23:45

know, would be staying with the parents at the residence

23:48

or would be routinely, you

23:51

know, dropping in and saying, you know,

23:53

we're still looking, you know, this is where we're at.

23:55

But back in 1931, I bet they weren't

23:58

even thinking about sort of this. this

24:00

caretaking role that they need to take on

24:02

with the parents themselves.

24:04

Yeah. Well, her parents

24:06

are beside themselves. They're not getting any updates,

24:09

but very quickly there is

24:11

a very, very sad

24:14

update. So Monday

24:16

night when she goes missing, no word. Tuesday,

24:19

no word. Wednesday morning

24:22

around 9.30, someone

24:24

discovers Vera's body. Now

24:26

the timeline and the distance

24:29

and all of these details, because we have a lot of

24:31

witnesses and we've got some forensics, various

24:33

things happening, become important. So 9.50

24:36

in the morning, there is a milkman who

24:39

goes to the front garden of a house at

24:42

89 Addison Road. And this

24:44

is about a mile, maybe

24:46

a little touch more away from

24:48

Vera's house, this place where she's found.

24:51

So he finds her in the garden and

24:54

he said that she was under

24:56

some bushes, she's fully clothed,

24:58

there's no red beret, and there's

25:01

no swimming certificates, which the

25:03

aunt had confirmed she had both of those

25:06

things when she came and then left. So

25:08

this could be a, what do you call it, mementos?

25:10

This could be a memento situation. Does

25:13

that sound like it could be?

25:14

There's a possibility. We use the term

25:16

souvenir. Some people will

25:18

throw out the term trophy or memento,

25:20

but technically if, you know, when we have

25:22

a, an offender who is keeping

25:25

an item of the victims to

25:28

relive, to fantasize down the road

25:31

about this victim, that's what

25:33

we call a souvenir. So this red

25:35

cap potentially, the certificates

25:38

potentially, but also those could

25:40

have been discarded because these

25:42

are loose items and now,

25:44

you know, through the abduction process, maybe

25:46

they fall off, maybe it's in his residence

25:49

or wherever he took her body or

25:51

he's just tossing them as he's in this transportation

25:54

stage of getting rid of her body. Okay,

25:57

so I guess we're going to find out.

26:12

Let me tell you what the milkman says. We do

26:14

have a pathology report from Dr.

26:16

Spillsbury in a little bit, but as

26:19

a police officer on the scene, I just

26:21

want to get your impressions on what the milkman

26:23

says he saw. He came, he

26:25

said, the moment I stepped into the garden, I saw

26:28

the body. The child was lying on her

26:30

right side, and the lapel of her coat

26:33

almost covered her face. I told

26:35

the cook of the house, and then went out

26:37

and found a policeman. She looked

26:40

as if she were lying asleep under

26:42

the bushes, except that her

26:44

face was like marble. What

26:46

does that mean, white?

26:47

That's how I'm interpreting it, you know,

26:50

and so she no longer has blood flowing

26:52

through her body. She's deceased.

26:54

You do see this pallor, if

26:56

you will, with the lack of blood, and

26:59

so that would look white-ish.

27:02

But it's also telling to me that

27:04

he's not saying I'm seeing

27:07

frown spots, or I'm

27:09

not seeing veins starting to show

27:11

up, like the decompositional process has

27:13

kicked in. And this is, we're

27:16

talking December timeframe

27:17

in London, so I imagine the outdoor temperatures

27:20

are fairly cool, right?

27:22

But that Dr. Spillisberry has

27:24

a pretty strong opinion about where

27:27

she died and when she died,

27:29

and it's different. His description

27:31

can seem a little misleading, so let

27:34

me get to the timeline first,

27:36

because the milkman has come around

27:38

this area before. So let's

27:40

do the timeline real quick. Police

27:43

start to try to piece this together. The same

27:45

guy, the same milkman, made a delivery

27:47

that morning to that same

27:50

block, and he walked by the house.

27:52

It was 5.30 in the morning. The milkman

27:54

says, I didn't see anything weird, but it was dark

27:56

outside. The night before,

27:58

so Tuesday.

27:59

night. She goes missing Monday night, Tuesday

28:02

night, and then the next morning

28:04

someone living at 89 Addison had

28:07

walked past the garden and didn't see

28:09

anything unusual. And you know these gardens

28:12

were right on the sidewalk. They were right

28:14

there. So you would walk past and you would be able

28:16

to see everything in the garden. So the police

28:19

are saying between this homeowner

28:22

who lived, you know, around the block next

28:24

door and the milkman,

28:27

they would not have missed this

28:29

little girl's body in this garden right

28:31

on the sidewalk. And they know

28:33

she wasn't there at 10.20 the

28:36

night before she was discovered, at 5.30

28:39

the morning she was discovered, but she was there

28:41

at 7.50 the morning she was discovered,

28:44

but she was there two hours later. So it sounds

28:46

like somebody took her. If these guys are, these

28:48

witnesses are right, somebody put her body

28:51

there between 7.50 in the morning

28:53

and 9.50 when it is daylight.

28:55

Yeah, so it is a relatively

28:58

narrow window of time and

29:00

this is a mile away from

29:03

where Vera's aunt's house was

29:05

that right? Little more than a mile, just slightly

29:07

more than a mile. He's got comfort

29:09

to know that at that time

29:12

of day in this neighborhood he

29:14

would be able to discard this

29:16

child's body without being seen.

29:18

So that's that's telling to me a little bit about

29:21

the offender. Now if law enforcement is also

29:23

making this assessment, because I'm looking

29:25

at what I'm assuming is this neighborhood

29:28

now, you're saying it was like 89 Addison.

29:30

Uh-huh, 89 Addison. I will

29:31

say also the police

29:34

said she was only partially concealed. It's

29:37

not like he put her under the bush and you had to look. She

29:39

was partially visible so anybody

29:41

would have seen her walking by. You wouldn't have been able to miss

29:43

her it seems

29:44

like. Yeah and so this this

29:46

was a quick disposal. Yeah.

29:48

He is, if you want to say in and out, I

29:51

would use this term and it may sound a little crude

29:53

when we talk about disposing a child's body

29:55

but this is a dump and run. You're

29:57

right versus spending time to

29:59

see

29:59

secret her body, as

30:02

you mentioned, behind bushes, or to try

30:04

to bury the body in some way, or cover the body

30:06

up. He's not taking the time to do

30:08

that. So in part,

30:11

he's recognizing, I've got a

30:13

limited time to take

30:15

this child's body from wherever

30:18

he's secreted it, or however

30:20

he's transported it to this location,

30:23

and put that body, and get rid of the body,

30:25

and get away without risk of somebody

30:28

coming out of the houses, the neighbors coming

30:29

out just as they're going to work or something. So

30:32

he's just doing a real quick body dump,

30:35

and then is running off. The

30:37

question will be, how did

30:38

he get her there? They interviewed

30:40

everybody at 89 Addison Road. This

30:42

was not anybody on their radar that

30:45

came from this house. So it's not like he came from

30:47

a basement flat, and

30:49

just placed her under there. He definitely

30:51

brought her there, and it was 36 hours

30:55

after she went missing. So the question,

30:58

did he do it immediately, and kill her

31:00

immediately, or did he keep her alive and then

31:03

kill

31:03

her? Right now,

31:05

the possibilities are wide open.

31:07

But imagine this, is let's say

31:10

he bumps into her as she's

31:12

walking home. The initial vision

31:15

is, is he grabs this child,

31:17

and the child is kicking and screaming,

31:19

and there's a big commotion. However,

31:22

imagine an adult male coming up to

31:24

a 10-year-old girl and saying, you're coming with me,

31:26

and literally he's holding her hand

31:29

and walking her, possibly to

31:31

this Addison location. Maybe he lives

31:34

along the street, and he takes her

31:36

inside his residence. Any

31:38

witnesses just see a man

31:40

with a young girl out for a walk. That

31:44

type of scenario is entirely

31:46

possible.

31:47

And is it possible that he knows

31:49

her, that this isn't a

31:50

stranger thing at all? Obviously, that's

31:52

possible. Oh, for sure. And this is

31:54

where victimology is huge. We

31:57

need to talk to the parents. Who else

31:59

does?

31:59

Vera know, who does she trust, you

32:02

know, whether it be relatives, whether it be friends,

32:05

parents of some of the kids that she's

32:07

friends with, you know, so it's gathering

32:09

all that information and going

32:12

and interviewing them. So let's

32:14

bring in Dr. Spillsbury, who is a little

32:16

bit

32:17

of a saving grace. He has some great

32:19

information and frankly gives us a

32:21

lot of historical context that I had not heard

32:23

of. So I'll be interested in hearing what you think. The

32:26

real basics, he says

32:28

she was likely killed inside, not

32:31

outside, and certainly not at the garden at 89

32:34

Addison. And it's because, thank

32:36

goodness it rained. I know that we talk about

32:38

rain and water can be terrible for forensic

32:40

investigators, but because it rained,

32:43

he saw her clothes and basically the

32:45

back part of her coat was damp

32:47

and that was it. So the rest

32:49

of her is not wet and filthy and dirty

32:52

and it had rained an awful lot from 3

32:54

p.m. until 9 p.m. on

32:56

Wednesday. I think he made a mistake by choosing,

32:59

you know, this time to do it. I guess he probably,

33:01

I'm sure he wasn't thinking about this

33:03

aspect of it, but Spillsbury said she

33:06

was definitely killed inside. There's

33:08

no indicator that she was killed outside,

33:10

which gives him a clue.

33:12

No, that is a clue. And also

33:14

this may be a very practical

33:17

aspect for the offender. He may have wanted

33:19

to get rid of her body in the middle of the night but didn't

33:21

want to go out in the rain. And so he waited for

33:23

the rain to end to dispose

33:26

of her body. Interesting. Okay.

33:28

So let's talk about

33:29

cause of death and what

33:31

else happened. So Spillsbury examines

33:34

Vera. He concludes she has been sexually

33:36

assaulted. He found evidence of semen.

33:39

He also says she was strangled to death

33:42

by someone's bare hands. But

33:44

she also, this is what's interesting, she

33:47

also had ligature marks on her neck

33:50

that he says seem to be made

33:52

post-mortem. Is that because

33:54

of the way that the blood coagulated

33:57

or how would he know post-mortem

33:59

versus

33:59

before she died. Well that

34:02

has to do with the way that the tissues are responding.

34:04

So if the ligature is tied around the

34:06

neck tight enough, you

34:09

know, this is trauma to the tissues.

34:12

And when the victim is alive or what we call this perimortum

34:15

state in which the tissues are still functioning

34:17

even though the victim may technically be dead,

34:20

there is an inflammatory response.

34:23

There could be, if the heart is still pumping,

34:25

there could be hemorrhage, you know,

34:28

in the furrows of this tight ligature.

34:31

This is not an unusual

34:33

sequence for offenders to manually

34:35

strangle and then to apply a ligature

34:38

afterwards. They do this in

34:40

part. They are naive

34:43

killers. So they do the manual

34:45

strangulation but they're not sure is she

34:47

really dead. So what they do is

34:49

they'll tie a ligature around the neck

34:52

to ensure that the victim is dead.

34:54

Now in this case it sounds like a ligature

34:56

was applied post-mortem but

34:58

then that ligature was removed. And

35:01

I'm assuming it wasn't recovered at the crime

35:03

scene.

35:03

No. Okay. Okay. Here's

35:06

the historical context that I find absolutely

35:08

fascinating. Spillsbury looks at

35:10

Vera and says she has soot and

35:13

coal on her face and clothing. Another

35:15

reason why he thought this happened, you know,

35:17

inside in a coal cellar and not outside.

35:20

There are also small dabs

35:23

of candle grease and paraffin wax

35:26

on her coat. So Spillsbury

35:28

says she was in a coal cellar. This

35:30

all must have happened in a coal cellar

35:33

because of two things Paul and this is kind

35:36

of relates to a case you and I just talked about.

35:39

One was that coal cellars almost never

35:41

had electricity in the 1930s so they

35:43

were all lit with candles. Okay.

35:45

And people used paraffin wax as

35:48

a way to clean things and they

35:50

would have used paraffin wax perhaps

35:52

in a coal cellar to clean things. Neither

35:55

of the candles or the wax ever occurred

35:58

to me in any way but that's what they lived with. in 1931.

36:01

Yeah, no, that is a tremendous

36:03

cultural insight. I would say that

36:06

great observations by Dr.

36:08

Spillsbury. Now, is it

36:10

conclusive? No. But it

36:12

is a clue. So now,

36:15

investigators, when they are going

36:17

to potential crime scene locations,

36:20

suspect houses, it's like,

36:22

I want to see your coal seller and see, oh, paraffin

36:25

wax, candles. Yes,

36:27

okay. I see disturbances. I

36:30

see other items of physical evidence that

36:32

could relate to the crime. Spillsbury's

36:34

observations does give investigators

36:37

at least some focus, but

36:40

you can't just rely on it because

36:42

there could potentially be other explanations

36:44

for the paraffin, the candle wax. But

36:47

I think that's great. That's great information

36:49

to provide the investigators.

36:51

How would paraffin been used as

36:53

a common cleaning agent? Maybe

36:56

I don't know enough about paraffin. Can you picture

36:58

how that would have been the case?

37:00

This is a thing. I'm

37:03

seeing it just with a quick search, paraffin

37:06

wax cleaners. Of

37:09

course, it's a solid

37:11

substance that you could heat up and it will

37:13

melt. Water-based cleaners

37:16

will be able to clean substances

37:19

that are soluble in water,

37:21

whereas some substances, such

37:24

as maybe waxes, maybe

37:26

the coal, some of the soot

37:28

aspect, wouldn't be as

37:30

readily soluble in water or water

37:33

mixed with detergent. Now

37:35

paraffin could be something that could help

37:38

get these other non-water

37:40

soluble substances, or it may just be

37:42

a physical type of

37:45

cleaning where now you, like

37:47

the soot, paraffin wax just

37:49

kind of grabs onto it and then you can remove it

37:51

from the surface you don't want soot on. Something

37:54

like that is what's coming to mind for me.

37:56

Okay. Well, moving forward, Dr. Spillsbury

37:58

is trying to figure out how to clean the figure out when she

38:01

was killed and what

38:03

happened to her because decomposition.

38:07

It sounds like the milkman

38:09

made a very cursory examination of

38:12

Vera when he saw her and he made that

38:15

observation that she looked like

38:17

marble white, you know, kind of drained

38:19

of blood. What Spillsbury

38:22

says is he thinks she

38:24

was killed very shortly after

38:26

she was kidnapped. He thinks she was

38:29

killed in the coal cellar

38:31

but she was not kept there very long

38:33

because mid-December it would have been freezing

38:36

in the coal cellar and he said

38:38

she had an advanced state of

38:41

decomposition and she was probably

38:43

kept in a warm heated room

38:46

before she was left in the garden 36 hours later.

38:50

So he thought she was somewhere for

38:53

either her body or her alive

38:56

in a heated room

38:56

for 36 hours before she was dumped.

38:59

So advanced state of decomposition, I've

39:01

had bodies that have, I can think

39:04

of one girl who was outside

39:06

in November in the East Bay

39:08

for seven days and it was

39:11

cool. She had, when

39:13

we initially recovered her body,

39:16

she did not look very decomposed but

39:18

then the next day in the morgue, literally

39:20

the decompositional process had

39:23

just absolutely sped up. Here

39:26

I agree,

39:26

you know, for this girl 36 hours

39:29

later to have advanced

39:31

state of decomposition, her body

39:33

is in a warm environment. No

39:36

question about it. So yes, I do agree

39:38

with Dr. Spillsbury there.

39:40

Okay, so he's 10 for 10 right

39:42

now, Spillsbury.

39:42

Usually I'm very critical

39:45

of your favorite experts. Not

39:48

this guy.

39:48

Only the ones from the 1700s,

39:51

you start warming up into the late 1800s and then

39:53

the 1900s, they really know what they're

39:55

doing. Well, we'll see. There's a lot more

39:57

to come here. So they

39:59

do. a comparison, they want to see if the candle

40:02

wax and the paraffin wax on

40:04

Vera's coat might have come from her own

40:07

home, which is I'm sure something you would have done.

40:10

So I did not know this, that candle

40:12

wax, I know everybody's going to think I'm an idiot

40:14

here, but I didn't know there were different kinds of candle wax.

40:17

I mean, I know there's beeswax, but they looked

40:19

at all the candles and all the paraffin in

40:21

Vera's home, and the stuff

40:23

on her jacket and on her body did not come

40:26

from her home. They compared it, and it didn't match.

40:28

I did not know that. I'm sure that this has

40:30

been done a million times by police.

40:33

Well, anytime you have a foreign substance,

40:35

this is just part of assessing.

40:39

First it is, is this something that was

40:41

on the victim's body prior to the crime

40:44

committing, and what would the source of that substance

40:46

be, and can I differentiate that substance?

40:49

And it's not just the wax.

40:51

You think about these candles and they're different colors,

40:54

there's different scents put in. When

40:56

we used to be allowed to do these

40:58

types of kind of novel forensic investigations,

41:01

scientific investigations,

41:03

during the era that I worked, we

41:05

had the advanced instrumentation to really

41:07

drill down, to differentiate

41:10

as an example, different fibers from

41:12

one to the other based on the dyes within the fibers.

41:14

They may visually look the same, but they're from

41:16

two different sources because they have two different dyes

41:19

to give them that color. The

41:21

waxes, back in the day, I'm not

41:23

entirely sure from a

41:26

forensic standpoint what they would have been able

41:28

to do. I imagine what they're doing is they're doing

41:30

a visual observation to say, okay,

41:32

is there anything within Vera's house

41:35

that looks just like

41:37

what's on her clothing? But

41:39

also, the witness, the aunt, the

41:41

parents, right now I don't have

41:44

any understanding as to how much

41:46

of this wax is on her, but

41:49

that would be part of the question. If there was a lot on

41:52

her that's very visible on the

41:54

front of her coat or whatever it is, ask

41:56

the parents, was that on her when she left?

41:59

Ask the aunt.

41:59

was that on her when she showed up? You

42:02

know, the soot. Did she have soot on her? So

42:04

you can rely on witness statements to

42:06

help determine, yes, this is related to the crime

42:09

and not there isn't an innocent explanation for

42:11

these substances on her.

42:13

So Spillsbury says small dabs

42:15

of candle and paraffin wax. So

42:18

it might have gone unnoticed, who knows,

42:20

but soot and coal

42:22

on her face and clothing would have been noticed.

42:24

So this seems like this happened after she

42:27

disappeared, after she went to Aunt Minnie's

42:29

house, is what it sounds like to me, but we'll see. Yeah,

42:31

no, for sure. So let's do a real

42:34

quick recap here. We have this 10 year old girl

42:36

via a page. She goes to her aunt's house.

42:39

It's supposed to take 15 minutes. It does.

42:41

She gets there. She grabs these swimming

42:44

certificates in her red beret

42:46

and she vanishes. Her parents call

42:48

police. 36 hours later, her

42:50

body is discovered about a mile away.

42:53

No one knows how her body got there.

42:55

The pathologist Bernard Spillsbury

42:58

suspects that she was killed

43:00

in a coal cellar based on material

43:03

that he finds on her body and then

43:05

kept somewhere warm. He thinks

43:07

based on everything he's seen that she was

43:09

killed immediately and then it sounds like

43:11

held until the killer could

43:13

figure out where to dump her body. Will

43:16

it ever stop raining in London? Does

43:18

that sound right to you?

43:19

You did a great job summarizing

43:21

the story.

43:22

Okay, so now I'm going to throw a tiny,

43:24

tiny wrench in our

43:26

whole

43:27

story here.

43:28

The police continue, continue,

43:31

continue to interview witnesses. I mean,

43:33

they just do an excellent canvas here and

43:36

there are people who have spotted Vera. You know,

43:38

as I said, many said she left,

43:40

but now we're starting to find people

43:43

who saw Vera alive

43:45

and Vera did something

43:48

without her parents' permission. She went

43:50

somewhere without asking them.

43:53

And now that opens up another list

43:55

of suspects because she

43:58

no longer has a predictable schedule

44:01

and you'll probably have a little

44:03

stroke when I tell you what she did but

44:06

it's gonna have to wait

44:08

until next week. Remember I told you

44:10

I warned you this is a two-parter. I'm

44:14

sitting on pins and needles here where did she end up?

44:16

You're gonna have to wait. That's what kids do

44:19

right? You know that's a variable and oh

44:22

yes I am looking forward to hearing

44:25

the rest of this because I want to know what happened to her. Okay

44:27

I'll see you soon. Sounds good.

44:33

This has been an Exactly

44:34

Right production. For our sources

44:37

and show notes go to exactlyrightmedia.com

44:39

slash buried bones sources. Our

44:42

senior producer is Alexis Amorosi.

44:44

Research by Maren McClashen, Allie

44:47

Elkin and Kate Winkler-Dawson. Our

44:49

mixing engineer is Ben Toleday.

44:51

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44:54

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44:56

produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hart

44:59

Stark and Danielle Kramer.

45:00

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and Facebook at buriedbonespod.

45:05

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45:07

That Is Wicked, a Gilded Age story of Herner

45:09

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45:12

now. And

45:12

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45:15

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45:17

is also available now.

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