I'm Kate Winkler Dawson.

I'm a journalist who's spent the last twenty five years writing about true crime.

And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.

Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes.

And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a twenty first century lens.

Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.

This is buried bones.

Hey, Kate, how are you?

I'm great, Paul, how are you?

It's kind of halloweeny, it's looking very halloween on your side there.

Well, you see my buddy over here?

Wait, yeah, right direction, Ye, my buddy back here.

And I was just choking to one of my kids that they said, how did he die?

And I said, waiting to see if that Victorian era chair is ever going to get comfortable?

And this is the result.

They are not comfortable, and I'm sitting in one right now.

But my poor guy back there.

Yeah, we had a we had an anatomically correct skeleton when I was first started out with the Sheriff's crime lab back in the day, had been there forever, and of course his name was Sherlock Bones, you know.

And every now and then we'll get dressed up around Halloween, so it's kind of neat.

Oh good, and you have we we've talked about this probably four years in a row.

But you know, your kids did Halloween and now you guys don't do a lot right now.

We will throw up some decorations, you know, like we've got some stuff out because we do get some kids in the neighborhood that will come.

But obviously with the small kids, we don't do anything gory or over the top.

It's more of the you know, just kind of a little spooky and keep things relatively tame for the little kids.

Okay, so did we do I did warn you you know that I am planning to upgrade my cottage for the next couple of episodes because it is Halloween time.

Did you do anything spooky in your man cave slash manly library.

I don't know how to describe your space right now.

No, Well, I've got a couple of Easter eggs.

I have this book over here bones, oh and you know kind of matching you know, your skeleton over there, and you know this book it's by doctor A Douglas Uberlaker who's with the Smithsonian Institute, and he's a quite a famous anthropologist.

And in fact, I sent him a skull back in the day that I had recovered from a backyard.

And you know, the skull came back it looked like it had been used in some occult related activities, with some paint and some some sooting on it, like it had been over a fire.

And the skull came back to a young girl.

Per his assessment.

Oh no, now we don't know, you know, if this is you know, somebody that is more of a modern al skull, if this was a war souvenir, because we didn't get much kind of the racial information.

It's indicating that maybe, you know, somebody from Vietnam war brought this back from overseas or Korea.

Don't know that at this point, but that was that was surprising, you know.

I was like, oh, you know, and to this day, I don't know if this this skull has been identified and if my former corner's office has even attempted.

It was he able to date it.

I mean, how without how many years is it?

Do we know?

No?

You know, there was inside the skull was a fragment of a newspaper.

It looked like a rat had probably made a nest inside the skull, and it brought that newspaper in.

And I, if I remember correctly, there was a nineteen eighty two date on this fragment of newspaper.

So it predates that for sure, you know, but you know, who knows?

And that's just one of those those things.

Is like this eternal mystery for me is like, well did we identify her?

And I will say with you know, the genetic genealogy being done on human remains, like what my employer author is doing day in and day out, we're finding that the anthropologists aren't necessarily right in terms of you know, identifying gender, identifying race based off of the physical features of the bones.

And so the DNA has really proven to be much more robust to get, you know, the real answer as to who this person was.

And of course we can use genealogy to identify who the person was.

You need to give the corners off as a call in I know, where you were on that case.

It's fascinating.

I need to harass the coroner's office.

Yes, well, I mean that's just amazing.

And then of course you would follow that up with now we're supposed to be talking about light things that we're talking about a case, but you would follow that up with once we figure out where she lived, looking for missing person reports from that time period and all of that stuff, right, then you have to do the regular detective work.

Right and and that's just you know, as we've talked about in the past, when you have an unidentified person, yeah, you know, where do you start?

And particularly with just a skull, you can't even say this is a homicide.

That's the complexity.

But once that skull is identified, if it ever is identified, then you can start digging into the circumstances of who this person was and it was, or anything suspicious, you know, like a missing missing girl from somewhere maybe in the Bay area.

Well, this is very halloweeny talk, absolutely, and I'm glad that you're embracing your background.

This is the power of you when I know so many people are listening.

But then you can see our fun little things, the bones book and all.

Of that well, I even have as it looks like a crystal skull.

It's actually an empty vodka bottle that's in the shape of a skull, so I moved that into view.

You're so festive, poll hooles at.

I should have filled it.

I was looking for food coloring to put like red liquid in there so it would stand out a little bit more, but we just don't have any in the house.

So yeah, well maybe for the next one.

We'll see.

Okay, this is not a particularly spooky story, but it'll be interesting because I don't quite know if we've ever told a story like this before, and it starts out with a bit of mystery.

We're in one of my favorite time periods.

I know it probably sounds like I'm constantly saying that, but this is for real.

This is where American Sherlock was set in nineteen twenty one, and it's in Birmingham, Alabama, And there will be some historical context that I'll have to give you to understand this case.

Let's go ahead and set the seam.

Let me tell you about where we physically are, where we're going to be, you know, exploring this murder, and then I'll kind of give you a little bit more about the place and the time period and everything.

So this is a Catholic church, you know.

The first thing I thought of when I started to think about this case being, you know, involving the Catholic Church.

And it's not a case that we have, unfortunately become to associate with a Catholic church.

This is different.

Is is there going to be a lockdown of information within the church, you know, depending on who's involved, and what will this do to their reputation presumably, So you know, I'm going to look out for that kind of stuff too, as I tell you the story.

So we are in Birmingham, Alabama, nineteen twenty one, and it is Thursday, August eleventh.

Because this was important to me, I looked and this is about eighteen months into Prohibition, which I'm fairly sure most of our audience is aware of, you know, the prohibiting of alcohol in most circumstances except medicinal and I think I did tell you this.

Then in my book, I found out that that during Prohibition, Walgreens, which was making medicinal whiskey, you know, for medicine to help people, they were the only ones legally making alcohol in certain circumstances.

They expanded their pharmacies from like fourteen to two hundred and seventy five during Prohibition.

So probably I would say Walgreens was the only place that actually loved prohibition in much of the country.

Yeah, probably a lot of black market whiskey was making its way out of the Walgreens distillery there.

I think so.

And you know Oscar Heinrich, my forensic scientist guy from American Sherlock.

That's where he started becoming interested in chemistry as they taught him how to make medicinal whiskey and what its uses were.

So he thought, well, this is really interesting, and I'm sure took a little sip here and there.

He was in high school of course.

Okay, So we're at Saint Paul's Catholic Church, Birmingham, Alabama at six thirty and this is a wedding, you know, and we have a priest named Father James Edwin Coyle, and he's important so that you would want to jot his name down like you are.

And he had performed a ceremony just minutes before, okay, and he had married two people with a massive age difference, an eighteen year old named Ruth Stevenson and her fiance, who is a forty two year old man named Pedro Guzmann, and I'll tell you a little bit more about them in a minute.

He has performed this ceremony.

I'll give you the background on how that came about.

But the opening scene of this is he is sitting on the swing of the rectory porch, so not right where the chapel cathedral would be, but you know, the adjoining building.

And he has a a rectory housekeeper who is inside named Stella, and then Marcella is his sister, and they're both inside.

He's on the porch by himself.

He had just finished this ceremony for Ruth and Pedro and was sitting outside relaxing, and he did not think that this wedding was This was not a planned wedding on his part.

He had been visiting with a friend at Saint Catherine's Church in Pratt's City, which is about seven miles away that day and he gets a call that sounds pretty desperate from one of his fellow priests, Father Brady, in Birmingham, and he said that you know, there is a young couple, Ruth and Pedro, who showed up at the rectory and they want to get married immediately, and they didn't say why.

They say this is going to be a small ceremony, and so the priest comes back and says, okay, we're gonna go ahead and do it.

And so Father Coyle comes back and it's a small ceremony, very uneventful.

He's on this swing.

And while he's on the wing, the people inside, who were Stella and the priest's sister, as I said Marcella, heard two shots rang out and then there's a pause, and there's a third, so they can hear him from inside the house.

They rush to the porch just in time to see a tall man, six foot tall man dressed in black, move slowly and deliberately across the yard toward a hedge that is separating the rectory from the church's good supply house.

And they can see clearly that he's holding a gun.

He's not pointing this gun at them, and he's not threatening them in any way, but he is separating himself from the rectory.

It's a thirty eight or a forty five automatic revolver.

They both come out and they look down and they see Father Coyle, the priest is splayed out on the front porch to the left of the door.

And then I have a description of the scene.

You know, where his body is.

Is that where you would want to go or do you have any questions so far?

Tell me what is observed about father coils he just shot while he's on the swing, or is there are more things going on, more interaction between this tall man and the father.

So you know, like any investigation, you'll have the crime scene and then you'll have the results of the autopsy and more information in a little bit.

So this is the crime scene if you're a deputy who's just showing up here.

So he's on the front porch to the left of the door.

His head is against the wall underneath one of the windows.

His feet are stretched beneath the swing toward the street.

And again last time somebody saw him who was not the killer.

He was sitting on the swing.

There's a bullet wound in his temple that is still bleeding, and there are blood pools around his body.

The body extends halfway between the steps and the end of the porch swing, and the blood is awesome, so spattered against the wall.

Everything else is in place, so his hat is on the swing.

The papers are still neatly arranged on the swing, and the porches to rocking chairs and a bench are not disturbed at all.

So this is what they walk into.

And then there's an ambulance that shows up in less than a minute and he's unconscious, but he's still alive.

So you know, we've got this man who's sort of disappearing very calmly, holding a gun.

You've got this dead priest right after a ceremony on the porch, and the last time people saw him he was sitting on the swing.

And I have a photo of the porch, not the crime scene, but just so that you can see.

You know, it's a beauty shot of the porch, just so you're able to see it.

Yeah, let me take a look, because you know, one of the questions that comes into my mind is the shooter.

Would Father Coyle have seen him approach or is there a chance that the shooter could have snuck up?

But let me see.

I know you sent me this, so this is a photo of the rectory, And so what I am looking at is it's a photo showing in essence, what appears to be a porch.

I see stairs that lead up to a door on the left side of the photo, and then there appears to be to the right, maybe some sort of overhang.

There's columns that go up, probably supporting a roof.

And then I see just a standard bench what appears to be a chair, maybe a rocking chair next to that bench to the right, and then to the furthest right what appears to be a swing that's facing kind of the length of the porch towards where the door and the stairs are.

So you know there is a chance, and this is where you know the autopsy results will be important, but there is a chance that the shooter could have come up behind with the father kind of facing towards the door.

There appears to be space for the shooter to have either snuck up to get close before starting to shoot.

Based off of the position of a father Coyle's body where he's off the swing, you don't have the disturbed items like there was a struggle.

It almost appears like maybe the shooter walked up onto the porch or walked up right next to the porch, and the father stood up off of the swing and then he gets shot, likely with the two shots.

My guess is his autopsy's going to show that he has two shots that may have hits more centered masts in the torso chest area.

And then you have the pause.

Father coil goes down, and then you have the execution with the gunshot wound to the temple.

Now that's just right now, just say educated speculation.

So from here, can you give me the autops or results?

Sure, and I can also give you the depth.

But the sheriff goes and we have a pretty good detail about where bullets are found, like what walls, the measurements.

Okay, all of that.

So which one is more helpful?

Do you want to stay at the scene or do you want to go to the autopsy.

Let's do autopsy first and then I'll revisit the scene with those trajectories.

Okay, well this is going to be anti climactic.

But he was alive and then you know, we get him to the hospital and I wanted to mention this to you because I thought this was really interesting.

So when the ambulance driver gets him to the hospital, he's still unconscious, but he's alive, and there's you know, a small crowd that has gathered around and had loaded him onto the ambulance.

And it goes to Saint Mencent Hospital, which is less than ten minutes away.

In the meantime, our deputy sheriff, who's going to give you all this great information, is examining the crime scene and I'm assuming looking for this mysterious man in black who had done this.

We think, okay, so the medics there's a doctor named doctor James, and the medics at the hospital first give him a stimulant to try to kind of wake him up.

So then I was thinking, nineteen twenty one, what would the stimulant be now that you know, I don't know if it's the heart racing, and you know, I was thinking defibrillator, but they're talking about a chemical.

Would there be something now that would in this circumstance would be appropriate?

Yeah, that I don't know.

You know, I know at times that you'll you'll see medical staff inject epinephrine in order to you know, stimulate the heart or whatever else.

Potentially father Coyle is shot through the temple with a thirty eight or forty five.

You know, yeah, he may still be you know, as hard as beating, and his lungs are you know, he's breathing, but you know, in essence, his brain has been in all likelihood destroyed to a great extent.

You know, So the term alive when you made it to the hospital is probably a loose term based off of, you know, I've seen what happens, you know, inside the skull when you have a close range shot from a thirty eight or forty five.

Well, the stimulants that I was looking at, I was trying to figure out what they meant, and I thought, you'd think this was interesting.

So they would use cocaine would be one of them.

And then I thought, oh, okay, if it's cocaine, then also maybe amphetamines.

The amphetamines didn't come into hospitals really until the late nineteen twenties, and this is nineteen twenty one, so they're using, you know, cocaine.

They also used strychnine in small amounts to try to get the heart going again.

It didn't work and he dies.

So these are the observations first of the doctor, who is doctor Mason.

He says, there are no powder burns and there is no gun shot residue on Father Coyle's body, and an X ray of these wounds reveals that a bullet had pierced just in front of his left ear, which is right at the jawbone, and it tore through his brain and had blown a hole through the base of his skull.

You know, they had thought, I guess doctor Mason thought that maybe this would would be emergency surgery, and then he backed away from that when he saw that.

He said, you know, this guy is not going to recover, and he was given his last rights and then he dies.

Yeah, you know, so that sounds like that was the observed shot that was seen at the crime scene, which was described as the temple area.

It's kind of just a little down from the temple area in front of the ear, but it's going through the skull as opposed to kind of going down through let's say the face.

His observation of you know know what i'd call stippling or gunpowder residue.

You know, this firearms discharge evidence is what we can look at in order try to determine how close or how far away, you know, the shooter was standing from victim, so at least with his observation, this was a shot to father coils left side of his head at a distance at this gun wasn't leaving This type of firearms discharge evidence.

However, the extent of damage inside Father Coil's head, the base of the skull he's describing as basically being blown out thirty eight and forty fives.

I mean, that seems like that's an awful lot of internal damage for this caliber of weapon at a distance.

I'm kind of wondering if this wasn't what would be considered a contact gunshot where literally the gun is held tight up against by outside the left ear, and all the gases from this gunshot literally go inside Father Coil's head, and that can cause significant damage.

These gases are very damaging.

But right now, well, you know, it's I just have to assume that maybe this is a shot that's, you know, maybe greater than two feet away.

I mean, it doesn't take much distance for this type of firearms discharge evidence not to be deposited on Father Coil.

Well, and it seems clear to both of us right that, because his hat is still there on the porch swing neatly, his papers, which would have flown everywhere if he were shot on the swing right are there neatly.

So he clearly saw somebody coming or something and stood up, or heard something and stood up.

Is that right, Well, that's you know, that's my guess, you know, and this is where, you know, I'm kind of curious to see, you know, where else he was shot.

And then revisit the crime scene, particularly you know, the position of the body as well as this statement you made about some some blood spatter that's present, So that that's significant because this right now, it appears that this shot to the left side of his head didn't exit the yedo and so is this spatter coming back out of the entry wound or is there another gunshot wound that could account for the spatter.

Well, it's interesting, So he says, doctor Mason had said there was no metal to remove, so does that mean that must mean that it was it went through, right, Yeah.

So I misunderstood that, Okay, So as a through and through.

So it's possible that that spatter, just depending on what side of his head, that spatter could be very possibly from an exit.

Okay.

So this is why the photo and the body positioning or what we think the reenactment part of this is going to be really important later on.

So they've recovered one bullet, they find several holes, so there were some shots fired, only one hit him.

So there are no other bullets in him, no other wounds on him, just that one that we just talked about to the temple.

But there's evidence that there were other shots fired, and of course they heard two shots and then a third the women inside.

But where they find these is what's going to be kind of important.

And I think it's going to be a lot of like trajectory, bullet trajectory, And I don't know where you land on that.

Do you always believe in that, you know that they can predict from what height somebody was holding a gun when they shot somebody based on the pathway.

It's just straight physics, you know, particularly if it's if it's close enough range.

We're not talking about you know, one hundred yard distance, you know, typically we're talking about a matter of feet to a little bit, you know, ten twenty feet whatever, you know.

And the bullets as long as they're not impacting, you know, intervening objects or passing through other objects, you know they're going to fly true for that stretch.

And so when we go and we have let's say, bullet defects and walls, we will you know, evaluate that defect, document it as well as then try to determine a trajectory if there's a possibility, and that does give us accurate information in terms of you know, stringing it back or now using lasers to be able to see what the flight path was of that bullet.

Now, sometimes you know, you have to take into account, you know, how the offender is holding the gun, and you know, what is the question that needs to be answered in order to determine Can you actually draw any conclusions from the trajectory as to the circumstances of the shooting itself.

Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't.

Let's go ahead and get to what the deputy sheriff found when he was on the front porch.

So we know it was one bullet and that's what killed them, and we know that the women inside Stella and Marcella, so they heard two shots ring out and then there's a pause and then there's a third shot.

So this is what the deputy finds.

So his name is Fred McDuff.

The officers are there and they find bullet holes.

They exis I'm in the bullet holes in the porch and the church, So I think what we're seeing is the church right next door with that kind of you know, back on that photo, it looks like, oh, yeah, you can see maybe because that the drawing of a priest against the wall.

Do you see that's kind of an odd almost like behind the porch.

Yeah, it looks almost like an apparition.

Yeah it is.

Yeah, yeah, it looks odd.

But I think that's the church and then the rectory is separate because that's his residence.

So what they say they found is there's one bullet hole that is about twenty and a half inches from the floor to about three or three and a half feet in front of the swing.

I don't know if that goes into the wall.

I think maybe we'll get information about that.

The second hole is about fifty two inches from the floor to about two feet behind the swing.

Yeah, so these must be in the walls.

Both bullets pierced through the clapboards, entering higher than they exit.

So is that somebody shooting downwards?

Is that what that means?

Well, it indicates that the bullets at that point had a somewhat downwards trajectory.

Now they're not indicating how steep of a downwards trajectory there is.

Describe that the location of that second shot.

Again, so he says the second home is about fifty two inches from the floor and about two feet behind the swing, and both bullets pierced through the clapboards, entering higher than they exited.

So if I'm understanding the directionality they're finding these bullet defects into, I would say the kind of the wall that is behind the swing, as if the trajectories are coming from the shooter standing let's say, on the lawn and then shooting at Father Coil towards the swing, and then the wall behind that is where the bullets are striking.

Does that make sense.

I think that does make sense.

Yeah.

So now you have one shot that's in front of the swing, you have one shot that's behind the swing.

First shot is twenty inches above the floor.

The other shot is, you know, almost four and a half feet above the floor, but still having somewhat of a downwards trajectory.

Both shots have downwards trajectory.

So we have this tall man potentially standing on the lawn shooting towards Father Coil, missing him, and those bullets are going into this wall, which is sort of like the front of the rectory itself, is what I'm thinking this is indicating.

And then you have this other shot that is catching father coil and you know, in front of the left ear, and that's obviously the fatal shot.

Now I have a newspaper article which is terrible quality, and I did not think it was going to be helpful, but now all of a sudden, I think it's going to be helpful.

So it's poor quality, but I think actually it will help clear out where the bullets are.

One of the office finds a thirty eight, So here's an answer to our weapon, A thirty eight steal jacket bullet from the left side of the porch.

And then another one another officer removes a bullet from a bookshelf inside the rectory.

Okay, So I don't know if that's more confusing or if that's helpful, but I'm going to send you this photo of this article because I think the photo from the article at least it points to where one of the bullets is, which is the rectory, so that'll help.

Well, it's interesting that these are these are jacketed bullets.

What does that mean?

Bullets often have a lead core and then they can have a thin metal covering.

That's often in this case, it's it's it's made out of steel and modern handguns.

You know, when you're loading your weapon to be used, let's say for law enforcement, typically you have these bullets that are what we call hollow points, so they're only partially jacketed on the side, but the tip is left unjacketed, and that's exposed soft lead core.

When it strikes an object or a person, it naturally mushrooms out and has a larger surface area, and so it and has it's you know, puts more energy into let's say the wound, but it also slows down rapidly inside a person's body, so you don't over penetrate.

When you have something that is completely jacketed, that's more of like for target practice, and because it has this hard steel all around it, it's going to have a greater tendency to penetrate deeper into an object or pass through a person.

So now what you have is you have a bullet found in the bookshelf, you know, So that jacketed bullet penetrated all the way through the exterior wall and then ended up embedding into this bookshelf.

And that almost sounds consistent with this bullet defect that was fifty two inches high above the floor.

But maybe it could be the one that's twenty inches.

So it just depends, but you might be able to line, you know, where that bullet is found with one of the two holes in the wall of the rectory.

Then you have this other bullet that just laying on the porch.

It sounds like left side of porch near the front door, and so that sounds like a bullet that you know, it could be from one of the two holes in the wall if it bounced off of a stud or something, or that may be the bullet that passed through Father Coyl's head.

And now after it's gone through his head and is exited, it's lost energy, so it doesn't go into the wall or pass through the wall.

It bounces off and then ends up bouncing over by the front door.

That's what I'm guessing.

And of course we could look at these bullets and determine which bullet actually has potentially a blood and brain man or on it, and determine, yeah, this is a bullet that's the fatal bullet.

Does the fact that this killer used a steel jacket bullet does that indicate anything about intent?

Because you said I heard target practice, but then I also heard penetrates deep.

So is this an ideal thing to go and murder someone intentionally?

Could you have purposely selected a full jacket bullet?

Yes, in my experience, the shooters rarely are paying attention to that aspect of the AMMA.

Now, most of my cases are dealing with you know, gangs, you know, and so they whatever ammal they get, and that's what they use.

So I don't know, I really can't draw any conclusions as to what the use of a steal jacketed full metal jacket bullet would mean to the killer or what his intent was.

So I'm looking at this photo that you just sent me, and I'm assuming on the left his father coil, just sort of like a portrait of him, if you will.

And then to the right is the right side of the which shows the swing.

And yes it's been you know, photocopied way too many times, but there is a white circle with an white arrow pointing at what appears to possibly be a bullet hole that is at a height that is above the back of the swing and towards what I would say, behind the swing.

So that would be the second bullet hole, not indicating what the sequence is, but just a second bullet hole that you described, and then there must be another bullet hole in front of the swing that is, you know, maybe one third the height of the second bullet hole.

I mean, this is just indicating to me, Yes, your shooter is standing on the lawn shooting at Father Coil.

You know again it's trying to figure out his body positioning.

But it doesn't appear that the shooter and Father Coil ever came into physical contact with each other.

Basically, Father Coil is ambushed and shot, and.

You think this is that that that the lack of gunshot residue and powder burns is one of those big indicators.

Right yeah, and I'm I'm kind of surprised, But in all likelihood, you have a shooter that's going boom boom.

Father Coil is possibly moving, and then the shooter basically takes better aim and catches Father Coyle in the head.

But it sounds like it's going to be at a distance versus what my initial thought was is that Father Croyle collapsed and then the shooter came up and did a close range shot to the you know, the the left side of his head.

Now they're saying that he was found.

Let me double check the body positioning to the left of the door.

So what I was thinking was, Okay, it's probably maybe it's the door's left, like if you're standing, you know, looking out from the front porch.

He must be going for the door handle to try to run inside and he gets shot beforehand.

Or does that that make sense to you?

Well, the shooter is obviously, I mean, you got two shots you know that are right there on the right side of the porch.

You know where the swing's at, you know, so yeah, it is possible.

You know.

Father Coyle gets up and starts running, and the shooter misses and then eventually you know, tracks him as he is approaching where the door is and catches him on the left side of the head.

Now that's where it's like, Okay, is that where we are seeing the blood spatter up on the wall.

Yeah, And it said that the top of his body has had it was found under one of the windows.

So he shot on the left temple.

He's going for the door, and then what he's kind of from he falls backwards and his head ends up you know, even further away from the door under the window.

Or he just collapses, you know, and the body flops one way or another.

From a reconstruction standpoint, it really does indicate that at the time of the first shot, Father coil Is is close to the swing, the shooter is shooting twice in rapid succession at Father coil Well on the side of the porch where the swing's at, and then Father Coyle appears to at least try to move away towards the front door, and then catches the round in the head where he collapses.

And that's pretty typical.

Let's talk about the shooter, and we're going to assume that the man who's dressed all in black holding a thirty eight is the shooter, and he's walking calmly away.

He's just sort of exiting the yard.

He's not making eye contact with anybody, he's not running, he's not doing anything.

So is this the potential of somebody who is having some kind of a psychosist psychological break, or a cool, calm assassin, or someone who is just so confident that in what they just did that they think they're going to get away with it, Or maybe that's too vague of a description to give you to make a conclusion.

Who did this?

Paul?

Yeah, you know, right, now all we know is that you have somebody that you know, approached Father Coil and intentionally killed him, you know, with a firearm.

Uh.

It's interesting that he is not trying to get away quickly, you know, but that also maybe he's he knows what's going on on the grounds of the church that you know, potentially he has the time to be able to just kind of walk away.

I don't know at this point, you know, what to extrapolate related to his his psychology or his mental state.

This is now, well, why was Father Coyle killed?

You know, this is where victimology comes into play.

And then you know, you open up this episode talking about Ruth and Pedro and you know this you know, marriage of a man and woman that have very you know, large age gap and it was a last second thing.

So is there a nexus with this wedding that Father Coyle performed and the reason Father Coyle is killed.

Well, let's before we talk about Pedro and Ruth what because they're important, But let's talk about the overarching theme of what's happening in the nineteen twenties, particularly with people who are Catholic in this country.

This is a very very anti Catholic time in America and Alabama is one of those places.

So a little bit of background.

When prohibition comes in, of course, there's a religious sentiment to it, the belief that alcohol was corrupting people, and there is you know, the conservative part of the churches are coming together and saying this has to stop.

Of course, we also know prohibition was the origin of organized crime, because anytime you tell people don't do it, they're going to find a way to do it.

So what comes with that is you have a lot of these Protestant groups, of course, like traditionally white nativist groups who are blaming the immigrants, especially the Catholics, and saying that the saloon that called it saloon culture in America is corrupting everyone and causing and murders and you know, gambling, and they're the corruption.

And they blamed a lot of people, including the Irish, and in some ways especially the Irish, and father Coyle came from Ireland, so he had been receiving a huge amount of hate from all across the city even though he had been in Alabama for quite a long time, because it was really ramping up from the racist and the you know, the xenophobic people and all of these hate groups led by the KKK.

And the KKK was really interesting in the nineteen twenties because when Prohibition came out, they said to law enforcement, we have a lot of men, we're all really strong, let us help you tamp down the immigrants who are coming in and bringing alcohol like the Irish and the Italians and wrecking our way of life.

So in a lot of cities across the country, the KKK was responsible for cracking down on people who were breaking the law during Prohibition.

And you can imagine this turned into just a nightmare for an awful lot of people.

As if Prohibition weren't bad enough, then you're, you know, engaging with this clearly racist group that is willing to use violence.

And so the KKK is everywhere across Alabama in nineteen twenty one when this is happening, and Father Coyle will not stay silent when people, you know, attack him and attack Catholicism in general.

So you're talking about a very outspoken priest in an area surrounded by so much hatred towards Catholics.

Well, and this is where there's there's a bit of victimology in there in terms of Father Coile and potentially upsetting these groups.

Notably you know KKK sounds like they're in bed with law enforcement during this era in this particular town.

And this may explain why the killer didn't feel like he had to run away because he, basically his mind, he carried out a mission that is accepted, socially accepted in this community.

There wasn't going to be anybody coming after him.

That's now maybe you had asked me before what does it mean about the killer and it's like, well, now it may just be well, yeah, you know, this is just going to be an accepted crime.

I'll never be prosecuted.

In fact, I'll probably be lauded for committing this crime.

But you're also looking at just a massive pool of suspects.

If you're really going to if we find law enforcement we trust, and you're going to really try to drill down to who did this to this man who's beloved within the Catholic community in Birmingham, you have just an endless amount of suspects who are willing to do this.

So where would you then start if that were the case.

If these two women who see the man in black walk across the lawn and sort of vanish into the shrubbery and they can't identify and they've never really seen him before.

So then what happens Now do you try to approach these groups?

There's one called True Americans, which is a secret anti Catholic political organization, and they're everywhere.

There's a variety of steps investigatively that could be taken.

You know, part of it is just a straight canvas try to find more witnesses.

The when you start talking about these groups, of course you can go you can try and go talk to them.

But this is where now depending on how law enforcement interacts with these groups.

You know, does law enforcement have informants that they can go to and say, hey, you know, what's the word on the street, what have you heard about who committed this crime?

Did somebody order this crime?

You know?

Is this just a hit man who's carrying out a mission for somebody else?

That's a shot caller.

And it's also just now who has father Coyle had squabbles with, you know, in the weeks months, you know, leading up to his homicide, and then of course course the wedding.

You said that Ruth and Pedro they're important to this story.

And right now I don't know how they're important.

Pedro has a Hispanic surname.

Is Ruth also Hispanic?

She is not?

She is not what was her last name?

So her last name is Stevenson.

You know, I think the age difference and this got to get married now.

My assumption is is that Ruth is pregnant.

You have a Hispanic male that's likely Catholic, and it sounds like Ruth is probably Catholic, so they're rapidly needing to get this relationship ratified.

I guess I'm not sure that's a good term or not.

And I kind of wondered, you know, is there potentially when you initially mentioned the wedding, could this be you know, like Ruth's father, who is now upset.

You know that father Coyle is willing to marry his eighteen year old daughter to you know, this forty two year old Hispanic man.

Is there anything going on along that front?

You know?

So is it more in that real like a family type of vengeance if you will, versus what we were just talking about.

You know, this this idea that father Coyle is upsetting the community in this community, you know, struck out against him.

So it would be kind of uncommon culture in a way, kind of an honor killing.

If this were somebody doing it on behalf of a family that did not approve of their daughter marrying somebody who is Catholic.

Something along those lines.

Yeah, well, let me talk you about Pedro.

Pedro was born in Puerto Rico and he grew up very Catholic, and Ruth did not grow up Catholic, but she converted to Catholicism about four months ago.

She is not pregnant as far as I know, but when she was twelve, she had been intrigued by the priests, you know, who were at St.

Paul's church.

She lives nearby, and she had even stuck in and seen some of the ceremony.

And as soon as she turned eighteen she started to take stef towards conversion, and she had met Pedro and they fell in love.

I don't have commentary on the age difference.

We don't know very much about them, if they continue to stay married, if they had children.

But the most important part is that Ruth is the daughter of a Methodist minister.

No interesting, Okay, he.

Is not happy about their relationship at all.

And so when Father Coyle gets word that there's a couple on the steps of his rectory saying we need to get married pronto, and they have one person with them who was not even a family member, as like a witness.

This is the reason why is because the dad is not approving of this.

Was Ruth's dad very tall, He is tall, and.

He does like to wear black.

And he shows up on the steps of the courthouse and turns himself in and says, I shot Father Coyle, And thus begins a big unfolding of is this man going to get a fair trial or is father Coyle going to get fair justice in a town that abhors.

Catholics, you see where parents kill because of what somebody has done to their their children.

Right in addition to this father, because of what's happening with Ruth, he has some incentive on that front.

But also there's this religious divide that's also you know, kind of stoking the fire, you know, the angst for this Methodist pastor, you know, to go no, you know, I got to take care of this.

This Catholic priest.

He's done.

He's done, And in fact, I can almost see where he'd argue that, you know, he's losing his daughter to Catholicism as a result of what father Coyle has just done.

So his name is Reverend Edwin Stephenson.

He does turn in his gun and he doesn't say why he did it, but he says, here's my gun, and I committed this crime.

He's a local barber and he is a Methodist Episcopal price.

In town.

They would call him an itinerant preacher, so he was kind of a traveling preacher.

But you know, he lived in Birmingham.

He is called the marrying parson, which means he does an awful lot of courthouse marriages for young runaway couples.

So so far, so good, except he's also a member of the KKK.

So the Reverend Stevenson has said, even though Pedro has been identified as white, I don't understand quite his heritage.

He was born in Puerto Rico, doesn't mean that he was Puerto Rican.

But Stevenson keeps labeling Pedro as black, so in his mind, his daughter is marrying a black man who is also a Catholic.

The approach is that he has literally nailed her windows shut.

He has whipped her when he found out that she was with Pedro, and then of course when she converts to Catholicism and has you know, done quite a lot of terrible things that people have heard.

I mean, this is all confirmed.

He strapped her a bedpost and he stuffed a rag in her mouth.

I mean, you know, he really had made it difficult.

And I think this is where the quick wedding came in.

So here we have a very violent man who seems to have this streak of wanting retribution, wanting to get his daughter out of this, and he was too late.

She had already gotten married.

Yeah, you know, I mean he's a child abuser, you know, first and foremost obviously, you know, when he gets angry, he's willing to use homicidal violence.

You said, he's not a good guy, even though he's you know, a leader within his Methodist community if you will.

You know, it's interesting that, you know, he targets father Coil, and I'm just kind of thinking out loud, why not target Pedro and take take his daughter back, so to speak.

But maybe he recognizes that if he kills Pedro, that is going to his daughter is in love with this Pedro, and then he will never be able to save his daughter.

If you will, or have her come back over to his side after doing something like that.

But maybe there's more to his motive than just Pedro and Ruth.

Maybe it is also this anti Catholic sentiment that he apparently obviously has.

Well, I'll give you more background.

Ruth ran away.

She went to Chattanooga and Reverend Stevenson, her father, sent the KKK after her, and they dragged her back to Birmingham.

He had supposedly psychologists examine her and they said that her mind was disturbed through derangement, and he said, if you screw up again, I'm going to have you institutionalized, which would have been very easy in the nineteen twenties.

So this is where his mind's going.

As days go by, he has just had enough.

I don't think he even sees here's a daughter at this point.

It's like an a property that somebody is sullied, and he is determined to keep her locked up and to not have this fall on his family and his reputation, especially as a clansman.

So how does the trial proceed then?

So he is indicted by a grand jury on September So this is about a few weeks later, and he is churched with second degree murder, So what would that mean?

Not preplanned sort of kind of went out of his mind temporarily and went over and when he found out about the wedding, Yeah.

Kind of in the heat of the moment.

You know, I think it depends on Alabama's statutes, you know, but first degree versus second degree first degree, obviously there's what we call malice a forethought in terms of there's been there's obviously the pre planning aspect to it.

And even if there had been some sort of hostile interaction between let's say the killer and the victim, if there had been a cooling off period, then that the killer makes a decision.

You know, this is where your prosecutors will sit there and take a look at the circumstances and decide, am I dealing with first degree?

Am I dealing with second degree?

Am I dealing with manslaughter?

So it looks like what they and they also have to take into consideration what is the jury going to believe?

You know, And so you know, in this case, you have I think there's an argument that Reverend Stevenson he arms himself with a gun and he walks over to this location and kills Father Coyle.

I mean, you could make a case.

I believe that he planned ahead, he intended to kill, But the prosecutors may have decided that there wasn't an it wasn't convincing enough that they could get a jury to go with first degree, and so they charge him with second degree.

And maybe it says, well, he just found out about the wedding and he runs out of the house with his gun and is like, God, damn it, I'm going to go get them.

Well, here's another layer, and we'll revisit what you just said and see it.

You know what you think about it.

The prosecutors rarely do I say I feel badly for a prosecutor, but I feel badly at this point with this prosecutor because the judge is a member of the KKK, the foreman is a member of the KKK, the majority of the jurors are members of the KKK, and several defense witnesses, including the police chief, are all clansmen.

That sounds like a movie.

I mean, we've talked about collusion before, but in corruption, but this is this is an extreme.

I mean, most of this town is KKK, and this reverend is is you know, well known and higher ranking in the in the Klan.

It comes down to, Okay, these members of the clan are they are they accepting of you know, one of their own members, you know, committing homicide, you know, with this type of motive, or is this something that they themselves even find deplorable and would be willing to to convict.

You know, I don't have a clue, because you know, of course the KKK just did horrible things to so many people that I'm just assuming all these you know, the judge and the police chief and everybody else, they're all have the same mindset and go, yeah, you know, we killed a Catholic.

The defense is led by a guy named Hugo Black, which you know, I don't expect you to know that name.

He was a Supreme Court judge.

He would eventually become a Supreme Court judge, okay, and he was not part of the KKK until nineteen twenty three, so he became a klansman.

What's interesting about Black, though, is later on when he was on the court, he would vote against segregation with brown versus education.

So he has like a I mean to say, a spotty history with the Klan.

He voted with a lot of the liberal justices in a lot of cases.

So he has an interesting trajectory we don't have to get into.

But anyway, he's head of the defense here, and of course the whole defense is klansmen, and it's fun by the Klan.

Here, you have a community, and you have a government structure that is infiltrated by a private group that has very strong philosophies.

And so from my perspective, obviously the government is just going to be extremely influenced by the KKK.

Now, how does that impact Reverend Stevenson's trial?

Is he going to get an honest trial?

Is a defense going to be able to sounds like the cards are stacked against the prosecutors in terms of being able to get a conviction.

Stevenson enters two, Please, I didn't know you could do that.

One is not guilty and the other one is not guilty by reason of insanity.

Can you do that?

I don't know if you can or not, you know, but obviously it's trying to cover all bases.

Right for me, Neither of these work with what he says happened, which was he said Quill attacked him and it was self defense.

And you've already said that there are no marks, and we've talked about in the autopsy report, it's just this bullet wound and that's it.

There's no defense marks, there's no nothing happening on Coyle's body, you know.

And this is where you get into the crime scene reconstruction.

Those trajectories.

The space on this porch is very tight and confined, you know, all these these items on the porch, these chairs and everything else.

When you have two men that let's say are are struggling, you know, you're going to see potentially, you know, items being disturbed.

But I don't see how these trajectories line up with Reverend Stevenson being up on the porch and then getting into a struggle and shooting in self defense.

Basically, those trajectories are suggestive that he's right there, walks up on the you know, on the lawn, and start shooting at father Coyle.

Bits of information I don't have is how steep the downwards angle of these shots are.

Because if they're fairly steep and they're putting the gun up on the porch, then maybe there's a chance at Stevenson got up on that porch.

But based on what I'm seeing, I just don't think that that's a possibility.

He basically walked up and executed to Father Coyle.

We have a lot of people in on this, including the sheriff's deputy who had examined the crime scene.

Initially, he says that Stevenson came to his office before Stevenson apparently went over to the porch, and he said, I think that the Catholics meeting Father Coyle A and pedrom Assuming have kidnapped my daughter and I want a search warrant from you to look at the rectory and see if she's there.

And McDuff says he didn't do it.

It was not granted.

Then he says that McDuff and there weren't other people who were corroborating this.

But McDuff says, oh yeah, you know, initially I saw there was a chair that had been flung, and then I looked at at the crime scene, and then I looked at Stevenson and actually several deputies said that Stevenson had an abrasion about the size of a man's thumb on his head.

He said that he also complained of back in foot injuries because he had been attacked by Coyle.

But these are all things that none of these guys reported until after Stevenson had been confined to a jail cell.

So before there weren't any marks, and afterwards there are these marks.

And the sheriff's deputy is like, listen, you know, I'm sure they have been there the whole time, and that this is a result of a fight.

So it's like the prosecutor's not going to catch a break in any of this.

You know, everybody's against them.

Yeah.

No, Stevenson is just now trying to, you know, set up his defense.

He's bouncing himself off the wall inside the jail cell in order to get some abrasions to make it look like he had been in a fight.

Yeah, I'm not buying it.

So one witness, and I'm not kind.

I'm not sure what this means, and I don't know if we believe this witness anyway.

One witness says that he saw flashes on the rectory porch from a nearby He was at a nearby grocery store and he could see the flashes.

Each flash was progressively higher than the last, which suggests that the gunman had opened fire from kneeling and later standing positions.

Does that make sense to you.

Well, it makes sense to me because you know, the porch is elevated, and this is where Now, did Reverend Stevenson just walk up and plane view and shoot Father Coil or the porch would allow Reverend Stephenson to sneak up, possibly on hands and knees, below the eyesight of Father Coil, and then start shooting from a kneeling position and then stands and then Coil of course is now trying to get away, and then catches the round in the head.

So yeah, I think that's a distinct possibility.

Okay, well, let me tell you a little bit more about motive.

Now they're saying there's shifting over and saying, okay, yes, this was self defense.

But also Stevenson went crazy, he you know, temporari insanity.

He found out that Ruth had married this guy Pedro, and that the union was breaking a law.

So we know that there was there were laws in place that people of you know, that a white person and a black person could not be married.

The Supreme Court took care of that in nineteen sixty seven.

And even though Pedro is legally classified as white, right, I have my quotation marks around there Stevens had said, no, this is this is a black man.

So this is what they did in court.

It's a very dramatic move.

The defense turns off all the lights and pulls the blinds and shines a floodlight at poor Pedro's face, and so they're looking to see they produce these photos from Pedro where he had like curls that were rubbed from his hair, you know, meaning this was this was somebody who was a black man.

There's no getting around it.

So having the jury kind of examined this guy, just his facial features to confirm what they already know, which this is a black man, even though Pedro's not black.

And so this is where the defense is trying to indicate that the act of ruth in essence being stolen away from him by Pedro, a Catholic and a black Catholic at that was so enraging that he lost Reverend Stevenson lost his senses and went and shot Father Coyle.

Well, let me tell you about the prosecutor, because now he's ticking me off.

He does not do a good job.

And I don't know if it's because he's a clan member or if he was so intimidated that he ended up doing stupid things.

He tries to poke hole in the defense but doesn't do a great job.

He doesn't call hardly any witnesses, including Ruth.

He does not put Ruth on the stand.

He tries to introduce a guy named Douglas White, who was a minor like as in cole Miines, who had seen the murder unfold and probably could have said everything, but Tate the prosecutor introduces him too late into the trial, and the judge says, no, it's too late.

He can't get on the stand, which Joe Tate would have known.

He would have known that that was going to get thrown out.

So I don't know what happened there, but you can imagine that the jury is not convinced of anything, and he has.

Acquitted you know this, and thinking about Reverend Stevenson's actions, you know, he obviously arms himself.

He goes to the Catholic church, but he had stopped by in the assuming it's a police department, to try to tell the deputy my daughter's been abducted.

I need you to which seems weird.

I need you to get a search warrant to find my daughter at the Catholic church.

So you can see where he has got a mental clarity of what's going on.

He could be very upset about the circumstances, but he's doing this in a step wise fast where now when the deputy doesn't pursue getting a warrant or going to the church, Stevenson takes things into his own hands.

I think just his acts in terms of how he approaches this homicide really kind of underscores he knew exactly what he was doing.

You know, he took it in a step wise fashion.

It wasn't like he flew off the handle and ran over to the church and just started shooting.

I agree.

So the end of the story, it was a two hour deliberation and he is acquitted.

Of course, the end of this story is it's so odd these two men at the center of this, the Catholic priest and the Methodist preacher, are both revered in very very different ways.

So Stevenson gets a seat of honor at all of the clan rallies throughout Alabama, his defense attorney, you know, becomes a member of the KKK I talked about, and then Coyle is seen as a martyr even today and actually people have mentioned putting him up for sainthood because people were threatening to burn down the church and his house and rectory, and people who were law enforcement who sounded like good people who were not colluding with the Klan had said you need to change your routine and don't sit outside in public, and he ignored all of it.

He said, now I'm not doing that.

I'm not going to cower down.

Ultimately, what ends up happening is, you know, he is embroiled in this and I'm not saying this wouldn't have happened had he not married Ruth and Pedro, but it becomes yes, political, but more of just the fury of a father.

Yeah, I think the acquittal is wrong.

But once once that is done, there is no way to pursue Reverend Stevenson again for this homicide.

And it just really shows his calmdemeanor.

After killing Father Coyle and walking away, he had all the confidence in the world that he was going to get away with it.

Yep, and he was right.

Yes he did.

Well.

We tell a lot of stories that for me, I you know, in true crime, are very very frustrating, and we know why, you know, people die, especially when children die.

This is frustrating on almost a different level for me, where it's just like no matter what you do, no matter how many people see it happen, and it's so clear that it doesn't matter the politics step in, it doesn't matter.

And that's what you know.

I picked this story just because you know, we the Klan was political.

I mean, let's face it.

They had infiltrated every single area of power that there was in this country.

So you know it's for mind or for me of you know, keeping a check on who is in charge of everybody who controls your life, you know, and Father Quile just paid this awful price for sure.

In many ways, it's just a this is where the justice failed.

You know, this was a failure of the system because of you know, the bias of everybody within that court, you know.

So it's obvious to me Reverend Stevenson should have been convicted of murder and he got off.

And it's just too bad.

Okay, I know this wasn't halloweeny, but we're going spooky, I promise next week for the Coup de Gral with our Halloween season and we'll go much spookier.

But thanks for joining me on what I think is a really important case.

Well, thanks for sharing me.

See you next week, see you.

This has been an exactly right production for our sources and show notes go to exactlyrightmedia dot com slash Buried Bones sources.

Our senior producer is Alexis Emosi.

Research by Alison Trumble and Kate Winkler Dawson.

Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.

Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.

Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.

Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark, and Danielle Kramer.

You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at buried Bones pod.

Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode the criminal mind, is available now.

And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's Cold Cases is also available now.

Listen to Buried Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.