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 doing?

I'm doing well, Paul.

What's going on with you?

Oh my god, I'm falling apart, you know, I think I think you remember I had my shoulder replaced a little more than three years ago now, and you know, I was having some pain in my left hip.

It's down in the groin area where the joint is, and so I went in and I saw specialists, and sure enough, I've got arthritis and my left hip.

In fact, it's it's becoming sort of an impediment for me to do a lot of the activities I like to do, so, you know, just getting it evaluated.

I have a feeling that a replacement is going to be coming up at some point in my life.

I'm not sure I'm willing to do that just yet.

I'm hoping to, you know, do some maybe other other less invasive interventions so I can continue to function.

But you know, I had to go out and I'm sitting on this memory foam pad right now because you know, it's like one of those emorids.

Yeah, just because it was hurting so much.

That's not funny.

I'm sorry, Hey, I'm laughing.

It's like this is just turning out to be my curse.

I'm probably going to have probably all four you know, bow shoulders and both hips at some point, you know, replaced.

I just think that's that's my curse.

Is this arthritis.

I was just rough on my body over the decades.

Yeah, yeah, I get that.

And you know, we have a family friend who had a double hip replacement.

She ended up doing great.

I mean, you know, it was I don't know if it was one after the other, but pretty close and she felt great afterwards.

So yeah, I mean I know of stories where people are in a lot of pain.

But also I've heard recently a lot of success stories, so I hope you don't end up there, but if you do, you know, I think you can hopefully be optimistic about it.

Well, you know, and I think there's you have your total hip replacement, where they literally cut off the head of the femur, you know, and dry a I'll stake down the middle of your femur with a ball on the end of it, and then of course the socket is replaced as well.

But there's also a resurfacing where instead of cutting off the head of the femur, you know, the ballpart, they literally remit down and put a metal cup over it.

And that's that's what I had done for my shoulder and it's worked out great.

So I'm hoping if I have to go the replacement route that i'm a candidate, and I think I am.

You know, they generally will do that for the younger, younger, more active patience, and I'm probably still in what these surgeons would consider the younger category.

You know that I'm not the seventy five year old.

I'm the you know, late fifties guy that's active.

Well, I mean, gosh, I know that you we've talked about your shoulders and everything.

You've suffered from a lot of different stuff.

I'm glad I haven't hit any of that yet, but I think I am going to end up with a little bit of arthritis.

I played indoor soccer for quite a while, I mean as an adult, and I've mentioned that before, and I separated my shoulder and almost broke my nose, and I broke my ankle and part of my foot.

I mean, you know, and then you start feeling it when you get older.

And I just never thought that was going to happen.

So why health?

Physical health?

I mean, course mental health, but physical health as you get older is so important.

I go to the doctor.

Are you a big doctor person?

I go to the doctor for everything.

Probably too much.

I'm the typical guy, you know.

I I generally put you know, that's what happened with the shoulders.

I just kept putting it off and had no idea what was going on.

Now, as I've gotten older, it's sort of like, yeah, I have to pay attention to things a little bit more so I'm getting better at it, but you know, it's still it's a hurdle for me to kind of get into that mindset of, oh, I probably should go in and get seen on this or whatever.

You know, is that like a male thing, like the way you're raised, just power through it.

Because the way I was raised was if you don't feel well, suffer, get in there, find out what options you have.

I also can understand being scared, you know.

You know, I don't know.

I can't really say that there was anything about my upbringing that would have contributed to that mindset.

I just kind of, yeah, it's more of that just suck it up and deal with it, you know.

My family laughs at me.

I've got this kind of this weird tolerance for pain.

And as an example, you know, I ruptured the medial ahead of my right calf in my mid forties and didn't know I had ruptured it, and a week later I was out there trying to run on it and was wondering why my foot is just flopping around right, you know.

And I never went into the doctor for that.

I just kind of let it heal up on it on its own, even though I had a bunch of blood that had settled down into the bottom of my foot.

And it's just that I don't know, you know it's I think guys we have a greater tendency of not wanting to go in.

And part of it may be that fear of being told or you got a problem.

You know, I kind of want to just nope, I don't want to know about that.

Boy.

My dad one time at night, we were, you know, kind of a little far flung.

We were in a rural area at the farm, and one night he said, I kept just chest pain and I don't know what's happening.

And we had just eaten dinner a while back, and so he was settling in, he was laying in his chair.

I have this horrible chest pain and he and he thought he was having a heart attack.

So we rush him to the hospital and they do tests and they said to my stepmother, ma'am, what did he happen to have for dinner?

And she said he ate half a pot roast And they said, your husband has angina.

That's what's going on me not having heart attack.

Well that's good, I mean, And I but I think goodness because he would kind of sometimes put off stuff too, And I'm just glad so that that's always taught me.

Man.

I'm not I'm not paranoid, but I definitely go in and get stuff checked out.

I don't miss appointments, but certainly a lot of men and women do too well.

And I will say, you know, when it comes to the chest pain, that's that's something I will pay attack.

Yeah, you know, that's really my biggest fear is, you know, the cardiac arrests, you know, the sudden death type of scenario.

And you know, I'm trying to do what I can to avoid, you know, having risk factors for something like that.

Well, you know, all I'm doing is saying hello to you and we get a PSA on health of this.

See, I'm glad we're productive even when we're chatting at the beginning.

This is not a good segue at all.

But we are heading to the New York area for this.

Yeah, that's not a great segue at all.

There's no way to get out of that.

So we're heading to New York, which is where I lived for eight or nine years.

I lived in New York City, but we are kind of all over the area for this next story.

I'm gonna go ahead and set the scene.

Trigger warning.

We're talking about sexual assault, giving just enough details that are important for Paul, but not gratuitous.

That's the goal for me.

We're going to start unfortunately.

You know, sometimes we do scene setting, sometimes we do the dynamics of a victim or the offender's family, and then sometimes we start with just a victim who's found.

And that's why we're going to start with this one.

Just after midnight February sixteenth, nineteen sixty eight, there is a woman who's discovered at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, New York, which is on Long Island.

I have been to Long Island a few times, but of course, what you know, the first thing I think of with Long Island is the Long Island serial killer case that's been happening and is in the news, which is certainly not this case.

But when I first started reading about this, I thought, Okay, now we're dealing with Long Island again.

Did you do anything on that case or no Long Island serial Killer.

I was interviewed by Laura Engler for a I think it was a Fox News documentary and it was before the case was solved, and I had it really paid a time to the Long Island serial killer.

And then once they provided me some background and I was reading up on it.

It was a much more fascinating case than what I realized.

And of course, you know, they've arrested Rex Huermen.

Authoram has done work, you know, from a genealogy side to try to identify some of the victims that were out there on Gilgo Beach.

And then I did record a podcast relatively recently talking about there were two other victims that this one guy and I'm forgetting his name right now, that he was convicted of and he was thought to have done this third victim.

Well, they just charged humor Men with this third victim.

So now there's a question about, well, is this one guy who's sitting in prison actually responsible for these other two cases or is that part of you know, humer Men's victims.

You know, so interesting, there's I think there's a lot of more work that needs to be done to try to figure that out.

Yeah, yeah, and I say Long Island serial case.

Of course, you know gig Beach.

There's a lot happening over there.

So for our story, we're going to start with a victim who is found outside of a mall.

This is February sixteenth, nineteen sixty eight, just after midnight and someone discovers the body of a twenty three year old dance instructor.

Her name is Diane Cusick.

She is discovered at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, New York.

And I can give you some more details in a minute.

She had a four year old daughter, she was estranged from her husband, and she was living with her parents in New Hyde Park, New York, which is also on Long Island.

So going backwards, and then you know, we'll talk about damage done and everything else.

We hop around a lot, so I'll ask you you want to start with the condition of the body and those kinds of details, or do we want to talk about her timeline or what do you think?

Well, let's just get right into it in terms of what happened to her, and then we can work from there.

Her hands are found tied, her face is severely beaten, and she has been sexually assaulted, and ultimately the county Medical examiner says that she was strangled.

So I think you might find some of the details, you know, in some of the stuff I'll talk to you about lacking in details, like if we're talking about who the suspects might be.

But the basics are that that she was beaten, sexually assaulted, strangled, and hands found tied together.

And then there's another physical thing that will be important.

But do you have any thoughts so far or now?

Yeah, So let's give me some details about the location where the body's at at this mall.

Part of my assessment is going to be was she attacked and assaulted at this location?

Or is this a dumping location?

You know, why did the offender choose this particular location?

What time of day?

You know she likely was last seen, you know, because the mall is you know, in the day, is a very busy place.

There's lots of potential witnesses, so, you know, I kind of want to just get a feel for this location.

Let me give you one more detail about something found on her which might help, and then I'll go back and kind of give you the timeline.

So the Nassau County DA says that Diane is found with an adhesive band over her mouth, and the sixty eight edition of news Day described it as a two inch wide adhesive tape that had been wound around her mouth and her neck.

I don't have photos of this tape unfortunately, Okay, but you know I'm wondering.

So at sixty eight, of course pre DNA testing, can they get fingerprints off of the tape, assuming the offender's not wearing gloves.

Yes.

In fact, you know this the description of this tape.

You know it sounds like what we commonly refer to as tape, the gray tape that turns out to be very good for fingerprints.

You have both the gray side, the non adhesive side where you can have fingerprints, but even the adhesive side, the fingerprints can actually be impressed in the adhesive.

And so Layton examiners have the ability to use different chemicals and powders in order to be able to visualize those prints in the adhesive.

Even if the adhesive has been somewhat stuck on top of another surface, by peeling it back, there could potentially still be some rich detail that they can get they can find.

Now, what I don't know is whether or not they had developed these techniques to go after this type of evidence in nineteen sixty eight, and I will say by the nineties they had tools to be able to go after this type of evidence.

So in sixty eight, would it be powder or what would they be doing in sixty eight just to compare I mean, they would be using the old fashioned cards obviously, if I mean the guy has to have a record, I guess for you to be able to compare it.

Sure well, you know, first in nineteen sixty eight, you know, they most certainly had a variety of different types of techniques to develop Layton prints.

And you know, Layton you can have finger visible fingerprints and such as you know, like a bloody fingerprint where you photograph it and you can compare the details in that the ridge detail from that bloody print to somebody's ten print card.

But if it's a latent print, that means it's not visible to the naked eye in essence, and so you have to use powders or different chemicals in order to visualize that.

And you know, of course there's a wide variety of different colored powders.

You know, if you have a black surface, you're not going to use a black powder because you need contrast.

Then there's also magnetic powders that are good for certain types of surfaces that the typical black powder just doesn't work on.

But then there's chemicals, like when you have paper substances from the that are deposited when you touch the paper, actually absorbed into the paper itself, and so you need a chemical to go into the matrix of the paper and react with where the fingerprint residue is.

And the one of the chemicals at the use in nynhydrod, you know, and so you develop these purple prints off of paper.

So depending on what kind of backing this adhesive tape has nineteen sixty eight, they likely had a variety of methods that they could use to at least get prints off of the non adhesive side of this tape.

So they collect the tape, which is good.

Let me talk you about the timeline.

That's kind of the last physical detail I think as of right now.

The timeline is I told you she has a four year old daughter.

She's estrange for her husband.

She's living with her parents.

So she's found at midnight on the sixteenth.

Her parents said that around seven o'clock that evening, so five hours before she told her her mom and dad that she was heading to the mall, the green Acre's Mall where she was found, which is less than ten miles away, and she wanted a new pair of dancing shoes.

When she didn't return her parents headed to the mall to look for her, and they were the ones that found her.

They see her car in the parking lot of the mall, then they discover her body in the back seat.

So she was parked in a poorly lit area.

So there's just less people around, fewer people around than normal.

Yeah, So the question would be did the offender interact with the victim prior to her getting to the mall or had she arrived at the mall and that's when the offender before she even got into the mall, you know, that's when the offender interacted with her and attacked her.

Or did he follow her out of the mall?

You know, what did she find that, you know, the shoes?

Did she have a you know, a bag with shoes in it like she had purchased them?

So that would give some indication as to you know, the sequence of what happened to her.

Now, the location in the parking lot, you know, where it's dark.

You know, this may be something where she parked there and the offender took advantage of you know, that concealment and saw that.

Maybe she walked into the mall, walked out of the mall and was heading to this car in a darker area of the parking lot and decided this was a victim of opportunity.

I mean, this is the kind of case that rings in your head as a woman, and I'm sure as a man of you know, having that feeling of dread, which I've had time and time again too, when i feel like I've parked in the wrong place and now I'm trapped, and I just maybe I went somewhere, you know, like a mall late in the afternoon, and I stayed a lot longer than I thought, and then all of a sudden, it's dark and it's kind of desolate.

And so that is, you know, a big fear that a lot of people have.

So we don't have very much information because there are no witnesses.

They talked to more than two thousand people who were in the vicinity of the mall, and nobody saw her.

Nobody saw anything, and that was it.

So this seems like a very gutsy's not the right word, but bold, brazen thing to do in a parking lot with presumably a lot of people at one point.

But maybe that helps distract or you know, then people are not paying attention to one person because there aren't a few people.

There's lots of people around it initially, but of course it was seven o'clock at night, so I don't know, Yeah.

And it's dark, you know, in February.

I'm assuming, you know, seven o'clock at night.

If she's arriving at the mall, she went straight to there, And that's what I'm going to presume right now that yeah, you know, I think if the offender is able to blitz her, she's not able to put up much resistance.

There's not a lot of you know, she doesn't scream, she doesn't make a lot of noise during this attack.

It's possible people are walking right by with blinders on, you know, and if she's in the shadows.

Because of the location where she parked, I can see where you're you know, these witnesses aren't any biness is even though you have people coming and going from the mall and inside cars or walking to their cars in the parking lot.

But I still don't have a confidence, if you will, based off of just the limited amount of information that she was attacked at this location.

Is it possible she stopped for gas and then she's blitzed at the gas station or stopped at some other store on the way to the mall and during you know, the let's say, the sexual assault, and she's trying to talk her way out of you know this with this offender as she say, well, I was heading to the mall, and so after he kills her, he drives the mall and walks away from the car.

Well, I can tell you that there's so little information.

You know, they clear the ex husband, so he's alibi, and there's so little information that the case goes cold.

Probably you'll be able to guess pretty soon that we're having multiple cases in this story because we don't have a ton of information about what happens, you know, moving forward.

But just trust me, we're leading somewhere.

I know, we like to have a lot, a lot, a lot of information, but this goes cool.

And do you have any information as to what clothing Diane still had on?

It looks like fully clothed.

It doesn't say anything about her not having any clothing on, missing clothing, ripped clothing, anything like that.

Severely beaten, sexually assaulted, but nothing about removed clothing or anything.

Okay, and the sexual assault, are we talking they recovered semen vaginally I believe.

So yes, Okay, moving forward, we're going to have another victim that will eventually be tied to the killer from the first victim.

This is four years later, So this is I'm going to want to talk about geographic profiling at some point, Not right now, Paul, but I want at some point we're going to want to talk about that.

Sure, four years So now we're May tenth, nineteen seventy two.

There's a passerby who discovers the body of twenty one year old Mary Hinds, she sometimes called Mary Beth.

She is floating face down in a muddy, wooded Long Island creek.

This is about five miles from the mall.

And that is one of the things that they start They're starting to thinking, Okay, we've had a pretty brutal murder here, but I'll give you more details.

I have a photo of the scene that I sent you, which is not a great photo, I will say, but also I can give you I'm presuming what you want to know is you know, death and damage and all that stuff.

Sure, so let's take a look at that photo.

This is a photo that is taken looking down the road where Mary's body was found and zooming in on this.

You know, I think the first thing that strikes me because I don't know Long Island very well.

I know it's quite populated today, but this looks, you know, fairly remote.

It looks like a reasonably very remote stretch of road.

It's a photo that's looking down the road.

I can see vehicles parked on either side, which are potentially investigators vehicles or the you know, the passerby vehicle, the witness vehicle.

It appears that there might be an underpass for the creek, and there's a wall on the left side.

What strikes me is, you know, right at least this stretch of road, it's heavily wooded.

You know, there's trees on both sides.

There's high grass and bushes that are that are very dense.

This appears to be a prototypical body dump location.

You know that the offender chose, probably because at the time of day or night when he dumped her body, there's few cars.

There's risk a few cars that would be traveling along this stretch of road.

Yeah, I think you're right.

Did you look at the poles there?

Let me see, I had zoomed in.

I can't tell if those are electric poles or if those are lights.

I'm guessing electric.

Huh.

Well, there appears, you know, further down the road there is a street light, and then closer in the photograph to where the cars are parked, there is a utility pole.

It doesn't appear that it has a light on it, but the trees are somewhat obscuring the top of it.

Yeah, you know, And so of course the question would be is there sufficient lighting in this area or is this also reasonably dark?

And my guess is is that if there's that one soul light along the stretch of road, you know, it's not a very well lit road.

Well, let me tell you about what happens with her.

So again, her name is Mary Hines, and she is twenty one.

She's totally closed, but she is missing her shoes and she still has her rings on her fingers, so you know, that's part of the is this a robbery thing that they're thinking.

But she has bruises on her face and her neck, and an autopsy determines that she was strangled.

Obviously, Mary has been dumped in this creek.

Right now, we don't have any information as to whether she was killed at this particular location, or if the offender had killed her at a different location and then drove out here and dumped her Mary being fully clothed, and that we also saw that with with Diane.

You know that is somewhat significant.

You know, some offenders really get off on either cutting clothing off or tearing clothing off during a sexual assault.

With with Mary, the missing shoes are interesting, and you know, part of that could be you know, what kind of shoes she had on, or these shoes that would have, you know, fallen off pretty easily during a fight.

But I see this a lot where victims when found they're they're missing one or both of their shoe shoes.

One of the questions that I would have with with Mary and being fully closed is was she sexually assaulted and redressed and her shoes were never put back on?

And this is a sequence that some offenders will do.

And it's either allowing the victim to redress themselves and then in Mary's case, strangling killing Mary and then dumping her body, but he doesn't bother putting the shoes back on, or the offender will redress some victims he's killed them, sexually assaulted, killed them and then will put the victim's clothes on.

And I've got cases where it's obvious the offender has redressed the victims.

When you you know, see these you know, pair of stretched pants that are put on the victim and they're inside out and backwards hunt her body.

You know, it's like, yeah, I don't think she did that to herself.

Yeah, it's just speculation at this point in terms of what what actually happened to her, you know.

And this is where like with Diane, you know, vaginal seemen is found, but she's she's fully clothed, and you know, of course, depending on the types of clothes, I don't know if she had jeans on or she had a skirt on, but most certainly you can have vaginal penetration while the clothes are still on, if it's something like you know, underwear and a skirt or a dress.

So the offender is I would need to know more about the clothing in both both instances to try to get a sense for what the offender is doing, how he is sexually assaulting the victims.

Similar cause of death, you know, you have what sounds like manual strangulation.

There isn't a ligature found you haven't mentioned a ligature, and he's beating these victims, both Mary and Diane.

You know about the face.

You know, the bruising to the neck is possibly a result of the manual strangulation, because you do see that.

You know, sometimes the offenders will you know, do an arm bar into the victim's neck and that could possibly cause some bruising.

But it sounds like this is an offender that is likely using his fists to gain compliance.

He's hitting these victims, he's overpowering them, he's beating them in the face, sexually assaulting them, killing them through manual strangulation.

You know.

So there's overlap in terms of the the mo between both Diane and Mary's case.

Well, I wanted to get you the details that you've been asking for about clothing, and the New York State has a data portal on cold cases.

So I took a look and let me tell you first about Diane, because I know you wanted to know about clothing and I have a little bit more information.

So bruises on both eyes, lips, bridge of her nose.

Here's what she was wearing, so black leotard, but they say it's torn.

So I didn't know that she's wearing a mini skirt, black leotard.

They say leotard's I don't know if you if that's plural or not.

I've always said leotard, but black leotard.

That's torn, a mini skirt, a red black else, a tan car coat, and she's wearing white boots and all of this is on her when they find her.

There were marks on her wrist, you know, of course, and then they found restraints, the purses in the car, and the jewelry she was wearing was untouched.

And you know, so, I mean, we've said this is probably not robbery motivated.

I have a little bit more information about Mary Beth.

Also, whenever you want to talk about.

That Diane's case, do they find the shoes she went to the mall for or receipt that she had?

Know is there any information that ind case she actually went into the mall and then made it back to the car, versus being attacked as soon as she drove into the parking lot and was ready to get into the mall or go into the mall.

I don't see that.

But they say that she was murdered.

They think between ten and ten PM and midnight and if she's supposed to be there at seven, Yeah, I don't see that.

I mean I could definitely poke around and try to find that too.

I'm just trying to get a sense for the offender.

Is he somebody that is trolling for victims by wandering around through the mall, you know, and therefore he's being seen by witnesses that are shopping, you know, And sometimes you get that, Oh, there's this guy that just is the strange looking man that's you know, wandering around.

And I saw this man follow this woman out of the you know, the Macy's front door, out to her car.

Versus he is maybe in a vehicle in a dark part of the parking lot, just waiting for a woman to park next to him, and then he pounces on her and attacks her right at that spot.

So it's just trying to get a sense for how he is potentially finding his victims and selecting his victims.

Now, of course, with Diane's clothing, just like what I was somewhat speculating, like with Mary the black leotards in a skirt, he does not need to remove the clothing in order to be able to have a vaginal intercourse.

With with Diane.

So in some ways, you know, that's uh, I don't know if that's his preference.

I have to see, you know, how Mary is dressed.

I guess.

Okay, well, let's talk about Mary.

And this is from that cold case site, which is very helpful.

Okay, ligature strianulation, bruises on the face.

She was wearing hot pants, white hot pants, and a blue jumper suit.

Are you old enough to understand that maybe I'm not shoes in her in her stockings are missing, and her purse is missing, and they cannot determine whether she's been sexually assaulted.

Okay, so they're not they're not finding you know, like obvious sexual assault evidence, like semen evidence, at least with it.

Whatever they did, you know, in all likelihood, of course, there's there's this is a sexually motivated crime.

If she's with these hot pants and the jump suit, I'm envisioning something that the hot you know, she could pull these pants up over, you know, with this jump suit, and it sounds like that in place.

So this is where you know, her socks are off and her shoes are off.

Right now, I would say she's probably redressed.

I don't know, if if she did it herself, she was allowed to redress after some sort of sexual interaction, or if the offender redressed her, which would be interesting.

If the offender is sexually assaulting and then killing these victims and redressing them himself in a way, that's a It's like some offenders after they kill their victim, they'll put a blanket over the victim in order to in essence hide the victim having to look at what they just did, right, and in some ways by redressing these women, if that's what he's doing, this may be in his psychology of trying to hide the fact that he went over the line in his mind of what he psychologically thinks he should be doing with these victims and is now trying to put you know, being in the sense of denial.

You know, I'm redressing them so it doesn't look like there're sexually assaulted.

Well, I'll tell you about Mary.

Mary is as I had said twenty one.

She was a nanny.

She had been missing for five days, and so this is May, but it's also the northeast, so it's going to be probably cooler, and she will be in a creek.

I don't know if that's going to have any impact on discovering scientific sexual assault or not.

But she was coming home from a dance in Hempstead, New York.

And this is about five miles from the creek, just a couple of miles from the creek, and it is on Hempstead Lake in the Rockville center of New York, which I said is five miles from where Diane was, so close together, but four years apart.

And by the way, there's two million people in nineteen seventy, two years earlier, two million people in Long Island.

Yeah, yeah, so I mean this is a large population base, and of course it is.

You know, basically Log Island connects to Manhattan, New York City, so it's a huge population base.

You know, the county that I worked in, Contracosta County, had a population base about one point two million.

So Long Island by itself is almost double the population base of my jurisdiction, my former jurisdiction.

And so this is where this type of crime you can't immediately assume it's done by the same offender, okay, because there are multiple predators in any of these types of population bases operating at the same time.

Well, now we're going to move from Mary, who is the second victim, and that case is not even declared cold yet because there is now a third victim.

And I will say, as you have probably guessed, we're talking about a serial killer here.

This is a woman named Laverne moy and this is happening.

It went from May.

This is June, same year, June twentieth, just a couple of months after, a boy, a little boy finds LaVerne's partially nude body underneath a small bridge that runs over the exact same creek where Mary was.

So Laverne is twenty three, and she's black and the other two victims are white.

So do you want to talk about that first, or do you want to talk about her injuries?

Or where do you want to go from here?

Well, let me just address that straight up.

Is it's a myth that these serial predators will have a specific type of victim, whether it's a certain age, certain race, certain look, and a lot of that I blame the media for because of the coverage of Ted Bundy.

You know, he went after Brunette co Edz.

That's what everybody thinks.

And the reality is is most of these predators have a wide range of demographics in their victims.

And some of this is just due to their finding victims of opportunity and they'll take whoever is fitting in their mindset, somebody that they can victimize.

But many offenders will have a series in which you see victims of different races.

Sometimes you'll see different genders that are being victimized by the same offender.

Sometimes, like what we call crossover offenders, you'll see offenders that are victimizing children and adults, whether it's just sexual assault or it's these are serial killers.

So the fact that Laverne is black and Mary and Diane were white means nothing in terms of this must be a different offender.

You know, this is common, this is typical.

So right now I thought we had a clear image of how you know this offender is coming across as victims, But right now I would say that seems to be wide open.

I do think with Laverne, she is deposited partially nude, and so that seems like there's a little bit of an evolution that might be going on in terms of how you know how much the offender is dealing with the victim's clothing, But he is using the same creek that he did with Mary versus Diane.

And it'll be interesting to see as the series goes, does he seem to continue to do that because he's decided that that's a safer and lower risk body disposal process than the mall parking lot that he did with Diane.

Yeah, let me tell you more information about what happens with Laverne.

So she was a ward clerk in a local hospital.

She was with her grandmother in Queens, so she is ten miles away.

So obviously he is not meeting these people where they live.

He's meeting them in these locations.

I guess she was missing for three days.

Her cause of death, just like Mary and Diane, was strangulation, but it sounds like sexual assault, just like in Mary's case where she was also found in the creek is undetermined.

And you know, they are literally paul steps away from each other where these bodies were found.

And of course now the media has linked these cases and I can tell you about clothing and stuff too.

You know, I think with this line of question that I have right now is you know, I'm trying to figure out how the offender is coming across the victims.

With Diane at the mall.

I'm going to presume that he didn't end up coming across her before she got to the mall.

So he's either laying in wait for the right situation to be able to attack a woman, or he's following Diane out of the mall, he sees her and turns out that her car is in a perfect location for him to be able to pull an attack off.

With Laverne right now, you know, she's maybe getting off work, and of course she's having to walk out to her car.

And again it's somewhat similar.

Is he lying in wait by her car?

Is he just in this parking lot for one reason?

Is he inside the you know, the hospital ward for legit purposes, or for whatever reason he's decided that's place to be able to troll for victims.

With Mary, that's still unclear in terms of, you know, how what her last activity was before you know the offender would have run across her.

Do you want to talk about clothing.

Yeah, let's hear more about Laverne.

She was wearing a black blouse and high black leather boots.

She was nude from the waist down.

She had eight pieces of costume jewelry, including three silver wire bracelets, a silver watch, a yellow metal ring, a gold ring with a lavender stone, and a silver wire type expansion ring and they were all there.

So she had all of this stuff, but she was wearing a blouse and high black leather boots and nothing else.

Okay, And we don't have witnesses who last oliver and to describe her lower garments, like she had pants on or did she have a skirt or anything like that.

Not that I know of.

Now, you know, these high boots, this type of footwear doesn't sound like something that pants would be able to be slid over if she had been wearing pants.

Sounds like for the pants to come off, either the boots came off, pants underwear came off and then the boots were put back on, or were the pants cut off offenders will cut clothing off, or she had clothing that could easily be pulled off.

Yeah, you know, and the boots didn't have to come off.

Now they're not finding evidence of sexual assault, but this is obviously a sexually motivated crime.

And you know, again, I don't know how thoroughly they're looking for evidence of sexual assault, because you can definitely have you know, back in the early seventies.

You know, they weren't necessarily processing the victim's body very very thoroughly for physical evidence like that.

But also some offenders can't get it up even though it's a sexually motivated crime, so they don't leave any physical you know, physical evidence, DNA evidence.

Today behind outside Diane, we have vaginal semen, so we know he you know what in California we would call a rape.

But it's a definitely all three are these are sexually motivated crimes.

This is a serial killer, yes, And.

We have to continue on with his next victim.

So we are still on Long Island.

And this is about a year later, a year after Laverne.

July twentieth, nineteen seventy three, and this is a woman named Hyman.

She is thirty three years old.

She is found in her home which is north Woodmere, New York.

It's about five miles from Rockville Center, which is where Mary and Laverne were found in the Creek, Okay, and just a couple of miles from the green Acre's Mall and Valley stream.

And then I can tell you the details of what was supposed to happen.

You know, last time people saw her or I can tell you the details of what happened.

I mean, I can tell you.

It's unfortunately a little rinse repeat here.

You know, that's one of the reasons why they're saying this has got to be a serial killer that's connected.

Yeah, well, yeah, tell me where is Sheila inside the house?

She fully closed?

How was she killed?

So she and her husband have three sons.

They were all away, thankfully, at summer camp earlier.

In that morning of July twentieth, her husband left the house to go to a department store to get some toys, and Sheila was home alone.

So he's gone early in the morning.

He comes back at one thirty, and he finds her bludgeon to death in their primary bathroom.

She has been, according to the autopsy, struck in the head fifteen times with a blunt object that has never been recovered.

The New York Times reported in seventy three that the police said the bathroom was covered in so much blood that it was several hours before they could be certain that she had been beaten rather than an accidental fall.

There was blood all over the place.

And then I have details about the house and locks and all that kind of stuff.

So what do you think so far in the house this is different.

Yeah, no, it's definitely different.

And you know, again this is scene where we see offenders attack victims outside as well as entering houses, and it's all the same offender.

So again, just because it's different doesn't indicate it's a different offender.

The bludgeoning with all the blood in the bathroom struck fifteen times probably, you know, you've got blood spatter that's going to be a result of you know, blows from this weapon whatever it is, into the pooled blood sources on her head.

You have bleeding out onto the floor.

You know, a lot of the blood inside this bathroom may have flowed out of her body after the offender left.

You know, it's a misconception that this offender would have had to walk out of his house with a ton of blood on him.

No, you know, he definitely is escalating for the first three.

You know, he's beating these women on the head, in the face.

Now he's using a weapon to a point where now you have significant injuries to the head, much more so than what we're seeing with the previous three.

So this is something that he's stepping up on.

And you know, typically this type of bludgeoning.

This is where the offender is.

This is what I would characterize sort of your anger retaliatory offender.

He is angry at something in his life and he's taken out taken that anger out on his victims by proxy, and so now something there's a reason why he's stepping up this part of his attack.

Do you feel like he is accelerating.

I mean, he's gone from an isolated parking lot to an isolated creek.

But then just a few months later, another victim in the almost exact same spot.

And now he's entering somebody's house.

And I wanted to clarify the husband left at eleven am and he came home at one point thirty.

So this is not a large window.

I know you can do a lot, but for a stranger to come in.

She's wearing a night gown and the lacerations are just, to be very specific, her skull.

She had a fractured jaw and a lacerated jugular vein.

I didn't know you can do that with a blunt object.

I think with a significant enough blow to the neck, you know, And this is where he's using a weapon, and you know it's a weapon.

That he's able to put a fair amount of force into you know, so you know if you strike the neck and may not purposely be aiming for the neck, it's just you know, she's struggling, she's fighting, and he's you know, bringing down the weapon and may have caught her in the neck with a pretty significant blow.

But in terms of accelerating, what is seen in a series oftentimes is you'll see clusters and then the offender doesn't commit a crime for a longer stretch and then maybe does one two or does another cluster.

And this may be how his personal life is impacting his either his ability to go out and troll for victims and kill victims, or he has stressors that have happened and now he has an internal psychology in which he needs to go out and has a compulsion to go out and commit these types of crimes.

And then once you know that stress or relaxes in his mind, then you may see him retreat from committing attacks.

So it's kind of hard to say why the offender is doing crimes.

More frequently, we have the four year gap from Diane to Mary's case that we know of, and then now we have cases that are happening on a more frequent basis.

We don't know why, you know, at this point, but it does appear that at least with the bludgeoning of Sheila and the amount of damage he's doing to her skull, her face, her neck, he's amping up on that violence that for whatever reason.

Now, the police say that the house was locked up, no signs of forced entry, no open windows, no valuables taken.

I know that we've talked about the power of a weapon or a gun pointed at you and then you forced inside and the doors locked behind you, you know, after the person leaves.

But you know, that was that was part of what they thought was strange.

They looked at the husband, they cleared him eventually, and then the case goes cold.

Yeah, and I would just be looking if I'm the CSI and this house is completely locked up.

It's like, is it possible for the offender to have been able to lock the house up himself and leave, you know, through a door and the door locks behind him because the way the locking mechanism works.

Did he steal the victim's keys, you know and lock the door behind That's you know, that's just part of what's going on.

Here, or is this an offender that you know, Let's say he's a very accomplished burglar, is able to get inside the house and was inside the house when the husband was there, and once the husband leaves, now the offender attacks again, goes is able to lock up the house and make it look like nothing's awry until the husband finds Sheila's body.

Okay, I said it went cold, and that case went cold.

So now we're going to a couple of months after Sheila was murdered in July of seventy three.

Now we're in December of seventy three, and this victim is an eighteen year old named Maria s Marita Rosata Nievez, and she's found in an overgrown part of Jones Beach, not far from a bus stop.

This is about twenty minutes from Sheila's house, twenty minutes from the green Acre's Mall, twelve miles from the Rockville Center.

You know, it's all on Long Island, so everything is on Long Island.

Sure, I don't have a picture of that scene, unfortunately, but they said it's very overgrown.

She was discovered by workers who were trying to prune a tree.

She was wrapped in a blanket and covered with plastic bags, so her hands were tied behind her knees.

Her neck had a ligature mark on it.

She had been strangled.

No word on sexual assault, and there's not a lot of information on Maria.

She came from Puerto Rico.

This is significant.

You know she's wrapped in a blanket and plastic, so she's been packaged for transport.

Obviously this is a body dump location.

And where is the offender at to have access to this blanket and plastic?

Is it possible he took Maria back to his house?

Is it possible that he brought this blanket and plastic with him because he knew he was going to go out and find a victim.

Why is she being wrapped this way?

Does she have bleeding injuries?

Is he trying to prevent her blood from being in his car?

It's by a bus stop.

Also, buses are so sporadic and periodic in terms of their schedule.

I'm not sure the offender is choosing that location because of the bus stop.

May not have even known that the bus stop was necessarily that may not have been a feature that he even paid attention to.

I guess is what I'm trying to say, he just found a location where there's he was confident that he would be able to park, pull Maria's body out, dump it, you know, if he hid the body or whatever, get in the car and drive off and had you know, confidence that there would be no witnesses.

Now, she lived in Manhattan, so I wonder if she took a bus in and he I saw her at this bus stop, and I can tell you about the clothing that she was wearing, and I can tell you that she had defensive knife wounds on her hands.

See, I would argue that he's not seeing her at the bus stop, okay, because of the packaging, you know, the blanket and the plastic.

You know, he's transported her body after he killed her to that location.

It's just that where has he taken her.

I've got a series where I'm confident that one of the victims I'm going to use a geographic profiling term, was taken back to the one of the offender's anchor points, whether it be his residence, a place of work after hours where there's no other employees, you know, and then after killing the victim, you know, in this particular case, he bleached the victim's body down, and actually it appears that he packaged her up and dumped her at a different location.

We have soil on her body that's not from the location her body was dumped, so we know he took her to a different location prior to dumping her body where she was found.

I would say that this is what's going on with Maria.

It's just that where is he taking her.

She had a boyfriend and roommates in New York.

They don't even have a photo over aside from the one that was taken at her death and at the crime scene.

You know, they don't have a photo if you go searching for it.

They found a light cord, like maybe an electric cord or a thin cord you know, that bound her wrists behind her knees.

She was wearing a white braw and light blue denim jeans, but no blouse, no shoes, or no stockings.

Sounds like the thin cord it's binding her her wrists but also to her knees.

In other words, this cord is part of the packaging of her body, trying to keep her more compact, to be more easily moved, versus a floppy body that's dead weight that does This is just a packaging.

It's not necessarily binding.

Of the risks in this case may not be to control her.

She's wearing a white bra, no blouse, liked blue jeans, but no shoes and socks.

Yep.

Yeah, so this is where I go back to.

I think those jeans were possibly put back on her.

This may be an offender that is redressing his victims.

And we've talked about that, but I'm not sure we've ever really we've never had multiple victims where that's happened.

We've talked about how that's happened.

So this case goes cold with Maria, as it does with all the other cases, and Maria is the fifth one in this series.

Now we are actually going to leave Long Island and we're going to a totally different state.

We're going to New Jersey where we have another victim.

So this is in seventy seven, So Maria happened in seventy three, four years later, probably a little less than four years later.

And then it's a twenty six year old woman named Marianne Carr.

She is an X ray technician.

She goes missing from her apartment complex while her husband is away on business.

Her body is going to be discovered in the parking lot of equality in motel and has Brook Heights, which is Bergen County, New Jersey, and it's very close to her apartment.

She's wearing all of her clothes, but her shoes are missing.

She has ligature marks on her hands and her feet, and they say there is also that adhesive residue around her mouth that is the same kind that was found in the very first victim from years ago, Diane Kusick in New Jersey too.

Yeah, but you know, people move around.

Now, we're talking about a four year gap in time.

You of course, one of the questions is has the offender relocated, maybe he got a job out there, changed residents, or is he purposely driving out there maybe to start reoffending and doesn't want this case linked to the other cases on Long Island.

Don't know.

At this point, she's got all her clothes on except her shoes are missing.

We see a trend here.

Frequently I'm seeing victims when their bodies are dumped where they're missing one or both shoes, as I mentioned before, And that's just sort of a practical aspect of you know, when the offender's dumping the body.

You know, sometimes he's not taking the time to clean out his vehicle of everything that's in there, and then as he's driving away, he goes, oh, her shoes are right here and starts throwing them out.

But it's in this case it seems like there is a trend with the shoes that right now can't draw conclusion.

You know, does he have some sort of weird fetish, you know, like a foot fetish, like a Jerry Brutos and that's why he's exposing these women's feet.

Is he keeping shoes as souvenirs?

Which I wouldn't put it outside the realm of possibility.

It's just that that could be, you know, easily found if law enforcement got onto him, or it may be a side effect of the redressing aspect, if that's what he is doing and he's just not taking the time to put shoes back on.

It's interesting that she had binding marks on both wrists and ankles, and yet she's found very near to where her apartment complex is.

And she also had adhesive indicating that, you know, a tape had been applied to her, but it's been removed, so the binding material and the tape have been removed.

I think she's been taken to a location, probably sexually assaulted and or killed there, and then is transported back in this state and dumped in this motel parking lot.

You know.

So he's willing to move these victims around in his vehicle.

He's using a vehicle, and he's taken them to a secondary location, whether it be his residents, place of work, someplace where he can interact with the victims.

So it's interesting.

Okay, let me tell you a little bit more, just some of kind of my own research here about the details from that night.

There is a retired chief of police named Alan Grico, and he says a resident of the building informed us that at approximately seven forty five pm she heard the scream of a female coming from the direction of Marianne's apartment and the words being uttered, I will, I will, And then she was found the next morning, still wearing her uniform.

Remember she was an X ray technician.

Her body had been beaten and lying against a fence in that quality in parking lot.

She had been strangled and the police say likely by her necklace, and of course there's the ankle on the wrists that had ligature marks on him.

So in this case, it sounds like Marianne.

She gets off work and she's going home to her apartment and is attacked as she's entering her apartment and she's in her uniform.

The offender is pulling her back to his vehicle on where is that vehicle at?

Is that actually in the apartment complex parking lot or did he park it around the side.

But he is abducting her and taking her to a different location, and that's where he is now attacking her and then eventually has her fully bound up, has adhesive apply to her, and it sounds like the adhesive is over her mouth like in Diane's case.

And of course that's being used as a gig, you know.

So he's concerned about her screaming, you know, so he's trying to prevent that from happening.

He may be putting this binding in, this adhesive on her once he gets her to his vehicle, so he's trying to keep her under both physical control as well as audio control, if that's even a thing term.

But he's taking her to a different location where no question, this is a sexually motivated crime.

I don't know if they found any you know, physical evidence of sexual assault, but obviously sexually motivated crime, strangles her and then dumps her near where he abducted her from.

He's comfortable moving these victims around in his vehicle.

Okay, now we're at victim number seven.

This is three years later, so this is nineteen eighty.

The victim is a nineteen year old sex worker.

Her name is Valerie Ann Street.

She is found murdered in New Jersey, and in fact, at the very same quality inn where Mary Anne was murdered.

Okay, except Valerie is in one of the rooms and she's hiden under a bed in one of the rooms inside, versus Mary Anne, who was in the parking lot.

She had been handcuffed, strangled with some type of literature.

She was covered in bite and knife marks and had similar adhesive marks around her mouth.

So, just because of her victimology being a sex worker, you know, one of the questions about this motel is this a motel that was used by sex workers to take their customers too.

Do they have agreements with the lobby clerk, you know, taking money, you know, over the counter to take a customer into the room.

And of course, do we have witnesses seeing Valerie with a man entering the motel, et cetera.

You know, there's there's obviously a lot of investigative questions about Valerie's body being found inside the motel room.

It's interesting that she's hidden under the bed, you know, is this just to further delay discovery of the body, to allow the offender to get distance away from the location.

The use of handcuffs, this is another type of restraint, you know, it's just like binding.

He's just trying to keep her under control.

It may have significance to the offender, it may not, however, her body being covered in bite marks and knife wounds, not stab wounds, but in essence, a knife has been used to poke on the victim's body.

Is that the way you're reading that?

Yeah?

I think the way that I was reading that was that it was torture.

That's the insinuation he was torturing her.

Well, and this is where there has to be an expert, and this isn't necessarily a pathologist, but this is a behavioral expert to assess these wounds.

You rely on the pathologist's findings, But is it torture?

If it is, then you're dealing with a sexual satis.

This guy is definitely amping up and he is getting sexual gratification from the torture aspect of a living victim.

You know, and the valeries last moments were horrific.

But there is a behavioral aspect called pickeerism that some offenders do, and they will in some instances cover the victim's body with all sorts of very superficial let's say, little stab wounds, whether it be from a knife or a screwdriver, And the behavioralists will say this is in some ways, this is penile substitution.

He's penetrating into the victim's body over and over again with this weapon.

It is it is a paraphilia and this is definitely a fantasy motivated offender.

He's evolving, There's no question about that.

Now.

It's just you know, with Valerie.

You know, where was Valerie working as a sex worker?

Was she on a stroll area?

Is he going into that stroll area?

I will tell you if she's in a stroll area, that tells me that he's likely a customer of sex workers and he's comfortable in that culture.

But let's say she's more of the escort service type and she drives or is dropped off at this this motel to meet up with a customer, you know, so I need to know more in terms of Valerie's last you know, where she was last seen.

And she also has adhesive.

He's a residue around her mouth, you know.

And again that's that gig he you know, it's something that he is trying to prevent her from being able to cry out, you know.

And is that while he's torturing her, is that part of maybe an abduction?

You know?

Is it possible that he could have abducted her from some location and she is not voluntarily going into this motel he has to carry her in or drag her in.

Is there a way that he could have done that where people wouldn't have seen him do that, like a back door for example, into the you know, the hallway.

Well, police are figuring out some things, and this is what we find out about Valerie.

Valerie checked into the room one three two at this quality In under an assumed name.

She checked in with the client with a man going there willingly.

They could not identify the man.

I would assume that this quality In had been used knowingly, you know, as a place where sex workers would take clients, So they think that she was gagged with that adhesive tape.

And I had said this to you before, numerous minor knife incisions on her breast.

We don't know a lot about, you know, where they might have met, but it sounds like this was a this is where the crime happened, and this was where she was left.

Right, Yeah, no, for sure, for sure, this is a misstep by the offender.

If he is seen with his victim, you know, that's high risk for him to go in there.

Why is he willing to put himself in that high risk scenario?

And I go back to I think he has comfort with this motel.

You know, he wasn't ever identified, but has he been there before as a customer, maybe with other sex workers.

He knows that workers at this motel are going to keep their mouths shut because this is a routine thing.

They're probably making a decent amount of money on the side under the table, you know, for the sex workers to bring their customers into this motel.

We are going to have to wrap up the first part of this two parter here we have more victims and we have a couple of new locations moving forward.

I know you're going to be thinking about this case for the whole week.

You get to think about it.

You're doing this is I mean, I think probably the deepest profile we've ever talked about, where you're really trying to home in on this and I'll tell you that we will have a solution to this, which is good.

Because if this was an unsolved series, I'm saying, sick me on it.

It's like, Okay, I want to roll up my sleeves and go after this guy.

Well, I think you'll be interested in finding out what ends up happening with this case, but you'll have to find out in a week.

All right, But I understand, so I anxiously await the next case on this series.

Okay, I'll see in a week.

Sounds good, Kate.

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 Emrosi.

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 Baried Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts