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 Paul, Hey Kate, how are you.

I'm doing well.

I have these beautiful little baby birds and I think I told did I tell you about them?

These little birds that I have a gardening hat on my porch and a house.

Wren decided to go ahead and make a little home there for her four little babies.

I have never been that close because they're on the other side of the glass from us, so the kids can see it and everything.

It's super cute.

And my mom is really into birding.

She's not the burder like she goes on and you should go out on a track and note things and stuff.

But we you know, my old house has a beautiful backyard and they love sitting back there, and my folks like to watch the birds and everything.

So what that made me think was, was there anything that you picked up from either of your parents, just as like a not a hobby maybe, but I don't know, just something that just carries over into your adulthood and maybe you've kind of passed on.

To your kids, you know.

I would say that the one thing that comes to mind is when I was really young, like my dad was stationed at Hill Air Force Base and he had an old rusty weight set that was at this like duplex house that was on base, and I remember him working out there and then moving that set to the basement when we were in Clinton, Maryland and my dad was stationed downtown d C.

And you know, just seeing him work out was something that I just glonbed onto.

And so starting at like age twelve, I started lifting weights, you know, and that's just kind of has stuck with me.

That's become just you know, part of my lifestyle.

Now, your dad's not still working out, I assume, no.

You know, he's he's had his health issues.

You know, he's in his later seventies now and he had a stroke a few years ago that's caused him some physical disabilities and he's trying to try to get back from you know that aspect.

But he was, you know, up until his later years, he was always involved with some sort of weight training or resistance training.

And now he's you know, having to resort to a different type of workout that helps with his mobility and stuff.

Okay, so the weightlifting senior dad getting into shape was a big inspiration.

And you have kids, You've got what four kids?

Is that right?

Yeah?

I have four kids.

Are they working out?

I think they're in sports too?

Well, maybe they were.

So.

My two older kids were more involved in the athletics aspect, you know, the sports.

And my oldest, my daughter, who you know, grew up sort of like a tomboy type of personality, she really glommed onto the working out.

My two younger kids have both slowly embraced working out.

You know, it's we were concerned that they weren't getting involved in sports.

They weren't very active.

But my son that's in college, he's routinely working out and he's you know, got his own self motivation to keep going, you know.

And my daughter is off and on.

She's heavy involved with, you know, the musical side, but she's starting to get back into some sort of working out.

Okay, the kids are kind of picking up a little bit of the bird stuff.

Hopefully I give them good habits and not bad habits.

We'll see them.

Well, I mean, that was just such a I guess you'd just say, it's almost like a privilege that the bird built a nest right there to where you can watch, you know, the young ones feed and sleep and eat and all of that.

You know, I've had I've had nests over time that i'd be able to peek in on the hatchlings and stuff, but I haven't had one built on the other side of a window.

Well, I cleaned it out after I was assured they all left, because I couldn't see all of them.

And I just thought, oh my gosh, what if I look at this, I'm sure they're gone, And what if I look at this nest and somebody didn't make it.

But it was clean as a whistle.

And you know, I had read that there are not very many species of birds so they're not many birds who returned to a nest, and so I cleaned it out.

I hosed out the hat.

I've now lost the hat.

It's never gonna I've I've abandoned this hat, and any bird that wants to continue to nest there will do it.

So this hat is just a permanent fixture out there in your garden area.

It is.

It's right by the window and now, and the dogs ignore them.

So we'll see, we'll see how it goes.

But speaking of my childhood, we're going to the seventies for this case.

Well, so you were alive in the seventies as.

I was watched, buddy, I was.

I was alive.

I was born in seventy four, and this is in nineteen seventy eight, so I was a young four year old in this when this case happens.

Well, how old were you you were?

It's seventy eight.

I would have been ten.

You seem so much more mature than me.

I think sometimes that's why I'm.

I don't know if that's the case, but.

I have more wrinkles than you do.

So I'm not going to say you look all older than me, because you really don't.

Oh, come on.

But we're going to go to the seventies and we're going to Arizona and Scottsdale, and this is a very big case.

So it's a two parter for us.

You know, with two parters, some people don't like them because they want to hear everything all at once and don't want to wait a week.

But some of these cases, I mean, we would go on for four hours for one episode.

I feel like, if you know, if we didn't do them as two parters, and we cut a lot already out of our stuff.

So that's why we've got this epic two parter in a really interesting case.

And I think this is right up your hour ally, so you're gonna like it.

All right, Well, I'm looking forward to it.

Okay, Well, let's set the scene nineteen seventies.

We have a lot of photos.

You noticed when I emailed you there's actually two documents worth of photos.

I thought you'd be happy about that.

I've got scene photos and then I've got some autopsy photos and when we get to those, we'll talk about that.

You know, I have seen them floating all over the internet, some of these different photos, and I am just very aware of putting photos that I think are way too graphic on our posts, so I'll be a little bit more conservative.

But for people who are going to be interested in this case, you could certainly hop online and Google and see these, but you're gonna like them, I think, okay.

Late June nineteen seventy eight in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Love Scottsdale.

One of my good friends is from there, and I used to go over there for passover to be with her, and it's so beautiful.

I've never been into deserts.

I always like the ocean.

I'm just I don't know, just the vastness of a desert.

It might scare me, even though there's a vastness of the ocean.

You like deserts or I know you're a mountain guy, but do you enjoy deserts?

No, I'm not into the desert, you know.

I don't find it very visually appealing.

And the heat, you know, kills me.

Oh.

No, I've been to Scottsdale, you know.

I've been to several conferences early on in my career, or where we stayed at I don't remember the names of the resorts, but you know they were resort hotels and those very nice, you know, and the scenery with I think it's called the camel Mountain or Camelback, something that's somewhat humped, you know, this small little hill relative to what I have here in Colorado.

But you know, it was somewhat neat to be there.

But there's just no way I could deal with the heat.

Oh yeah, and I'm talking about Texas.

I'm from Texas.

The Heaton, Arizona was rough.

Okay, well so in seventy eight, as I think it is now.

Scott Sale is a wealthy suburb of Phoenix, and you know, it's a really it's like the sort of oasis of luxury in the Sonoran Desert.

A lots of tourists, lots of snowbirds.

It's also very hot, and we'll see if that comes into play with this case.

So on June twenty ninth, the temperatures have climbed all the way up to one hundred degrees by noon, which that happens here.

And I know people say it's a dry, but it's man, it's hot, hot, Hot.

Entertainment Weekly said.

Well healed residents took refuge in their heavily air conditioned villas, leaving the wide streets as empty as any Southwest ghost town.

There you go.

That's a description.

So it's hot, everybody's inside.

Okay, so I'm going to introduce our first person here.

Her name is Victoria Barry.

She's twenty eight and she is an actress.

She's got a couple of you know, credits under her belt.

She was a go go dancer and start Sky and Hutch never saw that show, did you ever see it?

Yeah?

It's a cop show, right.

You know.

I remember watching Starski and I think you're right.

I think they were cops.

You know, the actors stand out in my head.

I don't remember much about that show.

Now, what was the other one?

Oh, the Dukes of Hazzard is the one that comes to mind him.

Hmmm, yeah, which doesn't age well, the Dukes of Hazzard.

But when I was a kid, I played.

We played in my neighbor I played Luke Duke.

I didn't want to play Daisy Duke.

I played Luke Duke and uh yeah, I love that.

But this is the only thing you need to know is that Victoria had kind of a bit rule.

Okay, so she was a go go dancer, you know.

So she's a small time actress.

While she's waiting for her big break, she is making a living by acting on the dinner theater circuit to pay the bills.

I've never been to a dinner theater I don't think before.

But there's a show running called Beginner's Luck in Scottsdale and it's a part of a bigger tour.

So she's there and the theater company has put you know, everybody up in different places.

Mostly it's sort of these short term apartments because they're going to be there obviously quite a while.

She's supposed to spend time with a co actor of her she's much more famous.

She gets to the Winfield apartments in Scottsdale on this day, June twenty ninth, and they're supposed to do a voiceover record track that it's going to be used in the show.

So you know, we've got an actor.

And I will just be straightforward.

It is not Victoria who is the victim here, It is the actor.

So now think nineteen seventies actor ends up dead.

I know which cases is.

Well, it's smarty.

You want me to say who the actor is?

I do because I'm getting ready to say it.

If you don't, oh, this is Bob Crean?

You got it?

Yeah?

Did you read much about this case?

I know of the case, you know, general circumstances.

You know.

I remember, you know, another show that probably hasn't aged very well, Hogan's Heroes, and he was, you know, kind of the lead actor in that, and so that's how I knew of him.

And then I just remember, you know, when I got into my career, at one point I found out that he had been a victim, and I was like, what happened?

You know?

And I've actually talked to some production companies and said, you know, I'd love to dig into some of these higher profile cold cases.

Yeah, you know, such as Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, Bob Crane.

You know that.

That's because I want to see the official information that law enforcement has and see if I agree with their conclusions or if there's something more that can be done in each of these cases.

And so far nothing has bit but Bob Crane is one of those cases.

Yeah, I'd love to know more about it.

Got it.

You're about to learn a lot more about it in two different parts.

That's why when I saw my prep document from Mare and I said, oh, yeah, this is going to be two parts.

This is a big deal, and not because he was a star.

So Victoria and Bob are co stars.

He's of course much bigger than she is as a star and she arrives to his apartment.

So let's just talk about Bob Crane real quick.

As you said, he was the star of the hit series Hogan's Heroes, which is set in a German pow camp during World War Two.

Yes, probably doesn't age.

Well, I'm assuming you're right, right, but I've never seen one thing.

I know, the very famous headshot of him, you know, wearing the uniform, and he's very handsome and he has this really great smile on his face, but that's it.

I don't know.

I didn't even know it was set in Germany until I got ready to look at the case.

Yeah, and you know, you have sort of this ragtag group of POWs at the Germans that the Nazis have imprisoned at this camp, and so there's a lot of interaction between these POWs and the Nazi characters that are running.

You know, I remember this like Colonel Clink, you know.

Okay, now I know that name.

I got it.

And in terms of aging, well, it's been so long since I've seen it.

In terms of how it would portray you know, various you know, sensitivities, I don't know.

I do remember as a kid, I enjoyed the show, and of course Bob Crane his character was always sort of like one step ahead of the Germans that were, in essence trying to keep him down.

Yes, and I assume that any comedy set in a Nazi camp is probably going to age poorly, but you know, listeners might prove me wrong.

I don't know.

But this was obviously, this was a huge show, and this was really his main thing.

That's what he was known for.

Go ahead and open your documents.

I had asked you via email, please don't look at them, and then if I unfortunately had put the name of our victim on one of them.

So that's why I was glad that you are so busy that you couldn't even open my email.

So there's two documents.

One is called scene photos and one is called Bob Crane photos.

So look at that, just to remind you.

He's so handsome.

That's how I remember him in every headshot I've ever seen of Hogan's heroes.

Yep, I mean that's just like yesterday watching him on the show.

So no, for sure, the show went off the air in the early seventies, he just didn't really recover from that.

He never had a big hit after that.

And now he's doing this sort of odd dinner theater off Broadway type stuff.

So it doesn't mean that he's gone downhill necessarily, but his career is not doing particularly well.

So he has done this dinner theater and where a lot of people recognize his name, and he turns out to be a big draw, which is why I think Victoria is happy to be a co star in this.

So the relationship, just to get it out of the way, between Victoria and Bob is interesting and odd.

So she at one point described it as sort of a brother's sister relationship maybe mentor mentee, But she also slept with him a couple of times.

Okay, and he's married, unhappily, it sounds like, but for reasons you will hear about in a little bit.

But he's married, and so she's the one that shows up at his door.

And I know that you can guess on the other side of the door is some really bad things that happened to Bob Crane.

Sure, now is Bob Crane and living in Scottsdale and his wife is also in town.

He's from La Okay, she is in La.

He's in this sort of rundown apartment in Scottsdale, just doing this dinner theater.

I'm not sure how long the run is, but long enough for them to put him in an apartment.

So I don't think the wife is around necessarily.

But you know, their marriage is not a great marriage, Like I said, we'll talk about that in a little bit.

Sure, So Victoria knocks on his door on June twenty ninth.

He doesn't answer.

She says the door is unlocked.

So this is part of the victimology stuff.

Everybody said he was very security conscious and that this would not have been right.

And she also notices that nobody's broken the lock, but the door is open.

Now, is this a good time for you to look at the exterior?

I have a photo on that next page, page two of the Bob Crane photos.

After his photo, it shows you the apartment.

I don't know how helpful it is, but there's this security door on the front of the apartment door.

It looks like maybe not, I don't know.

Yeah, you know this apartment, I mean, this is just like some little flat roofed, single story, looks very tiny type of apartment.

There are windows on either side that appeer closed, and then the front door to this apartment.

Yeah, it's got that security screen on it, you know, so that's a you know, that's an effective barrier.

Nobody's going to be kicking in that security screen.

Assuming that you know, Crane is dead inside and the front door is unlocked, you know, it seems like it's possible that and with Crane's victimology of being security conscious, would he be inside and leave that front door unlocked.

Was he expecting somebody somebody was able to walk right in or did he let somebody in and you know, after the crime, then that person probably leaves through this front door and doesn't have a key to lock things up.

I've asked you this before because I think you're gonna know.

Victoria says, oh shit, and she goes into the into the apartment.

Should she have called the police or the apartment manager or what do you what would you do?

Because if she doesn't go in, if he's alive, he could die in that time period waiting for the police or somebody else.

You know, I think, you know, it's it's hard to say what she should do because what is what is she thinking as she's standing outside?

What is she observing?

Is there anything that's really off putting, you know, versus huh, I wonder what Bob's up to.

He's left the door open immediately, you know, there's that sense of that intrusion, that intruder.

You know that that is a dangerous situation.

Yeah.

With Victoria, you know, she's seeing anything that's you know, from outside that is suggesting that there's something bad inside, or it's just like, you know, Bob just forgot to lock the door this time.

Well, she's normous, and so she lets herself in and she scans around the apartments on a big apartment.

She is looking for Bob.

She doesn't find anything until she goes to his bedroom and then she finds this what's described as a bloody nightmarish scene with Bob Crane, who is covered in blood and laying in bed.

Let me describe what she says, and then you need to look at the separate document, which is called scene photos.

She says, at first, I thought it was a girl with long, dark hair because all the blood had turned real dark.

The whole wall was covered from one end to the other with blood, and I just sort of stood there and I was numb.

He was curled up in a fetus position on his side, and he had a cord tied around his neck in a bow.

And the reason I wanted to read the description first is because sometimes you and I talk about well, they say blood's everywhere, What does that really mean?

They say the cord was tight or in a bow?

What does that mean?

Now you actually have the first witness on the scene who knows him, walks in, gives the media or the police a description.

But we have the photos, so it'll be interesting to see the contrast between what she thinks she saw or remembers in what actually we have a lot of photos.

Yeah, so I've opened up the document of seeing photos.

So I'm seeing Bob Crane laying on his bed.

He's on his right side.

There's a pillow that's somewhat behind his head, and then the oomed in photos.

You know, I'm seeing the blood pool underneath his head as well as the blood flows that are coming from under his you know, from where his hair's at.

So there's probably significant wounds like lacerations from blows, which now I see in the last photo he's got at least two linear lacerations that have split the scalp.

These would bleed tremendously, and that very well could be the source of the blood flows on his face.

And everything that I'm seeing with the blood flows are consistent with the position pretty much as found.

You know, it's not showing that there's a lot of movement after he's received these bleeding injuries, and the blood flows are shifting as he's moving.

So in all likelihood, he was in this position when at least those two blows were inflicted.

Now, when you say that there's blood all over the place, okay.

I don't see that, do you.

I don't see it on the walls.

I mean, well, I can see, you know, the one photo that's an overall photo that shows him laying on the bed and shows the wall behind him, you know, towards the wall that's towards the head of the bed.

I am seeing what is likely blood spatter.

And so that's you know, maybe to the inexperienced person who's not used to seeing, you know, a homicie, i'd seen that may be very overwhelming to see a fair amount of blood spatter that is up on the wall.

But it's not like this room like there's just been this huge battle between two combatants that are bleeding and there's blood smears and furniture overturned.

No, you know, this appears that it's very akin to possibly you know, he was asleep and somebody came in and bludging him and there's no fight whatsoever.

And the blood that Victoria is seeing is spatter which comes from the blows to his head.

So when we start talking, you know blood patterns.

Blood spatter occurs when there's a pooled blood source.

So imagine if you have let's say a puddle, right and you stomp in that puddle.

Now you can get spatter with Bob Crane's head.

He's going to have to have received a blow that would cause blood to pull in a wound, so that first blow does not create spatter, but now that he's bleeding, the second blow and the third blow potentially could produce the spatter that I somewhat seeing on the wall behind him.

The pellow behind him is interesting.

There's a very large blood stain on that pillow.

That pellow's been moved by the time this photo was taken, and let me just look at other photos just to see if it shows the pellow in a different position.

So that very large blood stain on the pillow suggests that it was closer and possibly had been up against his head or his head had been on it at one point after he bled.

I would need to see more in terms of his injuries and the blood patterns to determine what the final resting position of that pellow was when the offender left the crime scene.

But in essence, you know he's received at least, you know, several blows.

I'm seeing, you know, hemorrhaging to his left eye.

That suggests that, you know, he's got skull fracture, he's got you know, cerebral hemorrhaging occurring.

You know it's possible orbital fractures.

And so now you see the you know, the extent.

Obviously this is a fatal bludgeting.

I don't know how many blows at this point or what the weapon is.

There is a photo of what appears to be two linear blood deposits.

I believe that's on top of the yeah, that's on the bed, that's on the edge of the bed with a ruler suggesting that these linear blood deposits are roughly one is roughly eight inches long, the other is possibly twelve inches long.

The shape of this linear shape possibly could be from the weapon.

Let's say the weapon is something akin to a baseball bat or a wood doal, and after inflicting the blows, the blood being transferred onto the weapon, it was placed on this bed sheet maybe twice.

This linear blood pattern is too indistinct to draw any conclusion as to well, what is the weapon if that's even from the weapon, But right now that would be my initial assessment.

Okay, let's talk about the cord, because what they determine is this is an electrical cord that was yanked from a VCR.

Bob had a lot of recording equipment throughout you know, his house in la but also you know, at this place in Scottsdale, and it's been tied around his neck.

First, I guess, let's talk about the bow that she's talking about.

It's on the back of his neck or the side of his neck.

Just what does that whole the cord tell you about any of it?

Because they determine that he's got two blows on the side of the head.

They have an idea of what the object was, but they also say, of course you know their strangulation.

Yes, And so I am looking at the close up photo of the electrical cord.

It's showing Crane's left ear with the blood flows, and then this electrical cord which it's tied from behind, you know, from the backside of his neck.

Now I don't in this photo.

I don't see anything that I would call a bow.

This right here is a simple half hitch.

Basically, you know, when you first start tying your shoe and you cross the two laces.

That's a half hitch.

That's all I'm seeing in this photo.

Now, maybe there's more of the knot that is deeper in the kind of embedded into the tissue of his neck that I can't see from here, but right now it looks like it's just a half hitch and it's been tied tight.

The interesting thing that I'm seeing about this is that if you look at the blood flows coming, you know, past his left ear, and those blood flows are running underneath that cord.

This is where at the scene I would be looking at that cord, because it appears that if that chord is laying down on the side of his face where those blood flows are flowing, so it's resting on his skin.

Those blood flows are uninterrupted.

That indicates those blood flows occurred before that cord was possibly applied.

That's sequencing information.

So he was beaten first.

Okay, at least with what I can see.

That is my what I am interpreting, And I'm having to make a certain assumption because I don't have a photo that's showing how that cord is actually resting on his skin or not.

But this appears from a sequence standpoint.

What seems to be logical is his crane is in his bed asleep or somehow other, you know, just doesn't appear that he is interacting necessarily with an intruder like in a fight.

He's down on the bed, he receives these blows that are likely fatal, and then the offender, after inflicting those blows, goes and gets the electrical cord.

And I've talked about this on other episodes.

Is this is a common thing, is that the offender doesn't know what is he dead or not, and is making sure he's dead by applying a ligature.

So when he walks away.

He knows that this ligature is cutting off any possibility of Bob Crane coming back to life.

Now, if you look at that last photo, the autopsy photo that's got you know, the two marks on the side of his head, you can see where the chord was.

Does that tell you anything?

Does that look we see the indentation, does that look deep to you?

Or does that give you any information based on a photo?

Well, you know, when we start talking about this furrow, you know, when a ligature is tied around the neck, you know, the tissue underneath the ligature gets compressed, and so there is a At this time, after the electrical cord of the ligature has been removed, there is an apparent furrow.

However, you know, the tissue has kind of expand.

So it's hard to interpret at this point exactly how deep or how tightly that ligature was applied.

And the photo I was just looking at it's not a you know, from the side of his neck, it doesn't look like it is excessively tight.

Now, it very well could be effective for strangulation, but I have seen far, far worse in terms of ligatures literally compressing the neck tissues to where you know, it cuts into the tissue around the neck.

That's how tight sometimes these ligatures are applied, and this is a narrow This electrical cord is very narrow.

It's just your typical power cord, you know, little two strands you know of covered copper wire.

If it were tied really tight, it would dig into his neck quite a bit.

So one of the things I would want to know from autopsy is is there diagnostics present indicating strangulation, you know, does he have petikia in his eyes?

You know, does that suggest that his heart is still pumping or is he absent any of the diagnostics of strangulation that possibly would suggest that he was already dead his heart's not pumping when that electrical cord was applied.

Hmm, okay, let me look real quick.

The medical examiner is a little problematic because it sounds like he climbed over the body to do certain things and it knocked the body around, and the investigation is criticized quite a bit.

Well, let me let me make a comment on that, because you know, as you started talking about Scottsdale and I have some familiarity.

You know, this is an upper end community.

You know, they don't deal with a lot of violent crime, like maybe you know, investigators down in Phoenix are dealing with and I'm assuming this is a Scottsdale PD case, you know, so from that perspective, you know they may have been in over their head.

Nineteen seven d eight Scottsdale PD.

It's possible they probably hadn't had a homicide, particularly one like this, for many years.

And then the other thing is is the medical examiner.

You know, he may be a very, very competent pathologist, but is he good at crime scene investigation?

Why is a pathologist climbing all over this bed?

That's a no.

No.

You listen to this and it's like you're reading from my prep document from maren.

So Obviously Victoria had called the police Scottsdale comes.

They don't have a dedicated homicide unit.

Yeah, they don't deal with you know, homicides in this way.

And of course they don't secure the crime scene, which would be the first assumption I would make.

They don't know how to do that.

Victoria hangs around in the apartment the whole time, you know, they don't boot her out, and the Emmy, as I said, climbs over his corpse to shave his head so he could look at the injuries right then and there.

Yeah, this this is just a it's a cluster, you know, there's there None of this should be happening.

It doesn't sound like this.

Corners are this Medical Examiner's office have death investigators because typically the sequence is, you know, of course you have a homicide, you set up a perimeter.

You know, somebody like Victoria absolutely is out.

She needs to be taken back to the office and interviewed, have a formal interview at that point.

But then you have to get a warrant, and then there's a succession of Okay, once you have a warrant, then you get competent csis that are now documenting the scene, you know, as soon as they possibly can get inside without anything being disturbed.

And at a certain point, once the scene is documented and transient evidence has been documented and collected, you know, like some you know, trace evidence or let's say impression evidence that could possibly be stepped on by you know, the death investigators.

But then that's when you get the death investigators out, because they have their own role about documenting Bob Crane's body.

The Scottsdale PD does get a little bit of praise for it, just for trying to to sort through this scene.

Nothing's missing, as I had mentioned before, nothing of value, at least except for this tripod.

They don't find any signs of forced entry.

The front door was unlocked, and the sliding glass door that leads to this pool, this public pool, are both unlocked.

Okay, so Bob was a security freak in the seventies.

He locks his doors, which sometimes we didn't lock our doors in the seventies, definitely not when we were on our farm.

So that makes of course, investigators think that the killer knew him.

Perhaps it was a friend.

Of course, they're going to look at the young woman who was coming to his house.

So you know, there's a lot of possibilities, but this is where they're heading so far.

Okay, they think that the killer fled through the front door after killing Bob, and I'll tell you why.

So there's a reporter named John Hook who all mentioned several times.

He ends up writing a book about this, and he says that there were small spots of blood on the inside door knob and the lock.

There's a corner's report that suggests that he died between three am and eight am, but likely closer to three am.

Let's get to our first suspect, and it is not Victoria.

Victoria has never considered a suspect at all, so around three fifteen, so she finds him around two she calls the police.

Around three fifteen.

Victoria is giving the police her statement in the kitchen.

She hung out for quite a long time there, I mean, okay, sorry, I'm sure they learned a lesson with that, although I don't know if she disturbed anything, but still, you know, you're right all the blood deposits and everything.

She's in the kitchen and the phone rings, his home phone on a hunch that Bob's killer could be calling to figure out what's going on.

There's a police attendant who says, go ahead and answer the phone, but don't sing anything about Bob's death.

She picks up the phone and the person on the other end is a guy named John Carpenter, not the horror film director, but a different John Carpenter.

So Bob and John are friends, and Victoria knows John, and John works in sales for some big electronics companies.

So he works for Sony and Kenwood, and he's got some big celebrity clients, including Bob.

That's how they met.

And I just thought to myself, I did not know that celebrities needed an electronics go to God.

Maybe maybe they do.

Does he have like a hobby where he's got recording equipment in his apartment or something like that, So that's interesting.

Yes, he does have a hobby, and I'll tell you about it in a minute.

So Victoria and John have a very short conversation.

And remember the lieutenant says, don't tell him that Bob's dead, and John lets her know that he's back in Los Angeles.

So he was in Scottsdale and now he's back in LA.

And that's important because the night that Bob died, he had been hanging out with John Carpenter.

So whatever happened, if John's involved, he ended back up in LA very very quickly.

And before you react to that, let me say that the lieutenant takes the phone from Victoria.

He says that the police are looking into an incident quote unquote incident that happened at the apartment, and John says that, well, I was out with Bob around one am.

Later he'll change that to two forty five before he then eventually heads to the airport and he catches his flight back to California, but he doesn't ask what this incident is.

This is a good friend of his, he's known for quite a while, and of course the lieutenant thinks that that's pretty odd.

So John Carpenter ends up at the top of the list, even though there's a woman who found him, you know, and obviously had access to the apartment and was supposed to go over there.

So after that, we've got the phone ringing in Bob's apartment three more times.

One's a female friend quote unquote who is described by the Phoenix New Times as a friend and a girlfriend of Bob's.

One is his son, who is Bob Crane Junior, who's just calling to check in on his dad.

And then John Carpenter calls again, and this time he wants details of this incident at the apartment.

Do you think that not asking what this incident was at the apartment is alarming or should be alarming?

He had just been with this guy twelve hours earlier, by his own admission.

Well, do we have a history of law enforcement responding to Crane's apartment prior to this?

No, because he hasn't been there very long.

Remember he's just in town for a month or how over long this dinner show goes, you.

Know, I guess, you know, that's hard to say if it's suspicious or not.

Not asking about the incident.

Part of that, at least the way I'm thinking about it, is, well, what is the conversation, Like, how how is Carpenter hearing Victoria's or panic in her voice?

Is she crying?

You know?

How is lieutenant talking to him?

You know?

Is he assuming maybe it's just a minor thing, maybe somebody through a brick through the window, you know, or you know, is there anything with over the phone that you would expect Carpenter to go, oh, something really bad happened, you know.

So it's all kind of that interchange, is what I would I kind of want to know more about in order to say, oh, yeah, he probably should have been Victoria's crying, you know, why isn't he asking about the incident?

You know, why isn't he asking her what's wrong?

You know?

Yeah, So that would make it suspicious if there was some sort of message from Victoria or the lieutenant that Carpenter should have picked up on that something really bad happened to Bob Crane as good friend.

You know, I mean Dean asked him that Lieutenant Dean asked Victoria to pretend like everything is okay.

So I'm assuming there was no crying or anything.

And I don't know what the tone was, but you know, I'm I was thinking when I was reading that he was probably sort of mysterious on the phone to see how much is John Carpenter going to pursue this?

You know, how curious is this guy?

So I think that, you know, Victoria's interaction with Carpenter over the phone kind of lessons why he should think something bad has happened because she's abiding by the orders of the lieutenant.

Yeah, and then it sounds like the lieutenant is not trying to convey the seriousness of the crime to Carpenter.

So there's also a level of intimidation, right.

This is something where like if you if you interact with an officer that's in uniform, that uniform has a certain intimidating effect on people.

So maybe that you're talking to an officer and the officer says, well, we're investigating an incident, and you may not feel that you can ask about the incident just because of this.

This person is not divulging it, so therefore he probably doesn't want me to know, and he's got a uniform on here.

Carpenter is talking to a lieutenant, you know, from law enforcement who's not divulging the details, and so he possibly goes, I can't ask this authority figure more information due to that sort of that intimidation aspect that I'm referring to.

But I think, you know, I want to know so much more about Carpenter.

You know, what did he say him and Bob did you know for the time that they hung out?

Was his flight already pre arranged, you know?

Or was this a last minute thing like he's trying to get out of town.

So you know, there's a lot more information that I need before before I start getting suspicious about Carpenter.

Right now, I think the biggest suspicion I have is the timing.

You know, he's with Bob Crane to one am, changes that to forty five am, So he's now right within that window potentially of when Crane was killed.

And I wonder why he changed that.

I mean, if he's involved and it really is happening based on the rigor when the I mean, he thinks it's happening.

Why make it so that you're closer there?

You know?

Well, I think either time is within the window.

Any time of death estimate from let's say rigor mortars or whatever the pathologist is using, that's a rough estimate.

So it's possible Bob Crane could have been killed at one AM.

Okay with Carpenter's initial statement.

I also think let's say Carpenter is responsible and he's changing the time as he's sitting and thinking, he's going to go, oh, I was seen at the apartment at this time, and they're going to find that witness, so I better make sure I offer up this new time to account for being seen by this witness, to make it look like I'm not trying to lie and distance myself from the crime scene.

Well, this is when things get real wonky with this case.

So they look around, they're trying to find clues, nothing's missing.

Then they start digging through some of Bob's files.

They find hundreds of nude photos of different women which were taken with his polaroid.

They also find countless home videos of Bob having sex with women, which were presumably filmed on cameras that John Carpenter sold him and we eventually find that out that John was pretty involved with this world.

There's a photo of a camera.

I mean, if you really want to see it, I can show you.

But I mean it's literally a video camera set up pointed at the bed.

There are many women who consented to being filmed.

They went through and tried to find all of these women.

There are others who had no clue that they were being recorded, and of course they want to know does this have to do with his murder?

Do you want to comment on this or do you want me to talk about sort of the possibilities of people who could be pissed off at him for various reasons.

You know, my initial thought is are they producing porn?

You know?

Is this a business venture?

It's like, okay, is there anything unusual in terms of the photography?

Is there any type of sexual paraphilias, you know, unusual sex acts that they are filming?

You know, does Bob Crane from a victimology standpoint, is this something that he's been doing for a long time, maybe for his own personal use, if you will, But also now with Carpenter, if this relationship that you know, Carpenter has access to a variety of different types of electronics that could be needed in order to produce you know this, this pornography.

And in nineteen seventy eight, oh jeez, this is this is around the era of when you know, the Beta max and the VHS tapes were were coming out.

I can't remember exactly when they came out, but you need if you're going to produce something, you need to be able to put this on a medium that you can sell.

It's not like he can upload it to the web.

Yeah, you know, so are they seeing anything like that within you know, Crane's apartment or they most certainly should be doing a search wart on John Carpenter's residence, you know wherever that is.

It sounds like it's out in LA And yeah, you know, where was he staying while he was out in the Phoenix area, et cetera.

Yeah, so there's lots of questions here.

Let me see.

I did not think you would want to need to see that camera, but it sounds like that would be helpful.

So hopefully you can see this, so you'll see on you know, the kind of the bottom, the middle, there's a lot of equipment.

Oh, and this isn't his apartment.

This is more than an antacam for some pervert who's recording women without them knowing.

Yeah, but he's in a he's in a show at the same time.

You know who knows sure?

You know, part of yeah, his his professional career is of course, you know, being in front of the camera being recorded, you know, audio recording.

You know, this is not a small little camera.

You know this, I'm looking at a photograph of you know, a boxy camera on a tripod.

The tripod is not very tall, and this appears to possibly be out more in the living space.

It's not, doesn't it's not in the bedroom.

It doesn't appear to be.

Yeah, because I think that's a fireplace.

Does that look like a fireplace in the background to you?

Yeah?

So you know, is it possible that maybe you know, they they practice some of the the the acting skits and record themselves and watch it on the TV to get that sort of that immediate feedback.

You know that that is a possibility.

So is that you know, he's got video and photos of of nude women, some consenting, some not.

You know, there these videos are being made.

These women have no idea they're being filmed.

So that would suggest that either they're not recognizing that this camera is actually on, or don't even know what it is if they're looking at it, or he's got it hidden and turned on while there's sex acts occurring.

You know, it does make me suspicious about the possibility that they're recording these these women for commercial purposes.

I was trying to figure out if we knew how long he had been in Scottsdale, because five hundred videos and photos.

Did he drag those all from LA?

So what's happening?

I mean, maybe he drove I don't.

Know, Yeah, possibly, you know, you put all the electronics in the car and move out.

But if he's you know, if he's out in Scottsdale for just a handful of weeks, he's obviously taking advantage of the time that he's out in Scottsdale to continue utilizing, you know, the camera and having the material, all the photos and these videos.

So that's that does seem odd.

And of course it's like, well, what does John Carpenter say about all this?

Yeah, let me just say, it looks to me like, yes, he was only there for the run.

It's not like he had I just thought maybe he moved there or something.

That's a lot of equipment and all of that, and it said, it says, it looks likely that he was just there.

It could have been even just for a few weeks.

We don't know.

So let me go through and tell you some other stuff that's going on here.

So now they say this guy's a pervert and has got some pretty big issues, and of course John Carpenter, being his electronics guy, is going to get pulled into this.

So they start asking questions about his wife, who was an actress named Patricia Olsen who goes by Patty Marriage was on the rocks.

She knows all about his cereal cheating.

She says that the two had actually tried to in their marriage.

They were going to but and they had been talking about this, it sounds like for a while because he was cheating and she was tired of it.

I don't know if she knows about all these photos and videos.

I don't know if she's one of people on these photos or videos.

So then she says, and this is where John's involvement could come in.

According to the police.

She says that they were recently reconciling.

They wanted to make the relationship work that he went into therapy trying to get a handle on what is described in I think the newspaper reporting as a sex addiction.

I don't even know if they used that phrase in the seventies in therapy.

Maybe.

In any case, the police don't consider her a viable suspect.

She's not there, and you know, I'm sure she was shocked about hearing about these five hundred photo videos happening.

Bob had slept with another suspect, a Scottsdale woman who had a really jealous ex boyfriend.

At one point, this guy taped a mutilated newspaper photograph of Bob Crane to his ex girlfriend's back door after this guy found out that she was sleeping with Bob Crane.

But the man you know, who's not named by reporters, isn't ever really considered a strong suspect.

There are also reports from a furniture mover who says that police saw a man leaving Bob's apartment that morning June twenty ninth, and he was found at two o'clock later that day.

According to this tipster, the man had left the scene in a white Cadillac with a California license.

Plates, So I will say, I'll put this one more thing in here.

Victoria.

The Victoria her boyfriend who she ends up marrying later on, is a guy named Alan Wells.

He drove a white Cadillac with California plates.

Although probably in the seventies you could throw a rock and hit one of those, he was never tied to this.

So I mean, this is this is what I'm saying is there's this array of people plus every woman who you know found out that he was a sleeves bag who knows.

You know, obviously Carpenter's association with Crane, the evening before and the timing that Carpenter says he hung out with Crane, you know, that puts him in play.

But I went and dismiss you know, these other suspects.

You know, I don't know what law enforcement found out.

Are there good alibis for some of these other you know, the boyfriends of you know, these women that you know Crane slept with, like that Scottsdale woman.

You know, part of assessing this crime, and early on you informed me there is nothing taken except maybe a tripod, right, So this was a targeted attack.

The offenders not going into this apartment and tossing things around looking for valuables.

There isn't a lot of valuable stuff that has been taken.

You'll think about the expense of some of that electronic equipment, you know, some of it is portable enough that somebody wanted to take it, they could, but they don't.

They literally go into this apartment and it just does not look like there's like a fight between Crane and the offender in this case.

This is either Crane is asleep, how much interaction Crane had with the offender ahead of time, you know, are they in bed together, and then you know, Crane falls asleep and the offender kills them.

You know, there's always you know, scenarios, but this appears to be the offender went into that apartment and at some point decided to kill Crane and left the apartment.

And there's no other type of motive outside of the homicide.

Well, the police, to wrap up part one here, are very focused on John Carpenter.

Part of it is, you know, the doors that were unlocked, no forced entry.

As you had said, this sounds I don't know about personal but it's not robbery.

It's not punk kids most likely breaking in here but somebody that you likely let in.

They are focused on this guy, and John Carpenter, I'm sure, is getting very nervous in this situation.

Sure, I just want to underscore what no sigence of forced entry means.

We talk about different scenarios.

How he could have let the offender in because he knows the offender.

But you also could have a knock on the door and Crane goes to the door and the offender pushes into.

This is forced entry, but there isn't the physical damage that law enforcement can use to assess.

Oh, yes, somebody forced their way in, and so that's where it's hard to draw a firm conclusion.

Crane must have known the offender and let him in.

You know, it could be a stranger that forced his way in.

It could have been this ex boyfriend holding a gun.

So there's not even a push, so nobody even hears anything.

He says, get inside, and that's it.

Well, there's a lot on the table.

This also should have been like a three parter, probably because that happens with this so we you know, next week we'll talk about Bob Crane.

How he is not even it seems remotely like the lovable character that we see in the comedy series Hogan's Heroes.

And I think this was very shocking to a lot of people when it came out.

And we'll talk about John Carpenter and where this story goes because it is such a Hollywood mystery still.

But you asked for it, buddy.

You wanted to talk about Bob Crane with somebody, and I'm somebody.

Yeah, No, I will say, yeah, this case is turning out to be more interesting than what I realized.

Oh, very good that if I could just get past that threshold with every case we talk about, that's all I need a little better than I thought.

Okay, all right, well I'm looking forward to the next part, and.

Don't google anything about Bob Crane.

I won't.

Okay, I'll see you next week.

Sounds good.

This has been an exactly right production.

For our sources and show notes go to Exactlyrightemedia dot com slash Buried Bones sources.

Our senior producer is Alexis Emosi.

Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, 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 Daniel 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