Transcript of The Stamford Bra Murders

Hey, weirdos. I'm Alayna. You are?

Yeah.

I'm Ash. What? This is morbid.

There you go.

I was like, are you going to say it?

I don't know. Are you going to say it?

I was going to hang us all out here.

That's okay. What if we just did an episode once where we just never said, and this is morbid, and we just kept talking?

No one would know where they were.

And then we were like, oh, and it's morbid.

By the way.

Like at the end we said it.

I think everyone would be like, I know.

Yeah, probably.

Yeah, probably.

I'm like, it's like a Sunday morning right now. The rain is not falling, but I feel so tie-tie.

I am also tired. Yeah.

So you didn't sleep last night. I slept last night.

I did not.

I'm ready for it to be— it's like almost September and it doesn't feel like it even in the slightest bit.

I need it.

One thing though, I'm gonna make Drew get my boxes of all my decorations up and in my living room.

It's about to be Halloween up in here.

A bitch is gonna put on maybe Practical Magic, maybe Hocus Pocus, perhaps The Corpse Bride.

I suggested Coraline, but she said no.

Here's the thing. I like Coraline, but it's not my go-to Halloween movie. Yeah.

I feel that.

It's sad. And I feel bad that she got dealt such shitty parents.

It's true.

You know?

She learns a lot about herself though.

She does. And like I was saying earlier, we were talking about it earlier. I was like, her mom's nice in the end, but you shouldn't have to lose your daughter almost to an evil entity to decide like, hey, I think I like you.

That's valid.

And that I should maybe spend some time with you.

That's very valid. Yeah.

I think her parents just piss me off.

Yeah. They definitely suck. Her mom's a bitch.

Her mom is a bitch. And her dad's just kind of dumb.

And her dad is an idiot and doesn't do anything. Yeah. See?

There's nothing fun about that for me, really.

I love Coraline, though.

I love the soundtrack, though.

God, the soundtrack.

It's so—

I listen to it to write sometimes.

I believe it.

Yeah.

You know, there's no words in it because it's supposed to make you feel a little woozy.

And it does. Also, Mr. Bobinsky.

Mr. Bobinsky.

The amazing Bobinsky.

Forever. And then who are the 2 ladies?

Oh my God.

I love them.

Oh, what are their fucking names?

Miss Spink and Miss Forcible.

There it is.

Yeah, I like them.

Yeah, they're wild.

They're her eccentric retired actress neighbors.

I love them.

I love it. Yeah, it's a cute movie, but I don't put it on for decorating.

Yeah, decorating, decorating. What do you guys put on to decor?

Let us know. Have you guys decorated?

Yeah, it's time.

Everyone's like, don't September my August. And I'm like, shut up.

I saw somebody be like, I'll fucking December your August.

I saw that same thing last night. She was like, I will fucking holly jolly your ass.

Yeah, don't come out. And also I'm not doing shit to your August.

No, you can have your August.

You can have your shitty-ass weather.

Take it.

You can have your butt sweat and your—

and your fucking mosquitoes. She just said you guys have swamp ass.

And you can have your mosquitoes and your hornets and your—

Hornlets.

And your hornlets.

Elena's kids call hornets hornlets.

It's so cute.

It's really funny.

You can have all that stuff. You can have your not being able to turn on this— the oven to cook because it's too hot too.

I actually like I don't know the last time that I turned on my oven.

You can have your lack of Crock-Pot meals because it's not even the vibe of that. Like, you can absolutely enjoy all that.

Shut your piehole.

I will make a Crock-Pot meal. Enjoy the smell of sunscreen all day, every day.

I had to put sunscreen on yesterday and I used a spray and I inhaled it and I think I lost years off my life. It was so gross. I probably did.

But that's the thing, like when people are like, don't do that, don't rush it.

I'm not rushing it for anyone else.

I'm rushing it for me because I hate it. And there's nothing for me.

One thing about me is I'm gonna drink my pumpkin chai.

Hell yeah, I'm doing it right now.

Me too. And I'm gonna put on my movies and I'm gonna decorate the shit out of my goddamn living room.

Everybody's gotta live. And guess what?

Everyone else lives, period. And my couch is orange all year round anyway, so I'm always in a place of, this is Halloween.

It's true.

It is. All right, that's our PSA. The funny thing is, is that like mostly, like I would say 98.2% of people listening are like, I feel exactly the same.

Are like, why are you talking to me like that? I'm doing the same thing.

Whatever 100 minus that That's the amount of people that are like, no, don't yuck my yum in August.

And I'm not. You can absolutely yum August all you want.

Yeah.

I'm out of August though.

I've left.

I've left the building.

I mean, August has almost left the building.

Yeah. I left summer in June. I said, fuck you guys.

I didn't leave it that early, but this year I didn't love summer as much as I have in the past.

Summer blew ass this year. I think we might have done. And I think it can go fuck itself.

Summer was a lot this year.

It was not a good summer.

I think we had this exact conversation like pretty recently.

Yeah, we did.

So sorry that you had to hear it again.

Sorry, guys.

All right, Guilford. Mark your time.

Guilford? I don't know.

I said something crazy last time and I just decided to roll with it. Guilford just came to me.

Hit that minute mark, Guilford.

Yeah. I thought you were trying to tell me to say mark instead of Guilford, and I was like, why would I do that?

Say mark.

All right. There's no good way to transition into this because this is a very serious, very sad case. Uh, it's— I would say unsolved, but you'll see why it's, like, tough to say that. Hmm.

Justice—

justice doesn't seem to have been done here, in my opinion.

Ruh-roh.

So we're going to be talking about the Stamford Bra Murders. Uh, this is Stamford, Connecticut, which is, um, I only recently realized, Stam-ford and not Stan-ford.

Honestly, I also learned that recently, so...

Did you learn it on the train to New York?

Yes.

Me too. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Yep.

They called it out and I said, what the fuck? And then I saw the train station and I was like, oh.

Oh my God. I thought it was Stanford.

So our story starts today with a woman named Rosellen Pasta. Unfortunately, life had not been very easy for her at all. By 1967, she was mostly supporting herself through sex work, and she was also struggling with addiction in a time where there was not many options for treatment or help.

Oh man.

Which is really sad.

Yeah.

Now, Rosellen's disappearance was reported to police in early August, and Stamford, Connecticut police investigated, but they weren't really able to find her after hitting a dead end, and the case was shelved pretty quickly. It's very sad.

Yeah.

So just 30 or so miles outside of New York City, Stamford residents had become pretty accustomed to experiencing kind of like a spillover effect from their proximity to New York, obviously including the crime rate.

Yeah.

And because of that, when sex workers from Stamford started going missing in the late '60s, people kind of just assumed that maybe they drifted down to New York rather than suspecting for even a minute that these women were victims of foul play.

Yeah, because that's never happened.

No, never in a million years. We've never told a story like that.

Nope.

There were times, though, when violence against the sex workers in and around Stamford was undeniable. And this period of time we're going to talk about, it is truly undeniable. But people— it's, it's really sad to see people's response to this case, especially back when it was ongoing. So on the evening of May 3rd, 1968, Stamford Patrolman David Hughes was doing his usual check of the wooded area around Merritt Parkway. It was a very popular location for sex workers and their clients, and he spotted what he thought was a mannequin laying in a wooded area a few yards from the road. As we know, it is 9 out of 10 times not going to be a mannequin.

Yeah, no.

It was only upon closer inspection that he realized it was a body, not a mannequin. And it ended up being the body of 22-year-old Donna Roberts. As far as he could tell, Donna very much appeared to be dead, and her bra was wrapped tightly around her neck, and she'd also been severely beaten in the face and the head. The scene really only had few clues, though, as to how Donna ended up there. Investigators found drag marks in the dirt that led back to the road, indicating though that she had likely been killed somewhere else and was just later dumped in that spot.

Oh, okay.

According to the autopsy, her cause of death was strangulation, and she'd been dead for several hours by the time her body was discovered by Hughes, which is actually kind of crazy when you think about it.

Yeah.

Just hours.

Just— wow.

In addition to the injuries to her face and head though, her ankle was broken. But it did appear that her ankle was broken postmortem since there wasn't any swelling.

Oh, interesting.

So it may have happened like during transportation or something like that.

Okay.

Investigators spoke to her friends and relatives, hoping that they might know who she was with before she died. But everyone they spoke to was a bit reluctant to speak with the police for various reasons. And Captain Thomas O'Connor told the reporters, no one in the area knows anything. As of the present time, we have learned nothing about the last person she was with. Just not great.

No. I think you definitely need a little something to go on. Yeah.

Despite a thorough canvas of the area and interviews with dozens of visitors to the park, nobody came forward with any information about Donna's death.

Damn.

And the case ended up going cold within a few weeks. Wow.

Yeah.

But then in early September, another body was discovered by the side of Merritt Parkway under remarkably similar circumstances. On September 8th, a driver on the parkway spotted what looked to be a pair of women's legs sticking out of the bushes about 200 feet from the road. And so obviously they were like, 911, emergency.

Yeah.

When the officers arrived, they discovered the body of a young Black woman believed to be in her 20s lying in the bushes. Her bra was also wrapped tightly around her neck. According to the medical examiner, Dr. Coleman Kelly, this victim's cause of death was basically the exact same as Donna Roberts. It was strangulation. Uh, her body was discovered 50 feet from where Donna Roberts had been found just months earlier.

Oh my God.

Yeah, that close. Now, a search of the area really didn't turn up anything, and the victim didn't have any identification on her. So at that point, her identity was a mystery. After the news about the second body was published in the papers, though, friends and family of missing people started contacting the state police, hoping that Maybe they would have answers in the case of their loved one's disappearance. But when they were shown the body, nobody recognized her.

Oh.

Finally, about 24 hours after the body was discovered though, somebody thought that they recognized the young woman, but they only knew her by a nickname. So they gave the contact information for somebody who maybe would know her real name. That information led detectives to a man named Oscar Khan, who viewed the body and unfortunately had to identify the victim as his niece. 21-year-old Gloria Khan.

Oh, man.

And she was actually from Mount Vernon, New York. So it was interesting that she was found at Stanford.

Yeah.

When it came to the scene where Gloria had been discovered, again, there really wasn't a lot of evidence discovered. And since she appeared to have come up from— up to Stanford from New York, like I said, nobody knew her. Nobody really had any idea who she might have been with or where, like, what she was doing on the day she was killed. A check with the Mount Vernon police revealed that she did have a history of arrests, uh, but given her history, investigators made the assumption that she traveled to Connecticut to make some money through sex work. But that wasn't really much help in finding her killer at that point.

Yeah.

So 7 months passed and the bra murders sadly kind of faded into the background, replaced by other news stories and criminal cases. But then on April 5th, an anonymous phone call to the Stamford police revived the case for both the police and the press. That morning, the desk sergeant received an anonymous call from a man who just said, another body's up there.

Oh.

That's it.

That's terrifying.

Yup.

Another body's up there.

Like, bye.

That's chilling.

Right?

Ugh.

And obviously they were referring to the Merritt Parkway.

Yeah.

He gave literally no additional information and then just hung up the phone.

I hate it.

So an officer was dispatched to the area where Donna Roberts and Gloria Khan had been discovered the previous year. And while searching a rocky area about 50 yards from the north side of the parkway, the detective, or the officer, discovered a human skull.

Oh my God. Yeah.

A more thorough search later that week turned up additional bones. And based on his cursory examination, the medical examiner, Dr. Saul Firestein, confirmed that the skull appeared to be that of a young woman. Given the remains had been in that location and exposed to the elements for so long, like what appeared to be months at that point, if not years, the doctor wasn't able to give much more information until after he could do a full autopsy.

Damn.

So it took nearly a week, but on April 11th, investigators announced that the skeletal remains that had been discovered were those of 31-year-old Rosellen, uh, Pazda, who was known to her friends as Sissy Rush.

Oh.

It's just like I thought that was such a sweet nickname.

That is.

One thing I should have said this at the top of the episode. I'm sure it seems like I'm really not giving a lot of information about these women. Unfortunately, there's not a lot available. I found what I could.

Yeah.

But obviously, that was the body of Rosellen who had gone missing in August 1967.

Yeah.

There had been too much time between her death and the autopsy to make really any definitive statements about her cause of death. But investigators did believe that she was actually the first victim in the Braw murders.

Oh, wow.

In a statement to the press, State Police Captain Louis Marchese noted that all 3 women had, quote unquote, similar associates and possibly could have known each other. He continued, they will be checking the background and all known associations in an effort to determine the possible facts leading to her demise. Now, because it was the '60s, and as we know, sex workers and Black women in these cases are often considered less dead, Yep. It's really not clear how vigorously any of these murders were investigated at the time.

Damn.

And shockingly, within just days, this, this most recent discovery, which was the 3rd discovery of a woman strangled by her own bra, like, presumably, the bra murders just disappeared from the papers again.

That's incredible.

It's like, how does that—

Like, that is incredible.

How is that not front page news? And like, How, how is everybody in the community not just like banging down the doors of officers trying to figure this out? No, but it's insane. This was an area that was predominantly white and, you know, middle to upper class. So I think people just weren't concerned because they didn't think anything was going to happen to them.

That's wild.

Which is so fucked up because it's like, even if I don't think something is going to happen to me, I care about my fellow humans.

Yeah, that's the thing.

I would like everybody in the community to feel safe.

Yeah, you would think.

Like, why would you not want that? But more than 2 years would pass before the murders came up again. And when they did, it became abundantly clear that somebody was stalking women in Stamford.

Yeah.

Even though the concept of a serial killer had emerged 40 years before the bra murders started, started, it was still not a widely understood concept by a lot of people. It was fairly clear to investigators in Stamford that the 3 bra murder victims had very likely been killed by the same person. But they didn't really have any insight into that kind of psyche. So they also— it seemed like they didn't have any reason to presume the killer wouldn't just stop of his own volition.

Yeah.

Like, back then, people thought that was a possibility.

They were like, you know, we've never seen it before.

Yeah, exactly.

But they had never researched this kind of stuff.

Right.

So it's like, they had no idea that that kind of compulsion wasn't something that was just going to stop.

Exactly. So, in fact, when no additional bodies turned up the year after they discovered Gloria Khan, Investigators seemed to have every reason to believe that the crisis was over. If they really believed that the killer disappeared or moved on, though, they were proven wrong in the summer of 1971 when the 4th victim was discovered.

Mm-hmm.

17-year-old Gail Thompson never returned home on the evening of July 9th, so she was reported missing to the Stamford Police. The next day, her body was unfortunately discovered in a wooded area off of Roxbury Road, which is just south of the Merritt Parkway. So it's like, Right there.

Yeah.

And it was not very far from where the other victims had been found years earlier. According to the medical examiner, Gail had been dead for approximately 24 hours when she was discovered. So they found her pretty quickly.

Yeah.

An autopsy obviously would be required to determine her cause of death, but the bra wrapped around her neck tightly strongly suggested that she had been strangled, just like the others. To the members of the press who did cover the story, The connection to the other murders was obvious, but for some reason investigators weren't as eager to group everybody together now.

Yeah.

Captain O'Connor told the reporters, we're working on the theory that there is a possible connection, but we're con— we're concentrating just on this one victim, and if it leads to the others, fine.

How are you not— like, I don't get that.

It's a young, pale woman. How are we not discovered with a bra?

Yeah.

Tightly bound around her neck.

That's— Oh, okay.

I don't know if it was the age because, you know, the ages have kind of varied here and she's the only minor victim that's been found. But she's 17. Like, obviously that's incredibly young.

Yeah.

It's not like you just found like a 12-year-old.

Exactly. Or like, you know, it's— and the MO here is, is the exact same.

The exact same.

That, that doesn't happen all the time.

And I mean, so is the victim profile aside from age.

Yeah. Exactly.

So the other thing that's interesting, or it doesn't seem like they were saying, no, she's not connected to these victims, but they were— it looked like they were, like, looking for a way to say that she wasn't.

Or, like, publicly not wanting to admit...

Yeah.

...that there could be a serial killer here.

Exactly.

100%.

I guess I get that. But there were also other aspects of Gail's life that fit the profile.

Yeah.

Like the other victims, I already mentioned this, she was a young Black woman. She also lived in the same neighborhood where Rosellen Pazda and Donna Roberts lived.

I mean, come on. So, yeah.

And she was last seen a little after midnight talking to a man in a convertible. So it's like, hello, that might have been something. Now, in the case of the previous victims, a lot of— many months passed before a new discovery was made. This time, though, investigators barely had made any progress in their current situation when they received word of yet another victim discovered out by the parkway. On August 22nd, 2 men on their way to a football game pulled off the parkway to change drivers when they spotted a body at the edge of the path that led to a rest area. That afternoon, the victim was identified by her husband as 34-year-old Alma Henry.

Oh.

She was not only a married woman, she was a married woman and mother of 4 children.

Oh, Lord. Yeah.

So that was interesting too, because that was a, a A variation. Up to this point, everybody's been, you know, not married, not necessarily involved in the community, like, with anybody, and a sex worker. Alma was not doing sex work at this time.

Damn.

And it's unclear if she ever had been.

Yeah.

It doesn't— I couldn't find anything to say she had. You couldn't find anything to say she had.

So this is a little deviation.

Yeah. So—

Oh, that's horrific.

Given that her bra was wrapped tightly around her neck, though, and she'd been found in the same location as the others, It seemed very likely that she was another bra murder victim.

Yeah.

But this time something was different. With the exception of Donna Roberts, who had been beaten before being strangled, the other victims had just been strangled, it seemed, and their bodies were left.

Yeah.

Alma's body, though, showed evidence of sadistic behavior that hadn't been present in the others. Her bra, obviously, like I said, was wrapped around her neck. She'd also been beaten in the face, and there was surgical tape covering her mouth, her nose, And her hands had also been bound behind her back with surgical tape.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

That's fucked up.

Well, and it makes you wonder, because she wasn't involved in sex work, was she taken in a different manner and, like, had to be bound? Because it does make you wonder if the previous women who had been killed, maybe they were, like, conducting business.

Yeah.

So it was easier for him, unfortunately, to—

In the process of conducting business.

Yeah, to get them in a vulnerable position. maybe Alma fought back.

Yeah. Like— And he—

that's why he bound her, you know?

Maybe.

And that's not to say that the other women didn't fight back. I'm just saying it might've been a little quicker.

But they might've been taken a little more by—

Surprise.

By surprise in the circumstance, you know?

Exactly. So, I think it was very different circumstances here.

Yeah.

Now, while the implications of the evidence, the location, and the cause of death were obvious, investigators remained hesitant to make any definitive connections to the other cases. Still, guys, come on. But again, I think it's what you said.

I think it's them not wanting to admit it. Yeah. Yeah.

Captain O'Connor, though, told reporters it was possible that the cases were linked, but he didn't want to jump to any conclusions.

No, of course not.

He said, We also have to work on the theory that someone is using the previous 4 murders as an excuse to tie them in with this latest murder. Which I do understand that comment here, just because the way that her body was discovered is pretty different. Like, but it also just didn't escalate.

And I mean, that is something that can happen, you know?

Yeah.

Like a copycat.

Right. Now, the Connecticut State Police were more forthcoming with information and a theory, though. Lieutenant Walter Foley said, it is apparently all the work of the same person, even to the same dumping of bodies in wooded areas along the parkway.

Yeah.

So that's the other thing. Different departments in this area were having a lot— Are not, like, butting heads. They're not having the same public opinion.

Yep.

Now, the scene where Alma's body was discovered was nearly identical to the scene of the previous bodies. There were tire tracks also leading from the road to the spot where the body was left, indicating that she'd been killed somewhere else and left in the killer's preferred dump site, just like the other victims.

Yeah.

And also like the other victims, various pieces of her clothing were strewn around her body.

Jeez.

Which was another, uh, kind of like calling card, I guess you could say, of this killer. Aside from that though, there wasn't much left behind. And despite the lack of evidence though, the state police said they were hopeful that they would make a quick arrest.

Okay.

Because also they're facing a lot of pressure now.

Yeah, I would say so.

Speaking with confidence, Foley told reporters, it's become increasingly obvious with the finding of this 5th body that we have a pathological killer loose in the area. In response, he agreed, or he vowed to work closely with Stamford detectives to hunt the killer. He said, this man obviously is known to his victims. There has to be some answers in the Stamford area. Now, I don't know what made him assume that.

Assume what?

That the victims knew the killer.

Yeah.

There's not really a lot of information about that.

I was gonna say, I wouldn't assume that personally.

I think he likely meant that some of these victims had gotten into the killer's vehicle willingly. Not that they had, like, literally known each other prior to the night.

Yeah.

Almost all of the victims were known to have been arrested on charges related to sex work in the past. So it is plausible that they made some kind of arrangement with the killer before he turned on them.

Yeah.

All aside from Alma.

Yeah.

It's also possible that his statement was more of an indirect call for help to the Black community in Stamford, who he and other investigators for some reason thought held some kind of knowledge that would be crucial to solving this case.

Huh.

It's like, it's not up to the Black community to do your detective work for you, though.

Yeah.

Why?

What?

Yeah.

I don't get that. I don't understand that.

Well, and as far as the local Black community was concerned, from the moment that Donna Roberts' body had been found in 1968, Stamford Police and Connecticut State Police had not lived up to their obligation to find this killer. This has been going on for years at this point.

Yeah.

Writing collectively as the, quote, Concerned Citizens of Black Stanford. The group addressed Stanford Police Chief Joseph Kinsella with what they described as their extreme indignation that investigators have been, quote, less than enthusiastic in their efforts to find the killer. They wrote, we Black citizens find it inconceivable that no solution has been found to any of the 5 cases involving Black young women during the past 3 and a half years. It pains us deeply to feel— 3 and a half years. That had the victims been white, a much more vigorous search for the murderer murderers would have been launched, and by now at least one of these crimes might be solved.

Yeah.

Which, like, I would feel the exact same way.

Yeah, absolutely.

So in the days that followed, the public pressure and conflicting statements from law enforcement unfortunately only grew. Despite his previous press, uh, statements to the press, Captain Joseph Chicharski told reporters, we're not even close to knowing whether it was one person. It's like, are you kidding me? How?

And I love that they're like, we're not even close.

Because also, we've looked at other cases from this time, and there is some incredible detective work that has gone on in similar cases.

Yeah.

It's like, why?

That's the thing. Like, what the fuck? And just to say, like, yeah, we're not even close.

What? And that's your response after—

You don't even want to pretend that you're like, you know, like you— part of the whole thing is, yeah, you might not be even close, but you're supposed to give a taste that you are working on it and that you will get close.

Where's the task force?

Where's any kind of hope that you're trying to give the community here? Right. And they just don't— they don't care is what it comes off as.

Because you have to think of the community.

Yeah.

It seems they don't give a shit about this community.

Yeah.

And when asked about the pressure from the Black Citizens Group, he had difficulty hiding his frustration when answering the question.

Yeah.

And said, if we had something to go on, we wouldn't have tolerated these killings since 1968. Just very like, hey, if I had something, I'd figure it out, but I don't, so deal with it.

Wow.

Yeah.

Okay.

Now, as for the majority of white residents of Stamford, the killings, like I said in the beginning of this, barely registered as something to be alarmed about.

That's— wow.

I'm like, a mother of 4 was killed?

I was just gonna say, like, so these are a 17-year-old, like, these are women that, like, a 21-year-old or a 22-year-old, however, it's like, these are, like, young women. Not that, like, older, you know, victims wouldn't matter as much.

No.

It's just like, these are, like, real people.

Like, that doesn't bother you?

In the prime of their life, being found in horrific ways.

Yeah.

Like, it's not— it's also like, the way they're being found, there's, like, clear evidence of, like, some kind of torturous behavior happening here. And, like, sadistic, monster-y things. And to be left with the bra around their neck, like, that's them, like, that's them playing in your face.

Absolutely.

And it's like, and you're just letting them.

And not only that, with the most recent discovery, It's like, he's obviously escalating. So, you know, it's rare to switch your victim profile, but it happens.

I'd be fucking scared.

Yeah, absolutely it does. Like, hello?

Which I know, like, we're not at the point when this was happening where so much was known. I mean, they're calling them still pathological killers instead of serial killers. So it's like, I understand that, like, we had not caught up yet to understanding that these kind of people exist or how they work. So I I will take it a little bit with that, but it's like the nonchalance that's happening.

Well, that's the thing.

Or just the way it's being conveyed of like, yeah, we're not even close. I don't give a shit that we don't know about serial killers yet.

Yeah.

You just shouldn't be conveying that kind of ineptitude, first of all, in complete casual, just like, you're kind of apathetic.

It's nonchalance.

You're coming off apathetic.

100%.

Yucka.

You think that's coming off as apathetic?

Oh, Lord.

One resident interviewed said, if it were a Boston Strangler, Everybody would be scared. But don't you see it's not that type of killing? Yes, it is.

Um, it sounds very like—

the only difference is that he's not breaking and entering.

What the fuck?

What?

And then, uh, that sounded gross.

And Sarah Kenham, whose house was near the parkway, echoed the ambivalence and distance that most people found around the murder. She said, we don't like being used as a dumping ground. I just hope the next body doesn't turn up on my stone fence or in the pool. It would scare the living daylights out of the children.

Are you fucking kidding me with that?

I hope the next body's not found on my property. First of all, there's not been any bodies found on anybody's property. It's been on public highways, which is even worse.

I love the phrase, the next body.

Yeah.

Like, she doesn't give a shit.

Not the next victim, or the next young woman killed.

Who's going to be murdered and brutally tossed somewhere like a bag of trash. Just a body. Just, I hope the next body, because she's also like, I'm counting on another one. It's obviously going to happen because none of us are doing anything to stop it.

So it stays away from me.

I hope it stays. I don't like being used as a dumping ground. Oh, excuse me. I'm sure the women don't like being murdered either. Yeah. So I'm sure their families don't like losing them.

What an asshole. I'm also like, wow, you went first name, last name in that interview.

That's the thing. Like, you said that 10 toes down with your whole chest. But that's gnarly.

You could back then. And yeah, people didn't bat an eyelash. Like, other white people didn't. Somebody shitty.

Those are the kind of people that need to be fucking put in their place.

100%.

They just do. Somebody's got to say it to them.

100%.

Like, hey, you can't be this much of an asshole out loud.

You can't. Like, you really shouldn't quietly either.

You shouldn't quietly, but no one wants to hear you be this big of an asshole, so just shut up.

Now, for his part, Stamford Mayor Julius Walensky, which I was like, wow, you had no other choice than to, than to be a mayor.

Yeah.

You had to go into politics with that name. Julius Walensky.

Yeah, you have to.

He stood behind the team investigating the case, and he told reporters that he was convinced investigators were making a strong effort to find the killers and that these victims were, quote, not being disregarded because of their race. He said, my own checks have convinced me that our police are extending every effort to catch up with the crazy perpetrators of these dastardly crimes.

Wow.

He also—

I mean, he really said it.

He did.

He said it.

And then he also told the press that he himself had taken a special interest in the case, particularly the 2 most recent victims, and he would be checking in regularly with the investigation. to monitor the progress.

Okay. At least he's conveying, like, I care.

I give a shit.

Like, here's the thing. I've not looked into this man. I don't know what he's all about.

I don't know shit all about him aside from this.

Don't come at me with that. Like, I don't know. I'm just saying in this one instance, he sounds like he's conveying a more proper message to the community than the investigators are.

Absolutely. Now, it seems that the pressure from the Black community and the mayor's, quote unquote, special interests in the case were effective.

Well, that's good.

By the end of the year, investigators had finally started pursuing the case with an enthusiasm that definitely hadn't been seen in the beginning.

Doesn't sound like it.

As December came to an end, detectives had questioned nearly 1,000 people in connection with the 5 victims, and both the Stanford police and the state police had increased the number of officers that were assigned to it, which is like, hello, why would you not increase that?

Hello.

You have 5 bodies here.

Yeah.

You don't— like, you need a task force or a force of similar size working on this.

Yes.

There were several thorough searches of the area around the parkway during which countless fingerprints were discovered and processed actually by the FBI field office. And in the cases where they could be identified, the owners of those prints were questioned at length. But remember, this is also a public parkway.

Yeah.

So there's millions of fingerprints basically.

Yeah.

In his end of the year address, Mayor Walensky reiterated his previous promise to the residents of Stamford and said, we will not rest until the perpetrator or perpetrators of these horrible deeds are apprehended and convicted. Now, by the dawn of the new year, Governor Thomas Meskill had chimed in on the case and dedicated a $3,000 reward to anybody who could provide information that led to an arrest. That would be, like, just around $25K today. And he also urged anybody with information to call the 24/7 tip line that had been obviously set up for the purpose of collecting leads.

Mm-hmm.

But as is often the case, the offer of a reward generated a large volume of calls, but none really proved to be useful.

Ugh.

Now, to the public's surprise, though, in mid-March of 1972, just 2 weeks after that reward was offered, investigators announced that an arrest had been made in the Braw murders.

Huh.

The suspected killer was 42-year-old Benjamin Franklin Miller, a, quote, white mailman and self-styled minister who detectives believe had met the victims while, quote— and this is a quote— preaching in the Black churches and ghetto street corners of Stamford and Norwalk. Hopefully they would say that differently this day.

Yeah.

Like in this day and age. At the time of his arrest, Miller was actually a patient at a psychiatric hospital in Newtown, Connecticut. He'd been receiving inpatient treatment for schizophrenia for over a month because his physician had had him committed. Now, according to the hospital spokesperson, Miller had previously been suspected of the murders, but then after several interviews with detectives, he'd been ruled out at one point.

Huh.

However, just weeks after being ruled out, he allegedly repeatedly asked hotel staff to connect him to the police because he wanted to speak to them about the murders. According to the investigators, the arrest was made possibly partially because of the help they received from the Stamford Advocate police reporter Nick Semenoff, who had provided critical information that he learned in his own investigation. Despite statements from investigators about how Miller had wanted to confess, when he arrived in court for his arraignment, he appeared to be confused about what was happening. So he— obviously he's mentally ill, so you can kind of like ebb and flow.

Yeah.

Into these different states, but this was odd.

Yeah, for sure.

And the arrest came as a shock to those who had any familiarity with Mr. Miller. His struggle with mental illness had occasionally led to some what you could call strange behavior and delusional thinking, but he'd never been violent in the past that anybody knew of, and he never expressed any violent intent. According to one of the church members who met him on several occasions, Miller appeared to be a very nice guy. You could talk to him and think— and he was always easy with his exchanges. He was very friendly, especially to young people. Those who worked with him at the post office had similar recollections, telling reporters that he was a loner, and considered himself another Billy Graham, but he wasn't aggressive.

Okay.

Billy Graham was like a, um, I think he was like on TV and he was, um—

He's like a pastor, wasn't he?

Yeah, like a televangelist.

Yeah.

So obviously, like, this happens all the time. Like, some people that encountered Ted Bundy were like, oh shit, he's the nicest guy ever. Like, that's crazy. So that could go one of two ways.

Of course it could. Yeah.

But upon further investigation, it turned out Miller's status as a minister was entirely informal and he was self-ordained. Reverend J.P. Ball told reporters, he would just stand out on the street corner and preach to anybody who would listen. People recognized him as a minister out of sympathy. They didn't want to hurt him. Now, given his documented mental illness and the fact that he had been recently held in a psychiatric unit for his own safety, Benjamin Miller was returned to the hospital for a more extensive evaluation after he was arrested and went through the arraignment.

Mm-hmm.

In a statement to the press, the superintendent of the hospital, Dr. Robert Miller, said, Mild-mannered is an excellent description of Benjamin Miller, adding that he'd been very cooperative since he'd gone back to the hospital.

Okay.

Now, a few days later, after his latest evaluation, he was deemed competent to appear before a grand jury, which is interesting to me.

Yeah.

Because he's on a—

Because wait a minute.

He's on a psychiatric hold.

Yeah.

So I don't—

Isn't that—

And for his own safety. That doesn't— I don't know how all of these legal proceedings work, but I just think that's kind of— that's strange in my opinion.

Yeah, that is strange.

Um, and also he was deemed competent after a doctor described what was minimal but not substantial improvement since he'd been admitted to the hospital in February. So that was also interesting.

So that is, yeah.

Right? Now, on March 15th, Benjamin Miller was indicted for the 5 bra murders and he pleaded not guilty to the charges. The grand jury hearing was closed to the press and to the public. So it's unclear what evidence was presented to the jury that connected him to the murders.

Hmm.

And, like, still is.

Yeah.

In fact, despite having been arrested a week earlier, investigators have been pretty tight-lipped about the investigation and what information— and what information specifically pointed them to Benjamin Miller in the first place.

Yeah, I'm interested. Yeah.

Now, it's obviously not all that uncommon for investigators to withhold details and evidence before a case goes to trial. We've said that before.

Yeah, for sure.

But in the case of Benjamin Miller's arrest, it seemed that nobody could or would explain what evidence they had against him and what led to that arrest. For 3 years, the Black community had watched investigators pretty begrudgingly, and as far as they were concerned, only half-heartedly investigate this case.

Yeah.

Only to come up empty for years. And then out of nowhere, it seemed, this suspect had come to light and the case seemed to be racing along with unprecedented speed.

Yeah, that's—

The concern—

it does feel very like, wow, Yes. So quick.

Yeah. The concerned citizens of Black Stanford were pleased with the attention, obviously, they said, but they said they were still skeptical of the investigation and now the arrest. A spokesperson told reporters, until police or a grand jury unveil more facts on the grisly murders, they will not accept the official word that Benjamin Franklin Miller is responsible for any or all of these deaths. So they were not convinced.

Yeah.

Now, while investigators proudly held up the arrest as the result of their years-long investigation, Police in Stamford quietly made an arrest that surely would have been of interest to those working the Braw murders. In the early morning hours of July 29th, 1972, police arrested a 38-year-old man named Robert Lupanacci and charged him with attempting to strangle a 17-year-old on Den Road, not far from where Gail Thompson's body was discovered just one year earlier.

Oh.

The young woman was Black. And was working at the time as a sex worker. So alarm bells should have been ringing for everybody.

They sure should.

He was literally caught strangling her.

Yup.

In the same area where other bodies had been found, and she fit the victim profile.

They don't seem to love a pattern.

No.

We don't have a lot of pattern recognition going on here.

No, they really should have watched— what was that show that your kid watched? Like, Umigumi?

Oh my God, Umizoomi?

Umizoomi.

Yeah.

Pattern power!

Like, they need to—

Check it out.

Get some pattern power.

Hello?

Because I'm seeing a lot of pattern recognition that is completely going— yeah, going to the wayside here.

And according to the police, he had been found in the middle of attempting to strangle this girl in the back of his car by a state trooper just conducting a search of the area. So he was quite literally caught red-handed.

Yeah.

To the press, the similarities between the bra murders and the circumstances of this arrest were pretty fucking obvious.

Yeah.

But the Stanford police, for some reason, were very hesitant to make any connection between the two.

What?

In a statement to the press, a Detective John Considine told reporters, I cannot say that this will, uh, that this case will lead to a reopening of the Denn Road murder situation. However, the investigation of this new situation will be intense, and we will be giving the state police every cooperation in it. I'm sorry, what? Now, Lupinacci maintained that he had nothing to do with the Braw murders, and as far as anyone can tell, He was never seriously considered as a suspect despite literally being found caught red-handed in the same area that 5 other people had been murdered under similar, if not exact, circumstances. And literally were the ex— like, these were the exact victim profile of the woman he was found strangling. Hello?

I don't see what you're getting at.

Hello?

I don't see it, no. I don't see it.

Even worse, on February 10th, 1973, he pleaded guilty to the charge of first-degree assault and was sentenced to 3 to 8 years in prison, of which I'm pretty sure I found that he only served 3.

Awesome.

For attempting— that's attempted murder.

Yeah.

That's not first-degree assault.

He just got caught.

Hello?

He would have finished that if he didn't get caught.

Precisely.

I never understand that.

Precisely.

Like, I'm sorry.

In the meantime, though, the district attorney continued, for some godforsaken reason, to focus their attention on Benjamin Miller, and a date for a bench trial was set for late January 1973. On January 30th, a 3-judge panel convened at the Superior Court where they heard testimony from 2 psychiatrists who described the extent of Benjamin Miller's symptoms. Although Miller had confessed to paying for sex on at least one occasion, he allegedly told the doctors at the hospital that he had a, quote, divine mission to convert young Black women whom he considered to be sinners and to punish them if they remained sinful.

Wow.

I will say, many of his statements were called into question later on.

Yeah.

Their statement was followed by reading, uh, a reading of the confession that Miller allegedly gave to police shortly after his arrest. In it, Miller confessed to having met these women through his street corner preaching and claimed that he did pay for sex with the— and had sex with the victims before killing them. Uh, he said after he engaged in sex with Donna Roberts, she asked for money and tried to blackmail him. He told police, she threatened to expose me and blackmail me. She indicated that some fellow she knew would work me over and probably take my life.

Hmm.

So obviously the evidence presented at the trial definitely implicated him in the murders, but the panel of judges agreed that the psychiatric history and acute symptoms met for the criteria for insanity, and Miller was acquitted. As a result, he was sent back to the hospital for further evaluation before the panel was willing to determine how long he should be held for psychiatric psychiatric treatment. On March 30th, his psychiatric evaluation was completed, and his doctors determined that, quote, Miller continues to be a danger to himself and others and requires further hospitalization and is not likely to show improvement in the foreseeable future. So as a result of those findings, the panel sentenced him to be confined at the state psychiatric hospital for 25 years.

Okay. Yeah.

So he was acquitted based off insanity, but he still had to serve a—

Yeah.

It's very similar to, like, isn't that what happened with Ed Gein?

Oh, yeah.

Like, similar.

Like a similar kind of thing.

So the sentence in the Miller case would seem to have brought the story of the Braw Murders to an end.

You would think.

But in the summer of 1981, while he was— Ben Miller was incarcerated at the state hospital, a trio of murders occurred in Stamford, and the bodies were found not far from where the original Braw Murder victims were discovered more than a decade earlier.

Oh man.

On August 20th, 1981, a driver on Dunn Road discovered the body of 40-year-old Carol Gates, who appeared— who disappeared, sorry, 2 weeks earlier. The body was too decomposed to determine a cause of death, but it did seem likely that she'd been strangled. Her murder was preceded by the murders of 19-year-old Mary Aaron and 36-year-old Carrie Mock, both strangled and left on the side of the parkway.

Jeez.

When asked for comment, State Lieutenant William Kirkby said, it would be good investigative procedure to look at the similarities of all 3 murders. But beyond his comment, it doesn't seem like these recent murders were considered in the context of the Brown murders in any way.

I like the, like, you know, it would be good investigative procedure to do that.

Yeah.

I'm not saying we will.

Nice.

But I'm saying it would be pretty sick of us.

A nice blanket statement.

Yeah, like that.

Just to appease you.

Because you know what? Yeah. What he said is true. It would be.

You gonna do it, though?

You gonna— you gonna go ahead and do that?

You gonna act on that?

Yeah.

No?

Do you want to be good? Cool.

Because you could do that. Now, surprisingly, it wasn't the discovery of 3 more victims found under incredibly similar circumstances that led to Benjamin Miller's appeal for a new trial, but the confession that landed him in the hospital in the first place.

Interesting.

In December 1982, Miller and his lawyer, his new lawyer, John Williams, appeared in court to petition for a new trial on the grounds that the state's key evidence, the confession, was tainted.

Ooh.

Williams accused Miller's previous court-appointed lawyer, Herbert Bundock, of failing to defend his client to the best of his ability when he didn't attempt to have the confession suppressed.

Herbert. He's always doing that.

He done fucked up.

Yeah.

On the stand, Williams asked Bundock, did you not feel he— did you not feel the fact he was delirious in the very month he confessed might be helpful in keeping these Confessions out of evidence?

That's a valid point.

Pretty fucking valid.

That's a very valid point. They're like—

They literally said, and like, this is a, like, a quote or like a, uh, um, diagnosis. They called— they said he was delusional.

Yeah.

And, uh, like, harmful to himself and others, but specifically delusional. But then you're gonna take a confession for full face value?

Yeah, he could be saying anything right now.

What sense does that make?

No, it doesn't make any sense.

But in response, the previous lawyer, Burdock, simply said the insanity defense was the best way out for Mr. Miller. Okay, that might be the case, but like, but what if—

why didn't you even try? And like, why wouldn't you even try to get that thrown out?

I think you could have too.

The worst that would have happened was they say no.

Yeah.

And then you just give it a shot with your insanity defense.

Now, it wasn't just the questionable nature of Miller's confession to police that Williams, his new lawyer, believed had tainted the case. He also pointed to the arrest of Robert Lupinacci, For a similar crime.

Yeah.

Which Miller's previous lawyer and Connecticut law enforcement agencies failed to investigate in the context of the Braw murders at all.

Wow.

Burdock responded by telling Williams that the arrest was, quote, not relevant to our case, and said they didn't investigate because, quote, that happens every day on Merritt Parkway.

Wow. It doesn't. Wow.

It doesn't.

It doesn't.

And also the fact that a series of murders and attempted strangulations were continuing to happen Might be a really fucking valid argument for the fact that your client is innocent.

Well, that's the other thing. And it's like, that happens every day there. And it's like, damn, you should do a better job, huh?

Yeah, I mean, on the police for sure.

Like, the police should be doing a better job out there.

And also—

What the fuck?

That Lupinacci's case wasn't relevant to their case— the arrest wasn't relevant to their case.

It's so relevant.

It's the most relevant that anything has ever been to your case.

Yeah.

It's the exact same thing playing out.

That's wild.

Like, had you discovered— like, thankfully he was found in the act of doing that.

Yeah.

Had he not been, would you have found another young Black woman on the side of Merritt Parkway?

And also, what have you— what would you have done then?

Right. Would you have said that's not relevant to the case?

If she was discovered exactly how the other ones were discovered, what would you have done?

Would that have been— like, that's the thing.

Would that make it relevant?

If she had been dead, would that have been relevant?

If you, if you hadn't caught him before he finished the act. Would, would that be relevant?

What sense does this make?

Because he would have murdered her. Like, he wasn't strangling her for any other reason. He was going to murder her.

100%.

You just happened to come across him.

Yup.

That's wild.

Like, hello?

That's infuriating.

So while nearly everybody involved in the investigation stood by their conviction that they arrested the right man and felt it was unlikely that Benjamin Miller would get a new trial, Williams and his client were still in an advantaged position. If he didn't get a new trial, he would just continue to be locked up in the state hospital, and he did need to receive treatment anyways. But if a new trial was granted, double jeopardy laws prevented him from being found guilty of a crime he'd already been tried for. So that meant if they went to trial, the only options for an outcome were a second verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity or a straight-up acquittal.

Oh, wow.

So in October of 1983, a Superior Court— I almost just said a Superior Court Church. I don't know why. You know, Superior Court judge denied Williams' petition for a new trial. When the decision was made public, John Williams wasted no time in giving a comment to the press, saying that the judge showed a lack of courage when he upheld the previous verdict. Now, it would take another almost 5 years for Benjamin Miller's appeal to receive a review, but finally, in May of 1988, a 3-judge panel in a New York Circuit Court rendered their verdict. The Fairfield County prosecutor had in fact violated Benjamin Miller's rights in 1973 when they withheld evidence about another suspect in the case, referring to Lubanacci. As a result, they were ordered to either retry Miller for the original murders or release him from custody.

Oh, damn.

John Williams told reporters, I'm glad at long last some justice has been done in this case. This certainly— this was certainly one of the most outrageous miscarriages of justice in the state of Connecticut. And I would have to agree.

Hmm.

Now, in the year that followed, the state weighed their options with regard to retrying Miller while John Williams continued to declare his client's innocence in the press. By that time, most of the supposed evidence investigators had gathered, including the confession, had come under scrutiny.

Yeah.

And that completely weakened their chances in court. And outside of that, it doesn't really seem like they had much evidence.

That's the thing.

Williams told the press, in a couple of cases, what Miller said in the confession doesn't square with the autopsies.

Damn.

I think all they're doing is buying some time until they can work out a civil commitment.

Wow.

Yeah.

And I always believe if you really, if you really think that person is guilty and you think you have—

You're going to go for it.

You're going to go for it.

That's what I think.

If there's— that's just my opinion.

Because if you have a strong enough case, you should be able to.

That's the thing. You should be able to.

And it's happened.

Yeah.

For his part, Benjamin Miller insisted that he would not object to the continued commitment to the psychiatric hospital. He only wanted the verdict reversed to clear his name because he was not guilty of this, he said.

Because he's like, I know that he's not, like, you know, sane. He's not a healthy individual.

Well, this is what he himself is recognizing. He's like, I know I'm not a quote unquote sane person, but I'm not a killer.

Yeah. Like, that's the only thing I want taken off me.

Yeah. Like, being mentally ill doesn't make you a serial killer.

Yeah.

So ultimately, the question of a new trial became moot. In May of 1989, a federal judge ruled that double jeopardy laws prevented the state from retrying Benjamin Miller. And as a result, he was released from the state hospital as a free man.

Oh.

Yeah.

I don't know about that.

No.

That's not what I wanted.

The sad thing is he didn't know about that either.

That's the thing. He didn't want to, at least. No.

When the judge announced his ruling, the reality of the situation seemed to overwhelm Benjamin Miller, who by then had spent almost 20 years in a psychiatric hospital.

Oh.

At that point, he also really had no place to go. And he wasn't necessarily able to take care of himself on his own.

Oh, no.

Luckily, eventually he was taken in at a shelter for mentally ill unhoused individuals. And following his release, the assistant state's attorney announced that they would not be appealing the ruling. So the case against Miller was officially closed.

Wow.

He later said that he was coerced in his confession. That was his claim. Yeah, I had a feeling. Yeah. And he was, like, brought to different places and fed information. Wow.

Yeah.

That's what he alleges.

It didn't even, according to them, it didn't even square with the autopsies in some situations.

That's the other thing. It fit in some parts and it didn't fit in others.

And it didn't speak.

And again, it was the only evidence they seemed to have against him.

Yeah, it was the confession.

Now, the case against him, like we just said, rested heavily on a confession that he gave while he was severely symptomatic, paranoid, and delusional.

Yeah.

And he claimed at another point that he didn't even remember giving that confession. And at the time, he didn't understand what he was being prosecuted for.

Damn.

Otherwise, the best evidence that the prosecution had that connected him to the murders were a few vague statements he made to psychiatrists about sinners and salvation while delusional.

That's unbelievable. It is.

I can't believe that it even went to trial.

Yeah.

On the other hand, they arrested another man who was in the middle of attempting to murder a woman by the same means as 5 other victims had previously been killed. In the same location. But that information and the details of the crime were never passed on to Miller's court-appointed attorney at the time.

Wow.

And as a result, Benjamin Miller lost 16 years of his life.

Holy shit.

Personally, look into this case on your own and, you know, take, take what I've told you as you will. But I personally do not believe this man did it.

Yeah, I don't. From what I've been told, I don't.

Now, later, when he finally agreed to speak about the case, Benjamin Miller told reporters the confession he made to police, like I just told you, occurred under duress. Under threat of— and under threat of physical punishment. At the time, he said he was taking a medication that made him semi-irrational. That was a quote. And he said he, quote, would have cooperated and done anything to get the detectives off his back.

That's really sad.

It is sad. He was very much targeted.

That's what happened in the West Memphis 3 case with Jessie Misskelley.

Yup, 100%.

He was from— in my opinion, he was very much led through that confession. What?

Listening and watching that entire process.

Yeah. Unbelievable.

It's sickening.

It really is.

And it's, it's sad.

Yeah.

Because it's all— it's also like, just put that amount of work into finding the actual fucking person because you are— you must know you're coercing this person.

Yeah. Like, it can't feel good. It's not justice.

No, it's fake. Now, for the rest of his life, Benjamin Miller maintained that while he might have been familiar with one or two of the victims throughout his street preaching, He had nothing to do with their murders and he never intended to harm anyone. And he never did. That—

I'm not— that's another clue.

He never did.

That's another clue.

Now, in the wake of his release, the state and those directly involved with the case continued to insist, though, that they caught the right man and they had done everything in their power to see that justice was done. In defense of the whole investigation, Detective George Meyer, who was the lead detective on the case, pointed to all the evidence they had, including the fact that Miller had information only the killer would have known. Or the police.

Yeah.

And that he had taken detectives to a spot where the murders occurred. He said, Ben took us to places we didn't even know about. Okay.

Okay.

However, when he was asked about that by reporters, Miller insisted it was the detectives who gave him information and they took him to locations.

Damn.

John Williams, his lawyer, put it bluntly and pointed to the investigators' botched pursuit of Lupinacci saying—

That's the big red spot here.

It is.

Honestly.

And there's a lot more to that, babe, that I'll get into in a second.

Oh, man.

His lawyer said Miller was a handyman scapegoat. Admitting they were wrong about Miller would have embarrassed too many officials. But as far as the state of Connecticut and the Stamford police were concerned, the Braw murders was officially closed. Justice had been served, even if it had been subverted by the courts in the end of everything.

Wow.

But if what Miller and his lawyer said were true, then who really was responsible for the murders of Rosellen Pazda, Donna Roberts, Gloria Kahn, Gail Thompson, Alma Henry, all of those women, and then the 3 subsequent women who were found later.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, the main 2 names associated with the case have now died. Benjamin Miller passed away in 2010 while still maintaining his innocence and never being arrested for anything like this ever again.

Wow.

He just continued to live in that shelter.

Yeah.

Robert Lupinacci also died in 2013. It is worth noting that his own son spoke with author Vito Colucci, a former Connecticut narcotics officer.

This is Lupinacci's son? Yup.

His own son. He doesn't like to be referred to— like, he doesn't like, uh, his— he doesn't like it when Robert is called his father, but he is his son.

Okay.

And that tells you pretty much what we're about to get into. So Jeff spoke with author Vito Colucci, who's a former Connecticut narcotics officer who wrote a book, Roguetown, about corruption in Connecticut.

Oop.

Like, within the police departments.

And I—

oop. Jeff helped provide information for Colucci, saying that he not only believes Robert Lupinacci was responsible for the Braw murders, but the other 3 subsequent murders as well.

Wow.

Jeff reported, and this is Jeff's reporting, that growing up, Robert was a cruel father. He was abusive to his wife. He was abusive to family pets, animals in general. He was also said to be outwardly racist, but allegedly known in the area as somebody who did patronize Black sex workers. That can—

that will go hand in hand.

Yep. Witnesses came forward saying his car was not only Spotted near where all of the bodies had been discovered, but also at a hotel where Gloria Khan had been staying. Hotel employees confirmed seeing him there.

Stop.

He not only worked at the hotel where Gail Thompson sometimes stayed, but drove a car similar to the one that she was last seen in.

How was none of this taken into consideration? This is incredible.

Oh, honey, just my last statement here. Finally, according to Angela Corella from the Stamford Advocate, that's a local newspaper, At the time of his arrest, and this is a quote, in the trunk of Lupinacci's car, police found hairs from a Black person and a deck of pornographic playing cards with a missing Queen of Hearts. Such a card had been found beside the body of one of the victims a year earlier.

Are you fucking kidding me?

No.

That is the most embarrassing investigation I have ever heard in my life. They should be ashamed.

Yup. It's very interesting. I very much suggest reading, um, Roguetown. There's a whole chapter where Jeff's reportings go into what, uh, Colucci wrote, and it is some compelling shit. I didn't even get into, like, everything. I just— I really gave you, like, the big things. The last time that Jeff saw Robert, he— it was at a restaurant, and he believed that he was sitting with Carol Gates, who was later discovered on Denn Road murdered.

Wow.

In similar circumstances. Wow.

Yeah. Wow.

Yeah.

That's unbelievable.

And the fact that they're just okay with the— like, for, for the police in that area, it's solved.

Yeah.

But it's not because your only suspect was acquitted.

And doesn't anyone have the feeling of like, I'd love to look into this further? I don't know. Like, actually open this back up.

The sad thing is, I don't know if there's any evidence at this point because who knows? There was like tire marks and playing cards and clothing and fingerprints and all kinds of things. But it's like, where did those go?

No, I don't.

Can we retest them?

Yeah, like, where is all that?

But for Jeff to be convinced that Robert did this, it's next level.

Yeah, absolutely. Like, come on.

And then even if we didn't have Jeff's— all of the information that came from Jeff, we also have the fact that Robert was literally caught red-handed.

Yeah.

In the same area strangling a young Black sex worker.

That's what— I mean, that will never make sense to me.

No.

That, that was just— look, they were like, yeah, I don't understand what— Like, what are you talking about?

Like, what does one thing really have to do with the other?

This just— this reminded me of the, um, the George Hodel.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Like the Black Dahlia stuff.

Yeah. When, when people who know them or people who are unfortunately in their family—

Yup.

Start pointing the finger and saying, actually, it's so compelling. I lived with them. Like, I know what kind of person they are.

And then when you back that up with like straight up information.

Yeah.

The playing card, the hair.

Yeah.

And then he would call and like, he would call his like people that he knew on the police force allegedly and ask them questions about the case.

What the fuck?

Yeah, there's a definitely— I suggest reading Roguetown at least.

Yeah.

I just read the chapters that Jeff contributed to because that was the part that involved the bra murders case. Yes.

I—

it seems very interesting.

That's insane.

Yeah. So—

Wow.

Unfortunately, that is the case of the Stanford bra murders. And I mean, I, I'm sitting here and I'm like, it remains unsolved, but—

I guess.

You know, that's kind of what I meant in the beginning.

Officially, it remains unsolved.

Officially, yeah. So with all that being said, we hope you keep listening.

And we hope you keep it weird.

But not so weird that evidence is literally punching you directly in the face and you're like, duh, what? And you said no, let's move on.

No thank you.

Okay.