Transcript of Neal Bradley Long Part 1

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 546 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson, and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?

Hey, I'm doing good, man. How about you?

Doing great. Yeah, you and I, uh, are seeing each other, uh, on back-to-back nights.

I know.

Because we have a lot to record this week. We have a Patreon episode.

We do.

That dropped Saturday night. That's on Tara Gillum. Tara was attacked and stabbed to death on New Year's Eve in 1996 while she was home from college on holiday break. It's a, it's a very interesting episode. Investigators utilized a combination of physical evidence and, you know, Eyewitnesses to identify the, the suspect, and it turned out to be a pretty surprising person.

Yeah. Such a sad case.

Yeah. Very sad case. And then on Unsolved, we're talking about 23-year-old Penn State student Cindy Song, who attended a party with friends on Halloween night, 2001, then disappeared after being dropped off at her apartment.

Gotta listen to that one.

Yeah. And then next Thursday's TCAT's on Brad McGarry. He was a coal miner from the small village of, uh, Bel Air, Ohio, who was found shot to death in his basement. But once investigators solved the case, they uncovered a surprising killer and, and motive. So some mystery there. I don't want to give it away.

No, but it's definitely, uh, shocking.

Yeah. Yeah, no doubt. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Marilyn Dunaway.

Hey, Marilyn.

Allison Snellgrove, AKA Alley Cat.

I like some Alley Cat, don't you?

Uh, yeah, I don't— I wouldn't say it that way, but yeah, I understand what you're saying. Christy Ackerman.

What's up, Ackerman?

Jeanette Turner.

Thanks, Jeanette.

And last but not least, Kira Enright.

Ah, Kira.

And then if we go back into the vault, This week we selected Rebecca Maple.

Like in the syrup?

Yeah, maple syrup.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

You're such a reductionist. But we appreciate the new support, the continued support very much. All right, buddy, are you ready to jump into this episode of True Crime All the Time?

I am.

This is actually a part 1 of 2, and normally, you know, You know, lately since we started doing the Thursday episodes, we would do the part 1s and 2s back to back. Unfortunately, we didn't have it all done. So we're going to have to do the old way, which is Sunday, Sunday, part 1 and 2.

It's, uh, the anticipation.

Yeah. A little more anticipation, but we're talking about Neil Bradley Long. In the early 1970s, Dayton, Ohio was terrorized by an unknown killer. that became known as the Shotgun Slayer. The killer appeared to be randomly targeting African American residents on the west side of the city. So obviously this is one that's very close to home for us. We both are from and live in Dayton, Ohio.

And I was alive during that time.

Well, yeah, I mean, I was too. Very, very young baby. But, uh, you know, you had a PhD at this point in time.

That's true.

There is quite an age gap, but you also got your PhD at like 10, so—

That's because I was part of Mensa at an early age.

Which helped you get your PhD early.

It did.

On September 19th, 1975, Neil Bradley Long was arrested for the fatal shooting of Dr. Charles Glatt, a sociologist who was appointed by a federal court to create a desegregation plan for Dayton Public Schools. Investigators soon determined that Long was responsible for at least 21 attacks against African Americans in Dayton between 1972 and 1975. These shootings resulted in the deaths of between 4 and 7 people and injured at least 14 others. And then following his arrest, Long claimed he committed the murders because he was outraged by this desegregation. So in part 1 of the Neal Bradley Long case, we'll walk through a timeline of the murders and shootings committed by the Shotgun Slayer, the shooting of Dr. Charles Glatt, and how Long was arrested. And you know, Gibbs, we get a lot of emails, voicemails from people who, you know, hear an episode that is close to home for them.

Right.

And they always have very strong feelings on it, right? It hits differently. Well, that's obviously true for us as well. When we are researching and we're doing a case that is very close to home, it just hits a little differently. First of all, we know a lot of the places that, you know, come up in the story. And I think sometimes it's just that factor of, it's kind of hard to believe that these things happen where you live. Yeah.

You don't want to think that they actually did happen so close to home. Kind of like that buffer that they happen elsewhere but not here.

Some people believe that Neil Bradley Long was responsible for the 1966 murder of Lester Mitchell, which sparked the Dayton Race Riot. The 1966 Dayton Race Riot, or the Dayton Uprising, was a period of civil unrest in Dayton on September 1st, 1966, which lasted about 24 hours and ended after the Ohio National Guard was mobilized. It was the largest race riot in Dayton's history and one of several that occurred in the 1960s. Like many cities in the U.S., Dayton experienced racial tensions due to discrimination against African Americans. In 1966, Dayton was one of the most segregated cities in the country. There were about 60,000 African American residents and roughly 96% of them lived in West Dayton due to housing segregation. And on the one hand, you know, this surprises me. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does because, you know, I've lived here basically my entire life. I never viewed Dayton as this hotspot of racial tension. I just never viewed it that way. But to be honest with you, I didn't know a lot of the history. And let's face it, you know, it wasn't just Dayton, right? Many cities in the country experienced this, a very similar thing.

Absolutely.

But when you think of 96% of a group living in one confined area, I think that shows you the magnitude of the segregation. The Dayton Daily News described West Dayton as having neglected schools and discriminatory city services. By 1966, there had been several race-related riots in the area. In the early morning hours of September 1st, 1966, 40-year-old Lester Mitchell, an African-American man, was killed in a drive-by shooting. Lester was transported to the hospital where he later died of face and head wounds. The shooting happened around 3:30 AM while Lester was sweeping the sidewalk in front of his apartment. According to the Dayton Daily News, 15 to 20 people were at the scene, but Lester was the only one injured. One eyewitness said the shooter was a white male. Driving a red car. The Dayton Daily News spoke with 35-year-old Tommy Campbell, who witnessed the shooting. Tommy was coming downstairs from Lester's apartment when he saw Lester hit by a shotgun blast from a passing car. According to Campbell, one guy said they're throwing firecrackers. We all thought it was firecrackers. Monday, they were throwing firecrackers out of a red Chevy. And Tommy was referring to an incident that happened on August 29th when 3 white men drove around the west side of Dayton throwing firecrackers at people and on the lawns.

They were arrested and received fines and workhouse sentences. Campbell said, then I saw the girls on the sidewalk fall flat. Mitchell had been sweeping the sidewalk when he was shot. There were at least 6 people congregated around him. Campbell said, all I saw was the red of the car and the barrel of the gun. All I could tell was they were white men. Somebody said Les had been shot. The girl kept crying, get a towel, somebody go get a towel. So this is a horrible situation, but also strange for a number of reasons. All of these people out there at 3:30 in the morning, which does seem a little bit strange, but you have multiple people outside, and yet he is the only one that is shot. And the descriptions all clearly point to white males, right, being involved in the shooting.

So it seems like he was targeted.

Yeah, I, I don't think there's any doubt about it. Lester Mitchell's death was the inciting incident for the Dayton race riot. But the major causes were high unemployment, poor housing, and a lack of dialogue with city leaders. By 10 AM, a large-scale riot had broken out, mostly concentrated in West Dayton. Rioters threw bottles and rocks at vehicles driven by white people. One reporter from the Journal Herald wrote that the crowd was chanting, kill, kill, kill. A white truck driver suffered a fractured jaw from a projectile that came through his windshield. 225 officers set up a blockade around West Dayton, but the rioting eventually spread to downtown. Some men tried to defuse the situation by attempting to negotiate with City Manager Herbert Sterrett and the police chief, requesting that some of the protesters who had been arrested be released, and that 2 white police officers who patrolled West Dayton be removed from that beat. City officials agreed to these changes, but it did little to stop the rioting.

I think once something like that happens, the momentum behind it, it's going to be hard to pull back on it because I think there's a lot of anger that comes out, and I think that just fuels that fire.

Yeah, I mean, once something starts, you know, there's a snowball effect. There's also, you You know, something that you see in almost every kind of rioting situation, which is, yeah, there are some people who are, a lot of people who are very upset about one or multiple things. And then there are people who just kind of take the rioting, uh, as an excuse to then go vandalize and steal stuff.

Absolutely.

Right. I think that happens all the time as well. According to the Dayton Daily News, by 10:25 AM, there were several shootings and assaults reported, as well as reports of looting and burning. 2 people were reportedly shot on a bus. By 10:30, the mayor, Dave Hall, arrived at the scene and stated that he had asked the governor to mobilize the National Guard to restore order. A curfew was enacted and some businesses were closed. Closed. Around 11 AM, Mayor Hall read the Riot Act to a crowd at the heart of activity at West 3rd and William Street, ordering them to disperse or face fines and imprisonment. The governor deployed 1,000 National Guardsmen to Dayton. They arrived around 3 PM, but by that time, much of the rioting had come to an end. In total, one person died, 30 were injured and over 100 people were arrested.

You think about Dayton, back then, that downtown was thriving. That was a very popular place for people to go.

Yeah, absolutely. But 1,000 National Guardsmen, 1,000 troops coming into town. I think that the problem in any situation like that is it Takes a little bit of time to mobilize people, and it sounds like by the time they got here, most of the rioting was done anyway. But it was said that the riot caused about $250,000 in property damage, but it was primarily to African American-owned businesses in West Dayton.

What a shame that was, right? Any damage is A shame, but I'm saying you're rioting and you're damaging stores in your own neighborhood.

Yeah, good. It seems to go against a little bit about maybe why you're rioting. I'm not saying property damage to any businesses would be good, but in this case, it does sound like, you know, some of these people were hurting their own community. After the riot, the area began to decline economically. With many businesses relocating or just remaining closed. But it was several years later that the first of the shotgun attacks occurred. The first confirmed victim was Eddie Friesen. On August 21st, 1972, Eddie was in a phone booth talking to his girlfriend when a car pulled up. He watched as a shotgun emerged from the side window. And someone shot off the top of the phone booth. Eddie fell down. He slid under the car while the shooter got out. He could hear him reloading. Another car's lights became visible and the shooter panicked and drove off. Eddie was injured but survived.

Got lucky.

Yeah, got lucky. You and I talk about shotguns quite a bit. To me, I mean, staring down the barrel of any gun would be very scary, very intimidating. But there's something about a shotgun, the way it, you know, operates, the way that the pellets are dispersed, that, I don't know, seems a little bit scarier. Then obviously you've got that clicking noise of a pump action that you always see in the movies. That's scary just on its own.

But you think about, you know, growing up, the movies that you saw where weapons were used. They always highlighted the shotgun ones for some reason, it seemed like. And those were the ones that were just devastating, right? Because they took off people's heads.

Oh, well, they can be very devastating. On September 26th, 1973, there were 2 early morning shooting incidents. 39-year-old Edward Tillman described how a man in a passing car shot him in the back with a shotgun around 1:30 AM. Tillman described the shooter as a man in a faded dark blue 1969 Oldsmobile. He was able to give a statement and a description despite his injuries. Edward was taken to the hospital for treatment. According to his mother, Mary, Edward was in the hospital shortly before he died. He suffered from epilepsy and lived at home. She told the Dayton Daily News, he never bothered a soul. But he couldn't sit still. That's why he was out late the night he was shot. He told me he was restless and had to take a walk. And let's face it, Gibbs, I mean, these are scary situations. You think about the DC sniper case,

right?

And how scary that was when you have someone who's just kind of driving around looking for people and shooting them From a car.

Yeah, so random.

It is very random and it's scary, right? One guy's in a phone booth, uh, you know, one guy is just kind of sweeping up in front of his apartment. This guy's just kind of taking a walk.

Just taking a stroll, just trying to, you know, get out for a little bit. Maybe he'll be able to go back home and go to sleep.

Yeah, he's not bothering anybody. He's not doing anything wrong. 50-year-old James D. Watts later reported that a man fitting the description of Edwards' assailant fired a shotgun through his car windshield twice. He was driving near Summit and Germantown Streets around 2:35 AM. Watts wasn't hit, and he followed the car to Nicholas Road until it disappeared southbound on I-75.

How scary that had to be. I mean, Shot at twice?

Through your windshield.

Now, one article by the Dayton Daily News reported that he died 2 days after he was shot, while another reported that he died on October 7th, 1973.

Well, you get those, uh, type of reports when you go through these older newspapers.

Yeah, the older you go back, the, the less accurate I would say the, the reporting is. We found that right as we research cases. It was on July 15th, 1975 that the Dayton Daily News reported on page 1, shotgun sniper spree kills 2, hurts 1 here. 2 men were killed and a woman was wounded by shotgun blasts in 3 separate shootings by a sniper in a passing car. A 4th woman was also wounded by a, a shotgun sniper, but the car's description was different. And police did not link that incident. The deceased victims were identified as 27-year-old Larry Keith Romine and 21-year-old Robert Eugene Hoare. 20-year-old Glenda Gay was wounded but was reported to be in fair condition at the hospital. Police believe the shooter intended to hit her boyfriend, Leonard Goff, but instead the bullet hit her shoulder. So you have multiple incidents in 1973, right? But it's really not until 1975 when the paper starts calling this person, you know, the, the shotgun sniper, which sniper's a, a strange word.

It is.

When you hear the word sniper, you think of someone with a rifle shooting from a long distance. But I get it.

But here you have a, uh, a day in July where he kills 2 and injures 1.

But it's gonna make headlines right now. Did they put it together that this was possibly related to the incidents that had happened previously? Yeah, I don't think they did at that point. The 4th shooting occurred on Xenia Avenue. in East Dayton. 26-year-old Karen Lucille Stroh was slightly injured. So it was really 4, right, separate victims in a day. And, and I mean, I think if you're police, that's extremely concerning. One victim would be concerning, but 4 people, you're like, who in the world is out there just driving around shooting people?

And why these people?

Yeah.

What did they do to this person?

Right. Is there a connection? Because police have to make a connection or have to try to make a connection.

And I think as police, you want there to be a connection, right?

Well, that would make it somewhat easier. It'd give you a place to start. Maybe police were searching for a motive, but they really didn't have any good leads. The shootings were compared to incidents from a year prior. And I don't know how you couldn't. You have someone driving around shooting people from inside a car using a shotgun. I think if you're in law enforcement, you, you have to at least look at the possibility that this is the same person. Investigators also didn't know for certain if the shooter was white or black, but one witness did report the man was wearing dark-framed glasses. The description of the car varied, but it was thought to be blue and perhaps a late '60s Model 4. So this part is a little different because in the earlier shootings, it was pretty clear that the individual driving and the other individuals were white.

Right.

Here, it sounds like they didn't have that type of description. What they had was that the man was wearing dark-framed glasses.

And in the previous year, they also had him driving a red car.

And now it's thought to be blue.

Right.

So I could see why maybe, okay, there's— it's not a slam dunk, right, that this is the same person. Larry Romine was the first victim. He was shot as he walked along Edgewood Avenue around 1 AM Witness James Wood reported the crime at 1:30 AM after a passerby knocked on his door. Larry served time in prison in the late 1960s after he was found guilty in the stabbing death of a friend, and he was released in 1969. At the time of his death, he lived on the 2nd floor of a boarding house on Middle Street. A neighbor said Larry kept to himself and lived alone. Glenda Gay was shot as she was entering her boyfriend's home at 1:12 AM. According to her mother Ida, Glenda and Leonard Goff were about to enter Goff's home when the shooting occurred. She said, this man just pulled up and started shooting. Leonard told me he fell down and that the force of the gunfire knocked Glenda off her feet. She ran into the house screaming that she had been shot. And the thing about shotguns, right, depending on what type of load you're using, they're very deadly up close.

But the further away that you are, the more the projectiles disperse. And so, you know, you could get hit with one pellet, a couple pellets. It's not going to be good.

Right.

But it is much different than being shot with a shotgun up close It also depends, right? Is it birdshot, which are smaller pellets? Is it buckshot, which are larger pellets? Glenda and Goff didn't get a clear look at the suspect, but they thought he might have been a light-skinned African American man or possibly a white man. And I kind of go back to the person who said that, you know, he— the shooter was wearing dark rimmed glasses. Okay, you can get that detail, but you can't tell what race the shooter was. And maybe it's because everything's happening quickly, they're driving in a car.

It's at night.

It's at night. There could be a lot of different factors. Robert Horde was shot as he carried the trash out at 1:33 AM in front of his home on Cincinnati Street. He died 15 minutes later at the hospital. Robert's uncle, Richard Lee Walker, said he was with him just minutes before he was shot. They were taking the trash out like they always did on Monday nights. He went around back and was setting out 2 bags by the street. He heard a loud noise and Robert yelled out, Richie, I've been shot. He found him lying on his stomach and there were holes in the wooden porch post. Robert's stepfather, Willie James, said Robert worked at a car wash. He had gotten into some trouble as a juvenile but had grown up into a fine man. He was a good boy.

So no reason for him to be shot, just again some random shooting, it seems like.

Yeah, but random in what way, right? That's what investigators have to figure out. You know, obviously they're gonna have to investigate the backgrounds of the victims, but what they're hearing is that, you know, these aren't people who are into crime or, you know, doing something they shouldn't be doing. So who's got a beef with them? Why are they taking shots at them? And then the big question would be, are these people related in some way? And I don't mean related as in family, but related in that this person has a beef with them on a personal level.

Yeah.

Or they just share a commonality. Right now, we already know what the commonality is.

Right.

But law enforcement doesn't know at, at this point in time. It's something they have to figure out. The following day, Abdura Zephyr, a Black leader in Dayton, asked the police chief to resign if he didn't make an arrest. Citizens held all-night vigils, and companies offered a $10,000 reward for information.

Pretty good for back then.

Yeah, $10,000, no doubt. But if you think about it, you know, this is the type of thing that can really hurt companies, businesses all around a city. You've got somebody who's just driving around looking for victims. All right, it's going to scare away tourists. People might not want to go to work. They don't want to leave their house.

Not going to be good.

No, absolutely not. On July 17th, the Dayton police arrested 3 people for questioning in the hit-and-run slayings. They also searched a late-model Thunderbird at the scene, and they found a silver revolver. Rather than calling the suspect a sniper, the police instead called him a hit-and-run criminal, which to me is strange, right? You think about hit-and-run and automatically you kind of go to, you hit somebody with your car, but you leave the scene.

Exactly.

Or you hit a car and, and you leave the scene of the crime. In this case, you know, this person is shooting people from his car. able to leave the scene pretty quickly because he's already in the car.

I think this would just confuse people.

You mean the hit-and-run moniker? Yeah, I think it would. Now we know at some point this killer is going to be coined the Shotgun Slayer, and as strange as I think some monikers are, that one is probably more apt.

Yeah,

than hit-and-run criminal or even a shotgun sniper. Or, you know, anything like that.

Right.

Police investigated 15 tips after the reward was offered. It was reported that investigators were looking for 3 cars, a Cadillac, a Monte Carlo, and a Ford, all described by witnesses as being involved in the shootings. And I found that a little strange, right? 3 different cars. So what does that mean? Does it mean that the eyewitnesses are getting the, the car wrong, or the shooter has access to 3 different cars, or it's more than one person?

Yeah,

because most people aren't going to carry a shotgun in their car.

No, no. I don't believe— I could be wrong. I don't know what the legality of having a shotgun in your car was in the 1970s. Most people today do not carry a shotgun their car.

Right.

A lot of people carry loaded guns in their cars because it's legal and legal in a lot of states, but I don't think a lot of people, uh, carry a shotgun. On July 19th, the Dayton police released Charles McCoy and Shelly Anderson, who had been arrested in connection with the murders. A 3rd individual remained in jail. Bobby David Webb was identified as the informant. who led police to McCoy and Anderson, he was being held in jail on a parole violation. A police source told the Daily News, he may be our man. McCoy and Anderson were interrogated, and police conducted 2 raids in East Dayton and Mad River Township, seizing a shotgun, handgun, and other items, but not the 12-gauge shotgun that was used to kill Larry Romine and Robert Bobby David Webb admitted he lied in accusing the 2 men. He had claimed he was lying down in the backseat of the vehicle used in the hit-and-run shooting.

Why lie about something like that?

Well, he was in jail, so maybe he thought, you know, that was going to be his ticket, uh, out, right? They were gonna give him preferential treatment. I mean, that's kind of the problem with a jailhouse informant or something along those lines. Anytime someone has a vested interest in rolling over on somebody, there is a very high likelihood that they could not be telling the truth.

I think what these 2 individuals had to go through, I mean, considered Suspects in a murder.

Well, multiple,

multiple

murders, and also, you know, hurting a bunch of other people up to this point. But now we also know that police were looking for a 12-gauge shotgun, right? That was the, the murder weapon.

And when you think of a 12-gauge versus a 20-gauge The difference is what?

12-gauge just being bigger, right? Shotguns are kind of strange. The lower the number, the, the bigger the shell, more damage.

More damage.

Yeah. Later that month, the city of Dayton gave its blessing for a group of concerned citizens to patrol the streets, even loaning 20 walkie-talkie radios to the group. The patrol planned to watch for strange cars in the neighborhood but they were not authorized to carry guns.

Just citizens on patrol.

Yeah, which, uh, is kind of cool when you think about it, that people are so concerned about their neighborhood they're willing to give up their time to patrol the streets, and the city is invested enough that they're actually loaning them equipment. But here's the problem: you don't have any guns. You're not authorized to carry them,

right?

And you're looking for someone in a car who is shooting at people with a 12-gauge shotgun.

Randomly.

Randomly. That, that makes it a pretty scary situation. According to the Dayton Daily News, in the mid-1970s, the police investigated about 90 to 100 homicides a year, and the city was still recuperating from the 1966 riot In the midst of the upheaval, the Shotgun Slayer prowled the streets looking for victims. And I think what they're saying there, Gibbs, is, you know, obviously 90 to 100 homicides, they had their work cut out for them already dealing with things like that and other crimes. So it wasn't like they could devote We might add everybody or every resource to finding this person. There's still a lot of other work that has to be done.

Yeah, when you're having 6 to 8 murders a month, that's a lot of energy being focused on trying to get those solved, let alone diving into who this shotgun shooter is.

All the police knew was that he was possibly a white man with dark hair. and dark horn-rimmed glasses. And let's be honest, that's not a ton to go off of.

It really isn't.

I mean, how many white males are in any given city wearing dark horn-rimmed glasses?

At that time, I think it's going to be a fairly large population.

I, I kind of think it'd be a pretty fairly large population today.

I mean, During that year, my dad had dark hair and dark horn-rimmed glasses because that's what everybody wore.

The Dayton police unsuccessfully sought assistance from the FBI in their efforts to solve the case. The murder of Dr. Charles Glatt, a seemingly unrelated shooting, finally solved the case of the Shotgun Slayer on the afternoon of September 19th, 1975. Neil Bradley Long entered the federal office building in Dayton and asked to see 46-year-old Dr. Charles Glatt, a sociologist. Dr. Glatt worked at Ohio State University, and he was one of the leading experts in the design and implementation of desegregation busing programs in major American cities.

Pretty impressive. And I'm sure that was a pretty big need at that time.

Yeah, I think it's— it was something that was being worked on, being implemented, right, in many cities across the, the country at that time. By 1975, Glatt had developed plans to end segregation in public schools in 18 different states. That year, he was appointed by a federal judge to to develop a similar desegregation program for the Dayton Public School System as a result of a suit filed by the NAACP. Dr. Glatt grew up in rural Frost, Louisiana. He earned a bachelor's from LSU and a master's degree from the University of New Mexico. He taught in Albuquerque in the late '50s and early '60s before he became a TA at the University of New Mexico. He was then a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and moved to Ohio State in 1966. He had been married 3 times and had 2 children with his first wife. He adopted his third wife's children, and the family lived in Columbus.

Look, there's gonna be a lot of people that are gonna champion what he's trying to do, but back then, there's gonna be some people that do not want him to succeed. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I mean, there's, there's no doubt about it. Certainly not everyone would have been in favor of desegregation back then. According to former Dayton school superintendent Wayne Carl, who worked with Glatt when he was helping Dayton make plans for middle and magnet schools in 1977, Glatt was creative, courageous, and committed. He would take extra time, to attend meetings where he knew extremist groups would be present, and he was aware he could be attacked. Glatt once told a group during a 1971 talk on integration, we Southerners are a part of you. Midwestern cities are filled with folks like us from the swamps and hills and valleys, and I pledge to you as an educator and a gentleman that there are some of us who are going to change your school systems. And your children and others can come out better because of it. In a 1971 talk in Dayton, Glatt explained that he dedicated his life to the idea that all children should have equal educational opportunities. He said, I pledge myself to that. I pledge my tax dollars to it. And the only way we will have that equality is to get children of all races and classes together to let them learn from one another.

I do think, Gibbs, that this was a pretty impressive individual, right? Obviously, he had a great resume, both work history and educational.

Right.

It also sounds like he had a vision to really do something good for children, you know, as a whole. Now, not everybody was going to see it that way though.

No, not back then. But for sure, he was a visionary.

Yeah, yeah, I think so. From 1971 to 1973, Glatt headed the Equal Educational Opportunity at OSU before he was appointed to develop desegregation plans in Indianapolis. In Columbus, Glatt was founder and president of the Foundation for Equality in Education. a group of businessmen and others dedicated to the idea that integration could come peacefully to Columbus's schools.

Clearly, he was moving from city to city, taking care of business.

Well, yeah, he's all over, right? I said he was working on plans in 18 different states. He's obviously working in, you know, some of these larger cities. In June 1975, Glatt was appointed by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals to develop a desegregation plan for the Dayton Public School System, which was scheduled to be completed on November 3rd. And I was really young, right? I was born in '73, so I was young when all of this was taking place. But I'm well aware that there were a lot of white people in major cities who were extraordinarily opposed to desegregation.

Oh yeah.

According to the New York Times, Dr. Glatt expressed concern over how Dayton residents would react to large-scale school desegregation. He feared emotions would boil over if forced busing occurred. Glatt was worried about desegregation in Dayton because he believed Dayton lacked a strong leader, to stop tensions from boiling over, whereas Indianapolis had a strong mayor.

I think it makes a difference.

Well, it does. He's also not speaking glowingly of the Dayton mayor at the time.

Right.

And the thing is, he had been threatened many times throughout his career. Associates of Dr. Glatt said he feared for his safety. He often stayed away from his hotel room and preferred to stay with friends. He changed cars frequently and he varied his schedule. He also kept a small caliber pistol in his briefcase, but he never displayed it. And that's gonna happen, right? If you are rocking the boat, which he was definitely doing, you know, he was involved in something that a lot of people were not going to like. There is a chance that someone's going to come after you. Mm-hmm. But it sounds like he was very aware of that. He took his safety pretty seriously.

I think he felt the reward was greater than the risk.

Well, yeah, as most people do, right, when they're in that situation. Glatt told his friend, Dr. Charles Rivers, while in Indianapolis, there were times things got dangerous for me, but I believed in what I was doing. I had to go ahead. If it happens, it happens. And I think that speaks directly to what you just said, right? He believed in what he was doing more than he was afraid of what could possibly happen to him because of what he was doing.

I mean, if you allow fear to get in your way—

Well, you never do anything.

Exactly.

But it is the exact reason why I don't go bungee jumping, skydiving, or You know, a lot of different things like that.

It's the same reason you don't join me on the stage on Saturdays.

That's not fear. That's just a sense of decency and just, you know, not wanting to make a fool of myself, something which you obviously seem to have no problem with.

Hey, I just have a knack.

Plus, I don't need the $4 that much.

It's the write-offs that I do it for.

I mean, how many different banana hammocks can you buy? There's only so much to write off.

You'd be really surprised.

Yeah. 2 weeks before he was killed, Dr. Glatt rode the bus as Black children were transported to 2 majority-white schools in Eastgate. There were no incidents, but Glatt told teachers he was holding them responsible. for whatever happened to those children from that day on. On the afternoon of September 19th, 1975, minutes before the fatal shooting, Neil Bradley Long pulled into a parking lot managed by Ray Kuhn at 3rd and Perry Streets. Ray Kuhn recalled, he was in a big hurry when he came in. He pulled in real fast and he started to get out. I said, sorry, buddy, I'm full. Kuhn sent him to a different parking lot. Parking attendant Bruce Reinhardt recalled to the Journal Herald, he was a little nervous. His voice trembled. He said, is it all right if I park this here? I'll only be a few minutes. Long was not stopped by guards as he entered the federal building, even though security had been increased due to bomb threats and mailed death threats. One security officer who asked not to be named said, we simply neglected to check visitors for Dr. Glatt's office because of the volume of people who come to the post office.

It would've taken additional manpower to secure Dr. Glatt's office. And I don't know, Gibbs, that really security anywhere in the 1970s is anywhere close to what it is today.

Oh, I can't imagine that it was.

You think about getting on an airplane in the '70s. There was nothing to it.

No.

You didn't even need a ticket to walk to the, uh, the boarding gate, right? You could walk all the way with a loved one right before they walked down the, um, you know, the hallway to get on the, the plane.

Right. Not now.

No. There was no TSA. There were no X-rays. It was like, it was basically the honor system back then.

Kind of was, really.

I also don't know how many of these federal buildings would've had, you know, metal detectors and, you know, the type of technology that they use today to make sure people aren't carrying in guns and things like that.

I'm gonna guess it was minimal back then.

Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Glatt was in his office writing an integration proposal for the school. According to his secretary who witnessed the shooting, the gunman walked into Glatt's office and asked, are you Mr. Glatt? He replied, I am. Long then said, God is making me do this. He drew a pistol and fired 3 shots, paused, fired twice more, paused again, and then fired a final shot. The guard in the lobby who apprehended Long Quoted him as saying, I did what I had to do. Charles Glatt died on the operating table an hour later. Long was charged with murder on federal property, a capital offense. He later said his motive for killing Glatt was the desegregation program, which would put Black students and white students together. He believed this would cause conflict. a higher crime rate result in his 12-year-old son, Mark, being physically assaulted by African American students. And this is the part that really kind of got me thinking, right? It wasn't because something had already happened. It was because he had the thought that this is what was going to happen.

Right.

Right? His son hadn't been assaulted. He just thought, well, this is going to happen once segregation starts.

So I can't allow it, so I'm going to kill you.

But the thinking to me is so flawed, right? I get it. Dr. Glatt is the one who's making the plans, but how is killing him going to stop the thought or the implementation of busing, of segregation.

Yeah, it was on its way.

The wheels were already in motion. Yeah. And it's not like he was the only person in the world, right, that could have done this.

Yeah, he didn't have the only key to this thought process.

Yeah, he was a kind of an expert in it, but it just wasn't going to stop it. On September 20th, 1975, Dayton police said they were investigating the possibility that Long may have been responsible for the unsolved hit-and-run shotgun killings over the last 4 years. Long matched the description of a man who, late on summer nights, shot at least 6 African Americans as they walked along the streets of Dayton. A former landlord confirmed that Long owned several shotguns. The night of the shooting, the police also removed what appeared to be shotguns wrapped in sheets from Long's apartment. So Gibbs, as we kind of wrap up this part 1 on Neil Bradley Long, there's no doubt, right? The killing of Dr. Charles Glatt, the shotgun shootings, all of it was racially motivated. We always talk about motive,

right?

What's the motive here for Neil Bradley Long? And it appears to be entirely about race.

Yes, it seemed like he thought he was doing what needed to be done for his race, the way he saw it.

But what is he accomplishing by killing African Americans? Right? We may need to dive into that more in episode 2.

Right.

I know what he must have thought he was trying to accomplish with this murder of Dr. Charles Glatt. I don't fully comprehend it because it doesn't make sense, right? He was upset about segregation. He was upset about forced busing. I guess he thought by killing this man, that, that was somehow magically going to stop all of that.

Yeah, the program would cease.

Yeah, which I mean doesn't make a lot of sense, but let's face it, right? Killers don't always make a lot of sense because obviously if they did, they wouldn't do a lot of the things that they do and we talk about.

True.

So in part 2 of the Neal Bradley Long episodes, we'll do a deep dive into his troubled past And get more into his motive and explanations for the shotgun slayings and the murder of Charles Glatt and the legal proceedings that followed. So that's it for this first of 2 episodes on Neil Bradley Long, but we got a voicemail. You want to check that out?

Let's hear it.

Hello, my name is Anna and I live in Worcester, Massachusetts. I just want to say that I'm a great big fan of your show. I listen to it a lot at work. It helps the day go by really well. And despite it's a dark subject matter, it's because it is really interesting. Now there's one case that's, uh, I mean, it's unfortunate obviously because it's also murder, but it happened around Halloween and it was the murder of this woman named Sharon Gregory. She was killed by this kid who basically thought he was Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th. So it's kind of been overshadowed by that sort of sensationalism with the Friday the 13th franchise. So obviously, if you were to ever cover that, I'm sure you would have it as, you know, the murder of Sharon Gregory. But yeah, this kid Mark Branch, he was obsessed with horror movies, thought he was Jason, he tortured animals as a kid, all the base stuff you hear from like stuff like serial killers. But this would be a great case for you to cover. It's very interesting. It happened not too far from me in Greenfield, Massachusetts.

Great speaking with you two. Keep your own time ticking, and I hope you have a great Halloween and a great rest of your day. Bye.

All right, thanks for the voicemail. We appreciate it very much. Yeah, we hope everybody has a happy Halloween as well. Sounds like a very interesting case that we need to look into. All right, buddy, that is it for another episode of True Crime All the Time. Next Sunday We'll be rolling out the part 2 and last part on Neil Bradley Long. So that's it for another episode of True Crime All the Time. So for Mike—

And Gibby.

Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.