Criminology - Judy Lord

Episode Date: December 14, 2025

In 1975, 22-year-old Judy Lord was suffocated and strangled in her Concord, NH apartment. From early on, police felt that they had a strong suspect, Ernie Gable, and even physical evidence that may help to prove it. But the case remained cold for decades. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the case of Judy Lord. The technology the authorities had at their disposal was extremely limited in 1975. In November of 2025, police finally announced that they had solved Judy Lord's murder. Many people had been suspected over the years, but technology left no doubt as to the identity of Judy's murderer.   You can help support the show through Patreon. We'd love to connect with listeners on social media. We are available on the following platforms: Facebook - Facebook Discussion group - Instagram - Threads - X Formerly Twitter - Blue Sky - Twitch - Tik Tok  Criminology is an Emash Digital production hosted by Mike Ferguson and Mike Morford. 

In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, criminology listeners. It's Mike Morpher here. And I want to tell you about a podcast I think you'll really like, especially if you're a fan of FBI criminal profiling. It's called The Consult. Have a listen. Ever wonder what it's like inside the FBI's behavioral analysis unit? How profilers actually work through a case? I'm Julia Cowley. I'm a retired FBI profiler, and I host the Consult, Real FBI Profilers. My colleagues and I, all retired FBI profilers,

break down investigations from a behavioral perspective. We look at both solved and unsolved cases, high-profile and lesser-known ones, and we rely on research and statistics to dispel common misconceptions about crime. We also talk with detectives, journalists, and other experts who can help inform the work we do and give you a clearer picture of how investigations unfold. If you've ever wanted to be in the room with the BAU, this is as close as it gets. Join us on the consult, real FBI profilers. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics.

Listener discretion is advised. Everyone and welcome to episode 389 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford. How are you doing this week, buddy? I'm doing good. How you doing?

Great. We had our first snow day. We had another snow last night. Christmas is almost here. It's definitely winter time. I can tell you that from my weather. Well, I don't know anything about snow down here in Florida, but we did put our heat on last night.

So it's, you know, it got down to, I think, 49 or something like that. So it feels a little bit like Christmas season or holiday season. Poor baby. You need me to send you down like an emergency kid or something, 49. Now, we've got a couple extra blankets that we break out when we need to. Oh, that's so funny. The difference in. the weather, right, between my place, your place, out west, southwest, northwest,

northwest, boy, big differences in the climate in this country for sure. But let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Kelly Bafone, Emma Truman, and Shannon Armstrong. So a lot of great new support. We really appreciate that. Yeah, thank you so much for that support. It really helps us out for anyone else that would like to. you can get started by going to patreon.com slash criminology.

All right. It's time to jump into this week's case. And we're diving into a case that had really frustrated investigators for 50 years. In 1975, 22-year-old Judy Lord was suffocated and strangled in her conquered New Hampshire apartment. From early on, police felt that they had a strong suspect and even physical evidence that may help to prove. it, but frustratingly, an enormous error along the way would prevent a prosecution from happening, and it would be decades before science was able to erase all doubts about who was responsible. In May 1975, 22-year-old Judy Lord was living in Unit 4 of Building 19 in the Concord Gardens Building in Concord, New Hampshire. Concord back in 1970 had a population of about 30,000 people.

Judy had recently moved into the unit with her husband, Gregory Lord Sr., just two months earlier, but they ended up separating in early May after an incident of domestic violence. On May 4th, Judy called the police and explained that her husband had beaten her. Officers came and observed two black eyes, blood around her mouth, and a lump on the back of her head. Gregory was arrested for assault the next day. He pled guilty and agreed to pay a $100 fine and subsequently moved out of the apartment. When he left, he took everything with him other than the bed and the crib for the young son, Gregory Jr. He moved in with his grandmother who lived across the street.

Due to the stress of the situation, Judy quit her job at McCurley's nursing home. And more of domestic violence. We talk about it a lot. It's a very, very scary situation. I don't know exactly how it was dealt with in 1975. my thought is though and from what I've heard it was not taken nearly as seriously as it is today now officers came out and by the description there was no doubt right that Gregory had beaten the you know what out of Judy she had two black eyes blood around her mouth a lump on the back of her head but okay was what happens to him he pleads guilty and he pays a $100 five. If that's all that happened, all right, I think that tells you everything you need to know right there about how that type of crime was viewed back in 1975.

Yeah, we've talked a lot about sentencing for harsh, awful crimes that are committed. I remember when we're discussing the Golden State Killer case, the rapes were such a short statute of limitation because they just didn't view them. seriously, they didn't take them seriously. So, you know, this seems like another crime that wasn't harshly punished. And we talk about cases where it goes on for a long time. We don't know how long this went on, but it seems that Judy put a stop to it quickly and decided she wasn't putting up with this. And, you know, good for her for doing that. But how scary is it to go through the situation only to have.

this person move right across the street from you, move in with, you know, his grandmother. I mean, we talked about the stress on her. It had to have been unbelievable. But even having said all that, there obviously was a strange dynamic between the two, even after this incident, because on May 19th, Judy went to the bank with her husband to cash her last paycheck. and then around 4 p.m. she picked her son up from a friend's house. Around 8 p.m., she went to a volleyball game at the complex. And at the time, she was friendly with the other residents there,

mingling with them. After the game, she and some other neighbors went to the unit next to hers to hang out with Linda Gable. Her husband, Ernest, was not home for this gathering. While next door, Judy realized that she had left her door unlocked. And she was afraid. So she asked a friend to do a sweep of the unit and make sure that everything was okay and no one was inside. After the friend confirmed that the apartment was empty, Judy locked the door and they both went back to the Gables unit.

Finally, Judy went home around 11.30 that night. A few minutes later, she popped back over to ask Linda if she could borrow a pair of shoes. Then she went home and took a shower. It was a pretty uneventful night, or so it seemed. The next day on May 20th, just after 1230 in the afternoon, the property manager of the Concord Gardens' apartments, knocked on the door of Judy's unit to collect the rent because it was past due, but no one answered the door. He could hear her son crying inside, so he knew Judy was home. The property manager decided to enter the unit, expecting to catch Judy avoiding him over the rent.

Instead, he found something horrible. He found her dead. Her baby son, 20-month-old Gregory Jr., was fifth. physically unharmed, still crying in another room. The landlord called police who quickly came to investigate. It was clear that there had been a physical fight. In Judy's bedroom, one of the curtains had been torn off the rod, which was broken. The bed had been partially pulled away from the wall.

The lampshade on a tall floor lamp was hanging crooked on the lamp. The alarm clock had been knocked off the nightstand. It was broken and showed a time of 147 a.m. A small mirror had also been knocked off of the bedside table. The toilet seat had been left up, suggesting that Judy had not been the last one to use her bathroom. Judy's body was lying on the bed underneath a blanket. She was completely nude with something covering her face. It turned out to be a sauna suit, basically a jumpsuit or track suit made of a rubbery waterproof material.

It had been used to suffocate her. There were also signs that she had been strangled, and there were multiple scratches on Judy's face, likely inflicted by her killer as they covered her mouth or grabbed at her face and neck. There were two tails still damp from the last shower Judy had taken just hours before she was attacked. They were on the floor near the foot of the bed that Judy was killed on. Dry semen was found on at least one of them. In the days before DNA, investigators were only able to determine that the semen had been been left by someone with the blood type B or A-B.

That's basically the extent of what they could do, of what they could test for at the time. The damp towels also helped to give investigators a clear order of events. Judy had made it home safely, felt comfortable enough to shower, and then she was assaulted. Her cause of death was listed as homicidal strangulation. And this is an absolutely horrifying description of events. You have this property manager who probably, dealt with this type of thing a lot, right? People are sometimes laid on their rent. Is it unusual that they would try to dodge him because they don't want to have to answer

for why they haven't been able to pay or they still can't pay? So, you know, he uses his key, walks in thinking he's going to catch Judy. And instead he finds just an absolutely nightmare you're seeing. Yeah, I can't imagine being that guy walking into that situation and finding that. You know, that actually happened until when I was young. I lived in an apartment complex and there was a similar situation. A guy went in to do some maintenance in an apartment and he found the tenant dead. It wasn't a murder, but still, he was from what I heard, pretty shocked and devastated by seeing that. So not something you expect to see on your daily work at an apartment complex, but something he probably never forgot. No, and, you know, that would be bad enough.

This would be even worse. And the things that really jump out in me are the descriptions of the scene, right? There was no doubt there was a big fight in that bedroom. A lot of things were knocked off. You know, we've got the, the alarm clock, which, you know, may help pinpoint time because it was broken at a certain time. But this toilet seat left up, and that's a big thing in my house. You know, I have a wife and two girls. I'm the only male in the house. The toilet seat has been drilled into me for 30 years. Do not leave the toilet seat up. So what are police left with? What would what would they most likely suspect that there was a mail there, right?

They also have semen. So, I mean, it's it's not that tough to put all that together. And that's maybe something that the person overlooked when they, you know, committed this crime. Maybe they went into the bathroom, didn't even think about it. And it's little clues like that that would. help police maybe figure out, okay, this is a male attacker. They had the seaman as well. On the other hand, if it was a woman somehow,

you know, it would be a pretty ingenious move to leave the twillet seat up to try and plan a false flag. Police questioned nearby residents of the apartment complex and they got some disturbing news. It seems that multiple people actually heard Judy being attacked and killed, but no one went to check on her or called for help. The tenants in the building were used to hearing noises from their neighbors because the walls were paper thin. One neighbor was able to report that she knew Judy took a shower before she headed to bed.

Residents there could easily hear when their neighbors turned on the water and could likely even tell the difference between someone taking a shower and drawing a bath. During the time Judy was killed, these neighbors heard moans, thumps, and screams coming from Jews. Judy's unit sometime in the middle of the night, maybe around 1.30. According to NHPR.org, one neighbor actually heard Judy yell, leave me alone, leave me alone, before the sound was abruptly muffled, as if a hand had been placed over her mouth. And according to an New Hampshire DOJ report, another neighbor specifically recalled that the bed really started banging away. According to the police report,

the initial disturbance lasted for only a few minutes before the silence returned. And this is something that you and I discuss morph in many episodes. Someone hears something, a neighbor, a bystander.

How do they process that information and what do they do with it? And this is one that, I mean, I get it. You don't know exactly what's going on. You're not sure. This could be some wild intimate moment maybe. So you don't want to get involved. But the descriptions of it really kind of make you think that this would be the time to call police. There's a lot going on, screams, thumps. But again, what does a person make of it?

Yeah, and I think the clue, leave me alone would be, you know, a clue that, you know, she's going through something that she's not happy about. And that might be the time to call police. And it's that old saying, if you want some help, don't yell rape, you'll fire. And people are more apt to do something. And it seems like that's the case here. Well, you made a good point, right? if this neighbor really did hear leave me alone leave me alone well that changes everything moans thumps even screams could come from a variety of situations i don't need to list them all out i think listeners

can you know put some of that together but in combination with something like leave me alone to me, that changes everything. And the fact that that neighbor specifically didn't call, that's worrisome. I think the worst case scenario is you call the police. They go knock on the door. And if everything's okay, no harm, no foul, they leave. But maybe you save a life. The New Hampshire DOJ report states that autopsy notes indicate that marks on Judy's cheek and lips

showed that the left hand of the attacker had been held over her nose and mouth, and that plastic material may have been held under the left hand of the attacker over the nose and mouth of the victim. Five herders were collected from the scene. Three were recovered from the bed. One was found on Judy's left hand, and another was found on her stomach. Investigators examined the herer and believed that they belonged to someone with African-American ancestry. Because both of Judy's doors had been locked, investigators believed that the killer had entered the apartment through a bedroom window, which was open. And I'm always struck more with, you know, with what could be done with evidence back in the

70s, early 80s versus, you know, later on, you would think this would be a gold mine for investigators, right? They recovered semen. They've got hairs. Those types of things usually lead to solving cases. but they were just so limited with what they could do with that stuff in 1975. I think most investigators present day would be happy to get that kind of evidence to start off a case with. Judy's husband Gregory Lord Sr. was immediately a suspect due to their recent separation and his arrest for violence against her.

It was easy to see why he would be a suspect and he lived very close to Judy. The only problem was he had a solid alibi. He had been out fishing with his brother and didn't get home to his grandmother's until 10 p.m. the night of Judy's murder, according to the N.H. DOJ report, after he got in, his grandmother, Flora Follensby, said that he never left the apartment for the remainder of the night. Another reason investigators discounted Greg as being Judy's killer was the state of his fingernails. He had a bad habit of biting his nails, which left them short and weak. They wouldn't likely have been able to make the scratches found on Judy's face.

In addition, his blood type was A, which did not match the semen stain on the towels. He was also white, which meant that the hairs collected from the crime scene were not likely to belong to him. Because Judy had just showered, the hairs found on her body were almost certainly hears from her killer. Finally, Greg was willing to sit for and passed a polygraph examination. The police were able to clear Greg Lord as a suspect. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency?

We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investment. investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. There was one ear witness account that had made police interested in Greg Lourd. Judy's next-door neighbor, Larry Carraway, indicated that he thought he heard Judy arguing with her husband Greg the night she died.

According to the DOJ report, Larry said he heard Judy ask, what are you doing here, Greg, and also say, no, Greg, no. Investigators became skeptical of Carraway's information after he was caught in a lie. When he was questioned in May, 1975, Carraway told detective specifically that he and Judy never had any kind of sexual relationship, but multiple people knew that Carraway, who was married, had been having an affair with Judy. It seemed like he was making things up to paint Judy's husband in a bad light. Carraway's wife, who was listening in the same room as her husband didn't hear Greg's name at all. In fact, she didn't hear any voices at all, just some banging coming from Judy's apartment. So the fact that Larry Carraway lied to police didn't help

them see him in a good light. According to the Concord Monitor, Judy's neighbor Linda Gable told police that Larry always talked about how he hated Gregory Lord and even started carrying a gun in case Greg decided to confront him over the affair. But, But Larry was ruled out as a suspect because his wife confirmed that he was in the apartment with her during the time frame that someone was attacking Judy and hers. But investigators still didn't believe that he was telling them the full truth. But they had to move on and look for other suspects. And I will say, this is a little scary to me.

The fact that someone could have an issue with you, a problem with you, not like you. And in the wake of, you know, this horrific act, tell police some information that wasn't true that really paint you in a bad light. That's a scary situation to me. Yeah. And it also, it seems to give Larry a motive possibly. But he was with his wife and she vouched for that. So, you know, if he didn't have that alibi, maybe he would have been a prime suspect. A closer examination of the crime scene would provide police with what they thought was a big break.

Since they felt that the killer had come through the window, they checked it closely for prints and found some. Five fingerprints in total were found on Judy's window, and they belonged to her next-door neighbor, 24-year-old Ernest Theodore Gable, who went by the nickname Ernie. He was the husband of Linda Gable, who hosted the gathering the night before. According to NHPR.org, the fingerprints were small. much, but were in such a position that it was consistent with pushing it open to gain entry. Additionally, Ernie Gable was a black man, which matched the hairs that had been found on and around Judy's body.

He quickly became suspect number one. From the very beginning, Ernie Gable wouldn't cooperate with the police search for Judy's killer, unlike pretty much every other man in the neighborhood that was asked for a hair, blood or saliva sample and willingly gave it because they were confident they would be excluded no matter their race. Ernie Gable refused. According to a warrant, literally every single other black male living in the Concord Gardens building gave their hair, blood, and saliva with no issues. Gable was the only one who didn't. He also had long and sharp fingernails that would have easily made those cuts on Judy's face if she was struggling against him.

In fact, in May of 1975, when he was interviewed by detectives, he got anxious. And he started scratching himself. His ear and his stomach started bleeding because of how sharp and long his fingernails were. Now, the fact that Ernie didn't cooperate with police and was standoffish not wanting to help when so many other people freely gave whatever police asked for. doesn't mean he's guilty at this point, but I think in the eyes of police, it probably made them more suspicious of him

because if he's got nothing to hide, they're probably figuring why doesn't he, you know, be forthcoming the way everyone else has been. Yeah, no doubt, right? There could be another reason for why someone doesn't want to freely cooperate, but when everyone else is,

that is going to make you suspect number one. in the eyes of police, right? You live right next door. Investigators knew that they were on the right track with Gable. He had a pretty flimsy alibi. He told investigators that a co-worker dropped him off the complex between 1245 and 1250 a.m. On the night of Judy's murder, when he got home, his wife Linda was already asleep. He claimed he could hear Judy fighting with her husband Greg in their apartment. But this was clearly not the case as Greg had been ruled out. from the time Gable was dropped off at the complex to the time neighbors began to hear screams and noises from Judy's apartment.

There were 40 minutes where Gable's whereabouts are basically unaccounted for. He said he was in his own apartment. But there was no one to actually verify that. Gable claimed once he was upstairs in his own apartment, he heard someone in Judy's apartment. It sounded like they ran up the stairs, tripped and fell. or something because he heard a thud. He claimed that after hearing the thud, he got into bed and fell right to sleep.

The next morning, before anyone other than Judy's killer, knew that Judy had been murdered, Ernie Gable told his babysitter about what he had supposedly overheard. According to the DOJ file, he told the babysitter, Judy and her old man couldn't be hitting it off too well after the noise I had heard last night.

To authorities, it was proof that Gable was trying to frame Gregory Lord and also make himself appear to have an alibi since he supposedly heard the attack from his own apartment. Ernie Gable likely knew he would quickly be suspected since he already had a long criminal history. He had been arrested in January 1969 for breaking and entering in the middle of the night to commit a larceny in Fall River, Massachusetts. He was sentenced to nine months behind bars. In January 1971, he was arrested for breaking and entering again, this time in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

In September 1974, he was arrested for providing false information related to a firearm and for being a felon in possession of a dangerous weapon. For someone with this kind of record living close to Judy, it would have only been a matter of time before police looked at him. Now they had his prints on her window. It wasn't looking good for him. Yeah, and I think to say, you know, it's not looking good for him. Obviously, that's correct. It might be an understatement, really, right? He's got a pretty lengthy rap sheet.

And obviously the, the fingerprints are, you know, a big deal. He lived right next door. It does seem based on, you know, his rap sheet that this is something that he could be capable of. Yeah, it's not the fact that he had a criminal history. That's really the compelling thing. It's the fact that the criminal history involved breaking and entering and that kind of crime. So that's something that falls right in line with someone going through the window to get to Judy. It turns out that Ernie Gable wasn't subtle about his unrequited lust for Judy Lord.

He was well aware that Judy wasn't interested in him, even if she didn't already have a husband. according to the patch.com, just days before Judy was killed, Gable pointed to her when he was talking to an acquaintance and said, someday I'm going to get me a piece of that white meat. He frequently spoke about the girl next door who was living alone and how he would like to have sex with her. One of Judy's friends recalled Judy talking about an incident, just over a week before she was killed on May 10th.

At 2 o'clock in the morning, Ernie Gable showed up at Judy's apartment and invited her to a party, but she said no. This lined up with a night that Judy went to stay over at her sister Linda's house because she was afraid to be home alone. Gable's wife happened to be out of town that night. Talking to those closest to Ernie Gable, it was clear that he was capable of a crime like this too. According to Patch.com, one of his ex-girlfriends told investigators that he wanted her to scream and kick and scratch during sex, and to fight back and pretend that she was being assaulted

during the act. One time, it wasn't pretend. He started choking her during sex, and she kicked, scratched, dug, until she finally got loose and ran outside. A different ex-girlfriend told a similar story about their private life, that he would put a pillow over her face for as long as he could while they were having sex. Once, he held her down on a couch and tried to force her to perform oral sex. even Ernie Gable's wife, Linda, admitted that he tried to choke her once during sex.

And I think you do see this in many cases, right? The police start to hone in on someone as their prime suspect. Well, what do they do? They go talk to people who know that person, who used to date that person. And oftentimes what happens is a ton of stories start coming out. We already know it seemed that he was capable of this due to his rap sheet. And now you're hearing people say other things about him that really make it seem as though, yeah, he really is capable of this murder and attack.

It's pretty clear from everything that we're hearing about this guy that he wasn't a good guy. In September of 1975, one of Gable's former roommates reported that Gable had strangled a minor. After she refused his sexual advances, the incident left red marks on her neck. And Gable actually admitted to the roommate that he had been planning to kill her by strangling

her while she had a plastic bag over her head. According to patch.com, it wasn't lost on investigators that this fantasy or plan was a close parallel to the blue sauna suit found on Judy's face. It was

Judy's own words that probably say it best. It was Judy's own words that probably say it best. She was afraid of Gable. One of her older sisters, Linda Labry, recalled Judy talking about how he kept hitting on her, and she didn't like it. It wasn't just flirty little compliments or harmless attempts to date her either. He had specifically told her that he wanted to see her naked. Her former co-workers at McCurley Nursing Home also knew that she was afraid of her neighbor.

According to court documents, they didn't know his name, but he was described as a black man married to a white woman, who was always hanging around her doors and windows. It was no secret that Gable made Judy uneasy. And Judy had a very good reason to be afraid. Gable had actually tried to break into her apartment on at least one previous occasion. This might be part of why, despite having his fingerprints on her window, authorities didn't feel confident that they had enough probable cause for an arrest

or a strong enough case for the jury. He could simply claim that, yes, they were his fingerprints, but they had been left there in the past. He had been unsuccessful that time and never tried again. It would only take one jerk to buy his version of the story to sink the case. And Gable actually claimed that he had helped Judy out once. When she had accidentally locked herself out of her apartment, he had to open a window and climb inside for her. Investigators felt they needed more than just his fingerprints. They needed something more concrete.

And I can understand, you know, their hesitancy about moving forward just based on this information. You know, it would be one thing if this was a complete stranger, didn't live in the complex, had never had contact with Judy. But with Ernie Gable, that's not the case. I mean, he lived right next door. He admitted that he had tried to break in. And he also said that, you know, he had helped her out once by climbing in through her window.

You could see how a defense attorney could weave that into reasonable doubt about these fingerprints being left the night of the murder. And there's since there's no DNA. This is the days before DNA. They don't have a smoking gun inside the apartment that can conclusively link to. to Gable. So there's no eyewitness that saw him in there. So at this point, it's basically his word against a lack of evidence, him saying, yeah, I did try and break in before, but that's why my prints are there. So I can understand why they would want to be careful moving forward with the prosecution, because if there's any juror that doubts anything

that's presented and not enough to, in their mind, to convict him, that could sink the case. and you don't get another crack at a conviction. Yeah, you know, the thought that keeps running through my mind is, what a slam dunk. This would probably be today, right? With today's technology, they have hair, they have semen, they have someone to match it too. That's usually a pretty easy case to try.

It took multiple lawsuits to finally compel Ernie Gable to give up a sample of his hair, saliva, and blood. Investigators were sure that once they got the results, the case against Gable would be solid. His blood type would match the dried semen and the hair would match those found at the crime scene, and they would be able to charge Gable for killing Judy. His blood type did turn out to be type B, which was consistent with the semen sample.

But when the FBI examined the hairs in December 1975, they were determined to be microscopically different then the hairs found at Judy's crime scene. The hairs taken from Gable did not appear to be consistent with the hair left by Judy's killer. The results of the FBI testing were a blow to investigators. There were no other valid leads or suspects beside Ernie Gable. Chief of the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit, Christopher Noles, told the Boston Globe, the FBI report created an insurmountable barrier to the prosecution,

and as a result, the case went cold. It went cold and stayed cold. I am absolutely fascinated in the in the 70s, even into the 80s, when you talk about comparing hairs. So many times in these cases, we've heard, well, they're microscopically similar, but it turned out that they weren't similar at all. In some cases, it turned out that one of them wasn't even a hair. It was a carpet fiber. But yet some expert testified. that they were microscopically similar. So here, the FBI is saying they're microscopically different.

And I can see why that would be a huge blow to the prosecution's case. And if you're a suspect that's on trial for a crime you didn't commit and there's hair evidence that they're saying is microscopically similar to yours, that's got to be frightening because that doesn't say there are 100% match. it just says they're similar, but back then, that carried so much weight. And I have to wonder how many people may have been convicted by that kind of technique because they had similar hair to a killer and maybe they were innocent. And they were put to death or given long prison sentences.

Yeah, well, we're learning that it's actually quite a number. A lot of people were convicted on, I won't say solely. but in large part on hair evidence that turned out to not be nearly as scientific and not even close to what people thought it was. In 2003, the investigation into Judy Lord's murder was officially reopened by the Concord Police Detective Todd Flanagan. It took a lot of work to gather all the evidence, original files, and interview transcripts. In 2008, the New Hampshire State Police major crime unit, re-examined the case file, and found that Gregory Lord Sr.'s polygraph test had actually been inconclusive due to his emotional state.

Neighbor Larry Carraway, who had had a sexual relationship with Judy, was re-interviewed as part of the effort to solve her cold case. Now, he claimed that his original story, the one where he heard Judy yell Gregory Lord's name, was what had actually happened, and that he had only changed his story from the truth because he felt pressured to tell investigators what they wanted to hear. Evidence was retested,

or some tested for the very first time with new technology. The semen stains on Judy's tails were used to extract a DNA sample. This DNA was a statistical match to Ernie Gables. It was now clear that police had been correct all along and now believe that Gable was their man. The FBI's microscopic analysis determination has been discounted as evidence in this case, because since 1975 that process has been discredited as a form of valic forensic science.

Hare may have certain characteristics, but cannot be conclusively linked to an identity based on visual examination. Now, with DNA, there's no need to look at hairs. A 2015 joint report from the U.S. Department of Justice in the FBI noted, how often flawed testimony reports overstated forensic matches. Apparently more than 95% of the cases reviewed. It actually mentioned the agent who did the microscopic hair comparison in Judy's case by name. Well, we just got done talking about it, right? 95% of cases the forensics were overstated.

That is so freaking scary. Like you said, Morp, how many people were convicted on hair evidence? in large part. And some of those people, you know, either spent a ton of their life in prison when they shouldn't have or in some awful cases were put to death. But I don't know what the approach was back then by defense attorney's health. And they would argue that microscopically similar is not the same as exact. You know, that seems like it would be a no-brainer of a defense to push back on that. But we know convictions happen a lot of times based on that hair.

So I don't know how effective pushing back on that was during that time frame. Well, here's my thought, right? If you're a juror and the state has an expert, a forensic expert who is saying, these two hairs are microscopically similar. That's probably going to be pretty powerful to a, to a lay person. This is an expert. They should know what they're doing.

But again, it's, it's come out over the years, kind of like polygraphs, right? It's just not what it was thought to be back in the day. And on the flip side of the coin, I wonder how many suspects got away with crimes

because their hair didn't look like the killers. You know, maybe for some reason they didn't think it was the same, even if that person was responsible, you know, how many of those people got away. Yeah, I'm sure it worked both ways. New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella told NHPR.org, the original Concordered Police Department investigators showed extraordinary diligence

only to be thwarted by flawed forensic technology of the ear. If they had had DNA back then, the hair examination report wouldn't have mattered. Everyone knew that Judy wanted nothing to do with a sexual relationship with Gable. So unlike his fingerprints, which could be explained away, by previous incidents or just general creepiness, there would be no innocent explanation as to how his seaman ended up in her home and around her body. On November 25, 2025, New Hampshire State Police held a press conference announcing the earnest Theodore Gable, was in fact responsible for Judy's murder. After 50 years, the murder of Judith Lord is officially solved and her case is officially

closed. Christopher Knowles, a senior assistant attorney general, who's also chief of the cold case unit, said at the press conference, if Ernest Gable was alive today, we'd be able to prosecute him. And that's the tragedy here, is that Ernie Gable couldn't face justice. He died in 1987. After narrowly getting away with murder, you would think that Gable, they'd be able to Gable tried to stay off police radar. Instead, he continued to live a life of crime as he moved around the United States, sometimes using the name Ernest Stanberry. In October of 1975, he was arrested for possession of marijuana in Merrimack County, New Hampshire. At some point in November of

1976, he was released from the Merrimack County House of Corrections. He went to visit his wife, Linda, who was living in Fall River, Massachusetts, by this time they were estranged. He demanded that she let him take their two young daughters out to dinner, but she said no. Amazingly, he decided to get the police involved. And at the end of the day, he was able to take his daughters. The cold case unit memo notes that an officer convinced her to let the children go with their father, but doesn't give any further details. That night was the last time Linda saw her daughters for more than a decade.

When he didn't return with the girls, an arrest warrant was issued for the charge of kidnapping. Ernie Gable is actually arrested for murder, just not Judy Lourdes, in October 1977 in Joliet, Illinois. Around a month later, the charge was dismissed. There are no further details about this incident, because apparently, according to the patch.com, no official reports or records could be located to explain the circumstances of this arrest or its dismissal. This is especially frustrating because this arrest was less than one year after he had kidnapped his daughters, yet they weren't returned to their mother for another 13 years. In March of 1978, Gable was arrested in charge with armed robbery.

For that, he actually spent some time behind bars. Two years, though he was sentenced to serve five years in prison, Gable completely fell off the map after he was released from prison and didn't resurface until 1984. When he was arrested on several different occasions, he was charged with being under the influence of a controlled substance on two different occasions, as well as burglary, forgery, robbery, theft of personal property, and taking a vehicle without consent. Ernie Gable died at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, California, on February 1, 1987. The 36-year-old was stabbed in the chest on the street during some kind of argument, and though he was rushed to the hospital, he didn't make it. Most articles note that he was stabbed during a robbery,

but information from the cold case unit suggests that he was arguing over debt when he was stabbed, though it's unclear whether he was the one who owed money or was trying to collect it. a man named William Sandville was eventually arrested for Gables' murder. Judy Lord's husband, Gregory Lord Sr. passed away in March of 2019 at the age of 64. He was still living in Concord, New Hampshire. At the time, though, he passed at the Edith Norse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts. His and Judy's son, Gregory Jr. isn't mentioned in his obituary, so it's not clear.

if they maintained a relationship. Though Gregory Jr. doesn't remember Judy because he was so young when she was killed, he has often thought of her throughout his life. He told the Concord Monitor, I always keep her memory inside my heart. She will always be with me. I've been through a lot in my life, and in the dark times I've always thought of my mom.

He also noted how proud he is when people tell him how much he resembles his mother. Gregory isn't the only one who thinks of his mom. Police chief Bradley Osgood told the patch.com Concord has never forgotten Judy. And Judy's sister Joanne Buck told nhpr.org, we lost someone that can never be replaced. And I think that is the true statement that applies to, you know, all of these cases more.

You know, when someone is lost as a victim of, of a homicide, obviously they can never be replaced. someone is taking that person out of their loved ones lives forever. Judy doesn't get to be a mom to Gregory Jr. He doesn't get to learn from his mom. Their sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles. I mean, the web is just staggering sometimes. when you think about it of how many people are affected negatively by someone else's actions.

Yeah, it really has a ripple effect. It's not just a victim who's killed, but their entire family suffers for generations. And you think about it, she was 22 years old when she died. So that's very young. She had her whole life ahead of her, essentially. Yeah, 22, you're just really starting out. I mean, you haven't really lived yet. And that's a sad thing.

One positive thing to come out of Judy's case is that the lawsuits we mentioned earlier that finally allowed investigators to collect samples from Ernie Gable set a very important precedent. It helped establish that physical samples do not fall under persons Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, and one can be legally compelled to give them up when there's probable cause. This is a very important precedent for so many past and future cases. Senior Assistant Attorney General Christopher Knowles told NHPR.org, something that investigators do routinely every day in investigations, collect a sample, was made possible as part of the legacy of Judith Lord. It's sad that Judy Lord's friends and family never got justice and never saw

the man who police long believed to have killed her put away for his crime. But this case is proof that sometimes even decades after a murder. Science can catch up and expose the truth. And I think more, you know, as we wrap this one up, we are seeing more and more cases like this be solved so many years later. I mean, we're talking 40, 50, 60 years later. Now, it's great that they can be solved. I think what is sad is that a lot of the time, the suburb. The suspect has already passed away. And so, yeah, they can solve the case, say, yeah, we know who did it, but that person can't actually pay for the crime. And, you know, I think the other sad thing is that many of the relatives pass away before ever learning the truth. So there's a couple of things

that are tough to take. But what can you do? I mean, technology. is going to solve more and more crimes. Yeah, and even though sometimes the perpetrators aren't there to face justice, just being named and letting people know the truth about that person, maybe that is, you know, some kind of justice for families because they at least can see the face of the person that did this. You get to learn more about their background, and you find out guys like this guy, Ernie,

not a good guy with a long history of criminal activity. And maybe that gives them some kind of peace of mind to finally put a name and a face to the person that did this. Yeah, I'm sure it does. I'm sure it does. I mean, back to Ernie, to me, there's no doubt why he was suspect number one, right? For many, many years, I think what is,

fascinating about this case is to go back and look at the 1970s forensic technology and the limitations that existed that, you know, pretty much prevented them from charging him and, and, you know, taking him to trial. I think you said it more if they made a mistake. if there was just one juror, then he would be acquitted and they wouldn't be able to charge him again. So I think, you know, they were right to be cautious about it. They have to be. But it was just really a lack of technology. The technology just wasn't there.

You hit the nail right on the head earlier when you said more and more cases are getting solved this way. I hope there's other cases like Judis where police thought, they had their man, but just didn't have enough evidence at the time to prove it. And I hope a lot of those cases are going to be solved the way Judy's were when science catches up and can finally confirm maybe what police had suspected all along. Maybe we'll get more case results like this. Yeah, let's hope so. Because, you know, it really does upset me that a person makes the decision.

Let's look at Ernie Gable. What decision did he make? He wanted something and he was willing to do whatever it took to get it, including murder. And the fact that he essentially got to live out the rest of his life. Now, he was incarcerated for other things, but that doesn't count to me. He didn't spend time in prison for what he did. And that's tough to take. That bothers me.

But it's just the sad reality. of, you know, some of these cases we talk about. But I'm with you. Even so many years later, being able to definitively say, this is who committed the crime. I mean, that's, that is better than nothing for sure. It's better than what the family has lived with for, you know, so many years, 50 years. And to the credit of those original investigators, too, they did the best with what they had at the time. And at least they did collect and store evidence so that one day down the road, it could be used to solve the crime.

So they did their job well in this case. And once science caught up, it, you know, it all fell into place. Yeah, absolutely. But that's it for our episode on Judy Lord. As always, if you love the show, but haven't done so yet, go out, take a minute, leave a review, leave a rating. Also, keep telling your friends. word of mouth about the podcast really helps us out. If you want to find us on social media, we're on every platform.

Just search for Criminology Podcast on your favorites. You can also visit our website, Criminology Podcast.com, to get news about the show and listen to old episodes. And if you want to join a discussion group about the podcast and the cases we discuss, head over to Facebook and search for Criminology podcast discussion and fans. So that's it for another episode of Criminology. but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week.

Take care, everyone.