Going West: True Crime - Malvina Krutz // 475

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

In January of 1958, a 41-year-old Indiana mother went missing from her home, only to be found dead in her bathtub. Still mostly clothed and submerged under the water, she had drowned, but had also sustained blunt force trauma before her death - with clear signs of homicide. When her friends reported seeing someone flee in her vehicle shortly before her body was discovered, police questioned over 250 people looking for answers into the incredibly suspicious murder scene at her home. This is the story of Malvina Krutz.

What is going on true crime fans? I'm your host T and I'm your host Daphne and you're listening to going West Hello everybody. I hope you're doing well today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Big thank you to Hannah for recommending today's case. This is a little bit of an older one. It takes place in the late 1950s. But there are so many elements of this case that just like you're gonna get goosebumps. It's just, there's so many creepy elements to this story.

Yeah, there's a lot of different circumstances that really just make no sense in this case, and it's terrifying. Yeah, it is, it's like spooky. So without further ado, let's dive right into this one. All right, guys, this is episode 475 of Going West. So let's get into it In January of 1958, a 41-year-old Indiana mother went missing from her home, only to be found dead in her bathtub.

Still mostly clothed and submerged under the water, she had drowned but had also sustained blunt force trauma before her death, with clear signs of homicide. When her friends reported seeing someone flee in her vehicle shortly before her body was discovered, police questioned over 250 people looking for answers into the incredibly suspicious murder scene at her house. This is the story of Malvina Sanders was born on August 4, 1916 in Brooks, Kentucky, which is a small town just south of Louisville, to parents Ada and Robert Sanders. In 1939, Malvina, who was around 23 years old at the time, married her love, Charles Crutz in Jeffersonville, Indiana, which is right across the Ohio River from Louisville,

so very, very close to where she grew up. And Charles was a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps, so due to this, he and Malvina headed down to Miami Beach, Florida to live for a little bit while he worked at the Air Force Officer training school. They then settled back in the Midwest where Charles obtained a job as the sales manager for the Southern Transportation Corporation, which is a trucking company. Now in 1947, they welcomed a son they called Charles Jr. lovingly nicknamed Buddy.

So we are going to call him Buddy cause it is way better than saying Charles and Charles Jr. this whole episode. So the Crutzes purchased a modest home on the charming tree-lined street of Guilford Avenue in northern Indianapolis or in the north side. And Malvina prided herself on keeping it a presentable and homey place for her new family. She also really immersed herself in the community and was active in their local church, as well as the PTA organization at Buddy's school. A neighbor of theirs named Mary Owen described Malvina as,

quote, typically southern of warm and friendly nature. She was very much that classic image of an attentive and hardworking housewife and mother. Like another friend of hers, Mildred Warning, who we're going to talk about a few times in this episode, described her as a, quote, forceful, friendly person, a woman who loved her home. That's an interesting last name. Mildred Warning. I love it. It's so Nancy Drew. And kind of like Yuri considering this episode.

Exactly. Well, especially what she discovers later on, as we're going to talk about. But speaking of her home, one month prior to Malvina's murder on December 16th, 1957, their beloved home strangely caught on fire and left significant damage in its wake. And the reason this was strange is because the reason AND the source of the blaze is still unclear.

So for this to happen and then her murder weeks later, it's just a really bizarre note in this case. But here's the thing. This fire led to a revolving door of repairmen, contractors, and handymen at the family home. And 41-year-old Malvina was overseeing every detail of these renovations. So she was the one in direct contact with various working men.

Well, let's fast forward to the tragic and fateful day of Wednesday, January 29th, 1958. Malvina sent her 10-year-old son Buddy off to school and her 48-year-old husband, Charles, off to work. And this was, you know, very typical and usual. And then she had the morning and the day to herself at home to get things done. Now, Buddy returned home from school at about 3.30 p.30pm to find the house unusually empty and quiet. So he just decided to watch TV until his mom would eventually tell him otherwise.

About an hour and a half later, around 5pm, Charles then returned home, and he found Buddy was still plopped on the living room floor in front of the TV watching the adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, which was a western show that ran from 1951 to 1958, so it ended the very year that Buddy was enjoying it. Now, when Charles asked where his wife Malvina was, Buddy mused that perhaps she was still on his paper route, which was something that she offered to pick up for Buddy that afternoon. But he also told his father ominously, quote, I don't like the looks of the bedroom. When Charles asked what he meant by this,

Buddy basically claimed that there was a mess that was left in his room that hadn't been there earlier that day when he arrived home to have lunch with his mother Malvina. And that he hadn't seen or heard from her since. And that's pretty, I mean, he's ten years old. That's an interesting thing for him to be noticing, that he was home earlier and his room hadn't been a mess. Here he is watching TV, he's saying, yeah, I haven't seen Mom and you know, I really don't like the look of my room. It's kind of weirding me out. Like, it's very perceptive of him. Yeah, I mean, this was such an odd thing to hear that, you know, a mess was made in his room while he was gone,

and that his mother's whereabouts were unaccounted for. So naturally, then, Charles checked out Buddy's bedroom. And he saw toys and model airplanes scattered around the floor, along with two pillows and a blanket. And drawers were pulled from his dresser. So puzzled by this, Charles retreated to the home's only bathroom to wash his hands. pillows, and a blanket, and drawers were pulled from his dresser. So puzzled by this, Charles retreated to the home's only bathroom to wash his hands, and then he planned to find his wife.

But when he entered the bathroom, he noticed that the shower curtain was pulled closed, despite the fact that they always left it open. So hesitantly, he drew back the shower curtain to find his wife submerged in the water of the bathtub. Now Malvina was lying on her right side, with her head near the faucet and her legs bent at the knee. Basically, she was kind of folded to be able to fit into the bathtub. And it's kind of hard to explain because of the fact that she was on her side But she was also technically facing upward and her body was fully submerged in the bath water

Now of course Charles called the police right away Claiming to have no idea what had happened to his wife and when they arrived authorities noted that her body was still somewhat warm and that rigor mortis had not yet set in Essentially telling them that her death had happened very recently likely just before a little buddy had gotten home from school Less than a couple hours earlier The water was filled almost to the brim of the tub. What a strange scene because if that water was lukewarm Two hours or so later,

it would have been hot when she was put in there. I mean, we all have taken a bath and we know that the water cools down pretty quickly. So if it's still lukewarm and we know at the very least she had to have died, I would assume after or sorry, before Buddy got home, especially with what's to come, what we're gonna discuss timeline wise, it's just odd. Like I guess imagining someone turning on the water,

waiting for the tub to fill and then throwing her in there and killing her. And the fact that rigor mortis hadn't setting, cause I read that rigor mortis is accelerated, like the process of rigor mortis is accelerated due to heat. So if she was in hot water, which she would have had to have been if it was lukewarm at that point, then it would have accelerated and been faster, but usually rigor mortis can set in after a couple hours. Obviously there are so many different factors, but the fact that it

hadn't set in at all yet is really weird. Like, this whole thing is so bizarre. Yeah, and it's really disturbing because then we have to remember that Buddy had unknowingly been home alone with his mother's body inside the house. Yeah. Who, by the way, had been brutally beaten and then drowned in the bathtub. And little Buddy is just watching TV for over an hour and a half. None the wiser of what's around the corner. It's so unreal to think about. And then when you also realize that Charles happened to go into that bathroom

to wash his hands, happened to pull the curtain back. Was that plan? Did he know she was in there? We're going to talk about this later, but you know, if not the fact that he just had to be the one to pull the curtain back and find her body under the water like that. The whole thing is so horrific. Yeah, and it's also strange that he would be so set off by the curtain being closed, the shower curtain being closed. I agree. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, that's not a super strange thing to you know walk into the bathroom and see.

Yeah. Like you know it's it's pretty normal. That's why it's a little suspicious. Well when police arrived on the scene they observed that Malvina had sustained cuts to the inside of her lips as well as to her face, her legs, and her elbows. There was also significant bruising to her left eye, which indicates various struggles before her death. When she was found, Malvina was clad in a white sweater with a tear in the back and was still wearing her tennis shoes and her underwear, though her underwear had been pulled down to her knees. Also her toreador style pants, which are like those, you know, kind of old style fitted capri length pants, very 50s, were soaked through with water and they had been removed and discarded on the floor, but not inside the bathroom. They were inside out soaking wet in Buddy's bedroom.

So this is again, you know, an even more strange scene because not only is she found dead in the bathtub, but she is partially dressed inside the bathtub. Yeah, and then of course, knowing that her pants were off in the other room, her underwear is pulled down, like she, she did not do this. I mean, you can really start to paint the picture of what possibly happened here. Yeah. And then looking at the whole scene, you know, the state of Buddy's bedroom, the state of her body. And then on top of this, police also found a bloodstained towel,

wedge behind the door leading down to the basement. So this crime scene traveled around the house and it just didn't make any sense. Also as Charles had observed, the two pillows and the chenille bedspread that were in Buddy's room had been tossed to the floor of Buddy's bedroom among other items. But upon further inspection, police discovered that the pillows had both blood and mucus on them. Detectives described the configuration of the bedding as a palette, believing that maybe Malvina had been like laid out on it before or during her murder, and that's how the blood and mucus, you know, like transferred onto the pillows.

And to give you a bit of a visual, one pillow was situated on top of the bedspread between the bed and the wall, and the other was further down toward the end of the bed. Now beneath Malvina's body in the tub were two small rugs, which were soaked through with water. Obviously they're submerged in the bathtub under her body, and the police believe that maybe they were used to wrap or transport her body. So yeah, just like, keeps getting weirder. And despite Charles and Buddy's shock and horror

at the discovery of such a scene, they had to give statements to the police with a particular emphasis placed on Buddy's testimony as the last person to have spoken to his mother. And of course, because it seemed that her murder had to have happened right before he got home, his timeline really mattered. And another thing is, Buddy's final interaction with his mom was so curious and out of the

ordinary. So earlier that day, like Heath mentioned, Buddy had come home from school for lunch, which was a very common, if not daily, occurrence. Though Buddy had interacted with his mother during lunch, he hadn't actually seen her. He had only spoken to her through the bathroom door. And I don't know why that feels so scary, just knowing that she was found in the bathtub. He comes home for lunch. She doesn't come out of the bathroom.

She's in there the whole time and talking to him like normal through the door as he's eating his lunch in the kitchen. I know, it kind of makes you, the first thing that popped into my brain was that someone was impersonating his mother's voice behind that bathroom door, which is really fucking terrifying. That's so scary. Or that there's somebody else in there with her. Well, yeah, I mean, that was my other thought as well, is that somebody else is there with her saying, okay, act normal or I'll fucking kill you, you know?

Yeah, like they'd been surprised by Buddy coming home. Right. Yeah, like they'd been surprised by Buddy coming home. It may be in the middle of doing something, and while he's just sitting there at the table having his little lunch, there she is in the bathroom with her killer. So here's basically how that story went. When Buddy arrived home around noon, he found that the bathroom door was closed, the one that his mother was found dead in hours later. Malvina greeted him through the door again, telling him that she had made him a sandwich and she left it out for him in the kitchen. She also told him that she planned to cover his paper route that afternoon so that he wouldn't have to worry about it.

And able to corroborate Buddy's recollection of events was their milk delivery man, who arrived there during the time that Buddy was home for lunch. And this is so...I don't know why this reminds me of Leave It to Beaver, but it kind of has like a sinister Leave It to Beaver vibe. Yeah, I'm like seeing this in black and white. Yeah, exactly. Well, shortly after noon, the milkman knocked for his weekly delivery, and Buddy answered the front door. Through the bathroom door, he asked what kind of milk Malvina wanted, and placed the order for her.

Like, so weird. Yeah. Well, the delivery man also noted that Malvina's car was still there at this time. Then, Buddy finished lunch, and bid farewell to his mother without ever seeing her, and he returned to school at around 12.30. And then three hours later is when he returned home to find that the house was in disorder and that his mom was missing. The coroner who performed Malvina's autopsy, Dr. Roy B. Storms, concluded, quote, she definitely drowned and she had a blow above the left eye.

I don't think that she fell into the tub. I think it was murder. She had abrasions on her lip, a small cut. She either struck something or somebody struck her. I think somebody struck her. Now according to the coroner, Malvina had been alive when she was placed into the bathtub, based on the discovery of water in her lungs, helping prove the hypothesis that her cause of death was actually drowning. Dr. Storms posited that she had been knocked unconscious so that she could be incapacitated,

but that she had still been alive when she was dropped into that water. And though it was investigated as a homicide, one of the early theories before her autopsy was performed had been that it was a terrible accident that occurred while Melvina was cleaning or fixing something around the house. And just so that you guys know, before her death she had actually suffered a dislocated disc in her back, which had caused her severe pain and some mobility challenges. So, you know, this could explain how she could have fallen, possibly unable to get up. But thankfully, the coroner's report

mostly dispelled this line of investigation. Among many others, one aspect of the murder that proved the most mysterious was the motive. Because nothing had been stolen from the house, police mostly ruled out the possibility that robbery had been the reason for the crime because Malvina's purse, jewelry, and nearly $300 in cash, which was worth way more back then, were found safely stored in the home. So that idea was out. Her body was also tested for sexual assault, you know, wondering if perhaps that was the motive, but it did not appear that she had been raped despite her underwear

being pulled down, though it is still possible that that maybe was the original motivation for the crime. I'm gonna go ahead and say that that probably was the intention of the killer just because of like the wild scene, the the pants being on the floor in Buddy's room and then the underwear being pulled down while she's in the bathtub. Like I can't see anything else really being the motive there. Yeah, it was, it was a really big struggle. And I agree with you. Just the fact that she was drowned in the bathtub.

It's not like somebody put a hit on her and they came in and they shot her in the head or, you know, it's not like she was stabbed and there was a series of other stabbings in the area and it was just a random crime by a serial killer. Like it's not really making a lot of sense why she was murdered. So I feel like that makes sense, but we're also going to talk about another possibility here soon. But also just finishing up on that idea Heath, that, you know, maybe this was sexually motivated in nature.

Police looked into that at first and kind of thought maybe her attacker had accidentally knocked her unconscious. And then in a panic placed her in the tub to maybe wake her up before he was able to assault her. So that was why he went in there and then oh my god she's fighting back and now this is a mess and I just have to kill her and now I gotta go. Exactly it's possible that he lost control of the situation and he didn't really know what to do so he essentially had to kill her. Yeah, but at the very least, feeling confident either way that somebody had killed her and that Molvina had not died by accident, detectives scoured the house for clues and fingerprints

were taken from three doors inside the home. And strangely, the most incriminating clue that her attacker seemed to have left behind was a yellow pencil with strands of hair on it. The pencil was a promotional item for business and was imprinted with the words, White County REMC Monticello, Indiana. And that stood REMC stands for Rural Electric Membership Corporation, which was an electric company located about 85 miles or 136 kilometers northwest of Indianapolis, which was an electric company located about 85 miles or 136 kilometers Northwest of Indianapolis, which is again where Malvina lived.

So because this pencil wasn't in the area, Charles didn't know anything about this pencil. It seemed like it had been dropped by the killer and it was found in one of the bedrooms, so it was potentially a big clue for investigators. Police believed that the small lacerations on Malvina's forehead and scalp may have been caused actually by like the pencil being in the breast pocket of the shirt or the coat of the killer and then it had fallen out at some point unbeknownst to her attacker. Unfortunately, although those hairs seem like they would have been a major clue,

somehow the origin of them has never been identified. And that's really all there is to say about that. We don't know what color the hairs were, what if they were curly or straight, if they were beard hairs or head hairs. That is all that has been released. Well essentially because detectives didn't really have much to go on at this crime scene, they tried to trace this pencil back to its owner. But when police contacted Ed Ulrich, who was the manager of the branch,

he informed them that the pencils were given out in all of their offices and were offered for free to employees and customers alike, making it nearly impossible to identify the pencil's owner. Yeah, it's not like, oh yeah, we only give that to new employees and we only have ten employees. Like, these, it could have been, there's probably thousands of these pencils out there. Right, you could be a customer, go up to the desk and say you needed a pencil or just take one and, you know, it's one of those things so even though this clue hit a roadblock the day after the murder brought forth another clue you know how he said that

the milkman said that he saw Malvina's car in the driveway when he arrived at her home at lunchtime well when buddy Charles and the police arrived it wasn't there anymore but her car which was a white and gray 1955 Buick was found on North Meridian Street the very next day just north of 49th Street which is only a four-minute drive from her house just a few blocks away and this area has a bunch of houses so if only there were ring cameras back then we would've seen who this was. Exactly, we would've known immediately.

Well, on top of this discovery, two of Malvina's friends claimed that they actually witnessed it being stolen the day prior. Though, at the time, they were unaware that it had been stolen. These friends, again Mildred Warning and Florence Qbert... Great names. Yeah. Offered up several key pieces of evidence here. On the day of Malvina's murder, Mildred called the house at 12.45 p.m. So 15 minutes after Buddy headed back to school from lunch, hoping that she and Florence could stop by and see the updates that Malvina had been overseeing after the house fire.

But here's the really strange thing. An unidentified man answered the phone that day, and Mildred could apparently hear Malvina talking in the background. Mildred maintained, quote, it wasn't her husband. I know his voice. I got the impression this man was a workman. And when she asked if she could speak to Malvina, Mildred recalled that the man sputtered, quote, "'Well, uh...' End quote. I mean, that's basically all he said." So, confused by this, Mildred told the man, whom she claimed spoke courteously, to tell Malvina that she and Florence would stop by within the hour to see the house.

Then, Malvina apparently responded from the background quote, tell Mrs. Warning that I have to take Buddy to school and we'll pick her up at 1 30. Now the most likely scenario is that Malvina was being held captive by her murderer and that despite her son arriving home and her friends calling on the phone, she still couldn't manage to escape his grasp. Why she told them not to come is still a mystery. Perhaps she was kind of attempting to preserve their safety, or her killer was communicating with her, telling her not to invite them over. I mean, it kind of seems like she was trying to protect Buddy and her friends this entire time.

But also, you know, we know she didn't have to take Buddy to school after lunch because he arrived and left on his own. So maybe this was a way to make it look like she had upcoming plans and that multiple people would be waiting for her and wondering where she was. And I feel like this might have been why she told Buddy through the bathroom door during lunch that she would take his paper route. Maybe so when the newspapers weren't dropped off on people's driveways, people would take notice.

Like maybe she knew that something was gonna happen to her because there was somebody in the bathroom with her while Buddy was having lunch, eating his sandwich, like I said, and while her friends are calling the house only 15 minutes later, and she's just like, oh my God, what do I do right now? I also think that it's kind of strange considering, you know, you talking about that,

why she would still make her order to the milkman that day instead of saying like, oh, like, we're not gonna order milk this week or whatever, and then the milkman thinking something was up, you know I almost wonder I almost feel like the opposite that if she is speaking to him through the bathroom door and he can't see her That that would maybe come off as strange and he's like why is she not coming to the door? Why is she talking to me through the bathroom? I guess that does make sense to like if she was trying to protect buddy in that scenario

She would just tell him to go about business as usual. Yeah, but then if also if the milkman comes into the house and talks her through the bathroom, maybe he would have been able to notice something and get help because he's an adult. So I do feel like she was trying to drop these little hints, hoping that somebody would pick up on something. Yeah, I believe that she was systematically kind of trying to break down the scenario and figure out the best route forward to protect herself and the people that she cared about. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, like you said, you read the quote she said in the background

on that call, tell Mrs. Warning that I have to take Buddy to school, and we'll pick her up at 1.30. But of course, Malvina failed to arrive at Mildred's house. So after that, the women stopped by to see her despite her request that they abstain from doing so. The two arrived around 1.45 pm, so an hour after they spoke on the phone, and came upon what they thought was an empty house, though detectives now believed that Molvena had been passed out in the tub at the time.

The women waited in the kitchen for approximately 20 minutes before leaving a coat that they brought over for Buddy and a note telling them that they had to leave and would come by another time. But it was what happened when they arrived that was of most interest to investigators because as Mildred and Florence walked up to the house they witnessed Malvina's car being backed out of the driveway and driven away from the scene. Heath told us this a little bit ago that, you know, they, they witnessed her car driving away, but to their recollection, the car was being driven by a black man and he was the only one inside the vehicle. So I don't know, I'm going to talk about this later.

This is so weird to me that they see a man that they don't know driving their friend's car up the street and away from the house. Malvina did not arrive to Mildred's house as planned. They're sitting in her kitchen and she's not there, even though little do they know, she's actually in the bathroom. You know, like, I don't know. I don't really understand why they didn't report this.

Yeah, they don't think anything is amiss here. Yeah, so again, I will bring this up later, and I'm sorry, I know we always say, oh, we're gonna touch on this later, but I just wanna mention that, because I know there's probably a lot of you guys that are what the fuck take a shot every Time we say that something is coming up pretty soon seriously so they allowed the car to leave You know they didn't try to stop the car and say hey, who are you and then? They let themselves into the house through the back door because that door had been left open.

They went inside and waited for a while, like I said, about 20 minutes, perhaps assuming that Malvina had stepped out to run an errand and was coming back, even though they say that they didn't see her in her car that was driving away. So when her car was recovered, the keys were missing, and a washcloth with yellow paint on it was found inside But this was never connected definitively to the crime in the days following the murder dozens of people were questioned and many tips poured in a Nearby hitchhiker who had been in the vicinity at the time was detained and questioned

But released after they couldn't connect him to the murder, which is great. You know, if somebody, if one single man is driving that car up the street, how is he going to get out of the area? Yeah, but it also kind of feels like some sort of targeting, like some Rambo first blood type shit, like they see a hitchhiker and they automatically think that he did something wrong. It's like. I mean, yeah, maybe shouldn't have detained the guy. Right.

Without any other, you know, it's not like he had blood on his hands or something, but you know, he was released. But yeah, they were, they were thinking that very same thing is this guy trying to get out of the area and he doesn't have a vehicle. Cause also then you have to think about the fact that if her car, if

think about Mildred and Florence arriving to the house, it's not like there's a mysterious other car in the driveway. So how did the killer get to the house? Yeah, I mean, he would have had to have either walked or taken a taxi. I don't know how many taxis are in this particular area, but kind of assuming that he probably did walk. Yeah, or he was dropped off, which would mean there was an accomplice. But if he walked, you know, it's not like somebody saw there was no reports of neighbors saying, oh yeah, at about 12 o'clock, I saw a man walking into her house. Yeah, that's one of the strange things here is that nobody witnessed anybody going into Malvina's house that day.

Yeah, so where did this person come from? How did they get there? How did they get away from the scene of her abandoned vehicle? So many questions, especially again because this is a suburban area. At least now when I look at Street View, obviously I don't know exactly what it looked like in 1958. I'm assuming there were less houses, but yeah probably smaller. It's a suburban neighborhood, there are homes everywhere, even where her car was abandoned. It's not like he abandoned it, I'm saying he, but it's not like the person abandoned it somewhere remote and out there, it was right there in the neighborhood. Well again, this really speaks to your point earlier about security camera footage or ring doorbell camera footage, because they didn't have any of that stuff back then. They didn't

have any of these resources that today they'd look at a camera that's on the corner of a street and they'd go, oh, we can clearly see the car right there. We can see who's driving it and who's getting out. But so frustrating because we didn't even have, you know, the old ring cameras that were people's watchful eye, like your parents across the street neighbor. You know? His parents, they're across the street neighbor, like watches everything.

He knows everything that goes on. He knows what's going down. There's always that like old man in the neighborhood who like knows what's going down in the neighborhood, but there was nobody around her home, none of her immediate neighbors that saw anything. And in the area where the car was abandoned, there was nobody saying,

oh yeah, I saw a guy get out of that car and walk away from the scene. He just happened to go unwitnessed both times. Now in the days after the incident, a tip line caller claimed to have key information, but couldn't tell authorities anything that hadn't already been printed in the local press coverage on the case, which felt like a fake to them.

You know, somebody who's just trying to get attention. Sergeant Earl Booth revealed, quote, he didn't tell us much we didn't already know. But then received three mysterious phone calls at home, in which a woman with a southern drawl asked him quote is this the Charles Crutz residence when Charles responded affirmatively she hung up each time and according to one source the man that Mildred spoke to on the phone on the day that Malvina was murdered also had a southern drawl and some people in Indiana do have a southern drawl, and back then as well, of course, but

you'll most likely find this particular accent in like, Georgia, or Tennessee, or Mississippi, Alabama, a bit further south than Indiana is, which makes this a good thing to note for a potential suspect. Absolutely, yeah. They can kind of determine that maybe this person or these people are not from that particular area. And because both the mysterious female caller and the man from the phone call inside the Crutzes' home had this accent, detectives thought that perhaps this mysterious female caller was the wife of the murderer,

and that she was calling in hopes of passing along information, but that she lost her nerve each time and then eventually just hung up. However, they were never able to connect these calls to a person of interest. Yeah, I mean, it's such a shame if this woman calls three times and asks if she has the right home and she does and then she hangs up, like, what, why are you calling? Right. Who are you? Yeah, that's what I was gonna who are you well naturally police also showed interest in

Charles as a suspect not only because he was Malvina's husband but also because in a very shocking revelation they had been in the process of a divorce Charles later told the press that they were reconciling things around the time of her murder but the details of the motion were worth investigating for sure. Records show that Malvina filed a divorce suit in Circuit Court on January 13, 1958, so just 16 days before her death. However, she had then failed to appear at a restraining order hearing against her husband four days later on January 17th. It was then rescheduled for January 30th, which was the day after Malvina's death,

so obviously she missed this hearing as well. Because she missed the first hearing and was still living in their home, it seems as if they were trying to work on their relationship. But, her filing was pretty damning, as Charles was reportedly, quote, guilty of marital misconduct. Malvina even claimed that she had been afraid for buddy's safety. And this had actually been the second time that she had filed for divorce. Well, on January 29th, the day Malvina was murdered, Charles claimed to have been working for most of the day. Remember this was a Wednesday.

But the time in which Malvina is believed to have been killed is actually largely unaccounted for. So Charles left work midday, had lunch at a local bar, got his shoes shined, filled his car up with gas, and then stopped by a boarding house to see a friend. This is such a 1950s afternoon. So the landlady of the boarding house confirmed his arrival at around 1 a 55 p.m. only 10 minutes after Malvina's car was driven away from her house and his departure around 2.45 pm.

He arrived back at work around 3.30 which is when Buddy got home and then headed home around 4.30 pm. Remember he arrived around 5 pm or a little before 5 pm. Investigators admitted that they were quote, not wholly satisfied with his account of the events leading up to his wife's death, but with no other evidence that pointed the finger at him, they were forced to continue their search. But let's talk about him for a second,

because like we said, we would touch on this later. So here we are, we're finally at this point for Charles. We said that, you know, it's kind of weird. He just happened to go wash his hands and then pulled the curtain back because it was so strange that the bathtub curtain was closed and then he finds her body right yeah the first thing that I always do when I get home is go into the bathroom to wash my hands now I just it feels a little odd to me that you know you go make a beeline for the bathroom where

your deceased wife actually is. I'm like a serial hand washer as you know, so I often wash my hands right when I get home but it's not even like he did that. He got home, he checked in with his son, his son said, hey, I don't like the look of my bedroom. Then he went to the bedroom and before he started looking for his wife, he then decided to wash his hands even though there was a clear struggle

In his home, so maybe that's not weird Maybe the guy had something on his hands and he needed to wash them But it does feel a little bit strange and then especially knowing that they were in the midst of a divorce and that he Was seemingly violent towards her. Yeah, he was physically assaulting her, you know, on numerous occasions, but also the fact that the guy could leave work pretty much at any point during the day really speaks a lot to me because he left numerous times to go do these little things that he wanted to do. So is it possible that he did go home and he did something to Malvina? I wish we knew exactly what time he left work. We just know that he left work midday

and then he had lunch at a bar. Like I said, got his shoes shined and that it wasn't until almost two o'clock that he visited his friend at a boarding house. So we know, I mean, in my opinion, somebody was in that bathroom with her when Buddy was having lunch. True, yeah.

And you know, is it possible that he told his coworkers, I'm gonna go have some lunch, he ended up going home, Buddy randomly shows up to have his lunch, and he's like, oh shit, my son's here. But then, we know that Mildred said, I know Charles' voice, that wasn't him. Yeah, that's the other thing that's really strange, but- Did he put on an accent?

That's what I'm kinda saying. I mean, I'm not saying that it was Charles, but is it possible that he put on this Southern drawl so that he didn't sound like the real Charles? I mean, who knows? But it also makes me wonder why this person, the killer, would answer the phone in the first place. Right.

Especially because we kinda know at that point, if Malvina didn't come to the phone, this is after she was in the bathroom for 30 minutes while Buddy was home with no explanation, you know, as to why she was in the bathroom while he was having lunch. And this happened afterward. That tells me very much so, you know, knowing that the Mildred phone call happened at 1245 and there's a man in the house, we know then, pretty much for sure, that there was a man in that bathroom with her while Buddy was having lunch.

But why would Charles be holding her in the bathroom, and why would she not be like, oh, I'm in here with Dad, and try to, you know. Yeah, that's very, very true. The other thing I was going to say is that I think that the killer picking up the phone, I think it's interesting because is he picking up the phone to make sure that there's no plans for that day, that she's not expecting people to come over, which actually happened to be the case? Because he could have easily just not picked up the phone done his deed and then left You know I'm sure that's why yeah, you know what I mean he wanted to kind of gauge the situation No, I I do totally agree with you because it's also like if it was an important call and you know

He missed the call it was very much the day and age where people would drop in So would somebody swing by the house and come in and find them just like the way that buddy came in the house. Right. So I don't know. I feel like Charles is a fair person to look into. And I think he is definitely suspicious for multiple reasons, but there's really no slam dunk here. I'd also love to know where was his car during the day because obviously the neighbors aren't looking out or there's not very many

neighbors at the time because nobody saw shit right? Right. So if his car was parked outside during that time or it was parked up the street somebody easily could have not noticed it but I do wonder about his vehicle for sure. Well police also questioned everyone who had been coming and going from the home to work on it. That obviously felt like a great angle. But nearly everyone was cleared with ease. So the theory that this was a workman was mostly ruled out. Repairmen working in the home were questioned extensively by police, two of whom were kept up until 5 o'clock in the morning for interrogations, though no link between any of them and the

murderer could be established. But three different witnesses claimed that one employee was seen running errands with Malvina shortly before her murder, bringing him into the spotlight for police suspicion. Eight days before Malvina was killed, she and a wallpaper hanger named Robert Smith apparently took a trip to a local store to pick up supplies. One local reported seeing them driving together, and two people saw them out shopping for home renovation supplies together. And police were so keen for a person of interest that they actually arrested Robert Smith

and held him for further questioning despite his absolute denial of involvement. Robert claimed that he had never been inside her car and said that he actually hadn't even been working on the day of her murder. For reference, Robert was a happily married, hardworking father of seven with no criminal record to speak of and maintained that he had no reason or motivation to kill

Malvina and also claimed that he had an alibi for that day. Like the rest of the employees, he was given a polygraph test which he, like most of the employees, passed. Also, it is worth mentioning that most of the contractors employed by the crutzes were black, as Mildred said a black man was driving Malvina's car away from her house. But I'm really curious about this. Was this even true? Was it a black man driving away from the scene? I just feel like again, it would look very suspicious to them and that they would have reported it at the time or been more likely to report it at the time unless they knew that Malvina sometimes did errands with the men working on the house but they said she

wasn't in the car and then she also wasn't in the house so this kind of gives me pause. Yeah I feel like they should have at least said something or, you know, before this or like you said, report it. But yeah, I don't know if they were just kind of completely unaware of their surroundings. Maybe they're not very perceptive human beings. I don't know. They also said, oh, well, it sounded,

to me I got the impression that he was a work man What the hell gave you that impression? You know yeah what like what like what was he wearing a uniform was he wearing a painter's hat so sorry I mean what on the phone when she was talking to him even though he said like nothing She said I got the impression. He was a work man Do you have that impression because you know that the men that were usually in the house were workmen or did something else give you that impression? Right, yeah, they weren't very clear on that. And then also regarding the fact that they're saying they saw a black man, okay, what did

he look like? What was he wearing? You know, maybe they were able to give a full description to police and because this case is unsolved, by the way, you know, we don't have that information. But I just wonder if they said, oh, I saw a black man driving the car because they knew a lot of black men worked around the house. And they're just saying it was a workman, it was a workman. And they have no actual reason to believe that. So I don't know if I trust this claim. Well, let's talk about another suspect here.

Interestingly, another man who had no prior connection to the Krutzes willingly involved himself in the investigation. James Rogers was arrested in Gary, Indiana over two hours northwest of Indianapolis and was brought back to Indianapolis to stand trial for his charges of grand larceny. After his arrest for committing financial fraud, he freely admitted to having murdered Malvina, which feels pretty fishy on its face. Basically, James explained that he met Malvina at a coffee shop on the morning of January 29, 1958, and that apparently she invited him home with her.

He said that he had even been there when Buddy arrived home from school, ate lunch, and greeted the milkman before heading back to school. However, there were several inconsistencies with his story. For one, he claimed that Molvina had greeted her son in person and had actually gone into the kitchen to make his lunch, when Buddy assured them that she had never emerged from the bathroom. James also claimed that after Buddy left, they became embroiled in a physical confrontation and that he hit her in the head, knocking her unconscious. So that part kind of does line up. Well, according to James, he had placed her in the tub in an attempt to revive her, but then fled in her car when that didn't work.

However, again, he told police that he left around 3pm, not around 1.45pm, as Mildred and Florence had witnessed. Then later, he recanted his confession altogether, and detectives felt that he had done it for attention, which we do see in a lot of cases like this, sadly, especially when they're Canted his confession altogether and detectives felt that he had done it for attention Which we do see in a lot of cases like this sadly, especially when they're heavily picked up in the media Frustrated by this and the lack of good leads in the case homicide detectives admitted quote. We have come up with absolutely nothing But there was one person of interest whose name continued to come up in her investigation. Painter Leroy Pennick, who had been helping the crutzes around the house.

Leroy was already pretty well known to police, possessing a record dating back to 1934 when he was just a teenager. According to a local bartender who called police after Malvina's murder, Leroy had walked into the bar on the afternoon of Wednesday, January 29th, claiming to have assaulted a woman and left fingerprints in his wake. So, this is crazy. So he walks into this bar, and he basically asked the bartender if he could provide him with an alibi, that he had been at the bar during the time that this woman was murdered. But instead, the bartender, being a good Samaritan, reported this exchange to the police. And Leroy's fingerprints were in fact found around the crut's home, but that kind of was to be expected because he had been painting the house. Yeah, so that's really hard.

I think this is such an interesting angle on its own without what I'm about to go into Because if he said that he did that to the bartender asked him for an alibi and the bartender came forward about it And this guy happens to be one of their workers who knows the family who's been in the house many times Kind of seems like a slam dunk. Yeah, but you know, that's why it's so disappointing about the fingerprints because it's like well when were those left? Was it when you were working or when you were potentially murdering? Well Leroy was first brought in for questioning on January 31st, so two days after her murder, and subsequently underwent three polygraph examinations. We know that they're finicky, but I will say that he failed all three of them.

He was officially arrested on February 22, 1958, so just about three weeks later, charged with Malvena's murder, and he was held for about a week. But with no concrete evidence to hold him, police were forced to let him go. concrete evidence to hold him, police were forced to let him go. However, Leroy Pennick came back under suspicion four years later after an altercation with his romantic partner led to her death. On March 10th, 1962, 44-year-old Leroy and his 27-year-old living girlfriend, though some reports claim she was 28 or 29. Her name was Carol Martin. She was a Native American woman from Minnesota.

Basically on that day, they got into a fight in which Leroy later admitted to slapping her only to slapping her. The police report, however, claimed that she had been beaten to death and described her body as battered, and that she was found collapsed on a blood-spattered floor. According to Leroy's account, he came home at 1 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, March 10, 1962, to find Carol slumped against the door of the first floor, asking him to help her up the stairs to their second- story apartment because she had been drinking. But when he did, he says he dropped her by accident, leading her to fall down the flight of stairs. He then helped her up to the apartment, laying

her down on the couch, and when he did, she apparently became so angry with him and started cursing at him to Leroy's aggravation, so he claims he slapped her to get her to back off. Leroy then left to pick up a six pack of beer and some gin, meeting up with a painter friend of his and bringing him back to the apartment afterwards. His friend was horrified at the sight of blood and of Carol's lifeless body, of course, despite Leroy assuring him that she was okay. I mean, yeah, this just feels like he needed a witness with him to find her to make himself look innocent.

Exactly. I didn't do anything. I left to go get some beer and some gin and I came back and she was like this. Yeah. But also he's saying, oh no, she's good, she's good, and no, she's literally dead. So it feels like he's... this is the denial aspect of, oh well, she's dead? What? Are you sure? But let's also look at the parallels between Carol's murder and Malvina's murder, because they are there. And essentially what I mean by that is that both of these women were beaten to death. Obviously we know that Mulvina was, you know, drowned, but it

appears that she was beaten before she was drowned. Yeah, at least somewhat she had some scratches and cuts and abrasions for sure. I think it seems according to this more like Carol was more badly beaten like they said she was battered, whereas Malvina wasn't. But yeah, it's not like one of them was stabbed or shot. You know, these are both physical, um, like death by hand. Yeah, and as we know, you know, most killers have a specific MO, like some people like to use knives, some people like to use guns. so for this to be similar, I mean obviously

it's not like a super distinct thing, but I do see some similarities. Well Leroy was arrested for Carol's murder, and just to describe her body a little bit more as well, she was covered in bruises and lacerations, and she had also sustained blunt force trauma to her head and a cerebral edema. Though he pleaded not guilty, Leroy was found responsible for the second-degree murder of Carol Martin, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Well, unfortunately, all that's left of Malvina's case are just rumors.

Could it have been Charles in between his errands that day, or perhaps even somebody that Charles hired? If Charles was enraged enough that Malvina, having the gall to report his failings as a father and husband and publicly file for divorce from him, could he have paid off one of their employees to remove her from the picture? The chance that it was some random crime of opportunity by a passerby seems slim, but it's not impossible. But the most likely culprit remains Leroy Penick, who has since passed away and was never connected to her murder.

I wish so badly. You know, unfortunately this happened in a day and age where DNA technology was not a thing almost at all and I just really wish we had something Regarding the car was were there other person's fingerprints on the wheel was their DNA on the seat Was the seat push back, you know if you could do that in cars in 1958. Right. I just wish we had more and if they had that evidence today, if they could retest it, but it's just so disappointing that it feels like there's nothing.

Yeah, at the same time so much, you know, Mildred heard the man's voice on the phone. Buddy was home and the milkman stopped by when it seemed like this person was inside the house. Like, there was a full crime scene at the house. The car had been abandoned somewhere. This happened during the day. Just feels like a case that should be solved. Well, homicide detective Randolph Schubert said, quote, We have always thought that someone who lived in the neighborhood or who passed by the Crutzes house on January 29th may have seen the murder, but no one would come forth with information. On the one year anniversary of Malvina's murder, Sergeant Earl Booth said, quote, I'd give

anything to solve that case. By his estimate, in the first year of the investigation alone, 250 people were questioned. For the same article, when asked if he desired to make a statement, Charles Krutz said, quote, I have no comment to make. He and Buddy remained in the Guilford Avenue home for years after the murder, and then sadly the case turned cold at a rapid pace and has remained as such today, 67 years later. Charles Senior died in 1980, and then their son, Charles Jr., or Buddy, passed away in

2017. He's buried next to Malvina in a grave that says, Beloved Son. If you have any information about the murder of Malvina Crutz, please call the Indiana Crime Stoppers at 317-262-8477. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. I know that it's unsolved, but with new technology, these types of cases are being solved nearly every day. So it's possible that someday we might see the conclusion to this case and might finally see some justice. Let us hope. Like I really wonder what if any fingerprint

or DNA evidence they have still to this day. And hopefully if they do, they will kind of revisit this and and hopefully solve it. Because again again this just feels so solvable. It is and unfortunately the number one suspect in this case is Leroy Pennick and he has since passed away but he was in prison for life so is that karma? Maybe it is, we don't know. Well also it seems like probably most people that would have been involved in this are now deceased so still hopefully there is justice. Please let us know what you guys think of this case. We're on socials.

We're on Instagram at going West podcast. We're also over on Facebook. You can join our private discussion group or our public page. And yeah, we would just love to hear your thoughts on this one. Again, big shout out to Hannah for putting this one on our radar. And I guess one last thing I want to say before we let you guys go is that I want to do a shameless plug of our Patreon and our Apple subscription series, our bonus episodes, because if you love going west, if you love what we do, that's the best way to support us so that this show can go on forever.

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