Let's Go To Court! - 149: Wrongful Convictions

Episode Date: November 18, 2020

When Kathleen Schroll called her mom late one night in the spring of 2008, her voice shook with fear. She said that a man named Ollin “Pete” Coones was in her house. He’d stolen her lawn mower, and now he planned to kill Kathleen and her husband, Carl. Kathleen told her mom that Pete said “he has his tracks covered where no one will know who did it.” When police arrived at the Schroll home, it was too late. Carl and Kathleen were dead. So… Pete did it. Right? In that same vein, Kristin tells a story that starts bad and gets so much worse. In 1913, Atlanta was rocked by the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan. Mary was killed at the National Pencil Company, where she worked long hours for little pay. The crime scene was littered with evidence, including bloody fingerprints, footprints, human feces, and two notes -- presumably written by Mary as she lay dying. Atlanta police rushed to solve the case, but didn’t go where the evidence led them. They went to Leo Frank, the factory’s superintendent. And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: “Leo Frank,” famous-trials.com “Leo Frank case,” New Georgia Encyclopedia “Star witness in Frank case arrested here,” The Atlanta Constitution, October 21, 1941 “Frank case witness to be freed Nov. 15,” The Atlanta Constitution, November 5, 1941 “Jim Conley admits attempted at burglary,” The Atlanta Constitution, January 17, 1919 “Leo Frank,” entry on Wikipedia In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Did His Dad’s Caretaker Frame Him for Her Own Murder-Suicide?” By Rachel Olding, The Daily Beast “Kansas man was framed in ‘Machiavellian’ murder-suicide scheme, lawyers argue” by Luke Nozicka, The Kansas City Star “Olin “Pete” Coones v. State of Kansas, Motion To Vacate” Midwest Innocence Project “KCK man goes free after 12 years in prison” by Luke Nozicka, The Kansas City Star “Olin ‘Pete’ Coones Exonerated” Midwest Innocence Project

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A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group. One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about Leo Frank.

And I'll be talking about a murder plot. Ooh, I... Okay, does nobody get hurt? Hmm, no. Oh, people get hurt. Okay. I didn't say it was a foiled murder plot. Well, but, you know, when I cover the murder plots, it's always like, oh, they were so dumb, they couldn't pull anything off.

Yes, it's not one of those cases, Kristen. I should have known, because it was coming from your mouth. I suddenly feel like I have entirely too much saliva in my mouth. Well't pull anything off. Yes, it's not one of those cases, Kristen. I should have known because it was coming from your mouth. I suddenly feel like I have entirely too much saliva in my mouth. Well, that's disgusting. Thanks for sharing that out loud. We wash it down with my delicious vitamin water zero sugar lemonade. Wow. Okay.

It's delicious. Sponsored? Not. No. Nope. Nope. Fingers crossed. Brandy, how you doing?

I'm doing alright, how you doing? Stressed as hell, but you know As per usual There's a coup on our doorstep Yeah, so we were just talking about how like The week has been It's been a rollercoaster of love. Say what? And so, like, the top peak is when Biden is saying there's no red states, no blue states, and talking about, like, all right, let's –

And then the low. Uh-huh. What could that possibly be? Well, there's several of them. Uh-huh. Trump being a little bitch boy. He won't get off his bouncy ball and leave the White House. Yeah.

Also, Fox News is apparently canceled these days. Never thought I'd see the day when Fox News got canceled, not by people on the left, but by people on the right. Yeah, so this is wild. I mean, Trump. It's a wild time. Trump, as you predicted, is filling up the court system. Who predicted that? Well, a lot of people.

No, me. Only me. Only me. The only person who saw that coming. Yeah, that he would fill up our court system with frivolous lawsuits. We can't wait until they get to the part where they have to produce some evidence. We'll see how that goes. But yeah, this is wild times.

It is wild times. I have a small criticism. Of me? Sure. No. No. I just think, I mean, by now we know that the Democrats obviously stole the election.

I just, I don't understand why they only stole the presidency. Right? You know? That's weird. Like, why not get Mitch McConnell on? I say, Democrats, if you're listening, next time you steal something, go balls to the wall. Balls out, as you say. Do the whole thing, right?

I mean, how is that not coming up? Like, really? The election's stolen? But it wasn't stolen properly? We let Lindsey Graham stay. How is that not coming up? Like, really? The election's stolen? But it wasn't stolen properly? We let Lindsey Graham stay. What a wild time to be alive. I hate it.

Not life. Just, you know. You don't know. You don't know what I've been going through. Got a husband running around downstairs talking about how there's a coup coming and what are we going to do about it? Norm scared us real good at lunch, guys. Yeah, yeah.

He hid under the bench and jumped out. No. He just, you know. Enough of this. Yeah, enough. Can't talk about it anymore. Okay.

I agree. Should we talk about it anymore. Okay. I agree. Should we talk about a murder plot instead? Would that be more uplifting? I think we should do an ad instead. Oh, fuck. You know, get paid, get laid. I'll join you on the first one. I'm going to pass on the second one.

Wow, that's rude. That's rude. I offered so graciously. I guess this is what I get for being a nice guy. All right. I got a murder plot for you. Okay. Local.

Oh, okay. And? What you smelling, Brandy? It's fresh. Oh, that's gross. Sorry. I thought there was going to be a hilarious joke. No. One in very poor going to be a hilarious joke. No.

In very poor taste. The case is fresh. Okay. The murder plot, not. Okay. It's not fresh. Gotcha. Okay.

Got a bunch of great information for this case from an article in the Kansas City Star by Luke Nozicka. Okay. Do you know that guy? No. You're not friends with him? No. Don't all you journalists people know each other? Well, youicka. Okay. Do you know that guy? No. You're not friends with him? No. Don't all you journalists people know each other? Well, you do know.

Okay. You do know that I have a few of my favorite Kansas City Star reporters. All right. So I am the nerd that you say I am. If I wasn't, then why would I say I am? Exactly. And then also there was a really great article for The Daily Beast by Rachel Olding. And then, okay, I found this blog called Kansas Federal Public Defender.

Oh. Anyway, it linked me to the court record for this case. So I just wanted to shout that out. Melody Brannon over there at Kansas Federal Public Defender blog. Thank you. It was 221 a.m. on April 7th, 2008, when Elizabeth Horton's phone rang. Her daughter Kathleen Schroll was on the line. She spoke clearly and calmly, though Elizabeth would later recall that there was fear in her daughter's voice.

Elizabeth also later recalled that there was fear in her daughter's voice. Elizabeth also later recalled that there was no background noise, no sound of a struggle, or even the sound of other people in the house. There was no background noise at all. Kathleen said, Pete is here in the house, and he said he stole the lawnmower from the garage. He said he's going to kill Carl, and he said he stole the lawnmower from the garage. He said he's going to kill Carl, and he said he's going to kill me, and he said he's got his tracks covered and no one will find out. Elizabeth said, what? Repeat that. And Kathleen said, Pete is here in the house, and he said he stole the lawnmower from the garage.

He said he's going to kill Carl. he said he stole the lawnmower from the garage. He said he's going to kill Carl. He said he's going to kill me. And he said he's got his tracks covered, and no one will find out. And Elizabeth said, did you call the police? And Kathleen said, no. What? And then the line went dead.

The call had lasted 45 seconds. I think the interesting thing about this call to me is that when Elizabeth asked Kathleen to repeat what she'd said... It was verbatim? Verbatim. Yeah. Elizabeth woke her son, Randy Horton, who lived with her, and explained what Kathleen had just said. And so Randy called 911.

Within 15 minutes, police had arrived at the home Kathleen shared with her husband, Carl, located at... Oh, oh, hold the phone. Okay. 47 South 78th Street, KCK 66111. Oh, that's kind of a cute little place, isn't it? It's a little two bed, one bath, little house. Looks like that's kind of a cute little place, isn't it? Yeah, it's a little two-bed, one-bath, little house. Looks like it's maybe on some property.

A lot of yard around there. They call that rural, Brandon. There's yard all around it. As far as the eye can see, there's yard. There's anywhere on 78th Street in KCK that would be considered rural, though. Okay, okay. Maybe there is. Hang on.

I'm looking. You looking through the pictures? No, I'm just looking at the overall map now. Oh, okay. The stuff that will not be of any interest to any listeners. So we can't possibly cut this goodness here. You guys, oh, my God, there's a U-Haul rental center here. Sorry, you may continue.

Okay, so police arrive at the home and they find all of the lights on and the front door was slightly open. So they made entry into the home. So they made entry into the home. Inside, they found Kathleen Schroll dead on the living room floor. She was flat on her back. The woman who'd made the call? Mm-hmm. Oh.

The woman who'd called her mother. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. She was flat on her back in a pool of blood with a single gunshot wound to the back of her head. Oh. pool of blood with a single gunshot wound to the back of her head. A cordless phone lay on the floor nearby, and a silver revolver, which she was known to carry in her purse, was on the floor near her left foot. Inside the cylinder were four shell casings and one unfired round. In the bedroom, they found the body of Carl Scholl. He'd been shot twice in the chest, and he'd suffered some kind of wound to the forehead.

A medical examiner would later say that this wound on his forehead was likely a crushing blow from some kind of blunt object. Likely, this came in an attempt to incapacitate Carl. The medical examiner later would also determine that the bullets that killed Carl were the same as the ones that had killed Kathleen. But the bullets were in too bad of shape to be able to determine if they'd been fired by the same gun. They could tell they were the exact same type of ammunition. they were the exact same type of ammunition. What police didn't find inside the home was any sign of a struggle or any sign of forced entry. Within minutes of entering the scene, one officer remarked that it looked like a probable murder-suicide. But that was before anyone learned of the call that Kathleen had made to her mom claiming Pete was in her home and threatening them. So they talked to Kathleen's mom, the one

who, you know, she had taken the call that night and they're trying to find out who Pete is. So it turns out Pete was Pete Coons. He was the son of Olin Coons, who Kathleen had worked as a caretaker for for several years. Kathleen had started working for Olin Coons around 2005. So she had met Olin's daughter Patsy at like the VFW. Like they'd been there like drinking and just became like pals. Wow. The judgment in your voice. Have you ever been to a VFW, Brandi?

I've been to a VFW for like a funeral. Like, you know, like. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I went for a wedding one time. Yeah. It's a rather grim affair. Yes.

So popular hangout at the VFW. Okay. And at this time, Olin was becoming elderly. He needed a lot of care. And Patsy was not in great health. And so she needed help. And so originally she, after becoming friends with Kathleen, she offered Kathleen a job, initially just doing housekeeping for them. And she took the job.

And they paid her like $300 a month to just come in every few days and do some housekeeping for them and whatever. And then eventually, Olin's health got worse, developed Alzheimer's and required in Kathleen's care. At this time, his son Pete was living on the Missouri side. I'm not really sure how far away, but he, it seems like, wasn't even told of Patsy's death until quite some time had passed. Wow. A friend of Olin's is actually who told Pete that Patsy had died because he had been trying to get in contact with Olin. And every time he went to the house, like, Kathy came to the door and wouldn't let him speak to Olin.

And, like, it was a whole weird thing. She would just – basically Kathleen was isolating Olin from his friends and family. Mm-hmm. And within six months after Patsy's death, Olin had written— Oh, no. $30,000 in checks to Kathleen. Also changed her to the beneficiary of his will. Naturally.

And signed over his house to her. Oh! Mm-hmm. Yep. So on one particular instance, there was some transaction that needed to be done at the bank, and so Kathleen actually took Olin to the bank and tried to do this

transaction with a teller. And the teller became so alarmed that something was going on here. She froze his accounts. Yeah. And got adult protective services involved. Yeah. She said it was the worst case of elder abuse she'd ever seen. Oh.

So at some point during all of this, Pete becomes aware that this is going on. They've basically Kathleen has moved her family into Olin's home. She's driving his cars. She's using his bank accounts for her own spending. They have to basically sneak him out of the house to get him away from it. And it ends up being this whole big dispute because shortly after that happens, Olin dies. And it's before they've been able to change all that stuff. And so at the time of Olin's death, the life insurance company sees that there's some stuff going on.

Things have been frozen. They're looking into it. And they see that the beneficiary of the life insurance policy, which is valued at like $43,000 or something like that, the beneficiary was changed online without a power of attorney. And so it's very questionable about who did it, especially when you know that and have them hold it in an account and require Pete and Kathleen to fight for it in civil court. Wow. OK. Yeah. So there's this ongoing lawsuit about who does the life insurance go to?

Were these checks that were written out of the account fraudulent? They get the KBI involved, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. They send off like 111 checks to handwriting experts, which – Come on. What year is this? I know. It's like 2007 at this time, I think. For whatever reason, I think it is different when it comes to check writing that that's still something that's used to determine if they're forged or not.

Handwriting experts are. But they determine that upwards of 100 of them are likely forged. Okay. They're going back and forth. This has become very contentious about who's going to get the settlement. How do they get the house back? How do they get all of this stuff? And finally, Pete's, like, ready to just be done with it. And so he offers to settle with Kathleen. He'll give her 25% of the payout for this all just to go away.

And the mediation to agree to that was coming up like within a couple weeks of when Kathleen and her husband Carl were found dead. So the police learn of this contentious relationship between Pete and Kathleen within like an hour of being at the scene. between Pete and Kathleen within like an hour of being at the scene. And within three hours of the opening of this investigation, they've decided that they need to arrest Pete. Pete is who, Pete is their number one suspect. Pete is who committed these murders. So the following morning,

they pull Pete over as he's driving his children to school. And they arrest him. And they also handcuff his children and take them to the station. They didn't wait for him to drop them off? No.

How old are his kids? I don't know. I'm not sure. That's really awful. Yes, his children were taken out of their family van and handcuffed and taken to the police station. Oh. I can't imagine that that is necessary or protocol.

Right. I don't know, though. I mean, who knows? No, that's shitty. It is shitty. Just, you're following the guy. Let him drop his kids off and then get them. And then take him, yeah.

There's no need to traumatize the kids. Yeah. So, unless they're bad kids. Stop it. So that morning, they take Pete in. He waives his Miranda rights and agrees to sit down and talk with detectives. He answered all of their questions about his contentious relationship with Kathleen, but he denied any involvement in her murder. He said that night he'd been at home with his family.

He'd never left. He was there the whole night. His family could attest to that. And they spoke to the family members, and everybody said, yeah, he was home. His daughter had been up with her fiancé in the living room about 2.30 a.m. watching a movie when Pete came out of his bedroom and went to the bathroom. And they said, yeah, he was home. And then he went back into his bedroom and we could hear him on his computer.

Has Pete been framed for this? Has he? They also said that Pete's car was blocked in that night by his daughter's fiance. There's no way that he could have gotten it out of the driveway. And there's no way he could have left the house without anybody seeing him. He would have had to walk through the very living room where his daughter and her fiance were sitting watching a movie to be able to exit the home. Despite that, despite having—

What movie were they watching? I don't know. I wish I knew. Damn it, Brandi. Despite that, Pete was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder. Oh, but what evidence did they have? What evidence did they have? Well, I mean, I totally understand why he's the number one suspect.

We'll get there in just a second. Just keep your little pants on, Kristen. My little pants? My hot pants? Your hot pants. Okay. Pete was a 50-year-old retired mail carrier with no criminal history. Sounds like a real asshole.

So after they've arrested him and charged him with murder. He's retired at 50. That's kind of living the dream. He was in very poor health. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I take it back.

I forgot that there are multiple reasons to retire. He'd had, like, a couple of strokes and a heart attack. Oh, gosh. Okay. Yeah. Great. So following his arrest, the investigation continues, and they search Pete's house for bloody clothing, firearms, ammunition.

Don't find any of that. They looked for the lawnmower, the one that Kathleen had told her mother that Pete said he had stolen from the garage. Didn't find that. They tested the clothing that he was wearing when he'd been arrested. There was no blood on it. So he'd gotten rid of all of it. Mm-hmm. Sure.

The police then searched his van for fingerprints, bullets, DNA. A note that said, I did it. Didn't find any of that. They found nothing linking Pete to the killings, to the shootings. We'll call them the shootings, Kristen. Okay. They also. Wait, why aren't we calling them killings?

I don't know. Why aren't we? We're killed. They were killed. You're right. All right. We'll call them killings. All right.

Well, what are you trying to. Did you stumble over your own words there? No. Okay. Did you stumble over your own words there? No. Okay. They also did a search of the van for the presence of any foreign blood or tissue.

So they searched, you know, for his DNA, whatever. They find his DNA. They find no blood, no tissue, no nothing. They also did swabs for gunshot residue. For whatever reason, those swabs were never sent to the lab to be tested. You mean they didn't get back the results they wanted, so they discarded them? Hmm. Hmm. Okay.

I don't know. They also tested the hands of both Carl and Kathleen for gunshot residue. Did I say tested? I meant they took swabs. But, again, those swabs were never sent to the lab to be tested. You know what? I forgot this was in fucking Kansas City, Kansas. We've covered these police before.

They suck. Oh, I shouldn't say that. Kristen. Sorry. You guys, when they inevitably arrest me for murder, you know what's up. So we've got some gunshot residue testing, swabbing going on. We've got swabbing going on. But for whatever reason, those tests were never sent to the lab, which at this time... It's kind of the important part. I mean, I could take a Q-tip to your face right now and do nothing with it. Exactly.

I mean, it'll be covered in makeup. Yeah, that Merle Norman looks good on you. Thank you. Thank you. The police did ballistics tests. And like I mentioned already, they were able to conclude that the bullets were the same that were in both of the bodies, but they couldn't conclude that they'd been fired by the same weapon. But they did match the size of ammunition that was in the gun that was found at the scene, and they also matched the ammunition that was found in the Schroll house.

So it's not like a mystery to connect all of those dots. They also tested the gun for DNA. Only Kathleen's DNA was found on the gun. It was found on the trigger. It was found on the handle. It was found on that little thingy that you pull back on the end. Yeah, we know a lot about guns. That's the clitoris. know a lot about guns. That's the clitoris. You know whose DNA wasn't found on the gun? Pete. Pete's.

So Kathleen shot her husband and shot herself, right? That's an interesting theory. No, no, no. That's not what happened. Because someone made her read that script to her mom. Hmm. Maybe. Hmm. Because someone made her read that script to her mom. Mm-hmm.

Maybe. Hmm. Stay tuned, Kristen. What if I got up and left? So, turns out that Pete's DNA also wasn't on that cordless phone. His fingerprints weren't on the phone. In fact, his DNA or fingerprints or any trace of him at all were not found inside the Schroll home. You know what I call him?

Hmm. Smooth criminal. Showed up in a hazmat suit. Yes, that's exactly right. So, in other words. He didn't do it. There was no evidence that Pete had ever been inside the Schroll home, let alone been there that night and murdered Kathleen and Carl. So detectives were like, well, fuck, that evidence isn't great. So they started interviewing people. There had been this story that had been told about how Pete had been threatening Kathleen

for a while. She'd told people at work that she'd run into him at Quick Trip, and he yelled at her and told her to stop spending his dad's money. Was she buying too many of those roller dogs? Right. Her daughter told a similar story, only their stories weren't exactly the same. They happened on different days and at different times, which is kind of weird. And so police went to that quick trip where Kathleen had said that that confrontation had happened. And they looked at the—this is what we know from another case.

Uh-huh. Quick trip. They have amazing surveillance cameras. There's audio. There's amazing video. Like, the quality is great. Also, great iced tea. Yes.

Yeah. It's never made Kristen shit her pants once. Also, the people are very friendly in there. They are. It's a clean place. If you're paying with cash, they have your change back to you before you've given them the cash. You know what? I actually don't like how fast they are because then I have to stand there.

Then you're like frantically like. Yeah, and I'm like trying to put the stuff in the purse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. They go to that quick trip. They check the surveillance video for like two full days because there was weird conflicting

stuff about. Right. You know, the time and when it happened and whatever. There's no footage of Kathleen or Pete ever being at that quick trip. And certainly there was no confrontation. They talked to Kathleen's boss. She worked at a credit union. She did some kind of, I don't know.

Fraud. Did she? I'm just getting a vibe. She did, you know, something with money at a credit union. Something with checks. She was the one who had to make sure the checks came in and then she processed them out and whatever.

It's all very, very specific. Did you guys get that? She did something with money at the credit union. Yeah. And he said that he knew that Kathleen carried a gun in her purse. One thing that they found out was that lots of people knew Kathleen carried a gun in her purse. The thing about it was that was weird is that she told her mom she carried a gun in her purse because she had to take money from the credit union to the Federal Reserve. That was part of her job. Really?

Yes. And so when they asked her supervisor about this, he's like, yeah, that's not part of her job at all. No, they have people specifically for that purpose. Yes. Yes. Another thing that they found out when they were interviewing the people that are around Kathleen was that Kathleen told her daughter that Patsy, Olin's daughter, had given her the gun. Patsy, when they traced the gun, Patsy had actually reported the gun stolen way back in 2000.

Oh. Which was like right when she first met Kathleen. Oh. Way back in 2000. Oh. Which was like right when she first met Kathleen. Oh, shit. Yeah. So they're like, okay, well, those things are also kind of weird. Huh. It also turns out that Kathleen told a lot of people that there had been several threatening confrontations from Pete and that she'd made police reports about all of them?

Those police reports didn't exist. She'd also told several people that she had a restraining order against Pete. No. That didn't exist. Despite all of that, this thing went to trial. Here's a big hole in this story, and I apologize. There is nothing available about Pete Coon's first trial, which is this trial. Okay.

Thank you for apologizing for your big hole. What I know is that Pete was charged with first degree murder for Kathleen and Carl. He was acquitted of Carl's murder and found guilty

of Kathleen's murder. What? Yeah. Following this conviction though the verdict was overturned and he was granted a new trial. Well, yeah, because it's so weird.

It's super weird. And the reason for it being overturned, there's a couple of things. The biggest thing is that the state had failed to turn over forensic evidence linked to Pete's computer. So there was like proof that Pete was on his computer during the time of the murder and the state knew that and didn't turn that information over to the defense. Cool. So, my assumption here on the reason that a jury was able to find Pete guilty of Kathleen's murder but not of Carl's is because there was there's no proof of any interaction ever between Pete and Carl and the only thing that is linking Pete to Kathleen's death is this weird contentious relationship sure anyway that conviction is overturned and a new trial is granted.

So the second trial, this one we know a lot about. So this trial began December 15th of 2009. During his opening statement, the prosecutor talked about, you know, what their theory would be. He said that the state's theory of what happened that night was that Pete had had it. The courts were taking too long. He wasn't sure he was going to win this case where he was fighting over this money in civil court. He was so frustrated.

He was enraged. And that night he'd gone to the Schroll's house and he told Kathleen what he planned to do. He'd clubbed Carl over the head with a blunt object and then shot him twice. And then he'd gone back to Kathleen, who was just, I don't know, standing in the fucking living room. As you do.

And put a gun to the back of her head and fired. And then the prosecutor continued, somehow Pete must have, you know, snuck up on her or something, been able to disarm her from her own gun, since it was her own gun that was used in the murder. So he used a different gun on her husband? Nope, same gun. Okay. Same gun. He'd taken it from her in the living room.

You show up to murder people without a weapon. No, no, no. Kristen, he came with a weapon. Remember, Carl was clubbed in the forehead with a mysterious blunt object that was never found. Uh-huh. You show up to kill two people with some kind of club. Uh-huh. And you're like, oh, my gosh, they've got guns.

How convenient. I'll help myself. I'll help myself. I'm going to use her gun, go shoot her husband. Meanwhile, she's just standing in the living room. Yep. Very calm. After he's explained exactly what in the living room. Yep. Very calm. After he's explained exactly what he's there to do. Well, it'd be rude to interrupt. Right. And

in the Midwest, we are polite. That's correct. You come into my house and you need a gun. Okay, borrow mine. Yeah, absolutely. Here you go. And so, yeah, so he'd gone into the bedroom. He'd clubbed Carl with that mystery object that they never found. He must have gotten rid of it when he got rid of all of his blood-soaked clothing. Sure. That they never found. Sure. Well, he's an excellent criminal.

Uh-huh. Did I mention that he's a 50-year-old man who had suffered two strokes and a heart attack, was obese, and couldn't walk across the room without losing his breath. Here's the thing. Sometimes when you're real fired up, like he was, you transform like a Power Ranger. Oh, okay. It was like he had on his Mighty Morphin suit.

He sure did. And you know, like, when you mentioned her just like standing back, do you remember in those scenes, did you ever watch that show as a kid? Yeah. The Putties? Yeah. I would always get so frustrated as a kid because the Putties would go one at a time to fight the Power Ranger. Why didn't they all attack at once?

But clearly in this house in Kansas City, they played by Putties' rules. That's exactly right. That's what they were called, right? I think so. That seems like a stupid name. Well, it's the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Kristen. Are you trying to say that show was stupid? So this is what he lays out as the state's theory in his opening argument.

How is that not embarrassing as a theory? Right. I guess you got to hope that the jury is dumb as, well, okay. He also said, they also touched, he touched on the elder abuse case and said, you know, whether Olin was happy to provide those few extra gifts to Kathleen or whether she was taking them without his permission, you know, that was, that's neither here nor there. Well, I mean, sure. In theory, yeah, we're not here to debate whether she did something bad.

It's did Pete murder her and her husband? Right. Okay. Yep. The answer is no, but all right. Anyway. So the first witness the state called was KCK police officer Sophia Barajas. So she was the first to arrive at the scene.

And so she just kind of walked the jury through the scene, what she'd seen, the locations of the bodies, and, you know, where the revolver was laying. The next to testify was one of the crime scene investigators who had been there. And he talked about how what he observed, same kind of thing. He testified to noticing that the revolver had a five-bullet capacity, held four empty casings, yet there were only three bullets shot at the scene. This seemed like something that was interesting, but they'd never been able to explain it. Okay.

Why four shell casings were in that revolver, but only three shots could be accounted for that night. That crime scene investigator talked about how Kathleen's purse was just kind of like open on the couch, like right there in the living room. And it was common knowledge that she had carried that revolver with her in her purse. Yeah. One of the detectives was the next to testify. He was the lead detective on the case. And he talked about when he arrived there shortly after the murder investigation had begun, he talked to Kathleen's mother.

And she walked him through the phone call that she'd gotten. And she told him who Pete was and what animosity had been there. She described the whole contentious relationship and that they were in this court battle for Pete's inheritance and all of this stuff. This detective, Bill Michael was his name, he also testified about interviewing Kathleen's daughter. And she talked about the revolver and how she had always told her that it was a gift from Patsy. But when this detective had run the trace on it, he'd found out that Patsy had reported it stolen way back in 2000. This detective also told the jury about the ballistics test, how all the bullets matched and appeared to be from the same gun, though they couldn't clearly say that because they were too damaged to be able to show that the same gun had fired them. But they were all the same size and all appeared to come from the same box of ammunition, which was located in the house. Kathleen's daughter, Blair, had told him about that confrontation at Quick Trip and how he tried to investigate that but had never been able to find any evidence that it had happened.

It wasn't on any kind of surveillance video at Quick Trip. The next to testify was the medical examiner. The medical examiner talked about everything that I've already told you, how the wound on the forehead was a crushing blow. That's an exact term used by the medical examiner from some kind of blunt object. He said there was a tear to the scalp, but no damage to the skull itself. And then he talked about how two gunshot wounds had been the cause of Carl's death. They had been both to his chest. And then he talked about his examination of Kathleen's body.

So she had died from a single gunshot wound to the back of her head. There was something specific about this wound. It's what is called an oblique contact wound. I'm sorry. I'm realizing now that my theory had been she shot her husband and then shot herself. I forgot that she shot herself in the back of the head, which would be very difficult anyway. Unless it's possible. How on earth would that be possible?

Well, Kristen, keep your fucking pants on. Okay. So he tells the jury, the medical examiner tells the jury that this is an oblique contact wound, meaning some but not all of the barrel was touching her head when the bullet was fired. So it made contact with the head at an angle. This is really important and not typical of someone being shot from point-blank range behind them. Typically, a gun would be flush with someone's head.

Right. And this was not the case with this entry wound. What angle was it at? So the bullet entered the back and then traveled like from the left to the right in a forward diagonal motion. Not backward. Not backward, no. Great. Kathleen's attorney took the stand and testified about the civil case that was going on between Pete and Kathleen.

And he talked about how their mediation was scheduled for May 9th. So we're like one month after Kathleen was shot and killed. And that it was like just days before this, Pete had reached out and offered a settlement just to end the whole thing. And she was going to get like 25% of the life insurance, but that would be all of the estate that she would get. She would be required to sign over, I think, the ownership of the house and all that, which was all being held in probate at this point.

Yeah. Kathleen hadn't accepted or rejected the offer at the time of her death. or rejected the offer at the time of her death. Kathleen's attorney also testified about something that was found in Kathleen's purse at the time of her death. There was a letter that was written by her attorney, John Duma, which was written to the Wyandotte County District Attorney's Office, saying basically that if they had planned to file charges against her for the elder abuse claims, please would they let him know first and she would just surrender herself rather than them coming and arresting her. But that letter had – he had written the letter and given it to her.

It's not clear if it had ever actually been – a copy of it had ever been sent to the district attorney's office. Kathleen's daughter, Blair, testified. She talked about that conversation that she'd had with her mom where Kathleen told her this horrible story about the confrontation with Pete at the quick trip. And she talked about how Kathleen had told her about all of these threats that Pete had made on her and how she was having to make police report after police report and how she had gotten a restraining order against Pete, none of which existed. This is so weird. Yeah. Next to testify was a jailhouse informant, Robert Rupert. Rupert said that he had been in the same jail as Pete while he was awaiting trial. So they put him on the stand and they kind of walk through some of his previous convictions because that's obviously they know that that's what the defense is going to do.

They're going to tear him down. Haters going to hate, as I say. Uh-huh. So they lay out like 12 of his previous convictions, which was less than half of all of the things that he'd been previously convicted of. Yeah. And they only explained the 12 things that they'd bothered to tell the defense about. They'd never disclosed the other, I think, 16 convictions. Those douchebags.

Yeah. Yeah. All of the ones that they omitted were ones that showed, they call them like lie-based convictions or something like that. Yeah, sure, you don't want them to know that. Exactly, exactly. lie-based convictions or something like that. Yeah, sure, you don't want them to know that. Exactly, exactly.

So he talked about how he'd spent some time in jail with Pete and how Pete had told him about committing the murders. And he said that he hadn't used his van that night. He'd used his old mail jeep. And that after the murders, he'd had his wife sell it really quick. And that the reason nobody had seen him leave the house that night was because he climbed out a window and his wife had closed it after he left. Okay. And this man in terribly poor health climbed out the window?

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Wow. Mm-hmm. He also testified to stuff that didn't match the crime at all. Well, sometimes you got to throw in extra for flair, Brandy. He said that Pete told him that he'd left Kathleen and Carl's body side by side in a small room, maybe a laundry room or a utility room. Mm-hmm.

And the prosecution was like, that's not what we told you to say. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then Kathleen's mother testified. She testified about the phone call that she had received from Kathleen at 221 on the morning of April 7th. She said how when the call ended, like there wasn't anything alarming other than the words that Kathleen had said. There was no background noise. There was no struggle. There was no. And Kathleen didn't sound panic, didn't sound like she was yelling or anything.

She just sounded scared. That's how she described it. There was fear in her voice. That's how she described it. There was fear in her voice. So she went on to talk about the relationship between Olin and Pete and Kathleen and how, you know, all she knew of it were the things that she had heard from Kathleen. And that she said that Kathleen bordered on obsession when it came to this. She said she talked about Pete every single day.

Yeah, I bet she did. Yeah, I don't, I think if they're really. What? Yes, I mean, I think at this time when there's a lawsuit pending and you're risking losing all of this money that you've managed to pilfer from this poor, senile old man. Yeah. Yeah, you probably do talk about it a lot. Uh-huh. The next to testify was Barbara Crim Swanson. She was a forensic scientist for the KBI. She testified about all the tests that

were performed on the evidence. She said she tested Pete's clothes and shoes for blood and tissue and found none. And that, in fact, no DNA of Pete's was found anywhere at the crime scene on the revolver. But Kathleen's was on the gun, on the trigger. No mention of the GSR results, though, because, oh, wait, they never tested them. Swabbed, didn't test. Next to testify was Detective Brian Block. He testified about investigating Kathleen for the elder abuse claims. He talked about how he tried to interview Olin at his home, but Kathleen was always at the house and she wouldn't

let him talk to him. And then they'd arranged this meeting at an attorney's office. Like that was Kathleen's, the only way she was going to let this detective talk to Olin. And so he gets there and Kathleen brings him in and still refuses to let him speak to him. And so that was when this detective was being continually blocked from talking to Olin. He was like, OK, I'm going to look at just try and do this like as a financial investigation. Let's see what the what the financials show. And that's when he uncovered $30,000 in checks written within a six month period. written within a six-month period. And when he gathered those checks and sent them to the KBI,

that's when they determined that upwards of 100 of them were likely forged. A man named James Rumley testified for the defense that he had bought Pete's mail jeep. He bought it from Pete on April 6, 2007. A full year. Well, that guy's obviously a liar. He's obviously full of shit. He was able to present a loan application that was dated and completed that he'd had to, you know, do to buy the Jeep. You know, he'd had to complete it and do it, Kristen. And he testified that he'd owned the Jeep ever since. And he'd never once loaned it to Pete. Except for the night of this double murder.

Then he loaned it, right? A registered nurse for the Wyandotte County Jail testified that when Pete arrived at the Wyandotte County Jail after his arrest on April 7th, he was in terrible health. He was obese. He had high blood pressure. He had shortness of breath. He had an irregular heartbeat. He'd suffered two strokes and a heart attack. This poor man.

She said she had made a note in his medical records that he could not walk across the room without becoming red-faced and winded. But this man beat someone over the head. Uh-huh. Shocked them. First he climbed out a window. Yes, of course. Climbed out a window. Uh-huh.

Maneuvered a car, some car. Any car. Out of somewhere. Probably lifted it above his head. Probably. That's exactly it. And walked it onto the street. Yes.

Out of somewhere. Probably lifted it above his head. Probably. That's exactly. And walked it onto the street. Yes. And then, yeah, got to the Schroll's house and explained to Kathleen that he was there to murder her. Right.

And her husband. Didn't bring a gun because he was prepared for any kind of fist fight. That's right. Only brought that club. Right. That they never found. And there's no evidence of it ever existing. Well, he obviously ran a marathon and then hid that in a bush somewhere.

And stripped down his bloody clothes. Sure, sure. Mm-hmm. How did this make it to court? It's, I don't know. I don't know. Fuck. Several of Pete's family members testified.

They said on the night of the killings that he was there the whole time. His daughter, her fiance, they testified that they saw him at 2.30 in the morning coming out to go to the bathroom. He couldn't have left the house. He'd have to walk right by them. And even if he had been able to climb out a window, there was no car available for him to drive. The fiance's car was blocking the driveway, and the keys to that car were in his pocket the whole night. During his closing argument, the prosecutor. Who was this prosecutor?

His name is Bronkart. I don't have his first name written down. He's just like the assistant attorney general now. It's no big deal. Oh, great. Great. Cool. Cool.

Great. Cool. So he spent a long time in his summation talking about how Kathleen had no reason to commit suicide because that was the defense's claim. This was a murder-suicide. It's an unusual murder-suicide, yes. But it could happen. The evidence shows that she could have held that gun there and shot herself. So he talks to the jury about how that's malarkey.

First of all, that could never happen. Nobody ever kills themselves by shooting themselves in the back of the head. Second of all, Kathleen had no reason to commit suicide. He said, and this is a quote, of all, Kathleen had no reason to commit suicide. He said, and this is a quote, no evidence suggests that she would have had any motivation other than to do anything to live and keep on living. Okay. It's a weird thing. He said, he went on to say, the facts don't fit a suicide. Kathleen hadn't put a gun in her mouth. She didn't leave a suicide note. And she didn't call her mother and say goodbye.

He then reminded them of the state's theory. Remember, Pete had gone there in the middle of the night. He was all worked up because the courts weren't working fast enough. And he walked in and he told Kathleen, hi, I'm here to murder you and your husband. Can I have your gun, please? And then he went and murdered Carl, came back out, murdered Kathleen, and she just stood there and let him do it. Yeah. So the jury deliberated. And they asked for a couple of sections of testimony.

So while he was murdering her husband, she made the phone call to her mom? Is that what they're saying? Yeah. She stayed in the house. Yeah. Hey, Mom, Pete's here. He said he's going to murder me. He's murdering Carl right now. Just took the lawnmower. Yep. Yeah. Oh, my God. This is so stupid. Yeah. Yep. So the jury deliberates. They ask for a couple of sections of testimony to be read back to them. They ask for Kathleen's mother's testimony to be read to them.

They ask for the jailhouse informant, his testimony to be read back to them. And ultimately. No. They found Pete Coons guilty of first-degree murder of Kathleen Schroll. How? How is that possible? How is it possible? How is it possible based on the evidence that was presented at this trial?

Oh, my God. When you find out what was left out of this trial it becomes even worse. What was with this jury? I don't know. So what we do know is that they believed the jailhouse informant's testimony. They found him very credible. Uh huh. And

they didn't believe that Kathleen could have killed herself with a shot to the back of her head. Okay, I've got more questions. Pete. Yes. White guy? White guy. Well, there's—well, geez. Okay, that was my one theory.

Kathleen and Carl are a white couple. Pete is a white man. Man. Yes. A wrongful conviction can really happen to anyone. Anybody. Pete was sentenced to life in prison with a hard 50. Geez.

Pete Coons maintained his innocence from the moment he was arrested. I hate it when they do that because they got you, Pete. They know. Give it up. We know you stashed that lawnmower somewhere. He always believed that he had been set up by Kathleen Schroll herself and that this was truly a murder-suicide. What a weird story, though. Yeah.

What a terribly weird story. Yeah. So he began working to clear his name, working to be exonerated immediately. He followed appeal after appeal. He wrote letters to anyone who would listen, including the Midwest Innocence Project, the Morgan Pilot Law Firm. Oh, yeah. And Mark Dupree, the Wyandotte County District Attorney who formed the Conviction Integrity Unit following the exoneration of Lamontae McIntyre. All right.

Yes. All right. Yes. All right. So attorneys from Morgan Pilot, representatives from the Midwest Innocence Project, and representatives from the KU School of Law's Paul E. Wilson Project for Innocence and Post-Conviction Remedies. So all of these people start looking into this case. Uh-huh. All of these people start looking into this case. Uh-huh.

And they found that there was problem after problem, which we have already— Well, yeah. We've already discovered that. But we're geniuses, Brandi. That's right. There were issues with the investigation. There were problems with the jailhouse informant. And there was exculpatory evidence that was withheld from the defense. Let's talk about the investigation issues.

The GSR swaps that were never tested. How does that happen? How were they never sent to the KBI to be tested? Is that a decision that was made intentionally? Yeah, probably. Probably. So they get them tested. Probably.

So they get them tested. No gunshot residue on Pete Coon's steering wheel, door handle, nothing. Gunshot residue on Kathleen's left hand. Wow. Yep. Yep. She really did do this. Mm-hmm. Yep. Oh, my God. Yep. She really did do this. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Oh, my God. Yep. Another investigation issue. The missing bullet. Remember, they find a gun that has a five-bullet capacity in the cylinder. There's four casings in there and one unfired shot, but only three bullets were found at the scene. Two in Carl and one unfired shot, but only three bullets were found at the scene. Two in Carl and one in Kathleen. The other bullet had been in evidence for 12 years.

From the scene, they took a pillow that had been above Carl's head. It had a hole in it and like stuffing coming out of it. It had just been bagged and put into evidence. It had been photographed. Sure. But that was it. In that wad of stuffing that was coming out of the pillow.

Was a bullet. Was the fourth bullet. Jesus. Oh, this is terrifying. The wound to Carl's head was not from a blunt object. It was from a shot that had missed and glanced off of his forehead and landed in the pillow. Wow. Which changes the state's entire case. Well, they had it so right the first time.

So Pete came to the house completely unarmed to murder Kathleen and Carl with their own gun. Yeah. That club that he managed to, that never existed at all. There's no, that wound was not from a blunt object. It's from a shot that missed. And they'd had the evidence of it for 12 years. By the time it gets. This is sickening. By the time this case gets looked at. Yeah.

Oh, this is horrifying. Oh, this is horrifying. Remember the big speech that the prosecutor went into about how Kathleen had no reason to end her life? She had every reason to just want to live and keep on living. Sure. I was very inspired by that speech. Absolutely. He left out, like like a little detail about something

that was happening in Kathleen's life at this time. Is she about to go to prison for something? For a major embezzlement scheme. Oh, wow. From her job

at the credit union. Wow. Like the embezzlement scheme was going to be found out on Monday when her boss was going to make her turn in her ledgers

because they weren't balancing and hadn't been balancing for the entire quarter. Yep. She had embezzled over $11,000 from the bank in three months. Yikes. And she knew that Monday morning they were bringing someone in to audit her books because they weren't balancing. This is the wildest story.

So she decides, I'm going to end it all, and I'm going to ruin the life of someone I hate. Yep. But, I mean, to me that's not the craziest part it the story only works if the police and the prosecution are just as dumb and corrupt as she is yeah and apparently it all worked together. So they put together this whole, like, walkthrough of what couldn't have happened. They finally get, you know, they have all they uncover all of this misconduct. There's proof that the prosecution knew about Kathleen's embezzlement scheme and that it had never been disclosed to the defense. There's also proof that that jailhouse informant was promised leniency for his testimony. Of course he was.

That he had only shared a cell with Pete for one day. But Pete's a big talker and he just admits to everything. And that the prosecution claimed to have only had like two letters back and forth between this jailhouse informant and the prosecutor's department. District attorney's office. That's a better term for the prosecutor's department. So they had like, they had only disclosed two, like two or three letters of communication between them. There were like seven. Yeah.

That showed that he was angling for a deal the entire time and that he had reached out to the prosecutor and been like, hey, I heard this guy's in here. And, you know, sounds like he's on trial for double murder. Want to see what I can find out? It's all a game. It's all a game. Yeah. It's not about justice.

Yeah. It's about winning. Yeah. For everybody. Can the jailhouse informant win? Can the prosecutor win? Who gives a shit about this man who they know was just minding his business? Yeah.

So finally, in February of 2020. No. February of 2020. No. They earn an evidentiary hearing where they can come and present this new evidence, this basically all of this stuff that changes the case completely. And so they lay it out in court kind of in bullet points. This is what couldn't have happened based on what we know now. And it's not like this case was strong when it went to trial.

No, it's crazy that this even went to trial to begin with. Yeah. Well, okay, I'll see. Okay, so this is what couldn't have happened, but what you would have to believe to believe the prosecution's case. Right. to believe, to believe the prosecution's case. Pete went to the Schroll house at 2.30 a.m. intending to kill both Carl and Kathleen completely unarmed. He got into the Schroll house without leaving any sign of forced entry. Basically, they had to let him in.

He knocked on the door and they said, hey, Pete, come on in. Oh, yeah. My sworn enemy. come on in. Oh, yeah. My sworn enemy. Come on in. Pete, still unarmed, managed to subdue Carl and Kathleen. Sure. And Pete just happened to find Kathleen's gun in her purse. Before killing either of them, Pete announced his plan to do so and confessed that he'd stolen their lawnmower.

Sure. Sure. Pete then allowed Kathleen to stand in the living room six feet from the front door and make a phone call to her mother. Then when she named him as her killer, did nothing. And he didn't stop the call after she'd, so she said, you know, Pete's here. He says he stole our lawnmower. He said he's here to kill Carl and me.

And then her mom said, can you repeat that? And Pete didn't stop her. Right, right. When she said the whole. Clarity is important. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And Pete knew that.

Yep. Yep. And Pete knew that. Yep. Yep. Carl and Pete said nothing and made not a single noise during that phone call. Gotta be polite. Carl remained in bed, presumably asleep, during that time.

Mm-hmm. Then Pete took the cordless phone away from Kathleen and dropped it on the floor while Kathleen stood there. But he didn't leave any fingerprints on it. No, exactly. Because he was in his hazmat suit. That's right. Then Pete walked into the bedroom where Carl was still sleeping, maybe, and shot him three times. Meanwhile, Kathleen is still standing in the living room six feet from the front door.

Right. And she just stands there. Right. Motionless. Sure. And allowed Pete to walk up behind her, put a gun to her head, and didn't flinch or react or anything when she felt the barrel against the back of her head. So at this evidentiary hearing, they have a medical expert testify that it is human nature to pull away when a gun is put to your head. And had she done that, she would have fallen forward.

The shot wouldn't have been a contact shot. Yeah. And had Pete stood behind her and somehow she managed to stand still and not flinch away, had she fallen backwards like she did, she would have fallen into Pete. But there was no sign that her fall had been interrupted by anything. Okay. So Pete shoots her. She falls backward.

She doesn't land on him or bump into him or anything. Mm-hmm. And somehow, somehow Kathleen had gunshot residue on her hand, but Pete hadn't gotten any on him. And then there was this small issue of there was like some blood and tissue on Kathleen's hand, too, along with the gunshot residue. And that was just a coincidence. Yeah. Again, Pete did all of these things without leaving any sign of struggle. He did all of these things without leaving a single fingerprint behind.

He did all of these things without leaving any DNA. He did all of these things without leaving his DNA on the gun. And somehow, despite the fact that the blood spatter from Kathleen's wound traveled so far that it was on the ceiling like in the next room. Oh. Pete got none on him. Some guys have all the luck, Brandy. I mean. This is so upsetting.

It is so upsetting. It is so upsetting. So at this evidentiary hearing, they lay all this out and they say, no reasonable juror could reach this conclusion. No. This theory leaves too many unanswered questions and relies on far too many coincidences. And relies on far too many coincidences. And this version that they would have to believe only considers the state's evidence. It doesn't include the defense's evidence about Pete's poor health. Right. It doesn't bring into account his alibi.

Right. Which we know statistically alibis that are provided by family are not believed. Sure. Yeah. And for good reason. Exactly. It's not a great alibi. It's just not. It also doesn't take into account Kathleen's history of deception.

The lies that she told, her fraudulent activities with both Pete's father and the embezzlement scheme at the bank. So at this evidentiary hearing, they then lay out what they believe really happened. This is the only theory that accounts for all of the evidence. And it says that Kathleen murdered Carl before taking her own life. So on Friday, April 4th, Kathleen came to the conclusion that her embezzlement from the bank was about to be uncovered. She knew this because her boss had told her that if she couldn't balance her books by the end of that day, they were bringing in an auditor on Monday to balance them.

And she knew she couldn't balance them because she'd embezzled $11,000. So the way she was doing this, because she was the person, you know, as I told you so eloquently early on, she was the person that took the checks in and then made sure the checks were paid. And then she, you know, sent the checks out, whatever. So she would take a check from an account that she was on at a different bank, from one of her accounts at a different bank, and process it through her bank and give her, deposit the money into her account. And then she would remove that check from the checks to be

processed. So that money from that check was never paid from that other bank account. Yeah. And so she, because she's the one who's managing all of the checks, was able to get away with it for a while. Yeah. But I mean, you have to know you're not going to get away with it forever. Exactly. So she did like a couple of weird, like where she'd double a transaction here and there, which would help balance it for a little bit.

You know where she should have worked? Where? At the... Collins yeah because i just feel like well not to give tips but i feel like if you're going to commit fraud probably doing it at a credit union is like the most likely place to get caught i agree so she knew she was about to be caught and that that would result in major issues yeah jail time yeah a considerable amount of jail time probably yeah and it would show she had been keeping a lot of stuff from her husband as well like they had she had taken oh my gosh she was taking out payday loans left and right i don't even know where all this money was going because this house like it wasn't like she was living a flashy lifestyle i'm not sure well she only stole 11 grand i mean but she stole 11 grand from her work in three months. Was this over the same period, roughly? Within a year or two of each other.

Okay, new question. Yeah. How nice was that lawnmower? I think that's how we start this mystery. That's right. So she knew the clock was ticking, but she couldn't just end her own life because that would mean her daughter and granddaughter wouldn't get her life insurance money. So she had to make it look like a murder. But how could she do it?

For a murder, she needed a murderer, obviously. But it couldn't be Carl. For a murder, she needed a murderer, obviously. But it couldn't be Carl. If Carl murdered her, there was a forfeiture by wrongdoing exclusion on their life insurance policy. So her daughter wouldn't get the payout then. Plus she decided, you know, that wasn't really fair to Carl. You know, she destroyed their lives financially and like she didn't need to frame him as a murderer too.

I'm not buying any of this. You don't think that? No, I don't think, I don't think she really cared about her. You think it was more about ruining Pete's life? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what, so yes, I, I agree.

Um, and they don't frame it that way in their theory. But, yeah. So she basically determines that Pete is going to be the perfect villain. She's going to do this legwork to make it. She's going to make this fake confrontation. The thing is, he's not, though. Exactly. And that's the frustrating part. Yes.

Is her plan was stupid. But it only worked because the police were stupid plus corrupt. Yes. And the DA was too. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So she puts the, so she finds out on the 4th that, like, the jig is up at work.

She's got to come up with something. So she makes up that fake confrontation on the 5th or the 6th, depending on who you talk to. And she lets her attorney know about it. She lets her daughter know about it. She lets her mom know about it. Everybody knows that she had this big confrontation at Quick Trip. Which everyone knows nothing bad happens at a Quick Trip. So they should have all been very skeptical.

But she knew that wouldn't be enough she would need to like blame pete for the murders the just that wasn't gonna be enough she needed to verbally tell someone that pete verbally had yes that's right that That's exactly right. That Pete had threatened her life and she needed to place him in her home that night. So how does she do it? She call 911? No, that wouldn't work. Because what if they had like an amazing response time and they came before she was dead? Or before anyone else would have had time to get out of the house?

So that's where the call to her mother comes in. else would have had time to get out of the house. So that's where the call to her mother comes in. And she practiced that speech she gave to her mother over and over and over again, so that when she asked her to repeat it, she said it verbatim. So that's what she'd done. She'd called her mother. She'd gone and shot Carl. And then she'd taken her own life. You don't think she shot her husband first? Then called him.

I think it's very possible. I would. It's the way I'd do it. Yeah. I would. It's the way I'd do it. Yeah. Well, the only risk I see there is that tightens your time frame in case a neighbor hears the shots.

How many neighbors do they really have? That's true. That's true. And honestly, in my neighborhood, and I'm guessing in this neighborhood too, we play a real fun game. And it's called fireworks or gunshots. And we play it just about once a or Gunshots. And we play it just about once a week or so. And I've not called the cops once. Yeah.

So this, they lay all of this out at that evidentiary hearing in February of 2020. Sometime after that, a medical examiner reclassifies the deaths of Kathleen and Carl as murder and suicide.

On November 5th of 2020. Oh my gosh, this is a fresh one. Six days ago at the time of recording, a judge vacated Pete's conviction and ordered his release. Oh, Pete. Pete was free to go after 12 years in prison. Well, my God, poor Pete. Poor Pete. Following his release, he made no statement when he left the courthouse with his family.

His wife stayed by his side this whole time. His wife and his children were there when he was released. They knew that he was. Well, I mean, yeah, didn't know. Fucking jury. So he. So he made no statement when he left the courthouse. But as he stopped to get into a car to leave, a reporter asked him if he was smiling under his mask.

And he said, yes. Oh, that's right. Because he would have to wear a mask. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Here's here's have to have been wearing a mask. Oh. Oh, my God. Here's where my mind goes now, though. Okay. Pete was convicted of this murder, which means that his civil case was decided in Kathleen's favor.

So Kathleen's daughter got Pete's dad's house, got Pete's dad's life insurance policy. Got her mom's life insurance policy. Wow. How do you go about, how does that get rectified now? It doesn't because she spent all the money. Exactly. And she has no money. That's just my guess. My guess too.

Yeah. I think the only thing you can do is sue the state. Yeah. And well, I mean, we have the wrongful conviction restitution in Kansas. So he should get restitution. I don't know how much. Whatever it is, it's not enough. Not enough.

Because I remember with Lamonte McIntyre, well, no, he fought for it. He fought for it. He is the reason that we now have it in Kansas. He's one of the reasons. There was two exonerated men who fought to get it. Yeah. Yeah. But Pete Coons is now free.

Oh, man, Pete. Okay, I've got to look up a picture of Pete. Oh, gosh. So remember that. Well, my gosh, Pete's lost a lot of weight in prison. Pete's lost a lot of weight in prison. Now he really could get out a window. He sure could.

So Mark Dupree, the district attorney for Wyandotte County, he started that conviction whatever organization. What did I call it? Can't remember the name of it. I tune you out so much. Thank you. Anyway. The Conviction Integrity Unit. Okay. This is the first case that that unit looked into, like after its formation, and it's the first exoneration as a result of it.

Oh, man. I'm looking at this quote from Pete. I just hate the fact that their less than a perfect job cost me so much of my life. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Boy, that's the nicest thing a person could say about that. That is the nicest thing a person could say about that. That is the nicest thing a person could say about that. That's the most Midwestern reaction to a wrongful conviction I've ever heard.

No kidding. Oh, my gosh. That was such a good story. I hated it. I hate it. I don't understand how that flimsy of a case made it to trial and then to a conviction. The system failed. Over and over again.

Yeah. Yeah. And so that prosecutor's doing real well now? Yeah. According to one article I read, he's now the assistant attorney general. I don't know if that's up to date. God. Anyway, I think that the fact that there's a conviction there is deeply unsettling.

And that it took that long to fix it. Mm-hmm. Did I tell you I have to go to the doctor on Monday? No. My butt has a crack in it. That was terrible, Kristen. Alexandra told me that joke. Here I was, all worried that you got, like, tumor follow-up stuff.

Just a crack in my butt. Oh, my God. You're going to have a crack in your face in a second. My heart started beating really fast, Kristen. I'm sorry. Did you calm down when you realized it was a hilarious joke? Hilarious. All right.

You ready for this? Yes. Okay. Thank you to Angela in the Discord for suggesting this case. Also, thank you to Professor Douglas O. Linder. I was going to say, I saw her recommend this, and she even sent our favorite website as a source suggestion. And I got to say, this is a new ad to thefamoustrials.com. You didn't know Doug E.O. had done this one?

No, it's new. It is new. Which means you didn't know. Yes, it was new to me, Brandi. I know the website so well that I was like, he doesn't have anything on Leo Frank. Turns out, as of 2020, a great year for all of us. He does. Also, thank you to GeorgiaEncyclopedia.com and, of course, Wikipedia.

Here we go. Old-timey disclaimer. Racist disclaimer. Excellent. And anti-Semitism disclaimer. Racist disclaimer. Excellent. And anti-Semitism disclaimer. Jesus. The hat trick. So if you're racist, you're going to love this episode.

Oh, God. Listen, I've been making fun of the racists lately, and this one's for them. Oh, no. Picture it. April 27th, 1913. 3 a.m. We're in the National Pencil Factory, which, as I'm sure you know, was located in Atlanta, Georgia. Do you know this case?

No. Okay. I did, like, I clicked the link when someone recommended it and I was like, pencil murder, not for me. It's too old timey for you. It's too old timey. And you don't like the racist ones. I really don't. You really hate the racist ones. I really do.

A guy named Newt Lee was the night watchman for the pencil factory. Newt Lee? Newt Lee. And he was making his rounds, holding his lantern, when he decided to go into the factory basement. See, he needed to use what was called the Negro toilet. And if that doesn't set the tone for this story, I don't know what will.

Newt went to the bathroom, and when he came out, he noticed a body by the incinerator. It was the body of a 13-year-old girl. She'd been beaten. Her body was black with dirt and bruises. Her dress was up around her waist, and her underwear had been torn and was covered in blood. Okay, my immediate reaction to that is, how would Newt handle that? Because don't you imagine, like, you're like, oh my gosh, somebody's been hurt, but then, like, the second thought is thought is i'm gonna be blamed for this uh that

was literally uh a thought he had not long at all yes yeah yeah like part of you has to be like walk the other way and you know that's honestly i think you're screwed either way yes as one of the i don't know that he was the only person on site, but if he's the night watchman, I imagine he's the one guy on site. That is rough. This thing is starting off rough, Kristen. A seven-foot cord was wrapped in a loop around her neck. She'd been beaten and strangled and most likely sexually assaulted. Newt was horrified. He

immediately called the police to tell them what he'd discovered. So the police showed up and began investigating this grisly murder, and they discovered a few clues. There was a sliding door in the basement that led to an alley, and someone had messed with it so that it wouldn't lock. It looked like another door had been pried open with a crowbar. They also found bloody fingerprints by that door and on the girl's clothes. They found footprints in a trail on the dirty basement floor. Judging by the dirt patterns, it looked like the footprints of the killer as he was dragging the girl basement floor. Judging by the dirt patterns, it looked like the footprints of the killer as he was dragging the girl's body.

Pretty solid evidence. You'll be impressed to know that the police did a great job walking all over the trail and completely ruining the evidence. Yes. They liked a challenge, so they just, like, ruined half the evidence. Yes. They liked a challenge. So they just like ruined half the evidence.

But that wasn't all they found. They also found shit. Like feces? Yeah, like real shit. Mm-hmm. Someone, probably a healthy man, if we're going off the size and the consistency of the poop. Oh my god, what? I'm sorry, but this is relevant.

It better fucking be, because if you're just telling us... I just told you about a 13-year-old who has strangled... If you're telling us this for shits and giggles, Kristen... Okay, okay, you guys, you should have seen the smile on her face as that was queued up in her head. as that was queued up in her head. So, yeah, someone, likely a healthy man, had taken a dump in the bottom of the basement elevator shaft. What?

They also found two notes next to the young girl's body. I will read them to you now, and I think they're going to clear a lot of things up. I doubt that. Here we go. Oh, by the way, I think it probably goes without saying I'm going to be including some words in this story because they're verbatim from the case. Yeah. Not because I want to use them. All right. Right. That's for any idiots listening. Okay. want to use them. All right. Right. That's for any idiots listening. Okay. Here's the first note. Ma'am, that Negro hire down here did this. I went to make water. He pushed me down that hole. A long, tall Negro, black, that who is was, long, slim, tall Negro. It right well play with me.

Oh, okay. So, all right. Mystery solved, right? Case closed. That does obviously answer all our questions, but I'm going to read the other one just for funsies. It said, he said he would love me. Land down, play like that night witch did it. But that long, tall black Negro did by his self.

I feel like I don't need to tell you that the spelling was interesting and so was the grammar. Okay. Yeah. So these notes were revealing. One of the notes mentioned the Night Witch, which probably meant Night Watch. As in Night Watchman, as in Newt Lee. Did you say Newt Gingrich? I'm going to remember his last name.

A lot of people don't know that Newt Gingrich was involved in this. And wouldn't you know it, poor Newt Lee was a tall, slim black man. Of course he was. Just like the notes said. Oof. So they arrested Newt.

As I predicted within one second of this case beginning. Okay, you're a genius. I'm not a genius. That's how unsettling these cases are and I hate them. Oh, this one has a great ending. You're gonna love it. I'm not a genius. That's how unsettling these cases are, and I hate them.

Oh, this one has a great ending. You're going to love it. I'm sure it does. So they arrested Newt, and he was like, look, I just found her. I didn't do anything to this girl. And they were like, oh, yeah? Well, it's my—wait, let me do my Southern accent. Oh, yeah?

Well, it's mighty suspicious that you said she was white, but her body was so dirty, how could you know she was white? Seems like you're pretty familiar with this gal. That I could tell if she was white or black? Right. And, I mean, poor Newt. He's just like, whoa, I just looked at her and I knew she was white. I knew she was white. Okay.

Sorry. But they kept interrogating Newt, and meanwhile, word got out about this terrible murder. Turns out the little girl was Mary Fagan, and she'd had a tough life. She'd been born into a family of tenant farmers, which is basically a step up from sharecropping. But her dad had died before she was born, and she and her mom had moved around a lot. And when Mary was 10, she had to leave school to start working.

Oh, my gosh. She got a job in a textile mill, and a few years later, she got that job at the National Pencil Company. This child worked for 55 hours a week and made 10 cents an hour. Holy shit. Adjusted for inflation, that's $2.63 an hour. A 10-year-old. Oh my gosh. There were some child labor laws at this time, but they weren't really enforced and people needed the money. So the children went to work.

But that didn't mean that anybody was happy about it. The fact that children were working in factories was controversial and kind of new. Really, the fact that women were in them, too, was also controversial. Atlanta was in the midst of a huge shift. People were moving there away from farm work to work in these factories and the conditions were shitty and horror of all horrors, women and girls were all of a sudden working alongside men and boys who they didn't know. People had so many problems with this picture. And little Mary Fagan being murdered at work enraged and terrified

people. The only reason she'd even gone to work that day was to collect her paycheck, which was for like a dollar or something. And now she was dead. Oh my gosh. That's a great story, Kristen.

Stay tuned for the laughs. But her murder could not go unsolved. People demanded answers. Newspapers offered reward money for anyone who could give information on the killer, and the mayor of Atlanta started talking shit about the police, and finally he told them, find this murderer fast or be fired. Wow. Which is a very chill threat that always leads to great results. Super amazing police work is what that usually inspires. The faster you move, the better you do things. Yeah. I think the case we just did

was an example of that. Do you think it was that they were moving too fast on that one? Okay, they arrested someone. Like, they, they, bing, bang, boom, had that case solved in three hours. Okay, yeah. See, I don't, I don't necessarily have a problem with somebody finding a very, very likely suspect and taking him in. Yeah. Right away. Yeah, yeah.

But, I mean. But maybe, don't you think that they should have, before they arrested him and charged him with murder, maybe, like, searched his house and stuff? That only came after. You know what? I, for one, think he did it all. Sorry. All right. Sorry.

I'm over my case now. Are you? I'm not over it now. No. I'm not over it now. So police kept scaring the shit out of poor Newt Lee, but Newt wasn't their only suspect. They had a few others as well. How did they find these other suspects, you ask? Suspects.

Suspects. Well, they didn't find them by following the evidence, I'll tell you that much. Oh my gosh, were they just like, oh, never mind. I'm going to keep my. What? No, say it. Just waiting for people to point fingers? Nope.

Oh, okay. Police have their own fingers, and they can point them, too. Okay. For some reason, anti-Semitism, they began to look at the superintendent of the National Pencil Factory. I don't know why anti-Semitism. They began to look at the superintendent of the National Pencil Factory. I don't know why anti-Semitism, but there was just something about him. He was Jewish that they just didn't like. Wow. So let's talk about Leo Frank, the superintendent of the National Pencil Factory. Leo was a super well-educated Jewish Yankee who was now running a business in Atlanta, which ran in part thanks to child labor.

What's that? Did you hear that? That's the sound of the KKK creaming their robes because they just found a new person to blame their problems on. Not say creaming their robes. they just found a new person to blame their problems on. Not say creaming their robes. That's what happened. That's in the court record that the KKK creamed their robes. Leo did not blend in with the people of Atlanta. He'd been raised in New York and had a mechanical engineering degree from Cornell.

Ever heard of it? And he was well-connected. His uncle had set him up for this big-time job at the pencil factory. And to prepare for it, Leo studied pencil making in Germany for nine months before he came back to the United States and took over the plant in Atlanta. Oh, my gosh! Also, Leo spoke German. He spoke Hebrew.

He spoke Yiddish. I mean, like, this guy was, I mean, smart as hell, okay? And in his free time, he did snobby things like go to the opera. He just, you know, you know, rubbed people the wrong way. Can't imagine what it was, but we can imagine. Let me tell you something. This job was a sweet deal. Leo made a base salary of $180 per month, Let me tell you something. This job was a sweet deal.

Leo made a base salary of $180 per month, adjusted for inflation about $4,700. And on top of that, he got a cut of the pencil factory's profits. So, I mean, not bad. So he'd moved to Atlanta in 1908 to take the job and married a woman named Lucille Selig a couple years later, and together they played important roles in Atlanta's Jewish community. Lucille's family had founded the first synagogue in Atlanta, and Leo became the president of a local Jewish organization. So the number of Jewish people living in Atlanta at this time was bigger than any other city in the south. But that doesn't mean there were like five.

Yeah, probably. I think I saw the number like 3000 or something. I don't know. So Leo stuck out for a lot of reasons. For his religion, for the way he talked, for his education level, for his money, for the fact that he was a damn Yankee. So naturally he was probably a murderer, right? Yeah. By this point, the police were pretty certain that Newt Lee, the night watchman, wasn't the one who committed the crime. So they zeroed in on Leo Frank. Here are the

excellent reasons why Leo Frank became the number one suspect in the murder of Mary Fagan. Are you ready? I'm ready. Number one, detectives found what they thought were bloodstains in a workroom outside of Leo's office. Number two. What? Bloodstains not good enough for you? They're not in his office or on him.

Right, but they're near. They're nearby. Okay, well, the murder happened in the building, so. Okay, well, well, that's just piece of evidence number one. Number two. Detectives found some hair in that same workroom, and it looked like it might have belonged to Mary. Convinced yet?

No. Yeah, I thought so. Number three, when Newt Lee discovered Mary's body, he called the police and then he called Leo. But you know what? Leo didn't answer. Okay. Number four, the police had also called Leo and he didn't answer. Well, I actually think that's a better sign. He didn't answer either of their calls. Really? You don't think he was out being a murdering murderer?

No, I don't. Who murders? I don't. Okay, now I'm going to pause here in defense of this. This is like the one time I'm going to defend the police in this entire story. So everybody shoot your confetti cannons or something. So I think back in this time, before answering machines, before all that bullshit, before screening calls, don't you think people answered every single call, especially if it came to you in the middle of the night?

Yeah, okay. All right. Don't you think... I would say that maybe someone in his position would leave the phone off the hook at night if he didn't want to be disrupted by a call, though. But if someone's calling in the middle of the night, isn't that a super important call that you'd want to take? Yeah. I do think it's weird that he didn't answer the phone. I mean, I'm thinking of my grandparents.

Yeah. Like, they were obviously, they were around for answering machines. But I think you talk to someone of a certain age, you could be telling them that you had cancer. And if the phone rings, they're like, oh, got to go. Got to grab that. There's just people of a certain generation. They have to pick up the phone. Yeah, I don't ever answer the phone.

Neither do I. No, and I think that's part of why I initially read that and I was like, well, that doesn't mean anything. But then I started thinking about, you know. All right. Okay. Like a true detective, I put myself back at the scene. And they were like, get out of here, woman.

They were like, where's that time machine? Oh, my God. Number five. A few hours later, police did get in contact with Leo, and he offered to show them around the factory. But he was nervous. That would really be something. It would be.

What was his excuse for not answering the phone? Did he have one? I didn't find one. Okay. It's just that, but here's the thing. So they called, but then, like, just a few hours later, they got a hold of him. He was banging his wife. It's possible.

It's totally possible. I found this very douchey source that was, like, went into great detail about her. It was only about her weight. Oh, that's cool. Did you know that they got married and then her weight went up? Probably because she ate a bunch of southern cooking that they're made made. Wow. Made made.

And she gained more weight over the course of this whole thing. Oh, okay. Which, you know, she wore well most of the time. But, you know, later in life she did shed most of the time. But, you know, later in life, she did shed some of the weight. You'll be happy to know. Oh, my gosh. Like, who the fuck? Who cares?

Obviously, this writer. A lot. Wow. Anyway. So, anyway, I'm getting slightly off topic. The important thing for you guys to know is that Frank, Leo's wife, had put on a little extra weight, which is a crime. And that's what we want you to take away from this case. So Leo showed up and he was nervous.

And he had a lot of questions for the police. Okay, well, a murder had occurred at his business. Mm-hmm. At the company he ran. Yeah. But, you know, there's a limit to how many questions

a person can ask about that, I guess. Number six. A friend of Mary's said that Leo sometimes made sexual advances on her. Why didn't you,

why didn't you sing this to me like it's fucking Hamilton, like in the Ten Dual Commandments? I had decided not to because I was afraid it would be annoying to people, but I really thought about it. advances on her. Why didn't you, why didn't you sing this to me like it's fucking Hamilton, like in the Ten Dual Commandments? I had decided not to because I was afraid it would be annoying to people, but I really thought about it. Number six.

Number seven. Other people at the plant said that Leo flirted with the women there. I bet he did because he had that fat wife. I am not kidding. The writer mentioned that.

Oh my gosh! That he had a wife who was fat and here were all these felt, physically matured young girls. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Great. Cool.

So what more do we need here? Yeah. Leo's clearly the guy. But Leo was no dummy. He lawyered up immediately, and the day after Mary's body was discovered, while police were still interrogating Newt Lee, Leo and his attorney went to police, and Leo outlined exactly what he'd done on the day in question.

He'd worked all day, and at one point, Mary showed up to collect her paycheck. He figured that was sometime between 12.05 and 12.10 p.m., and he hadn't seen her again after that. End of story. He didn't know Mary well. In fact, he didn't even know her name. He'd seen her around the plant, but that was it.

Then he showed police his body so that they could see that he didn't have any scratches or marks on him. And they were like, sir, please put your pants back on. And, well, I mean, they probably did want to see him naked. I'm sure they did. Yeah. Yeah. And he let them search his home where they didn't find anything incriminating, no bloody clothes, nothing.

But again, Leo was no dummy. He hadn't committed this crime, and police didn't have anything solid pointing to his guilt, but they sure seemed to think he was guilty. And if the police thought it, so did the media. The media coverage was disgusting. Not only did people think that Leo murdered a child, now there were all these rumors that he'd been sexually harassing the women and girls in the plant, which is not, of course, a phrase that was used back then, but you get the idea. What? I mean, I'm not trying to. Yeah, go ahead.

what I mean I'm not trying to yeah go ahead there's a chance he was but that doesn't mean he murdered this girl exactly exactly and I think people get weird about that sometimes sometimes we've covered stuff and it's always a wrongful conviction

that sets people off and it's like if the person who was convicted of a crime they did not do was also not a perfect person, then people are like, well, but, you know, he also did this other thing. And, yeah, maybe he did. But does that mean he needs to go to prison for a crime he didn't commit? Yeah.

One doesn't have anything to do with the other, to me. No. Yeah. He didn't commit? Yeah, well, I just don't, one doesn't have anything to do with the other to me. Like. No. Yeah.

Plus, his wife was, you know, a little chubby. He had a fat wife, so. So what was he going to do, right? He had to harass the woman at the plant. He had no choice. So he was like, okay, okay, got to do something. I've got a brilliant idea. I am going to hire the Pinkerton Detective Agency. I just have to say, like, obviously we're making a joke about how ridiculous it is that he would do any of this because his wife was heavy.

Just, you know, in case people are missing our. Yeah, sometimes people reach out and they're like, you know, if someone was stupid, they might think you were saying this. I mean, okay. Okay. So he was like, okay, brilliant idea. I've got a solution. I'm going to hire the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Yeah.

They're a big deal. Mm-hmm. They've been mentioned many times on this podcast. Sure have. Not favorably, usually. Most of the time, no. They'll get to the truth, and in doing so, they will prove my innocence because they will catch the real killer. What could go wrong?

And people are like, wow, why'd you say that? That seems like bringing on bad luck. Well, I'll tell you what could go wrong, Brandy. See, the detective that Leo hired from Pinkerton was actually BFFs with the Atlanta police. Oh, shit. In fact, the man's actual real-life BFF was a detective on the Atlanta police force. And guess what? The detective thought Leo Frank was super guilty. On top of that, the Pinkerton Detective Agency required

all of its detectives to hand over whatever information they found to the police. So even though Leo had hired them, they weren't really working for Leo. They were aligned with the Atlanta police through the power of friendship, which we all know is a very powerful bond. That's right. The unfortunate thing about the timeline that Leo gave to police, even though it was true, was that it made him the last person to admit seeing Mary alive. Now, some people also said they saw her, but they didn't believe that part. So, you know, okay. But there was something else. Newt Lee, the night watchman, said that on the night of Mary's murder, Leo had called the factory just to make sure that everything was all right. He had never done that before. It was strange.

So, he was obviously the murderer. Case closed. Goodbye. Okay. No? I don't think so. By this point, three men had already been arrested for Mary's murder. You had Newt Lee.

You had a streetcar conductor who'd been seen with her the night before she was murdered. You had a guy who used to do bookkeeping for the factory. You had a guy who operated the factory's elevator. And on April 29th, the same day as Mary's funeral, police arrested Leo Frank. He was their guy, for sure, 100%. I mean, just look at the evidence. Boy, it sure does add up. Hmm.

I don't know about you. But once I've made up my mind, I hate to change it. Yeah. So, uh, when I tell you that two days after Leo was arrested, someone saw one of the pencil factory's janitors rinsing bloodstains out of a shirt, I personally think we should all just be cool about it. Yeah. The man rinsing bloodstains out of a shirt was Jim Conley, and police arrested him.

out of a shirt was Jim Conley, and police arrested him. But Jim told them that those weren't blood stains he was washing out of his shirt. It was ink stains. Rust stains. Okay. Which is even worse, right? Yeah. And they looked at it, and they were like, I'll be damned, I think he's right. They were?

Well, who are you? They believed him? Yep. Okay, I'm just saying there was a murder recently committed there and now somebody's rinsing out a reddish brown stain from their shirt. It's... But did you hear about Leo being

Jewish? Yeah. But they kept Jim in custody just to be safe. And in fact, they kept Jim in custody for a few weeks. And on May 24th, he broke. Remember those notes that were found by Mary's body? Well, Jim wrote them. Please buckle up for an alarming tale that is 100% true. Click. The day before Leo murdered Mary, he called Jim into his office. And he was like, Jim, I need your help. See, I'm planning to murder this girl.

But I need someone, someone like you, to write these two really fucking weird notes. someone, someone like you, to write these two really fucking weird notes. Then I will place the notes near her dead body when I eventually get around to murdering her. And Jim was like, sure, no problem. And that's exactly what he did. He wrote the notes as dictated to him by Leo, and he handed them over. And then Leo murdered that poor girl, and he put the notes by her body. And that's exactly what happened. Mystery solved. Okay. Why are you making that face?

Well, as I believe you've already told us, Leo was really well spoken. And I assume that means that he could, you know, spell and all of that. Mm-hmm. Right? Sure. Why would he need somebody else to write a note for him? Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense. No.

Why, if you're going to commit a murder, why needlessly involve someone else? Yeah, tell somebody else, yeah. Yeah. Okay. As much as we all love a break in a case, and I think we all do, it was kind of a weird story. And it didn't make much sense. But don't worry.

When your first story doesn't make sense, you just revise it. You just make up a new one, yeah. No, Brandy, you revise. You remember. Oh, wait. Oh, this is what really happened. Oh, okay. So then Jim was like, okay, okay, scratch that first story. That was a lie.

Here's the 100% accurate new story. Are you ready? Yes. I ran into Leo on the street, and he was like, hey, follow me back to the factory and come to my office. Jim was like, sure. And so they got to Leo's office, and Leo was like, hey, these two ladies are about to come visit me. Why don't you hide in that wardrobe over there? And so Jim did. And then later, Leo told him to write those notes, and Leo gave him some cigarettes, and Jim left.

And he was just shocked as shit Monday morning to find out that Mary had been murdered. I'm so confused about this. Why? This is not confusing at all. The stories obviously don't make sense. Uh-huh. But why is he inserting himself into the notes at all? Have they tied the notes to him?

So far, all he has is blood on his shirt that they've believed that is rust. Okay, I did not include this part because I couldn't figure out how it made sense in the story. Uh-huh. But I'm going to include it now because I think it might answer this question. This is totally stupid. Uh-huh. But I read in one of these sources that the police determined that these notes were written with, and again, quoting, Negro handwriting.

Which is not a thing. Yeah. But Jim was black. So I wonder if they thought. Wow. Right? Okay. I mean, yeah, I think it does fill that gap probably.

Yeah. It's crazy and stupid. But I mean, what part of this story isn't crazy and stupid wow okay so the press got wind of this new story and they loved it whoa leo for sure did this omg and he made jim write these letters wow nuts that makes no fucking sense what do you mean? It would have had to have been a thought-out plan to throw them off his trail to have somebody else write a letter. But then you're involving somebody else in your murder plan?

Right. That doesn't make any fucking sense. No. No. No. You'd think a Cornell graduate who spoke multiple languages and was like a super smart pretty decent normal guy

could have put together a better plan than this. But obviously he didn't because he's 100% guilty so just calm down. So you know the press is loving this story but some of the factory workers

were like hey that story doesn't make any sense. Yeah. They were like and you know, the press is loving this story, but some of the factory workers were like, hey, that story doesn't make any sense. Yeah. They were like, and you know, by the way, Jim is kind of a sketchball. Maybe you should be looking into Jim. Another reason people were skeptical was racism. This is an honest to god thing so people were like why would leo frank the plant superintendent go confide in a black man jim conley and ask him for help in this murder plot that would never

happen which i totally disagree i mean obviously, that's not what happened. Yeah. But I think powerful people all the time get their underlings at their businesses to go do the dirty work. Yeah. I mean, Harvey Weinstein had his assistants doing all kinds of awful stuff. Yeah. But, I mean, thanks to racism, people were like, a white man would never go to a black man for help with something like this. But ultimately, they did come to believe exactly that. So they couldn't have held that for too long.

Oh, my goodness. So, you know, this new story didn't pass the sniff test. But you know what they say. Third time's a charm. Okay. What's the third story? Here we go. A new, 100% true, no fooling, real story. Third time's a charm. Okay. What's the third story? Here we go.

A new 100% true, no fooling, real story. Here we go. Leo killed Mary. Obviously. Duh. We all know this. But Leo had Jim come help move her body. And then Leo forced Jim to write those two notes.

And then Leo gave him $200 and then was like, oops, give that back. I'll give it to you on Monday, assuming I survive this whole thing. And that, Brandy, is why Jim took so long to tell the truth. He thought that if he held out long enough, Leo would be set free and he would get his $200 back. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Leo doesn't need help moving a small girl's body. I mean, Leo wasn't a big guy.

Maybe he did need help. He's an adult and she's a child. Well, despite what you're saying, you naysayer, the detectives all high-fived each other because they'd done some solid police work that day. Yeah, boys! Do you smell that? Is it what the rock is cooking? It's the scent of justice. Oh.

Oh, no, wait. It isn't. It's poop. Is that shit someone took in the elevator? Yes. Because at some point in all these stories, Jim was like, oh, that big fat dump you guys found in the elevator shaft? That was me. I did that.

Sorry. We're fucking losers. We both sniffed in our stories today. When you did that, I was like, oh, my God, I have that in mine, too. When you did that, I was like, oh my God, I have that in mind too. Are we losers or are we very, very cool? So, to sum it up, Jim was bravely admitting to his role as an accomplice in this crime. Officials were ready to take Leo Frank to trial with Jim Conley as their star witness. Okay, sorry.

Who shit on the coats? Jim. It's Jim shit in that elevator shaft? Yeah, so Jim is telling them, I dragged the dead body, I wrote these notes, and I took a shit in the elevator shaft. Oh no, I'm not the murderer. I just helped the murderer. Okay. Hmm. Any thoughts on this? I think Jim's probably the murderer. Okay. This is why this story

boggles my mind. The Atlanta police could go after a black guy for murdering a young white girl. Yeah, and they chose instead to go after the Jewish guy. Which, I mean, so I started thinking about that a lot. Well, okay, this is why. Why? Powerful Jewish guy. That's exactly.

Yeah. What's more satisfying? Yeah. To take down the guy who is more powerful than you, is more well-educated than you, probably smarter than you, you know, just all these things. Or, you know, the guy who really did it, who's a janitor. Yeah. Whew.

Okay. This case fucking sucks, Kristen. Sure does. Thanks a lot, Angela. So they're headed to trial. Meanwhile, Leo's defense team was like, hold the fucking phone. Jim Conley is obviously the real murderer. Don't go after our client. Go after the fucking phone. Jim Conley is obviously the real murderer.

Yeah. Don't go after our client. Go after the real murderer. The one who admits to writing those stupid notes, to dragging her dead body, to taking a dump at the scene of the crime. But Prosecutor Hugh Dorsey was like, no thanks. We like the Jewish guy for this one. Oh my gosh. The prosecution worked around the clock to get Jim Conley ready for trial.

They needed him to be the perfect witness. So they worked and worked and worked on his story. And on July 28, 1913, Leo Frank's trial began. Wouldn't it be crazy to know how many times, because you know this happens, but how many times the real murderer has been a star witness against... Yeah, I bet it happens all the time. It's terrifying. It is terrifying.

All right. Have we scared the shit out of everyone yet? The look on your face. I'm sorry, Brandy. I hate it. Two terrible cases today. I know. Well, at least we have, you know, the one silver lining.

We have the title for this episode. What is it? Wrongful Convictions. Well, spoiler alert! Hundreds of people came to watch this trial. This was better than TV because there was no TV. The local media was disgusting. People were thrilled to see this well-educated Jewish guy from New York go to trial for his horrible crimes.

Oh my gosh. The prosecution kicked off with Mary's mom, Fannie Coleman. Fannie testified that her daughter had taken off for work at about a quarter till 12 on Saturday. Mary's friend George testified that they'd ridden the streetcar together and that Mary got off near the pencil factory a little after 12. a little after 12. The night watchman, Newt Lee, told his story of finding Mary's body and how Leo had called the night before to ask him if everything was okay. And, you know, that had been unusual. And prosecutor Hugh Dorsey brought detectives in and got them talking about the blood stains and hair outside Leo's office on the second floor. He also called a witness who said that Leo's wife had said that on the day after the murderer, Leo drank whiskey.

The fuck does that mean? I don't know. I had whiskey last night, and I'm pretty sure I didn't murder anybody. So I don't know what that means. Also, isn't that kind of hearsay? I mean, come on. I know that's the least of the defense problems, but anyway. On cross-examination, Leo's defense team, led by Luther Rosser,

got the detectives to admit that the murder scene didn't exactly match what the prosecution wanted everyone to believe. Were those red spots outside of Leo's office really blood? Were they sure? And how did they know the murder took place on the second floor? The basement door had been opened from the outside with a crowbar. Didn't it seem more likely that the murderer had done this whole thing in the basement? Yes, and then he took shit. Yeah.

A doctor also testified that based on the contents of her stomach, Mary had been murdered only about 45 minutes or so after she'd left home. Oh. She'd had a breakfast of cabbage and bread. Ugh, I know. The doctor also said she'd been strangled to death and sexually assaulted, most likely. said she'd been strangled to death and sexually assaulted, most likely. But none of this compared to the day Jim Conley took the stand. His story was different from all the previous versions, but nonetheless, he told the new story quite well, I must say. Has he been coached? Yeah,

Yeah, coached for days. I mean, this guy is good. He's covering his ass like only a murderer would. He said that Leo came to him and was like, hey, a girl is going to come by my office for a chat. When you hear my foot stomp, I want you to lock the front door. When you hear me whistle, unlock the door. Kind of a Matt Lauer situation. So Jim had done what he was told, and when he went to Leo's office, Leo confessed the whole thing.

According to Jim, Leo said, I wanted to be with the little girl, and she refused me. And I struck her, and I guess I struck her too hard, and she fell and hit her head against something, and I don't know how she got hurt. Of course, you know I ain't built like other men. What does that mean? I think because he's small. Oh.

So, like, oh, he doesn't know his own strength, maybe? Oh. And, uh, get this. Leo said all this with a piece of rope in his hands. Oh, did he? Yeah, so for anyone who likes a two-for-one deal, and we all do, this is a confession while the murderer is holding the murder weapon. Yeah. Boy, oh boy, almost sounds too good to be true.

Yes. And of course, Leo had offered Jim money. And they moved the body together, and Leo dictated those notes to Jim. And at some point, Leo told him, Why should I hang? I have wealthy friends in Brooklyn. What? That's a weird thing to say. No, it's not. It's a dog whistle. Why should I hang? I have wealthy friends in Brooklyn.

I'm too important. I'm a Jewish guy from New York. I've got friends in Brooklyn. Why should I pay for this crime? We're going to pin it on the night watchman with these notes that say, you know, a tall, slim black man. What does it's a dog whistle mean? You're not familiar with the term? No. No. What does that phrase mean? Oh, my gosh, Brady.

Oh, we're going to piss people off with this. Let me look up the right definition so that I'm not talking totally out of my ass. Okay. So obviously we know the definition of a dog whistle in its traditional sense. But in politics, figuratively, according to Merriam-Webster, a dog whistle is a coded message communicated through words or phrases commonly understood by a particular group of people but not by others. Okay. Yeah. Interesting.

So hang on. So they've got this example in the definition from the New York Times, and it says, Relating to Donald Trump, if you want to cast him as a nativist, his slogan, Make America Great Again, can be read as a dog whistle to some wider and more Anglo-Saxon past. Yeah. I mean, that's... Yeah. I think that's that subtle. No. No, I mean, neither is this.

No, it's not. I have wealthy friends in Brooklyn. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, dog whistles are rarely super subtle, but it's, you know. Yeah, I was just not familiar with that phrase. More subtle than, I'm Jewish and that means I'm bad. I'm going to get away with it. So Jim said he told Leo he'd come back and burn Mary's body in the furnace.

But oopsies, he went to a bar and got drunk and fell asleep and that's the whole story. Oh, I almost forgot. Jim had also seen Leo being sexually inappropriate with some other young ladies. Gosh, he'd seen Leo do so many bad things. So in conclusion, Leo was a creep and totally guilty. And Jim was just a guy who got mixed up with a real bad dude. Hmm. I hate this case. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. The defense cross-examined Jim for three days. They did a good job pointing out that his story had changed a lot and it was kind of stupid. But other than that, Jim was a great witness. He was unshakable. Yeah, because he'd been coached.

And okay, sources don't say this, but I'm going to say this. I think Jim was smart. Yeah. He was a black man in 1913 who had taught himself to read and write. And all these sources are like, well, but he didn't do it well, the grammar mistakes.

He taught himself how to read and write. You know? Yeah. And yes, he was clearly very well coached, but he stood up to three days of cross-examination. So I think he was, in addition to being coached, I think he was a pretty smart man. Yeah. And it's my habit to compliment murderers. When the defense took over, it was witness after witness after witness, and they started

off by calling people in who established that during the time frame when Dr say Mary was murdered, Leo Frank's time was accounted for. In fact, there were only 18 minutes of his time that couldn't be accounted for, and I'm sorry, that's just not enough time to have done all this. Yeah. They called character witnesses. Tons of people testified that Leo was a good man. He was honest, smart, he was a nice religious dude. But the prosecution got up during cross-examination I'm so true. What?

Going wild places with that word. During cross-examination. And they asked off-the-wall nuts questions. Like, is it true he plays with nipples? What? Did you ever hear about Leo taking a young girl to the park,

setting her on his lap, and playing with her? What? When a boy who worked in the pencil factory's office was on the stand, the prosecutor asked him if Leo had ever made sexual advances on him. So, okay, none of this stuff was true. None of it had any basis in fact, but obviously if I'm like, oh, is it true he plays with nipples?

That puts something in the jury's head. Absolutely it does. It has to be weird. And it doesn't matter that you go, what? No, you weirdo. At one point, Leo? No, you weirdo. Yeah. At one point, Leo's wife, Lucille, stood up and yelled at the prosecutor during all this.

Wow. And for the record, everyone. She was fat. No. That's not what I was going to say. Everyone who plays with nipples is weird and probably a murderer. Definitely. Don't mince words, Brady. murderer.

Definitely. Don't mince words, Brady. Our second nipple player. What? Murderer. Oh, yeah. Pinch the shit out of your nipples. John Robinson used nipple pliers. Yeah, but he was a real murderer, and Leo Frank is not.

And I doubt he was obsessed with playing with nipples. Even if he was that's not a crime. This poor man. You know? If it is, lock me up. You guys know how much I play with David's nipples.

I know you flick them all the time. You do. Flick them. Your favorite activity. Probably a murderer. Some people do cross stitch. Some people do Sudoku. Some people do Best Fiends.

You do Best Fiends with one hand. And one hand and flick David's nipple with the other hand. How does David feel about this? He hates it. But who cares about what he wants, am I right? So, you know, like I said, none of this stuff was true. But just by saying this stuff, you put it in people's heads. Leo's a pervert.

Leo's a pedophile. Yeah. Again, I think some of these articles that I pulled from are a little older because, you know, they start talking about him going after these young boys, and they're like, oh, they implied he was a homosexual. It's like, okay, well, pedophile is the word. Pedophile, yeah. But the defense did their best to show Leo's true character as well as Jim Conley's true character.

They brought in 20 witnesses who said that Conley was a known liar. Then Leo took the stand. He told the jury what he'd done on the day of the murder. It wasn't that exciting. It was exactly what he'd always told the police. His story hadn't changed. He went to work.

At some point, a little afternoon, Mary came into his office and got her paycheck. He barely noticed her. He knew her from seeing her around the plant, but that was it. And he'd never been inappropriate with the women in the plant. Everything Jim Conley said was a lie.

What happened to Mary was awful. It was, quote, a scene that would have melted stone, but Leo had nothing to do with it. The prosecution actually got kind of worried about this part where so many people had said that Leo was a good guy. So they brought in rebuttal witnesses who all said that he was basically a big creep at the plant.

Then it was time for closing arguments. Frank Cooper delivered the argument for the prosecution. He painted Leo Frank as a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type. And then he got racist. The defense had tried to argue that the real killer was Jim Conley. Hmm, where'd they get that idea? Weird. But the prosecution told the jury that the idea of a black man being able to write those two notes all by himself with no help from a white man was impossible. Wow! He told the jury of all white men, quote, you know these Negroes. Adding that the idea of Jim writing those notes by himself was, quote, absurd. Wow.

Buckle up, Brandi. It gets worse. Oh, no. Because what do you think the defense is going to do? I don't know. You look like you just found a dump in an elevator shaft. I did. So, you know, when the defense delivered their closing argument, they said this all came down to anti-Semitism. And they reminded the jury, hey, we're not here to try this man for every little thing he's done in his life.

Like stare at a woman for too long. We're here to try him for murder. And then, because this whole story sucks, they got racist too. And if you think the prosecution got racist, here we go. Defense doubled down. Defense attorney Luther Rosser talked about the real murderer, Jim Conley. He said, okay, I'm going to need you to bleep and I'll give you the, okay. He said, okay, I'm going to need you to bleep and I'll give you the, okay.

He said, Conley is a plain, beastly, drunken, filthy, lying, bleep, with a spreading nose through which probably tons of cocaine have been sniffed. What the fuck? Yeah. Wow. He said that the prosecution had tried to pass Jim off as a, quote, respectable Negro, but that really he was a trained parrot. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. The jury deliberated for two hours. They found Leo Frank guilty.

And crowds of people who'd gathered in the streets of Atlanta cheered. The next day, the judge sentenced Leo Frank to death. He was to be hanged that October. Oh, my gosh. They did it so fast back then. Leo's defense team had no time to waste. They had to get this thing appealed fast, so they appealed to the same judge who just tried the case. They cited 115 reasons why Leo should be granted a new trial. Let's discuss a few of them. All 115 in detail. Absolutely. You won't get bored, I promise.

Here's a fun one. Turns out one of the jurors, before he was selected as a juror, was hanging out with friends and said to them, If I get on that jury, I'll hang that Jew for sure. Oh, great. Uh-huh. The defense also felt that the massive crowds of people rooting for Leo Frank to be found guilty had intimidated the jury. You think? Mm-hmm. But the judge heard all they had to say and denied that appeal.

Well, yeah, he just presided over that case. I mean, obviously, this is old-timey stuff. Yeah. But, yeah, when I realized, no, they make their first appeal to the judge who just heard the case. Yeah. But here's what's interesting. The judge did say, I have thought about this case more than any other I have ever tried.

With all the thought I put into this case, I am not thoroughly convinced that Frank is guilty or innocent. But I do not have to be convinced. The jury was convinced. There is no room to doubt that. He's right. He doesn't decide the case. The jury was convinced. There is no room to doubt that. I mean, he's right. He doesn't decide the case. The jury does. Well, he did decide the sentence, though. Oh, yeah. And he put a man to death who he didn't know was. Yeah. Yeah. But the jury recommends the sentence, don't they? But a judge doesn't have to follow it. Yeah. And, you know, gosh, this was 1913. I don't know that that's necessarily how it worked back then.

So the defense appealed again, and this time it went to the Georgia Supreme Court. But the state Supreme Court denied their request for a new trial in a four to two vote. Wow. But it wasn't all bad news. News about this case had gone nationwide, and people, especially in the North, were like, I'm sorry, what? Yeah. What the hell is happening in Georgia? But halfway across the world, a little guy named Hitler was like, hey, Georgia sounds like a great place.

Let's all back off. That's a real quote. Uh-huh. I mean, translated from German, obviously. Obviously. I mean, translated from German, obviously. As the story got national scrutiny, the case against Leo Frank began to fall apart. Detectives said they had found Mary's hair in a workroom outside of Leo's office.

But a doctor who examined the hair determined that the hair hadn't belonged to Mary. And before trial, he told the prosecution that it wasn't Mary's hair. And the prosecutor was like, pipe down. Okay, bye. Which I think hair analysis is one of those things that is kind of. It's like junk science now. But still, we like the way this junk science landed here. So we're including it for fun.

Then Mary's friend, who'd said that Leo had made sexual advances on Mary, admitted that he'd made it up under pressure from the police. Speaking of made-up stories, early on in this case, a woman claimed that on the day of the murder, Leo had called her boarding house saying that he wanted a room and, implying he wanted to bring a young girl to have sex in it, which why would you share all that information? I don't know. You get a shock. It turns out she made that up too. Oh, weird. Under pressure from the police. The stuff that they are saying that Leo Frank did. He called in the janitor

and said, hey, I'm planning to murder this girl. Hey, can you write these notes? And then, hey, can you help me move the body? Great, awesome, wonderful. He also called some hotel and was like, hey, I want to bang a young girl. Can I bring her there? Yeah. Sure seems stupid, huh?

Yeah. But it wasn't all about Leo. There was new stuff about Jim, too. A woman who worked at the pencil factory came forward to say that he'd tried to sexually assault her, but she'd managed to escape. Speaking of Jim, with Leo's trial over, it was now time for Jim to face justice. He'd admitted to helping move a body. He'd admitted to assisting Leo Frank. He was an accomplice. Naturally, he had to be punished. But the prosecution gave him a deal.

Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no. Mm-mm. In February of 1914, he was sentenced to one year in jail, Brandy, so obviously he didn't get any kind of deal. Meanwhile... Meanwhile? By the way,

his attorney, I want to look into his attorney for this. They picked his attorney, which the funds for this was raised by some publication in Georgia because he had recently

gotten a black man acquitted in a case of a rape of a white woman, which I don't know how the fuck you do that in the early 1900s or even in 2020. But anyway. Meanwhile, Leo's case kept going. His defense team lost another appeal.

And at this point, they turned to the United States. Supreme Court! The arguments are a little technical. So I'm going to jump ahead to the shitty important point, which is that in April of 1915, the Supreme Court denied Leo Frank's appeal in a 7-2 decision. But amazingly, Leo's defense team did not give up. They were like, okay, what else can we do here? So they applied for a commutation of Leo's death sentence. Could he just get life in prison instead of being hanged?

By a two-to-one vote, the Georgia Prison Commission said no, he needed to be hanged. The defense team had one last card to play. Brandi is rocking back and forth. I hate it so much. How much would someone have to pay you to cover a case like this? I would never cover a case like this. Five grand. Oh, no.

200 bucks and some cigarettes. No. They could go to the governor of Georgia, John Slayton. John had actually been a close colleague of Luther Rosser, who was Leo's attorney. Yeah. So he was a little more open to the defense's case than every other judge in this story. So John took this request seriously. He did a deep dive into the case.

He walked the crime scene. He reviewed 10,000 pages of documents. One of those documents was from the original trial judge. He'd written it on his deathbed, and in it, he asked the governor to correct his mistake. I just got goosebumps. I know. Ugh. I know.

Ultimately, the governor wrote a 29-page report on his conclusions. In it, he said he had a few problems with Jim Conley's story. The first problem was the poop. Jim had said... I'm sorry. That's the first problem? Well, it's an interesting point he raises. Jim had said he'd pooped in the elevator shaft before Leo murdered Mary.

Jim had said he'd pooped in the elevator shaft before Leo murdered Mary. When investigators arrived at the scene, they saw the poop in the elevator shaft. It had not been smushed. I'm sorry, this is relevant to this story. But that didn't make sense because according to Jim's story, he and Leo had used the elevator when they transported Mary's dead body. But if they'd done that, the elevator coming down to the basement would have smushed his poo. I mean, seriously. I know it sounds ridiculous. Yes, you're right. And the poo was not smushed. And I left some stuff out. But the bottom line you need to know is the elevator always went all the way down. And so, you know so the poo would have had to have been smushed if it was used.

And there would be poo on the bottom of the elevator. I assume there was no poo on the bottom of the elevator. Only after they used the elevator, and then it smushed it, and then it was everywhere, and it smelled terrible. Then there were those stupid notes, which Leo had supposedly dictated to Jim. By this point, Jim's former attorney had become disgusted with him. He'd become convinced that his former client had murdered Mary Fagan. Yeah.

And one of the reasons he was convinced Jim did it was because by that point he'd seen so much of Jim's writing. Mm-hmm. The notes that Jim wrote and placed next to Mary's body were similar to the type of notes he wrote all the time. He consistently misused certain words. And he also had this weird habit, which I noticed when I first read these things, of stacking two adjectives together that mean the same thing. Like long, tall. Yeah. Oh, and I write that down here too. Okay, I'm going to say it twice, just like he does. Since he taught himself how to read and write, the words he could write were kind of few and far between. So it was pretty easy to see that these notes had come

strictly from Jim's limited vocabulary and not someone else's. And here's a fun fact that wasn't available at trial. Those notes were written on order pads that were only kept in the basement. They weren't kept in Leo's office. They weren't on the second floor. Also, the physical evidence matched Mary being murdered in the basement, not upstairs. Governor Slayton's report was well-reasoned. It was even handed. It was even kind of bitchy to the national media for coming in and judging Georgia. It had to be.

He knew that people would be fired up about his conclusion. The people of Georgia did not want to see Leo Frank walk free. And much like the people of Mississippi, when news of Emmett Till's murder hit national news, people in Georgia did not like the idea of other people judging them and saying they were backwards and small-minded and that they'd gotten this case wrong. They wanted the governor's report to back up what they believed to be true. But at the end of his report, the governor concluded that Leo Frank should not be put to death. He deserved a life sentence instead. Okay. In truth, the governor thought that Leo was innocent.

He thought it was obvious Jim Conley was the real killer, but he knew that Georgians were so fired up about this case and so mad about all these Yankees trying to tell them they'd gotten it wrong, that it would be dangerous to pardon Leo. So the governor was like, okay, I'm going to get him life in prison. And in a few years, the next governor will pardon this guy, or maybe his attorneys will find some other way. Clearly the guy is innocent. Obviously justice will prevail. I'm guessing it didn't and he died in prison.

Nope. You're wrong. Really? As soon as this news came out that the governor had taken Leo Frank off death row, the governor received hundreds of death threats. A mob formed around his home. They hung him in effigy with a sign that read,

John M. Slayton, King of the Jews and Georgia's Traitor Forever. Oh my gosh! The Georgia National Guard had to protect the governor, and Leo got moved to another prison so that he'd be protected from all these pissed off, unhinged people. But Leo wasn't protected. When he fell asleep,

another inmate came up to him and slashed his throat with a butcher knife. It was a seven-inch gash. Oh my gosh. But he survived. Oh my gosh. Leo couldn't believe he survived. Neither could anyone else. Who survives a throat slashing in 1915? No kidding. Surely it was a good sign. Strong Breeze killed people back then. I know, right? Leo knew that people were fired up about his death sentence being commuted. But what he didn't know was that a group of 28 prominent men who called themselves the Knights of Mary Fagan were plotting to kidnap him.

They included a former governor of Georgia, the current mayor of Marietta, which was Mary's hometown. The leader of the KKK. Nope. A former mayor of Marietta, current sheriffs, former sheriffs, two former judges, a clergyman, an electrician, and other respected professionals. Oh my gosh. and other respected professionals. Oh my gosh! On August 16, 1915, they showed up at the prison,

and the electrician cut the prison's telephone wires. They handcuffed the warden, subdued the guards, they drained the prison vehicles of gasoline, and they took Leo Frank. Oh my gosh! They drove for hours on back roads to get to Mary's hometown. They demanded that he confess to the crime, but Leo was adamant he was innocent. He had not killed Mary Fagan.

When they got to their intended spot in Marietta, they had a rope and a table set up for him. If the state of Georgia wouldn't hang Leo Frank, they'd do it themselves. They tied the noose around his neck, stood him on the table, and asked if he had any last words. He didn't. He just took off his wedding ring and asked them to give it to his wife. Oh, my gosh. And they kicked the table out from under him, and Leo Frank died by hanging.

Hundreds of people came to see his dead body. Oh. They tore pieces of his clothes off to keep as souvenirs. I know, those fucking people. They always did this. Yes, this happened in several cases that we've covered. Well, and, man, white people loved a lynching. They took pictures of the lynching and sold them as postcards.

This was an event. And like most lynchings, people were proud to be there. Wow. It's not just a close-up of him in all these pictures, which you can find online. There are all these people there looking at the camera. The men who kidnapped and murdered Leo Frank had not been super secretive. In 2000, their names became public, but they weren't exactly a secret back then. But nonetheless, none of them were punished. Of course they weren't. At one point, a grand jury was convened to indict the men, but none of the lynchers could be identified.

And there's even evidence that a few of them were actually on that grand jury. Wow. The whole situation, from Leo's wrongful conviction to his unsuccessful appeals to Leo's murder at the hands of a gleeful lynch mob was terrifying for Atlanta's Jewish community. After his murder, roughly half of the Jewish population there fled and many more just tried to assimilate. They didn't want to stick out. They didn't want to be different. Being different was dangerous. Practicing their religion in a country built on religious freedom was dangerous. Leo Frank's story scared people, but it also spurred people to action. In 1913, shortly after Leo's wrongful conviction, a new group came together, a group that would fight anti-Semitism and fight hate.

It was the Anti-Defamation League, which is still going on today. But there's activism on both sides, Brandy. After they murdered Leo Frank and faced no consequences for their crimes, the Knights of Mary Fagan felt empowered. I'm sure they did. They decided to keep going under a new name. And so they became the Georgia Chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Oh, my gosh.

By the way, I hate to bring politics into this, but the Anti-Defamation League, in case you're wondering, has spoken out a lot against Trump and the racist things he said and the white supremacist ideas he has encouraged and given a voice to. But let's only talk about the old timey stuff. So what became of the key players in this story? Let's find out, shall we? In the years after Leo was murdered, Hugh Dorsey, who prosecuted the case against him, became a two-term governor for Georgia. Excellent.

Tom Watson, who was a major publisher and whose anti-Semitic rants had encouraged lynch— Big golfer in Kansas City. A lot of people don't know. Man, he is old, but he looks good. No, see, he had encouraged lynch mob justice, and he was elected to the Georgia Senate. Oh, that's good. Governor John Slayton, who commuted Leo's sentence, left office, and he and his wife immediately moved out of state. Mm-hmm. Leo's wife, Lucille, never remarried, but she did lose some weight, and that's what matters.

Jesus. How is this possible? I know. This woman goes through all this. She was fat, so. You know, I hate to mention it, but I will mention it a lot. I will mention it. Uh-huh.

Then there's Jim Conley. A few years after Leo's murder, Jim went into a store to rob it and was shot by the store's owner, who was waiting for burglars to show up, which is a weird throwback to last week's episode, I guess. And you said burglars. I did. I said a word I can't pronounce. Jim was okay. I can see you're concerned. And later pled guilty to attempted burglary.

Burglary. Burglary. And he was sentenced to 20 years, but got out on good behavior in 1933. In 1941, he was arrested again, this time for drunkenness and playing the bug, which I was like, I'm sorry, what the fuck does that mean? What the fuck is that? I think it's gambling is what it means. Oh. Yeah, it sounds a lot more exciting than gambling, doesn't it?

Yeah. To play the bug. The only reason I was able to find this is just because newspapers.com, every now and then his name would pop up. Uh-huh. It was tough to figure out when exactly he died, but it looks like it was in the 1950s. Okay. So, decades passed. Key players died. The story became a part of history. But in 1982, an 83-year-old named Alonzo Mann came forward.

He'd been a little boy working in the pencil factory at the time of Mary Fagan's murder. And now, all these years later, he had a story to tell. Fagan's murder. And now, all these years later, he had a story to tell. He'd seen Jim Conley carry Mary Fagan's body. Oh my gosh. It was just a few minutes after she'd gotten her paycheck. Jim was carrying her walking toward a ladder that went down to the basement. Alonzo said that Jim had threatened to kill him if he spoke out. And when Alonzo told his mom what he'd seen, his mom advised him to keep quiet. So Alonzo's account wasn't enough to say for certain that Leo hadn't killed Mary Fagan, but it was enough to get people interested in the case again. And in 1986, the state of Georgia issued a pardon to Leo Frank without addressing his guilt or innocence.

Wow. Which, I mean, partial credit, I'm going to say on that. And in 2008, a few groups got together and put up a historical marker to mark the spot where Leo Frank was hanged. And that's the story of Leo Frank. Oh my gosh. Is this like the one story of a black man getting away with killing a white girl?

Oh my gosh. Besides OJ Simpson? Oh. That was fucking terrible, Kristen. Don't you think it's interesting? Yes, it's interesting. See, I get interested by these ones. I think they're terrible. Well, yeah, they're terrible.

Hell yeah, they're terrible. You know what I think is the worst part? Well, maybe not the worst part. I always like, in the end, where it's like, where are they now? You know, you always want, in movies and anything, for like the good people are now here. Yeah. They're up here. They're doing cool stuff.

And the bad people are doing this. But in these stories with the justice system. Yeah. The bad people are governors. Yes. And they're like propelled to the top. Yeah. This is just a terrible, terrible story.

Yeah. It was. And I forced you to listen terrible story. Yeah. It was. And I forced you to listen to it. You told it well. Did you like the poop part? That's so you. I'm not the one who inserted poop into the story. That's what tied you to that story.

You're like, oh, there's poop? There was also some weird stuff I couldn't quite get to the bottom about circumcision. I assume because he's Jewish, right? Yeah. People were really scandalized by that. But anyway. This poor guy.

That's an understatement. This poor guy. But, okay, the other thing I think about is Newt Lee. Oh, my God. He came so close. I know. My immediate thought was that guy is not looking good for Newt. No.

No. And, yeah, I think if I was Newt, there would be a part of me that's just like, you just walk away and you say you never saw anything and that's that. But you say you never saw anything and then they find notes by the body that say, like, that describe you. And say, Brandy the Night Witch did it. Brandy the Night Witch. That's my nickname for you. I love it.

The Night Witch. That's my nickname for you. I love it. You know what this story also reminded me? Because I think those notes are so fucking stupid. You know, like, oh, you know, Mary was just laying there dying and she's like writing these two notes saying who did it. Did you ever see this? I feel like anybody who loves true crime knows this story. This guy went and murdered this woman and he knew she had an abusive ex.

And what he did was he dipped her finger in her own blood and wrote the guy's name on the wall. Of course, he used the wrong hand. And also, you know, the detectives got to the scene and they were like like, okay, this would be a great movie, but, like, this doesn't actually happen. And if he just hadn't done that— They never would have—yeah. They would have caught the wrong guy. And I kind of wonder about these notes. These notes are so stupid.

Yeah. I wonder if Newt would have been blamed. I think it's very likely. Or, I mean, it seems like they really wanted to just get Leo for this. Yeah. So it probably didn't matter at all. Yeah. Oh, that's a terrifying story.

You know what just occurred to me, Brandi? We haven't plugged our Patreon at all this episode? That's exactly what's occurring to me. What about us? What about me? You guys, if you want to hear more of us, at the $5 level on Patreon, you get a bonus. Are you okay? Proceed with caution.

More of us. Ooh. Ooh. They all want it. Oh, sorry. That sounded really creepy. Didn't mean to sound so rapey. Anyway, bonus episode out the yin-yang.

Yeah. Got 16 of them. Those puppies. Woo! At the $5 level, you also get into the Discord to chat with everybody. It's like a 90s-style chat room in there.

At the $7 level, you get all that plus a bonus video every month. That's right. And you get a sticker. You get a card with our lovely autographs. You get inducted into this podcast. And at the $10 level,

you get all that plus ad-free episodes. A day early. And 10% off on merch. That's right. We got t-shirts. We got stickers. T-shirts and stickers.

Stickers and t-shirts. Hoodies coming soon. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. You guys, we got to get the color right on these hoodies. That's right.

We got to mock up and we shut it down. We really did. We really did. Okay, you guys, for real, we have this idea for a hoodie that we were excited about and we were like, we thought it would look best on a black hoodie.

And our guy was like, don't have black, I've got dark gray. And I was like, I'm sure it'll be fine. And Brandy was like, I don't know. I was like, typical Brandy. Only wears black. Every day's a funeral. But we got the mock know. I was like, typical Brandy. Only wears black. Every day's a funeral.

But we got the mock-up, and we were like, oh. Needs to be on black. So we're waiting. Yeah, we got to wait for the black hoodies to come in stock. Because when it's our stuff, it just simply has to be correct. We've got excellent taste. I guess. I guess.

we've got excellent taste I guess and with that should we take some questions from the discord absolutely Mrs. Universe asks will you be decorating

for Christmas early yes we are putting up the Christmas tree at our house this weekend Norman has not accepted it but that's tree at our house this weekend. Norman has not accepted it, but that's happening at our house, too. Ooh, Cooter Collision asks, smooth or crunchy peanut butter?

I like the extra crunchy peanut butter. Do you really? I love it. Brandi, you are full of surprises. I would have never guessed that you like the crunchy. But, I mean, I'm not going to turn down smooth peanut butter, either. Again, you surprise me. I love peanut butter.

You turn down so many different things on the basis of texture. One hell of a mother asked, does your Costco have churros? I just moved to Mississippi, and their Costco does not. My Costco has churros. Okay, so does mine. I've never had them before. Okay, I had never had one. Gone to Costco for years.

David and I, like the first time we went to Costco together, he was like, can we get a churro? And I was like, of course. I'm a generous woman. And then, it's just fine. See, I I really love churros. Yeah. But I don't

want one that's bad. And so I've not done the Costco ones. I didn't love it. See, the thing is, like, I live so close to really good Mexican restaurants. I'm not going to go to Costco for a churro. You know, I mean, it's— Angela asks, do you watch Hallmark Christmas movies? Do you have a favorite?

My favorite is the one where the woman moves to the town because her dad is dying. And she's, like, working so hard. She's like, oh, I can't get away from work. But she does. Yeah. And then she meets the guy. The white guy who's handsome. Uh-huh.

And then they fall in love just in time for Christmas. And he has the black friend who's like, yeah. I love that one. Kimmy Calamari asks, Least favorite holiday foods, traditions, or activities? Do you have any? Oh, least favorite? Least favorite.

Okay. I'm going to have to think. Do you have one? Oh, I don't do green bean casserole. I love green bean casserole. Smells like fucking feet, Kristen. You think? Yes.

Well, let me at your feet. Oh, gross. Yeah, I know it's a favorite for a lot of people. Yeah. It's always in our spread. I won't even try it because it smells like feet. Well, Brandi, you don't have to say that. There's so many things you won't try. smells like feet. Well, Brandi, you don't have to say that. There's so many things you won't try.

Smells like feet. Okay, okay. See, I like so many foods. There's nothing that comes to mind. I even like the can of cranberry sauce. People love the can of cranberry sauce. That's not like a far-fetched notion. Well, it's not a very classy look when you see the ridges in it.

Just slice it up. Yeah, but I'm just saying I'm a fan. Wow. What a cutting edge thing, Kristen. All right. All right. Okay. My goodness.

You know what? My least favorite thing is meat. Smell like feet and I hate you. You judge everything about my food habits and then you're like, well, I'm pretty adventurous and I love canned cranberry sauce. I'm not saying adventurous. I was insulting it. I was saying it's kind of trashy. Possum by Night wants to know, what's the most uncool guilty pleasure thing you do?

Everything about me is uncool. Catch me any minute of any day and it's going to be uncool guilty pleasure thing you do everything about me is uncool yeah catch me any minute of any day and it's gonna be uncool stuff all around i mean i watch game shows that's pretty uncool and i fucking love it you recently made fun of me for my history of being uncool for hanging out at the coffee shop in high school no it was only uncool because the kids that hung out at the coffee shop were like, we're pretty sophisticated and we hang out at the coffee shop and we have to discuss some pretty serious topics. And we did. And you know what?

Your yearbook was beautiful thanks to us, you ungrateful asshole. Ooh, okay. I am curious about this. Sarera wants to know, Brandy, since having COVID, has your sense of taste changed? My dad had it back in April, and it sounds like you had a very similar experience. Since COVID, he hasn't been able to tolerate citrus, even in small amounts, which used to be his favorite flavor. That's crazy. No, my taste was not really affected with COVID.

My sense of smell was affected greatly. I completely lost it for a couple of weeks. So you ate just trays of green bean casserole. You look like you were about to throw up when I said that. Yeah, the idea of eating. It's like gloppy. It's so good. Got those onions on top.

Oh, man. You know, my stepmom lost her taste, so I'll have to ask her. Because, like, I remember specifically when her taste was coming back, she said, like, everything tasted metallic-y. And, like, she drank coffee one day. It just tasted like pouring, like, metal in her mouth. And she just had to spit it out. Oh. Oh.

Yikes. I wish it had made spit it out. Oh. Oh. Yikes. I wish it had made Funyuns not taste so good. Ooh. Lawyer in the foyer would like to know, what are your thoughts on turducken? What's turducken? You don't know what turducken is? No. Huh.

What? It's a chicken. Uh-huh. Inside a duck. Oh, no.ducken is? No. Uh-uh. What? It's a chicken. Uh-huh. Inside a duck. Oh, no. Inside a turkey. No. That's disgusting.

You're a stupid animal. I am so offended by that. That is disgusting. Why is it disgusting? Ew. Animals stuffed into other animals' cavities? Gross. Do you eat turkey?

Yes. Do you eat turkey? Yes. Do you eat stuffing? I don't like to think about how the stuffing is put in there. But for something, it's different to me that it's another animal in there. Am I the only one who finds this really upsetting? I think you are. I mean, vegans are probably not a promoter. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm being silly because I will eat all three.

Because PETA's not a big fan of it either. Well, first of all, who is the person who did that in the first place? Yeah, I don't know. And second of all, how many people have they killed? Because obviously that's not just like a normal thing. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to stuff an animal. It's Russian dolls is what it is.

Yeah, it's Russian fowl. I hate it. I hate it. Thank you for asking. All right. Wow, I didn't know you'd feel so strongly. I didn't know it either because I didn't know it was a thing. I think I'd try it.

Okay. Not your average Joe wants to know Do you prefer to shop at Ross, Marshalls, TJ Maxx, or Burlington? What are you, Brandi? You a Maxxinista? Yeah, I'm a Maxxinista TJ Maxx would be my favorite out of those But

What? What? I got one that's in that same vein But I like even a little bit better It's kind of It's kind of like the snotty version of those. Nordstrom Rack. Yeah.

Well, yeah. Everybody loves that. Yes. You know what? It cracks me up every time I think of it. One time, like years and years ago, I was in a Burlington coat factory with my dad. We were walking through it, and he looks around. He looks around, and he goes, hey, you know what?

This place is more than great coats. Which is only funny if you remember their old slogan. Yeah, their old commercials. Burlington Coat Factory, we're more than great coats. Yep, that's how it went. Wow, you didn't join in at all. I'm sorry. You were embarrassed for me.

Let me tell you, I have shopped at all of those places many a time. Mm-hmm. Ross, check. Marshalls, check. Mm-hmm. TJ Maxx, check. Burlington, check. Yep, we're frequent flyers there, not to brag.

Although not in COVID. I will say, I get a little snobby about that stuff. Yeah. Mm-mm-mm. I haven't shopped anywhere. No. That's why all my clothes are from Costco right now, which isn't a huge change. But, you know, it used to be like 50%.

I miss shopping. Me too. Did you know when Lincoln was president wants to know, listening to past episodes has me wondering things from past. Can we ask about that or would it be uncomfortable? Well, since you mentioned it being uncomfortable, I'm going to guess no.

Probably be uncomfortable. If your gut's telling you it's weird, it's probably weird. Oh, I do want to answer this. Bridget 13 wants to know, is peanut okay? So I realized the last time we, well, I tried to answer a question about the pets. I got all emotional, and we had to stop. And I think people thought Peanut was dead.

Sorry, guys. She is not dead. She's not dead. Well, I'm not. Sorry, she's not dead. She's alive. She just has diabetes. She has a ton of health problems.

And that's why I got emotional during that question. Yeah. She's just an old dog. But she's okay. She's our sweet, lumpy old girl. Ooh, I think this is a good one to finish with. Okay. Lady in Blonde asks, how did you murder Norman?

Where did you bury him? Shut up. I'll never tell. All right, should we move on to Supreme Court inductions? Absolutely. Of course, I don't have my... Completely unprepared. I'm sorry, are you ready?

Yeah, as a matter of fact, I am. All right. We are doing your names and favorite books. Ooh. Carrie. Something new and exciting. Carrie. Holes.

Tara Camilli. Wuthering Heights. Amanda Solini. Untethered Soul. Shannon Johnston. The Giver. Abigail Ribolo. The Alchemist.

Leah Bach. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Devin McFarland Little Fires Everywhere Brianna Gromet Jane Eyre Chelsea Mayo Invisible Monsters

Kaylee Van Galder Poppy War Christine The In-Death Series by J.D. Robb Maxime Tyler Galapagos Robin Wade 19 Minutes Death series by J.D. Robb. Maxime Tyler. Galapagos. Robin Wade.

19 Minutes. Hannah Pitts. I'm not related to her. Oh! We got a wild Pitts! We got a wild Pitts! Spotted! Gotcha, Hannah!

The Hobbit. Jordan Miller. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Tiffany Rona. Educated. Kate Dyer. The Night Circus. of Being. Tiffany Rona. Educated. Kate Dyer. The Night Circus. Meredith Wan.

The Little Prince. Melissa Ryan Clay. Geek Love. Tut McCracken. Anything by Rick Reardon. Kayla Dvork. Freedom. Melinda Noble.

Artemis. Welcome to the Supreme Court. Thank you guys for all of your support. We appreciate it so much. If you're looking for other ways to support us, please find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter,

Instagram, Reddit, Patreon. Please be sure to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen and then head on over to Apple podcasts. Leave us a rating, leave us a review, and then be sure to join us next week. wherever you listen. And then head on over to Apple Podcasts, leave us a rating, leave us a review, and then be sure to join us next week.

When we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned. And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web, and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. For this episode, I got my info from the website FamousTrials.com, GeorgiaEncyclopedia.com, Newspapers.com, and Wikipedia. I got my info from an article by Luke Nozicka for the Kansas City Star, an article for the

Daily Beast by Rachel Olding, the Midwest Innocence Project, and The Court Record. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are, of course, ours, but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff.