True Crime All The Time - Howard Elkins

Episode Date: May 10, 2021

Reyna Marroquin left El Salvador in 1966 to make a new life for herself in America. She got a job as a factory worker at Melrose Plastics in Manhatten, New York. That's where she met Howard Elkins, the co-owner of the factory, and the two started an affair. Howard was married but continuously told Reyna that he was going to divorce his wife so that they could be together. This was a lie, however, simply used to string Reyna along. She disappeared in 1969Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the murderous Howard Elkins. Reyna Marroquin's body was found in a sealed drum in 1999, 30 years after she disappeared, underneath a house formerly owned by Elkins. Police had to work to solve the mystery of who was in the drum and the person responsible for putting her in there. Reyna was nine months pregnant when she died and Howard Elkins couldn't risk anything jeopardizing his home life. He was willing to kill to protect the truth from coming out.You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 232 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in True Crime. Mike Gibson, give me what's going on. Hey man, how you doing? I'm doing great. Yeah. Well, no, I'm lying. I'm not really doing great.

Well, I took a nasty spill into my kind of piece of furniture that holds the TV. Right. Landed right on my back. Well, you took the corner into your kidney. Yeah, so I'm playing injured today, but I'll be okay. You're rebound. Fight through, man. That's what we do.

Yeah. We got some great Patreon support. Let's give some shoutouts. We had Nessie. Hey, Nessie. Christy Murray. What's going on, Chrissy? Wendy Whipple.

What's up, Whipple? Teres Rives. I was this thing about Mr. Whipple. Oh, yeah, I remember Mr. Whipple. Yeah, yeah. Hey, Tress. Lindsay Munnally. What's going on, Monally?

907 jumped out of our highest level what's up 907 James Hill jumped out at our highest level hey appreciate that James Jessica Beard what's going on Jessica Cynthia quick hey quick Eric West your old partner yeah what's going on West Tracy McClure jumped out at our highest level hey Tracy Rhonda canard appreciate that canard Kirsty Daly what's up Kirsty Reid hey RRR Annette Simpson appreciate that Annette Matt Wormley jumped out at our highest level. Wormley in the house. Mr. Crowley jumped out of our highest level. Oh, man, there's a good song.

Hey, Mr. Crowley. Mary Raz. Hey, Raz. Brandy Netsal. Hey, what's up, Brandy? Tracy Foy. Appreciate that, Foy. James Ward jumped out of our highest level.

Hey, J.W. We had Mora Lynch. Hey, appreciate that more. Lizzie B. Oh, Lizzie B in the house. And last but not least, Katie O. Hey, appreciate that, Katie. And then if we go back into the vault, Gibbs.

Yeah. This week we selected Jamie DeLoe. Well, thank you, Jamie. So been with us a long time. We appreciate all the continued support, the new support on Patreon. It's all amazing. It is. We had some great PayPal donations as well from Aubrey Eldridge.

Well, thank you, Aubrey. Darlene Vargo gave a sizable donation. Man, thanks, Fargo. Shannon Ash. Hey, Shannon. And Latasha Power. Hey, thank you, Latasha. So we appreciate that, all that as well.

Gibbs right now. We have an episode out on true crime all the time unsolved. I think this is one that people are really going to enjoy. It's on the murders of billionaires. Barry and Honey Sherman. Yeah. So we're headed up to Toronto, Canada. And I said billionaires with a bee. You did. Yeah. And, you know, those are not as rare as they used to be. But I think when any of us think about a billion dollars what could you do with a billion dollars just about anything you want it be fun trying it would be fun to figure out what you could do yeah but it's a good case and i hope everybody tunes into it yeah definitely come some twists and turns and uh some mysteries for sure all right buddy are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time i'm ready we're talking about

a man in Howard Elkins who almost got away with murder in the 1960s. It took police 30 years and a little bit of luck to break this one wide open, but there are still some mysteries to this one, even though it's a solved case. And obviously we'll talk about those probably towards the end. On September 2nd, 1999, a man named Ronald Cohen was moving out of his home at 67 Forest Drive in Jericho, New York. The new homeowner requested that he get rid of a steel drum in the crawl space under the house. And he got frustrated because sanitation workers refused to take the drum. And anybody that's dealt with that, not a drum with obviously something horrible in it that we're about ready to disclose, but just kind of big items.

You know, depending on where you live, a lot of times sanitation workers don't want to or won't take some of the really big items. They say notable is what they say. Yeah. Sometimes they do. So he took matters into his own hands and he pried the lid off to see what was inside. Now, would you do that? I probably would have done that before I rolled it out. Well, okay.

So that's one question I had. Obviously, this guy either had not spent time in the crawl space. had not needed to go down there. I have no idea how long you lived there. Or he had seen it and he was like, I'm not messing with that. And it was only because he was forced to as he was selling the home. I think for me, curiosity would get the better of me. I mean, I got to figure out what's inside this drum. But to his shock and horror, he found a body. So obviously he had to call the police. they came out to investigate and they didn't find a skeleton Gibbs. They found a mummified woman.

Wow. Then they made another horrifying discovery. This woman was nine months pregnant when she died. Double murder. Yeah, no, I see where you're going with that. But police had a lot of questions that they had to answer. Number one was who was this woman? And then number two, and very important as well, was who killed her.

So police set out to unravel these mysteries that dated back to the 1960s. And like we said right up front, this case is now solved. But investigators and family members are left with a lot of questions still, almost as many, if not more questions than answers. I can only imagine. When you said early on, some luck was involved. here's the luck, right? I mean, the luck that not only did someone spot that barrel and wanted it out,

but the other luck that the garbage company wasn't going to pick it up, so he was forced to open it up to see what he could do with it and discovered that. Because if the garbage company would have picked it up, probably would have never been discovered, or if the new homeowner didn't see it down there, it could have remained there for another 30 years. Yeah, I think this is the first piece. We'll definitely talk about more, but you're absolutely right. Could this barrel in some circumstance

have made it to a dump, have made it somewhere a landfill without ever being open? And I think the answer to that is yes. It could have. Now, it didn't. And thankfully so, because this starts the first kind of path to solving the mystery. Right. In August 1966, Raina Angelica Mariquin left El Salvador to make a new life in America. Her goal Gibbs was to become a U.S. citizen. She was only 25 years old and had recently divorced from her husband after he cheated on her and got another woman pregnant. And that will often do it.

Pretty much so. Not too many people will stay behind when their husband got. somebody else pregnant. Yeah, I mean, the cheating is bad enough, right? But there are couples that work through cheating. But now you fathered a child with another woman as a result of the affair. That's rough. That has to be rough. I can't say it's rough because it's never happened to me, but that has to be rough. That's to be a hard pill to swallow. Oh, absolutely. So Raina was ready for a fresh start. And she told her mother that she was going to be. to be someone someday. She was determined to accomplish her goals. I love that attitude. Yeah.

You know, this is not, I'm going to America, I'm going to the U.S., I'm going to be a citizen, and I'll blend in, I'll eke out a living. Okay, no, this wasn't Raina. Raina was, yeah, I'm going, but I'm going to make it. And I'm going to make a success out of myself and you'll see. I love that kind of tenacity in people. You do. I know you do. Because if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. You mean here as in our studio or in the United States?

Exactly. I don't think either one of those is true. But I'll let you go with it. Yeah. Raina arrived in Miami on August 31st, 1966 and was assigned her resident alien number. She made her way to New York. and began taking English classes and some job training classes. She also went to a few classes at the high school of fashion industry.

Raina loved fashion. And she always tried to dress in stylish clothing. Now, we've got to think this is the 60s. So there's a lot going on clothing while in the 1960s. Some really interesting colors for sure. She became friends with a woman named Kathy Andrey. when they met at the Joan of Arc home in Manhattan. This was a woman's shelter run by Catholic nuns.

Both Raina and Kathy were from El Salvador, and they quickly became best friends. Kathy has always said that she viewed herself as Raina's older sister. And according to her, Raina had a beautiful personality, and she always talked about her family. Raina was fascinated by New York. She was very happy to be in the United States.

She enjoyed going to museums on her days off from her job as a nanny. I enjoy going to museums as well. No, you do not. I don't even know why you're saying that. There's so much fun. I have never once in my life heard you say, Hey, Ferg, last weekend, I went to a museum. Love that museum of art.

You know what I love even more than the museum? I'm almost afraid to ask, but I will ask what? The library. I'd like to go in and get a good book and read in the corner. Now you've completely gone off the rails. I know. You're just, that is all cap. Eventually, Raina got a job as a factory worker at Melrose Plastics in Manhattan.

The company made decorative plastic flowers and trees for department stores or windowed displays. I think a lot of them probably went to my wife's grandmother's house. She seems to have a plethora of plastic flowers all over her house. Sweet. It's a nice look. Yeah, it was big back in the day. I remember my grandmother, she was big into the plastic fruit, which to this day I still don't understand. I get it. It doesn't go bad. But you also cannot eat it. No. And you're looking at the same fruit for about 25, 30 years. Yeah. So to each his own.

Looks good on her own. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. I get it. There's some really bad plastic fruit out there, though. It does not even look real.

Yeah. I mean, this looked real. You could tell it wasn't, but it, you know, I had a real kind of look to it. I, I just don't get it. But, you know, for me, there's a lot of things in life I don't get. And it usually has to do with things that are not real. Yeah. I like real things.

I like real plants. Not to say that, you know, some of the fake plants don't look good, but, you know, if I got my choice, I like real plants. I like to smell them. I like to watch them grow. Yeah. I like to watch other people water them. That's my thing. Like other people taking care of them?

Sure. Exactly. I think I probably would kill even a fake plant. You probably could. Yeah. Melrose plastics had 80 employees who produced 400 plastic trees each day. Gibbs to make the products, they used synthetics and dyes, which arrived in large steel drums. Uh-oh, we might be heading somewhere here.

Sixty of the 80 employees were women. The women typically made the flower arrangements while the men handled the chemicals. Melrose Plastics was owned by two men, Howard Elkins and Melvin Gann. Howard Elkins was born June 20, 1929, in Broward. Brooklyn, New York. There's not much here, Gibbs about his early life. He was married to a woman named Ruth and had three children with her. They lived in a middle class neighborhood in Jericho, New York. But at some point after starting this job at Melrose Plastics, Raina began having an affair with Howard Elkins. Raina was petite. She had long black hair.

She was very pretty. She had some gold dental work. I mean, she was young and beautiful. Howard was attracted to her immediately. And the two of them would meet whenever Howard's wife, Ruth, was away. They took walks in Central Park or they cruised around Long Island Sound in his fishing boat. When Raina eventually became pregnant from the affair, Howard paid for an apartment for her. and took her to the doctor.

I think for Raina's part, she was deeply in love with Howard Elkins. Oh, I imagine so. He's doing all those touching things, walks and talks and attention. Yeah, giving her a lot of attention, but he also had promised her and continuously promised her

that he was going to leave his family and marry her. Yeah. So this is kind of a tale that you hear a lot in affairs where something horrible goes wrong. It's kind of a movie trope that you see quite a bit, right? The other woman believes that this guy is going to leave his wife. And we all know watching the movie, he's never going to leave his wife. She's the only one that doesn't know. Raina worked at Melrose for two years.

and then she left for a year and then one day returned with a toddler. There was a lot of office gossip around Melrose, right? Rumors started to fly that the child was Howard's. Raina never brought this child back to work. It wasn't until after she returned to Melrose that she became pregnant. This was in the fall of 1968, but just a few months after she returned, she returned, Raina disappeared. So I know we took a step forward, we took a step back, just trying to put this pregnancy in context of, you know, when she worked at Melrose.

And it's kind of this year off that's very interesting and this toddler and the rumors that started to fly. Gibbs, you and I both have worked in companies where there's a lot of people. and anytime you have that, well, there's going to be a lot of rumors. Yeah, rumors galore. Especially, you know, this person's dating that person. This person is having an affair with the boss. You're just, you're going to have that type of stuff. Gibby has a side gig doing shows as a character named Rex West.

I mean, how do you stop these rumors? That's a true story. Well, I know, but I thought you were trying to. keep it under wraps all these years. But what I do at the show, some of the rumors got out of control. Well, because some of the women from work showed up and saw what actually happened.

I didn't expect that. That was strange. Yeah. It was you, McConaughey, the whole gang. And my buddy, Eric West. And Eric West, our new Patreon. But man, some of these offices can really spread the rumors quickly. Oh, man, they can.

And usually it just takes like, there's usually one person, right? Who really kind of fans the flames and the next thing you know, it's a bonfire, man. It is burning out of control. You know, I always said that one person if you had to get some like bad news out. Tell that person. Tell that person, let it get out. And then when you told everybody, it was already kind of wasn't as bad when you said it at that point.

I like it. That's a good technique. In November 1968, Kathy noticed Raina's personality changing. She asked her if she had a problem. And that's when Raina started to cry. And she confessed to Kathy that she did have a problem. She was pregnant. She also told Kathy that her boyfriend was paying for her to live in an apartment in

Hoboken, New Jersey. He also paid for Raina to go to a private doctor. But Raina refused to tell Kathy who the father was. But she did give out the clue that he. was a married man. Raina was expecting the father to leave his wife. And this is all stuff that she's telling Kathy and marry her instead. But just like in the movies, Gibbs, as the months went by, Raina realized that he was never going to do it. This was not going to happen. Yeah. And in a moment of anger, she was corned. Yeah. I think she really was because this whole time he had. He had. And he

had been telling her that I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it, probably just stringing her along. Right. And at the moment that a person realizes that, and then they feel probably a range of emotions, they feel stupid, they feel used, they betrayed, betrayed, all kinds of different things. So when she got angry, she called Howard's wife and she confessed everything. And if you're a married man who's cheating, it's about the last thing you want to happen. No, that's a huge fire. And I don't know if you can ever put it out.

It's going to be tough. I think even if you are able to figure out what to say to make it better, it's going to take some time. You're going to be sleeping. If you're in the house at all, you're sleeping on the couch. You're in the dog house. Oh, yeah. And you should be. Yeah.

Nobody should be cheating on their significant. and others, their spouses. But here's the thing. I think right away, Gibbs, as soon as Raina made this call, she realized that she had made a huge mistake. Her friend Kathy later said on the show Forensic Files that Howard called her back and told Raina,

hey, I'm going to kill you. I will never forgive you. And as Kathy's telling the story, she said Raina called her. and said, Howard's going to kill me. Now, Kathy said she told her that she was overreacting, but Raina said no. She knew this guy. And she also knew what she had done and that he was not going to take this very well at all. But she still wouldn't tell Kathy who the father was, even as scared as she was in talking

with her. But she did finally admit a pretty big piece of the part. puzzle and it was that he owned the place where she worked, Melrose Plastics. Well, at least that narrows it down to two individuals. It does. Now, I don't know if Kathy knew the people that owned Melrose Plastics, but I think most people could figure it out with a little bit of amateur detective work the very next day. After the series of phone calls, Kathy went to the apartment to check on Raina.

But she wasn't there. And I guess Gibbs, she has described the scene as eerie. The food on the stove was still warm. All of Raina's belongings, even her winter coat were still inside the apartment. Kathy stayed for four hours, waiting for her friend to come back. And when she didn't, Kathy went to the police station to file a missing person's report. But she was sent away because it had only been a. few hours. Now, granted, we're not talking about a child here. We're talking about an adult,

but it is the 60s. And you and I have talked at great length from one case to another, how the police handled reports of missing individuals back during that time frame. Definitely not a sense of urgency. No, no, I don't think there was. I think there, there definitely was a wait and see kind of attitude back then. Now, with an adult, I understand it a little bit more. Kathy has no proof that anything or any type of harm has come to Raina. It has only been a few hours. Adults are free to go, you know, wherever they want to within the limits of the law.

So what really are the police supposed to do at that point? It's true. Again, like you said, it's only been a short period of time anyway. It has, yeah. So like they probably did with a lot of people, they told Kathy not to worry that Raina probably ran off with a man. She would be back within a week. Okay. Not sure why you have to throw in the fact that she ran off with a man, but I guess that's what they said. Yeah, it was the 60s. Because women back then could not run off on their own. Is that, is that what they were thinking? I'm thinking, yeah. Hey, T-CAT fans, when it comes to paying off debt, it can often feel like an uphill battle.

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And then once I get there, I'm striving to get to the next one. I love collecting all the cute characters. It's just an extremely fun game to play and a great way for me to kind of cleanse the palette between all of the true crime, research and writing and all of that. This game never gets old because they're constantly adding new levels, new ways to make it, keep it fun and exciting. Download the five-star rated puzzle game, Best Fiends, free today on the app store or Google Play. That's Friends Without the R, Best Fiends. So, you know, Kathy laughed. I'm sure she was dejected.

I'm sure she was upset because in her mind, something bad had happened. She couldn't get the police to see that, but she came back the next day, but was sent away again. This time because police told her she was. wasn't family. Something else we've seen in a number of cases. Kathy never followed up again with the police and the police never decided to look into Raina's disappearance. Well, what do you do, Gibbs, if you don't have family? It's tough. Yeah. If you've moved from Al Salvador by yourself in search of a better life, you have no family to speak of. You have, You have a really good friend, but police don't consider that a person who has the authority to file a missing person's report on your behalf.

Yeah. So at that point, she says, okay, I can't do anything else anymore and let it go. Detectives later theorized that Howard came to the apartment in January, 1969, convinced Raina to go to the factory with him and killed her by. hitting her in the head with a blunt object, but they also theorized that Howard didn't know how to dispose of the body. And let's be honest here, Gibbs. Nobody should kill anyone. No.

Granted, got that. But people do, and we know they do. Sure. In this scenario, it's not that hard, I wouldn't think, to know that if I hit somebody on the head hard enough with an object once, twice, multiple times, however many times, I can kill them. I think most people know that. But after that, now, maybe today, with all the true crime shows that you watch and the podcast and all that, in 1966, how many people knew, okay, how do I dispose of a body? What's the best way? So that I don't get caught,

because obviously nobody wants to get caught. Well, thankful for him and sad for her, he had a warehouse full of still drums. He did. They used. They used. used a lot of steel drums. So what Howard did was he put Raina inside one of the barrels, these still drums of dye. And then he filled it with the plastic pellets that they used to melt down to make the fake flowers and all of that. His first thought was that he was going to somehow get it to his boat, I think, and dump the barrel over the side of the boat into the water.

it would sink, nobody would ever find. Yeah. Okay. Well, how heavy is a 50 gallon steel drum, which is I'm assuming this was a 50 gallon gallon with a body in it? Pretty damn heavy. I would think. And you're doing this by yourself for a reason.

You don't want anyone else to know. I think at some point he realized there's no way. This is too heavy. I'm not going to be able to go that route. So he put her in the crawl space of his home. And I don't know if he forgot about her. Do you forget about the fact that you've killed someone and they're buried in your crawl space? I don't know that that would happen.

But what I will say is life went on. Now, there might have been a daily thought, oh, yeah, that body's still in my crawl space. But Howard was able to go on with his life. It obviously didn't eat away at his soul to the point where he had to pull a Kevin's Spacey and seven and walk into the police station and say, hey, I'm here. But it also is strange that he didn't recall when he sold his place, right? He moves out of his. I thought that too.

I thought that very strange that. So maybe he did at some point forget that that body and that barrel was in the crawl space. Because if you're going to move out, you think we got to get this emptied out. We got to do this, that, that, that, this. You don't think at one point he goes, oh yeah. better get that body out of the cross base and get it on my boat or do something with it. Well, that's why you need a list. Yeah.

You need to make a checklist. You do. You know, did Pesci and De Niro and Leota forget that they had buried that kind of made man when they were doing that development was going to be built? No. No, they went back and got them. They realized that, hey, got to do this. I don't know, Gibbs. to me, I just think it's very strange that you would go that many years. Now, granted, right,

people forget things with time. I just don't know if you forget something like this. Yeah, I forget where I put my wallet. I forget where I put my keys. Yeah. I don't think I'd ever forget that I killed a pregnant woman and I stuffed her body in a steel drum and I buried it under my house in the crawl space. I don't see that ever fully leaving my mind. There might be days where I don't think about it. I'm not even sure if there would be, but I don't know. Out of sight, out of mind. Yeah, maybe. Or maybe this tells you what type of person Howard Elkins was, that he was able to kind of put it completely out of his mind. He cared that little about not only Raina, but the act of murder, right?

The thought that he took a human life, it just didn't stay with him. Melrose Plastics went out of business in 1972. And Howard moved his family to Florida, leaving the drum behind. So, you know, again, it wasn't even that many years, like three years, right?

That the drum was down there. He didn't forget it for 30 years. There are no longer, any existing records of Melrose plastics. And because of that, Raina's work history with the company and pretty much her ties with Howard were erased. The whole time she was working at Melrose and basically the entire time she was in the U.S., Rana sent her family letters back home telling them how she was doing. And then all of a sudden those letters suddenly stopped coming. Well, Gibbs, that's not good if you're the family back in El Salvador.

Yeah, if you're constantly getting letters and updates and all of a sudden that stops, yeah, you're concerned. Yeah, and I think pretty quickly they realized something was wrong. This wasn't like her and they reported her missing. Raina's sister, Dora, Mariquin put announcements in the local paper, but no leads ever came from. it many years passed. And eventually, you know, her family began to accept that they may never know what happened to Raina. She was missing for 30 years until her body was discovered in 1999. And we started out the story kind of talking about it, right? Raina's body was found inside a barrel hidden in the crawl space of the house in Jericho. The ownership of the house had changed

hands, I think a number of times, Gibbs. So, you know, you have to ask the question. Did nobody see the steel drum? Or did they see it and just think, ah, okay, I'm not dealing with that. Yeah. I don't know what that is. I don't care. It's in this cross base. Nobody's ever going to see it anyway. So leave it alone. I feel like that would be very hard for me to do. Yeah. I would have to investigate it somehow. Now, from what I understand it, wait, almost 350 pounds. So it's not like you're going to roll it out of there. You know, so maybe they got their hands on it.

And this is way too heavy. I'm not going to screw around with this. I'll just leave it. Yeah, 345 pounds. And obviously that was not from Raina. That was from a combination of her body, the dye, the plastic pellets, all of that. A man named Hamid Tafagodi purchased the home at 67. force drive from the Coens. And he was the one who demanded that Ronald Cohen remove it.

Ronald called some movers to help him get the drum to the curb. And we mentioned it, right? Sanitation workers didn't want to take it away. He received a letter from the sanitation department telling him they couldn't remove the drum because it was too heavy. And I get that. 345 pounds. So now what is he going to do, Gibbs? He has to get rid of this drum. Yeah. And he's going to have to figure out how to do it himself.

And that's when he opened the lid to try to figure out what was making the drum so heavy. Right. But weighed this down. Because I think if you think about it logically, okay, this is very, very heavy. But I think you and I both could move an empty steel drum. Yeah. How can I lighten the load? Yeah.

So I've got to figure out what's inside it that's making it so heavy. If we can get rid of that, well, maybe I can move it on my own. Or maybe the sanitation workers will take it then at that point. Exactly. When he opened up the lid, the first thing to hit him was the smell. And I think you can only imagine what that would have been like. How terrible. How awful.

I mean, you're talking about 30 years of build up pressure, odor, and all of a sudden you're releasing that in your face? Oh, it cannot be good. No. It gives you mentioned the pressure, right? Releasing that pressure caused a boot to rise above the surface, followed by a hand. Okay. You know the minute that you open this thing, something horrible is inside.

But when you see a boot in a hand, all doubt is erased. Oh, sure, yeah. And you've got to get a hold of the cops immediately. That's what he did. The police arrived and they could tell that it was a human body. Sergeant Detective Robert Edwards, one of the first responders, arrived to see the drum out by the curb. I guess this guy had put the lid back on, which is a natural response. Sure, yeah.

I think for most people. So when the detective opened the lid, he saw a human hand. So they shipped the drum to the medical examiner's office. A strange liquid was noticed with what seemed like plastic pellets inside this drum. And I think, you know, obviously they know they've got a dead body in there. But they were also concerned about, okay, what else is in this drum? Is it harmful? Is it dangerous?

bad smell, some type of mysterious liquid that we don't know what it is. Eventually they realized that the chemicals were non-toxic. They identified the liquid. They dumped out the contents of the barrel. And that's when they discovered not a skeleton, but a mummified woman. She had long black hair. And beneath her hair were 10 different lacerations on the back and upper parts of her head. she had multiple skull fractures.

Blood staining indicated that the injuries happened while she was still alive. The examiners initially determined that she was either white or Hispanic. Between 20 to 30 years of age, they noticed her kind of distinctive gold dental work, which wasn't common at that time in the United States. So they theorized that she was most likely from a South or Central American country. An X-ray revealed the woman was nine months pregnant when she died.

And they could also tell that the baby was a boy. The autopsy report determined her cause of death was from several blows to the back of her head. Okay. Tough day, I think, to be a medical examiner. Sure. As are probably a lot of days. Let's be honest. It was a rough day for the homeowner, too.

Well, for everybody involved. I mean, as a medical examiner, right, you are used to dealing with dead bodies. I mean, that's part of the job, figuring out how some of these people died, examining them. I mean, let's be frank, cutting them open, doing autopsies, weighing organs, all of that stuff. I don't know how many medical examiners have had a steel drum brought into their office, which contained a 30.000. year old mummified woman who was nine months pregnant. That's not the norm. That's not an everyday occurrence. That likely doesn't happen to most medical examiners in their entire career. Detectives came out and described the barrel as a time capsule from the 1960s. And I guess Gibbs, everything inside was

pretty well preserved. The drum was airtight, which explains why the body was preserved. the way it was for such a long period of time. The woman was wearing a sweater, skirt, long socks, and a fake leopard coat. They found a purse, and inside the purse was lipstick and eyeliner. She was also wearing a wedding ring with a green stone and a gold locket engraved with the words, Patrice Love Uncle Phil. She wore a cloth scapular around her neck, a Catholic symbol, her body was very small.

She was only four foot nine and her remains only weighed 59 pounds. Very small. Yeah. Now, obviously, that's not to say that she was 59 pounds when she died, but she was on the shorter side. Also inside the drum was a plastic flower stem and an address book. Detectives found the address book and a note, but the writing was kind of invisible. They weren't able to really make it out.

So one of the detectives went to work using modern technology to uncover the contents of the address book. So we're talking about some national treasure type stuff here. Right. Yeah. Right. The writing is hidden. We've got to figure out how to bring that writing up to where it's visible. Now, in that movie, they used lemons and heat, a hairdryer.

Yeah. I don't know if that works for everything. I think that's just. I do it all the time. Well, you do write in a lot of code. I do. Police trace the drum to a chemical company in Linden, New Jersey. The manufacturing date was 1965.

Employees identified the mysterious liquid as halogen green, a dye used to color plastic flowers and trees. Halogen green hadn't been manufactured since 1971. Sounds like a dangerous chemical. Well, it does. It does. But I think if we look at these dates, okay, this is really helping to narrow things down somewhat. We know it has to be 1965 or after because of the manufactured date of the drum. And then when you factor in this color and the last time it was manufactured, not too hard to figure out that whatever happened to this woman inside the,

the drum happened between the years of 1965 and 1971. While police were waiting for the address book analysis, they spoke to previous homeowners. And Gibbs, we kind of talked about it, but other families had noticed the drum. Arthur and Judith Eben, along with three other families, all told the police that, yeah, they saw it, but eventually they forgot about it because it was too heavy to move. they thought, we're just going to leave it here. Kind of exactly what you theorized. Ronald Cohen never opened the drum because of the chemical labels on the side. Detectives found records of a large extension added to the house in 1980.

It was built over the exact spot where the drum was. Arthur Evan, the second owner of the home, denied making the extension. He said the reason why it was under his name was because he used. brought it up to coat. It Gibbs, I want to go back to this Ronald Cohen, right? He said he never opened the drum because of the chemical labels on the side. To me, that would be even more of a reason that, hey, I want to get this thing the heck out of here. I just wouldn't want it to be in my house with my family.

That's all those labels on the side. Yeah, you don't know if it's leaking into the groundwater. You don't know what's going on. But I think the key here is that it was the first. owner of the house, Howard Elkins, who added the extension. Howard worked in New York. He was the owner of a plastic flower company. And I think once police found all of this out and they put these pieces of the puzzle together, this was kind of the aha moment for detectives. Right. It's linking some of the items in the barrel, the plastic flour, the plastic flour, the plastic

pellets to Howard Elkins. Howard's former partner, Melvin Gantin, was willing to talk to police. He identified the barrel and the dye for them. He also described the woman Howard had an affair with. And one of the things he mentioned was that the woman had gold teeth. So now we've got some statements from his former partner. And all of these are kind of confirming. that the body in the barrel was the woman Howard had an affair with back in the late 60s. No doubt Gibbs, the case against him is building. And, you know, as you can imagine, this was a case that got quite a bit of news coverage. You find a woman in a barrel underneath a house that police figure out has been there for 30 years.

You're going to get a couple news vans. Oh, sure you are. you know, wanting to cover that story. What it did was it led to a helpful tip. An anonymous man called the Nassau County Police Department and told them that Howard had an affair with a Hispanic woman who worked in the factory. The caller also told them where the drum came from and that the chemicals were used to make bases for the bottom of plastic trees.

So right there, you know, now they. They have everything to try to bring it home, right? I mean, they know where the barrel came from, what the plastic and the chemicals were used for, what company they were used at. Yeah. Yeah. Who was the part owner of that company? Yeah, there's a lot of things that are falling in line.

But at the same time, they're still working very hard to try to analyze the address book. We mentioned it. The ink inside the book had disappeared. So what they did was they used a video. spectral comparator to decipher the writing. It's a fun little tool. Yeah. I figured it was something that you've had extensive use with.

Myself, I have no idea what it is, but I'm assuming in the different lines of work that you're involved in, you've probably used it on a routine basis. What it does is it allows you to see in the infrared and UV range. It can show alterations that have been made to a check. So obviously it would be. be important in investigating check forgery, check fraud. Magnification can detect when official documents have been altered. It can show indented impressions.

And transmitted light from behind can show words hidden under correction fluid. So you're right. This is a very useful tool. It really is. The liquid inside the drum had removed the ink. But after hours of using infrared camera filters, detectives were able to see names and phone numbers. And it was after all this work that detectives were finally able to answer the question of who the woman was inside the barrel. The woman was Raina Angelica Meriquin, a 27-year-old immigrant from El Salvador.

She disappeared in 1969. They saw her number inside the book. They also saw Kathy Andrade's number as well as Howard Elkins. And on one of the last pages in her address book, Rana wrote a note that said, Don't be mad. I told the truth. Detectives called Kathy Andrei. I mean, luckily for them, Gibbs, she had not changed her number in 30 years.

It's a rarity. Yeah, I think for a lot of people, she identified the woman as Raina Merriquin after seeing her immigration photo. She told them that she and Raina were best friends. So please have all this evidence against Howard Elkins. Well, obviously they want to go speak with Howard Elkins. But before they could get in contact with him, a reporter called Howard on September 4th, 1999, informing him a drum had been found in his former home. The reporter asked him if he knew anything about it. Howard said he didn't. When the reporter asked Howard if he ever went into the crawl space, he said, what for? Why would I do that?

Ruth Elkins' friend sent her newspaper clippings about the barrel, and she was disturbed. Gibbs. I mean, think about that. What's got to be going through your mind? We're 30 years down the road. You're still married to this man. And now you find out that the home you lived in 30 years ago had a barrel containing a woman's body in it.

And it had been there the entire time. Yeah. Pregnant woman's body. Oh, yeah. Let's not forget. She was pregnant. Or does it take too much to start remembering that phone call you got? Well, you got that.

But I don't think she jumped to the conclusion that it was Howard. I think at first she thought, well, it's probably not Howard. Who in the world would have put this body in the barrel and then put it in our crawl space? But on September 9th, 1999, two detectives flew to Howard's home. He was living at a place called Crystal Lakes, a retirement community near Boker-Ratone. He lived there with his wife, Ruth. Howard agreed to speak with them. He told them he purchased the home in 1957. He lived there until 1972. He did use to own Melrose Plastics, but he sold it in 1973 and moved to Florida with his family. The detectives told him they knew the drum was from Melrose Plastics and that it was found in the crawl space of his former home. And basically Gibbs, after being confronted with this type of

information. That's when he copped to having the affair with an employee from his factory. But he said he couldn't remember her name, said he couldn't even remember what she looked like. And he claimed to have no knowledge of the drum and couldn't explain why his name was in the woman's address book. It's kind of strange to admit to have an affair to follow up with all that too. Well, it is because, and maybe I'm thinking about this from the standpoint of, you know, a husband who doesn't go out and have a bunch of affairs. But if you had an affair, are you telling me that that wouldn't have been such a big deal that you wouldn't remember the woman's name? Or did he have 50, 100 affairs? Okay.

well maybe names get lost at that point but you know if you had one or two seemed like they would be such a big deal they would kind of stick with you you knew you did something very very wrong right i just can't see you forgetting that person less convenient for him to forget well sure he doesn't want to admit that part and i think that's a lot of times what we see when people get questioned right yeah i'm going to give you a little something that you already know i'm going to cop to that part right but i'm going to leave out some of the things that would really incriminate me even though they don't sound plausible and it doesn't make a lot of sense but i can't make it make sense because if i do you're going to know it's me one of the detectives robert edwards asked

Howard questions that he already knew the answers to to see if Howard would tell the truth. Obviously, he didn't. Howard denied using any barrels at the plastics company. And he denied using green dye. It was almost as if Gibbs, he acted like he knew nothing about what it happened at that business he had owned for how many years. I know nothing. I see nothing. Yeah. But what are you going to do? And how? scared would you be if detectives showed up at your house with all of this information. You know that they're on to you and you're just trying to deflect. You're trying to push them off as much as you can. Right. It's not going to work forever. No. Detectives knew something was up.

Edwards asked Howard for a DNA sample, but he refused. Howard asked him to leave before his wife came home. He told them he had a lot to discuss with his wife. The detectives agreed, but they warned him they'd be back the next day with a warrant. According to Newsday, one of the other detectives told Howard, tomorrow we're coming back with a warrant for your DNA. And we're going to prove that you were the father of that baby and you're going to spend the rest of your life in prison. Okay. Yeah. Shaking in my boots at that point. Yeah, I bet he wants to talk to his wife. Hey, there's something I need to tell you again, but the full story this time. The detectives hurried to a local judge to get the warrant.

I think they worried that if they didn't do it quick enough, they would not be able to prove their case. But just the next day, they received a call from Palm Beach detectives asking if they had Howard Elkins in custody. Ruth, his wife, had reported him missing. The detectives arrived at the Elkins home to find it swarming with police, Howard Elkins was dead. That day at around 12 p.m., Howard went to the local Walmart. He purchased a shotgun and ammunition.

He left his house at 1.30 p.m. His wife thought that he was going to the pool, but he drove to his friends home because he knew no one was there. he parked in the driveway, broke into the garage, climbed into his friend's car, and shot himself in the head. What a nice guy. Well, and that's not a very good friend either. At least I would have thought about being more conscious about what I was doing, laid some plastic out, you know, make it easier for you. I get it. This guy knew he was caught.

Yeah. And he made the decision that he wasn't going to trial. he wasn't going to prison. He was taking that power away from the authorities. He was going to end his life. I understand that. Maybe he couldn't face up to his wife about this and his family, right? Yeah, I don't think he probably couldn't face up to any of it.

Because you've got to figure he's in his 70s by this point. So, you know, you got kids, you got grandkids. Right. You've got a whole brood. that now is going to learn all of your deep, dark secrets, and they're really bad. Yeah, that's going to be hard to explain to the people that love you on how bad of an individual you really were at that time, and because you kept it a secret, still are. And he decided he didn't want to do that, obviously.

What he didn't understand and what I was getting at was why, if you're going to do that, Yeah. Why do you need to get into your friend's car when your car's there? Yeah. Why the need to do it in the garage? Why not do it in the driveway in your own car? You know, I didn't mean to, I wasn't trying to be flippant about it when I said, oh, you know, he's a good friend.

But, you know, he ruined that guy's car. Yeah. When he didn't have to. I didn't understand that part of why he felt that he needed to do it that way. Exactly. I mean, just, I don't know. Could have driven out in the woods or he could have. Mark or yeah he could have driven anywhere now he probably wasn't thinking very clearly though

sergeant edwards told the new york times he didn't have a lot of options when he was arrested he was a man of 71 years old what was he going to do spend the rest of his life in prison for a crime that happened 30 years before i don't know what went through his mind but obviously it was something he didn't want to face up to so you know kind of things that we're about as well. Sergeant Edwards called the case a bittersweet ending because they got the answers they needed Gibbs, but they didn't get Howard Elkins to face the consequences of his actions. And you really wanted him to have to do that, right? You wanted him to have to face and answer those questions. Yeah, I think these cases are always tough when a perpetrator takes their life

before they go to trial, before, you know, everything comes out as to why did you do this? Why did you do that? And I think that's why I kind of said up front. Okay, this case is solved, but there's still quite a bit of mystery to it

because Howard Elkins took the answers to some of the questions with him when he died. Howard's neighbors were shocked by the news. And I can imagine this. Gibbs is a 70-some-year-old guy. He was active in his community. He socialized with everyone. Yeah.

He didn't seem to anyone to be the type of person who could kill someone, let alone a woman who was nine months pregnant and then stuff her body in a steel drum for 30 years. And he was known as the man who took. daily walks around the community with his wife. Fellow neighbors described the couple as a lovely family. And again, going back to do you really know your neighbors? Do you really know anyone? You don't know what someone did 30 years ago.

And maybe they're not the same person they were back then. Maybe not. Maybe he was a great guy, you know, towards the end of his years. But he still did. very horrible thing. Mm-hmm. And you need an answer for it. Maybe it's the only person he ever killed.

It's the only time he ever broke the law. I don't know. Yeah. But I agree with you. He did the crime. It was a horrible crime. Yeah. And he needed to pay for it.

Unfortunately, he really didn't. Right. Not in the way that most of us would like to see him have to pay for it. Although the police knew Raina's identity. They didn't release that information to the public until after Howard's death. It was on September 30th, 1999 that they released Raina's name. The mystery of the woman in the barrel was finally solved. After Howard's suicide, detectives obtained a sample of his DNA.

And it was very hard to test. The baby because of decomposition, but the lab used technology to amplify. the DNA. And on January 22nd, 2000, a paternity test found that Howard Elkins was 99.93% likely to be the father of Raina's baby. It's like one of those Mori Porvich episodes. Or Moripovich. Yeah. I watched Moripovich. I know you watched an alternate show got lower ratings, but it's a lot. It's. I watched. It's a lot of It was on whatever weird, strange cable package you had. Well, I didn't pay a lot of money for it.

Mori Porvich. Exactly. Whatever you said. Mopo. Mopo. Yeah. You know, back then, you know, not to get sidetracked, but had so many shows like that. And it was just, it was so trashy.

Yeah. But it was almost like you couldn't look away. Right. There was about ready to be a train wreck and you wanted to see what the train wreck was. And you. are the father. Yeah. So 99.9.93%. That's pretty good. It is pretty solid number. In my opinion. Now, that's not the same as what we hear in some cases where it's one in, I don't know, whatever, 12 trillion to 1 or something like that. But I think based on that, the case was officially closed.

Sergeant Edwards made the statement. We found a motive. We found. We found. a suspect and I think the case is closed at this time. Detectives knew Howard was involved because they'd identified Raina. They had spoken to Kathy, but they couldn't officially close the case until they knew Howard was the father of the baby because that's really what helped confirm their motive. And I think it's pretty easy to see what that is, right? Howard killed Raina because he knew he wasn't going to leave her. She wasn't going to be happy knowing that.

And she was going to have a baby, his baby, a real link to this affair that they had been having for some time. And to solve all of his problems in his mind, he killed her. I think it's that cut and dry. I mean, it sounds flippant, but I'm pretty sure that's exactly what was going through his head. I have a problem. I need to solve that problem. This is the only way that I think I can do it. Yeah, that's how he reasoned it.

Gibbs, we mentioned earlier that Raina at one point brought a toddler with her to work. Some people allege that the child was Raina's and that the father was Howard. No one knows who this child is, where this child is now. And this is one of those things that you and I run into quite a bit, right? There's a lot of speculation here. Sources are all over the place. But according to the daily news, police told the public in early October 1999 that the day Raina came to work with a toddler, she was babysitting for her friend.

So, I mean, I think if that's true, it kind of puts all of those other rumors. and speculation to rest. Newsday reporter Oscar Coral flew to San Martin El Salvador to speak to Raina's family. The day he arrived was Raina's mother's birthday. She almost collapsed when he told her the news that they had found Raina. She'd been devastated by the loss of her daughter and said that she'd even had dreams that Raina was trapped in a barrel. Now that's bizarre.

That is bizarre. But you and I have talked about this before. Mother's intuition, mother's getting a feeling. You know, you see it play out sometimes in movies, but I've heard people that I know and trust talk about having certain things like this. Right. I think there's something to it. I really do. Yeah, I agree with you.

I actually had a vision of you the other night. tripping and falling backwards and hitting your back. I should have called and told you. As you were playing with your voodoo doll that you had made up in New Orleans of me. I did. Yeah. It was fun. In 1999, Raina's mother was 95 years old.

All she wanted to do was to say goodbye to her daughter. And on her birthday, that wish came true. 30 years later, Raina's family was relieved to bring her home and bury her. Her sister, Dora, told news outlets, my sister is still alive with us. We will never forget her. Now, there was some information that Raina's family had planned to sue Howard's estate. But I couldn't find anything else on it. If they did and if they, and if so, what was what the outcome was?

It could have been some type of undisclosed settlement. Could have been or it could have been thrown out. I don't know. Judith Evans, one of the former owners of the home, told the Daily News, I do have some very strange feelings. I got to thinking about this lady in the barrel and how close we were to her all those years. She was right below our favorite room. I just hope she finds peace. Ronald Cohen told Oxygen that they had a nanny who thought the house was haunted.

One day while his children were in the swimming pool, the electric. transformer exploded. They had a new garage door installed. And the next morning, his wife found a dead cat with its neck stuck in the new door. That's a little freaky. It's, it's freaky. I mean, if you believe in ghost, you could argue that, okay, Raina is trying to get their attention. She wants somebody to solve her murder. You know, I go back to some of the, these owners of the home. And learning after, the fact that they had spent however many years they owned the home living above this woman who was in this barrel the entire time they lived there. That would freak me out to learn that that situation occurred while I was living there. So Gibbs, as we wrap up this case,

you know, Raina's story, it almost doesn't seem believable, right? It seems like some dramatic plot out of a crime movie, the affair, the 30-year secret, the mystery of identifying the woman in the barrel. But it was all real. And I think what's really sad is that Raina was a woman who wanted to live her American dream. She wanted to work hard. She wanted to make something of herself. And it was all taken from her because she became involved in a deadly affair with Howard Elkins. Raina wanted a marriage. Howard was never going to give that to her. And he was willing to kill her to keep up the illusion of his perfect life. Yes. To keep his wife from finding out. It's just hard to imagine that somebody is willing to go to that link. I think there's more people out there willing to go to

that extreme than we realize. I think you're right and it scares the bejeebies out of me. It really does. You know, we do different types of cases. Now, some of the cases, they all scare me in different ways. Right. This one's scary from the standpoint that, you know, this is not a serial killer as far as I know. this is not a person who has some really serious mental illnesses that are, you know, maybe causing an urge to do some really bad things or anything like that. This is a person that was so selfish. Yeah. And just couldn't stand the thought that his life might be turned upside down when it was

found out that he was having an affair. and it had produced a child. Plain and simple. He didn't like the results of his actions by sticking his pen and company ink. I think that's the way to end it. Yeah. I don't think you can end it any better than that.

So that's it for our case on Howard Elkins, real SOB for sure if you ask me. Now, you made the point later in life. He might have been the model citizen. Sure. He might have been the number one grandpa. Yeah. Might have been the best shuffle player in shady acres or whatever the hell it was called.

Yeah. Crystal Lakes. And Boca Raton. Right. All of that could be true. Sure. But you can't wipe the slate clean. No.

From this one horrible act that you did. You have to answer for what you did. You do. We got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Let's hear them. Hey, Mike and JBS. Jorge Medrano.

Talk about trade. I've been listening to you guys for years. So that was the ones that sent you those coins. I hope you guys liked them. I remember the reason I got through those coins was because from your Q&A episode a while ago, you guys mentioned on which serial killers you found the most interesting. So that's why I got to those Dahmer and Mason, Manson, Jan Juan Casey coins. The name of the place I got those from, it's a website.

It's a website is called Professor Tooth Auditorium, which I thought was pretty neat. Lastly, Gibby, Gibby, you have a gift when it comes to accents and multiple languages. Don't ever give up on that. You're definitely an international manner of mystery.

Thank you for everything you guys do. You guys are great. Keep it up. Like I said, I've been listening for years, and you guys are awesome. Thank you. Well, I appreciate it very much, and the coins were very awesome. And I almost made the mistake in using into the vending machine, but luckily, it did

not fit and I still have them. Give you one to Zagnut and he was going to do whatever he had to do to get a Zagnut. They still make Zag Nuts? I don't know. But you're right. We did love the coins very much and, and yeah, I couldn't remember the name where he got him, but he said it, Dr. Tuse Auditorium. Yeah.

Spelled ODD, obviously. Sounds like a cool place. Yeah, it was. I actually checked it out because he sent it on the paper when he sent the coin. Yeah, we love them. I appreciate that. Hi, my name is Judy. This team calling from Toronto, Ontario, Canada,

and I just want to thank you for your podcast because it helped me get through a lot of long, boring days here. And I want to suggest maybe looking into Japanese seal killers or the anthem in South Korea. It's pretty interesting. I love Mr. Gibson's accents and Mr. Ferguson's singing. You guys are great and keep your own time digging. So you're from Toronto.

So you definitely need to check out this week's Unsolved because it's in your backyard. It is. Toronto, Unsolved murder of billionaires. Yeah. So 15 years old. Yeah. Very well spoken. What I really got a kick out of was that she called you, Mr. Gibson.

She did. She called me, Mr. Ferguson. I already feel old, Gibbs. I tell you this all the time. Now, I know she's giving herself. And that is very respectful. Sure it is. At the same time, it also makes me feel quite old.

Yeah. But she has only 15. The next time she calls in, she can say Mike and Gibby. Yeah, you can. Yeah. You showed the respect. Now you can go with Mike and Gibby. And we're glad that you enjoy the show.

But, you know, some of my faith in that generation is restored when we get some of these voicemails. And you've heard me rail. I have a 16-year-old. Right. I love her to death, but some of the things that, you know, I hear her say, some of the things that I know, I just, you know, the communication with her and her friends and even my older daughter, it scares me a little. By the way, neither one of them ever call me Mr. Gibson. No, and they probably never would.

No. You don't even want to know what they call you when you leave. I'm afraid to ask. Hey, Mike and Gibby. This is Laura Cleaver. Alzo, Washington. And I had a case, a medical malpractice case that would be interesting for you guys to profile. It's the case of a so-proclaimed doctor, Linda Burfield-Hazard, is her name. She was not a real doctor, but she called herself a doctor. This was in the early 1900. And it's a great story. I have a book that relates to the story. It's very, very interesting.

The book's called Starvation Heights. But another thing interesting about this case is it happened about 45 minutes away from where I live. That's where the sanitarium that she ran is located or was located. So anyway, I thought you guys might enjoy that. Hope you have heard, haven't heard of it. If you have, great. I love you guys. And all you do, really enjoying the podcast.

Heads on a swivel. Keep your own time. Take it. Thanks. Man, in the 1900s, probably a lot easier to run a fake hospital as a fake doctor. Sure. How are they going to prove that you had all these accreditations back then without some type system. It's not a case I've heard of, but it does sound like it could be very fascinating. So I'm going

to put it on the list. I'm going to check into it. Yeah. I think sometimes the trouble that we have with stories like that, especially going back so far, is finding the information. You know, somebody wrote a book on it. So they found it. Right. But how much, you know, did they spend years compiling all that information? Maybe they did. And obviously, we have. And obviously, we have. have a little bit less than that to do each episode. But we'll check into it. Definitely will. We had one thing in the mail bag Gibbs.

Natalie from Wisconsin, send us in some real Danishes. Yeah. Like Danish-Danishes. Not the fake stuff. No. No. And they're huge too.

These aren't like little things you buy at Starbucks. These look like pizzas. And one's pecan and one's cherry. We've opened the cherry and it was out. standing. Yeah. And I lick the other one. So it's mine. Okay. Appreciate that. Claimed it. I did. So thank you, Natalie, very much. All right, buddy, we got to get out of here. That is it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gabby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.