True Crime All The Time - Mary Keenan O'Connor Part 2

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

In part one of the Mary Keenan O’Connor case, we discussed Mary’s early life and the murder of 5-year-old Nancy Glenn. Mary confessed to accidentally hitting Nancy in a fit of rage, but she refused to sign the confession. She denied putting Nancy face down in a mud puddle. The prosecution argued that Mary lured Nancy out to the crime scene and deliberately held her down in the puddle. In this episode, we’ll discuss the verdict of Mary’s murder trial and the remainder of her life and crimes.Join Mike and Gibby as they finish up the Mary O'Connor story. People were shocked at the jury's verdict at Mary's trial. There were accusations of bad police work and juror misconduct. But, Mary was free to live her life, and she married and had children. 30 years later, Mary became embroiled in a murder mystery again when a wife and mother was murdered, and two young children were severely beaten. Could Mary O'Connor beat another murder wrap?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 295 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. How are you? Hey man, I'm doing well. How about yourself? I am doing very well. Yeah.

Happy to have you across the studio from me. Way across from you. Not that far. Not that far. I got to keep you relatively close to make sure I can see your body language, whether or not you're falling asleep on me. I got to keep tabs on you, man. Never fall asleep.

Ever. So we have part two of the Mary Keenan O'Connor story. We've got a lot to get through. But first, let's give our shoutouts. For Patreon, we had Tyler Williams. Hey, Tyler. Lisa Young. Appreciate that.

Lisa. Patricia Cook. Hey, Patricia. Latasha Crawford. Hey, thanks, Latasha. Julian Barossa. Ooh, Barossa. Leslie Roberts jumped out to our highest level.

Hey, Leslie. Jesus. What's going on, Diaz? Trisha Pucci. There's Trisha. Nancy Jones. Hey, thanks, Nancy. Kendra jumped out at our highest level.

Well, thank you so much, Kendra. Belinda McCoy. Hey, McCoy. Corey. Corey. Corey. Rosie Canham. Hey, Canem.

Candice Draw. What's going on, Candice? Darlene Keith. Oh, thanks, Darlene. Colby Smith. What's up, Colby? Bree La Force Friar. Oh, La Force Friar.

Leslie. Leslie. Pat Schaefer. What's up, Pat? Janna Mackley. Well, thank you, Macley. Lisa. Lisa.

Cynthia. Terrio jumped out at our highest level. I say it's Therot. You could be right. I don't know. And last but not least, Mary Reese. Hey, Mary. And then we go back into the vault. This week, we selected Patty Aussie James. Well, thank you, potty. Yeah. Appreciate the new support, the continued support. For PayPal, we had donations from Kelly Gardner. Hey, Kelly. Georgie Yakubenko. Oh, thank you, Yaku Binkle. And Wayne Eshante. Ah shantay. Ashante. Yes.

So appreciate that as well. Gibbs, right now we have an episode out on true crime all the time and solved where we're talking about the death of Charles C. Morgan. And a mysterious death. It is. But it's an episode that has a lot of very interesting facets to it. I think people will really enjoy it. So come give it a listen. Yeah.

We'll dive into everything involved. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I am. In part one of the Mary Keenan O'Connor case, we talked about Mary's early life. We also talked about the murder of five-year-old Nancy Glenn. Mary confessed to accidentally hitting Nancy in a fit of rage, but she refused to sign that confession. She denied putting Nancy's face down in a mud puddle.

And there was some back and forth. you know, the detective had that down in the statement. She said, no, that's not true. I won't sign it. The prosecution at trial argued that Mary lured Nancy out to the crime scene and deliberately held her down in the puddle. So in this episode, we'll discuss the verdict in Mary's murder trial and then the remainder of her life and crimes.

So they wrapped up the trial. Everybody rested. and it only took the jury about four hours of deliberation to acquit Mary O'Connor of murder and manslaughter on February 18, 1938. After being acquitted, Mary walked out of the courtroom. She met with her parents and the Phillips and cried with him. Afterwards, she walked out happy and laughing and went to a meeting at her attorney's office. reporters were asked to write out a list of questions that they had for Mary. An hour later, they went in for a press conference where Mary read her replies off a sheet

of paper. Mary told the press, I'm very pleased and happy that the jury believed what I said and acquitted me as I told the truth. Now, as you can imagine, the majority of the spectators there in court were not happy with the verdict. the prosecution, Nancy's family, and most of the city of Philadelphia were shocked by the decision. They all thought she should have been found guilty. Well, and to be honest with you, at the end of episode one, I thought the same thing.

I thought she's guilty of something. Now, I didn't know what it was. Right. You know, was it first degree murder? I don't know. But certainly, to me, I thought it's a very. very least, it was going to be some type of, you know, something along the lines of manslaughter because by her own admission, she hit this girl. This girl fell down. This girl was later found dead.

Yeah. And okay. You covered up her body. You felt for a pulse. I mean, some of those things she admitted to and kind of kept with. The big thing that she would not admit and actually said that it was the detective that it had put forth was that she put Nancy face down in the mud puddle. But either way, I just felt like, you know, she caused the death of this little girl in some way, some former fashion. Margaret Glenn, Nancy's mom cried out she's guilty, just as guilty as anyone can be. She also said, Mary O'Connor killed my child and she did it with premeditation. Dr. Wadsworth's testimony alone should have been enough to convict her. I never expected a verdict like this.

Everyone knows Mary was cruel to children. Everyone in the neighborhood knew it. She beat up my little boy when he was only three years old. And I once saw her hitting a little girl four years old. So she's got a history of being a bully, according to Margaret. Well, and not just a bully. we're talking about three years old, four years old, five years old, you know, harming little, you know, pretty small children. Now, this is Nancy's mother, right? Margaret, she's probably going

to be the most upset out of anyone because it's her baby girl. And Gibbs, you and I have talked about it before. You know, what would you do in that situation as a parent who believes that this person murdered your little five-year-old daughter. You're going to do anything and everything you can to get justice. I tell you, the first thing that came to mind for me was Samuel L. Jackson's character in that movie, I think it was called Time to Kill. Okay. You remember that one with Matthew McConaug, Sandra Bullock.

Basically, his little girl is raped. Oh, I remember. By a bunch of white guys. And he's pretty sure that they're not going to be convicted. Yeah. So he kills them both before, you know, they even go to trial. Basically, he takes the law into his own hands. I'm not saying that you or I would do that.

But I think I'd be lying to myself if I said the thought probably wouldn't enter my mind. I would think it would enter a lot of people's mind. I do. I really do. Now, whether you act on it, that's a different story. And that's kind of what separates us from, you know, criminals. People have strange thoughts. If you want to call them strange or criminal.

Criminal thoughts. They just don't always act on them. Right. But I was shocked by the verdict. Obviously not when I just said it because I already knew what it was going to be. But as I was doing the research, you know, it kind of shocked me. You know, it was one of the big draws of this case because we've seen. seen people be convicted on much less, you know, evidence. Without a confession. Without a confession.

Now, there was some people who said they didn't quite believe her confession. Some of the things didn't quite line up. So there was that as well. But although Mary Keenan O'Connor had just been acquitted of a murder that she did confess to, she would not go on to live a peaceful life and fade from the spotlight. she would continue to make headlines for years after her acquittal. After the acquittal, Joseph Glenn submitted a letter voicing his suspicions that improper forces, that's the phrase he used, influenced the jury. Apparently a jury had told him about alleged conduct in the jury room and the nature of the ballots passed during deliberations.

So the judge, Judge Sloan, ordered. an investigation and he assigned what was called the Ruth Legislative Commission to investigate the jury. Right. So you're already ticked. Of course. Because this woman has gotten off. You're a parent of this little girl who was murdered. And now you're hearing that there might have been some shenanigans. Yeah. I'm not going to be happy if it's true that there have been some wrongdoings. The judge ordered the investigation on February 25th, 1938, The commission found that detectives visited Mary's home on November 6th for questioning, but no arrest was made at the time.

The visit was made in response to an anonymous phone call. Inquirer reporters, Jay Taylor Buckley and Gerson Lush began investigating the case after the coroner's jury declared Nancy's death and accident. These two believe that the crime was some type of, sex atrocity. That's the wording that they used in some of their writings. They learned that a girl of athletic type was connected with the case. And they figured out that a girl who might match that profile was enrolled at Temple University and a teacher she was friendly with transferred to Immaculata College. So they did a little bit of digging and they learned this girl's name,

Mary Keenan O'Connor. They submitted their findings to to Captain John Murphy on November 21st, 1937. The police got Mary's location and they went to Merchantville, New Jersey to interview her that same night. Okay. So a little more detail on some of the things that we covered in the first episode. The Ruth Legislative Commission published their final report on the case on August 1st, 1938. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that they determined that Mary's acquittal was due to careless

police investigation, incompetent handling of the coroner's inquest, and failure of jurors to discharge their responsibilities properly. Okay. So let's break that down. First, you have careless police investigation. We actually have that in a number of unsolved cases. We do. Sometimes that's why cases are unsolved. Incompetent handling of the coroner's inquest. And we touched on that in episode one, right, the coroner didn't note certain aspects of little Nancy's body. Right. That were then brought to light. And then the mayor kind of seized on that.

And then you have this failure of jurors to discharge their responsibilities properly. And that's a really big one. It's huge. And I know I've talked about it before. But the responsibility that a juror has, especially in a murder trial. It's really big when you think about it. Take me, for example. Now, don't take me because I, you know, you and I work in true crime kind of, but just take,

you know, just a regular person who works a nine to five and eight to five. And they're called for jury duty and they're asked to wade through, you know, maybe not in the 1930s, but nowadays weighed through a ton of scientific stuff, stuff that they probably don't understand. I know it gets explained, but it gets explained in the way that best fits one side or another. So you have a lot of stuff to weed through. And my question is, number one, do all these jurors want to be there? Because I think the answer in a lot of cases is probably no. They don't want to be there for a long period of time. Are they fed up by the time that, you know, one of these long trials ended? And this wasn't a long trial. But nowadays, most of them,

can be. Well, they probably are fed up. You know, it's no wonder the movie 12 Angry Jurers was such a big hit back in the day and it's been remade so many times. Now, is that the same as 12 Angry Men? Yes. Okay. I didn't know if that was, uh, I know back in the day when you used to buy your DVDs to save a couple bucks, you would buy a different version of what was essentially the same movie. So I assume it had a different title. That was at eight million. don't muter. But no, I remember that movie. That was a good one. They remade it. Yeah. Two. Yeah, several times. But could that happen? Could a juror or a number of jurors get to the point of, okay, we got to get this thing over with. I want to go home. I want to go back to, you know, my life. And so we're all going to agree on X or we're going to pressure people into agreeing until we get a consensus. You would hope not. But, but I think it definitely can happen. I think it could.

The Ruth Commission did not issue an opinion on the verdict at the trial. So what that meant was that Mary would face no more legal action in the Nancy Glenn case. So they had this commission. They found some things that didn't quite go as they should have. And for many years after that, Mary seemed to live a pretty normal life. But things took a shocking turn. almost 30 years afterwards. In 1967, Mary was 48 years old, divorced, and she had four sons.

She had changed her name by that point to marry Mamon after getting married. In May 1943, she married a man named Maurice Maiman, who was 13 years older than her. Maurice was born in London and received U.S. citizenship because his father served in World War I. He worked on jobs to support his family. The pair had four sons together, Robert, Thomas, Maurice, Jr. and Richard. Mary had her first two children, Robert and Thomas. Then in 1948, she adopted a child from Newfoundland and renamed him Richard. Her youngest child, Maurice Jr, was born in 1952.

So she's got a full house. Yeah. Yeah. I think four children is a four children. is a full house. Now, I think a lot of people had big families, man, back then, especially I was talking with, I don't know, some family members the other day about, you know, living on a farm. We went out to a farm to get some sweet corn. And it was like the best sweet corn I've ever had. And there was a whole bunch of kids working selling the sweet corn. And my daughter says, you think that's all their

kids? And I was like, yeah, probably is. And they're all helping pitching in working. But, you know, even more so years ago, people had a lot of kids when they were rural, especially farmers, because you needed the help. You needed those kids to grow up and be able to help on the farm. Exactly. That's why you had them. I don't know if that's the only reason that you had them, but it was a nice byproduct. That's like me saying, oh, you know, I had my son, which I don't have a son. I have two girls.

But I had my son because I knew one day that he would be able to mow my grass. you know i'm going to spend millions of dollars raising this kid so that he can mow my grass for x number of years i thought you're going to say you had them for had your kids for tax write-offs for tax write-offs so after the youngest son marise junior was born that's when the marriage started to get rocky from 1955 to 57 the family lived together but in november 1957 Mori signed a quick claim deed on their house, and he just moved out. Richard became a ward of the state, but Mary and her three sons remained together. So the adopted child went back to the state?

Yeah, that's what all the research said. It seems strange to me because, you know, he would have been in the family at that point for nine years. Yeah. Are you telling me he's not part of the family? Seems a little brutal. Was that a legal thing? I mean, if they legally adopted him, yeah, there was no context around it, but I did find it on. In March 1958, Mary and her children moved to Levittown, Pennsylvania. Maurice quit his job at the Jersey State Hospital, and he moved to New York City. He filed a

habeas corpus action because Mary refused to let him see his children. In 1961, Maurice was ordered to pay Mary $28 a week in child support. He sued for divorce and that divorce was granted in 1966. So, I mean, they separated in what, 57. Yeah. And it wasn't until nine years later that they actually got the divorce. It sounds like it was three or four years before he was even ordered to pay child support. But the strange thing about this was after the divorce, divorce, Maurice disappeared. Well, at the very least, you'd have to say it's pretty interesting timing. Divorce granted, Maurice disappears.

It was said that Mary seemed happy in her new home in Levittown. Mary was mainly known for wearing men's clothing and walking around hunched over. Okay. The men's clothing, I get. It's fashion choice. Sure. The hunched over. Okay, people are going to notice that.

Maybe she had a bad bag or some other physical element. But she did have some friends. She even participated in a local bowling league. One of her bowling teammates had a teenage daughter. And this daughter started dating Mary's son, Robert. Robert and his girlfriend eventually planned to get married until rumors came out about Mary's past. In the fall of 1966, women around town started receiving obscene letters.

about Mary's past when Robert and his girlfriend announced their engagement, the girl's family objective. Well, that's a punch in the face for Robert. Yeah, I'm sure he loved this girl. He wanted to marry this girl. Now, it's 1966, right? You can't jump on Google and, and pay whatever to do a background check on somebody. But there is the gossip network that's been around for as long as we've been around, I guess. And once something starts going around town, it can take off like wildfire. And then you've got your classic game of telephone. But the girl's family received strange letters. They received some strange phone calls. Someone once threw rocks at a window of their home. So whoever this was was someone who I'm thinking did not want their daughter to,

to marry Mary's son. And they were willing to harass her family and make sure it didn't happen. But if you're the parents, and first of all, you find out about the past, okay, it's kind of set you back a little bit. You know, if you get the particulars. Right. As we laid them out, doesn't look great. You killed a five-year-old girl.

Now, I get it, a jury acquitted you of murder, manslaughter. it doesn't change the fact that you were involved in the death of this girl in some way. There's just no way around it. Yeah. You admitted to it at least. T-Cat fans, you've heard me talk about CBD for years. But I was hesitant at first, but I've been a user for a number of years now. If you've ever wondered whether your CBD was working, well, that means it probably wasn't.

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your first order of $40 or more at NextEvo.com with promo code T-CAT. That's 25% off at N-E-X-E-O-D-com. promo code T-Cat, T-C-C-A-T-T-T-T. Things settled down for a few months until a horrifying tragedy devastated the community on March 23rd, 1967. 47-year-old wife and mother Lorraine Mullery was bludgeon to death inside her home. Two children inside the home were beaten and severely injured. Lorraine lived in Levittown, Pennsylvania, just three miles from Mary Mamon. A neighbor told the police that she saw a stranger walk into Lorraine's garage at 735 a.m. on March 23rd, 1967.

Lorraine's body was found about an hour and 15 minutes later. We mentioned it, right? There were two children inside the home with Lorraine, both of whom were brutally attacked. Another neighbor, Ethel Markham, the mother of one of the children who was attacked, said she received a phone call at 8 a.m. From a woman who called herself Mrs. Muller. And this was about 50 minutes before Lorraine's body was found. and 25 minutes after the stranger was seen walking into the home.

This woman who claimed to be Mrs. Mullery told Ethel Markham that she received the letter involving her and said, I think you ought to come see me. The woman on the phone asked Mrs. Markham to come to her house to talk things over. Okay. Strange phone call. Very strange. Number one, why are you receiving a letter that has something to do with me? And it must be salacious to some degree for you to want to or need to talk about it right now.

In person. In person. But I think if you're on the other end of that call, at the very least, you're pretty curious. Of course. What's in this letter? I need to go talk to this person, especially because you believe it to be Mrs. Muller. You know this person.

Right. So why not pop over and have a chat? Mrs. Markham got dressed and went down the street to Lorraine Mullery's house. She knocked on the door, but no one answered, but she heard the TV playing loudly inside the home. She went back home and told her daughter Nancy, who was friends with the Mullery children, Nancy said that she might have gone to the wrong house. So Ethel sent Nancy to check on the family at 8.30 a.m. At 8.50 a.m., Nancy Markham was found. in a pool of blood inside the Mullery home. Lorraine was found lying on the floor of her bedroom.

Lorraine's son Donald was found in another bedroom. All three had been beaten about the head. Viciously, we've already said that Lorraine died. Lorraine's daughter, Patricia Ann Mullery, and neighbor Andrew Mealy found the bodies inside the home. Patricia and Andrew had left the house at 7.30 a.m. to walk to church together. When they came back to the house, they said they heard moaning and they found the victims pretty quickly once they got inside. They ran out of the house screaming, ran to a neighbor's house and called the police. So this wasn't your typical Pleasantville neighborhood at that moment. Not at that moment, but it sounded like before it might have been, right? They got up. They went to church. They came home. Obviously, they were not expecting to walk inside and, and, you know,

find what they did. Neighbor Pearl Scott said that she saw a stranger enter through the garage at 7.35 a.m. She and her husband were positive about the time because Mr. James Scott left for work each morning at 735 a.m. They described the stranger as a white man in his late 20s, about 5,7 and 160 pounds. There were other neighbors that reported seeing the stranger as well. So based on this timeline, it was thought that the killer was most likely inside the home when Ethel Markham received the strange phone call. Lorraine's oldest son, Edward Mullery, left home at 6.30 a.m.

to take a pre-induction exam at the Army induction center. Lorraine's husband Thomas left for work at 6.45 a.m. Both husband and son were informed about the murder, around 9 a.m. 11-year-old Donald Mullery and 12-year-old Nancy Markham were beaten by the killer. They both were in critical condition

due to their head injuries and they were unconscious for several days. The police came out and said that they believed Donald was attacked when Ethel Markham went to the house. And it was just two days later on March 25th that

the police questioned Mary Mamie. They learned that the Markums knew her. So she became a suspect like very, very quickly. And the police began to monitor her. But they couldn't arrest her. They didn't have the evidence to do that. And then Mary disappeared shortly after this. She was last seen in Atlantic City, New Jersey on March 28, 1967, according to her son,

Robert. Okay, police come to question you. And then you bolt. never looks good. Well, the police were already suspicious of her, so that had to raise it up a notch. On March 29th, Nancy Markham regained consciousness

and was able to answer questions. So no doubt, she received some very serious injuries. She was not able to speak for, what, about six days, unconscious, but even after she regained consciousness, she still could not speak.

All she could do was squeeze the DA's hand when he asked her yes or no questions. Okay. Like the old squeeze twice for yes and once for no. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I think they even did one for yes, two for no. Switched it up. I think you could do it either way.

Yeah. But doing this, Nancy was able to confirm that Mary Maiman was in the house on the morning of March 23rd. So running away is damning, but when a victim tells the police that you were there, okay, even, even more damning. It's going to be hard to dispute it. Yeah, you can try. And obviously a defense attorney would try, but how difficult is it going to be to impugn the credibility of this witness, this victim who was there, who was beaten very, very badly? And she comes out and says, no, this is exactly who was there. Sure. The Bristol Township Police announced on March 29, 1967, that the FBI had a warrant out for Mary's arrest for the murder of Lorraine Mullery.

Mary was described as armed and dangerous. In papers, Francis McGinley, Lorraine's mother, described the crime as a frightful mistake. She said that Lorraine didn't know Mary Mamon. And I guess there was a letter M on the front door of the Mullery home that Francis believed led Mary to believe it was Ethel Markham's home. So kind of like a case of mistaken identity? Well, that's what Lorraine's mother was trying to say. You know, it was also put out in some of the papers that Lorraine didn't know the Markham's well, but she did know of them. Thomas Mullery told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he agreed with Francis's statement. And he said, I don't know why this happened.

My house has been open to everybody. And I think she had the wrong house. So they're not saying that Mary wasn't a killer, but they're saying that what? She meant to kill Ethel Markham. Yeah. And not Lorraine Mullery. Bristol Township police chief Harry Merker revealed there was a connection between Mary Mammon and Ethel Markham. A relative of Ethel's was engaged to Mary's oldest son, Robert.

So this goes back to the two kids wanting to get married. The family doesn't want it to happen. And Ethel was a part of this. She and the family wanted to break them up after they found out about the murder of Nancy Glenn. On November 3rd, 1966, Robert met with the family to ask them for permission to marry his girlfriend, but they refused. Just two days later, on the fifth, Mary quit her job. As a lab tech at a food processing firm, people in town started receiving strange letters shortly after this happened. Robert Mayman filed a complaint with the DA's office

about a letter he received on December 27th. The letter called his mother a child killer. And I guess a bunch of other people in town received similar letters. About 10 anonymous letters were sent to the maimans neighbors, Robert, Robert's girlfriend. I was really trying to get the word out. That this woman was bad news. Yeah.

And she killed a five-year-old girl 30 years ago. The police and Lorraine's family believed that Mary set out to attack Ethel Markham at 19 peony road, but accidentally went to Lorraine's home. home, which had an address of nine, Pony Road. And you know the word Pony is just fun to say. Yeah, PNA, Pione, however you want to say it. However you want to say it. That's the beauty of language, right?

So we mentioned it. Mary was last seen in Atlantic City. She was driven by her son Robert. The FBI had two houses under surveillance, believing that she was hiding with relatives. Mary's parents turned all reporters away, but they did say that they had no idea where she was. Robert, Thomas, and Maurice Mayman were arrested as material witnesses. Robert appealed by telephone for Mary to contact him using a special phone number.

After Robert issued the message to his mom, the phone rang several times. The police picked up the phone, but the caller hung up each time. And 30 years before, in episode one, we talked about how Mary's best friend was arrested as a material witness. And I found that terminology to just be so strange. I get it you're a material witness. But why would you be arrested? Maybe they want to make sure that the witness didn't leave, didn't disappear, didn't go anywhere.

I get that. I get that. That doesn't happen today, does it? I don't think so unless they put them on our protective custody. but even then you wouldn't be considered arrested unless you had done something wrong. I just found it to be strange terminology. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they still do it today, but I've just not seen it. Mary Mayman boarded a Greyhound bus and arrived in Mobile, Alabama on April 1st, 1967. She found a convent and confessed to a nun that she was wanted for murder. And how reminiscent is this of the

murder of Nancy Glenn. It's true. It's almost as if, you know, this woman does something she knows is wrong and she cannot wait to get to somebody to confess about what she's done. She's got a real confession fetish. Yeah. She likes to confess. She does. Now, she's done horrible things. She has things to confess too. Sure. The attorney of the archbishop encouraged her to surrender to the FBI. Mary called her parents and told them that she did want to surrender. That same day, Mary's attorney, Edward Connolly, called the DA and asked to speak to him about a confidential matter. DA Ward Clark and Chief Harry Merker along with Mary's attorney, flew into Mobile to meet

with Mary. And after this meeting, Mary was charged with murder and two counts of assault with intent to kill. The Philadelphia Daily News reported that Nancy Markham was able to speak by April 4th. And her very first words were she did it. Mary did it. Get her away. Don't let her get me. This is a girl who is absolutely traumatized by the thought that Mary Maimon is going to come finish the job.

Yeah. How frightening is that? But at least she's quick on letting authorities. who did this. So by my way of thinking, this is a very courageous girl. She's scared, but she's still willing to tell the police what happened and name her attacker. After a judge ordered Mary to be extradited to Pennsylvania, she filed a writ of habeas corpus, the local circuit court, the state appeals court, and the Supreme Court denied her writ of habeas corpus. In January 1968, she was extradited to Pennsylvania.

Donald Mullery was admitted to an institution for people with disabilities due to the severe brain damage. He suffered during this attack. I think it just shows you how extremely brutal it was. Lorraine was killed. Donald was beaten so severely that, you know, he developed severe brain damage. And the brutality carried over to Nancy. Yeah, we know what happened to Nancy. She was unconscious for a long time.

And then even after that, it took her a long time to just be able to speak. And she eventually, even though she did regain her speech, she became partially paralyzed. So a lot of very severe injuries, including Lorraine's death. Mary's trial began on October 27th, 1969. The trial lasted a little bit more than a month. month, the prosecution argued that Mary intended to kill Ethel Markham for revenge over Roberts' failed engagement. And she used the Mullery House to lure Ethel over. Mary's defense argued that she was haunted by her first trial, which, as they put it, caused her to do unusual and extraordinary

things. But they also claimed that Mary was home watching TV when Lorraine Mullery was murdered. The defense is saying she's eccentric and she did some strange things. But on the day of the murder, she was at home watching TV. Yeah. And I think they're saying that she was strange. She did some strange things. But it was all because of the fact that she was haunted by her first trial. Detective Richard Batesle was questioned about reading newspaper clippings from Mary's first trial back in November, 1966.

He testified that he. did this because he had information that Mary was involved in obscene letter writing and had been on trial for murder before. So this guy believed Mary was guilty of writing the letters and making the phone calls to her neighbors in the fall of 1966. He also believed that she was the one who threw rocks at the window of Mary Ann Martin's home. Mary was Roberts. Mary was Roberts, former fiance. So some interesting things coming out. Yeah. And to me, what was interesting was, you know, this detective being questioned about why he was reading newspaper clippings from Mary's first trial. And he said, because I had reason to believe she was writing these letters, making these phone calls.

Well, and then I found out she had been on trial for murder before. I think as a detective, you would maybe want to read up on that a little bit. Find out the particulars. Yeah. See how it may or may not be relevant. This is good detective work. Exactly. The prosecution presented a set of papers. They found inside Mary's house. The papers were descriptions of the nervous system and how it worked. Dr. William Sagan presented Nancy and Donald's X-ray pictures and he testified about their injuries. Dr. Sagan testified that hammer or some type of similar instrument was used to attack the victims. And it just so happens that the state found a hammer on a church lawn in Fairless Hills and determined that this hammer was the murder weapon.

Now, Mary's defense team argued that a hammer found in the Mullery home was the murder weapon. There was a bloodstained hammer found inside the house, but the blood was of such a small quantity that it couldn't be determined if it was animal or human blood. But this other hammer found on the lawn of a local church, several miles from the house, was stained with a lot more blood. Patricia Mullery testified that the day before her mom was murdered, she used a hammer to fix her brother's bedroom door.

She left the hammer lying across the lap of a teddy bear. And a photo of the crime scene shows the hammer in the exact same spot. That's what it takes care of that hammer. Yeah. I think it would. You know, if you believe everybody's story, which, why would they have a reason to lie? People do lie, but, you know, for me, and I know I've said it, but I look at the circumstances. Right.

Why would Patricia need to lie about something like that? And then it just so happens that they have a crime scene. photo that shows the exact same thing. The prosecution did concede to the jury that none of Mary's fingerprints were found inside Mrs. Mullery's home. What they did find were the Mullery fingerprints, which you would expect to find, of course, and some other unidentified individuals. Nancy Markham identified Mary Mayman as the person who hit her three times.

Nancy testified that she knocked on the Mullery's front door after her mother said, send her over. The door opened and she walked inside and then the door shut behind her and she saw someone in men's clothing standing behind it. Then she said, a woman's voice said, Ethel, I have you now. Nancy said, I turned around. I didn't know what to do. I took her hat and glasses off. I saw it was Mary. I said Mary and I ran. I ran into Mrs. Mullery's room. She said she was going to. to get me. I was running all around the house. I ran upstairs. I was trying to get the windows open. I couldn't get out real fast. Mary then did come to get me. She said, I have you now. Then I thought if I ran, she might leave me alone. I ran real fast. I forget where I saw Donnie. So obviously,

you know, you have a young girl talking here. I don't know exactly how old she is, but the Ethel I have you now. Okay. I mean, that lines perfectly with the prosecutions theory. Yeah, but it still didn't stop Mary. I mean, she knew that it was Nancy and she still continued to pursue. Well, my assumption is at that point, she's thinking, I'm caught. Somebody who knows me has identified me can easily wrap me out. So I have to do something. Nancy said that she found Donald, unconscious inside the house on his bed. She said in court, I was running all around. My slipper came off from one of my legs.

I stopped in the hall. I thought, should I run or should I get my slipper? I was thinking of that. Then she got me on my back. Then she hit me real hard three times. So you and I often talk about, you know, what's powerful to a jury, what sinks in, what might kind of glance off or just go over people's heads. says, you know, to me, testimony like this from a victim, very specific testimony, I saw her,

I knew who she was, she chased me, she hit me three times, very powerful. Was this something you can visualize so easily, brings it home? That's definitely damning. Yeah. For sure. And then Nancy confirmed that the hammer that was in court was the hammer used in the attack. But she said the hammer was different.

because the handle had been cut. An FBI agent testified that a three-inch splinter of rubber found in Mary's home matched the portion cut out of the handle of the hammer. Detective searched Mary's home on March 29th, 1967, and they took 80 items of evidence. They took a knife, a paper bag with brillo pads, a cigarette package with shavings. These shavings were believed to be part of the hammer

found it to church. So not looking good for Mary here, but I thought that back in 1937 or so as well. It was not looking good for Mary. No, but really shouldn't be looking good here. No, I think it's looking even worse here. Robert Maiman testified that on November 3rd, 1966, he went to pick up his fiance, Mary, to take her to be married. Mary Ann's friends informed him that her mother had taken her way. So he met with her parents that night. A police detective told them that he suspected Mary Mayman of harassing the Martin family. Robert testified that his mother told Marianne about the Nancy Glenn trial before the meeting. Mary was allegedly invited to the meeting, but Marianne's mother called her and told her not to come. Robert said that he couldn't recall exactly why

Mary Ann refused to marry him, but he said it had something to do with what her parents said about his mother. He also admitted that he lied when he told the police he took Mary to Atlantic City on March 28th. He actually drove her to New York City and was going to drive her to her parents' house in Philadelphia, but the police were following him. On the day of the murder, he said Mary asked him to remove a pair of boots and a coat from a house. He left them in North New Jersey. The coat was later found cut into almost 500 pieces and hidden under a rock. Wow.

That's a minger management there. Or is it someone who's being very calculating? You know, the one thing that we haven't talked about is blood. You start hitting people in the head with a hammer with violent blows. Yeah. There's going to be some blood spattered. You're going to get some of that on your clothing. So if this was the coat that you were wearing when you committed the murders and,

and, you know, almost killed two other people, maybe you want somebody to get rid of that coat. That's a lot of pieces, though. 500 pieces. That's a lot of cutting. That's a lot of cutting. That's a lot of shoving in underneath a rock. Mary's defense argued that she was home with her son Maurice on the morning of March 23rd. But Mary refused to let Maurice testify because she,

was worried that he would incriminate himself. And I guess she had an outburst during the trial over him testifying. It was reported that this was her only outburst. But really, Maurice was her key alibi witness. He was the only one who could put Mary at home at the general time of the murder. So no doubt, him not testifying really hurt her case. Now, we don't know if the jury would have believed him. We don't know that. But if you say what your alibi is and say that there's only one person that can corroborate it, but you don't want that person to testify.

That's a problem. It's a problem for you. Yeah. As a defendant. I think if you're the prosecution, you're jumping up and down thinking we got you. At trial, Mary testified that she had been acting oddly since the November meeting, Robert revealed that Mary Ann's family showed him a newspaper clipping about the murder trial. After the meeting, Mary received a threatening phone call, ordering her to confess before the

caller went to the police. Mary did confess to a minister that she sent obscene letters to Robert and his girlfriend. She's sending obscene letters to everybody. She's a letter writer. Family members, girlfriends of family members, parents of girlfriends of family members, neighbors. But again, here you have this compulsion to confess. This time it's to a minister. On November 26, 1969, Mary Mayman was found guilty of first degree murder.

The jury deliberated for about four hours, which, if I remember correctly, was the exact same amount of time that they deliberated in her first murder. her favor then. Yeah, it ended up in her favor this time it didn't. And then they took another hour to sentence her to life in prison. The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote, Mary cried out. After the sentencing and said, they took my life away. I didn't do this. Mary Maiman spent the next 14 years in prison. She filed a number of appeals for clemency, but each of them was rejected. her last hearing took place in 1982 and it was said Gibbs at 14,000 Levittown residents submitted signatures opposing her release.

Okay. You get 14,000 people to come together on anything. That means they do not like you. They don't want you in their society, in their neighborhood. They really want you to stay in prison. Yeah. If you're an appointed official, you're taking notice of that. Yeah, it's a lot of people. Yeah. It's a lot of votes. Now, Mary was reportedly a model prisoner, but in the late 70s, she stopped participating in activities because of severe illness and hip problems. She also became depressed when her cat died. Wait, they get cats in prisons? Yeah, apparently inmates used to be allowed to have cats, at least in Pennsylvania. I don't know if that was going on everywhere or, you know, if that still goes on in some places. So Mary purchased a cat.

She even had the cat neutered. But due to an overpopulation issue, the prison decided to get rid of all cats. Oh, well, that's sad. Yeah, that's like taking Brooks from Shawshank's bird away. Yeah, mean. But then again, somebody has to buy all that cat leather. Yeah, it seems like it would get messy and could get smelly.

Yeah. real quick. Now, I can't imagine they allowed the cats inside the cells. Maybe they did. I don't know. Neither. Well, hopefully they found good home for them. I'm sure they did. 64-year-old Mary Maiman died in the hospital on May 9, 1983 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. She died of acute emphysema and respiratory failure. And I think this just shows you, you know, how young she was at whatever, 19 years old when, you know, the first murder trial happened. We were talking about 1937. Now we're in 1983 and she dies at only 64 years old. Gibbs, as we wrap up this case, I'll be honest with you when, you know, the research started,

I had no idea that this would be a two-parter. I just didn't realize how much information there was out there. how much there was to this case, I had never heard of Mary Keenan O'Connor before. Well, it was definitely an interesting case and had so many different layers to it. Like you said, there's no way to tell this story in one episode. No, and you heard us reference the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News. Obviously, you know, it can be very tough to find information on a case that goes back to the, to the 1930s, but they did a lot of reporting. on it. It, it kind of made the, uh, the headlines dominated there for a while. But I want to talk about Mary. You know, we said in episode one, people, you know, they had some strange things to say

about her. You know, you and I talked about the, the term queer as being used in the paper. And I said, you know, I'm seeing it used more and more, an article. on, you know, news stations. And one of our really good listeners reached out to me through Instagram and really filled me in on the word. And obviously she talked about how, you know, for a very long time, that was an extremely derogatory term. I think that's why I said I never used it. And I probably won't use it. But she also enlightened me on how certain members of the LGBTQ plus community have taken that word back. But she did say that it's possible that some people above a certain age would still find it offensive. Okay. So it's being used by some members, but maybe not all

is the way that she related to me. So I actually did learn. learn a lot. I still don't think it's a word that I will use. I'm not comfortable with it. Kind of got to know your audience. Well, I'm not comfortable with a lot of words because I still don't feel like I'm knowledgeable enough to use it correctly or even if I should be trying to use it correctly. Welcome to my world of just the general English language. But that's every, that's just every word for you. I mean, you know, these are very sensitive topics to many. To many, many people and the last thing that you and I would ever want to do is to say something inadvertently that would harm a group or make a group feel bad or make anyone feel bad.

But I thought it was very nice for this person to write into me and to try to help me understand a little bit about the word and how it's being used today by some. and that even some in the same community don't agree that the word should be used. So there is, you know, and I think it's split along some ages. But to me, you know, in the end, Mary Mayman murdered a young girl. She got away with it. And then 30 years later, she murdered a wife and a mother to three children. She murdered one victim in a fit of rage.

And another victim was murdered as part of. a revenge plot. Like I said, this is not a case that's very well known. As far as I know, there's no documentary on Hulu or Netflix covering this case or, you know, there's really not been any type of modern journalism that has covered it. We had to go back through, you know, archival newspaper clippings, you know, back, back to the 30s. But her crimes and multiple acts of violence against young children. are just as horrifying today. When you think about what she did as they were, you know, so many decades ago, it's kind of shocking.

It is. And it's, you know, it's a shame that she didn't receive a guilty verdict when she was younger. Maybe this would have stopped some of her violent tendencies. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know what her ultimate sentence would have been in 1937. Yeah. And again, we don't have all the particulars of that trial.

We don't know exactly what the jury heard. And we don't know exactly what the quote unquote misconduct was. Yeah. Inside that jury room. Does it make you wonder what, if any, occurred in between the two murders? In those 30 years? Yeah. Absolutely.

I mean, if this is a person who had a pension for, you know, letting her rage get the best of her. And that's probably a euphemistic way to say it, right? She gets upset. She hits a five-year-old girl at least once. In her confession, I believe she said twice, and then covers her up and leaves. Now, whether she put her face in the mud puddle or not, if she didn't, are we saying somebody else came along later? Right. And move that child who was possibly still alive into the mud puddle, that doesn't seem plausible, does it? I mean, knowing the future and what she did? Yeah. You'd be able to easily go back and say, oh, she had to do that. Yeah, I think that's what's so interesting about this case.

You can take both pieces separately. And obviously, a jury convicted her. The evidence was pretty strong in that second case in that murder and the beatings. But you can take that first one separately and just kind of analyze it. But then when you know what happens later, it's tough not to apply some of that knowledge back to the first case. You almost wish you had that machine Tom Cruise had back in that, back in the day in that movie. Minority report?

Oh, yeah. You get the red ball? Yeah, exactly. That's what you needed. That's actually a good movie. I like it. I don't know if it's a good movie, but I like it.

You know, the movies that I like, don't always equate to being good. Right. You and I talked about some stuff on Patreon this week in our weekly sneak previews about movies and things like that. I like a lot of movies that people probably would not call good, quote unquote good. But entertaining.

But I thought the minority report was a very entertaining movie. But that's it for our episode on Mary Keenan O'Connor. To me, she just seemed like a, like such an enigma. You know, a girl who seemed to have a good life. Yeah. She was well liked. A lot of people said really, really good things about her. But to do that to a five-year-old.

And again, that victim's mother accused her of also hurting her four-year-old and three-year-old. Yeah. True. Whether those accusations are correct or not. And then, you know, the second one is kind of obviously a no-brainer. But there's so much mystery around that first one. But I'll be honest with you, when I got done with episode one and we had wrapped up the trial, I knew what was going to come.

Right. But still in my head, I thought, this woman's guilty. Yeah. Now, you could argue about the sentence or what the exact charge and or verdict should be, but there's guilt somewhere somehow in my mind. And so, you know, to walk away. from that with nothing. I thought was,

it was unbelievable. But it happened. It did. We got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Yes, hear him. Yeah, this is Isaiah from Virginia once again. I said I'm pretty much every week. I'm pretty much caught up with

everything that's been posted. I listen to you guys on my Apple podcast. But I just want to mention this Um, Marciino Rizendez, Angel, Matarino, uh, Rizendez, and, um, he was born 196, um, a Mexican serial killer, you know, they say he was suspected for 23 murders across the United States.

Um, basically how he would, uh, commit his crimes was he would, uh, railroad or I guess jump on train to, uh, travel across the country and, uh, just hop off the train and, uh, fuck. So hopefully one day you guys could make it a next episode. So, yeah, thank you, as you do. Definitely going to continue listening to the podcast, of course. I definitely want to become a member as well. Yeah, that's it.

Keep your own. All right. That part caught out, but I knew what he was going to say. Keep your own time ticking. That case is so familiar. Why do I feel like we did that case? I kind of feel like the same thing, or we talked about it as a

kind of a sidebar as part of another case. As a potential suspect in another case. Yes, because it's so familiar. And I am a little bit familiar with that case. I haven't researched it completely, but we better get on it. We will.

Oh my God. I left a message and totally forgot to say who I was. My name is Laura. I'm from Sterling in Scotland. And I love your podcast. So can you just delete the last one? I think it would be awesome if you guys said,

Stephen Port who's also known as the Grindr Killer and Levi Belfield and also Dennis Nielsen who was he did a lot of very nasty stuff in I think London but he is from air in Scotland and there is an

amazing documentary starring David Tennant that you guys should absolutely watch so keep your own time ticket and keep your heap on a swivel. All the best. See, Scotland. Bye-bye.

We're going to have to do it for Scotland. I love the accent. I absolutely love it. It's great. You'd be surprised how many voicemails I delete. Yeah. Because the second voice mail says, hey, can you please delete the first one and listen to this one instead?

And why do I think we did Dennis Nilsson too? Yeah, that one sounds so familiar. They all sound familiar. I might be losing it. Levi Bellfield sounded familiar. I don't know. I got to, you know, that is starting to become the problem. When you get to almost 300, well, we got 270 something on unsolved.

Yeah. They do start to blend together. It's hard to remember what you've done. We should pull up that spreadsheet. Well, we keep a spreadsheet, obviously. We're not going to do like the second episode. I say that and we're going to make a mistake one time and do an episode we've already done. Yeah.

Hi, I'm Mike and Gibby. My name is Katie. I'm calling because you guys are my favorite true crime podcast. And I wanted to kind of mention the world's youngest serial killer. He was born in India in 1998. I'm not even going to try to say his name because I know I'm going to butcher it. I think Givie would probably do a better job. I would. But anyways, he just, I don't know, just youngest serial killer India and he would pop up.

I don't know if there's enough information about him to do a true crime podcast, but I don't know. If anyone could do it, you guys could. But anyway, thank you so much. I hope you guys have a great day. And bye. So thank you for the kind words. We appreciate that first off. And then something we need to check into. Yeah, and I would nail the name down perfectly. You didn't even get that sentence out correctly. That's the best part. You would nail the name, but the sentence didn't come out quite right.

So that's it for our voicemails. We didn't have a mailbag. Yeah. And Keri Griffin, and I hope I'm pronouncing that first name correctly, sent us a whole box of goodies from Japan. Ooh. I'm super excited. Yeah.

So in her letter, she said she's lived in Japan for the last 15 years, but she was visiting family here in the U.S. So she brought all the goodies over and then mailed it from here. Oh, yeah. Because apparently she said it's very hard to mail stuff out from Japan right now. Okay. Because of everything that's going on, I guess. Oh, I got you.

But there's some stuff in there that I really want to try. The problem is I don't know what it is because all the writing is in Japanese. Oh, I can help you out there. So I could be eating something that I don't want to eat. Like chocolate covered fish? Maybe. Yeah. I think to be.

safe, you should probably try one of each thing first and then let's see how that goes. And that will determine, you know, how I want to proceed. What Japanese is pretty good. It is. It is. I'm shocked at how many languages you speak. It's amazing. All right, buddy. That is it for another episode of True Crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.