True Crime Campfire - Episode 10: The Puppet Master and the Prince of Darkness, Part 10: Loose Threads

Episode Date: November 8, 2019

Join us as we tie up some loose ends: a spot of bother for Prosecutor Rick Guida, a shocking legal development for Jay C. Smith (and our extreeeemely irate reaction to it), Bill Bradfield's Prison Daze, and our theory of how this crime happened. Season 1 ends with a bang--and we can't wait for Season 2!Follow us, campers!Patreon: https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. So, when we last left you, all was right with the world. Campers? Jay Smith had been convicted of the murders of Susan, Karen, and Michael Reinhard, and there was much rejoicing. Boy, do we wish we could leave it there, right, Katie? But unfortunately, shit happens sometimes in this big old wide world of ours, and there are some developments that we have to tell you about before we can get to our theory of this crime.

The Puppet Master and the Prince of Darkness, Part 10, Loose Threads. So first, we got to talk about prosecutor Rick Guida, the undoubtedly brilliant attorney who convicted Bill Bradfield and Jay Smith, and gave us all goosebumps with his closing argument at the end of the last episode, if you guys recall. So after Smith's trial, Rick Guida, bless him, he, um, he, got himself into a spot of bother. Specifically, he was fond of cocaine, apparently, and so were a lot of his buds. Now, remember, it was the 80s, and Katie, I know you're too, you're too young. This is before my time. I mean, it's before my time.

I was a child, so it's not like, you weren't doing key bumps in the bathroom because I was in elementary school, but it was the 80s and cocaine was king. and in 1990, Rick Guido was prosecuted for distribution of cocaine and pled guilty to a felony distribution charge for, quote, supplying cocaine to numerous friends and associates while in office as deputy attorney general. Not good. And to using coke with his buddy Henry Barr, who was an aide to the attorney general. Rick, buddy. Rick, Rick, Rick. the 80s were wild man so we can say about that

but a 1990 Washington Post article about the case said that this shed light on a quote 15 month federal drug investigation that officials say has uncovered widespread cocaine use among professionals at the highest levels of Pennsylvania and federal law

enforcement who boy so that's just never what you want to hear right that's just never what the citizenry really wants to hear about its leaders in the 80s or any other time, right? No. Yeah.

Oof. So this trouble of Guides was described at the time as a sad-in to a soaring law career, but everybody loves a comeback. At the end of the day, it did not keep Rick down for long. He was sentenced to 11 months in prison and a $5,000 fine, and he was disbarred for a while, but he kept his nose clean. Let's see what I did there. I'm such a jokester

And eventually he got reinstated with the bar And from what we can tell via Google Now we might be wrong because it's just It's a Rick L. Guida that seems to be Exactly the right age He seems to still be a practicing attorney In Pennsylvania today which I think is astounding Yeah that's amazing

Maybe in his late 60s probably Something like that Probably So there's that We can't gloss over it guys We're here to tell you the truth And life got even worse for Guida for a while shortly after he pled guilty to cocaine distribution though and this is

because and I just want to take a minute to say that y'all I am so sorry that I have to tell you what I have to tell you here and I would like us all campers Katie to take a moment before I tell you what I have to tell you so we can all just kind of enjoy the warm glow that comes from imagining J. Charles Smith spending the rest of his miserable life in prison Isn't that nice? Just let that wash over. So nice. So nice.

Okay. Now that we've had that nice moment, now I have to wreck your world and tell you that shortly after his conviction for murder, Jay Smith filed an appeal. Never a man to be kept down long. And that appeal would eventually work its way up to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. So Smith and his appellate team had two points for this appeal. First, they argued that prisons. snitch Raymond Martre. Now, you remember this was the former cop and convicted burglar who wore a

wire to try to get Smith to incriminate himself. Remember him? He was the one who got Smith on tape saying, I killed the fucking bitch and plotting prison escapes and all that. Ray Martre. Well, prosecutor Guida, Detective Jack Holtz, and Raymond Martre himself, all claimed at the time of the investigation and the pre-trial and during the trial that Martre did not receive a deal of any kind for his testimony against Smith. However, it turns out that during the time that Martre was working with the police to try to get Smith to incriminate himself on the wire, the investigators had in fact helped him get out of prison on bail pending his appeals on the charges that had put him

behind bars. And if you recall, Martre had been in jail for two things. Burglary and perjury. Now, he ended up getting the perjury charged overturned, which I'm sure you guys will remember from an earlier episode. that was partially due to Jay Smith's jailhouse lawyering on his behalf because remember Smith wanted Martre to lie and say that that other

inmate had confessed to him that he was responsible for the Sears Robbie remember the poor disabled guy with the brain injury and everything remember all that yeah so that's why Smith helped him because he wanted that perjury charge cleared so that Martre could testify on his behalf not how it happened when he successfully got that perjury charge overturned it made him able to testify against Smith's irony. So the appeal on the burglary charge was not successful, though,

and Martre was supposed to go back to jail, of course, once that failed, because he was just let out pending these appeals. But he never went back. His bail was never revoked, and he never had to go back to prison after he testified in Smith's trial. Now, the appeals court found that the state's claim that this had nothing to do with his testimony against Smith was dubious. And that their claim that he hadn't received a deal for his cooperation was semantics and was misleading to the jury. Because it seemed clear to them that even if there wasn't anything necessarily on paper, nobody ever used the word deal. He was never necessarily, like, promised anything. Like, they clearly had greased the wheels for him, it seemed to the appeals card.

So, out, right? Point two had to do with those two grains of a sparkly crystalline substance that were, were found on Susan's feet at autopsy. Now, y'all probably remember that that came up at Smith's trial. The defense attorney Costopoulos mentioned it during his cross-examination of the state's fingerprint examiner, and he got the guy to say that he'd found the grains and that they were some kind of courts consistent with beach sand. As you'll recall, of course, Bill Bradfield and his entourage were at the Jersey Shore

the weekend of the murder, so you could argue that the presence of beach sand on Susan's feet could be an indication that she was killed at the beach. i.e. by Bill and his friends, Vince, Chris, and Sue Myers, right? Now, apparently, the fingerprint examiner guy had collected these grains from Susan's foot using a couple of little rubber lifter thingies. They call them lifters. And according to Smith's appeal, the lifters were discovered and the sand on them six days before the end of Smith's trial. And the guy who discovered him apparently just sat on that information for several days and didn't tell anybody that, like, hey, these haven't.

been given to the defense. Finally, he told Detective Holtz, who immediately contacted prosecutor Guida, who decided that they were, quote, not material to the case, which is a stretch for sure. The Smith Appeals team argued that these lifters and the sand or whatever they contained were potentially exculpatory evidence, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed. Gwita should have turned him over to the defense so they could have done whatever testing and whatnot they wanted to do on these two grains of sand. Now, as we mentioned in the last episode, and, you know, I want to reiterate it here, you find sand in all kinds of places. For example, playgrounds, and Susan had two kids, and playground sand is quartz sand, right? So that seems like a reasonable argument that you

could make if you were, say, Rick Guida, and you wanted to refute that. And Susan had taken her kids to the shore. She'd been to the shore with friends in the months before her day. I mean, there were lots of opportunities to transfer sand to her car or her shoes or it could have been on the floor in Jay's basement. God only knows. I mean, have you ever been to the beach? That shit gets everywhere. I'm still finding sand from a trip we took to California years ago. Like 10 years ago, I still find sand. So it was just pure stupidity for the prosecution to withhold this evidence. And again, it did come up. The defense did know about it, but it seems like the actual physical stuff was not turned over.

And so that was just incredibly stupid. It was, well, at best it was stupid. At worst, it was misconduct, which is what the appeals court thought. And shame on them for it, right, Katie? Yep, because based on these two points, J. Smith was released from prison in 1992 after serving only six years in prison for the deaths of Susan, Karen, and Michael Ryder. I can't.

Because of the egregiousness, of the misconduct, according to the PA Supreme Court, another go at Jay would have been double jeopardy. In response to a newspaper interviewing him after his release, Jay said, I'm bitter. I'm angry. Do you have a nuclear bomb I could drop on Pennsylvania? That's how bitter I feel. The Pennsylvania State Police tried to kill me. Okay, Jay. Well, you can get fucked if you have a minute. Again, we're not commenting here on the merits of the appeal. We are.

are not, there is a huge difference between legal issues, which may be completely legit. And I think both of these issues are absolutely legit. I would have given him another trial. I sure as shit wouldn't have just let him go and attach double jeopardy to it, but I'm not a lawyer or a judge. So it's not that it's not that we're disagreeing that the appeal was successful or trying to let Guida off the hook. Shame on him. He must have done too much coke that day or something for god's sake we're not lawyers and we're able to hand wave away the same of it's just so stupid so shame on him 100% absolutely yes and if she had been killed on the shore or at the beach wouldn't she be covered in this stuff and not just two grains exactly so there's that

too so we're not commenting on the merits of the appeal we're just commenting on the fact that the dude is guilty as sin yeah if you're going to make an if you're going to make an example out of a case Like, I believe the Supreme Court did. It should not have been this one, because this dude is guilty as sin. This dude is guilty as sin. Yeah. And, of course, yes, the prosecutorial misconduct is egregious. I can't disagree with that.

But, well, for the rest of his life, Smith remarried and worked as, wait for it, an administrator of a nursing home near Wilkes Bar, Pennsylvania for years, which is, you know, fucking terrifying. He told a reporter in 2008 that no one there knew of his pass. Because Smith was a common name. And, okay, at one point, he sued Detective Jack Holtz. See, Holtz had been part of the appeal, though it doesn't seem to have been a factor in why the court ruled in Smith's favor. Basically, Smith took issue with the fact that Detective Holtz had accepted money.

I've seen it listed as 45. 5K, but I've also seen it listed as 50. I'm not sure which is accurate. And the money was from author Joseph Wamba for his cooperation with Wamba's book. This was in the form of what they call a personal depiction waiver, which is standard legal agreement which releases the author from liability for how the subject is portrayed in a book. In other words, I'm going to give you this check now and you'll agree to not sue me if you don't like how I portray you when the book comes He offered the same deal to Van Nort, but Van Nort died before he could accept their decline. Now, you can think what you like about the ethics of this, but it seems to be a thing that

nonfiction writers do, and it does seem to make some sense to me, at least from the writer's perspective, to avoid potential lawsuits down the road. Now, we did talk to a journalist about this, and she said these agreements are pretty standard for true crime writers and not, in her opinion, unethical for what that's worth. And I'm sure some people would disagree, and I don't expect everybody listening to like this, you know, but it does seem to be something that is fairly standard. So it wasn't like a big secretive under the table, unusual thing. Right. And for these types of agreements to be valid, there has to be an exchange of some sort.

So, you know, you do have to exchange money or some kind of service. Right. Because otherwise somebody can be taken advantage of. Yeah, sure. And campers, prepare yourselves because Smith also wrote and self-published a book in the early 2000s called Joseph Womba and the J. Smith case. Yeah, I'm calling Wambah out by name. And by the way, it was 439 pages long because there's not enough suffering in the world already. If you want to subject yourself to it is $23 on Amazon.com. I wonder where the money goes, like where it goes. He's dead, obviously.

And so is his wife. Maybe his, well... Well, his second wife... Well, no, surely she's dead by now. I mean, he was 80 when he died in 2009. Like, I doubt his... Maybe his daughter. Yeah, maybe his surviving daughter, Sherry.

Yeah, but... The one he didn't murder. And he doesn't... Yeah, you know, you got to keep one. This book, uh... He argued that Bill Bradfield and his cronies must have killed Susan and framed him for it. Mm-hmm. I mean, he was an easy mark.

Because he was already, quote, unquote, disgraced because of the Sears robbery and all the headlines about his dildo collection and whatnot. So, like, okay, Whitney, what do you think? Vince held Susan down while Chris tortured or what? I think it was probably Vince who did the torturing because I think, you know, the ones that seem sweet, they're deceptively sweet. I think his Clark Kent thing was just an act. So ridiculous. God, it's so ridiculous. Or maybe it was a little teenage Wendy.

Maybe she snuck down to the short. and did it, for Pete's sakes. All possible. No evidence to suggest like literally any of that, but sure, probably, that's what happened. Now, Smith concedes almost nothing in this book. The weed in his basement was his daughter, Stephanie's. He was only in the mall parking lot, peering into cars and trying doors the night. He got arrested because he was looking for his missing daughter.

I'm sorry, excuse me, what? I mean, you thought Stephanie was probably just hanging. out in somebody's car at the mall? What the fuck are you even talking about? That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard. So he was walking around in a ninja outfit, trying the doors of cars and peering in and had all that like burglar stuff in his car because he was just looking for Stephanie. He was concerned.

Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Pete's sake. And an interesting side note about his book, on the cover, he put up a picture of a guy called Mark Hughes, who was one of the team who discovered the evidence that got him freed on appeal. Hues apparently had no idea his picture was used this way, and he was paced when he found out. He also told a reporter that Smith had never even thanked him for saving him from the electric chair. Nice, Jay.

Classy as ever. And by the way, apparently this book is full of weird sexual ramblings that just come out of nowhere, which frankly is pretty on brand. For Smith. Now, Smith's original defense attorney, Costopoulos, wrote a book, too. This one is called Principal Suspect. Whitney took a, took a bullet, took one for the team, and read it. Bless her heart. Well, I read most of it. I will admit to not reading every word. I was unimpressed, but there you go. I mean, I slog through the thing, and that's because I care about all of you. it was a labor of love for the campers and mainly what I took from it

was that Costopoulos was half in love with Smith for some bizarre banana pants reason he just waxes eloquent about how clever he was and how youthful he looked despite his age and his time in prison and his brilliant method of using Maxwell House coffee grounds to dye his hair in jail I mean I am not making this up

and the book is just for the most part just boring as hell if I never have to read about one more damn meal that Costopoulos and his team had while they were working on Smith's case, I will die happy, is all I can say. It's just so dull for the most part. Thank you for your service. Anyway, Jay Smith died a free man in 2009 at the age of 80, of a heart condition. Of his death, Wamba said, I do not celebrate the death of any man, but Satan does. a number one draft pick has finally arrived.

Now, for the record, Wamba is still certain of Smith's guilt. Smith sued Wamba in 1990, and it went nowhere. I got thrown out of court, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. So, y'all, we are so mad about this.

We could spit nails. This is why we can't have nice things. Prosecutors need to understand. When you pull bullshit like this, all you're doing is ensuring that justice is not served because you're either going to convict an innocent man or, as in this case, you're going to set a horror show of a human being free. I'm perfectly confident that they could have and would have convicted Smith if they had just been honest about greasing the wheels from Maratray to stay out on bail pending his appeals and putting a good word in for him so he didn't go back to jail after he lost his burglary appeal. I'm perfectly confident that they would have still convicted him if they turn those grains of sand over to the defense. But they didn't want to risk it, I guess.

So they did something unethical and stupid, and here we are. Here we are, and I'm big mad about it, dang it. Because like Joseph Wembaugh and like you, Katie, I believe with every atom of my being that J. Smith is guiltier than hot-buttered sin on Sunday. So let's talk about why. Let's talk about our reasons why, if you really need us to after that last episode, why we believe that J. Charles Smith was guilty as hell. So first, of course, we have, just to recap,

we have the fact that Bill Bradfield perjured himself in Smith's trial for the Sears robbery, gave complete nonsense alibi testimony for the guy. Why would he do that? They weren't friends. They didn't, like, hang out together outside of school before all this started. So there's got to be a reason for that There's a quid pro quo in effect here We also have the red carpet fibers

That match the carpet remnant in Smith's basement These were found in her hair And there were a bunch of them We're not talking one or two Remember when they put that ultraviolet light On Susan's hair at the autopsy It lit up like a Christmas tree with those red fibers And they matched that remnant in Smith's basement

We also have the chain marks On Susan's neck that matched the size of the lengths of chain found in Smith's basement. We have the fact that he showed up to his sentencing for the Sears robbery 20 minutes late, with his hair all messed up, looking kind of dishevelled. And furthermore, why would her body just happen to be in Harrisburg? Which was quite a drive away from, you know, Upper Mary and Ardmore where she lived.

I know Bill Bradfield was trying to give her connections in Harrisburg prior to the murder and telling people she was meeting men for rough sex up there or whatever, but none of that was ever remotely substantial. And I think he likely had a reason to want to put Susan's body in the place where Jay just happened to have a trial happening, right, or a sentencing. Next, torture, which we know Susan was subjected to before she was killed, that's not Bill Bradfield's style at all. He is not a hands-on sexual sadist type of killer. If he were, he would not have needed all the machinations and manipulations that he went through. during this entire case.

He would have just gone and done what he was going to do. So torture's not Bill's style. Obviously, we've got this incredibly incriminating jailhouse stuff where he's plotting escapes with fellow inmates and not only just plotting escapes, but specifically saying that he wanted the guys who broke him out to kill the guards, take them as hostages and then take him out somewhere and kill them.

Why would you need to kill them at that point? You've already escaped. which to me I mean that doesn't have anything to do in principal suspect Custopoulos makes a big deal about how that was used at trial those recordings that Martre got where he was talking about killing the prison guards and breaking him out of prison

that that had nothing to do with the Reiner murders and yet it was used against him well yeah of course it was because why would he be yeah you don't exist you don't exist in a fucking vacuum right and also that was in the context of here's what we do if I'm arrested for the Reinerd murders if you're an innocent

man and you're confident in that why would you need to break out of prison, and especially why would you need to kill anybody in the process of doing it? So on two fronts, it really shows, I think it shows his character, and it also shows that he was really worried about being charged with those Ryan murders, right? Then we've got this call relay system, the pay phone system that we know was a real thing that he and Bill Bradfield used to communicate with each other all through that spring and summer. We know that was real based, A, on Chris Poppus' testimony that he had overheard, like he saw Bill use that call system and heard Jay Smith's voice on the other line. You remember that from an earlier episode. But also, they found handwritten evidence of this payphone system in Jay Smith's handwriting. So that was definitely a real thing. Why would they need this weird, circuitous, secretive method of calling each other on the phone that whole spring and summer? The Sears trial was over. unless they were plotting something nefarious, why would they need a system like that? So there's that.

Bill was seen at the shore at Cape May on the weekend of the murder. He was seen by others outside of his gang of friends on the night of the disappearances. He was seen by the manager at the hotel because remember when they got to their hotel at Cape May on the Jersey Shore, or late, late Friday night.

Well, actually technically it was early Saturday morning. It was like four in the morning or something like that when they finally got to. Cape May and the manager said oh I'm sorry there's been a mix up your room isn't ready yet so the manager saw them she didn't see Susan and they got food yeah they went to a diner they got food nobody saw Susan Reiner where are they keeping her in a box was she in the trunk of bill's car just hanging out that's ridiculous right it's it's so ridiculous we know she didn't die until saturday night or Sunday morning so they would have had to stash her somewhere while they went

into this diner and while they sat around for hours waiting for their room to be made ready, it's just completely ridiculous. Yeah, and risk her escaping or somebody finding her? Yeah, exactly. It's, it's absurd. So then we've got Karen's pin with the little green pea in Smith's car. And again, you can argue that that was planted evidence, but that to me does not make sense. And we went over this in the last episode. It's not like the comb that had Jay Smith's army unit insignia on it. This is not something that an adult wanting to plant evidence would have likely seen as a significant thing that would be immediate. And in fact, Holtz went to some trouble. It took him a while to even figure out what it was, where it came

from. Yeah. You know, he went around asking everybody, what is this pin? He wouldn't do that if he was planting it. If he knew what it was and was planting it as evidence, the deal was they found it in the car. And then they went around trying to identify it and finally figured out. that it was from that field trip at the Pennsylvania Art Museum and that it was something that Karen wore. So that is, that planting thing does not make any sense whatsoever because there's no guarantee

that anybody would find that little tiny thing and connect it to Karen Reinhert. We've got the letter that Smith wrote to his wife, Steffie, while she was dying of cancer saying, you need to get rid of that rug in the basement and you need to clean out

my car and make sure you get it really clean and all that. Very incriminating. We've got that nine-page letter from Jay Smith to his former lawyer, which came out at his trial, nine pages of provable lies about where he was and what he was doing the weekend of the murder. We've got his incredibly creepy request that his former jailhouse buddy find him a porn magazine with a picture of a woman that was posed exactly like Susan's body was posed when she was found. You remember that? Then we have, of course, the Sears robbery.

I mean, obviously we don't have an upstanding citizen here. And we have Smith asking Ray Martre to kill Bill Bradfield if he was arrested for the Reinhert murders. If I'm arrested for the Reinhert murders, go kill Bill Bradfield. We have that on tape, just like we have the prison escape plans. Martre didn't make that up. We have that on tape. That tape was played at the trial. So you can say what you like about Martre and, you know, oh, he was given consideration and he may have

lied, but he wasn't lying about that. It was on tape. So, you know, there's no arguing with that. And then last but not least, we have the Hunsburgers, Jay's daughter, Stephanie, and her husband, Eddie. Where the hell are they? Why was Jay Smith cashing their disability checks after they went missing and forging their names on them? Why did he have Stephanie's social security card in his wallet when he was arrested for the Sears robbery? Why did he lie to Mr. and Mrs. Hunsburger Eddie's parents about there being a warren out for Eddie's arrest, why were all their things still at his house? If they supposedly picked up and fled to California, why was all their stuff still there? I mean, all of that, to me, strongly suggests that this man is, as I said,

guilty or not buttered sin. So, I feel better. Katie, do you feel better? I feel a little better. Okay, so I just needed to get that off my chest. He's the guiltiest guilt-faced and all of guiltvania, got dang it. That's what I think. Oh, for sure. Okay. Everybody take a deep breath. We've established. Yeah, I feel like my heart's racing. I know. I'm really upset right now. I'm angry that he died breathing free air, but it's okay. We're fine. He's guilty. There's a difference between having legit legal issues in an appeal and actually being factually innocent. There's a huge difference. Just because his appeal was legit and there was misconduct, does not mean he didn't do it.

Right. Okay, sorry. Now that we've established that, let's get worked up. Let's talk about our theory about how this crime took place. Yeah. Now, some of this was brought up

as the official theory at Bill and Jay's trials, and some of this is our own embellishment and speculation. And I'm sure that y'all listening are going to have your own ideas to add and probably some questions, too. So please feel free to post

on our social media after you finish listening. We can't wait to hear your thoughts. Please, please, please. Okay. So, we know Susan is lured out of the house on Friday evening at 9.30. Most likely by a phone call from Bill. I have a couple theories on how he did this. One, Bill told her he had an accident, as Jay Smith surmised in one of his jailhouse recordings or to one of his buddies. But then why wouldn't she leave Karen and Michael with their dad when she saw Ken after Michael's game to, pick up Michael. Why would she need to bring them with her? My pet theory is that he told her they were going to be leaving that night.

Like for England? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe she was packing a bag when Karen came in the house and left crying. Maybe that's why all her personal papers were missing. Yeah, and that could be, but I don't think they found any evidence of packing like a suitcase open or anything like that. Now, that doesn't mean they didn't. It just means it wasn't in the book.

But I'm more inclined to go with the investigators theory, which was. that Bill called and told Susan that he or his attorney needed to see that life insurance paperwork real quick. As you said, they never found that life insurance paperwork any place in her house, in her car. They never found that paperwork, and we know she had a copy of that paperwork. So it seems likely that she took it with her that night. I think that that was because Jay Smith wanted to see proof of all that life insurance before he committed the crime, just to make sure that he'd get his share of the payout. and going to see an attorney or some such person would also explain why Susan made the kids change into nicer clothes before they left the house.

And I want to add, actually, there was one other possible, like, lure that was suggested by, I don't remember if it was by the prosecutor or one of the investigators, but another possibility was that Bill might have said he had been in an accident or maybe even Smith called and said, Bill's been in an accident, need you to come here and whatever. But I think that's unlikely because where would you go except a hospital or something? So to me, that one never really held water. Because we know she didn't show up at a hot. I mean, you know, like she didn't show up at a hospital somewhere. And it wouldn't make sense to say, like, come to Jay Smith's house or come to some deserted parking lot or whatever. That's what Jay said to his, I think it was to Ray. Yeah, he mentioned that in one of the recordings that might have been what Bill said to get her out of the house.

But yeah, that doesn't hold on. Yeah, because you would have to get her too. a random address of secluded area. Right, right, exactly. So speaking of what, so after that, Susan drives to a secluded location to meet Bill where he's waiting. Jay Smith is hiding and on some kind of signal because you know these two fuck faces absolutely had a signal. Bill grabbed Susan drugged her, probably taped her up. I suspect slash desperately hope that Jay dispatched the kids quickly and loaded them into the car. Now, remember, Remember Bill showing up at home that night in his weird heavy coat?

I don't remember if we discussed this. No, we did. And it was really hot out and he had this big duffel coat on. So was he keeping a syringe hidden in one of those pockets? And maybe they dropped Susan off at Jay's house or maybe they just put her in the trunk. It's possible that Bill and Jay then caravan to Harrisburg left a car there, possibly in that hosting parking lot where Susan's body was eventually dumped and discovered. So Smith would have a way to drive back home after dumping the body later on. But we obviously don't know that for sure. No, but that seems like a legit theory. Like, that was Katie's idea. And it does actually make sense that that would explain like how did Smith get back, you know, after dumping Susan's

body in her car. So yeah, they for sure could have done that. And then Bill goes back to his house and heads to the shore. Yep. Meanwhile, Susan is tortured until sometime late Saturday night or early Sunday morning when we know what's her time of death. He disposes of the kids at some point during the weekend. I don't think Susan likely ever knew that the children were gone. And again, I desperately hope that that's the case because, you know, what I suspect. And some of Bill's handwritten notes to himself suggest this as well, is that they were all kind of incapacitated immediately at the meeting place and incapacitated meaning drugged. We know that Smith had lots and lots of sedatives and other drugs and syringes.

So I think that's a very solid theory that probably all three of them were drugged, sedated, taped up. So Susan was probably pretty out of it. And I hope that she never knew fully what was going on. And this is gross, and we're probably on a list somewhere for researching it, but it takes a couple of days to dissolve a body in acid. So he probably wouldn't have had enough time to dispose of them by you know nitric acid he might have i i guess partially like not disposed of them but partially like

obliterated fingerprints or identifying you know features or something like that but he probably disposed of them some other way and as horrible as this sounds he probably wanted to spend as much time with susan no doubt no doubt and in less time you know disposing yeah exactly so smith kills susan with an overdose of morphine loads her body into the hatchback of her car drive drives to Harrisburg, transfers the body to the Hostin hotel parking lot, wipes down the car, opens the trunk, so her body will be found as quickly as possible, walks back to possibly his car, or gets a ride either from his daughter Sherry. That was suggested as a possibility by the investigators that he might have told her, hey, I need a ride back. I'm sure he didn't

tell her why, but, you know, maybe his daughter picked him up. He could have taken a bus. Who knows. Goes home, calls his lawyer, an hour and a half after the body was first seen. That's how we think it happened, as awful as it is. As for Billy Bradfield, according to a 2011 article in the mainline times, he tutored other inmates during his years in prison and never, shocker, admitted any guilt. At least not publicly. I wouldn't be surprised if he did confide in a prison buddy here and there. Bill died of a heart. heart attack in his cell in 1998. I hope it hurt.

Oh, me too. It's ironic that both Bill and Jay died of heart trouble. I wouldn't have thought either one of them had one. And can we talk about his headstone? Because I found a picture of it. Yeah, this is Bill Bradfield's headstone, you guys. It has a picture of a sailboat on it. Mm-hmm.

And the following quote from, oh yes, Ezra Pound. Thought is a labyrinth and will fades. But the light, the light sings eternal. Ew. Ew. Ew, ew, ew. Remember, by the way, that Bill's master plan was to buy a sailboat, marry teenage girlfriend Wendy, and sail to Bartholona. Yep.

This was, of course, a major part of his motivation for these murders to get money for that. Mm-hmm. So putting a sailboat on his headstone, seems in dubious taste. Right? I mean, come on. And obviously we have no idea who is responsible for that, although we did theorize that it might have been ice green Joanne, but I mean, he does have other family and everything.

But come on, a sailboat. The Ezra Pound quote, okay, we'll give you that. Yeah. But the sailboat is in such poor taste because we know that was part of the motive for what happened. So it's, yeah, it just, it makes me gag a little bit. So, and this is really interesting. Okay. Also, when Bill died, they were cleaning out a cell, and they found a picture in there, a snapshot.

And it's hard to make out exactly what it is, but it's a wooded area. And there are these two, you can't tell for sure if they are natural formations or man-made formations, but they look like, for all the world, they look like grave markers. And there are two of them. And police have actually released those pictures. You can see them. There's a CNN.com. article where you can see this picture of these two pieces of rock or stone or whatever they are because there's been speculation that this might be a picture of the children's graves where the children's bodies were dumped and so the police are saying if you know where this is or what this is can you please let us know as far as I know no one has ever come forward with that and honestly I'm guessing it probably isn't because I don't know why Bill Bradfield would even have that and if he did I don't think he would keep it no because remember Jay Smith said did not let anyone

know where you dump bodies. Exactly. I don't think Smith would have told Bill where he was going to put the kids for one thing. And even if he did, I don't know why he would have a picture of it and why he would keep that in his cell. He doesn't seem like the type that would keep trophies, or if he did, it wouldn't be a trophy of the children. It would be a trophy for Susan. So I don't think, I don't think there's anything to it. But it is just an interesting little post script. And you can go and look at that picture. It is kind of creepy. So the last thing that we would like to say about this case is this, which is that we would like to dedicate this podcast to the memory of Susan Reinhert, who was a sweet lady and did not deserve any of this. And to the memories of

Karen and Michael Reinhert, two lost children who we would love to see found and properly laid to rest someday. And last but not least, to Stephanie and Eddie Hunsberger, who are still missing to this day, and who were so badly failed by a system who seemed to just see them as drug addicts and not much more. You deserve better. You all deserve better than this, and we hope we've done your stories justice. So, Campers, that's it for season one, the puppet master and the Prince of Darkness, except for an extra episode we're making exclusively for our Patreon subscribers. This one will be out next week and will include readings of some private correspondence

between some of the people involved in this case. Some of the love woman lovecock letters between Smith and his mistress. Oh, God, you guys. If I can get through it. Because I tried to read one of them to my husband of nearly 17 years and couldn't do it because I was blushing too much. Yeah, well, also some letters between Bill Bradfield and various girlfriends, maybe as a palate cleanser. Yeah. We'll also get into some theories about what went down with Smith's alleged murder of his daughter and son-in-law, Stephanie and Eddie Hunsberger. If that sounds interesting to you, make sure you're signed up for our Patreon.

We'll be putting out lots of great content like this for our Patreon Angels in the weeks and my months to come. And you are angels to us. And we are so excited to be moving into season two campers. And we're not taking a break. We're diving right in. And season two is going to be a bit of a different animal because instead of doing a deep dive into just one case, we're going to be focusing on lots and lots of different cases. And we've chosen cases that are, as I like to say, high on the banana meter, which basically means that they are true stories that are way, way stranger than fiction. So we can't wait to keep hanging out with all of you. Thank you so much for listening. This has been so much fun our season one. But for now, lock your doors, light your

lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. You can follow us on Twitter at TC Campfire, Instagram at True Crime Campfire, and be sure to like our Facebook page. If you want to support the show and get access to extras, please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash true crime campfire.