True Crime Campfire - Episode 4: The Puppet Master and the Prince of Darkness, Part 4: Lemmings

Episode Date: September 20, 2019

In this episode, we learn a LOT more about the supposed "hit man lessons" going on between Bill and Dr. Smith, and Bill tells his entourage some dark secrets about both Smith and Susan Reinert. Bill does a few very suspicious favors for Smith. Smith goes on trial for the Sears robbery, and Bill testifies on his behalf, despite his new knowledge of Smith's murderous proclivities. Upper Merion is headed over a cliff, and no one seems interested in doing anything to stop it. 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. The Puppet Master and the Prince of Darkness part four. Lemmings. So, campers, when we left you last time, pervy principal, J.I. Smith was out on bail pending trial for the Sears robbery. And Bill Bradfield was busy drawing his entourage into a real-life thriller. Jay Smith as the experienced mafia hitman, Bradfield as his reluctant apprentice, going along with the lessons in order to gather evidence to help put Smith away for good. And according to Bill, Smith and Susan Reinerd had been having a torrid affair, and now Smith wanted her dead. And Bill was still preparing to testify on behalf

of Jay Smith at his upcoming trial, despite all this newfound knowledge about Jay's murderous proclivities. Because, you know, honesty is always the best policy, and he did see Smith at the shore the day of the Sears robbery, even if nobody else seemed to remember that. And as Bill drew his friends and girlfriends deeper into the made-for-TV movie that had become their lives, unsuspecting Susan Reinhert was busy daydreaming about marrying her new fiancé Bill, taking out life insurance policies with him as the beneficiary, and withdrawing large amounts of cash for a sure-thing investment deal he told her about in the strictest confidence. She was on cloud nine about her upcoming marriage, and of course Bill was

still telling his disciples that Susan was nothing more to him than a pathetic admirer. She had heard nothing about Jay Smith wanting her dead, and she certainly would never have dreamt that her loving future husband could be a danger to her. He was her future, the love of her life. So, shortly after that day, that he and Chris spent wiping fingerprints off that $25,000 in cash, as far as Chris knew, this was Bill's life savings that he wanted to put in a safe deposit box to protect it from economic collapse. In reality, the money Bill had just scammed off of Susan Reiner with a phony investment deal. Bill showed up to ask Chris, would he be willing to do him just another favor? Remember those big jugs of nitric acid Bill had in the trunk of.

of his car, the ones from Dr. Smith's basement of horrors that the press had been on about for weeks and weeks, right? Yep. Well, Dr. Smith wanted Bill to hide them for him. So, Jay, of course, used the acid in his work for the mob. Sure. Not only to dispose of bodies or disappear people, as he put it, but also to torture people for information. You know, like you do. So Bill said Smith used an eyed dropper full of the stuff. This was his torture method. He'd drop a a few drops of acid on you, and then once you started talking, he'd wipe it off with a damp cloth and you were all good. Yikes, yeah. So Chris, of course, was horrified by all this, but he agreed to keep the acid for the time being. He agreed, in fact, to hide the acid, like out

behind the shed or something, I believe it was. It was all part of the master plan for Bill to humor the Prince of Darkness just long enough to get some hard evidence to take to the police. evidence that they couldn't ignore despite Smith's connections, which is really quite naive when you think about it. I mean, if he really were as connected as Bill claimed, then even if they had hard evidence, I'm sure that they could manage to make it disappear, but this was the narrative that he spun for Chris Poppice

and all of his other buddies. Sure. And so Bill also wanted to test out those oil can silencers that Chris had agreed to make for him, you know, just in case the shit ever really hit the fan and he had to kill Dr. Smith, because you know what could happen. I mean, it could all go down one of these days,

and he might just have to protect himself and everybody else, obviously, because he's the daddy of the group. So Bill brought a couple of guns with him that day that he wanted to, A, used to practice with the silencers, and B, leave for Chris to oil up and make ready, just in case he needed them.

And part of making them ready, by the way, was filing off the serial numbers. Oh, my God. Yeah. Oh, my God. I mean, and as usual, Chris said, sure, whatever you need, Bill. Oh, Chris, honey.

Bless his heart. Sweet summer child. Oh, my God. Yes, exactly. So, anywho, they went out into the fields behind Chris's dad's house and practiced firing with the silencers, which apparently worked like a charm. Chris had done a really good job. He was a skilled handyman. And Bill got really into it.

And at one point, he had a target on the tree trunk, got all excited and yelled, I've shot Dr. Smith in the head. super excited he was real proud of himself and then he got a little too worked up and almost shot his own nuts off so that dampened the mood a bit I would have gotten it if only I know right that's the same thing and of course as we've said and we should repeat every now and again that we use multiple sources for this podcast including some court documents and old newspaper articles but the main source was joseph wambaw's book echoes in the darkness and that's where we got that little detail about him almost blowing his balls off him. And it did occur to me as I was reading that, that, you know, if that had actually happened, this story might have had a very different ending. Oh, sure. Yeah. Just something that simple. You know, if he had just managed to blow his own balls off, then probably we wouldn't be sitting here talking about this today. I suspect it would have just put rather a damp on the

entire plan. But, oh, God, what a dork. So anyway, Bill once again laid into Chris as they're out there firing their guns, playing cops and robbers or whatever, about not telling the police any of this, for the love of God, because if he did, then they were all as good as dead. Smith is going to kill us. He's going to kill our parents. He knows where our families live. Blah, blah, blah. Oh, and also, one of the guns Bill brought over that day was supposedly Dr. Smith's, because, of

course, part of the plan was that Bill had to do Smith favors whenever he asked for them, and then, by extension, Chris had to do favors for Dr. Smith whenever he asked for them. And when Chris ground off the serial number on that gun, he ended up screwing up the barrel and ruining it. Now, this supposedly is a

weapon of destruction that belongs to Dr. Smith, who is human cancer and the worst person in the world. So Chris expected that Bill would be pleased by this, because this would have taken at least one instrument of mayhem out of Dr. Smith's gnarled, clawed

hands, right? But oddly, Bill didn't seem too pleased. Huh. It's weird, right? I wonder why. It wasn't really too pleased about ruining this gun. And soon after this, Bill announced that he was going to Santa Fe, New Mexico, on a trip for a former student's wedding. Now, again, as big of a blowhard as Bill was, he was also the type of teacher who got invited to former students' weddings. I mean, it's like we were saying in episode one. We make fun of him from a distance because we know

what he did and we have the benefit of hindsight and we have the benefit of seeing the full picture. But although there were certainly people who saw through him and thought he was pompous and you know, one of his colleagues at Upper Marion High called him busy whiskers

which I find hilarious. I'm sure that chapped his ass like nobody's business if he knew about it. But although there were people who saw through his act, he was undeniably charismatic and charming and a lot of people loved and admired him and fell for it hook line and sinker

bless their hearts and I think that's worth remembering sometimes because as absolutely because as we're getting sort of swept up in this narrative it's easy for us to think God what were these people thinking

you know he's such a dumbass and he's so loathsome but you know you had to be there I guess is the best I can do at explaining that and yeah I think we have to trust that when people say he was incredibly charismatic, he was probably pretty charismatic. So, anywho, so Chris went on this trip to Santa Fe, too, and once they were on

the road, Bill told Chris that a big reason he wanted to go was, surprise, surprise, to do yet another favor for Dr. Smith. Goody. So the cops were up Smith's butt about those welfare checks that somebody had been forging and cashing from his daughter, Stephanie, and her her husband, Eddie Hunsburger, for six months after anybody had heard from them. You know, cashed by a person or person's unknown, while Stephanie and Eddie were who knows where. And the police were pretty sure they knew who was forging the signatures on those checks, and they were pretty sure it was Jay Smith.

And they were also pretty sure that they knew what that, at least, strongly suggested, which is that Jay Smith had very likely murdered his daughter and son-in-law, or done something to them anyway, to get them out of the picture. So they were looking at him pretty hard for that, and Smith knew it. So Bill told Chris, Smith had asked Bill to do him a solid to celebrate their new and ongoing bromance. And supposedly, Jay told Bill that Stephanie and Eddie had stayed with another couple for a while in a commune in Taos. Or at least that this was the lie that he was going to tell the police. And Jay needed these people to tell the police that Eddie and Stephanie were with them for part of those six months.

months when the welfare checks had been cashed in Upper Marion. Now, this gets confusing because earlier, you know, it seemed clear that Jay had admitted to Bill that he had killed his daughter and son-in-law. So we have to remember, this is what Bill is telling Chris. This isn't necessarily what Jay has told Bill. This is what Bill is relaying to Chris Poppice. So as far as Chris knows, Stephanie and Eddie stayed with this couple in Taos, or at least that's what Jay Smith wants the police to think and that they needed to call and sort of not

alibi him exactly, but vouch for the fact that Steffie and Eddie were with them during this time period when these checks were getting cash, right? So Bill was going to go and make this call while they were in New Mexico to this couple and arrange a time to meet with them and talk about all of that. And so at one point, Bill said, okay, just stay in the car, Chris. I'm going to go use this pay phone and talk to these people and see if I can arrange a time while I'm out here to meet with them and talk them into making this phone call to the police. So Chris just stayed in the car, he couldn't hear what was said, he assumed that the call went just as Bill said it would go. But interestingly, on the day that Bill made that call from that payphone in

New Mexico, the dry cleaner where Jay Smith's wife, Steffie, worked, received a collect call. Now, Steffie wasn't there that day. Remember, she's really sick at this point with cancer, so she was in the hospital getting treatment on that day. So a co-worker took the call from a cheerful sounding man who said he was Eddie Hunsburger, her son-in-law, and asked her to please tell Steffie Smith that he and his wife were in Taos and they were doing fine. Interesting. Coincidence, I think. Don't you think? Yeah, that's an absolute colossal coincidence. I can't believe that actually happened, Whitney. I can't believe it. Yeah, that's a big coincidence. And it's also worth noting that, as I've said before, you know, Chris and the other members of Bill's entourage,

They were not stupid. They were under his spell, but their rational minds would occasionally break through that and kind of click back on for a second. And it did occur to Chris during this New Mexico trip that it was really weird for Bill to do anything to help Jay Smith prove his innocence in the murders of his daughter and son-in-law. I mean, Bill had been regaling Chris nonstop with stories about how dangerous Smith was, how many people he'd murdered as a hitman for the mob, how he wanted to kill Susan Reiner and several other people. And so why do anything to help him? But, of course, whenever this would come up, Bill would just remind him of the master plan.

Look, Smith has told me a lot, but it's nothing I can prove. I haven't seen any bodies. I haven't seen anything that I can take to the police and absolutely prove this man is a murderer. Not yet. And especially given Smith's corrupt military and police and state department,

connections supposedly so look I have to stay in his good grace is just a little longer just hang with me little buddy we're going to get there et cetera et cetera and so it went right it's frustrating to look at it from where we sit now but that was the narrative and i mean and i'm i'm not trying to let these people off the hook believe me i'm not chris and vince and and and every wendy and joan and everybody i'm not trying to let him off the hook i think there was a lot of extremely bad judgment being exercised here, but he just had him all under his spell. And I think he had him scared, and I think he had him confused.

And sometimes Chris or Vince would waffle a little bit as to whether they bought all of this stuff. So sometimes Vince would say, hey, you know, maybe Dr. Smith is just messing with you. We know he likes to shock people. Maybe he just likes getting you all riled up. Maybe it's not really happening. and at one point Chris said, you know, are you sure all this is true? Maybe only parts of it are true.

But Bill always seemed to bring them around and he really was a master manipulator and he would use different techniques to reel people in. So sometimes it was the genius little details like the alligator shoes that he was supposedly wearing when he had to garot that Cuban guard and his CIA mission story. You know, he told Chris that Jay Smith dismembered his zes. victims and wrap them in newspaper and aluminum foil before disposing of them in a landfill. I think the aluminum foil is a good little detail as well. But there was another little weird detail here, which was that he always used out-of-town

newspapers just in case the bodies were found so that it couldn't be traced back to where he lived, right? Hmm. Out-of-town newspapers, aluminum foil. It was just, people would think it's just too specific to be made up. Yeah. It's just too specific. And sometimes he'd up the ante.

So, for example, one night, he burst into Vince's apartment really late, and he was all flushed, and he was saying, Jay had just pulled a gun on him. And, you know, he said, I dared to ask him a question he didn't like, and boom, the Prince of Darkness had taped his arms behind his back and one quick jungle cat-like move and put a gun to his head, you know, just to let him know who's boss. Now, that one got Vince back on the team for sure, poor kid, because he just couldn't conceive of Bill just making this stuff up out of whole cloth. He just couldn't conceive of his father figure mentor making up a story like that and doing the Oscar level acting that it would have required to burst through the door all red-faced and flushed and I nearly died tonight, etc. of. So that was another tactic is to up the ante. And sometimes he used tactics that former secret service agent and security expert Gavin De Becker actually outlines in his amazing book The Gift of Fear, which we've talked about before in which everyone should read, because it really does a fantastic job of teaching you how to hone your intuition to stay safe. So De Becker

writes about a tactic he calls forced teeming. This is so fascinating. So, The force teaming is where a manipulator maneuvers you without your consent into a team dynamic. So, we're in this together. And in the book, he uses the example of a young woman who was sexually assaulted by a man she encountered in the lobby of her apartment building. We're not going to give any details of this or anything. But she dropped her bag of groceries, and he stepped in to help her pick them up. And she immediately got a bad feeling from the guy and was trying to shake him and say, no, no, I'm fine. I've got this.

But he just kept saying stuff like, oh, don't be silly. We'll be done with this in no time. We've got a hungry kitty up there. And he needs this fancy feast. And, you know, she didn't sign up to be on this guy's team. But he was weeing her onto it anyway. We got to get upstairs. We've got a hungry kitty.

And once they got to her apartment doors, when the assault began. So Bill definitely, I think, used force teaming with his entourage. First by just drawing them into the story in the first place. because really it had nothing to do with them and they didn't need to be involved in all of this. And then also by just continually telling them stuff like he knows where you live, he knows where your parents live, he knows where my parents live,

he'll come after all of us if we cross him, et cetera, et cetera. And he constantly reinforced that we. We can't go to the police yet. We have to gather enough evidence, et cetera, right? So force teeming, for sure. And De Becker also describes a tactic he calls too much information, meaning that a manipulator will sort of chatter at you and just flood you with information

so you don't have time to think so that you never have time to stop for a second and think, hey, I've asked you to leave twice now and you haven't done it. Or, hey, that doesn't make sense what you just said. That's probably the one that he was trying to avoid in this case is for people to have a minute to kind of put all the blocks to Tetris blocks in formation and see if they fit.

Right. Which they did not, in many cases. cases, but they never had a chance to just take that minute of reflection because he would just keep coming at him all the time. And he definitely flooded them with information about Jay Smith. And whenever one of them would ask a question that he didn't have a good answer for, he would tend to change the subject and he would pile on more bizarre details. So what do you think, Katie? This is my theory anyway, that he's using these tactics, which this security expert, Gavin

DeBecker, has actually put names to, and which we've probably all seen from, manipulators in our lives, right? A hundred percent. I think Bill Bradfield was putting on a masterclass for both of these. Yeah. He took these people who loved and adored and trusted him. And basically, first of all, he made them take part in this macabre theater and put them from their view into this dangerous situation. And it never occurred to them that it was his fault that they were being pulled into it. Right. Absolutely. Or that, hey, this actually has nothing to do with me. And this is a you problem.

Right. Not a weed problem. Why would Jay Smith hurt my parents? Exactly. That has nothing to do with me. I'm not going to go to the cops with this. Leave me alone. This is your problem. Right.

But he weed them into making them part of his team. He weed them into it. He did. Yes. Absolutely. Interesting that choice of word giving what we're about to talk about in a moment. Oh, God. Well, speaking of which.

This is both the TMI and the weed situation. And, you know, of course, when you're throwing tons of information at somebody, sometimes things would happen to reinforce Bill's hitman narrative in a big way. Yes. For example, Bill told Chris that Smith had been a prolific customer of the local sex workers for years. That's not like a huge leap from what we know. No, I actually believe that's probably true. Yeah. Yeah. And now that he was getting ready to go on trial, the Sears robbery, Smith had decided that these sex workers needed to die. Oh, God.

Why, you may ask, for the crime of smoking weed with him, and he was afraid that they were going to come forward and blow up his bullshit lie about the drugs in the basement belonging to Eddie Hunsburger. Of course, right. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense for me? No, it doesn't actually make a whole lot of sense, because that's like the least of it, really, of what he was being accused of, but sure. It's the least of it.

And, like, even if the sex workers were being pulled in and interrogated, that's not a big enough catch for them to catch a deal, if that makes sense. I would not think so. No, I think you're right about that. He was also concerned about the prospect of these ladies appearing as character witnesses against him at a trial. Yeah, that makes a little bit more sense. I mean, you know, I guess in 1970s, upper middle class neighborhood, that it would sully perhaps his sterling reputation. I think that ship has sailed, Dr. Smith, at this point. Yeah, your collection had appeared on the front page of the paper.

I think you're done. Yes, exactly. We know about the dildo with the hand crank, okay? That's all I'm saying. We already know about the water-sorting dildo. And the frigging beastiality books, I just can't. I keep coming back to that, and I'm sorry. But, ew.

It's okay. Ship is sailed. But, you know, that was it for him. They were on his hit list. Who isn't at this point? God, I don't, me, I'm not on his head list, great. Well, you weren't born yet. I was, but I was an infant, so I probably hadn't run afoul of him just yet. God, soon after Bill confided all this and Chris, there was a big double murder suicide in King of Prussia, not far from Upper Marion. It was all over the news, of course, and Bill said, see, that was Smith. He killed one of these sex workers and made it look like a domestic murder suicide. Perfect.

This blew Chris's mind. Like, I'm sure he was just jaw dropped on the floor, cemented the whole thing. Yeah, exactly. Now we have proof. Yeah. And it doesn't make sense because even in the 1970s police would be able to, like, identify people and say, oh, they weren't related. They weren't married. But I guess if he had the police in his pocket, it wouldn't matter.

Yeah. I mean, that's the thing about conspiracy theories. Is it anything that you might offer as a counterpoint or as evidence to the contrary, if you are committed enough to the theory you'll just weave it in you'll just weave it in so and also i don't think chris was paying very close attention to be perfectly honest because bless his heart because this also just occurred to me is that if smith had the police and everyone in his pocket why was he being put on trial right thank you you know what i'm so glad you said that because i just that just blossomed in my brain like that really should have occurred to me before now that's so true why would he even be

nailed in the first place for all of this if he had these law enforcement and military connections, then why is he even going on trial? I guess you could argue that, oh, well, he won't be convicted. They'll fix the jury or whatever. But even to let it get that far seems unlikely if you're as connected as he claims, right? And that just goes to show campers that when you're deep into a conspiracy, things don't make sense and you don't notice. Pop your head up every now and again and just take a look around and maybe use some critical thinking skills every now and again. Well, and remember, one of the issues at the center of this whole hitman drama was that Smith

supposedly wanted to kill Susan Reiner. And Bill made sure to tell everybody in his entourage, made sure they knew it, made sure he repeated it all the time, like to the point where they were all kind of annoyed with it. They were like, yeah, we get it. Yeah, that became actually the center hub of the whole story pretty quickly, that that was kind of the access around which the whole thing revolved is that he wants to kill Susan. And, you know, we talk about him being a masterful liar, and this is another thing that just made him a huge fucking bonehead. He gave people different motives for why Dr. Smith wanted to murder Susan.

You know, some people heard that it was because Susan knew that Smith had killed his daughter and son-in-law. Some heard that Susan had jilted Smith, and he was mad about it. And Sue Myers got the, I don't know, he just does. He wasn't even trying. And poor Sue, he was not even trying anymore with her. Yeah, no, he was done. She was just in the background, poor thing. Well, and I think he probably knew that it took less for her to believe that somebody

would want Susan Reiner. Because she despised her. Yeah, to the tips of her toe, she hated Susan Reiner. She genuinely wouldn't have cared, I think, if Susan. No. And now, at least with Chris, and remember Bill told different people, different things. He added a whole new dimension to the plot line. He started confiding in Chris that Susan Reiner was.

kinky you know sexually oh my god i know i know winky i know wittany i know what i don't know if i can listen to this anymore this is supposed to be a family podcast katie what have you just dropped in our laps kinky oh i'm horrified i'm going to turn my ears off because i'm a good girl i'm not going to listen to this okay just all i'm saying is content warning peepie all of the content all of them. Specifically, he told, God, I can't believe I have to, I have to talk about this. I'm so sorry. Specifically, he told them she was into picking up. Oh, God, I'm sorry. Hamper is awful. Black guys at bars and having sex with them. With dildos and things. Rough sex. Oh, my God. He's such a piece of shit. Not only is he manipulative and most likely psychopathic, but he's racist.

too apparently. Yeah, which shouldn't surprise us, obviously. But of course, he had to shoehorn that little detail in there about how she's picking up black guys. Because, of course, that makes it so much worse. Shame on you, Bill Bradfield, as if you were not a big enough chode as it was. Good Lord. Shame on him. Into eternity. And it's just, he's just the worst. Yes. Racist prick. One of these rough sex partners was named Alex, according to Bill. And he liked to poop and pee on Susan. God. And just like, can you imagine Vince's reaction to this? I know. That's the part that I

keep replaying, that I keep playing in my head is this poor little Clark Kent choir boy, extremely Catholic kid who's green enough to grow and just worships the ground Bill walks on and Bill lays that at his feet and bless his, that's probably the worst part of it all for Vince was having

to listen to that. Probably. Poor Vince. And he also added in that Alex roughed her up a few times. And, and, And Bill was worried that she was endangered from him, too. Susan is just a target for everybody. Yeah. It's clear that Bill was deeply invested in giving Susan a reputation as a high-risk victim.

I can't imagine why. I know, right? What would be the motive for such a thing? I can't imagine. I had an idea. But, yeah, he definitely wanted for everybody to think she's just a walking target. She's just engaging in all kinds of high-risk behaviors. Bill told everyone that he was so worried about her, but also annoyed with her.

Don't forget that. For being so obsessed with him and trying to seduce him all the time when he couldn't be less interested, which, okay, if Susan's going out and getting it anywhere she can, why does she need to be obsessed with Bill? That's a very good question. But he was concerned about her as a fellow human being. Of course. Bill Bradfield was nothing, if not a humanitarian. Absolutely. He felt responsible for her safety.

He told Vince that he was lighting candles for her at Mass on Sundays. He was patrolling her neighborhood just to make sure she was safe, to make sure I guess Smith wasn't sneaking around the back of her house with a knife, I guess? Just, I guess, that must have been it, right? Sitting in his little B-D-Bug watching the house at all hours just to protect her. Yeah, of course. It's very romantic, actually. If she had known anything about it, she probably would have thought it was really romantic. But of course, she knew nothing about any of this. And, you know, all this was a big part about how he kept Vince and Chris from going to the police with the scary stuff about Smith. You know, don't worry, I'm protecting her. Right. And, oh, by the way, she put me on her life insurance now. She put me in her will. She wants me to be her children's guardian if anything happens to her. She's insane. She's insane. I've got to figure out a way to shake her out of this obsession with me. She keeps trying to get me to marry her. It's so ridiculous.

Poor Bill. Plus his heart. Man, he's got a lot on his mind. He is the pathetic caricature that he put Susan on, I guess. Yes. What he's done. And, of course, this is a double concern for Bill because not only did he want nothing to do with this pathetic keep of a woman, but also if Jay Smith or Alex or any of the scrum of random men that Susan,

and was supposedly meeting in bars for rough sex, decided to murder her, the fact that Bill was the beneficiary of her estate would make him a suspect. Can you imagine? Bill, a suspect? I cannot. And for her part, Sue Myers wanted no part in any of this. She just kind of decided it was all part of his midlife crisis. She didn't want to hear anything about it. Well, she was trying desperately to save that arts and craft store, too. I mean, that's what was really she was devoting most of her time to at this point, just trying so hard to keep this place from going under. And there was one day in this period of time where the store took in 84 cents in a day. I mean, that's how badly it was floundering.

And of course, that I think you guys have all probably figured out is a big part of the motive for what's about to happen. It's just financial ruin is looming on the horizon. And of course, Bill's no help because he's running around playing Hitman's Apprentice. Yeah, no. Well, he wasn't help in the first place, but he was a special. no help now. Yeah. And Sue sticking your head in the sand wasn't hard to achieve because Bill was actually hardly home. And at this point in time, they were barely speaking. And with regards to

Vince and Chris, poor, poor Vince and Chris were firmly strapped into their seats on this crazy train. And early that spring, Bill went to Chris yet again. It was about that $25,000. The money they'd spent a whole afternoon wiping fingerprints off of not too long ago. Bill wanted to go ahead and open a safety deposit box for the money because he didn't trust the big banks, but he didn't really want to open it in his own name. I mean, what if Jay Smith really did kill Susan Reiner? The police might go sniffing around and find it. Now, you know, why the hell this would be a problem if the money was Bill's life savings, as he told Chris, and not money he'd scammed from Susan Reiner in a phony investment deal. I have no idea. But Chris was so under Bill's thumb at this point that I guess it didn't

occur to him. So he kind of was just like, all right, don't worry. I'll open a box in my name. And yet again, Bill made it seem like it was Chris's idea. Just kind of nudged him, nudged him into it. I'm worried. What if the police go sniffing around? Well, I'll help you. I'll do it in my name. Oh, what a good idea. Masterment. And yeah, that's exactly. what happened. And per Bill's instructions, he made sure that both Bill and his little teenage girlfriend, Wendy, could both access it. Bill loaned Chris $1,300 of the money so he could buy a car. Yeah. And, you know, yeah, money's money. Money talks. And May of 79, Susan Reiner blissfully made plans to marry Bill that coming summer and travel with him to England for the, quote, unquote,

extended stay. Jay went on trial for the Sears robbery. He was completely transformed. He put on weight, changed his contacts for glasses, and grown a mustache. It's possible it was an attempt to throw off the eyewitnesses who were about to testify against him, like a la Ted Bundy losing weight to escape prison. Yeah, I think that's very likely and could have been his defense attorney's idea. Oh, sure. But, you know, it didn't work. The eyewitnesses one after another, we're 100% certain that Smith was the fake Brinks courier they'd seen that day. There was something about his face, they all said. One said, it was not an ordinary face.

Yeah. Ain't that the truth. And it's interesting. We should point out that eyewitness testimony is actually very unreliable, despite people considering it very reliable. It tends to be regarded by juries as one of the more reliable forms of evidence when in reality, Research shows it is horrifyingly unreliable, but in this particular case, it is rare for eyewitnesses to say they are 100% certain and to withstand cross-examination on that. And for that just to happen one after the other after the other.

And in the case of Jay Smith, I mean, like you just said, he does not have an ordinary face. And in particular, he does not have ordinary eyes. And when somebody is unusual in that way, I think it does raise the level a little bit of the value of that eyewitness testimony. Sure. And that's why good investigators will say, you know, did they have a birthmark? Did they have a particular tattoo? Because that's something way easier to remember. Yeah.

Than, you know, just a normal average face during a traumatic event. Right. Some kind of identifying characteristic can be helpful. Like, you know, horrifying goat eyes. Corrifying Eldritch Unearthly Goat eyes Speaking of those cute

little goat eyes Smith's defense attorney's wife I know six degrees of separation But she was scared to death of him She said it was something about his eyes Which she described as full of depravity That's one way of putting it And I guess

And she was pregnant at the time And she told her husband That she felt like being around Jay Smith and his Prince of Darkness vibe could somehow threaten their unborn baby. Wow. Damn. Old Godeyes strikes again. Jeez. That's some exorcist shit right there, you know. Like, call a priest. When your own defense attorney's wife, is that freaked out by you? That is not a good sign.

That's not a good sign. No. That is not a harbinger of good things to come with the jury, I suspect, when your defense attorney's wife is like, yeah, I'm not, no, I mean, she was scared for her unborn child around the man. He obviously, had some kind of like measma around him and she could feel it. I love that miasma. Mm-hmm, definitely. Jay's wife, Steffie, bless her soul, was very, very, very sick by this time. I know we keep saying that, but we cannot over tell you how sick she was. Yeah, she was in decline for most of the story and it was a rapid decline. She was exhausted from treatments and probably well aware that she probably wasn't going to live much longer, but she was right there testifying on behalf of her

husband of 28 years. And she said, of course Jay couldn't have done this. We were in Ocean City that day. Me, Jay, our daughter, Stephanie, and her husband, Eddie Hunsberger. She said that Jay had dropped them off at the beach for a few hours to go take care of some business. This, of course, backed up what Billy B. had been saying for months now that he'd seen Jay Smith at the shore on the day of the robbery. The assistant DA also questioned Stephanie about her daughter and son-in-law. And Jay's lawyer claimed that Steffie had heard from her daughter just a couple weeks earlier by phone on Mother's Day. The ADA asked Steffie if she'd asked her daughter whether she and Eddie would be willing to come back home to be alibi witnesses for Jay at his trial. And Steffie was like, well, it wasn't that kind of conversation.

It was just a Mother's Day conversation. What? Okay. Okay. So no need to come and like potentially spare your father from serving years in prison. That's cool. Happy Mother's Day. No, no sense of urgency there. Wow. And keep in mind, Stephanie and Eddie had been missing at this point for over a year. Right. Since February of 78. Yeah. It must have been February of 78 when they went missing. Eddie still hadn't been in

contact with his parents, who, by the way, were in the courtroom every day of Jay Smith's trial, hoping to get any kind of information about where their son might be, which just breaks my goddamn heart. Yeah, it's horrifying. So sad. The ADA asked Steffie if she tried to get back in touch with her daughter since, and Stephanie said, oh, we couldn't find her. She said when Stephanie called on Mother's Day, she said she was calling from California. She told the ADA, she and Eddie were on the move a lot, sure, I guess. Now, campers, what do we make of this testimony? Here's what we know.

We know Eddie hasn't called his folks, which he was very, very close with. And he hasn't called them in over a year. The only contact anyone claims to have had with either of these two is this alleged Mother's Day phone call. And that very, very suspicious phone call from, quote, unquote, Eddie to dry cleaner a couple months earlier. Quote unquote, Eddie. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. We know the couple haven't been cashing their welfare checks.

Someone forged their signatures and cashed them in Upper Marion for six months after they went missing. we do know that j smith was arrested with stephanie social security card in his wallet we know stephanie and eddie didn't take any of their stuff with them when they quote unquote left and in light of this stephy's claim that her daughter had called her on mother's day in may of 1979 strikes me as very very very very very sketchy yeah me too I mean, Whitney, do you think Steffie perjured herself? Yeah, that's a really good question

because I think there are a couple of options here as to what this testimony means from Jay Smith's wife. She might have perjured herself and just be completely lying. Or it could have been that there was another fake phone call and, you know, just like the one from fake Eddie. And if it was a fake phone call, like the one that I am quite sure Bill Bradfield had made months earlier. Who made it? Who made it? I mean, we can't, we can't know. It had to have been a woman, right? I mean, it could have been one of his,

it could be love woman. It could be, I didn't even think about love woman. Yeah, it could have been, it could have been love woman, it could have been a sex worker. We, we know that Smith and Bradfield are cozy around this time and have been seen by multiple witnesses hanging out together. It could been one of Bill's entourage as well. I'm not accusing anybody. It's true. This is completely speculation 100%. But Bill has lady friends as well. So that's an option as well. We know Bill's doing a lot of favors for Smith around this time. So there are a couple of options. I personally kind of suspect she perjured herself. I just, I have a hard time imagining a mom, however sick with cancer she might be, not knowing her

daughter's voice. And remember, she didn't take that fake Eddie call to the dry cleaners. She was in the hospital that day. So a co-worker took that call. So I think that the most likely explanation is the Steffie, who was dying, who had been married to this man for 28 years, who, for some reason in all violation of all that is good and holy in the world, loved and admired Jay Smith. I think she just decided I've got nothing to lose and she got up on that stand and she lied for her man. That is what I suspect happened. But there is certainly that other option as well that she could have been taken in by a fake phone call.

So, you know, what do you, I mean, I don't know. What do you think? I tend to agree with you. I think Steffie was a very shrewd woman. Yeah. And I think that she loved Jay for all his faults and or despite, in spite of all his faults. And I think she had nothing to lose here. Like, I don't think any judge in the entire country would have sent her to prison for perjury.

Right. And as a matter of fact, she passed away like two months later. I mean, she was right at the end of her life. And she knew it. Of course she did. Yeah. So, yeah. So. Yeah, I think she perjured herself. Disappointing. Yeah, I'm disappointed in you, stuffy girl. I, you know, I'm not surprised, but I am disappointed. So, but I mean, you know, she just, for some reason, and we do this sometimes, don't we?

we all, everybody's had those moments in their lives where they have stuck their necks out for somebody who did not deserve it. And I definitely don't think Jay Smith deserved Steffi for sure. Absolutely not. Nope. So she deserved so much better. Oh, she so did. And it really kind of breaks my heart. And by the way, she referred to the ADA at one point during the cross-examination as Hun. I love her. Hun. Yeah. So anyway, Steffie also followed her husband. husband's example and blamed some really damning evidence on Eddie, the son-in-law. When the ADA asked about a fake Brinks ID card that the police had found in Jay's basement, she said, Eddie had been reading a book about Brinks and that he'd made that ID card as a joke.

I'm sorry, what? Huh? What are you talking about a book about Brinks? Like, what kind of book is this? Just a book about the Brink security company? I mean, maybe such a thing exists. I'm sure it probably does. And I guess Eddie was a big reader, we know, but then how making that ID card as a joke flows naturally from that, I can't imagine.

But anyway, that's what she said. I detect a whiff of a bullshit in the air on that. And she also mentioned our friend Bill Bradfield, of course, because he was Jay's alibi. Well, another alibi witness for Jay. She said Jay had mentioned running into a teacher from the high school while they were all in Ocean City on the day of the robbery. and she said it was a Mr. Bradview. Oh, sorry, Bradfield. And she said she was so sorry the DA had had to go to all this trouble,

but, hon, Jay's innocent. He couldn't have done it. Ooh, boy. So he was innocent, hon. We just all need to go home. So after Steffie testified, it was Bill Bradfield's Time to Shine. And interestingly, he wasn't sworn in because he told the court he was Quaker. And he seemed to be all over the place with his religious beliefs.

He was Quaker. he was Catholic he was all over the place and so he told him he was Quaker and so he affirmed that he'd be truthful in his testimony but it was not formally sworn in and I kind of almost wonder I mean obviously he's someone who's very comfortable with lying but I almost kind of wonder

if this was a way for him to sort of justify the big pile of horseshit he was about to dump in the middle of that courtroom so unsurprisingly the jurors pretty much hated his guts the minute he opened his mouth he came across as pompous and emotionless

and so much so that reporters actually referred to his cold blue eyes, which I find kind of fascinating to refer to a witness that way, not a defendant. So Bill claimed that he'd been in Ocean City on the day of the Sears robbery to visit a friend, a guy named Fred Wattonmaker, and that he had bumped into Dr. Smith at a cafe around lunchtime that day. And he said that Smith had gone with him to see Fred. Fred wasn't home. They'd left a note.

They'd been together for hours. And the time frame would have made it completely impossible for him to commit that robbery at Sears to make that long drive back and commit the robbery. He was with me. He couldn't have done it. And despite everything that he had been telling his entourage about all his hitman lessons with Smith and despite a number of people seeing the two of them together in various places around town in recent months, I mean, they were definitely hanging out. That part is 100% true. Bill on the witness stand downplayed his relationship with Dr. Smith. It was a professional relationship only. He claimed he had never socialized with him.

outside of school he said never now wow yeah i mean a flat out lie and i won't go into all the details of bill's testimony if you want more specifics you can read joseph wambaw's book but suffice it to say bill was not a great witness for the defense he got real flustered and pissy on cross-examination anytime he was challenged he would just get all red-faced and pissed off he's not used to being challenged i mean he is used to being surrounded by sycophants who worship him so anybody actually tries to poke at him a little bit and you've poked the bear. So he got flustered. He admitted that he had no head for dates. Not that smart a thing to admit on the stand when you're somebody's alibi witness and it's time sensitive, but he said he had no head for dates. And he generally

just came across like an irritable stuffed frog, basically on the stand. And when Fred Wattonmaker, the friend that he was supposedly in Ocean City that day to visit took the stand, it just fell apart. Fred was a character, and he was in his 70s. He said he'd seen Bill at the shore, but it wasn't that day. In fact, he said it wasn't that year. It was a different summer altogether. He was 100% sure of it.

He said, look, that day, that was Labor Day weekend. I had a house full of guests. I would remember. I was definitely not home on that day. I was home that whole weekend with house full of company. And he was unshakable, man. No matter what that defense attorney said, he was unshakable. And at one point he said, look, I'm in my 70s, but I still have a good

working mind. And to the jury, it was very clear that he did indeed. He was saucy. Yeah, he was a spicy old man. So that was it. And the jury deliberated for, I love this, less than two hours, that is like quick for a jury deliberation. Lightning fast. Before finding, they didn't even wait to get the free lunch. They just like, let's get out of here. He's guilty. No snack. time even. It was just probably what happened is they all sat down and they all looked at each other and the four person said, I mean, he's guilty, right? And everybody said, yeah. And they said, well, we probably ought to sit around and play 20 questions for a while so they think we did something. But obviously, I mean, he's guilty, right? So less than two hours before finding

Dr. J. C. Smith guilty of the Sears robbery. And in a spectacular moment that I wish I'd been there to see. One of the jurors told the press that they sure as hell hadn't believed that Bill Bradfield didn't believe a word he'd said. Yes. Delightful. I know. Isn't that just a hug from the universe? It's delightful. And Bill, when that came out in the paper, oh, he was furious. Sue Myers, bless her heart, she had to listen to him blub about it for days. They didn't believe me. It was the toy truck all over again. He was. wounded to the depths of his soul that these 12 people had not believed him because he's so used to being believed, obviously. It's just completely a foreign sensation to him.

And unfortunately, for everyone involved in this story, Jay Smith did not go immediately to jail. The judge let him stay out on bail pending sentencing, which was due to happen on June 25th. so he and Bill were able to continue their lessons or whatever the hell was going on in all the time they were spending together and all that spring and summer not one person warned Susan Reiner that Smith was making supposedly threats against her not Chris not Vince not Wendy not Sue they all knew believed anyway that Smith was supposedly planning to murder this woman And as far as they knew and were being told, this was a man who had killed upwards of 250 people for the mob. So that's not an idle threat. And not one of these people thought to clue her in about that fact.

Even if you can't go to the police, because you believe that your parents will end up murdered or you will end up tortured with acid or whatever, why couldn't you go to her and just say, hey, just a heads up. you know your supposed ex-boyfriend j smith and at that point it would have fallen apart right there because susan would have said i'm sorry what my ex-boyfriend who what are you talking about but that didn't happen not one person thought it appropriate to go to susan reinert and clue her in about the fact that they believed she was in danger of being murdered which i find just unbelievable and again i don't want to come down too hard on vince and chris and Wendy and, you know, Sue and everybody, but you can't give them 100%, you really can't 100% give them a pass on that, I don't think. I think there are certainly dynamics there of manipulation, of emotional and mental abuse, you might even argue, but come on. But they still knew the difference between right and wrong. Yeah.

That's where I think the buck stops, and I think they are just as culpable for what happens next. Yeah, you could certainly, you could make that argument. I mean, I think that they at least, they at least have some degree of responsibility. Yeah, I mean, you can't, you can't, I think it'd be hard to argue otherwise. And I'm, I'm sure that they all have had to live with that. Oh, absolutely. I think, yeah, I'm sure they punish themselves a hundred times over. And none of them are bad people.

Absolutely not. I want to make that clear. Oh, absolutely. They are people that were brought in to this web of lies by a master manipulative. Yes. And they were very young as well, most of them, especially Vince. He was just a kid, you know. And so, you know, we have to have some level of compassion for that, but at the same time, one person. Three people end up dead. It just would have, it would have taken one person. And by the way, and we, we didn't get into this and we, you know, we don't have time to go into it in a lot of detail. But the sort of inner circle, those weren't the only people that Bill told some of this stuff to. There were actually. actually one or two other people that worked at Upper Mary and High. Other colleagues,

they're not named in any of the sources that I've looked at. I don't know that they were ever witnesses in any of the trials or anything like that. But according to Wambaw's book, there were a couple of other people that were told at least parts of this stuff, enough to know that Susan was, according to Bill Bradfield anyway, in potential grave danger. And they didn't tell either. You know? So we've got, you could almost count on your two hands. the number of people now and just what we just would have taken one person and nobody did it i just i just find it astonishing so anyway j smith was was due to be sentenced for the robbery on monday june 25th and as that date approached bill is going to start really working his friends up

into a lather that if smith is going to murder susan reinard he's going to have to do it before this date because then he's very likely going to jail for a while so things are about to ramp up in a big way. And we're going to stop there for today, campers, but next episode, it is really going to hit the fan. And thanks so much for listening. We're going to tell you more next time. Stay with us.

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