True Crime Campfire - Episode 5: The Puppet Master and the Prince of Darkness, Part 5: The Skies Open Up

Episode Date: September 27, 2019

In this episode, Bill Bradfield shares more details about his private "hit man lessons" with Dr. Smith. Smith is out on bail awaiting sentencing for the Sears robbery, and Bill tells his entourage that Susan Reinert is in more danger now than ever. If Smith is going to strike, it will be before his sentencing. As for Susan herself, she was stunned when she realized that Bill had testified in Dr. Smith's Sears robbery trial. She had evidence that Bill's testimony was perjured, and she couldn't figure out why a man like Bill, a man of such perfect integrity, would lie on the stand. She knew he must have had a good reason, and she was determined to get it out of him--it was, she told her friends, a dealbreaker. And Susan's actions leading up to her murder become more and more secretive and strange. Upper Merion is about to be rocked to its core by the worst murder case it has ever seen. 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, campers, a lot happened in the last episode. Bill filled Chris and Vince in on the hitman lessons he was allegedly having with Dr. Smith. He kept his entourage from going to the police. by convincing them that they'd all be in danger if they did. After all, Dr. Smith had corrupt connections in both the local police and at high levels of the military. He was buddy-buddy with General John Eisenhower, after all. Bill had his friends convinced that the best thing to do was to stick to his plan. Bill would pretend to go along with Smith's hit man's apprentice curriculum, while he secretly kept his eyes and ears open for any tangible evidence they could use to bring Smith down.

In the meantime, Bill said, we might have to do some favors for Smith now and then. just to keep up the illusion that I'm on his side. You know, like making some homemade silencers, stashing some vats of acid at Chris's place, that kind of innocuous stuff. Meanwhile, Smith went on trial for the Sears robbery, and shockingly, the jury didn't buy Bill's ever-so-convincing testimony that Smith couldn't be guilty because he'd seen him at the shore that day.

Smith was convicted, and, unfortunately, for everyone involved, the judge let him out on bail pending sentencing. And Bill told his friends he was taking great pains to keep an eye on Susan Reinhert just in case Smith acted on his threats to murder her. The Puppet Master and the Prince of Darkness part five. The skies open up. So I want to start by clarifying an important point, campers.

Well, Katie and I have been making certainly well-deserved fun of the ridiculous hitman's apprentice stories that Bill Bradfield was spinning for his entourage during that winter and spring of 78 and 79, it is important to remember that Bradfield and Jay Smith were buddy-buddy during this time period. I mean, first, we know Bill lied for Jay Smith at the trial for the Sears robbery. It didn't work, but he perjured himself for the guy, and that's a big deal, right? And we know they were spending quite a bit of time together during that spring and summer as well. Multiple people have attested to this. We have witnesses who saw them together. And in addition to that, there's another piece of evidence to support the growing bromance

between Jay Smith and Bill Bradfield from the time Smith was arrested up until the day Susan Reinhert was murdered. Now, buckle up for this because it is bananas. Yeah, remember to drink water during this episode, stretch, take your vitamins. you know, pack a little bag of like trail mix and bananas because this is, this is going to be, I think, probably our longest episode. We're getting into it here. So here is a very important piece of evidence of the bromance. One day, Bill told Chris about the double-screen phone system that he and Jay Smith used to communicate with each other while each protecting himself from being double-crossed by the other. You know, just in case one of them was cooperating with the police.

No honor among thieves, guys, and no trust either, which is probably pretty smart because both of these people are absolute shit stains. So why would they trust each other? So here is how this phone system worked. If one of them wanted to call the other, so let's say Bill wanted to call J, he'd call and let the phone ring three times, then he'd hang up and call again. He'd let it ring one time, hang up, call back, and again, let it ring three times. So, p, p, p, p, p, hong up. hang up now if jay was home you like my phone sound was that good

i do that was really good you should be a foley artist it's it's a little bit similar to my jets and spaceship noise but i'll save that one for a treat for later yes thank you so so if jay was home he'd take his phone off the hook so that when bill tried to call again he'd get a busy signal and the busy signal was the i'm home and i'm free to talk signal now okay bill and jay each had a list of 15 different pay phones. Each one was numbered and none was more than a 20 minute drive away. Now, remember, this was the 70s kids, no cell phones. So this is the cumbersome stuff that you had to do in a situation like this, although really they didn't because they could have come up with something 50 times

simpler, but whatever. So once Bill knew Jay was at home, he'd wait 20 minutes and then he would take his list of pay phones and just start calling him, one by one down the list until he finally got hold of Jay Smith. Oh my God. Yeah, it's incredible. So there was a step three that they could use, too, if the call E felt like somebody was watching him at his chosen pay phone. So like if Jay thought he was being watched by an undercover cop or mafia cohort or whatever, he could say to Bill, it's too hot around here. Call number six. And then Bill would wait another 20 minutes to give Jay time to switch pay phones and then he would call phone number six, right? absolutely ridiculous it's so over the top yeah it's bananas so Chris you know as Bill was explaining all this Chris was a very linear thinking guy and he's looking at Bill

like he's speaking some kind of alien language and he asked him wasn't this a little bit unnecessarily complicated perhaps so of course Bill didn't like this he didn't like being questioned and so he decided to demonstrate this well-oiled machine of a system to Chris to prove how

well it worked. And lo and behold, after the requisite calls and hang-ups and the 20-minute wait, Bill spoke on the phone for a few seconds, and then he gestured for Chris, you know, come here and listen at the receiver. And Chris heard the unmistakable, silky, malefluous voice of Colonel J.C. Smith on the other end of the line. So most definitely, I mean, Chris heard the guy. The phone system was real. And before Chris could hear anything of substance, Bill took the phone away, waved Chris out of the room and finish the conversation alone, but it proved to Chris that this phone system worked.

And I think it proves it for us as well. I mean, these two were definitely up to something that summer and spring. And I want to give you one more interesting little detail about what Bill told Chris Poppice about Smith's plans to kill Susan Reiner, which of course was at the very center of the whole

story that spring and summer. Bill told Chris that Smith was furious at being rejected romantically by Susan that he planned to beat her severely before killing her. Now, I want you to remember this, guys, because it's going to become important later, that according to Bill, Jay Smith was furious with Susan and was going to beat her severely before killing her. So, what else was going on in the weeks and days leading up to the murders in this case? Well, Dr. Smith was scheduled to be sentenced for the Sears robbery on Monday, June 25th. And Bill hammered home to his entourage that if he was

going to murder Susan, Smith would have to do it. it before then. So Bill was really ramping up that sense of urgency, that sense that Susan Reiner was in imminent danger throughout that entire spring and early summer. And he told his friends that he was patrolling Susan's neighborhood in his little VW bug, which is quite an image, sitting outside her house for hours just to make sure she was safe. Bill's teenage girlfriend, Wendy, absolutely hated this, as evidenced by a very gross letter that she wrote to him. Now, this is quoted in Joseph Wamba's book, Echoes in the Darkness, which is one of our main sources, as we've said for this podcast. And here is Wendy's letter. I'm so sorry that school is troublesome and that Dr. Smith is such a worry to you. As for that teacher, my claws start unsheathing when I think of her. Please be careful, William. We have a long time still to go. See, he was telling little Wendy that he was going to marry her after college. She's still a teenager, you guys. Oh, my God.

So back to the letter. And if you should get hurt before you are mine in everyone's eyes, I don't know what I would do. So obviously, Wendy is buying hook, line, and sinker this narrative that Bill Bradfield is all that stands between this pathetic school teacher and the danger that stalked her. Yeah. Oh, hero.

What a dashing figure he must have cut in her imagination. And by the way, here's another line from one of Wendy's letters. I thank you for the Kenner reference list. What is my library going to look like when I've finished the book? My husband may have to cut my chocolate chip allowance to give me more book money. Ugh, God, gross. Oh, my God. Ew!

I just... Ew. I can't. It's just so awful. He was 45. And here's one more. I love you madly, passionately, eternally, and infinitely. Do you know what I've been doing?

Whenever I come into my room, if there's no one there, kiss my pillow and pretend it's you. I can't believe how silly I am. Oh, honey. Me either bless your heart. And again, we have a little bit of an edge about Wendy, and I think you're going to see why, even though she was still a teenager, I think at this point she was 18. Yeah. So obviously, I mean, she was being manipulated. She is going to play a role in this that is unfortunate. So we're not, I'm not trying to criticize her unduly, but, oh, Lord, have mercy. I just wanted you to get a taste of what their relationship, if you want to call it that, which I don't really. He was grooming her and he was a predator in my opinion, but

was like. Yeah. And I think that really brings home how young she was. Oh, totally. Kissing her pillow and thinking of her 45-year-old. Yeah. Bill Bradfield. And of course he was her former teacher as well. So there was a huge imbalance of power in their relationship. So, And, you know, it doesn't surprise me that this was the woman, and I use woman loosely because she was barely out of girlhood. I mean, she had just graduated from high school. This was the woman that Bill wanted more than any of the others. This was the one that he described to Chris as his ticket into heaven and the one that he'd actually,

I think, planned to marry. Absolutely. And I'm curious, though, whether it had to do with her perceived purity in his eyes. And the fact that he had her completely. And she worshipped him unquestioningly. Right. Whereas Susan Reiner was given him ultimatums. And Sue Myers was starting to see through his shit. Because if you recall to one of our first episode campers, we talked about how Sue Myers believed that the reason he was attracted to her in the first place was because she was a virgin.

Right. When they met. Mm-hmm. Yep. And I just really think that this illustrates his narcissism, his need to be worshipped, his need to be the smartest person in the room. That's a lot easier to accomplish when you're dealing with people who are a lot, lot younger than you are. Yeah. So, you know, it's easy to be the smartest person in the room when you've got about 25 years on the person that you're talking to.

Yeah. And, you know, there are multiple examples in Wambaw's book. We had to cut some details, obviously, to make this a manageable story. But there are multiple examples of him getting into literary debates and political debates with colleagues at Upper Mary and High and just get. getting absolutely annihilated and storming off in a huff. He couldn't really hold his own. He liked to think of himself and present himself as an intellectual, but he really wasn't. And in fact, even Chris and Vince later said that he had an enormous library of books in his house, but they never saw him reading any of them. Oh, sure. Yeah. And they all had like pristine spines.

They were never cracked. Right. Exactly. They were for show. It was part of the Masky War. He would come home and watch the love boat. Which, I mean, can you blame him? I can't, really, but still, you might want to crack a book every now and again if you're claiming to be Upper Merion's, you know, great intellectual. Oh, totally. So, anyway, another important element here is that very soon after Jay Smith's trial for the Sears robbery, Susan Reiner became aware from news reports that Bill had perjured himself. Now, that, I think, is really, really important. So why is that that she became aware of this?

Well, well, Whitney, let me tell you, she knew for a fact he hadn't seen Jay Smith at the shore that day because she was at the shore with him. And she was positive he would have mentioned it to her if he'd seen Smith. Funny I never mentioned that, that he was with her that day. Weird, right? yes it's the first one hearing of this she knew he'd lied on the stand and she was really really really upset about it understandably so absolutely she told her best friend and that's pat schner i believe yeah she could hardly believe that he'd done it and then it was so contrary to the man of integrity she believed him to be and you know made her wonder like why would he lie for dr smith and and that

was just not something she could wrap her head around shortly after that conversation between Susan and Pat. Susan's neighbor witnessed Bill storming out of her house in a huff and Susan chasing after him and crying and him driving off and leaving her standing on the curb in tears, which is such a dramatic, you know, relationship thing. But she told her friend and her therapist that Bill told her that she was wrong. She was confused and she was remembering wrong. He was absolutely outraged and furious that she didn't believe him, but she knew she wasn't confused, and she wasn't going to let it go. She told Pat that she was determined to get a satisfactory answer, and her friend got the impression that this was a deal breaker for Susan, something that was

threatening to derail the marriage plans and derail the relationship and derail everything. And on top of that, Susan was already feeling guilty about her kids having to keep her secrets. she confided in the therapist about that and told her that she felt bad about letting Bill spend the night with the kids in the house, about letting the kids witness, you know, her living in sin. And, you know, keep in mind, this was the 70s. So people still had pretty traditional ideas about, you know, romance and dating. Yeah, it was a minor scandal. Like, even her neighbors have said, like, we were surprised.

She seemed like such a nice lady. And we were surprised to see that VW bug parked overnight, you know. So, I mean, people wouldn't bat an eye in most neighborhoods today. And she also felt bad about making her kids her secret keepers because truthfully, it wasn't fair to them. And the kids did seem to be feeling some kind of stress about it. They got all furtive with their paternal grandparents when they would come around and ask what their mom had been up to. But every now and then one of them would slip. One day, Michael pointed to a type of car and said that they might get one like that.

when they go to Europe with Bill. Uh-oh. Yeah. And when the grandparents were like, uh, who's Bill? Yeah. Michael, like, clamped up and would only say that he was quote-unquote mom's friend. And one afternoon, Michael had a little league game scheduled. The kid's paternal grandparents.

So that's Susan's exes, Ken's parents for the record. They had known about the game but forgot about it until the last minute. And they showed up unannounced at Susan's house. Oh, dear. Don't show up unannounced anywhere. ever just pro tip that's obnoxious and that's also how you find a dead body it is it's how you walk in on all kinds of unpleasant stuff yeah awkward and unpleasant and but i mean i guess you could also argue that that would be an incentive yeah i guess if you're if you're a private eye maybe or if you just

like to you know gather the tea yeah no things so as they pulled up to the house they saw michael and karen playing in the front yard and instead of like being excited like kids should be when they see their grandparents. They seemed really nervous. Poor kids. Geez. God. And so the kids both got up and sprinted into the house without saying anything. And then by the time the rhinerths got onto the porch, Susan and the kids met them at the door. And instead of inviting them in, Susan shut the front door behind her. So the grandparents, yeah, the grandparents offered to drive to the ball field. And Susan said, great, you all go ahead. I'll be there later. And she, like, closed the door and went back inside. Suspish.

Yeah. So the grandparents remembered seeing a blue VW bug parked across the street from the house. Now, this is very odd for Susan. She was not one to miss her kids games or, like, events or anything. So she let the grandparents take Karen and Michael to the game and just didn't show up. Now, During the game, Karen got bored and asked if she and her friend could walk over to the Italian ice stand near the ball field. So this is the 70s. Kids just kind of roamed around. I picture it like the Wild West, except instead of like gangs of bandits, it's children. It really wasn't quite that bad. Yeah. I mean, I can remember I'm a child of the 80s. I was born in 77. And yeah, I mean, you know, we'd walk to the corner store. I remember we would go get Jolly Ranch. It was fine. It was really fine, honestly. But yeah, you don't find people doing that so much today, I guess. I mean, we could go to the end of the block and then turn around. We had to on our bikes, but that was it. Dang. So anyway, so she got the Italian ice. They decided to walk back to the house. Now, the friend lived on the same street, and once they got there, they decided to put their Italian ices in their freezers and save them for later. So, Karen's friend ran to her house to do that, and then Karen tried her own front door, but it was locked. So Karen went around the side of the house and opened a window and climbed in, which just means that she's very resourceful. Yeah, no kidding, right? Her little friend's

mom was watching all of this and told author Joseph Womba about it later. The neighbor said that Karen climbed through the window, and a moment later she heard Karen scream, then start to cry. Oh, that's so weird. Yeah. So, later Susan and Karen arrived at the ball field together and they both looked really upset and Susan didn't want to go out for ice cream with Michael and the grandparents after the game. She wanted her and Karen to walk home together instead. Did mom and daughter need to have a little talk about something? Sure sounds like it doesn't it? It's bizarre. I have no idea what was happening there. Yeah, it's really strange. When the grandparents arrived back at Susan's house with Michael

after the ice cream run, they saw that the blue VW bug was pulling a way. And it was driven by a bearded man. I wonder who he was. So what the hell was this about? Why did she scream and then cry? Do you think she just fell and hurt herself when she was climbing in the window? You know, that was my first thought, but it doesn't explain why both she and Susan were visibly upset when they showed up at the ball field. That's true. I mean, it makes you wonder, like, did she walk in on something between Susan and Bill? Like, did she walk in on them, like, I don't know, in a sexual encounter in like the middle of the living room or something?

Were they having an argument? Maybe. I don't know. There's so many variables here that just don't add up and would really complete this picture, but we just have no idea. I wish we knew, don't you wish? That little detail in particular, I would love to know what she screamed and cried about and why Susan was upset later on, because I just don't think it can be explained by, well, she fell and hurt her arm, because Susan wouldn't be upset, too. right if that was all it was doesn't yeah she walked in on something that's what I think yeah an argument or something but I kind of went off on it earlier but it does really really bug me that she wasn't at

her kids game yeah and it kind of shows how Bill had at this point taken over her life I mean it was completely out of character for her you know everyone said she was a great mom yeah and all about bill yeah it just it just really bothers me to have have that little detail especially at this point the story. Oh, no, no kidding. Yeah. It really does show how relationships that are toxic in the way that this one was can kind of start to eclipse everything else in your life. And she probably knew on some level that that was happening and didn't like it happening. But sometimes when you're in that situation, you're just not sure how to make it stop because you're so caught up in it. And I think her end goal was to get to Europe. I think she was like, it'll be fine once we're in

Europe. Yeah, she probably thought it'll be fine once I get him away from that other woman. Yeah. Oh, totally. That's exactly what she was thinking, I think. When we're in England and Sue Myers is nowhere around, it's going to be fine. Yeah. That's her heart. And I think now is the perfect time while we're on the topic to give a little bit more detail on Karen and Michael. Yeah, we haven't talked much about them yet, have we? No. And they were honestly dream kids. They were sweet, well-mannered, polite, super intelligent. They loved being around adults. They were not shy around them. Michael was 10 years old, dark blonde hair, he loved baseball and fishing, lots of rough and tumble outdoor stuff. He played on a little league team, and he'd get really excited when he hooked a fish. He liked to draw, and he could hold his own in a bridge game with the grownups. Now, Karen, the oldest, was 11. She had beautiful gray blue eyes, brown hair with sunstreaked blonde highlights. She loved playing with Susan's best friend's little two-year-old daughter. And when I was reading the book, I realized that this is 1979 and the little two-year-old

Molly, so she was two, so she's my age. Molly's my age today. Oh, gosh. That's crazy to think about that. That little detail for some reason really kind of punched me in the gut when I read that that Karen's little two-year-old buddy, she's my age today. Yeah. It definitely makes this a little more real. Yeah. Karen liked playing school with her friends. She wanted to be a teacher just like her mom. She was squeamish about snakes and bugs and she liked to write poetry. Michael didn't really seem to be troubled about how he felt about Bill Bradfield, but Susan once asked him what he thought about him and Michael said, oh, he's okay. He's teaching him how to wrestle. Now Karen, I think Karen may have understood Bill Bradfield a good bit better than her mother ever did.

She told Pat Schner, Susan's friend, and this is a direct quote from Wamba's book, I think he's kind of weird. I make him pancakes for breakfast and he says it's great. Michael makes him a sandwich and he says, that's great. It's all great. I mean, nobody eats a sandwich with pancakes. Shouldn't someone tell the truth and say he doesn't want a sandwich with pancakes? Sometimes I don't think he's an honest person.

Wow. Wow. Yeah. From her lips to God's ears, honestly. Just that sort of unfiltered way in which kids can see the world sometimes, they can be perceptive in ways that adults can't. Because we tend to logic ourselves out of our bad feelings when our spidey sense starts to tingle. And this is another thing that that security expert, former Secret Service agent Gavin DeBecker, I think I talked a little bit in either the last episode or the one before about his book, The Gift of Fear, which is terrific and everybody should read it. It's about how to hone your intuition to stay safe.

And he talks a lot about how we have unlearned a lot of instinctual gifts that we all have to perceive when something isn't right. And I think kids haven't unlearned that yet in the way that the adults do. So they don't tend to talk themselves out of their gut feelings in the way that we do. Karen got a bad vibe off of Bill Bradfield. And she said, I don't think he's an honest person. That's not the understatement of the century. I don't know what it is. And how on brand is that for him to just be like, oh, yes, great, pancakes.

Oh, great. Sandwich. Just constantly loving the attention and just loving being catered to. Oh, absolutely. And also I think he knew it was important that Susan's children liked him. Mm-hmm. Because, you know, when you're dating a single mom, that's a package deal. And if the kids don't like you, that cause real problems in a relationship.

He needed those kids to be on his team. So he teaches Michael how to wrestle. And he's all for the sandwiches and the pancakes. cakes and whatever else they're doling out. And if I remember rightly, he also called Karen his Lorelei, which is just vomit-inducing. Gross. God, he's such a slime bucket. So, anywho, Karen understood Bill a lot better than her mom did, unfortunately. If only she could have shared that wisdom with Susan and Susan would have listened. So Bill continued throughout that spring and summer. His relationships with Wendy and Ice Queen Joanne

I don't know how he found the time, as we've said before. It's just incredible, but you can't miss out on any opportunity to be adored. So he made sure to keep up those relationships. And in fact, he put Joanne up in a cheap hotel at the shore for months so he could visit her whenever he felt like it. And Sue would always kind of have a feeling when he would disappear for a day or two when he's probably going to see Joanne. And despite making plans with Susan to take her to England that summer and marry her,

Bill had booked himself, Chris, and Joanne into a summer program at St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Now, obviously, Susan knew nothing about this. If she had, we would have had a major problem, because how are you going to do that if you're going to take me to England and marry me? But this is how good he was at keeping everybody apart and making sure that nobody's talking to each other. And see, the thing is, I think that this is a big reason why he took such pains to kind of dirty her up to Vince and Chris because Vince at least I'm not sure about Chris but Vince was friends with Susan

when all of this began they were friends and Vince was so Catholic and so inexperienced you know sort of in the ways of the world and certainly in the ways of sex and I think that Bill knew that all of this completely fictional talk of Susan being kinky and picking up men at bars and having been involved romantically with Jay Smith

I mean, all of that was complete bollocks, obviously, but Vince believed everything that Bill said. I think it was a way for him to separate them. Keep them apart. Make sure that Vince didn't accidentally spill the beans to Susan. That would have been inconvenient for Bill. So anyway, made sure everybody was separate. Now, this course was supposed to start on June 25th.

He and Chris were supposed to fly there on Friday, June 22nd. In just a few minutes here, we're going to start to get real specific with dates. guys so remember these dates he and chris were supposed to fly out to santa fe on june 22nd now despite this and despite the fact that chris had already bought himself a plane ticket for the 22nd bill planned a trip to the seashore in cape may new jersey for that same day now chris was baffled by this like what the hell why would we take a trip to the shore on the weekend we're supposed to travel cross country for this summer program and made no sense but bill insisted that chris come with him he said

Look, here's the thing. Dr. Smith is going to be sentenced for the Sears robbery on Monday. He's most likely going to prison for a while, and he knows it. So if he's going to kill Susan, it's going to have to be this weekend. Bill said this will be his last chance. And if it happens, I want to be able to account for my whereabouts. I need you to help provide my alibi. So, of course, Chris said, well, you know, if you want an alibi, why not just fly to Santa Fe with me on Friday like we plan? And, duh, I mean, then you're halfway across the country.

What's a better alibi than just distance? Right. But of course, as he always does, he had a ready answer. Well, Dr. Smith's lawyer says he might need me to be a character witness at the sentencing on Monday. So obviously, I can't be thousands of miles away. Okay, can we just pause for a second? I'm sorry, what? So you'd want to be a character witness for this man.

Why? No, I don't know. Wasn't the goal all along to see Jay Smith incarcerated for as long as possible? Yeah. He's supposed to be an evil hitman, remember? Smith is human cancer. Why would you want to help him? Now that he's already been convicted, your obligation to, quote, tell the truth because you're a, quote, man of integrity, and you saw him at the shore and whatever.

That's the argument he used before. Well, I've got to testify for him because I have to tell the truth. I did see him at the shore. That's gone. That argument is out the window. You did that. You have fulfilled your obligation. He was sentenced. This is good news. We're going to get this man locked up so he can't hurt anybody else. I think this is probably the worst, the worst lie that Bill told in this sequence. Just because I think it was clearly just a backpedal, I think he didn't expect Chris to question him at all. Yeah, he wasn't used to to his entourage questioning him. And to be fair, they didn't. very often at all, for some reason, these full-grown adults. But, you know, Chris didn't ask that question.

He was so far gone by this point, I think, that he just didn't ask any questions anymore. He just assumed that Daddy Bill knew what Daddy Bill was doing, and he canceled his plane ticket, per his marching orders, no problem. He probably thought, I don't quite understand this, but okay, this is the level of, I don't know what you'd call it, adulation that they had for him, or at least just the pattern that they had established that he was the leader

and they all did what he said. It's just astonishing. So that's Chris. Now, Bill also insisted that Sue and Vince come to the shore, of course. Now, poor Vince had just started a summer job because this arts and craft store that he and Bill and Sue owned together was so badly circling the drain by now

and it just wasn't paying anything. So Vince had gotten a summer job, and a lot of teachers do that, bless them, because they're not paid enough at all. And so a lot of teachers work summer jobs, and he had just started this job. He was really, really reluctant to ask for a day off so early on. But Bill didn't give a crap.

Bill insisted, I need you. You have to come. I need your support. And, of course, Vince agreed, putting his new job in jeopardy and everything. And, I mean, his friends were worried about him. All this cloak and dagger stuff really seemed to be taking a toll on poor darling Bill. He seemed exhausted. He seemed stressed out all the time.

His beard was getting all grizzled and frazzled. and, you know, he must have been a sight to see. And they figured Smith might be all talk anyway. I mean, this was kind of how Vince had comforted himself all along. He likes to shock people. He's probably just trying to freak you out. So they figured, well, Susan Rainer's probably not in any real danger. I mean, surely not, right?

This stuff happens in movies, not in real life. So they plan to leave for Cape May after dinner on Friday the 22nd. So with all these plans made, we come to that day. Friday, June 22nd, 1979. Now, that was a busy day for Bill. First thing he did was he met up with Little Wendy in a motel for what was, most likely, I imagine, an Elliot emu session. Remember Elliot?

Very sexy. So sexy. Again, the most erotic of all the flightless birds is the emu. And while they were there, they talked about the Jay Smith-Smith, Susan Reinhert situation, of course, as they always did. And by the way, Wendy had, like, talked to some of her little friends about this. I mean, again, yet another person who was aware that someone was in supposedly mortal danger and didn't bother to clue anybody into that fact. It's just astounding. And this time, Bill added a new development, which I think is fascinating.

He said that Jay Smith had added someone new to his hit list, and now he wanted to kill Sue Myers, too. Oh, my God. And he didn't even bother to explain why, as I recall. It was just Sue Myers is on the list now, too. And I guess Wendy was just like, okay, and they moved on to some more Elliott Emu. I don't know. It's just, dang, really?

So he also taught Wendy a cipher code. Now, if you don't know what a cipher is, I'm sure you guys do. You're all true crime fans. You know what the Zodiac killer was, right?

He used cipher codes in his communications with the police. The military uses them. It's just a situation in which you replace letters with symbols or numbers or something like that. It's a code.

Yeah. And, of course, it was a book cipher with surprise, an Ezra Pound book is the key. So a book cipher is a kind of code where you write down a series of numbers. So you might write down 5104. And then you have a book that you use as your key.

So 5104 might mean page 5, line 10, word four, right? Yep. So you go down, you go to page five, you go down 10 lines, and over four words. And that's the first word of your cipher code, right? Pretty simple. Book ciphers are easy to crack if you have the key. Yeah. So he's teaching poor Wendy how to do this and said at some point we might need to communicate through code, you know, if J. Smith does kill Susan Reiner because I'm likely to become a suspect because of her pathetic obsession with me for some reason, even though I'm 100% innocent and have only served as an advisor and friend to this poor sad woman. Yeah. So poor Wendy, her next assignment was to go to the bank where Chris had opened that safety deposit. box for Bill with the cash

that he'd scammed from Susan Reinhard in that phony investment deal. Remember the money that they spent a whole afternoon wiping off that day? So, of course, Chris and Wendy thought that money was Bill's life savings. They didn't know it had anything to do with Susan Reinhardt, but Bill told her,

using the same bizarro logic that made writing each other letters in cipher code make sense, that if Jay Smith murdered Susan this weekend and Bill became a suspect, the police might freeze all his assets. Now, this was paranoid weirdness to me that they would even know about that safety deposit box but okay he didn't want his money unavailable to him just in case so he asked wendy to withdraw all the cash for him and of course

his wish was her command and he asked her to stash the cash at her parents house i-i-i-captain no problem so she goes and gets this money out and puts it in i think a closet or something at her parents' place yes meanwhile still on the 22nd Michael had a father-son softball game that evening with his dad. And I know we haven't really talked much about Ken Reiner, Susan's ex-husband, but he really seems like a nice guy. He's really involved in his kids' lives. He shared custody with Susan. Their divorce was about as amicable as divorce as get. Susan was still close with his parents. She called her former father-in-law for advice about home and car repairs sometimes. Wow. Yeah. So that night, Susan dropped Michael off at the

softball game but didn't stop to talk to Ken and his new wife. She just let Michael jump out of the car and Susan drove off. And honestly, I'm glad Ken got to play softball with his boy that night. Me too. The game unfortunately didn't last long because before it could really get rolling, a summer thunderstorm started and sent everybody into a nearby church fellowship hall. After just a few minutes, Ken Reiner looked up to see Susan standing in the doorway waving Michael over to her. Ken and his wife were supposed to drop Michael off at home after the game, so that was weird. But before Ken could get to Susan to ask what was up, she and Michael had already left. 15 minutes later, back at home, Ken got a phone call for Michael. Michael said he was sorry that he'd had to leave so

suddenly, but that he had to scrub his floor at home because they were going away, which is so weird. It's so bizarre. You know, it's not like Michael was like a habitual scrubber of floors or anything. He was 10. Yeah. And Ken, you know, obviously perturbed said, well, where are you going? And Michael put his hand over the receiver and asked his mom, mom, dad wants to know where I'm going. And Ken heard Susan say, why don't you tell him you're going bowling with PWP? And for the uninitiated, PWP was parents without partners, and it's a club that Susan had joined after her divorce, which is this whole, that whole conversation is bizarre. It's so bizarre.

And, you know, speaking of PWP, Susan called the club president that evening and told her something had come up, something personal, something she didn't want to talk about it. But she needed someone to cover for her an event they'd planned the next day in Allentown, even weirder. Yeah, because she's obviously making that up on the spot. So it's clear to Ken that whatever is going on, he's not being like, let in on it. Why didn't you tell him you're going bowling? I mean, that's, that's made up on the spot. I'm sure he has had so many regrets about that moment. I'm sure he wished he would have pushed

harder. Like he pushed harder, definitely. I'm sure, bless his heart. I'm sure he drove himself crazy with that. So Vince Valetus got home from work at 530 that night to get packed for the trip to Cape May. Sue Myers invited him up for dinner at eight. Vince, I don't think we've mentioned this, lived in the same building as Bill and Sue, and they were in the habit of having dinner together. And Bill's grown son Martin and his girlfriend joined them for dinner. Now, everyone obviously was expecting Bill, but Bill didn't show. So they had dinner. Everybody went down to Vince's place afterward to watch a scary movie. Bill still didn't show. And at some point, Sue got sleepy. She just went up to bed. She figured this was just another time getting stood up by

Bill. She was used to it. So she went to bed. Another no-show. At 8.30, Chris was over at his friend Jenny's, and Wendy showed up and wanted to talk to Jenny alone. They were good friends, those two, and they left on some business for Bill. We don't know what. All we know is that Wendy and Jenny had some little errand to run at 8.30 that night, and at 9 o'clock

that night, a huge hailstorm hit. Chunks of ice pattering down all over town, big summer hailstorm. And across town at Susan Reiner's place, Michael and Karen, were outside playing with a little neighbor girl, and they all started playing a game to see who could collect the most

and the biggest hailstones in a pile before they melted. Yeah, so this is a little fun game, you know, going around and grabbing the hailstones. At 9.30 p.m., the neighbor girl's grandmother, his name was Mary Gove, she's going to come up again later when we talk about the trials, saw Susan pop her head out and call the children inside. And just a few moments later, she heard two car doors open and shut, and she looked out her window and saw Susan's car driving away right as the hailstorm stopped. And she remembers thinking, oh, I'm glad the storm is stopping. I wouldn't want them driving in this terrible weather.

Now, back at Vince's, they'd all given up on Bill. Sue was down to sleep back at her place. Vince was finishing up the scary movie with Bill's son and his girlfriend. And finally, at 1115, Bill showed up. So now we've got Susan and the kids driving off at 9.30. Bill showed up at home at 1115. Hours late. He was supposed to have been there for.

dinner at eight. He was wearing a big duffel coat with lots of pockets despite the fact that it was blazing hot and it's June. Nobody had seen Bill Bradfield for three hours that evening he's unaccounted for. And he was acting really distracted

and pissy. He was agitated. He was bossy. He was in a huge hurry to get on the road to Cape May, despite how late it was and the fact that they planned on leaving after dinner and that he was the one holding it up. He was barking orders at everybody. He totally ignored his son and his girlfriend, and they just gotten back from a trip to Europe, and they were excited to see him,

and he just completely ignored them. And, you know, he went and shook poor Sue up from a dead sleep. Come on, let's go, let's go. He sent Vince to put gas on the VW, and he was so worked up. He actually snapped his fingers at him. Go, go, go, you know, like a freaking drill sergeant. And when Sue asked him where the hell he'd been all evening, his explanation was that he'd been to visit his ex-wife Muriel. He said she wasn't home. He said he'd waited for her for hours, because that's what you do when somebody's not home, right? You just wait in your car outside their house for hours before giving up and leaving her a note. Now, this was bizarre, but all right, Sue was used to bizarre with Bill. So, I mean, this was nothing.

No, yeah, comparatively. This is like, oh, okay, minor. So it was after midnight by the time they picked Chris up and got on the road, and Chris drove, and Bill seemed exhausted. He was in the back seat, and he kept nodding off. And at one point, he jerked awake and said, I'm afraid this is it. This is the weekend. Dr. Smith will kill Susan Reinhert. And he said, I tried to protect her. I followed him toward her house, but I lost him in the hailstorm. It wasn't that bad a hailstorm, y'all, that you're going to lose somebody in it. But this is what he said. Conceivably, if he's going to Susan Reinhert's house, you could just meet him there. So everybody tried to reassure him. You know, look, you've done all you can do.

Bill. Just go easy on yourself. I'm sure Susan's going to be fine. You've been protecting her all summer. Yeah. So it's worth noting here yet again, campers, that except for Sue Myers, everybody in that car was supposedly a friend of Susan Reinherts. And no one had ever thought to give her a heads up about anything that had gone on that entire spring and summer. Not one person. And again, I understand he was a manipulator. He was an expert manipulator. I get that. I get that he surrounded himself with young people who were inexperienced and who considered themselves to be indebted to him. He definitely stacked the deck. Yeah. But come on. It just, it does not make me happy is what I'm saying. No, not at all. This is the most infuriating story.

I'm not happy about it. I'm just not happy about it. Not one person. That's all it would have taken. Well, maybe not. I mean, Susan was pretty brainwashed by Bill. But we would have at least had a fighting chance to avoid what is about to happen, what has happened, what is about to happen. So they kept driving, and at 3.30 a.m., they reached Cape May, New Jersey, Jersey Shore, guys. They stopped for a snack, an all-night restaurant, and at 5 a.m., they arrived at their hotel, only to find that there was some kind of mix-up with registration and their rooms weren't ready. I'm sure Bill took that with perfect diploma, right?

So while the manager was trying to get it all sorted out, they all kind of dozed off. in the lobby. It must have been a miserable night for everybody. And the reason I'm breaking this down for you so specifically is that it's important for you to know exactly where these folks were at every hour on this night. The rest of the trip, we can just cover

his highlights. So Bill insisted that he and Vince go to mass twice during the trip, once on Saturday night and once on Sunday morning, to pray and light candles for Susan Reiner to keep evil from her, as Bill put it, because he is, if nothing else, the protection.

bless him and he made a big deal about saving the receipts and ticket stubs from everything they did that weekend a movie every meal and on monday morning he made a big stink with the hotel manager about making sure that she noted friday night on the receipt even though they hadn't actually gotten their rooms until saturday morning he was determined make sure that it shows friday night very important yeah i wonder why bill asked chris to help him dispose of some letters from Susan Reiner on that trip as well, which I think is fascinating. He showed him to him at one point, took him aside and said, look at these letters that this woman wrote me. They're disgusting. She's got nothing but sex on her mind.

Imagine if something bad happened to her and the police found these, they could be dangerous for me. Now, Chris read a little bit of these supposedly disgusting sexual letters, and they didn't seem disgusting to him at all. There wasn't anything sexual in them that he could find. They were just love letters. And even at her spiciest, they really, it was. was really more along the lines of a Danielle steel novel rather than like 50 Shades of Gray. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And when he said that

to Bill, well, I don't really see anything disgusting here. Bill seemed really pissed off. He said, well, damn it, I can't find any of her really filthy letters, but you should see some of the filth that she's written. Uh-huh. Okay. So add this to the list of baffling nonsense Chris had gotten from

Bill that summer. It's getting to be a long list by now. But of course he did it as his Lord and Master asked and got rid of the letters in a dumpster and he was even careful to put them under a bunch of other stuff in the trash so they couldn't blow out because heaven forbid if something happened to Susan that Bill should be incriminated unfairly right so after dropping Chris off back home at the end of the trip bill stopped at a pay phone now this was ostensibly to call Chris and ask if he had all the books they'd need for their summer program in Santa Fe because they're

leaving that Monday. This is Monday the 25th. Interestingly, though, Chris would later say he never got that call. Never got any call from Bill that day. So we don't know who he was calling on that pay phone when he told everybody else in the car. It was Chris. Well, it wasn't. So when they got back home on Monday afternoon, Bill called Jay Smith's lawyer. And after he hung up, he told Sue that Smith had been sentenced. He was going away. He was going away to prison. And he was absolutely Jubilant. Susan is out of harm's way. He rushed over to tell Vince and he burst into tears, you know, put on a big show. I saved that fucking woman's life. That's what he said. God. That's exactly what he said. Pardon my French. I saved that fucking woman's life. Shows you the respect he had for Susan, by the way, doesn't it? And Bill and Chris that evening set off to fly to Santa Fe. Joanne, and this should tell you something about the respect that he had for Joanne, was driving by herself in Bill's BW. bug. So he got to fly. She had to drive dusty cross country in this, I'm sure, not air-conditioned VW bug all alone. Oh, absolutely not. And if I recall correctly, she hadn't been told that that was

going to be her job until the day of. You are correct. Yeah. She thought they were all going together. She didn't know she was going to be stuck by herself. But of course, as everyone always was, she was fine with it. No problem. Whatever Bill says. So Chris and Bill, you know, they're on the plane. They were very self-satisfied as they settled into their seats that day. They'd done their duty. Smith was in jail. They'd protected everybody. Susan Reiner was out of harm's way. Yeah, good job, guys. So that was Monday evening. Let's rewind for a second to the evening before. 7 p.m. Sunday, June 24th. Two businessmen saw Plymouth Horizon sitting in the parking lot of the host inn in Harrisburg, PA. The car had its hatchback open. And what looked

to one of the guys like a bag of laundry poking out. You know, they meant to report it to the front desk, but they were kind of tired from traveling and they completely forgot. Hours later, at 2 a.m., a policeman on patrol saw the same car. He didn't get out of his squad car, just ran the plates, and saw that the car was registered to a Susan G. Reiner of Ardmore, PA. The cop went into the front desk and discovered there was no hotel guest by that name. But right then, he got a call to the scene of a fatal car accident, he had to leave. And still the car sat there. And then, at 5.20 a.m., Monday morning, a call came to the Dauphin County dispatch about a sick woman in a car in the host-in parking lot. The caller identified himself as Larry Brown. The same cop who had run Susan's plates earlier was

called back to the car. This time, he got out of his car and looked into hers, and he found her. Susan was small, and her body was folded up so tightly in the fetal position that she almost fit inside the luggage well of the hatchback. It just kills me for some reason, that little detail about how small she was. So tiny, yeah. Yeah. She was less than 100 pounds. Oh, wow.

And she was naked. Her body was covered in bruises. She'd clearly been badly beaten and the remarks around her neck. To the detectives, they looked like the lengths of a chain. Oh, God, so creepy. Susan Reiner was dead, brutalized. It looked very much like she'd been tortured. And she was all alone in that car.

We told you this episode one, but I think it bears repeating because it's one of the worst things either of us have ever heard in a murder case. As detectives and the crime scene analysts began the odyssey that would become the most extensive murder of investigation in Pennsylvania history, Susan's ex-husband, Ken Reiner, was informed of his ex-wife's death and was brought in for questioning. After he'd absorbed the initial shock from the death of the woman he'd lived with and loved for years, the mother of his children, Ken came back to his sensitive. enough to ask the detective. Are my kids with the neighbors, or...

And the detective, feeling his stomach sink, and his blood turns to ice water, said, what kids? Oh, man. Well, that's all for today, campers. Next time we'll take you through the beginnings of the investigation of Ms. Susan's murder, the search for Karen and Michael, reactions from Bill and his entourage,

and what the hell J. Smith had been up to. Until then, 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.