True Crime Campfire - Episode 6: The Puppet Master and the Prince of Darkness, Part 6: The Hunting Horn Calls

Episode Date: October 4, 2019

In this episode, we learn about the early days of what would become the most extensive police investigation in American history. We learn a bit about the lead detectives, Joe Van Nort and Jack Holtz, and we watch as Bill Bradfield and his entourage begin to crack under the strain. Dr. Jay Smith heads to prison for the Sears robbery. And some compelling pieces of evidence begin to emerge, as the first threads of this intricately woven murder plot begin to unravel. Sources available on social media.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, last week we covered the few days leading up to the murder of Susan Reinhert and the disappearance of her two children and the discovery of Susan's body in the trunk of her car. We know Bill Bradfield was at the Jersey shore with his entourage when the body was discovered. We don't know where Dr. Smith was at that time, but we know he was sentenced to spend some time in prison that morning. And as Bill Bradfield and Chris Pappas sipped cocktails on a plane bound for their summer study program in New Mexico, they congratulated each other about having kept Susan Reinhert safe from the nefarious Dr. Smith. But as their plane sailed over the Midwest and Dr. Smith traded his civvies for jailhouse orange, the most extensive police investigation in American history was ramping up.

The hunting horn had sounded and the hunters were saddling up. As you'll no doubt remember, the last thing that happened in episode five was that the detectives learned of the existence of the kids, Karen and Michael Reiner. And this, of course, added an extra sense of urgency to the case, as you can imagine. I mean, you remember that horrible moment at the end, right? It just constantly breaks my heart. Every time I have to think about it, it makes me sick. It is one of the worst things I've ever heard in any murder case. And, I mean, I've read and watched about thousands of them, and it's just dreadful.

What everybody must have gone through. in that moment, especially their father, of course, but the detectives, too. It just made everybody's blood freeze. So the lead detective in the case was a grizzled 55-year-old guy named Joe Van Nort. And I'm not going to lie, we kind of love this guy.

Oh, my God. I mean, you don't always love the police, and you don't always love the specific investigators in a case, but Van Nort, this guy was a character. He was pretty much too old for this shit in human form. He didn't suffer. for fools gladly. He was as allergic to pretension as I am. And if this were a novel instead of a real-life murder case, I'd say the author created him as the perfect contrast and the perfect

adversary of Billy Bradfield. Joe Van Nort was pretty much Bill Bradfield's photo negative. Oh, yes. And yeah, I mean, they're just as opposite as it gets, pretty much, especially in personality in the way that they present themselves to the world. Bill Bradfield is pure, unadulterated pretension and Van Nort is pretty much the opposite of that. And I won't go into his whole life story here. If you want more background on the detectives and the FBI agents involved in the case, you can and I think should read Joseph Wambaw's book Echoes in the Darkness, which as we have said before was our main source for this podcast. But I will give you just a few scattered details from the life of Detective Van Nort just to kind of give you an idea of who he was and why I

kind of wish he was my dad. Oh, yes. I have a phenomenal dad, but also, can I have two dads? Yeah, can I have another daddy and can he be Detective Van Nort? So, Van Nort had been a cop for almost 30 years when the Reiner case landed in his lap. He and his wife, Betty, had a weekend cabin that Joe had built way out in the woods pretty much entirely by himself with his own two hands, which is astonishing to me. I don't even know how you would begin to build a house, but he did and cleared land. There was like 29 acres of land or something, and he had cleared most of it just by hand.

It's incredible. And this is in addition to doing his job as a detective. So he was pretty much the platonic ideal of the word curmudgeon. So grumpy around people that although every Christmas, he went completely balls out with the Christmas decorations, so Christmas lights and big Santa and reindeer out on the lawn, the whole shebang. But even though he went to all that,

trouble every Christmas, he got so mad at the, as he called them, looky-loos, who came to, you know, look at it, that he would go out and, like, shake his fist at the sky and yell at him, get off from my land, you know, old man yells at cloud kind of stuff, right? Although he was only 55, but he'd done some hard living in those 55 years. I mean, first of all, he smoked three and a half packs of cigarettes a day, which will grizzle anybody. Oh, my God, yeah. And I say that as a former smoker. I mean, it definitely ages you when you're doing it. Unfortunately, I quit

in 2002, but yeah, I smoked for years and it definitely takes its toll. And he was into big game hunting, which as an animal lover I'm not thrilled about, and I know you agree with me on that. Oh, totally. Yeah, no. Not great. But anywho, years earlier, Joe had gone on a safari

in Africa and he had broken his back. And this is an incredible story. He'd been by himself at the time and his vehicle had rolled over and pinned him. And he had lain out in the wilderness all by himself for four days before somebody finally found him and rescued him. And when the doctors wanted to operate and put him into traction, he just flat out refused. He said he wanted to fix himself the natural way. And by God, he actually did it. I don't know how. But he managed to take care of himself, heal himself,

left the hospital against medical advice, and he sorted it out. Now, I'm not saying I advocate that. think you should pretty much do what your doctor tells you, but it's a hell of a story. Yeah, the true crime campfire stance is, uh, please listen to your doctor. Yes, the official true crime campers is listen to your doctor's campers, but at the same time, damn. Oh my God. If you had told me this, this without context, I would have thought it was the plot of a movie, like some over-the-top action film.

Absolutely. Well, and there's a lot in this story like that. How this has not been made into a massive blockbuster Hollywood film, I cannot imagine. Maybe our podcast will be the impetus behind that. Oh, hopefully. So anyway, based on that, all of that information that I just gave you, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Joe Van Nort was probably mean as hell. But you'd be wrong. So he had a softer side.

For one thing, he had a strawberry garden, and he tended those little bastards, as he called them, like they were his children, which I think is adorable. He was absolutely the love of his wife, Betty's life. And he had a three-legged cat named Snooker. I know, this is just, I can't with this. He first met Snooker when he found a little guy limping in the snow, and little man was sick with Mange, and he was hungry, and Joe took him in and got him healthy, and in the way of grumpy old guys everywhere,

immediately fell madly in love with him and doted on him all day every day. Oh, my God. He called him Snooky Baby. Oh, my God. I love this so much. Can we just take a moment for Snooky Baby? And just imagine this grizzled detective saying, come here Snokey baby i can't i can't i wouldn't cannot with this guy it's adorbs i know and and apparently

snooky liked bread and i don't know i'm sure many of you listening are cat people my my husband and i actually have eight cats were those people in the neighborhood and in addition to that is if that was not enough when i go on my nightly walks i have befriended all the neighborhood cats and i bring them treats and i am known in my neighborhood well i probably the charitable people know me as the lady who likes cats. The less charitable people know me as you know Mrs. Glick from the Simpson just throwing cats at people weaponized cat throwing. You'd never do that to a cat.

I never would, absolutely not. But I love the Snooky baby thing. And some of our cats are carb lovers as well as where I was going with that. And Snooky liked carbs. So Joe would give him toast and stuff. And, you know, as the famous meme says, there's no pure love in the world like the love between grumpy dads and the cats they said they didn't want. It is the God's truth.

Even in my own family, my dad, he puts on a front like, I'm going to kick that little bastard's ass if he pees in my boat again and then you catch him baby talking them and giving him treats under the table. He adores those cats.

My dad would die for those cats. I have no doubt whatsoever. So it's a pure love for sure. And I'm saving the best story for last. about Joe Van Nort One afternoon a chipmunk got into his cabin and couldn't figure out how to get out so the chipmunk was just freaking out

and running around, zipping around the room and Joe was trying to kind of usher the chipmunk toward the door. Now this is recounted in Joseph Womba's book and it wasn't clear how he was trying to usher the chipmunk out but I suspect he was using a broom or something like that and he accidentally in the process

of this hit the poor little dude in the head and knocked him unconscious which isn't funny I don't know why I giggled just then it's really sad But he freaked out and worked like hell trying to revive him. And I can just picture this grizzled, 55-year-old detective bending over this tiny little chipmunk saying, wake up, it's going to be okay, and reviving the little chipmunk and ushering him out the door, which is just... This story brings tears to my eyes every time. I don't know why.

I know. And so what I'm saying is he had layers, this guy. He was not necessarily what he looked like at first glance, which is true of most of us. You know, most of the time our rapper doesn't necessarily match what's unethical. underneath. Definitely. So Van Nort normally would not get brought in on a case because he was a very senior experienced detective. Normally he'd get brought in once an investigation had really gathered some steam and it was time to bring in the big guns. But in the case of the Reinhert murder, there were two missing children. And so he got in on this one right from day one. Now, his partner

was a 32-year-old hot shot detective named Jack Holtz. And this was a guy who, funnily enough, reminded everybody of a young Joe Van Norse. So obviously they had a lot in common. Jack loved the job obsessively, but he did hate the fact that the long hours kept him away from his 11-year-old son and his wife, and just

as every cliche detective on every gritty cop drama, you know, those long hours, and Jack's sort of obsessive commitment to his work was a big part of why he and his wife had divorced. But still he was a loving dad, and he hated that his job sometimes kept him away from

his kid. But he was a perfectionist. In that way, most definitely a born detective. He had a keen eye for details and he would work on a problem relentlessly until he figured it out. And where Joe Van Nort smoked 70 plus cigarettes a day, Jack Holtz dipped snuff, which is just gross. I'm sorry if I'm offending anyone who does it, but just to me that's ew. No, it's gross. If you have to carry around a bottle of your own spittle, you are gross. I don't care. I'm offending people. I'm taking a stand. That's not a good look for anyone, I agree. Yeah, my brother does it too, and I'm like, dude, oh yeah, I went to college in Kansas. This is, that was my life. That's why I'm so bitter. Yeah, yeah, you do become bitter after you have to watch somebody spit that stuff into a

clear container, always. So gross. But apparently, this was the rule that 1970s detectives were required by law to have a tobacco habit. So there you go. But basically, what I'm trying to communicate Kate here is that both of these guys are right out of central casting. And we just wanted you to have at least a thumbnail sketch of both of them before we get into the investigation. So Katie, launch us into the early days of this investigation, will you please? Don't mind if I do. So as any investigation does, this one began within analysis of the scene. One of the first things the investigators noticed was that the killer, or killers, clearly wanted the body to be found as quickly as possible. I mean, they left the body right out in the open in a hotel parking lot.

Absolutely. When that didn't get the body found right away, the local 911 got that mysterious call about a sick woman in the hotel parking lot. Investigators felt sure that the caller was the killer or someone involved. Because this is highly unusual stuff. Yeah, that's not a typical thing to get a creepy phone call like that for sure. And also not really that typical to just have a body just sitting right out in front of God and everybody like, hey, everybody.

there's a murder victim over here. Yeah, usually murderers want to hide their bodies at all costs. Ideally. So the CSI soon discovered that Susan's car had been carefully wiped down. The killer had even taken off the rearview mirror for some reason, and it's probably because they feared they wouldn't be able to wipe all their fingerprints off of it. And inside the car, crime scene techs found mostly normal Flotsman Jetsam of the busy working single mom. You know, she had a pamphlet in there from her church, Susan, I mean.

Sure. They found playing cards, fast food wrappers, a Cub Scouts brochure, and stuffed animals. Oh. But there were a couple things that seemed out of place. Under the driver's seat, they found a rubber dildo. Oh, Lord. Here we go again with the diltow. Yeah.

And under Susan's body, they found a green trash bag and a blue comb. The comb had U.S.A.R.com. written on it and a logo with the cross of Lorraine. It looked like it might be military. And this comb would become a crucial clue in this case. Oh, and by the way, as all this investigation was beginning on Monday morning, June 25th, Jay Smith was running late to his sentencing hearing for this year's robbery. He was so late that his attorney actually started to sweat, thinking maybe he fled the jurisdiction or something. Which I would actually not put past Jay Smith at all. So I'm sure his attorney was like, oh, God, it's happening. It's happening.

He did finally show up 20 minutes late, and as we know from the last episode, he was sentenced to two to five years. You know, Smith took it with perfect cool. He tossed his car keys to his lawyer and said his car was in the lot. God, the brass nuts on this guy. Just tosses his keys to his lawyer like he's a freaking parking valet after waltzing in 20 minutes late. Just take care of my car, won't you? Good man. Good God Almighty. So, I mean, Why do you think he was 20 minutes late to his sentencing? Oh, I wonder, might something have been keeping him busy early that morning, perhaps? It's possibility.

I mean, we should probably remember this fact. Yeah, I think that's rather significant that Smith was 20 minutes late to his sentencing. Yeah, that's one of those things that you don't want to be late to either. I know. Like, if there's one thing you want to show up for, you want to be on time for your wedding, you want to be on time for your court dates. Yes, because those judges don't like to be kept waiting. Most definitely not. So once the CSIs had actually done all they needed with Susan's body at the scene, the investigator sent her to the corner for an examination and autopsy.

Now, Joe Van Nort was an experienced detective, and I think he knew from the start that this was going to be a major case. So he wanted to make sure to dot all his eyes and cross all his T's. And of course, being such an experienced detective, he knew the importance of having a trained forensic pathologist examiner. in a murder victim's body. Right. Now, some of you may already know campers. The coroner is an interesting phenomenon in the United States. Yeah, this is actually really interesting and something I suspect a lot of people are going to be

surprised by. Oh, totally. Corners are elected officials in some jurisdictions and appointed in others, and the qualifications they're required to have vary a lot from state to state and county by county. Some places require coroners to be doctors, but others require them to be trained. forensic pathologists. But in lots of places, they're not required to be either one of those things. That is so insane to me. It's so crazy. And in fact, some jurisdictions don't require

any training whatsoever. And this is really, really scary because some of those places a coroner can have the final say over a trained pathologist in determining the cause of death. So, for example, let's say your loved one is, God forbid, found dead. A coroner might decide at a glance that it looks like a suicide and rubber stamp without any further investigation. Wow. And if you're as big a true crime buff as we are, you've probably seen cases where a murder has been disguised as a suicide and the coroner fell for the ruse. And once the cause of death is on paper, families can have an uphill battle to prove their

loved one's death was a murder because, well, the coroner said it was suicide. Now, the case of the sinister minister, Matt Baker, comes to mind. for me. Now, this mother effer was a pastor who killed his wife, Carrie, and staged to look like a suicide because, of course, he wanted to be with his mistress. Ew. The coroner in that case made a ruling of suicide after having a case described to him over the phone. And it took Carrie's family years to finally convince investigators to reopen her case and convict Matt Baker of her murder. Hoey, over the phone. But I digress. So, Joe wanted a trained pathologist to examine Susan's body, but the new county coroner had other

ideas and refused the request, a decision that would haunt the investigation for the duration. Now, at the very least, she was autopsied by a doctor, and here's what they found. She had fixed lividity, which indicated that she had died late Saturday evening or early Sunday morning. She had abrasions on her back that looked like the lengths of a chain. the implication of this are just horrifying and I can't hardly even stand to think about it's the creepiest detail in the case I think and I mean anyone want to think back to episode two where we learned all about that creepy stuff the cops found in jismith's basement after they arrested him for the sears robbery uh yeah i do seem to remember that wasn't there some chain down there in the basement of horrors yeah yes there was now along with

that they found tiny red fibers in her hair that lit up like a Christmas tree under an ultraviolet light. There was adhesive residue around her mouth and nose indicating she had tape over her mouth and possibly her nose, a blue fiber behind one knee, and a couple of sparkly little crystalline grains on one of her bare feet. Now, this is where it gets a little weird campers, because the doctor didn't find any obvious cause of death. They're really, were no gunshot wounds, no stabs or slashes, no signs of blunt force trauma. There were no obvious needle marks, although they acknowledge that, you know, needle marks are easy to miss on a body, especially one as bruised as Susan's was. So when the detectives asked him to take a guess

at the cause of death, the doctor said, asphyxiation, which just meant that she had stopped breathing. But the doctor couldn't tell them what caused her to stop breathing. They had to wait for the blood work to come back. Now, the doctor did his due diligence and also took fingernail scrapings, vaginal swabs, and samples of Susan's head and pubic hair. And after this preliminary report, Van Nort wanted to order another, more detailed autopsy, but there was a massive screw-up. This is infuriating. Oh, my God. I don't even know how I'm going to get through this part. The investigators told the funeral home that they didn't want the body cremated yet. But Susan's brother thought the police were done with her body. So he requested cremation. And because they'd

been told two different things, the funeral home dropped the ball. Susan's body was cremated before further investigation was possible. That's just awful. And if you're the funeral home and if, you know, the cops tell you one thing and the family tells you another, I think you should probably go with what the cops say first, right? Most definitely. And at least you ask for clarification. What I suspect happened is that it was sort of a telephone type of a situation where information got passed through three or four different people and, you know, but it's unforgivable. And it really caused enormous problems, of course, to the progression of the investigation. So, yeah, incredibly frustrating and not cool. Good job, funeral home. So when we last

left Bill Bradfield, he was headed, if you recall, to Santa Fe with Chris Poppice and girlfriend Joanne to participate in a summer study program at St. John's College out there. And as I said earlier, he and Chris were riding high. They were flying in the airplane. They were so happy to hear that Dr. Hitman was headed to prison for the Sears robbery. They're slapping each other on the back for how well they'd protected Susan from danger, etc. Well, that bubble was about to burst. And Bill found out about Susan's murder. ostensibly from several different people. An ex-girlfriend and fellow teacher called to tell him.

And of course, so did his teenage girlfriend, Wendy. And Wendy, again, you know, we have to acknowledge Wendy was young. And so, you know, to a certain extent, Wendy is also a victim in this case. But Wendy called him up all excited and said, guess whose name's in the paper? That was her reaction to the murder of this woman who had been a teacher at her high school, who at least she had been told. all summer long was in terrible danger and this is you know

Wendy we know that you weren't Susan's biggest fan you know we know you thought Bill was putting himself in danger to protect her and may we all just stop for a moment for a collective eye roll at that but the thing is she was a person

she was a mom she was a teacher you knew her you know she deserved better than hey look whose name's in the paper whether you're you're 18 or whether you're 40, that's gross, in my opinion. Absolutely. I'm just going to say it.

So, anywho, found out from Wendy and from another teacher slash ex-girlfriend. And Bill also got a call from Susan's friend Sharon, who was another colleague from his upper Mary in high school. And their conversation was very interesting. First, he told her he'd already been told about the murder. Now, this was Tuesday evening. And when Sharon asked when Bill had planned on seeing Susan again, Bill was like, well, guess in September when school starts up again. And Sharon's

reaction is, um, I'm sorry, what? This bold her over because of course she was close with Susan and Susan had told Sharon about the plans to get married in England. And when she confronted Bill about that over the phone he said, yeah, look, Susan had been

after me for some time. She was interested in me, but I wasn't interested in her and I told her sona, this was of course at least a watered down version of the she's obsessed with me, She's writing me disgusting sexual letters narrative that he had been spinning for people all along. But Sharon knew that this was horseshit. Susan was absolutely not the type of person to manufacture a marriage proposal and a trip to England out of whole cloth.

This was not Susan, and Sharon knew this. So she was pissed because she knew he was lying about this. And she asked Bill, like, okay, well, do you have any idea why Susan would have been in Harrisburg, which is, of course, where her body was found? Bill said he wasn't sure, but he thought she had a friend named Don Jones in that area. Uh-huh. Okay. So you're saying you didn't have any plans to marry Susan and no plans to go to England,

and she must have been in Harrisburg to meet some guy. Right. Sure. Sharon was not buying it on any level. And at this point, she was just starting to come apart at the seam. She was so upset on the phone with him, and she took a final stab at trying to squeeze some modicum of honesty and human. humility out of this man. And she asked him, well, what about the children? Do you have any idea

of where the kids might be? And she actually remembered being at Susan's house once when the children were there and he was bantering around with them and calling, you know, Karen my Lorelei and seemed to have a really nice relationship with these kids. And so she thought, well, this will appeal to his humanity because I know he cares for the children. And Bill said, oh, yes, how old were the children? How old were the children? Were? How old were the children? Yeah. I have no words because, you know, I think psychologists use the word leakage to refer to this kind of situation. In addition to being a gross word. It is such a gross word. Leakage. Referred to those times when you accidentally tell the

truth. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Like slips of the time. young. Yeah, and sometimes body language, which I don't know how much weight I throw behind that. Yeah, I'm iffy on it. Like sometimes, I mean, I do believe that we do, a lot of communication is nonverbal. I completely agree with that. And I do think that there are some things where you, for most people anyway, especially if you know the person and you have a baseline. Yeah. On what their normal body language is like where you can sense that there's something off, you know? Totally. I mean, we all saw that Chris Watts. video where he was at his neighbor's house and they were playing, and Chris Watts, if you're not familiar, he was the family annihilator who in 2018 murdered his wife, Shanan and their two daughters, Bella and Cece, and put the little girl's bodies into like an oil container. It's just a terrible case. And there's this famous video, if you haven't seen it, you can look at it on YouTube. His neighbor had surveillance footage of the entire street and of Chris Watts's

driveway that Chris was perfectly well aware was going to refute the story that he had told the police about what he had been doing over the past 24 hours. Right. And you can see his, I mean, you do not have to be a body language expert to know what that man is feeling as he is waiting for this neighbor to queue up this footage. I mean, he's just a mess. So sometimes it's obvious. Yeah.

And I think it's when it gets to be, oh, this is why he is guilty because he, you know, was jittery is when we start to get into dangerous levels. But when we use it as we think this person's guilty, we need to look deeper into their behavior and what they've been doing in their alibi. That's when it's useful. Yeah, I think it's one tool in the toolbox. You know, it's not proof of anything. And the people who do it right, I mean, as part of an interviewing, you know, strategy or something like that, they're going to want to have a baseline of that person's normal behavior first. There's a science to it. These sort of quote-unquote experts who post videos on YouTube, like let's look at this video of Madeline McCann's parents and, you know, we can tell

they're guilty because of she's touching her face at this one point in the interview. I think that's hogwash. I don't think you can tell that because, hey, you don't have a baseline of their normal body language. And also, she might have been touching her face because she had an it. You don't, how could you possibly know? But I think you're right that sometimes both verbally and in body language we can leak the truth and that's a total like old school Sherlock Holmes

like grizzled detective story where it's like I never told you they were dead and then you know they confessed everything right absolutely and referring to someone that you know is dead but everybody else is desperately hoping is still alive and well in the past tense is an example in my opinion

of leakage so I absolutely agree with you there how old were the children and also in addition to the past tense there. It's just callous as hell. Oh, my God. It makes me so sad. He couldn't even work up the energy to be like, oh my God, I know. I have no idea where they are. Yeah, it couldn't even pretend. And also, to me, again, we've talked in the past about how in many ways he's a genius as a manipulator and a liar, but then he makes incredibly boneheaded mistakes. And this is a boneheaded mistake. Talk to someone who you know is friends with Susan and to flatly deny something

that you now know she has most likely told her friend, which is that you're going to England with her. At least you must know there's a chance that she did. Now he, of course, had worked on Susan all summer. You shouldn't tell any one of our plans, but he had to have known that she might have

confided in some people about what she was planning on doing. So he should have at least accounted for the possibility that Sharon might know that he's lying and not say, well, I wasn't going to see her until September. You know, at least be vague. At least change the subject, do something. But to be so dismissive and so callous when referring to the children,

oh, how old were they again? That's just not smart. Not smart. He could have at least been like, oh, yeah, I just talked to her, like on the phone. Yeah, exactly. There are many, many ways in which a more skilled manipulator would have gotten out of that situation. Now what you've succeeded in doing is making Susan's friend extremely suspicious of you. Not smart. And I should reiterate, by the way, that a lot of the time when we recount conversations or quote people directly. Our source for that is the Wamba book Echoes in the Darkness. Otherwise, we will let you know. And of course, we've listed

all our sources in the descriptions of the episode. So if you're ever curious, you know, where did you get all this information? That info is in the descriptions. Yep. So, okay. Now, obviously, the investigators were brand new to the case, and they were looking at anybody and

everybody as suspects. And especially Ken Reinhard, who was Susan's ex-husband. It didn't take them long to figure out that he had an alibi. But, of course, That doesn't necessarily get you in the clear. Husbands have been known to hire hitmen. Sure. However, it did soon come out that Ken and Susan had a pretty amicable divorce,

and they had a pretty friendly relationship at the time that she was murdered. So they didn't feel like he was involved, but they weren't ready to rule anybody out just yet, not 100%. So they kind of kept Ken in the back of their minds as a possibility. And because they weren't morons, the investigators found out very quickly about all that life insurance that Susan had bought. And remember, I think the grand total. was something like $750,000

and that's in 70s money, that's well over... Actually, it's probably... I think it's $3 million. Yeah, I was going to say well over a million. Yeah, it's about $3 million, I believe. So obviously she'd bought all that insurance with Bill Bradfield as the beneficiary.

So that got their attention, as you can imagine. It might for an investigator. And they all had a feeling that Harrisburg, which is where her body was found, probably didn't have much to do with the murder. It was most likely just the dump site. they had a sense of that from the beginning,

just because Susan's world revolved around Upper Marion. So finding out about the life insurance really reinforced that for them and focused their efforts back on Upper Marion. They heard pretty quickly also about the famous shin kicking incident in the teacher's lounge, where, if you recall, Sue Bill's longtime living girlfriend, had found a spicy letter that Susan had written to him

in the early days of their affair, had confronted Susan and the teacher. lounge and said, you better stay away from bail and literally kicked her in the shins like a three-year-old. Oh my God. In front of everybody. And I can assume all the teachers having Jay Smith as a principal were used to this sort of thing. And we're just there with their popcorn. Teacher Fight Club. Yeah. First Rule of Teacher Fight Club. You talk all the time about teacher fight club because it's fascinating. Absolutely. Anyway, so they heard about that. And so Van Norton Holtz made an appointment with Sue and skipped on over to her.

in Bill's place to talk to her. And of course, Bill is in Santa Fe at this point. So Sue is there by herself. So Van Nort and Holtz arrived to find both Sue and Vince Valadis. Sue had called Vince to come over and be with her for the conversation with the cops. And I imagine this thing was suddenly becoming very real, very fast for poor Vince. I can only imagine how he reacted to the news of the murder because, of course, he had been trying real hard to convince himself all summer that J. Smith is just a drama queen. and he's probably just stirring Bill up and Susan can't possibly be in any real danger and then boom, look what happens.

So he was already in a tizzy, I'm sure. And when the police got there, Bill had the poor kid on the phone. And when the cops arrived, Sue told him, Vince, that phone hasn't been working very well. Why don't you use the one in the bedroom? Oh, sure. Subtle, Sue.

Right? And you've actually said, this is why you feel like Sue may have actually known a little bit more than she led on, or at least suspected. I think she knew. And of course, this is all alleged. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, we have no. This is speculation. Yeah, this is all speculation. But, yeah, I think there's no way that she didn't at least understand Bill at a level that no one else in this little group did. And I think

she, at the very least, suspected that he had something to do with it. I tend to agree, or at the very least, she knew that Bill certainly would want to want them to be very careful what they said, that even if he wasn't involved, he was in the orbit of this situation. I mean, she knew his whole shtick about Jay Smith being a hitman and everything he'd been telling her. She had just chosen not to listen because she had convinced herself it was midlife crisis stuff, but she knew about it. You know, she'd been hearing the same stories that everybody else had. So, yeah, I tend to agree with you there. I think she was probably deeply depressed at this point. I mean, she was, she was in a dead-end

relationship. She had poured all her money into this business that failed. She was, you know, she wasn't really getting anywhere where she thought she would be in life at this point. So I think she probably had like this air of apathy about her anytime Bill tried to get her all excited. Yeah. And I should say, I do have sympathy for Sue. I mean, we can be hard on her sometimes, but I mean, God, imagine having to live with that man. No, God, yeah. No, no, no. Bless her soul. Thank you, no. So Vince is on the phone with Bill. And, Sue says, go use the one in the bedroom when the cops get there. Bill spent a few minutes shouting down

the phone about Vince's rights because, you know, he's so deeply concerned about Vince's rights. You don't have to talk to them. Let's Sue do the talking. You'll just get yourself in trouble and note that Bill doesn't say you'll get me in trouble. No, it's you'll get yourself in trouble. Pulling those

puppet strings as always and roping. You remember we talked about forced teeming? We're in this together. It's never, well, I'm the one in danger. we're in danger, you're in danger, you're in danger. I'm just helping you. Oh, absolutely. Got to stick together, kid.

And while the detectives were sitting Sue down at the kitchen table to quiz her about the sheen kicking and whatnot, Bill was telling Vince that he told Sue to say they'd left for Kate May at 4 p.m. on Friday. Now, you remember, we did you a very specific breakdown of the timing in the last episode, and they had not actually gotten on the road on that evening until almost midnight. But Bill said, all right, Sue's going to say we left it four, and you better back her up.

What, she did. And he must have been scared shitless to do it. I mean, this kid was a Catholic to the core. He had gone to Catholic school. You do not lie to the nuns and expect to get out alive. No, ma'am. And lying to the cops was just enormously out of character for him. Lying to anybody was out of character for him.

But you didn't say no to Bill. That was the dynamic in this group of people. you did not defy Bill. And in fact, Bill Bradfield, I suspect, was the only force on earth that could convince Vince Felatus to commit a sin. And of course he was awful at it.

He couldn't look at the detectives in the eye. He was spluttering like a dud firecracker. The cops saw through it immediately. And I'm sure immediately realized, like, this is the weakest link right here. If we're going to need to lean on anybody in the near future, it's going to be Vince. So he did a terrible job of backing suit.

up on that. Sue and Vince also told the detectives all about Susan's alleged sexual quirks and proclivities, and Vince said she'd probably gone and made a pass at some blue beard, which is one way to put it. Billy, Billy Bluebeard. Yeah, so definitely continuing Bill's narrative of she's a high-risk person, she was going out and having rough sex, et cetera, et cetera, wanted to plant that in the cop's mind, and of course Vince dutifully fell right in line and repeated that. And And by the way, during a later conversation, Bill told Vince, if you speak to the police again, you're going to put me in an electric chair. So no, we there. No, no we there.

That was a direct order. Stop talking to them. And I think he probably realized how badly that first conversation had gone. Probably Sue told him like Vince fell apart in front of the police. Well, Vince in the book, it mentions that Vince had only lied one other time in his life. And then he got, you know, corporal punishment. I just can't believe that. Who only lies twice in their life?

Probably just little white lies, such as the Angels tell. But yeah, it certainly wasn't common for him. And I'm sure that Bill realized early on that nervous Purvis, Vince, was not going to do him any favors with the cops. So he told him, look, you're going to put me in the electric chair if you don't hush. And he also told him to get a lawyer, no doubt with the same goal, just to shut him the hell up. So I think that very first interview with Vince convinced both the police and Bill that Vince was the weak link. Yep. So that initial interview with Sue and Vince certainly did not do much to take the cops' attention off of Bill.

I mean, this guy, they knew, stood to gain quite a lot of cash from Susan Reinhard's murder. And now his buddies were telling them, this off-the-wall stuff about Susan meeting men and bars for rough sex. and this was something that did not gel at all with the picture that everyone else was painting of Susan. And so this was suspic. This was suspicious. Very suspicious. Yeah, their spidey senses were a tinglin.

And it must have been killing Bill to be all the way over in Santa Fe without all day, everyday access to his minions, most of them anyway, having to hear about these cop conversations secondhand and after the fact for a control freak, that is excruciating. And it gives me some measure

of pleasure to imagine what he must have been going through. Oh, yeah, it's one of the bright spots in this case, for sure. Most definitely. So, meanwhile, in Santa Fe, close your eyes, think of stucco buildings. Geckos. Geckos, turquoise jewelry. It's very peaceful, and Billy Bradfield was buzzing in Chris Poppice's ear, like a busy little bee.

First, he announced that actually, get this j smith didn't kill susan at all huh this is insane to me that he changed he changed the game he must have just been panicking that's what i think i think so because guess who he said did it i mean of course it's the mafia i know it was on the tip of your tongue you were like okay it was either j smith or the literal mafia naturally well i mean of course the story was always that he was a hitman for said mafia yeah and now the mafia wanted to set it up to make it look like Jay Smith did it. Because reasons. That makes perfect sense. Come on, Chris. It's not Jay's style to do it like this at all. He's a hit man. He kills four other

people. Oh, didn't I mention? I spoke with Jay's attorney and he has an alibi. Well, that's convenient information to know. Well, now that I think about it, Chris, it could have been, of course, Alex. guy that Susan had kinky rough sex with. Sure, sure. And Chris, buddy, of course, if the cops talk to us, we should definitely play down our relationship with Jay Smith. Because Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris, buddy, here's the thing. If the cops find out about how you filed the serial numbers off of Jay's guns, it might not look good for you, huh? Yeah. Isn't that just lovely? clever and insidious it's you know another bill bradfield special might not be good for you we wouldn't want you to be a scapegoat would we and of course you know this again is is the manipulator he maneuvers

chris into this situation in the first place by saying hitman jay requires a favor of me will you please take these guns of his and file the serial numbers off of them and and by the way while you have him that means he won't be able to use him to kill anybody so we're on the side of the angels here. Win, win. And so Chris does it. And now he's telling him, look, if the cops find out about this, might not look good for you. So make sure we downplay our relationship with Jay Smith. Make sure you're not talking to the cops. And Chris has said since this whole thing came about that following Bill's logic made his head all fuzzy. And it's kind of easy to see why in true Bill fashion, trademark, when he was selling the Bradfield bunch about his

fantastic tales of woe or when he was establishing Smith as the big bad evil guy, he'd jump from topic to topic, theory to theory, until his friend's head would be spinning. And I think this kind of played into Chris's feelings of intellectual inferiority. He thought, well, I can be wrong. Bill is way smarter than me. My brain just can't think like his. Yeah. But after this conversation, Wamba said, Chris felt fuzzier than the whole peach, crop of the goddamn state of Georgia. Yeah, and I do believe that he did that on purpose. And I won't belabor this because we mentioned it in an earlier episode, but remember

Gavin DeBecker, the former Secret Service agent who wrote the book The Gift of Fear, and he, you know, talks about tactics that manipulators use, and one of them is flooding you with information. And I think that's precisely what he was doing, whether that was intentional and conscious, or whether that was just something that he was naturally very good at as a natural liar a manipulator, I don't know. But it seems to have been effective because as soon as Chris or anybody else would start to have a question and start to try to unravel this ridiculous nonsense, Bill would just come at you like a freight train with 50 more J. Smith fun facts, you know,

50 more theories. And so, yeah, it would make you fuzzy and you would lose the thread. It made me fuzzy even just talking about it, like doing my Bill Bradfield logic jumps earlier. I was like, wait a second, where am I? Absolutely. And I honestly hope it's not hard to follow because of that. It did actually occur to me that I hope everybody's kind of following along with us with all of this stuff because he really did a very good job of kind of yanking everybody around. Oh, totally. But two people that he would have a harder time yank it around are two favorite detectives, Van Norton Holtz, on Independence Day, took a good old road trip down to Santa Fe, New Mexico to visit with Bill and Chris. Now, since the little click was all together the weekend of the murder, the cops were starting to believe that maybe they all murdered Susan for the insurance money. Sure. It's a reasonable theory. Absolutely. And they hadn't quite found out about the marriage proposal and the planned trip to England yet. They kind of already suspected that Susan and Bill were, you know, banging. I mean, why else would she make him the beneficiary of her life insurance policies? And according to Van Nort, I absolutely love this. Love and murder go together like Fred and Ginger.

Like chocolate and peanut butter. And so Bill insisted on being interviewed with Chris, despite the fact that the cops did try to separate them. And the first question they asked was a simple, tell us about your relationship with Susan Reinhard. And it didn't even get off the ground, campers. Bill said, no, we don't wish to talk to you. We both have attorneys, and they've advised us against it. There's that we again. it should come as no surprise to anyone that Bill immediately

lawyered up. And his lawyer was John Paul Curran. He was also representing Chris. Which, isn't that a huge conflict of interest, by the way? Campers, if any of you are lawyers, can you let us know if that's okay? I would think so. I mean, obviously, sometimes, you know, co-defendants in a murder trial will have the same attorney. But in this instance, I mean, it's certainly a conflict of Chris's interest. Absolutely. It's probably pretty good for Bill, but because he's just going to say both you keep your

mouths shut. But yeah, I would certainly, I'd be interested to hear from any attorneys listening what you think about that. As anybody who's paying attention is probably already expecting, Bill consistently answered for Chris throughout the interview. Chris kept his clap shut. Bradfield told the cops to write down their questions they had and they'll have their lawyers look them over.

And you know what? Van Nort and Holtz said, fair enough, and came back the next day with questions. But Bill, upon their arrival, told them, I'm not going to be answering any questions. My lawyer has advised against it. And this whole dog and pony show was pretty unproductive for the detectives in terms of knowledge and acquisition. But what it did do was solidify Van Nort's gut feeling that Bill Bradfield and his little gang were in this up to their eyelids. You know, I think Bill and his minions need a nickname. Oh, my God. If they, like, if they were an indie band, because we just keep saying, you know, Bill and his entourage, Bill and his friends, if they were an indie band, for example, what would we call them? Bill and the Bradfields? The Bradgang. Oh, how about Bluebeard's Castle? Oh, I like that one. That one's a little artie.

I did say the Bradfield bunch earlier, which just got the Brady Bunch. No, I like it. Theme song stuck in my head. Oh, there's your downside. Yeah. You don't want that for. an earworm. It's too catchy. It'll never go away. I don't want to sing it because I'm afraid it will get popped. But anyway, anyway, indie bands aside, Van Nort knew in his bones that this Bradfield had something to do with Susan Reinhardt's murder and the disappearance of her two children. And he wanted to get him. Oh my God, did he want to get him? Holt's two, but Van Nort especially. Yes. And I think it didn't help that Bill was such a condescending hosebag during the first two conversations.

Of course he was. He kept waxing on and on about Ezra Pound, as usual, looking down his nose at these two detectives, who he'd later say struck him as unintelligent. Really? Yeah, we'll see who wins this one, Billy. And this is my favorite detail. I think I specifically texted Whitney and said, we have to include this. Because going back to how Van Nort is the perfect foil for Bradfield.

One night he and Holtz were burning the midnight oil, working on the case, and Van Nort looked up from his notes and said with a total lack of irony, where is this Ezra Pond I keep hearing about? Oh my God, it's so great. Well, anyway, when this investigation began, the two main detectives figured they'd have it solved within a week. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into. And it's a good thing they got that fire in their belly in the early days of the investigation because they were going to need it. Yeah, it reminds me of the civil war how everybody thought it would be over in a weekend. Oh, totally.

Yeah, live that fantasy. So we're going to wrap up in just a moment, campers. It's going to take us a couple of episodes to tell you everything you need to know about the investigation, but I want to give you just one more little detail first. So one of the first pieces of evidence that the detectives were able to figure out was the blue comb that they found in Susan Reinhard's car. Remember, it had the acronym USAR column on it with the cross of Lorraine.

Well, the investigators soon learned that the acronym was the identifier for the 79th U.S. Army Reserve Command, the very command in which Dr. J. C. Smith had been a colonel. All right. So, we'll stop there. Thanks for listening, Campers. Next time, we're going to pick it up again with more about the police investigation, and we'll start to get a better sense of exactly what happened to put poor Susan Reinhardt into the hatchback of that car. 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 T.C. Campfire, Instagram at True Crime Campfire, and be sure to like

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