The Haystack Murder

This is exactly right. of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. In 2018, the FBI took down a ring of spies working for China's Ministry of State Security, one of the most mysterious intelligence agencies in the world. The Sixth Bureau podcast is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton Eckerd. In 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. But here's the thing. Bachelor fans hated him. If I could press a button and rewind it all, I would. That's when his life took a disturbing turn. A one-night stand would end in a courtroom. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. Listen to Love Trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime. And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them. Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes. And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries. Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens. Some are solved and some are cold. Very cold. This is Buried Bones. Hey, Paul. Hey, Kate. What's going on with you? Well, I have this case that I'm going to present to you that has a little story attached to it. And I don't think I've told you this story yet. About five years ago or something, when I had Tenfold More Wicked, I had several people, a lot of people actually would email me and say, hey, do you want to do the story, that story? And there was a woman who said, I think you should look into a story called The Haystack Murders, and I think you'll really like it. So I look up haystack murders and it points me towards what turned out to be my fourth book. You know, The Sinners All Bow about Sarah Maria Cornell, who was found hanging from a haystack pole. This is different then because we did an episode that involved a male that died with haystacks that caught fire, right? So that's a different, you're right. That's a different one. Okay. And she wasn't talking about that one. What she was saying, you know, what I was led to Sarah Maria Cornell, you know, the subject of my book, hanging from a haystack pole. in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1832. And I dig into this and I said, this is not a tenfold story. This is a book book. I think it was really, I felt so significant to me, very female centric, and I had not written a book like that before. And so I emailed her back and I said, just so you know, you know, I have a book contract based on this idea that you told me the haystack murder. And I said, I just really appreciate you passing it on. You won't hear it on tenfold, but you can read it in a book in a few years. And thanks for passing on Sarah Maria Cornell's story. And she said, what are you talking about? That is not what I was talking about. That's not the Haystack murder I was discussing. She had only said one line, Haystack murder. And she said, that's not what I meant. And so I said, what the hell do you mean? And then she sent me the link. And that is the story we are doing today. So if she had told me the correct story, what I'm going to tell you, I would have had a completely different book. So now I said, now I thought, okay, well, I might as well do the real haystack, what this woman intended for me to do. Yeah. Instead of a book, you got an episode. There you go. I got an episode. There you go. And it's a good story too. So let's go ahead and set the scene. So we are in Lodi, California. I know Lodi well. Well, good. This is 1923. Love the time period. Love, love, love it. in the middle of prohibition, right before people were spending stupid amounts of money in the roaring 20s. And then, of course, the crash in 29 and the depression. So this is in Lodi, which was an agricultural city in San Joaquin Valley. So at this time, and you can tell me if this is the case now, too. At this time, there were flour mills, vineyards, orchards, and a lot of cattle ranching. And that's what the area was known for in 1923. How would you describe it now? You know, I can't speak to the flour mills vineyards for sure, which is surprising because, you know, where I lived in California, I was 20 minutes away from Napa, Sonoma, you know, world-renowned wineries. But Lodi, which is Central Valley, I would never have thought that that would be a good place for vineyards, but they have a lot of vineyards, huge vineyards. And in fact, I became quite a fan of what they call old vine Zinfandel. So they have these old, old vineyards with these gnarled up vines of grapes of Zinfandel variety. And then they produce wine from that. And I loved it. So I was, you know, there's multiple different vineyards that I would drink. But I would go through Lodi all the time to get down to Stockton when I was investigating Golden State Killer. And I would be driving through these vineyards. And again, it's Central Valley. It gets super hot in the summertime. There's a huge wind turbine farm right outside of Lodi. Now, as far as cattle, it wouldn't surprise me that there would be a lot of cattle out there because there's cattle everywhere in Northern California. But I don't recall that specifically. But I also met with multiple people in Lodi or lived in Lodi during the time of my investigation with Golden State Killer. Well, that's where we are. It's Wednesday, September 12th, 1923. So it's important for me to talk about the history section of this, just because I think this is an interesting time. I told you prohibition. It's before this big infusion of money. So this is a few years after World War I. The war was very hard on San Joaquin Valley community because, and this was what was interesting, the trickle down effect of a war. Okay. During World War I, European farmers, many of them had to leave or shut down during World War I because they were either fighting or, you know, the resources of their farm had to be used for something else. So this meant that the Americans, specifically the farmers in San Joaquin Valley, were told to ramp up production. Okay. So they ramped up production. They got a lot of bank loans. And then when the war ended, that's what made some things crash for these farmers because the European farmers came back and the demand for American agricultural products plummeted. And so the crop prices then crashed and there's a lot of surplus. And so we have in 1923 in this area, a lot of people who had to file for bankruptcy and, you know, people who were in tremendous amount of debt. So that's where we are. It sounds, you know, it's beautiful and all I love agricultural land, but it was dire straits for a lot of people in this area in this time period. No, I could see that. And then, what, six years later, you have the Great Depression starting. Yeah, that's why I always say it's my favorite. It's not the favorite for people who lived through it, but it's my favorite time period because, you know, you've got early 20s, prohibition, crackdown. It doesn't work. There's the rise of criminal enterprise. You've got, oh, here's tons of money. Any harebrained scheme you want, we'll give you the money for it. And then the crash in 1929, and then the Depression, all in a decade. It's just pretty incredible. And the crime that's developed, you know, that's what American Sherlock, my second book, was about. The crime that happens and how interesting it is to see the way criminals adapt. And they're always a step ahead of, you know, the investigators who then quickly have to pivot, too. And so you just see that, like, these investigators in the 20s just constantly, like, a half a step behind because they think they've got a hold of the criminals and the way they're doing something, whatever the scheme is. And then the criminals go, OK, well, we're going to figure out another way to do it. And so that's the kind of feels like a catch up feeling for me that whole time period. It's still the same today. I know. Criminals do something new and then law enforcement has to figure it out and adapt. Yep. OK, here's the crime. It's 9 p.m. And as I said, so if we're looking at we have an outdoor scene. So that's why I'm telling you it's September 12th, 1923. So this would have been warm still, right? Central Valley would have been freezing. still thinking San Francisco, but warm, right? Yeah, no, I will tell you, September can be like the hottest summer month in this part of California. I wouldn't be surprised if it got over 100 degrees. Okay, let me tell you about this. So nine o'clock, there's a farmer who sees a burning haystack on a ranch called the William Lange Ranch. He rushes to help. All he can see is a haystack. And this does sound like our other story. Remember, like the two big hay bales, massive hay bales in England are on fire and nobody can see anything until it burns down a little bit. And then in that case, you saw a dead body. In this case, it's a car that's on fire. And in the back seat, there is a smoldering body. And I have a picture of the car, not of the body, I'm sorry, but I do have a picture of the car. So if you open up what you have, listen, I mean, it's not the greatest photo, but I think you'll get the idea. It has been just for the record burned to the metal is what they say. Completely charred the body and the car has been burned down to the metal. Okay. So what I'm looking at is, and part of it is, you know, the context. We are talking about 1923. So what did cars look like in 1923? And so now that I'm adjusting to that almost Model T type of vehicle, I'm seeing a vehicle that from left to right in this photograph, the left is the front of the vehicle. There's the engine compartment. There's a passenger area. Then you have the rear wheel and the rear part of the vehicle. The metal on this vehicle has softened to the point to where the rear wheels, not the tires, the tires are gone. They burned. But the wheels themselves, the metal part, has softened to the point to where the left driver's side wheel is bent at a 90-degree angle just from the weight of the vehicle itself. With this type of photo, I can't see the charring of the vehicle or anything like that, but I can see where there's been structural compromise as a result of heat, combustible aspects of the vehicle, like let's say a wooden steering wheel, gone. Upholstery, gone. It is just a crippled hull of what used to be a car. So that's what this body was found in. And, you know, I guess one of my questions is we did do the spontaneous combustion story where there's a body found in between these two haystacks. Would this sort of destruction indicate to you that this fire either had to have gone on for a very long time or there must have been an accelerant added to this fire? I don't think this is spontaneous combustion. You know, let's talk car fires. Have you ever been driving on the freeway and seen a vehicle on fire that's off to the side? So vehicles do have combustible materials in them, but they also have an accelerant that is present with inside the vehicle, gasoline or diesel, right? And the same thing with vehicles in the 1920s. Now, I'm not sure there was a transition at one point with vehicles from kerosene to gasoline. And I'm not sure when that transition occurred. But for this discussion, I don't think it matters. Fundamentally, you do have an accelerant. So if you're an arson investigator and looking at this vehicle, part of the complexity is, well, there's already an accelerant present. So if there was something that could ignite a fire and then the onboard fuel as an accelerant enhance that fire, it could potentially cover up, you know, an offender, let's say, dousing a vehicle, you know, with some sort of flammable material. You know, so this is where now it's, you know, the investigation, like if I'm processing this vehicle, you know, the body is first and foremost. And I've literally had this scenario in my past as far as a case. I will tell you that bodies and vehicles that have been burned, this is not a fun thing to deal with. But it's also working with fire marshals, with arson investigators, you know, state fire marshal's office, you know, whoever you can get out. Okay, so where is the point of origin of the fire? Does it look like it was caused by an accident, you know, something within the vehicle that, you know, caused the fire to occur? And then, of course, you know, the onboard accelerant ignites. Or do we have evidence that there was intentional fire setting that occurred in order to cover up a crime, you know? And that's typically, if you have a body in a vehicle, let's say the body is in the trunk of the vehicle, good chance that somebody set fire to the vehicle in order to try to cover up the crime and eliminate evidence. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict? A villain? A nurse named Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Letby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level if the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn. No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton Eckerd, and in 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan. he became the first bachelor to ever have his final rose rejected. The internet turned on him. If I could press a button and rewind it, all I would. But what happened to Clayton after the show made even bigger headlines. It began as a one-night stand and ended in a courtroom, with Clayton at the center of a very strange paternity scandal. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. Please search for it. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. This season, an epic battle of he said, she said, and the search for accountability in a sea of lies. I have done nothing except get pregnant by the f***ing bachelor! Listen to Love Trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay so when the coroner shows up and the sheriff show up at the haystack the car is so twisted that nobody recognizes the car even though this is a small town They are able to decipher the license plate And so they able to figure out who this is registered to number one Number two there is a identifiable set of keys that are in the fire, in some of the clothing, and also the clasp from a coin purse. That's also identifiable. When I tell you who this person is, it's confirmed by his wife, who sees these items and says, this is it. Nobody can tell from the car. They have to go and figure it out through the registration. So would men back in the day carry a coin purse? Yeah, it's more of a clasp. So it's like a clasp from a coin purse. That would not have been unusual. Because people use coins a lot more than we do now, obviously. So those were the two things that stood out to investigators. And they know who it is. And they said it's a guy named Alexander Alex Kells. So he goes by Alex. So he was very prominent, Alex. He was a member of a lot of different social organizations and a lot kind of set in agriculture type organizations. He was very well liked. A lot of people said he was amazing because he's a self-made man. He came from Germany in 1885. And he was a butcher, but a very wealthy butcher. So he had apprenticed at several California butcheries and had slowly built up his wealth. And by 1917, so this is six years before he died, he was in a position to buy his own ranch. So he bought a ranch and he also started two slaughterhouses. You know, they were both meat markets, essentially, but, you know, he would slaughter the animals himself. And he was very, very wealthy. So one meat market was located in a modern brick building. It was top of the line, had all the best equipment. He had a lot of cold storage rooms for hanging meats and, you know, enamel walls and a modern sales floor. And in 1923, when he died, his fortune was estimated to be a quarter of a million dollars in 1923 money, which is almost five million today. So your victim has a lot of money. We don't know anything else about him. So he was very, you know, well-liked and he had a lot of money. Three days later, we've got two doctors who are going to take a look at Alex's remains. There are only three teeth present in Alex's skull. So they think that the fire must have been so intense that it consumed the rest of the teeth. They wonder if the skull was crushed, but because of the fire, they can't tell. And they don't find any bullet wounds. So the cause of death is a mystery for them. Teeth, even like in crematoriums, you know, teeth end up without mechanical disruption, end up surviving super high temperatures, much more so than the surrounding bone. bone. So that's where I'm a little bit not sure what they're observing. There's only three teeth present. Why is that? And then the other thing, what ends up happening with a fire, with a human body, when it is being superheated, the skull bursts. The brain in essence becomes like, for lack of a better term, like a boiling liquid. And so now the skull will burst. And once the skull bursts, it can collapse in and on itself. So this is where now are they recognizing that's the phenomena that they are dealing with? Or is there actual violence that occurred, like let's say during a bludgeoning? A competent pathologist can determine this. This is where you need to know what you are looking at. Well, I can tell you one thing they're looking at when they look at this. I mean, they kind of describe it as skeletal remains. When they look at the remains, they find out that his hands are tied behind his back. That's a clue. There's a big funeral, 3,000 people. That's how much people like this guy, Alex, kills. They are questioning different residents about Alex and trying to figure out what his last movements were. Was he talking to somebody that people did know or didn't know, what was his behavior like, all of that stuff. And they start to put together a timeline because small town, people saw him. So this is what happened. So his body is discovered at 9 p.m. So we go back 12 hours between 8 o'clock and 9 o'clock a.m. He was at a public employment office and he was hiring somebody, you know, which is something he did often to feed stock on his ranch. And then at 10 o'clock, he had met with a unknown woman, and they were spotted driving toward an abandoned ranch from 11 o'clock until 4 p.m. He worked at his butcher shop in Lodi, and he went to a restaurant during a break. And at 4.20, he and another man waved at a fuller lumber driver. They were headed north of town in Alex's car, the one that ends up being burned up. About five o'clock, he is seen killing time and snacking on, I don't mean to wince at this, sardines. Oh, I can't eat sardines. Don't get upset if you guys like sardines. And he is eating, he's snacking on sardines in Lockerford. I've never been there, which is about eight miles northeast of Lodi. Okay. 645, a carpenter saw Alex. He was alone this time. He was driving south, and the last time he was seen alive was about 7.30 p.m., so about an hour and a half before his body was discovered. And he was driving in the direction of the haystack. Okay. So he's taken himself out towards at least where he ultimately is found. like maybe he goes to meet somebody. And what time was that again? So the last time people saw him was at 730. He was by himself and the sheriff is trying to track down the man who Alex hired at the public employment office. There's no record of this man, which is unusual. But they said sometimes that happens. So they don't have a name that they can look up and say, Alex Kells hired this guy. And nobody knows who this woman is. And it's also hard to say that that interaction earlier in the day had anything to do with this homicide. And I would say the fact that his hands are bound behind his back, I think any pathologist looking at this set of circumstances would probably say, yes, this is death at the hands of another homicide. homicide now is it possible you know maybe he he od'd and now you got somebody who he was doing drugs with freaking out and you know binds him up to transport him and then dumps the body or sets you know puts him in a hayfield and you know sets it on fire but it doesn't sound like that's what we are dealing with here so so okay so 7 30 is the last time he's seen alive and he's driving towards at least in the general direction of the hayfield in which his body is found. Yep. And his widow is describing what she believes his day was like. The last time she saw him was at noon and he was collecting rent. So he had a lot of property and he was renting out different parts of the property to people, probably kind of sharecropping. And he was collecting rent. That was the day he did it. He would have had money. She said he would have had quite a bit of money on him cash. And she said that she had been worried because he had said to her that he had been getting some death threats. And she was getting ready to call the police when the police came to her and said, we found your husband's body. Okay. So tell me about the death threats. She just said that he did not explain anything, that he was scared about these, you know, supposed death threats, but we don't know anything about them. And he was vague with her because he didn't want to upset her. Everybody's concerned about the widow because she's pregnant. So these death threats aren't coming in like through the mail? No. Okay. So there's no written record? It doesn't look like it. No. If there were, he didn't hand them over to her. So that is, you know, where we are right now. They don't know what happened to him. They're still doing, They still have one more physical exam to do. They have another doctor coming in. And so the sheriff is alarmed because this does not happen in Lodi, of course. His widow is really upset. And, you know, the community is pretty shaken. They don't know what's happening and what the reason was behind it. They didn't find money on him, you know, anywhere or would have been burned up. But there's no evidence of that except the coin purse. So he might have had that coin purse either taken or burned up. But there was just the clasp and that was it. So any other thoughts before I have the next big development? Because it's a big one. You know, fire scenes are in many ways the worst, you know, when it comes to really having a good sense as to what was present, what wasn't present, what happened. You talk about, you know, money on his person. I mean, he could have had a briefcase full of money. The offender took the briefcase and then set everything on fire. You'd never know that. You know, so that's where right now we just don't know what is going on in this case. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict, a villain, a nurse named Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Letby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level if the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn. No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton Eckerd, and in 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan. he became the first bachelor to ever have his final rose rejected. The internet turned on him. If I could press a button and rewind it all, I would. But what happened to Clayton after the show made even bigger headlines. It began as a one-night stand and ended in a courtroom, with Clayton at the center of a very strange paternity scandal. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. Please search for it. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. This season, an epic battle of he said, she said, and the search for accountability in a sea of lies. I have done nothing except get pregnant by the f***ing bachelor! Listen to Love Trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, let me tell you about a more advanced autopsy that they do. And I'll give you those results. And then the big one comes. Okay. So we have a doctor who comes in to look at him. And they're looking for stomach contents, that kind of thing. First, the investigators think something weird is happening because they find buttons of overalls in the ashes the next day once this thing has burned down. Alex was very successful. He had a lot of money. He did not wear overalls. So they were confused about why they would find, you know, the buttons of overalls underneath the body at the time. Of course, you know, he could have, who knows why he had those. Maybe the worker who was with him had taken off his overalls. They just make a note of it. Then they get to the autopsy. So he only had grapes in his stomach and it sounds like he had eaten at least one or two other restaurants during the day. And so they thought that was a little bit weird. And then the weirdest part is that they look at his spine and Alex is taller than the person whose spine this belongs to. And so now they start to say, we don't know if this is Alex Kales. So, you know, like if I'm working a case and I have a pathologist tell me, oh, these remains are not in line with the stature of what is known about the victim. It's okay. Let's dig into that. What happens to the human body when it is burned? Are there any studies that show that the human body either expands or contracts? And can you accurately estimate the height of this body, the weight of this body, et cetera, after such dramatic impact on it. I would need to know that. Now, today, even with charred remains, there's a chance we could do successful DNA testing. The dentin inside the teeth that are protected by the hardest substance in the body often can produce DNA results when other bones or other tissues in the body you won't be successful with. So we would be able to definitively identify this body with modern technology in all likelihood. But now 1920s, they couldn't do that. So now you're relying on this pathologist. It's like, well, what are you telling me, Doc? Are you telling me this possibly isn't Alex? And now that opens up the direction of the investigation. It's like, okay, now is Alex staging his own death? Have you had that before? Have you ever worked that kind of a case? Not directly. No, not that nothing that's popping into my head. I'm aware of cases in which, you know, people have done that. But I mean, obviously, in this scenario, it's something that you have to consider. You know, it's like, well, yeah, we got a body we can't visually identify due to the, you know, the fire damage. And now we have a pathologist saying this body is not consistent with the stature of who we presumed the body was, Alex. So it's like, okay, so what are the set of circumstances in which this would happen? And part of it, of course, is going to be, well, maybe the victim is staging his own death for whatever reason. But you also have to consider, you know, is there other scenarios in which, let's say, an offender has abducted and or killed Alex, but wants authorities to believe that the car possesses Alex's body so they no longer are trying to find Alex. And there's a variety of different other reasons. But, you know, it does open the door in terms of, well, where are we going? You know, where is this going? You know, and now, as I always say, the victimology, what's going on? It's huge. What is going on? You know, and, you know, why would Alex stage his own death or what would cause Alex to be killed? but then a different body substituted for Alex. You know, maybe he's kept alive, but he's been abducted for whatever reason. Well, let's do a little victimology here. They look at his finances because they are everybody's suspicious at this point. I think the spine part, I think the stomach contents part, I think the overalls, they thought that was really weird. Then they look at his finances and they talk to his banker. So he had a very large ranch, expensive slaughterhouse. He had a bungalow home, very modern, and he was overextended. And when the livestock prices dropped, like I told you they did, there was so much strain on him that it was clearly stressing him out. And his wife had said that, yes, he was stressed out by this. Doesn't mean that that's what happened with him, but if you were trying to get in, you know, the victim's head here, he seems to have a pretty good reason for staging his own death. Who is the guy in the car if that's what happened? I would say during this era, it's like, is there any reported grave robberies? Right? And now you throw that body into the car and make off. But Alex, he could benefit by staging his own death and disappearing. Whoever he owes money to, they don't benefit it by killing him. They want his money, so it's less likely that they would off the person that they trying to extract money from unless Alex showed up again with the briefcase full of all sorts of money and then they decided you know what we got to we got to get rid of this guy after they got their their proceeds from the briefcase So who would be motivated to kill him in this way? Somebody is going to see this. It's on a remote ranch, but obviously somebody saw it. The last time somebody saw him was at 730 at night. His body's discovered at 9 p.m. This obviously wasn't the best hiding place. And it's an open field. So, you know, I'm trying to climb inside the head of the offender here. And why would this be a good idea at all? I know you've said fire is really destructive, but other than that. Yeah, but this scenario, you know, setting a fire with haystacks, you know, with a vehicle inside of it. I mean, it's a huge signal that, oh, something's wrong and people are going to rush to it. And the offender has to know that. Why would an offender want to do that, though? Maybe it's to send a message. You know, Alex is a prominent person. Let's say the offender has a relationship with Alex, whether it's financial, whatever. And then Alex does something that the offender doesn't like, and the offender needs to send a message because the offender has other clients that he has similar relationships with. I'm kind of, you know, in a different scale, I'm thinking about a drug dealer who has somebody who's like, let's say, hey, can I get a dime baggie? I'll pay you next time. Can I get a dime baggie? I'll pay you next time. It never pays. Pretty soon that drug dealer has to send a message because he can't have all his customers doing that because he'll never make money. So he sends a message by killing the person that owes him money. And then all his other customers go, oh, shit, I better step up. Is that what's going on here? The offender is doing this dramatic homicide with a fire in the middle of a hayfield. So everybody knows what's going on. And now is sending a message to whoever else. You better get in line or the same thing is going to happen to you. Okay. Well, let's head next to people thinking they see Alex around. And this is where things really kind of ramp up. So there's a call that comes in from Nevada that Alex had been cited there. Do people know him in Nevada? I don't know. But he's spotted a couple of days later, a man who does business with Alex reports that Alex avoided eye contact with him in Reno. So now we have somebody who says, I know this guy and he wasn't looking me in the eye. There's another local, George Williams, who says that he saw Alex aboard a westbound train. And so when you have all these people, you know, who are saying that we know Alex and he's there, then, of course, the sheriff is now trying to put all of this together. And on October 1st, the police in Eureka, California, there are reports called in that there is an unknown man carrying a rifle at the rail yard inside a boxcar. They find the man. The gun is loaded. He has it jammed in his mouth, and he's trying to pull the trigger with his toe. And when they stop him, he identifies himself as Alex Kells from Lodi. You still don't believe it, Paul? Yeah, let's, you know, I need proof. do they establish his identity? We're talking 1920s. Fingerprints were available, but not necessarily for everybody. And then, of course, if he's still alive, then you have people who know Alex who could establish identity. Yeah. And you have these business people who had worked with him, who saw him. Absolutely. So then he gets taken to the Stockton County Jail on October 3rd And is identified. Now, his wife is not brought down. And they say it's because she's pregnant. She doesn't know anything about it except the fact that he's dead. And they don't want her to have a miscarriage or anything like that. But the sheriff questions him. And Alex confesses because of the financial situation he's in. And I'll tell you what he's confessing to. He does say, and the sheriff did find out, that he had, in 1923 money, he had about $100,000 worth of insurance on himself, which is about almost $2 million today. Who's the beneficiary? The wife? His wife and his daughter. And that's why he wanted to fake his own death. So then the question is, you know, how did this happen? And who is this person? And all of this stuff. But I'm sure you have questions, too. Okay. So let's say, okay, this guy who's failing to kill himself with a rifle by pulling the trigger with his toe. Get a different gun, buddy. I mean, golly. But let's say that is truly Alex. Okay. So he has staged his own death. There's a benefit to his family. So there's a motive to do that for his family. But generally, people aren't going to do that unless there's some other stressor in their life. So there is something else going on. You know, let's take the scenario of Alex gets involved. In the 1920s, I wouldn't expect this, but let's say Alex gets involved with the mob. You know, and now he owes a ton of money. He knows that, you know, if he doesn't pay up, you know, his legs are going to be broken. His arms are going to be broken. and he's going to be in, you know, his reputation is going to be sullied, however you want to say it. And then he decides the only way to escape that happening to me is meet, you know, I need to stage my death. And the positive is, is that the people I love, my wife and daughter, you know, will benefit from this. He's not doing this just for insurance money, unless he has had a history of suicidal ideations prior to this. So I would say there is something else going on in Alex's life, particularly considering his prominent nature that is causing him distress to where he has to resort to this. Okay. I do have a side story because I'm talking to you about this case. I think that I wish I had known about this case when I was writing American Sherlock. So in the middle of American Sherlock. I have a story. It's called The Calculating Chemist. And it's about a chemist named Charles Schwartz, who was from France, and he was in Walnut Creek. And in 1925, when he got this massive infusion of money, he wanted to make what would end up being nylon. Silk was incredibly expensive, blah, blah, blah. So he received a large infusion of money from a lot of different investors, including his wife's family. He had a couple of kids with her. They lived in Walnut Creek. He had a whole factory set up. He is by himself. He has a security guard because he's gotten threats also. He's by himself and the factory catches on fire and basically he explodes, right, because he's using some bad chemicals. And immediately the police chief calls in my guy, Oscar Heinrich, who goes in and says this was not a chemical accident. He did not blow himself up. The accelerant is right here. It is not the same as any chemical that is found in this whole factory. And then they do the autopsy, of which I have the most disgusting photos of a completely burned body. And Schwartz's wife said, well, you know, he just had a tooth extracted and the corpse was missing a tooth. And it wasn't burned enough where it was not identifiable to my forensic scientist. He said after the guy died, it was chipped out based on the clotting, I guess. This was not something that was extracted. And with the spine, it was much shorter. And so Schwartz had done this. He had found a doppelganger itinerant minister. He put an ad in. I want to hire you. The guy shows up, he kills him. And Schwartz's plan though, was to take money, not tell his family and take off because, you know, he established a separate life. Yeah. He had other girlfriends on the side. In fact, he was getting ready to be sued with one of those heart bomb suits. I told you about where he slept with a woman and said, I'll marry you. And then he dumps her after they sleep together and she was suing him. So there was a lot of stuff crumbling in because he was not producing what he was supposed to be producing. But it's almost the same thing. And what it makes me think about is that, because this is the case with Alex Kells was widely reported. I wonder if this is where Schwartz got it from, because Schwartz did this in 25. Kells happened in 23. Schwartz was in Walnut Creek. This is Lodi, right? And it's very similar, very similar circumstances. And the way it was kind of pulled off and everything. Schwartz had a lot of life insurance, and he did say He had tons of death threats against him, and they used stomach contents to prove it wasn't Charles Schwartz because they knew what he ate for dinner, and it wasn't in the person's body. That's why it's funny because I keep thinking, oh, who kills doppelgangers? I just think that's wild. But if I hadn't written about Charles Schwartz, now nothing surprises me. Yeah. Well, you know, and this is where back before modern technology, you know, everybody's relying on physical characteristics. And that's what these offenders were taking advantage of. You know, find somebody who looks like me or looks like so-and-so and kill them and set, you know, the circumstances up to where now, you know, the authorities go, oh, yes, obviously he's missing a tooth. same tooth that the known victim is missing. So it's got to be the same guy. This is easy. So, you know, with Alex, he stages his own death, but he's found, I think you said, up in Eureka. Yeah. In a train. What's going on there? I always say when you see contradiction, stop and think about it. If he is merely staging his death for his wife and daughter to get insurance money, and then he's found later trying to kill himself, why doesn't he try to kill himself in his own car in that hayfield? Yeah. He is trying to survive and he's trying to maybe move away from his life, you know, so his wife and daughter receive insurance money. He feels good that, you know, these people that were in his life are financially benefiting from it. Mm hmm. And now he's moving on. But then he's getting cornered and he's recognizing, oh, shit, I've been caught. And now he wants to blow his head off, but is completely incompetent to do that. Yeah. And I think what comes out is his wife will say eventually that he's been mentally unstable for quite a while. I don't know if people believe that, but let me tell you what he says. He says, I did it. Can't take it anymore. He said that he hired the stranger I told you about. Remember, he went to the employment office and said, I need to hire somebody. That's who he hires. He called him a ragged stranger from the public employment office. He called him Mac. He doesn't remember the guy's name. He said he drove Mac to his ranch and then he shot him twice in the head with a 32 automatic handgun. He said Mac was still alive after he shot him twice. So he beat him with an iron bar. He said he put the body in a burlap sack, put it in the back of the car and continued with his day's work as usual. Then he, at eight o'clock that night, heads back to the ranch. He said he built a haystack around Mac's body and lit a candle. But then he says he abandoned his car. I think he must mean that maybe he put hay in or near the body or around the body inside the car and then set it on fire. Must have been what he did. And then he said he left on foot and went back towards Sacramento. And then he went to Arizona and Texas and all over the place to try to get away from all of this. And he said he was ashamed by the financial situation he had been in. That's what he said the motivation was. It was shame by how overextended he was. he was going to have to file for bankruptcy. So, you know, that's kind of the conclusion. The investigators believed everything he said. So the autopsy on Mack's body, he shot a couple of times in the head with a 32. He's been beaten, you said, with a hammer. He said with an iron bar. Iron bar. Okay. So a good evaluation of Mack's skull should show the perforation by bullets. This is very distinctive. And even the defects, the bullet hole defects will show directionality coming from outside in. Now, beaten by an iron bar probably also is leaving distinctive aspects, but the complication, of course, is the fire. But the perforation of the skull by bullets, that should be pretty obvious. I have a conflicting information about that in my packet. A source that I found said it was an old newspaper article said, you know, the autopsy showed that he had been shot. But my packet says that doesn't say that. And, you know, let me just see if there's any other detail because it's a pretty big difference. Well, you know, in many ways, all this is doing is either corroborating or refuting the details that Alex is providing of what he did to Mac. You know, and if the pathologist is saying, yeah, I'm seeing small caliber bullet holes into the skull and a 32, the 32 is still with the body in all likelihood. It's not like penetrating all the way through and going to Never Never Land. It's probably contained within that body. They're probably not using x-rays on the body, you know, to find, you know, metal objects inside. So if the pathologist isn't aware, you know, I could see where that would just be left behind. So, you know, now it kind of gets down. So Alex is making admissions. He killed this random who maybe physically somewhat matched him and staged it like his own death. It now is really, okay, you've made an admission to that. Are you telling the truth about the motive? Mm-hmm. What he says, his plan was, he said, you know, I was totally humiliated. I'm going to have to file for bankruptcy. I didn't want to do that to my family. He said that his plan was that he would fake his own death, murder an innocent man doing it. He was going to set the scene up to make investigators believe that the body was his. And then he was going to go to Mexico. His wife and kids were going to get, you know, the insurance money so they would be fine. His name would be saved so he wouldn't have to go into bankruptcy. And that he was cited in Reno and he knew it because he looked down and he knew that somebody was going to call, that the business associate was going to call the police. And he said, you know, I should have gone to Mexico immediately. but he said I didn't and I kept seeing he said staring eyes everywhere and he said I couldn't take it anymore and then when I got spotted I thought well there's only one way to to end this now and that's where we have the suicide attempt he said he was just tortured the whole time by what he did he could have gone Paul immediately I mean this went on a couple of weeks two or three weeks he could have been in Mexico and nobody would have ever found him but he just kept coming back And there's no information about another life. No. You know, owing money to some entity that he would be afraid of. Nothing like that. This is literally, oh, I suck. I screwed up and I'm now going to stage my death and escape. He said, this is a quote, he said, you know, I saw these staring eyes everywhere I went. He said, sadly. Seemed like everybody was staring at me. I couldn't stand it. That's why instead of going to Mexico, as I planned, I wandered from place to place here, California, Nevada, Texas, I mean, just kind of all around California. And then he said, I knew it was dangerous to come back to this state, to California, but I couldn't help it. My friends and family are here and I had to come. I don't know if this is a criminal mastermind. I think this was a desperate guy who did a terrible thing, but I don't see anything about a second life or anything like that. Charles Schwartz from my book was an asshole. That's different. I don't know. I feel differently for some reason about this guy. I'm not buying that everywhere he goes, you know, somebody was staring at him, you know. That's how he felt. Yeah. I mean, there may be a level of paranoia, you know, like I think about myself, you know, and the public notoriety that I've garnered over the last seven years. And quite frankly, I'm rarely recognized out in public, let alone put myself back in the 1920s. You know, when, I mean, it was just the newspapers. That's the only place where you would actually see photographs of somebody. And, you know, so I'm thinking, okay, that sounds like BS, but if there's a level of paranoia that he's developed and there's a mental health aspect, then that's now starting to add up a little bit better. you know, for me, for him committing this crime and kind of explaining why he committed this crime. Yeah. So he goes on trial. They don't tell his wife about this. At the time of the trial, which is at the San Joaquin Superior Court in Stockton, she's not informed that Alex is alive or that he's been arrested and put on trial for murder. And they're concerned that it could jeopardize her pregnancy Never have I ever heard of people hiding that kind of information out of concern for pregnancy for the offender wife I was a little stunned by that They tell her after she gives birth to his son That when they find out. It's almost, you know, erring on the wrong side of what you should be doing. You know, it's like, and I can understand, oh, we want to be sensitive, you know, to her, and not disrupt her. But this is where, oh, actually, that wasn't your husband in the hayfield. Your husband's still alive. At a certain point, you just have to be able to deliver that news as tactfully as possible. I think that they were overly conservative if that was a real reason for not telling her? They identify the man who Kells killed. He was a 60-year-old man. He was the guy from the public employment office. His name was Edward Ed Meservais. He was an itinerant farmhand, and he worked temporary jobs, and he had just gotten there that day. And they have the proof. There's a note that basically has Kells' name saying that he hired him for $2.50, which would have been about 50 bucks today for chores. And then Kels said, yeah, that was him. So Kels goes on trial and the wife doesn't know for a month. Can you believe that? He refuses counsel. He is convicted and he is sentenced to death. And then they tell her. She gets incredibly upset and starts just, I mean, ripping into everyone and says, we need a new trial. If you had talked to me, I would have said, number one, we're getting you an attorney. And number two, you're mounting an insanity defense because you have been unstable for a couple of years at least. That's where kind of we were heading. People ignore her and he ends up at Folsom State Prison. After talking to her, the warden says, we need to look at Alex's case. And this is interesting. Tell me what you think about this. They try to figure out whether or not this guy is insane. This is their solution. On December 21st, so this is two months after he is put on death row, there's a doctor named Leo I. Stanley. He is the San Quentin prison physician. He takes samples of Alex's spinal fluid, and he's looking for neurological infections or conditions that might cause this kind of distress, but he doesn't find anything, and Alex is declared sane. What do you think about that method? Spinal fluid? You know, I don't know what would be found in spinal fluid. I know. Especially with, you know, 1920s technology, which is staining. Yeah. Looking through a microscope, you know, it's so limited versus like functional PET scanning of the brain, you know, all sorts of things that we can do today. Yeah. You know, I think, you know, so by Lou's definition, innocence due to insanity fundamentally indicates that the offender or the defendant did not know right from wrong. In this case, Alex takes the steps to lure and isolate an innocent victim and takes the steps to obliterate that victim's identity through fire, as well as other physical evidence, and disappears for self-preservation. I'm looking at that going, he knew what he did was wrong. In many ways, he was hoping what he did would get him to be able to live a better life under a different identity. And a side effect is that his family was benefiting from his own death through the insurance. I don't see this as somebody who is not knowing right from wrong. They knew it. Alex knew it. My suspicion is Alex had other motives versus just I was ashamed, the bankruptcy and all that. I think there may have been other motives. Maybe he was unhappy in his current living situation and decided, you know what, I just need to get out. And he preserved his family's life versus the family annihilators that you and I have both covered. and the family benefited, but he still harmed the family by, you know, faking his own death. Then you have Ed. Ed is an innocent victim. Yep. Absolute innocent victim, you know, and I've often talked about this true crime genre, you know, that you and I are both in now. And what stories are typically covered is a lot of them are dealing with, you know, women or maybe even children as victims. Well, these are typically your true innocent victims. Men get themselves involved with stupid things or do stupid things that cause them to, you know, be killed. And they're not very interesting stories, you know, and they're often not innocent victims. But here, Ed is an innocent victim. And, you know, So Alex is, you know, showing a selfishness to take Ed's life, you know, to benefit Alex's own. So this is where, you know, this is truly, you know, a horrific crime against an innocent victim. Yeah. And both in my book and Charles Schwartz and with Alex Kells, they target the same group, which is what we talk about with serial killers. you're targeting a group oftentimes of people who don't have someone keeping an eye on them. Yes. And, you know, like when we talk about some of the ones in history with sex workers and with itinerant ministers, which is what happened in Charles Schwartz's case, and with an itinerant farmhand where nobody's tracking them necessarily. And so, you know, you have that situation where he picked the right person who might have never been identified if he had not made some mistakes. I will say to wrap this up, the Lodi community wants his sentence committed to life in prison. They do not want him executed. The governor says, bug off, this guy's dying. This is one of the most cold-blooded and deliberately planned murders in the history of the state, says Governor Friend W. Richardson. He does not commute the sentence. And on January 4th, Alex is hanged. his wife and now two children do not get the almost $2 million payout. They get the equivalent of $190,000 in today money. And that is that. You look disturbed. Well, you know, I think, you know, this is where, you know, because I've kind of got a raw spot, you know, for offenders' families. Like, the wife and the kids are innocent. Yeah. There's no belief that she knew any of this at all. Yeah. And so this is where, in many ways, this is where they're victims. They are now suffering from the loss of a husband, a loss of a father, earnings potential, however you say it. And to deny them something just because of their relationship to Alex, I think is wrong. And I've gotten to know relatives of notorious killers. And, you know, their life is severely impacted. And to the point to where you have the online trolls, I can say, and I have to be somewhat careful, but let's say Golden State Killer with Joseph D'Angelo. I mean, he had three daughters. and I will tell you that those daughters have been demonized online. They have no idea what their father did. They have no culpability of what their father did yet because of their relationship, you know, they are impacted to a point. I heard two of them the night that we arrested D'Angelo And they were like, one of the daughters was going, how am I ever going to get a job? You know, this is where family members of these types of individuals are victims themselves. There's a few circumstances in which family members are aware and or participated in the crimes, and that's a different story. But many times, these family members are absolute innocent victims. And that's where what I'm hearing about sort of the decision with Alex's wife and kids, it's like, yeah, I'm disturbed by that. You know, they should have received the full compensation they could have gotten because their lives have been forever altered as a result of Alex's selfish actions. Yeah. Well, I was checking to see what ended up happening with Annie. I haven't gotten a ton of information, but I know she died in 1977. Oh, wow. Okay. She was 90 and she died in Lodi. So she stayed. Okay. And, you know, they had two children, one of whom just died in 97 and had some kids. Their son, it looks like he died age 34. So I hope it was a good life, but she stayed. And to me, what that means, Paul, I don't know if this is what that means to you, is people really did believe she was number one, a good person and did not know about any of this. Do you think she would have stayed in Lodi for another 50 something years if people didn't believe that she was, as you just said, a victim? I have no doubt. She was completely caught off guard. You know, and Lodi, even today, it's a small town, you know, especially in Northern California, You know, because as I've traveled through the United States, you go to some places and you're going, oh, my God, how does this even exist as a town? It's tiny. The department has like three deputies, you know, but Lodi is still small, relatively speaking. And I can only imagine, you know, back in the 1920s how small it was. and everybody, if there was any suspicion on Alex's wife, everybody in that town would be whispering to each other and it'd be unbearable for her to stay there. Yeah, absolutely. I will make another note. I don't know if this has anything to do with this case, but they're all buried in a Catholic cemetery in Lockerford. So, you know, I don't know if that's part of his religion and that explains why he didn't stay, you know, go into Mexico and stay. I guess I'm just sort of, I feel badly for him in a way because the nation's circumstances at the time was set up in a way where he was heading towards bankruptcy. He might have overextended, you know, he had a ranch, but this is somebody who came from Germany who wanted to make a better life for himself. He sounded like an exemplary citizen. People really liked him. That's why they said, don't execute him. And, you know, probably he overextended, but also circumstances led to all of this. But he also meticulously plotted the death of an innocent man, too. So I'm much more conflicted about Alex Kells than I was about, you know, the other doppelganger killer in my book. But it's still it's like a reminder of just these sort of when people are desperate, what they what are they thinking? You know? Right. You know, and I think that there is, you know, you have to at least acknowledge the potential for a mental health aspect. But like I said, there's, I mean, there's a lot of self-awareness on Alex's part that what he was doing was wrong, you know, and from a mental health. For me, what that does is that it negates the insanity defense. Yeah, absolutely. But it does not negate the possibility that there's a mental health influence on the decisions he made. And that could be a mitigating factor in terms of how he is treated in his sentencing. I had been reading a lot. I was really interested in the reason why people reacted the way they did on that Black Friday, the crash of the stock market. And I don't know if you remember reading this on Wall Street. People, men were jumping out of buildings to their deaths. To a point. Yeah, I remember that. So the identity that's wrapped up, especially in that time period, and I mean now too, with somebody like an Alex Kells, especially an immigrant coming here to make a better life, with being a failure as a husband in business and just an epic failure, I can see that if he already has some instability to begin with. I mean, she didn't say that he's always been like this. She said it's been, you know, as of recently, which is probably when he's been under all this financial pressure. Yeah, sure. So I'm in no way defending him. I'm just thinking of why people do desperate things. And the idea of your whole business and your life coming crashing down on you, I understand. Most of the other cases I don't understand that we do. I don't understand why people do stuff like Black Dahlia would be a really great example. I don't understand it. Yeah. I understand this. It's still awful what he did, but I kind of get that desperation, you know? Everybody has life stressors, and it's how do you deal with those stressors? And Alex chose, I'm going to kill somebody. Yeah. You know? So, you know, that's the fundamental truth of this particular case. And I think that that's, you know, the reasons why Alex made that decision, you know, who knows? Are there mitigating circumstances from a mental health standpoint or anything else. But fundamentally, Ed lost his life because Alex decided to be selfish. And, you know, that's what calls me. You know, what Alex's punishment should have been, you know, I think is debatable. But, you know, ultimately, you know, this is what crime is about. It's, okay, you committed a crime. What is your punishment? and that's going to be dictated based on the severity of the crime. And when it's loss of life and when it is obviously a pre-planned loss of life, then you go, well, that's sort of the ultimate. You decided to go out and kill somebody for your own benefit. Yep. Well, Paul Holes, this has been very serious. This has been my stressor. You just talked about everybody has stressors. This case has been my stressor. But it's been interesting. And I think that with every one of these cases, we find things that are relatable to cases and to life today. Oh, for sure. Yeah. There's no difference. I mean, this is, I mean, you can find so many cases that replicates this case with Alex today. Yep. Okay. So next week we'll tackle something different. Go have a good time with your seltzer. To be frank, it's working, you know, because, you know, with the bourbon whiskey, you know, obviously it's higher concentrations of alcohol. I found a zero carb, zero sugar, hard seltzer. Zero fun. I'm not touting it as a health drink, but it's like, well, you know, so it's working. Well, good. Have another one for me next week when I see you. I will. I'm looking forward to it, Kate. Okay, bye. Bye. This has been an Exactly Right production. For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buriedbones sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi. Research by Allison Trouble and Kate Winkler-Dawson. Our mixing engineer is Ben Talladeh. Our theme song is by Tom Breifogle. Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer. You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at Buried Bones Pod. Kate's most recent book, All That is Wicked, A Gilded Age Story of Murder and the Race to Decode the Criminal Mind, is available now. And Paul's best-selling memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now. Listen to Barry Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story? I've just been made to fit. The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapsed. What if the truth was disguised by a story we chose to believe? Oh my God, I think she might be innocent. Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Special Agent Regal. Special Agent Bradley Hall. In 2018, the FBI took down a ring of spies working for China's Ministry of State Security, one of the most mysterious intelligence agencies in the world. The Sixth Bureau podcast is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton Eckerd. In 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. But here's the thing. Bachelor fans hated him. If I could press a button and rewind it all, I would. That's when his life took a disturbing turn. A one-night stand would end in a courtroom. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. Listen to Love Trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.