The Falls Field Tragedy

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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. How are you? I'm doing really well. I'm staying busy, as always. When am I not busy? I feel like I'm always busy. Yeah. You've got a lot going on. But I think, do you have an active investigation going on? You're cheating on me. I know I talk about that all the time. First with Small Town Dicks and now with who? What's happening? Yeah. So, you know, I've been doing an active investigation. It's actually for an audible project. And right now I can't necessarily, you know, provide the details, but it's been going on for two years. And it involves a serial killer out of the Bay Area who I, you know, got involved with back in 2011 as part of the original task force. And there's unsolved cases that this guy has committed. And so part of my role in this active investigation is to try to identify the other cases that he has never been convicted of. And it's been a roller coaster ride. I mean, it's just been absolutely crazy. The twists and turns. I had no idea how this thing was going to play out. In fact, I didn't think anybody was digging into this case. I thought it was a forgotten case. And then it turns out that I have who I would describe as a professional friend. She's an FBI agent. And when I initially started getting involved with my investigation, turns out she was actually talking to him. Where's he in Folsom or where is he? You know, he was on death row at Sac Quentin. But then California dissolved death row. And so all these death row inmates were distributed throughout the California prison system is known as CDCR. And so they were distributed. And he's an elderly gentleman. So he was put in a health care facility. And I was like in a massive scramble thinking this guy who's 90, almost 92 at this point, he's going to die and take his secrets with him. So I need to get in and go talk to him. And when I went through my contacts to get in front of him, all of a sudden I was being told, oh, we've, there's this FBI agent that's talking to him. And so I called her up because I knew her for like two decades, you know, knowing her, you know, we had had some drinks after this. But, you know, it was back the fuck off. And I was like, what what is going on here? Who's who's who's looking into this? And, you know, eventually, you know, this is where the FBI can be so frustrating because they are very controlling over what their agents are doing, which I can completely appreciate. But even when things are at a point to where you can go public, the FBI still has a tendency to be very conservative. And there's so much good work, just like in Golden State Killer, I had my partner out of the FBI, Steve Kramer, who did amazing work after Golden State Killer case was solved. and he's now like pushing genealogy within the FBI world. And I was like, let's talk about this. Let's just highlight the good work that this guy's doing. And his name is Steve Kramer. And the FBI just absolutely refused, even though like I was a former FBI task force officer. It's like, I'm going to do you guys a solid here and highlight what you're doing and what your agents are doing. And I'm now running into the same thing with this particular agent. She's doing amazing work. And I was like, I want to highlight that. And the FBI said, no. So I'm waiting for her to retire. And it turns out she's retiring this month and maybe she will talk and hopefully people will learn, you know, this, what this heroin has been doing over the last, you know, almost three decades of a career. Well, I think that's wonderful that, you know, we're hopefully you'll be able to talk to us right after your piece comes out. We have an interesting case. I'm going to drag you back kicking and screaming to the 1850s, which, you know, I love how we balance things. So we have more recent cases by recent. I mean, the 70s. We have more recent cases with lots of photos. We have very, very old cases. And I think they they all have their own benefits, right? I mean, sometimes you're surprised at how well investigators do from 1710 compared to investigators that don't do well when they have more modern technology. So we'll see what you think about this case, because it's definitely an interesting one. All right. Well, I'm looking forward to it, as always. All right. Let's set the scene. We're in Rochester, New York. Love it. Love Rochester. And we are on the bank of the Genesee River, and it's December 20th, 1857. I think we've started a few of our cases on the bank of a river. The pollution one, remember, I think it was in Australia, the people who died because they were making out or whatever. Crazy one. I know, that was amazing, on the bank of a river that was polluted. I think we've had several of those, but this is where we're starting. I'm not sure we've had this kind of case yet, where there are people looking for one person and they find another. So before I even tell you about that, you know, we've talked about people finding bodies, bottle collectors and can collectors, you've told me. Of course, I've done a million stories on poor little kids who are out poking around and find a body. This is a search for someone, and they don't find that someone. They find somebody completely different. Is that something that you've ever run across or heard about before, more modern times? Absolutely. You know, what ends up happening is that within a particular geographic region, there's select areas that, you know, people know about that are isolated. And so when they commit a crime and they have a body, you know, they naturally think, well, this is a good area to go dump the body. Well, it turns out they're not the only ones thinking about that. So, you know, over the course of, you know, often, you know, several decades, you can get multiple bodies dumped in the same area. And now, you know, when law enforcement is out searching because they got a tip, you know, then they run across one, two, three. I mean, I've literally had cases like this where I'm out there and there's other crimes that have been committed where other bodies were dumped in the same area over the decades. And I relatively recently consulted on a case out of Vancouver, Washington, Portland area, the serial killer named Warren Forrest. There's a podcast, The Stolen Voices of Dole Valley, in which literally law enforcement is they respond. A body had been found by I think it was hunters. And as they're out there, they run across another body. Well, it turns out the serial killer. Well, he used the same dumping ground, you know. So it's not a unique circumstance. I wouldn't say it's common, but it's a real thing. Okay. Well, this is going to be one of those times. I'm going to have to describe something to you, a topography, which you might understand, and I just want to make sure I understand the way that this goes. Okay. So they are looking for a man who is important in the Jewish community in Rochester. I know it sounds like we're heading one way. We're not. This is a guy who was walking over a rickety bridge on this river. The river goes into a 96-foot-high falls called Great Falls. Oh, wow. So you've got the river, you've got the falls, and then you've got the body of water underneath it. That's been described a couple of different ways. So I have a, in a minute, I have a modern photo of what this looks like, and then I have a drawing, a depiction of just what the area looks like at the time. So they are looking for this man. He was important with a particular synagogue, and there's a big reward for him. So everybody's out looking. They're in the water of this river, the Genesee River. They're in the embarkment. They are searching for this guy who had been crossing this rickety bridge that had been shut down. Nobody was supposed to walk over it. He did. It's called the Andrews Street Bridge. He fell into the river. And then this crowd, a lot of people were watching, I think, because you're not supposed to be on that bridge. And they were watching as he got swept over the falls that I told you was almost 100 feet high and into the body of water below. Let me first, since this is where we're going to find a body and it is not the man associated with the synagogue, they will find his body later. Not a murder victim. It was a bad accident. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that sounds weird, though, is that you have a crowd watching this man walk across a bridge. It sounds like this is some sort of staged event. It's sort of like Houdini going over Niagara Falls, right? You know what? I think that this is a situation more like it's sort of like Niagara Falls where people are looking at them. It's beautiful. I'll show you. And I think that it's more of like not a staged event, but people there sightseeing and watching. And this is like a little bit of a bustling city. So that's the impression I got. But let me show you. go ahead and open up your photos. And I know I'm kind of jumping the gun because we haven't even talked about the body that was found, but I just want you to get a sense for what this is. Oh, wow. So it's impressive. So this is a depiction of the falls. So this is from, I think, 1836, and we're talking about 1950. So it probably didn't change significantly. So I have to throw out some phrases and I probably should do it now because I don't want us to get mixed up. Because to me, there's three different areas. There's the river, the Genesee River, which feeds into the falls. And then you've got the Great Falls that drops. And then we've got something called Great Falls Park. And they're also talking about an eddy, a small eddy. And that's where they end up finding the body that we don't know about yet. This literally looks like Niagara Falls, but has a town surrounding it. Probably not as big as Niagara Falls, but it's, I mean, this is not just like a single waterfall. This is like an entire river going over this cliff down into the basin. I'm looking at the bridge in the background, and it appears that this thing is easily a couple hundred feet wide. And now you have a river that is crashing down over a cliff down into a basin. And when you mentioned an eddy, I can only envision, of course, there's going to be certain dead areas, right? So if you have something that is floating, let's say you have driftwood, it's up and then it gets caught in an eddy and then it just kind of stays, and this is probably not technically correct, but like this tidal pool area as it's just sitting there floating until for whatever reason it gets caught up into the current and then ends up going more downriver. And so I can easily see in a situation like this where a body is going to get caught into this weird eddy spot and stay there for a period of time. I'm going to show you another one. This is a different point of view. That was helpful to me. I think I was looking for the basin part of it. What do we call that? Because that's where some of our action is. I was thinking this is an interesting place to dump a body. It also could not be what you intended. Because if it gets caught, which is what ends up happening, if it gets caught, it's not going to end up in the place where you want it to be. I'm looking at this, and now I'm, you know, I'm no maritime expert, but I've done some research on currents and stuff like in the Bay Area. And I can see where, okay, you're going to have a lot of churn, if you will, at the bottom of the falls, which makes sense. But then as you move away from these falls, you know, in essence, it's almost like this peaceful, tranquil lake, but it has a current that is going to be directed to the right. but when you look at the left of it that's going to be sort of a dead area so like if i'm looking at this i'm now predicting okay where is an eddy in which a body's going to be found and if i'm looking at this i'm going to go well it's going to be a distance away from the falls possibly on the left hand side uh because you're going to see some swirling going on there but maybe even up against the coast that's in the foreground of this thing. But I also know that there can be something behind the falls, you know, where now things can get trapped and they just kind of circulate behind the falls. Okay. So as I said, this guy had been crossing, his name was Nathan, had been crossing over this rotten bridge. He fell into the river. People were watching. This was a stop, I just read about this, this was a common stop, this river in the falls, for people going to and from Niagara Falls. So, you know, I guess it's a day at the falls for some people. So that's why there was a lot of people watching. You could see why it's beautiful. So then we see that his body gets swept over 96 feet into the falls. So now they're searching, searching. In a small eddy on the bank of Falls Field, which would be at the bottom. The search party finds the body of a man, and this is not Nathan, the guy that they're looking for. They find this guy later on. This is somebody totally different, okay? So let me tell you what the injuries are that the sheriff sees who initially comes and looks. There's not a whole lot of other information, frankly, from the autopsy, but this is, you know, what we're going to get. So the skull is fractured. His face appears to be badly beaten. And there are three deep and regular, they say, deep and regular cuts seemingly inflicted by a pair of iron knuckles that disfigure his nose and his eyes. And I want to talk about the brass knuckles, iron knuckles in a second, because I have some fun facts for you some good photos. But how would you know the difference between if the same thing happened to our mystery man that happened to Nathan? He's walking across the bridge, which is what they suspect. He goes over the falls. How are you going to know that these are not cuts and stuff from hitting rocks on the way down or rocks in the basin below? Yeah, well, that makes it very tough. This is where the injuries that you're describing to this male, fractured skull, The face looks beaten and then deep, regular cuts to the eyes and nose. Well, the fractured skull, of course, there's just no way you can determine it was that as a result of homicidal violence or is that a result of literally falling over the falls. The face being beaten, you know, maybe depending on what they're looking at. But of course, that's still kind of a result of bludgeoning types of forces, which it's going to be very tough to really differentiate at the hands of another versus as a result of, you know, falling over the falls. The deep regular cuts, you know, that's where it's really going to be the differentiating factor. The regular aspect possibly leans it into now you're looking at something that has a feature on it, like you mentioned brass knuckles or, you know, whatever else that has a human made configuration to it versus what happens in nature. You know, and this is where, okay, so now that's what I would want to be looking at is like, okay, so what are we looking at here? Is it possible that a natural, even if it's a series of different impacts, but is it possible that coincidentally there happens to be a regularity to the injuries versus it's obvious there's no way that that happened as a result of falling over the falls? You know, right now, the only thing I can keep I can key in on is that they're saying it looks like regular cuts. And then that is probably the one thing where it's like, oh, maybe he had some preexisting injuries as a result of homicidal violence. And then, of course, is put in the water and goes over the falls and gets additional blunt force trauma as a result. And abrasive, you know, the skin is going to be abraded as it's scraping across the rocks. And whatever else, you know, whatever other debris, you know, is in the water that the body is impacting. You know, and remember, nobody saw this guy. They assumed that this happened on the bridge, the rickety bridge that no one's supposed to be on. But it could have been at another location. I have to assume, looking at those photos, that there are many different ways, several different kinds of positions, not even on this bridge, but to the side off of these cliffs, you know, where this could have happened also. Or am I wrong about that? No, for sure. You know, right now, even though the body is in the water, you can't predict where the body was placed into this water. So look at your photo again. So page three. And I'm showing you a photo of some, you know, brass knuckles. Who uses this? It's not cowboys, mobs, maybe? Mafia? Well, it's not specific. I mean, this is something that was used. When I went through the police academy, we were trained on these types of weapons because they're like in California. This type of weapon is illegal. If you have it in your purse, if you have it in your pocket, I mean, you can be charged with a crime as a result of just merely possessing something like this. But this brass knuckles, this is something that somebody can use in their fist. And in essence, Instead of your knuckles impacting the person that you're hitting, you now have the metal impacting the person. So it's a much more devastating, you know, type of blunt force trauma. Well, there are three more wounds like the ones I described to you on the back of his head also. And there are pieces of his skull that are scattered among the gravel on this, you know, embankment that we're talking about. But go to your next photo and tell me if you've ever seen this before. So what I'm looking at is what appears to be a revolver that has a shank at the front. There's no barrel. So it's definitely a clever device. So let me see if I can describe this adequately so the the handle of this revolver is it looks like brass knuckles yeah right so fingers can be slipped into the metal rings that make up this and this is a firearm there no doubt about that so you have this handle that is basically brass knuckles and then the middle part of this weapon is the revolver. This is the firearm aspect. So there's a cylinder that appears to hold, I'm guessing, four to five rounds of ammo, small caliber. There's an exposed trigger. It has no trigger guard. It just looks like a tongue hanging from the bottom of this device. and then there is a hole where you would expect a barrel to be, but there's no barrel. But this is where a projectile would be discharged from. This could be, even though there's no barrel, this still can be a fatal device if it is fired at very close range. There'd be no accuracy to this at all. So this is literally something that is designed for close contact with the victim. Very close. Very, very close. The front of this device has what appears to be a dagger-like blade. It's irregular, but there's no question that the device, this weapon, is designed for somebody to be able to stab a victim simultaneously while stabbing the victim, shooting the victim. And then beating the shit out of them. and then resorting to using the knuckles and the handle to beat the hell out of them. So it's called the Apache revolver, and it is named—it's from France. It's not after the indigenous group. It is after a gang in France in the 1800s who was made in Belgium. And, of course, the major complaint is exactly what you said. I just brought this up for fun because I had run across it and just thought, I thought Paul would think this is interesting. The blade's too short. It definitely looks like something an inmate at a prison took a somehow filed down like a tooth, a toothbrush and stuck it on. It's like a shank. Yeah, I would agree. It is. It's very crude. Yeah, for sure. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, and on our podcast, Buried Bones, Paul Holes and I analyze historic crimes through the lens of modern forensics. And we're thrilled to announce that now you can watch us investigate the past every week because Buried Bones is on Netflix. Just search Buried Bones on your Netflix homepage and be sure to click the double thumbs up and remind me buttons. That's the best way you can support our show. See you on Netflix. When you feel uncomfortable, what do you put on? Biggie. You put on Biggie when you feel uncomfortable? Because I want to get confident. This is DJ Hester Prince Music is Therapy, a new podcast from me, a DJ and licensed therapist that asks one simple question. Who do you want to be and what's the song that can take you there? Music changes what you feel and what you feel changes what you do, right? That moment where a song shifts something inside you, that's where transformation starts. 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Trust me, I've been through this ancient and unshakable tradition. I jumped in, hoping to find love the right way. And instead, I found chaos, cringe and comedy. And now, I'm looking for healing. Boys and Girls dives into every twist and turn of the arranged marriage carousel. The meet awkward, the near misses, the heartbreak, and let's not forget all the jokes. Listen to Boys and Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So let me tell you more about the guy. Okay, so I told you he's got several wounds that we talked about. Some are deep, some aren't. Three in the back of his head. There's a small piece of his skull on the ground in the gravel. There is a pool of blood that surrounds his body. He's wearing a gold watch, and they find money in his pockets. and they find a long bladed dagger that is hidden inside of his clothes that nobody's taken and he appears to have not taken out. There's also some other random stuff. Along the bank's edge, there are more bloody streaks and at different elevations, there are several other pools of blood on the landscaping. And it seems like there was a bloody struggle somewhere, right? So they've got different elevations, like he fell down and landed where he landed. And then we've got some other sort of material things that are important that were, you know, found around and about so far. So, Paul, here's my understanding so far. Tell me if you think I'm right. So we have this victim who we don't even know who this person is yet, standing on a cliff near the falls. He, it sounds like, might have been pushed off the cliff. And then you think he hit several different elevations on the way down because there's blood under where he landed, but there's also blood in different elevations along this cliffside. Yeah. And I would say that's pretty typical because in most areas where there's these steep cliff-like structures, they're not like straight down. You know, there's outcroppings and everything else. And so the body is naturally going to be kind of bouncing off these various structures and incurring injuries on the way down to the final impact. Let me tell you what the investigators say based on what they see. So there were some streaks that led to the river. And so they say, OK, this is what we think happened from the beginning. They said that it seems like this guy got into a fight based on bruises that were on his face. But, you know, we don't know how old the bruises are or anything like that, that he got into a fight, if they think the victim got into a fight at the top of the gorge, whenever he died, if it happened then, that he was thrown over the precipice and they were hoping that he would land in the river and then get carried away by the rapids. But body fell, they say, on a ledge about 30 feet below. And then they said it rolled another 50 to 60 feet down to a steep slope. and then they think that the killer or killers dragged the body 150 feet into the river. So you imagine they're like, you know, he or whoever the killer is and the victim are in this combat. The guy has a knife. The victim has a knife, but he doesn't get it out. He goes, rolls down. The killer's like, shit, he didn't get into the river like I wanted. So he drags him into the river, but he didn't put him in the right spot because he doesn't float down the river. So they just leave him there. He's just left there, it sounds like. I mean, Lord, that's a lot of effort. Just bury him next time. Yeah. Okay. So let me tell you about some of the little clues. I told you nobody took anything from him. He's got like a gold watch. He's got money. He's got a knife, a dagger, long-bladed dagger hidden in his clothes. So this doesn't seem like a robbery. Exactly. So financial motive is not this offender's primary motive in this particular case. And it sounds like what he had on his body was financially significant for the period of time. So if this was a robbery homicide, you would think that his body would have been stripped of these valuables. And they're not. So, you know, that's very informative. Then it's like, okay, so now the offender isn't interested in the financial aspect, which tells me the offender is not financially destitute, right? This is not a, let's say, a homeless transient that is looking to try to, you know, just survive and find, you know, some valuables from this victim. So the offender at least is like, well, whatever he's got doesn't matter to me at all. So robbery is out. Now it's like, okay, is this vindictive? Is there a business relationship that went awry that is impacting the offender? Is there a love interest, a love triangle, you know, that's going on? And that's why this man is being killed or a variety of reasons. And I've always said that, you know, when you listen to true crime or watch true crime, who are the stories focused on? It's on women. And why is that? It's because they're innocent victims. when men get killed, fast majority of time, it's because the men have been involved with or have done something stupid that got them killed. And so what did our victim do that enraged somebody else to kill him that isn't over money? This isn't necessarily a business thing. I mean, it could be. I mean, this could be a matter of eliminating a business partner or something like that, where, you know, the valuables on the victim's body is meaningless to a former business partner. But it's also suggestive that, OK, our victim got himself into something and the person or persons are willing to commit homicide for self-preservation. That's fundamentally what I'm thinking right now. Well, lucky for us, it doesn't take long to identify who the victim is because Rochester is a place where people know all the prominent folks. And our victim is prominent. His name is Charles Littles. And people in the search party saw him and immediately knew who he was. He's 25 and he has a very prominent attorney in Rochester. He's married to a woman who's 19. Her name's Sarah. She comes from a big, close-knit family. They've only been married a couple of years. So immediately, I just won't even hide this, Charles has kind of gone downhill in the last year or so, probably since he got married. He's been drinking a lot, and he's been having quite a few extramarital affairs. So they said he succumbed to vice. He had a lot of names of women in a diary that he kept, which probably did not make his wife very happy. And as I said, they had only been married for about two years. And then, you know, automatically we're talking about the inner circle. If this is the murder, you know, we're going to have to talk about his relationship with his wife and a little bit more about Charles. Right. Well, you know, as you quizzed me when we did the Black Dahlia episode and you caught me literally out of the blue in terms of what do I always say? And I had to think there. I was like, what do you mean? What do you mean? You say a lot. Well, victimology is huge. So obviously right now, you know, so you have Charles interacting with a variety of women, you know, and of course we know that these scenarios can lead to homicides. So that's one potential set of suspect pools or a suspect pool. And then, of course, that's on both sides. That's okay. So who has interest in the women that Charles is having an affair with, like maybe a husband or a boyfriend or a family member? But then you have the wife, Sarah, you know, and then that, whether it be Sarah or her side of the family, they find out about these affairs. That's another suspect pool. But I also want to know, well, what was Charles doing? You know, where was he working? You know, what is his business arrangement, everything else? I can't just say, oh, he's having affairs. So that's why he's killed. It's something that you have to investigate, even go after, but you also have to recognize, you know, Charles has more than just the romantic side of his life that could possibly develop other suspect pools that you have to investigate. Yep. I don't think his business has gone under, and I don't read anything about controversy with the business. Maybe he's functioning fine, but in Sarah's eyes, he's not, because she's caught him over the past two years in three affairs. And then she recently found out about a fourth. And she said we're divorcing. And he freaked out. And this was, you know, within the past couple of months, she moved back in with her family, who are the Stouts. And one of her brothers she was very close with is a guy named Marion Ira. He goes by Ira Stout. And so, you know, this is a very close-knit family. And Sarah has said, I am done with this man. And they said, well, we'll take you back. Don't worry about it. So when they identify Charles Littles as the victim, of course, they immediately bring Sarah in looking at the inner circle. And she said, I don't know what happened to him. I know how he reacted when I said I want a divorce. He was very jealous. And this was, you know, I think a few months ago when this happened, she apparently started seeing another man named Mr. Patterson is all she refers to him as. Charles was very, very upset about this. He's stalking her actively in the streets. So this is confirmed by, you know, her family and other people, people who knew them. And he was very aggravated by Mr. Patterson and this relationship. And on the night of the murder, Sarah had visited a dressmaker and, you know, she and her brother were there hanging out around town. Basically, they were each other's alibi because the police are saying, your husband's been murdered. Where were you? And so they're really homing in on her because, and now talk about this too, but she is the one you would think would be dead on a river bank because she is the one who said, I want a divorce. And we know in abusive or controlling relationships, particularly something driven by drugs or alcohol, the most dangerous time for a woman is when she says, I'm leaving you. And so that's what I was a little, I was thinking, wow, okay, but he's the dead one. Well, I would say that's true for a vast majority of cases, but there are cases where the women end up acting out and they either they themselves commit the homicide or they convince somebody else to do it. So you have to be aware of that as a possibility. So, you know, this is where now you get into the weeds in terms of, okay, Sarah, you know, let's go over your timeline. Where were you? Sarah's not the one that is beating him up and throwing him over a cliff. What? You don't think so? No. You know, unless you tell me Sarah's six foot five, 240 pounds, and, you know, former BJJ athlete, you know, in all likelihood, she's not the one doing this, you know, and so she would have an accomplice or multiple accomplices that are, you know, physically capable of doing this to Charles. And so that's where you start, you know, setting up, you have to get her timeline, you have to get her alibi, you have to figure out her social circles, you have to figure out who she's communicating with. Could she potentially have arranged this or could somebody that is a confidant of Sarah have arranged it or committed the crime themselves? You know, maybe this Mr. Patterson, you know, he's wanting to eliminate this jealous, soon-to-be ex-Charles, right? Because he wants to have a life with Sarah that's unencovered by, you know, this, in essence, this almost like a stalker that Charles is turning into, this jealous guy. Okay. Well, let me remind you of the alibis of these two people. So it's Sarah and her brother. And this is not even at the beginning. They're questioning people around town about Sarah because not only is Charles a cheater, but he goes to something I didn't know existed in the 1850s, free love meetings. You know, I think any active participant within this group would be unlikely to be a suspect just based off of, let's say, Charles' involvement, right? Because, you know, okay, we all agree there's consent and we're going to sexually interact with different members of this group. That's the normal thought process of this group. Now, somebody in this group could ultimately have had a bad experience with Charles, or there could have been some sort of jealousy that develops. As a result, maybe Charles chose to interact with maybe another woman than the woman who was hoping to interact with Charles, and now she's upset. I mean, there's all sorts of dynamics that potentially could go on. But you could also have individuals that are participating in this group, whether men or women, in which their, let's say, their spouse is not a believer in this group or its philosophies and finds out, you know, you have, oh, you know, my wife interacted with this Charles at this free love meeting, you know, and now you have this jealous rage that occurs. Charles as a victim is complicated. You know, there's at least from the sexual romantic side, there's, you know, multiple pools of potential suspects. Now, I don't think you haven't told me what Charles did. I don't think. He was a very prominent attorney in Rochester, well known. So Charles specialized in insurance claims. That's the kind of law that he practiced. But he was described as a ne'er-do-well lawyer in that he specifically dealt with insurance claims. And I don't know. I mean, maybe he just didn't make a lot of money or ripped people off or it was kind of like, you know, considered sleazy practice. But that's what he was. You know, just Charles being an attorney, we know attorneys are dealing with adversarial scenarios all the time. And so now that's another potential aspect to Charles' victimology that you have to pay attention to. He's got the extramarital affairs, the sexual interactions, the free love side. But then you also have his business side where you go, okay, you have to take a look at what cases has he been involved with. And you can't just go, oh, recently, because you can have somebody that years ago, Charles is only 25, so it wouldn't go back that far. But basically from the beginning of his practice, okay, so what cases was he involved with? And it's possible that you could have somebody who thought he was an absolute asshole that did them wrong, and now they're coming back after him. Yeah. So that's another suspect pool that you have to look at. It's growing. Yeah, it is. Ever feel like you're being chased by the marriage police? Welcome to Boys and Girls, the podcast where dating isn't dating. Arranged marriage is basically a reality show, except the contestants are strangers and your entire family is judging. You're sipping coffee with one maybe Grabbing dinner with another And praying your karmic Ken or Barbie appears Before your shelf life runs out Trust me, I've been through this ancient and unshakable tradition I jumped in, hoping to find love the right way And instead I found chaos, cringe and comedy And now, I'm looking for healing Boys and Girls dives into every twist and turn Of the arranged marriage carousel The meet awkward, the near misses the heartbreak, and let's not forget all the jokes. 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This isn just a podcast It unconventional therapy for your entire year Listen to DJ Hesterprin Music is Therapy on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Hi, listeners. I'm Anna Sinfield, the host of The Girlfriend Spotlight, and I've got some great interviews coming your way. I'm also excited to tell you that you can now get access to all episodes of season one, two, three, and four of The Girlfriend's, and every single episode of The Girlfriend Spotlight 100% ad-free and one week early through the iHeart True Crime Plus subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Plus, you'll get access to other chart-topping true crime shows you love, like Betrayal, Paper Ghosts, Pipedon Massacre, The Brothers Ortiz, What Happened in Nashville, Hell and Gone, The Godmother, and more. so don't wait head to apple podcast search for iheart true crime plus and subscribe today it is and ira hates him her brother sarah's brother hates him he thinks he's disgusting he said that i've been with my sister the whole time that night i remind you they were in a dressmaker shop mary farrell we'll hear from her later and then they just kind of walked around the town until it got dark. So let me tell you a little bit, because the police are really humming in on Ira, because Ira and his dad, so Sarah's father, had been in state prison for the past five years. So they were in prison on charges of forgery and counterfeiting bank bills, burglary, and arson. So remember the bank bills they told you back then in the 1800s, oftentimes, because there was no Federal Reserve, oftentimes banks would print their own bills. It really did make counterfeiting easier. They were counterfeiting and burglary and arson because Ira had good penmanship. It sounds like he had become entangled in his father's criminal business because he was able to do these forgeries starting when he was 14. He was only 18 when he went into prison and he was there for four and a half years in solitary confinement. But at this point, until the police discover it, the only people who know anything about Ira's background is Charles. So it's the Stouts and Charles and that's it. And Ira comes out of prison wanting to start a clean slate and he hates Charles. And Sarah's divorcing Charles. So there is a lot happening with Charles and you're right, a lot of different avenues, just even with these two people. Yeah. So with the divorce, now Charles, who has knowledge on Ira and Ira's and Sarah's father, You know, he's somewhat of a wild card. You know, is it possible just for the mere fact that he knows their history that potentially they decide he's no longer part of the family? We can't control him. We can't control who he's going to talk to about them and their past, which could impact their future and whatever their ambitions were. So is this strictly an elimination of Charles in order to, you know, in essence, get rid of this wild card so they actually are able to control and containerize who knows about their past? Mm-hmm. Another little interesting something, and I have mixed feelings about this because I don't have enough evidence. So Ira and Sarah were very close, right? She's 19, he's 22. When they both move back into the family house, they sleep in the same bed. So on one hand, this is not uncommon in the 1800s because communal sleeping is what it would have been called, was incredibly common with siblings, usually younger siblings. And of course, we're talking about families that aren't very wealthy. They don't have a lot of space. Sometimes they would squeeze a bunch of kids in a bed at the same time and the girls would go against the wall. The boys would be more on the edge. But adult siblings, number one, we're not so sure. And I will tell you, if in the 1850s, people are chitter-chattering about the fact that this could have been a sexual relationship between the brother and their sister, then it was more than just, you know, siblings sleeping in the same bed innocently, I think, but I don't have enough information. That's just more information out there that probably they wouldn't have gotten, wanted to get out also, you know? Now you've got your hands behind your head. I don't know if I've ever seen you in that pose before. Well, I think this is a, you know, this is somewhat of a psychologically complicated scenario. So I would imagine, so Ira and Sarah, let's say there's an incestuous relationship between this brother and sister. I don't have any experience dealing with this type of psychology. I am just now kind of talking off the top of my head. But I would suspect that this isn't like some deep romantic love relationship. This is a physical relationship as a matter of convenience. So when Sarah ends up dating and ultimately marrying Charles, my suspicion, and again, this is just speculation, is that Ira is not going to develop the same level of jealousy as if it had been a true boyfriend or husband type relationship. So I kind of put less weight in terms of motive for Ira to go after Charles just merely as a result of Charles is now in a relationship with a sister that he's having sex with. But I don't know. You know, that's an interesting dynamic that I have no experience with. Well, let's continue on. It ends up coming up later. Now we need to talk about actual evidence because the police are homing in on these two people for a reason. Besides the fact of all the crap that's happening, you know, within this family and involving Charles, a couple of things. There are some items that were left on the shore where it sounds like there was some dragging into the water, then it doesn't work and out of the water. So there's a pair of glasses. There is a black velvet rosette from a woman's hat. This sounds terrible coming up. a piece of Russian squirrel tail that could have been part of a wrap from a woman, of course, two combs, and the arm of an office chair are scattered amongst the burdock plants, which I think are just adorable plants, and will pop up later too. So there are all these random items, a lot of which seem to be from a woman near his body. You know, I would say, you know, of course, it's going to be, you know, judging the relevance of these items to the crime scene, you know, and this is a very nebulous skill set. I've been out to so many crime scenes where you've got all sorts of just, let's say, call it trash, debris. And it's like, well, what's related, what's not related, you know? So that's going to be the complexity of dealing with these particular items, the glasses, a black velvet rosette, a Russian squirrel. Something or other wrap. Something, yeah, wrap. You know, like my thought is a woman didn't do this to Charles. Now, a woman could have been present, but then why are all these items being left behind if she's not the one in combat with Charles? So let's say if these items are related, I would say this sounds like staging. Somebody's trying to set up a woman, maybe Sarah, as the responsible by depositing these items at this crime scene. Okay, let's continue on. Let's talk about injuries, because this is why, I would say this is probably the main reason, besides all the background in this marriage, why the police chief, whose name is Oviet, why police chief Oviet is saying, hmm, both Ira and his sister Sarah are injured. And they say, oh, it happened on Galusha Street, which is where I believe the dressmaker was. They visited the night that Charles was murdered. So this is what happened with her. She has a broken left wrist. And she says that she got it from tripping over a hole on the sidewalk or like a loose plank somewhere. He has a broken left arm. And he said he had his hands in his pockets and he was running and, of course, fell. and he also lost, you know, his glasses. They have not presented the glasses from the crime scene to Ira, but he said, I normally wear glasses. I don't have them. And now we have doctors who come in and they want to examine them. So we've got two doctors who examine Sarah. There are abrasions and bruises on the inside of her right forearm. There's, you know, both under her chin, on the left side of her chest below the clavicle, on her left leg above the ankle and on the outside of her left knee and on the outside of her right knee. Both of her eyes are black and swollen. And when she takes off her bonnet, they notice that there are burdock burrs tangled in her hair. Do you remember I talked about burdock burrs? No. There are plants down there where his body was and they're called burdocks. And I know what they are because I find them so interesting. They're prickly. They have little hooks covering them. things stick to them. And they were actually the inspiration for Velcro. Okay. Okay. That's cool. So they are not on the street where the dressmaker is anywhere. They are only from, as far as people know, on the riverbank. So they're trying to say, these people are injured. Ira here has lost his glasses and Sarah has burrs in her hair that are not around town. They're they're down at the riverbed. Yeah. I don't know if a woman's being set up here. I think a woman's involved here. Yeah. No, I'm now changing my opinion on that is, you know, now this is, I mean, the extent of Sarah's injuries, I don't believe these are her, you know, falling down and she's breaking her wrist and now she's got two black eyes and all these abrasions all over her body. And her brother has all his injuries and he's missing glasses. And we have glasses that are found at the crime scene. And right now we don't know if those match Ira's glasses or not, but I'm now going, okay, you know what? It looks like Charles was ambushed by Ira and Sarah at this location. Yep. And then we've got the dressmaker who saw them. And actually this helps with our timeline a little bit. She saw Ira and Sarah in her shop. She says, this dressmaker says that Sarah was wearing a pair of black rosettes in her hair. And you'll remember that it was one black velvet rosette from a woman's hat was found at the scene. So I don't know if that helps with the timeline. It sounds like if Sarah is the one who's involved with this, that she saw the dressmaker before all this happened, you know, at the river's edge. Although everybody wore rosettes. Who knows? I don't know. These are clues, right? So, you know, this is where the investigation has to narrow and literally focus in on Sarah and Ira. Separate them, interview them separately, you know, get statements, re-interview them. I mean, in this day and age, I would say, take written statements, give me your timelines, you know, and then start looking for inconsistencies where it's like, oh, these two are not telling the truth, you know. And then, of course, you know, this type of evidence at the crime scene in this day and age, we can pursue with modern technology to try to determine, are those Rosettes, you know, Sarah's? Are those glasses Ira's? You know, oh yeah we got iris dna off of the let's say the you know the nose pieces on the glass frames you know it becomes easy you know so you know now things are getting into okay sarah and ira are now prime suspects and even though as i've said before you don't have to prove motive but now is why you know can we determine the why especially in the 1850s with all this evidence you know in the circumstances they probably could prosecute with what you've told me but now it's like okay why what what is the reason for sarah and ira to kill charles is it just because those two had an incestuous relationship and sarah's wanting to divorce and Ira was jealous, or is there something else going on? Well, I think the stalking is a big part of it. It sounds like Charles was stalking Sarah because of this Mr. Patterson, and it sounds like making threats. Also, in Remember Paul, he's carrying a long blade. I mean, he's got a weapon on him that doesn't sound like he was able to pull out in time if this is a real fight. So I think that that could be one of the directions they're heading down right now. It sounds like Charles was just kind of unhinged in general and drinking all the time. I don't know. Well, you know, and part of the commission of this crime is how do these parties convene at the waterfalls? You know, what kind of communication occurred? Would Charles normally go here? And, of course, you know, Sarah and Ira maybe know his patterns and they go, this is the perfect location. Did they follow him? Did he have somebody with him? Maybe he's got a lady friend that he's taken out there to overlook the waterfalls. And then Ira and Sarah, you know, take advantage of this isolation. So that's going to be part of can we establish how the offenders and the victim convened at the homicide location? Okay, let's move through this because there's more evidence. They go to Sarah's house and they find, I mean, nobody knows how to dispose of anything in this story. They find her skirt covered in burdock burrs and there's broken jewelry in her pockets. There is one rosette, presumably because the other one's on the riverbank. They find that Russian squirrel tail fur wrap and it's missing a panel. So, you know, there's also a recently washed, blood-stained piece of clothing. So the kids don't know anything. She and Ira have a 10-year-old sister. They have a 25-year-old brother. They've got the brother's wife. And everybody's questioned. And the mom is, too. I think the dad might still be in prison. So they question the mom. And Margaret says, oh, this was clothing that got bloody a few days ago and I washed it Friday night. Not last night, though, when all of this stuff happened. And so, you know, that is that. They have all of this evidence that matches to whatever is found down below is what they say. So this is enough to get them indicted. So they're indicted December 23rd. And Ira enters a plea first. So they're tried separately. And this takes a long time. I'm a little surprised. So, you know, they're indicted on December 23rd of 57, and he doesn't go on trial until April of 58. And we've had things go on trial within three days before in this time period. So they must have really been trying to build a case. So right now, tell me about the case that they have. Is this considered circumstantial at this point? I mean, the stuff at the scene matches the stuff in her house, and there's these injuries. Is that enough these days? Well, you know, the items that are found at the crime scene are physical evidence. And if they are truly matching, I think most notably the squirrel wrap missing a panel, there's going to be ways. And in the 1850s, I'm not sure how sophisticated they were in what we would call a physical match. You know, but, you know, most certainly during the course of my career in criminalistics, there are ways in which we would be able to show, yes, this piece of the rap from the crime scene, absolutely. I mean, it's unique, was part of this other piece that belonged to Sarah. You know, so there's going to be physical evidence that is being presented at trial that is linking Sarah to these items at the crime scene based off of what you told me. Now, the defense is going to be, well, that doesn't place her at the crime scene. You know, these are things that, you know, somebody else could have put out there. But that's, you know, something the jury's going to weigh. What do they believe and not believe about that set of circumstances? I still come back to iris glasses, you know, and are they able to, you know, show that these are actually iris glasses? You know, were there maybe an optometrist marks on there that, you know, there's file records to show that, you know, these were iris? You know, of course, we're in the day before fingerprints or DNA to be able to, you know, show that these are actually iris. So you'd be looking at, well, they match the description of the glasses that people have seen Ira wearing. So there's circumstances and there is physical evidence. So there is some strength to this case for sure. But there's, I think, there is maybe legitimate defense avenues that could minimize both aspects of this particular case. It's not necessarily conclusive, but it's, you know, relative to some of the other episodes, which were purely circumstantial. And I'm going, I don't think they've got enough here. I'm going, yeah, I could see where, you know, they have enough to pursue this. It's going to be how, you know, how rigorous is the defense and how successful the defense is in front of the jury. Yeah. Well, the way this goes is really interesting. And I'm going to use what happens at the trial because Ira does go to trial. I'm going to tell you kind of the blockbuster thing that happens at the trial to understand why he does what he does initially. Okay, first of all, we're looking at manslaughter. His defense says you can be convicted of manslaughter. You could be convicted of first-degree murder. And let me just tell you about the punishments. I did not know some of this. So what used to be a very popular punishment was branding, actually branding someone so people knew what they did. this was usually for maybe thieving or, you know, second time offenders of petty thieving, that kind of thing. Now they were throwing everybody in prison for every good reason. So when the trial comes up, I believe that Ira knew that there was going to be someone testifying against him. That was going to be really bad news for him. So Ira says, I did kill Charles. And he says it was not premeditated. It needs to be manslaughter. And manslaughter would have been, I mean, he's only 22. I think it would have been 10 years, maybe. He probably could have gotten out earlier too. Although, you know, he had already been in prison to begin with. So I was, I want to explain why he said I did it, but it was not premeditated in any way before I tell you what ends up happening. Does that make sense? No, no, for sure. You know, because at least in California, you know, the manslaughter, voluntary versus involuntary versus second to first degree murder. You know, this is where now it does come down to, you know, intent, actions, you know, various planning, the various types of things that potentially, you know, the weapons that you brought to the scene versus circumstances beyond your control. but you committed certain crimes that contributed to somebody's death for Ira to say, or his attorneys to say, well, this is manslaughter. Well, I'm immediately skeptical because this is pretty typical. You know, it's like, you know, the defense is always going to be, we don't want murder here. We want manslaughter. It's a far less serious crime and far less in terms of sentencing. So they always throw that out. And then, of course, this is where the courts go, no, the murder charge is appropriate. We're going to proceed with that versus could it be manslaughter? But are there true circumstances that can be proven that it is manslaughter versus murder? Ira's admitting to killing Charles, you know, so now we've got him locked in. He's responsible. Don't know what Sarah's role is with that admission, but we know that Ira is saying, yes, I killed Charles, but it was not premeditated. Okay, well, let's hear the circumstances. So the key witness here, besides all of the circumstantial stuff, you know, And the fact that Ira has shown incredible contempt toward Charles to begin with, you know, saying how he's cheating on my sister and all of this stuff. The key witness here is mom. So she flips. And Margaret Stout says that the night of the murder that Ira and Sarah came home, they were both covered in blood. Ira said, I beat him to death and, you know, killed him and shoved him over the edge. and the next day Margaret went to Falls Field and got Sarah's brooch and Ira's cap from the crime scene left everything else I mean it would have been helpful for her to take all the other stuff too But maybe it was a night Who knows But mom says this all happened I pretty sure Ira would have known that that was what was going to happen And that why he was doing what you're saying, which is trying to mitigate and say, okay, well, I don't want to die. And he'd already been in solitary confinement and said it was awful. Sure. But Ira's mom is saying, well, he admitted to beating Charles to death. This is not sounding like manslaughter to me. This is sounding like second-degree murder if it's in the heat of the moment versus pre-planning. So how did he beat him to death? How did he get him out there? Exactly. How did they isolate him out to this particular location? And then, of course, you got the body disposal trying to hide the crime and everything else. Right now, I am not buying manslaughter with this set of circumstances. I'm now going, is this first versus second degree murder under California statutes? Well, let me tell you how this ends up going, because I don't think mom knows whether or not this was premeditated, whether or not they drew him out there, they followed him or he followed them and they were defending themselves. She just knows both her kids came home totally covered in blood. Now they hear this and the trial is a very lengthy nine days. I was impressed by that. We're used to two-day trials. He's found guilty of first-degree murder, and he's sentenced to hang. Now, he appeals. And what's interesting about Ira is, you know, he is kind of an academic. He is a Republican, which the Republicans back there were abolitionists. They are, you know, anti-slavery. They were anti-capital punishment. So people knew that. So listen to this. This is what I think is incredible. He talks to some of his friends who talked to some of their important friends, trying to get the governor to commute his sentence to life imprisonment. So listen who comes to his defense. Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony. Frederick Douglass lived in Rochester. These two people hold an anti-capital punishment rally at City Hall in Rochester on October 8th. So he was sentenced in April, six or seven months later, okay? 1,700 people show up, and Frederick Douglass stands up and says, we cannot execute this guy, whether he's guilty or not. there should never be a death penalty. This is not the Christian principle of love, any argument you can think of. And so, you know, you've got these two really prominent people not coming necessarily to Ira saying, this is an amazing man, let's save his life. It is like, nobody should be put to death. But that's a lot of power to have on your side. Yeah. You know, and this is where you have the case, you have the justice system with the defendant and the sentencing and everything else. That's one thing. That's sort of this isolated aspect. And then when you have Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony and everybody else that has this philosophy, now this is a societal issue. This is outside of the justice system, right? This is now where you have people who have different life philosophies that are debating, protesting and everything else. And then ultimately, that's how legislation occurs. Are we going to enact laws because our populace wants X, right? So this is, you know, when I listen to what you just told me, I mean, it's like, wow, you know, I mean, these are some heavyweight, notable historical figures, but it has nothing to do with whether or not Ira received the proper sentence for the crime. And right now, you said he was convicted of first-degree murder in New York. I'm not sure how that equates to first-degree murder in California, but if I'm thinking if it's similar, then it's like, okay, now that is showing premeditation. That is showing a variety of different sets of circumstances that Ira enacted in order to commit this crime that separates it from being a in the heat moment type of homicide. This was preplanned. It was intentional. And so, yes, he is guilty of absolute murder. You know, I'm not going to debate, you know, should he receive death versus life without parole or whatever else, But it's telling me the jury felt that, yep, what Ira and or Sarah did was more than, oh, they bumped into Charles on the street. Coincidentally, they get into a heated argument, and now Ira goes off because of the emotional flare-up that occurs in that circumstances. That technically would be more of a second-degree murder type of scenario versus, oh, hey, Charles, we've got a deal for you. Why don't you come out to the waterfalls and we'll discuss it with you? Next thing you know, Ira's on top of him with brass knuckles beating the hell out of him and pushing his body over a cliff. Yep. That's first-degree murder. Well, I think that the governor looked at this case the same way you did. He does not get a stay of execution or, you know, commuting his sentence to life imprisonment. He's due to be executed on October 22nd. So what I love that people did this in the 1800s, they often wanted to write their own story. They wanted to have their own narrative out there. And so there's what's called a pamphlet kind of of Ira's side of the story. It's called The Last Writing of Marianne Ira Stout. And so I'm just going to shorthand this. He says, I hated Charles. Before she married him, his sister was mild and pure and innocent, but Charles was participating in drunk orgies. He abused Sarah in the most disgusting manner, which, you know, I mean, we can make assumptions. He clarifies actually coming down here saying, he clarifies by saying also, a man who abuses a pure and beautiful woman, a man who will strike her and disease her from the bottom of my heart. He is not fit to live. I apologize for nothing. So he is not saying Sarah is involved in any way. He is saying I killed him. The amount of time that he spent in solitary confinement, which was years, several years, as a young man created this, you know, I mean, you can imagine kind of a hardened hatred. And, you know, he came out and found out what a horrible person Charles was, because Charles and Sarah got married in the middle of Ira's prison sentence. So I don't even know if he met Charles before Sarah married him. He gets out and he finds out what a terrible person that Charles is. And he says, I have absolutely no remorse whatsoever. And he kind of blames a third person who really doesn't exist. But that's basically it. He tries to take his own life several times before execution. It doesn't work. The governor, who is John King, you know, just finally says, you're going to be executed. There's no stay of execution in any way. And so Ira is executed on October 22nd, 1858. Now, I don't know if you want to comment on all the stuff I said before about his motivation, his anger, all of that, but I do have an interesting caveat to what happens at the execution. And then we still have Sarah. Yeah. You know, at least with what I'm hearing about Ira, you know, in some ways, what he's doing is he's trying to take on this good Samaritan position. I killed Charles because of what Charles was doing to Sarah. And there may be truth to that. You know, I mean, he's talking about Charles was, it sounds like Charles is physically abusing Sarah. He says he gave Sarah like a disease, which I'm assuming is maybe a sexually transmitted disease because of Charles, you know, indiscretions with other women. You know, so there's a certain, this is justified in Ira's mind as to why he killed Charles. Now, when I think about the crime scene and the number of items from Sarah that are left at the crime scene, as well as Sarah's mom saying she washed bloody clothing of Sarah's afterwards. So now it's okay. So did Sarah participate in the violence on Charles or was she trying to intercede and prevent Ira from doing what he did? Because even though she's trying to divorce Charles. She has an emotional connection to Charles. So what is it? Is Sarah committing a homicide or is the evidence of Sarah at the crime scene as a result of her trying to save Charles from Ira? But then once Charles is done, its family sticks together. And Ira never implicates Sarah at all. He refuses to say anything. He's protecting his sister. There's a family dynamic here. So I am so skeptical of that position. Yeah. I mean, a family dynamic that doesn't include Margaret, who threw them both under the bus, they both came home covered in voice. She turned pretty quickly. True. That's true. So they do, and we've probably talked about this before, but I've had a lot of cases, including the Edward Ruloff, you know, one of my books, had the jerk up method. So the long drop is, you know, when you're being, when they're hanging someone in execution, the floor comes out and they drop down. The jerk up method is something they used in the 1800s, where they would jerk you up and there would be a counterweight that drops. And it almost never worked. It strangled you. And that's what happened to Ira. So it took him, I think they said 15 minutes, and he died of strangulation. And they still continued to do this for decades and decades until they finally said, maybe this is inhumane and ended up with a long drop instead. So that was his ending here. Hangings are brutal. I know. Sarah goes on trial a few months before Ira is executed. Sarah pleads guilty, but to manslaughter in the second degree. And she blames Ira. She said he planned it. He did the execution. I was there and I don't know what was going to happen. But she's sentenced to seven years in prison in Sing Sing. So after Ira is executed, Sarah writes her own little pamphlet, her own confession, and she explains things. And so tell me what you think about this. So she calls it the Falls Field tragedy, exclamation point. So she admits to being at the murder scene, of course, because they have all that evidence. But she says she had not known that Ira was going to do this. He told her that he was going to cure, quote unquote, Charles of his jealous and abusive behavior. And so she said, I didn't know what he was going to do if he was just going to beat him up and tell him to stop stalking me and hurting me. But she said, I didn't know he was going to do this. So this is the most information we have about what actually happened. She said that on the day of the murder, Ira told Charles, you need to come out. Your wife is going to see the man that she's dating and you need to intervene in some way, which, of course, Charles flipped out. He hates Mr. Patterson. This is, of course, a lie. And what Ira apparently, according to Sarah, wanted was for Charles to step out on that rickety bridge where the other guy fell, Nathan fell. And then, you know, he was going to push him off, and then it would look like an accident, which is exactly what happened with the other guy. Instead, she said that he did not cross the bridge. So Ira kind of met him at the beginning and pulled out a hammer, and that's where he beat him. And then he threw his corpse from the bridge, and that's when the whole thing, the, you know, the different levels happened. So he and Sarah, now Sarah does say this, they both got, of course, really freaked out. And they tried to climb down the precipice to the ledge where his body had landed. And they both fell. I'm sure Sarah is not wearing clothing for climbing. And that's how Ira broke his arm and she broke her wrist. And, you know, once they got home, the mom helped them get rid of the evidence. And she threw Ira's cap and Sarah's hat and the hammer into the outhouse vault, and then they find this stuff. I was going to show you the hammer. It's not a big deal, but it's a 13-inch cast hammer, and they find it in the outhouse. And it is broken on one side, four inches long, crack, and two inches in diameter, and has jagged edges. And they had thought that there was some sort of like a tool that maybe had been used in beating him with prongs and stuff like that, but she says that this is the hammer. Does that make sense? Makes sense to me. Well, it's consistent with the crime scene details. Yeah, but not her, whether she was involved or, I mean, do you believe when she says, I don't think he was going to kill him? Well, she is making an admission with what I heard that Ira may have told her, I'm going to get him to walk out onto the bridge and then he's going to fall off. You know, so she went into this with a knowledge that Charles may not survive this interaction. And then things didn't go the way that Ira said how he planned it. And I guess her injuries are pretty extensive, the broken wrist, the black eyes, the abrasions. I'd probably be focusing in on, well, how far did she fall? Are those injuries consistent with that fall? Or am I seeing something like, let's say, with modern pathology, are we seeing something more consistent with, oh, no, she is being punched in the face? as Charles is trying to ward off Ira and Sarah. Yeah. You know, so, you know, that's right now, we'll never get an answer to that question. But I do think that's, you know, if that's with what Sarah has related, if that's truly how it went down, then I can see the manslaughter. It was 30 feet, by the way. I don't know if that's helpful for you. That first ledge that he hit, that they had to climb down to to roll him to get the rest of the way, It was about a 30-foot drop. Yeah, but Ira and Sarah didn't fall 30 feet. Well, but they say they slipped and fell. She says that they threw his corpse from the bridge, and when they tried to descend the precipice to the ledge that 30 feet, they both fell. And that's how he broke his arm and she broke her wrist. You know, I can see where, yeah, during the course of the descent, they fell a distance, but they didn't fall 30 feet. Okay. Yeah. Based off of those injuries. I mean, they likely would be dead. Okay. Well, Sarah is very good in prison, Sing Sing, and she gets out after less than six years and then disappears from the history books. So to summarize, what sounds like a very bad man was murdered by the brother of a woman who was being abused, it sounds like. We don't know what her involvement was, but he is not the most sympathetic victim in the world. Ira, I don't know what his feelings were for his sister or vice versa, but before he died, he felt entirely justified by this. So, I mean, we talk about those cases where, do I feel badly for Charles? No. No, not based on the information that not just the family said, but, you know, other people said, but the law is the law. And so, you know, it sounds like they did kind of what was supposed to be done. So, you know, that to me means this is a good case. I can't really remember another case from the 1800s where you've been so involved that you really, I mean, you really have enjoyed this case to a certain extent, I think. It got distilled down pretty quickly into, well, we know who did it and we have admissions as to who did it. So what are the facts of the case? And then, you know, what were the outcomes? You know, Charles was dead. Ira was executed. Sarah served six years and then I'm assuming lived the rest of her life. And, you know, part of looking back at the notes, Sarah was 19 years old, you know, and so and Ira was coming out of prison. Ira lived a criminal life, you know, so in many ways, Sarah is along for the ride. And to expect her to kind of at 19 years old to differentiate what's about to happen and what her role is and how culpable she is, you know, there's a lot of factors going in. And so I think if what Sarah wrote is accurate, I think I'm good with, you know, she served a sentence. And even though this is literally, this is a homicide, this is a murder. But her role in it was as an accessory versus primary. and she was under the influence of an older brother who had a criminal history, was more criminally sophisticated, has served prison time, and potentially had no clue as to how this would ultimately play out. Now, if Sarah is brandishing the brass knuckles and beating Charles to death, then she got away with murder. But I'm guessing, as I mentioned in the beginning, I believe Domeo as the one that committed this crime. And Ira being the primary offender that is committing the violence makes sense to me. And Sarah was an accessory. I think the only thing that I would really have issues with if Sarah was the one that lured Charles to his death. If she took that step going, I know Ira's going to kill him and I'm going to put myself out as bait to get him here to be killed, then I think Sarah has, you know, she is culpable of murder, second degree murder, maybe even first, depending on how it can be charged, even though Ira is the one that's actually committing the violence. But right now, I think I'm satisfied with what the results are. You know, of course, we have the whole, you know, Charles execution and how that went awry. I don't want to get into that. You know, at that time, it sounds like death penalty was on the books in New York and they proved a case against Ira. And he basically made admissions. Well, Paul Holes, you need a break. Thank you, because we have a break next week. We're on hiatus next week. So that's good because you've been so well, because you've been so involved with this case. I know that you're probably pretty wiped out at this point. I'm almost sweating over here, Kate. But I mean, oh my God. It's the seltzer, I think. That's adding to it. So I will see you in two weeks. As always, I look forward to it. 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 Alison 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 Buried Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, and on our podcast, Buried Bones, Paul Holes and I analyze historic crimes through the lens of modern forensics. And we're thrilled to announce that now you can watch us investigate the past every week because Buried Bones is on Netflix. Just search Buried Bones on your Netflix homepage and be sure to click the double thumbs up and remind me buttons. That's the best way you can support our show. See you on Netflix. Hi, listeners. I'm Anna Sinfield, the host of The Girlfriend Spotlight, and I've got some great interviews coming your way. 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