Unsolved True Crime Season 5 Marathon

[Music] this week on the season premiere of buzzfeed unsolved we take a look at the watcher a stalker who was active as recently as 2017. uh it's too just too soon for me oh okay normally we're covering like cases that are way back in the day this guy's still out and about he may watch this show i don't know and uh he could take a little he probably will down to sunny california to visit his pals ryan and shane in the studio or maybe he'll just be outside the studio like let's try to bury that down in the box put it aside you know what i'm loving the energy this season let's hop right in let's do it let's get into it in june 2014 maria bratis her husband derek and their three young children were getting ready to move into their new home 657 boulevard in westfield new jersey the six-bedroom 1.3 million dollar house was their dream home located only a few blocks from maria's childhood home in what was then the 30th safest town in america according to the website neighborhood scout a mere three days after closing the sale before the bratis family had even moved in a letter arrived at their new mailbox the new owner was written by hand on the envelope in thick clunky letters the typed letter began quote dearest new neighbor at 657 boulevard allow me to welcome you to the neighborhood end quote the letter however was anything but welcoming it went on quote how did you end up here did 657 boulevard call to you with its force within 657 boulevard has been the subject of my family for decades now and as it approaches its 110th birthday i have been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming my grandfather watched the house in the 1920s and my father watched in the 1960s it is now my time so it's like a batman type a silent guardian yeah just sounds like it's in his blood you know it's a nice sentiment if that sentiment however entails you doing some weird things then maybe it's not a good family tradition who am i there are hundreds and hundreds of cars that drive by 657 boulevard each day maybe i am in one look at all the windows you can see from 657 boulevard maybe i am in one look out any of the many windows in 657 boulevard at all the people who stroll by each day maybe i am one end quote this is 2014 and he's writing like it's the 1800s here like a little uh it's a teaser i don't think that's what they're thinking also like i don't know how many houses you've moved into i've moved into quite a few apartments and even then there's usually some kind of welcoming gift from like either the property owner maybe even the neighbors or bring you cookies if i walked into my new house and the first thing i saw was a letter that had this madness inside of it nobody brought me cookies nobody brought you cookies actually the first place i moved to in l.a somebody took a poop on the doorstep yeah that was about right it was big the letter also mentioned specifics about the bratis family quote you have children i have seen them so far i think there are three that i have counted do you need to fill the house with the young blood i requested better for me was your old house too small for the growing family or was it greed to bring me your children once i know their names i will call to them and draw them to me end quote in a cursive font the author typed the signature the watcher what do you think now do you think your original thought may be a little bit off-base maybe i want to give him creep points for this very fun old-timey threat of i'm going to steal your children true he's like the wicked witch he's making himself into a caricature of a villain yeah after receiving the letter the bratis family reached out to the couple that had sold them the house john and andrea woods the previous owners said they have never received any letter like that in 23 years of living in the house except once a few days before they moved out the woods family said they never felt watched in the more than two decades at 657 boulevard and in fact rarely felt the need to lock their doors while they thought the note they received was odd they threw it out without much concern well this is kind of like when you buy a house and they didn't disclose to you before that either there were grisly murders inside of it or it's maybe haunted and now you start having your table your chair stacked up on tables without you doing it this isn't something that the realtor like if there's been a death they have to mention they're not gonna be like it's beautiful it's two and a half bathrooms three bedrooms there's a watcher and a beautiful pool in the back no big deal have fun with that still the woods family went with the bratis family to the police to report the letters the police instructed the couples to not tell anyone about the intimidating mail including their neighbors who were all deemed suspects two weeks later with the bratis family still not moved in a second letter arrived disturbingly this message contained more details about the new owners including their name though misspelled and their children's birth order and nicknames the author also referenced seeing their daughter painting on an easel in an enclosed porch space asking quote is she the artist in the family end quote you know what's the most disturbing about that to me is the nicknames because it's one thing to look at people's like birth names the idea that they would have nicknames pet names means that it gives you the idea that they may be listening do you think he bugged them somehow it's possible who knows what this guy's capable of that's i guess the premise i'm trying to set up okay all right other parts read quote it has been years and years since the youngblood ruled the hallways of the house have you found all of the secrets it holds yet will the young blood play in the basement or are they too afraid to go down there alone i would be very afraid if i were them it is far away from the rest of the house if you were upstairs you would never hear them scream will they sleep in the attic or will you all sleep on the second floor who has the bedrooms facing the street i'll know as soon as you move in it will help me to know who is in which bedroom then i can plan better end quote after receiving this letter maria and derek stopped bringing their children to the house and put a hold on their plans to move in several weeks later a third letter arrived quote where have you gone to 657 boulevard is missing you end quote he's not good you don't like that he's just calling the children young blood he calls them young blood which like in some cases it's like kind of cool like an older person because he's like young blood that's funny that's fun but not a man who is uh young blood ruled the hallways of the house he's talking about like them as beings uh yeah it's not it's not good however by the end of the year the investigation into who the watcher was had stalled there was no digital trail no fingerprints and no way to place someone at the scene of a crime meanwhile the stress was taking a mental toll on the bratis family derek said he was experiencing depression maria's therapist said she was suffering from ptsd and both were afflicted with levels of paranoia that made much of their daily life seem threatening only six months after the letters arrived they decided to sell the house due to rumors about the property however buyers were hesitant the broadest family sued the woods's for failing to disclose the threatening letter they'd received a local reporter found the complaint which included excerpts from the letters his small story became a viral sensation causing a media circus to swirl around the house now totally unable to find a buyer the broadest family considered selling the house to a developer who could tear it down and split the property into two homes the two plots however would each be less than three feet too small for the mandated size of the neighborhood the bratis family appealed the rule to the neighborhood planning board who unanimously rejected the proposal what's the logic in splitting it up into two homes it's like when something really bad happens at a hotel and then they just rebrand it's kind of what they're trying to do here which is like understandable i just think it's crazy that the neighborhood was like three feet too small can't do that hey regulations are regulations i get that that's baloney maria was understandably upset saying quote this is my town i grew up here i came back i chose to raise my kids here you know what we've been through you had the ability two and a half years into a nightmare to make it a little better and you've decided that this house is more important than we are end quote it should be noted that in 2018 the westfield planning board approved splitting up a different lot around the corner from 657 boulevard one that required a larger exception than the broadest family requested this is just a bad neighborhood or do we think perhaps is it a hot fuzz situation where everyone in the neighborhood is in on it yeah like we don't want this new family here oh yeah yeah the greater good the greater good greater the greater good the greater good that christmas some families who had vocally protested the bratus's plan received threatening hand-delivered letters signed friends of the brothers family more on these later in spring of 2016 just short of two years after the first letter arrived the bratis family found someone to rent the home the family had two large dogs fully grown children and a clause in the least that let them out if there was another letter within two weeks another letter arrived quote to the vile and spiteful derek and his winch of a wife maria okay oh boy before this he's been very respectful despite saying like yeah i'm gonna steal your your blood children yeah he was really holding back before wench too he's still stuck with the old english though he knows theming 657 boulevard survived your attempted assault and stood strong with its army of supporters barricading its gates my soldiers of the boulevard followed my orders to a t they carried out their mission and saved the soul of 657 boulevard with my orders all hail the watcher end quote i'll hail the watcher tell me in my minions we all did it done it again and i've done it again my father in his father yeah one thing i've always said i will always go on a record saying all hail the watcher that's true he has said that he says it every day when he walks into the office buzzfeed morning i'll handle the watch i'll have the watcher and we do the same thing it's like i'll hear the watcher i've got my my big stomach tattoo that says that that's true i'll reveal that right now there was hr complaints the letter continued quote maybe a car accident maybe a fire maybe something as simple as a mild illness that never seems to go away but makes you feel sick day after day after day after day after day maybe the mysterious death of a pet loved ones suddenly die planes and cars and bicycles crash bones break you are despised by the house and the watcher one end quote this guy sucks he's just really just shooting him out there he's casting a wide net and hoping one of them sticks yeah so that he could be like if one of those things happens he's gonna be like all me watch your baby orchestrated by the watcher they're like walking down the street they kind of trip on the sidewalk and he's like run out of cooking oil watch her oh mosquito bite no hello oh you just took a little poopy and you don't have any more toilet paper watcher sorry despite the letter the renters agreed to stay after more cameras were installed around the house now up to current day it's time to look at suspects for who the watcher could be our first suspect is a man i'm calling the gamer around 11 pm one night while two detectives from westfield police were surveilling 657 boulevard a car suspiciously stopped outside the house the car was traced to a young woman from a town close by the home of her boyfriend was on the same block as 657 boulevard the woman told investigators that her boyfriend was into quote some really dark video games end quote including possibly one where he played as a character called the watcher according to an investigator's memory the gamer agreed to be questioned by police but he never showed up for his interviews detectives didn't have enough evidence to force him to come so he was never questioned they said he called he played as a character called the watcher according to the investigator's memory so maybe he didn't say watch or maybe he said the witcher which is a game knowing how people who don't know about video games react to video games i'm guessing this is yeah and if people judged you for instance off of how you play video games i'm sure they'd have you behind bars pronto right i don't know what you're implying here we did murder that was character everybody murders people on the scene there are characters based off real people our co-workers in fact stephen oh little stephen stephen lim the try guys we murdered them all yeah we did that's good the second suspect is another neighbor michael langford derrick began to suspect langford after attending a neighborhood barbecue shortly after receiving the first letter langford lived in the house next door which belonged to his 90 year old mother several of her adult children all in their 60s lived with her and the family was seen as strange but harmless the langfords had lived in the house since the 60s which was when the watcher claimed his father watched the house michael's father had died about 12 years before the first letter arrived which could have been why the watcher claimed to have done the job of watching for quote the better part of two decades end quote lankford was also known to spook new neighbors with his odd behavior like walking through their yards and peeking through windows due to the positioning of the houses langford would have had a perfect view of the easel they had set on the porch for their daughter that the second letter referenced so you're telling me he has a habit of walking into people's invading people's privacy watching them yeah i guess it's pretty easy to see why they suspected him of being the watcher if i moved in and i was like wow this place is great and i just turned to my window and saw well you know me my greatest fear is looking at a window and then just seeing a face there with two eyes just yeah watching you like that not even a smile just a i actually think a smile is worse i used to have a recurring nightmare when i was a kid of an evil version of my dad looking through my window it stemmed from when i watched inspector gadget as a kid you remember there was the evil inspector did he have a big giant big giant shiny teeth and he had big eyes so he would just stand outside my window and your father is a dentist so the big scary teeth are even that's true and we all know that he may have cut someone's head off that's true that's canon i guess at this point police questioned michael lankford after the first letter but he denied knowing anything and there was little evidence to connect him because the police's interview was before the second letter some believed it would have been especially reckless for lankford to continue sending letters as well those who knew him largely vouched for lankford thinking him incapable of writing the letters i'm pretty done with neighbors and family members saying i can't believe you could have done this i couldn't no one could have seen it coming tell you what that john wayne casey is the sweetest fella ted bundy he's got the eyes of just just the kindest man a real dreamboat yeah there's no way ted could have done that charming is all hell you know what serial killers are good at being charming yeah that's how they get you in so they can kill you so i'm just done with that whole narrative the broadest family working with the police sent a letter to the langfords telling them they were planning on demolishing the house in hopes of drawing the watcher to write again there was no response casting doubt on langford is a test later performed on one of the envelopes which found dna that belonged to a woman thinking michael's sister abby may be the watcher an investigator compared the dna to that from a water bottle used by abby no match shortly after this dna test and without explanation prosecutors informed derek and maria that they had ruled out any of the langfords as suspects which brings us to our third suspect the broadest family themselves locals found it suspicious that the broadest family was over the years able to move from a 315 000 home to a 770 thousand dollar home to a 1.3 million dollar home with refinanced mortgages some accused the family of getting in over their heads with the home and turning to a desperate ploy to get out of it some neighbors wondered why the broadest family kept renovating the house after they decided they wouldn't move in when major movie studios began courting the family for the rights to their story a big media deal could have been more motivation for concocting the watcher what's more i mentioned that some local families received anonymous threatening letters after the planning commission rejected the bratis proposal to split the lot those letters turned out to be written by derek look this guy is nicer than me i think if people denied my proposal and i saw that they were speaking out about it i'm i'm confronting them in the parking lot i'm not doing it through anonymity friends of ryan parker aren't going to be oh the friends of ryan bergar are right here and right here and they're going to be going face to face in that parking lot he'll get you you don't need a case for that yeah he'll get you don't bring the investigator bring the ambulance i love it yeah that's scary yeah yeah derek claims those letters were the only anonymous letters he's ever sent and were the result of years of frustration at his family's plight and the neighborhood's seeming ambivalence as well the psychological trauma from the letters alone makes the broadest family being the watcher seem thin casting more doubt on the theory that the broadest family is the watcher a later investigation found that another family on the boulevard had also received a note from the watcher around the time the brothers received their first just like the previous owners the woods family that family had lived in the house for years without a problem and threw the letter away but if the broadest family was trying to get out of their home or make a movie deal why send a letter to another house as well it seems a bit preposterous that someone would would make up a mystery about themselves and hope to sell movie rights basically pretty far-fetched yeah how do you explain that to your kids the psychological trauma you're going through yeah it'll be a really fun role play exercise to bring us together as a family what if we pretended now picture this that a man was going to murder you in your sleep thoughts unless of course the children were in on it and they're like in a writer's room like they're like walking around like a whiteboard the kids are pitching and the kids are putting little index cards up they're like in their riff and snapping around like maybe i know you've got him like threatening the house what if he goes after us yeah the kids and the dad was like write it down pipes up his father was a watcher and so was his father before him oh my god legacy it's a legacy style i know i'm going to love it i love it print it what makes the case of the watcher so fascinating is the limited number of potential suspects coupled with the complete lack of evidence that has stymied investigators ability to make progress this case is very recent so there's a chance we haven't heard the last from the watcher perhaps some future note will provide the key clue to identifying the person responsible but until then the case remains unsolved overall a very frustrating case this dude could be anybody he caused no physical harm but he caused lots of mental harm financial harm people get away with things all the time in the past because it's you know they're what the forensic technology wasn't there this is two years ago this is this is a a little bit scarier but at the same time we do live in a bit of a surveillance state you go to the store to buy a bag of chips they got you on 10 different cameras i'm saying maybe the way the world has prevented him from really doing something doing worse so he could just write it out but he can't act it out that's right who watches the watcher this week on buzzfeed and solve we go down under to examine the wacky shark arm case that captivated australia in 1935. did you say wacky i mean just it's pretty wacky well inherently any case that's titled the shark arm case there's going to be some fun to be had down the road yeah because i'm no marine biologist but sharks don't have arms now they have fins yeah an astute observation so why is the arm in the title curious curious why don't we dive deep and figure it out okay in early 1935 business at sydney australia's kuji aquarium and swimming bass was floundering the world was in the depths of the great depression and aquarium owner bert hobson needed something to lure customers and keep his business afloat there's two already two sea based puns in what are you talking about i don't know what you're talking about is this gonna be a running theme i swear it's the last one okay his spirits were buoyed when on april 18th bert and his son ron caught a 14-foot one-ton tiger shark off the coast and put it in their pool there had been an increasing wave of shark attacks and this monstrous shark was just the attraction hobson thought needed to turn the tide on his slumping enterprise about a week after catching the shark and in front of crowds of families enjoying the aquarium during a holiday weekend the behemoth suddenly began convulsing and vomiting spitting up a rat a bird and finally a human arm it's a great depression yeah you've scrapped together what little you have to take the family to the water parks for the holidays let's form some great memories as a family and that our shark just starts vomiting rats in front of your children i don't think i've ever seen a shark vomit do you imagine like a shark like slumped over like a toilet is a very funny image obviously this was just in the pool i also want to know if it like the velocity of the arm coming out did it shoot out into the crowd did it hit somebody in the face or was it just like a it dribbled out like over its lips or just like you know like when you're eating and you like kind of do a half burp but a little bit comes up oh yeah yeah yeah like a chipotle his little arm came out too much salsa hobson called the police who fished the arm out of the pool and found a large tattoo of two boxers fighting inside the forearm the shark was killed and its stomach was searched for additional remains but none were found boy last thing i would want after vomiting is to be killed yeah i mean really just a bad week for that shark the sharks just got it like his last thought had to have been like why using new fingerprinting technology the police were able to identify the arm's original operator as 45 year old jimmy smith a local paper truth describes smith as quote a well-known suburban billiard saloon keeper one-time promising lightweight boxer and a man with seemingly not an enemy in the world end quote seemingly is the operative word there yeah i think so you don't get your arms cut off and fed to a shark if you're simpatico with all your pals yeah i can't say there's a lot of good relationships in your life if this is something that's happening to you in the early 1930s smith began working as a builder for one reginald holmes a well-respected member of the community on the surface but who hid undercurrents of criminal activity in addition to operating a successful boat building business holmes conducted insurance scams and organized drug deals using his speed boats to collect drugs from ships after the first building job smith plunged into more work for homes and became netted in his various illicit schemes on holmes's orders smith would scan builders out of their supplies operate homes as speed boats and was the caretaker of a pleasure boat called the pathfinder more on that later i love this guy which guy holmes holmes why wow it's 1935 he's got a a fleet of okay i do think the feedback a fleet of speed boats is something that a bond villain would have and i kind of appreciate that this guy is taking it to heart that's kind of cool i'm sure by that era's standards a speedboat is a boat that goes 11 miles an hour yeah probably not that fast but we're not mapping you know real like relativity and in my brain i'm imagining miami vice but with just more burlap for at the time it was a bitchin boat a bit devilish of you to drop the term pleasure boat and say well we'll get back to that yeah that's a hook you in there a cliffhanger because the mind reels tell your mind to settle down it can't oh there's no settling this one down now christopher a pleasure about my word smith holmes also worked with an old chum of smith's patrick brady brady began his life of crime in world war 1 when he realized that he was good at forging the signatures of military generals the three men began forging checks for small amounts of money from well-off clients of homes eventually holmes and smith had a disagreement over one of the czech forgery scams and it's reported that smith began blackmailing homes hey i love this whole crew i love that these men become friends over the fact that he's like hey you know what you're really good at forging signatures well thank you it's something i've been practicing for a while i love your fleet of speed boats these guys are scammers yeah but how do you just crack that eye how do you break the ice there oh because it's not just like out to coffee one day you're like just gonna sound a little wild but you ever think about murder murdering a person you uh how do you feel about scams yeah i mean any sort of illicit thing because there's no linkedin for criminals where they can read the resumes of other criminals and then hire them so like how do they find each other i suppose like good app idea they're like yeah linkedin for criminal write that we should write that down we'll write that down under our schemes c put a little circle around it yeah fast forward to april 7th 11 days before bert hobson caught his tiger shark jimmy smith and patrick brady were out drinking and playing cards at the cecil hotel afterwards the two went to a small cottage that brady had in the beach community of granola it's widely thought that this was where smith met his fate a cab driver reported driving a disheveled brady from the cottage to homes house later that night the driver would later testify quote it was clear that he was frightened end quote and that brady was obviously hiding something in his jacket you know i can't think of many other things that would be as awkward to hide under a jacket than a full-grown arm well no you just what you would do is you would tuck one of your arms behind and just oh and put the arm in the sleeve itself yeah well what if he's like nice to meet you man and it'll be like the wrong hand like if it's yeah how are you smith's wife who smith had told he was going fishing grew nervous when he didn't return after a few nights one night a man called her and said quote don't worry jimmy will be home in three days time end quote of course jimmy smith never returned days later the shark at the kojie aquarium vomited his arm on may 17th brady was arrested on forgery charges which were merely a way to keep him in custody authorities interrogated him for six hours but he refused to admit anything it was only after the police questioned his wife that brady agreed to make a statement brady implicated holmes in smith's murder and when police questioned holmes he claimed to not know brady a few days later holmes took a speedboat out in sydney harbor along with a bottle of alcohol and a pistol the facts of the following trip are described in various ways but with a grain of salt the gist of it goes like this holmes got drunk on the boat and shot himself in the head with the pistol another man who was out boating with his children reported almost being hit by the erratically moving boat when talking to police the man said quote you won't mistake him he has a bullet hole in his forehead end quote for you see holmes survived the gunshot which knocked him into the water now with a gunshot wound in his head holmes climbed back into his boat and tried to drive back to sydney harbor police boats chased him for four hours until he eventually caught him holmes reportedly told police that he had been shot by strangers and was trying to escape he apparently claimed he thought the police in pursuit were the people who shot him which is why he didn't stop it's hard to know what holmes was really thinking because again he had a bullet hole in his head this guy apparently felt well enough to go on a four-hour boat chase yeah i mean he seemed to be doing like you i would think maybe it would really mess you up and like you'd live but you know you're clinging to life but this guy is like yeah this guy's looking back the wind's whizzing through the hole in his forehead it's crazy holmes allegedly said to police quote jimmy smith is dead and there is only another left if you leave me until tonight i will finish him end quote holmes claimed that instead of brady's story accusing him of being the organizer of the plan to kill smith he had actually been extorted by brady brady had surfaced at holmes's house with smith's severed arm and attempted to blackmail him claiming he'd pinned the murder on holmes's instructions holmes said that brady had murdered smith cut his body up put the pieces in a trunk and threw the trunk into guna mata bay in the 20s and 30s this act was apparently so common that it had a name the cindy send-off take a look man otherwise i'll be giving you a 3d signal you know it's in this end holmes told police he paid brady the blackmail money who in turn left the severed arm in holmes's living room holmes claimed he'd then panicked and threw the arm into the ocean where it was presumably eaten by the shark that was eventually caught and placed in the aquarium police said they would charge holmes with being an accessory to the murder unless he agreed to testify against brady at the inquest into smith's murder set for june 12th holmes agreed and on the morning of june 12 holmes was discovered in his car with three bullets in his chest this time dead one thing to gather from this too is brady definitely was the one who had the arm okay however you want to talk your way around that one that's the that seems to be the fact whether he was doing it for someone else whether he was doing it on the orders of homes or he was doing it to then say i'm going to blackmail homes yeah is the question i suppose brady's trial still went on but without holmes to serve as witness the case fell apart brady's lawyer argued that according to a british statute from 1276 a body was necessary to conduct an inquest and a limb could not be considered a body the defense also argued that sharks typically digest food within 24 hours yet in order for the prosecution's timeline to be correct the arm would have had to bend in the shark anywhere from 8 to 17 days the defense also claimed it was possible someone had thrown the arm into the pool where the shark was kept at kuji aquarium and that it was never in the shark at all the prosecution came back with ichthyologists fish scientists who said the arm could have upset the shark's digestion and impeded its function they also brought forth 14 witnesses who said they watched the shark vomit up the arm did you guys see the shark vomit up the army yes [Music] [Laughter] after a day and a half brady was acquitted and released a sydney newspaper reported quote of course you are innocent mr brady but please don't do it again mr brady end quote i just have no life just having a little life now i've noticed your australian character why does he why is he tied it up like this what's that it's a choice i've made don't do it again quieter and quieter quieter and quieter so i can't even understand what you're saying with that it's time to look into some theories about what actually happened to jimmy smith the first theory is that holmes's story to police was correct and that brady murdered smith and tried to extort homes this is bolstered by the idea that brady could have contracted holmes's murder so he couldn't testify however at brady's trial defense attorneys pointed out that brady was only 5'4 making it unlikely he could have killed smith alone of course his small stature wouldn't have prevented brady from using a gun but because no body was ever found it's impossible to know how jimmy was actually killed well what do you think about that because holmes said he was going to testify against brady saying that brady had done the whole thing and then the day of the trial he gets killed so that obviously does not look good for brady no so i don't think it's like good to gloss over that fact that's a major hurdle i feel like you need to kind of confront so very gutsy very gutsy i mean he still got off because of the whole the arm wasn't attached to a body thing yeah i know i know that but um very gutsy to to make a move like that when obviously tends to point back at you which brings us to a second theory no one killed jimmy smith because no body was found we cannot definitively say smith was murdered it's possible he didn't want to bow to the pressure of holmes's criminal activities and wanted out but didn't think he could do so safely so he faked his own death admittedly this theory seems unlikely as smith could have probably gotten away with just a severed hand instead of an entire arm do you think he would be capable of cutting off his own arm i mean he obviously would have had help yeah probably from his wife yeah because if he's faking his own death it's obviously they're in cahoots yeah they're going to go live a life somewhere together so he probably had her you know do the little tourniquet very sweet to be in cahoots with your wife i mean that's kind of part of the bargain right yeah i guess you don't hear that come up in vows very often sickness and in health and cahoots i would say that sickness includes missing an arm or having to cut one off yeah very sweet okay sorry honey you're gonna have to cook my home off i don't like this character anymore a third theory suggested by australian legal historian alex castles states that smith was indeed killed at brady's cottage but that brady was not involved some years after the case brady's wife said she had gone to the cottage thinking she would catch her husband with another woman instead she overheard a group of men playing cards and drinking castles believes brady was out fishing and came back to find jimmy already murdered according to this theory brady never said anything about his former friend's murder out of fear of retribution our final theory the only one that i can see has a clear motivation is that holmes orchestrated smith's murder remember how smith was the caretaker of a yacht that holmes owned the pathfinder the pleasure oh i forgot about the pleasure boat back to the pleasure boat yeah yeah yeah oh that was good that's actually good that you set that up and then i got so wrapped up in this crazy story that i forgot about this wonderful pleasure boat and now i'm reminded why i'm glad you forgot because you were way too excited about it excited to hear about the pleasure vote tell me about the pleasure it turns out holmes and his associates had purchased insured and destroyed the boat as part of an insurance scam holmes however never received his insurance money as smith had reportedly become a police informant telling authorities that the yacht's destruction was suspicious this coupled with smith's reported blackmailing of homes over their check-forging scams could have led holmes to arrange with brady to have smith killed once brady murdered smith he brought the arm to homes as proof holmes would have disposed of the arm in the ocean where a particularly unlucky shark happened upon it in this theory holmes actually did get away with one last insurance scam police suspected that holmes had contracted hitman to kill himself after buying a generous life insurance policy his wife and children would get the money and not have to endure the sinking embarrassment of his various crimes surfacing holmes's wife reportedly knew what happened to smith and was about to share this information when she died mysteriously in a fire in 1952 it should be noted that brady didn't die until 1965. do you think he got nervous when he read in the paper that a shark had vomited out on arm yeah like his wife came to him look at this hilarious headline and he's like a shark is vomiting i gotta make some calls ah that's real funny sweat just sweat just dripping down his face when bert hobson and his son fished a tiger shark out of the ocean they were trying to lure attention to their floundering aquarium what they actually hooked was a mystery that would draw the attention of the entire country and end a local criminal's life as for how jimmy smith's tattooed arm finally found its way into the shark that remains unsolved one thing to mine from all of this or to fish from all this is that if it wasn't for that pesky little shark holmes would have got away with all of this friends murder each other all the time you know that happens that's the way the world it happens i gotta make some calls just gonna watch what you [Music] this week on buzzfeed and solve we discussed the reiki vic confessions an icelandic case in which six people confessed to murders that police have no physical evidence ever occurred this is a treat for me because as you know yeah i went on a trip to iceland last year yeah i've heard about it it certainly is one of the many arrows in your anecdote quiver a big one well i'm excited to tell you that perhaps the place that you deemed heaven maybe isn't so heavenly stunning vistas yeah hot springs great stuff let's get into it on january 26th 1974 guthmunder anderson a quiet 18 year old laborer went out drinking with some friends they ended up in a dance hall inhabit arvierter a town just south of reykjavik gufmundir left the party in the early hours of the day and decided to walk home around 2 am two of his friends saw good moon there on the road trying to hitch a ride with another man they did not recognize both men were clearly drunk and gut moon there swayed as he stumbled his way through the snow gut moon there never made it home at the time the entire country of iceland's population was about 220 000 people for context that's 5 000 fewer people than lived in reno nevada in 2010 major crimes were very very uncommon they didn't even have government bodies tasked with finding missing people after a few weeks of searching and coming up empty the volunteer search parties ended their hunt yeah not a lot of crime they're not used to it still i mean you should have some systems in place let me tell you something about iceland one morning we woke up to go on a beautiful kayak trip the woman who drove us to the kayak thing we were talking about just the way things go there and she said you know we don't have a lot of crime here about once a year we will do a murder and she made and i was like okay i know you don't you're not implying that the whole country gets together and picks one person like the lottery and decides to sacrifice them she said we will do a murder do a murder yeah around 10 months after gudemunder anderson disappeared on november 19 1974 a quiet construction worker garfinera anderson with no relation to good moon there was watching tv with a friend at his home in keplervik the pair briefly left to go to the harbor cafe but garfener shortly returned back at home he received a phone call his wife guffny said gaffener told the man on the other end of the call quote i've already come end quote followed by quote i'll come end quote gareth then drove his car into town parked close to a cafe left his keys in the ignition exited his vehicle and was never seen again two guys disappear within the span of 10 months they have the same last name no relation in a place where this is not common yes so we may have a bit of a crook on our hands yeah maybe time to round up a task force suspect okay to find the missing people another missing person meant another search party of volunteers who found no trace of gerfiner this being the second disappearance within the year detectives decided it might be time to do a bit more sleuthing the first step for police was to find out who called gerfiner two teenagers and a cafe employee described a man they had seen place a call from a phone booth outside the cafe from these descriptions the police made a clay recreation of a man's face and began showing it around keplervik is a small town so when no one could identify the man depicted in the police's model they assumed the man was from out of town the manager of a nightclub in nearby reykjavik was questioned but released by the following summer detectives had no witnesses and crucially no bodies what they did have were rumors swirling around juan saivar cizelski so this is the the the possible this is the possible suspect based off description so instead of doing like a police sketch they did a yeah arts and crafts they got a little mr potato head there they got a little mr potato head exactly zaivar cicelski was a local petty criminal with a penchant for stealing things like alcohol candles and checkbooks he sold drugs and would tell his girlfriend ertla botla daughter about his desire to commit the quote perfect crime end quote together the two would forge checks using airtella's job as a telex operator for iceland's post and telecommunication company shortly after gerfender went missing ertla and saivar bought one-way tickets to copenhagen with money they'd embezzled from airtla's job so these are these these is like a bonnie and clyde situation yeah you know what actually now that you bring this up i did go to copenhagen right after iceland and it is a stunning city wouldn't mind escaping there in denmark airtla soon became pregnant and the couple moved back to reykjavik to have their baby in september 1975. in order to support his new family saivar's plan was to smuggle cannabis into iceland perhaps consequently decided the two should live apart [Laughter] i'm gonna provide for this family with some of that stinky sticky green stuff who is some of that good good gonna turn iceland into greenland baby while police were still stymied by the previous year's two disappearances they had been making progress on a case of some stolen money at the post and telecommunication company on december 12 1975 saivar was arrested on suspicion of embezzlement two days later ertla was also taken into custody initially denied everything authorities questioned her and detained her in solitary confinement after seven days of grueling questioning she confessed to the post and telecommunication fraud as she was preparing to be released investigators showed ertla a photo of gutmunder anderson the first man to go missing who she recognized from reykjavik they had once shared a card together and had on another occasion run into one another at a party itla told investigators that she vaguely remembered the night godmunder disappeared she had been at a nightclub without saivar who she thought was in denmark at the time when she got home she immediately fell asleep though she recalled a nightmare in which she could hear saivar's voice whispering outside her window sensing the faintest hint of a lead police asked her if it was possible she hadn't been dreaming so instead of releasing her they then threw ertla back in solitary confinement good lord she admits to the embezzlement yep and then they throw a hail mary they say here's a picture of gumunder yeah hey you do crimes do you know that do you know this guy she remembers him she has a nightmare uh that sivar who is unaccounted for is whispering outside of her window the police then say maybe it wasn't a nightmare yeah they then throw her back into solitary confinement two birds one stone as they say that is what they say something i heard in iceland alone ertla began to doubt her memories she thought quote is it possible they killed someone in the apartment and i saw the whole thing and i can't remember end quote etla was questioned for six hours on december 20th naming saivar and their friend christian vitter as possible suspects in guthmunder's disappearance she also mentioned being perplexed to come home on january 27 1974 the day after guthmunder disappeared to find her bed sheet missing investigators drew up a confession that said she saw saivar and three others carry the body of good winder while wrapped in the missing bed sheet ertla signed it after being kept in solitary confinement for days and being threatened to be kept there indefinitely all while she had an 11 week old baby at home erla herself was only 20 years old like you put me in a room for three straight days i'm starting to already question my sense of reality i need to talk to people the next day saivar who had been in solitary confinement this whole time was questioned for 10 hours then six hours the day after once investigators finally showed him airless confession saivar told investigators he was involved along with three friends christian who cyber had seen that erdla had already named krikvy runar and albert clone so he's in solitary he's wondering what the hell is going on they're grilling him for 16 hours and then they show that his you know i guess former significant other has a signed confession saying this is what he did i think that's the last straw right that breaks the camel's back and you may suspect if he's thinking well if i confess to this maybe they'll just get me out of solitary but if i implicate some other people maybe maybe that'll spread it out a bit exactly the police had developed an unfortunate habit of throwing their suspects in solitary confinement any time they needed to solicit a confession in this criminal case they arrested the three men and threw them into solitary eventually the men all confessed to playing roles in guthmunder's murder now that they had extracted confessions for one disappearance the investigators wondered was it possible that they could solve the second one too pretty much everyone i met in iceland was so kind and so polite i just imagined the most polite people in the world doing this and being like well we figured out that if you put them in that room you know they tell you that for like so i guess maybe we'll just keep doing that i would like to not think that's the case i would like to think that maybe the community is pressuring like this guy's running rampant they're killing they killed two people that's twice the output of the last 20 years we got to do something and this is the answer they're they're doing result-based investigative techniques they're getting the signature they did their job in their head yeah that's how they're legitimizing it which like i said some people you could you could understand that police went back to airdla and asked if it was possible the men they'd gotten confessions out of for good munder's disappearance could have also been involved in gerfiners as well it replied quote maybe end quote the police told their quote we have a reason to believe that you have experienced something traumatic concerning garfener's disappearance and we are going to help you remember end quote they were like do you think this could maybe be connected to this other disappearance and she said maybe and they're like oh yeah that's the green light baby fire up that room again fire up that was ridiculous not great not great this is the second time they have taken her out she has signed something and thought i'm free good to go and then they said uh-uh uh and you go so you just gotta think about what that would do to your brain her brain is plato right now yeah the police began to question edla saivar and christian about garfener's disappearance and sure enough received confessions from all of them their stories however kept changing at one point the murder happened on a boat but the final confession presented in court said the men had killed him on land eventually christian mentioned a foreign looking man who helped them murder gerfiner that foreign looking man was eventually identified as guthyon skopjetensen a former teacher of sivars if you had a good teacher they say like write a note to them let them know how much you appreciate it give them an apple or something yeah it'd be weird to be like hey you did a great you i really liked the multiplication tables we did you want to kill a guy you did a really good job molding my mind you did such a good job i'd like you to come in with me on this big score uh how'd you like to make a man disappear yeah you like the joker guthyan was arrested on november 12 1976 though he initially claimed he could not remember the night in question which at this point was almost two years ago seventeen days of solitary confinement managed to jog his memory and he confessed by december 1976 airtella sidevar christian guthron trigvi and albert had confessed to involvement in the murders despite the fact that all suspects demonstrated foggy memory of the events the fact that erdler saivar and christian all tried to retract their confessions which the court rejected and the fact that no murdered bodies had been discovered in december 1977 they were all found guilty by the court and given various sentences relating to their involvement oh boy it's getting a little uh yeah it's this is this is now getting kind of comical at this point yeah they're just roping them in it's worth pausing to go over what life was like for the six while they were detained by the police albert spent a total of 88 days in solitary confinement airtla spent 241 days guthion spent 412 days trickvie spent 627. christian spent 682 and sivar spent a whopping 741 days more than two full years in solitary confinement they were periodically prohibited from sleeping and interrogated hundreds of times according to prison guard lena thor magnuson saivar's head would be dunked in buckets of water as he was told he'd drowned if he did not confess that is ridiculous usually it seems like when they try to force a confession like this it's like they maybe may not reveal they've got someone locked up dunking their head in a bucket yeah seem pretty proud of themselves you know i imagine yeah they were pleased with the results while in detention christian twice attempted suicide at times he was made to pose and recreated crime scene photos in one christian strangles a police officer who is standing in for girfinder false memory experts say that the acting out of supposed crimes can make those crimes more concrete and realistic in the suspect's mind on may 3rd 1976 ertla who was not being detained at the time was brought in for questioning as a witness she was kept in custody overnight and the following day seemingly out of nowhere gave a statement that she had shot garfinner she was then detained in solitary until december 22nd their cruelty seems to know no end if you're already doubting yourself and thinking like man maybe maybe my brain is just blocking off that part of my memory suddenly now you've got sensations to tie to all the things that you may or may have not done the psychology of it is like maybe if i give them this or that they'll let me go yeah and that's all it becomes on new year's eve 1976 geesley guthyonson a young detective at the time of the disappearances who has since become one of the world's foremost false memory syndrome experts gave guthyon a lie detector test that test sparked something in gluthion causing him to suddenly question whether he had been involved at all he couldn't remember any of it happening gisli author of the book the psychology of false confessions 40 years of science and practice says false memory syndrome which can be triggered by interrogations with false evidence isolation and tense emotional situations can lead to false confessions gisli says that a diary kept by guthion while he was detained in solitary for 14 months was the best example of false memory syndrome he's ever seen of the whole case geesley says that quote these individuals had absolutely no knowledge of what happened they were just trying to appease the police they were trying to be cooperative because they knew if they were not cooperative they would be given more solitary confinement end quote well now who's this young go-getter showing up on the scene because i like the cut of his jib yeah he's kind of writing in like the white knight i like you got this young detective sitting there he's probably like hey you know that guy's been in that room for 700 days maybe that's not the best practice that we should be engaging in yeah we want to maybe think about what we're doing here folks oh no no okay well i'm going to write a book about this you know yeah with youth comes a changing of the guard so to speak it was necessary here yeah in september 2018 everyone was acquitted but who was still fighting a conviction of perjury by then everyone had already finished serving their sentences and saivar and christian had already died both in their 50s while much of that was about how horrible the justice system in iceland was in the 1970s there's still a mystery to get to the bottom of so with that here are some theories about what happened to guthmunder anderson and get mariner anderson the first theory is that the police got this one right gutemunder was murdered by ertha zyvar christian albert and trigvi gerfener was murdered by erdler saivar christian and gauthion what evidence is there of this no bodies were ever found though there was ertla's missing bed sheet missing bed sheet doesn't always equal murder you know my freshman year of college we went to bed bath and beyond to get some some stuff and my mom was like hey you should get these rubber sheets and i said why on why in the hell would i buy rubber sheets and she was like you know in case you spill like a pop on your bed oh i thought she was gonna say because you're like sleeping in a pool of your own vomit no no i was like are you nuts anyway back to the murder did you buy the rubber sheets i'm actually no i didn't buy the rubber sheets who would do that apparently you because you're getting pretty touchy about it which makes me feel like i just you know what why don't you stand in that room for 10 days and then i'll ask you about the rubbish okay how about that i like it it's so good you're bringing them back around the second theory is that neither man was murdered while crime was very uncommon in iceland disappearances were not in fact disappearances happened so often in iceland that they feature prominently in the country's folklore in the 50 years prior to these cases dozens of people had gone missing in iceland most of them their cases unsolved in the more than 40 years since the disappearances of gutmunder anderson and gerfiner anderson they too have also taken on a nearly mythical quality within icelandic culture i'm buying that because in iceland big open fields where i don't think people are walking on the on the reg so you you get a body out there decomposes nobody knows yeah i'm booking 50 years later i'm booking my ticket to iceland right now you've sold me you gotta check it out i wasn't on board until you got to the decomposing body in an open field but after that it's a lot of land a lot of land a lot of bodies out there man yeah a third theory is that the men were murdered but by someone else new evidence in the case has compelled investigators to reopen it a new witness says they saw two men carry a third weakened man onto a boat the day gerfiner went missing that man allegedly told the eyewitness quote remember me end quote when the boat that was carrying two men and the one weakened man returned to shore there were only the two men on board recently this witness claims to have seen one of the men in east iceland decades later working on electricity lines weird that you wouldn't just if you saw someone carrying a weakened man who looked at you and said remember me you wouldn't uh maybe call that report yeah get the police on the horn maybe do a little hey i saw a guy get carried off he looked like he couldn't walk he said remember me may want to look into it and they'd be like well we don't have a missing task force so see you later see you later hang it up and that's that yeah while these mysterious disappearances took place over 40 years ago we can draw important lessons for today in the way the cases were handled while it might be tempting to try and cram facts to fit a convenient theory truth works the other way around had authorities been better equipped to discover the facts of the case perhaps we'd know what happened to gutmunder and gerfiner but because of a rush to find a convenient solution these icelandic disappearances remain unsolved it's not often that i have almost zero hope that this one a case is going to be solved i just i feel that way about most cases there's a small glimmer but this one it just i just don't think so and for the record iceland is breathtaking and you should really consider hitting out there man hard sell after the story but yeah i'll check it out i met an unsolved fan there oh really yeah so shout out to all our murder heads in all right see you next week everybody this week on buzzfeed unsolved we investigate the murder of bugsy siegel the infamous mobster who helped launch the mega casinos that we associate with las vegas today let's be rolling are you rolling the dice to the crafts table yeah yeah you know where speaking of rolling the dice we are taking a chance here by doing another mob episode getting gutsy that's probably fine they're not gonna be able to do anything granted it doesn't really matter how old you are pulling a trigger is just as easy but you know what i don't need to sleep in there okay jesus that easy okay let's do it all right benjamin siegel was born on february 28 1906 in brooklyn new york there along with childhood friends meyer lansky and morris mo sedway siegel began a criminal career extorting local street vendors in exchange for protection from other gangs in the area fellow gang members started calling him bugsy a slang term for crazy at the time due to his violent temper allegedly bugsy was not a nickname that siegel cared for and those who knew him would never call him that to his face now this is something i find interesting about most mob nicknames almost all of them this is the rule that applies you don't call them you don't call them their nickname to their face but when talking about them you use the nickname i guess i could see if someone were calling you babyface or tiny or tiny who else was that i'm trying to think of other popular um that's embarrassing that those are the only two that come to mind you know well look i'm not it's i'm not embarrassed to not know much about the mob put them behind bars eventually siegel sedway and lansky transitioned to other crimes like car theft bootlegging and gambling rising through the ranks of new york's organized crime world it's widely thought that bugsy was one of the four men who in 1931 executed joe mazzaria at an italian restaurant in new york leading lucky luciano to take the throne as the chairman of the board of the american mafia in 1937 lansky sent bugsy and mo to los angeles to build up the mob's presence on the west coast while the mob had been heavily involved in bootlegging during the 20s by the time siegel landed in california the 21st amendment had put a stop to money to be made on importing illegal hooch it feels like the west coast is always painted as like this just like do good coast like we we're always always like we got to take the crime scene to get over to the west coast some over there we never started it over here too much crime here let's put some over there it says we could never start anything on our own over here yeah we're too distracted by the sunshine bugsy decided to focus on gambling he invested in the ss rex a gambling ship that was docked three miles outside of santa monica to try and avoid california anti-gambling laws while authorities eventually shut it down bugsy set his sights on las vegas nevada had legalized gambling so there wouldn't be as many headaches trying to avoid police in 1945 with money from the syndicate back east siegel took over a struggling construction project outside of las vegas city limits the flamingo hotel and casino at the time vegas was nothing like we think of today the flamingo would be the first luxury resort on the strip seagull hosted the grand opening of the resort on december 26 1946 while the project was still unfinished nevertheless mega superstars like judy garland and clark gable were at the opening foreshadowing vegas glamorous future after this party siegel closed the resort to finish construction and the mob back east became antsy i i will say building a big giant expensive luxury resort in the middle of the desert yeah you know what it seems like a bit of a gamble it's good it gets yeah it's really great it's good stuff um bit of a gamble by this time the project's cost had ballooned from seagulls originally budgeted 1 million to up to 6 million dollars much of the overruns believed to be due to seagulls skimming from the top if there's one thing to remember about the mob it's that you don't steal from it during a meeting of mob bigwigs in cuba an agreement was reached on the feet of bugsy if the flamingo proved to be a success he'd be able to make things right luckily for bugsy by may of 1947 the flamingo had already made 250 thousand dollars in profit unluckily for bugsy that apparently wasn't enough 250 000 profit that's like a decent enterprise right there i would say not good enough for me not enough for you to be stealing yeah i would not be happy with him yeah on june 20th 1947 siegel was sitting on a chin sofa in the living room of his mistress virginia hills home in beverly hills at 10 45 pm from a rose-covered pergola just 14 feet from bugsy a 30 30-caliber military rifle fired at least nine shots at the mobster four rounds hit him killing him instantly just moments later three of meyer lansky's henchmen strolled into the flamingo hotel and declared the casino was now theirs despite his fame coroners misspelled siegel's name on his toe tag and his funeral lasted a mere five minutes with only about six people in attendance i don't yeah i don't think that's a testament to how popular he was as much as it was a testament to maybe the mob's power get him in the ground well it's like don't show up don't go to that funeral yeah you know the mob whacked this person maybe don't show up in support of him yeah you don't want to add yourself to an ever-growing list if i get murdered nobody come to my funeral don't think you're going to have to put that disclaimer out it's going to happen on its own are you that's unbelievable now that i've put the disclaimer out yeah yeah yeah that's the reason why there it is i don't want anyone at my funeral you hear me according to beverly hills police chief clinton h anderson quote we spent many man hours investigating the seagull case and were convinced that he was killed by his own associates but there was never sufficient evidence to pinpoint the identity of the assassin end quote with that it's time to start looking at theories behind who murdered bugsy siegel theory one the mob see you next week our first theory is eddie canizarro aka the catman canazarro was a former errand boy for jack dragna who was once described in a report by the state crime commission as quote the al capone of california end quote canazarro died in 1987 of heart failure but before he passed on he called a reporter and federal agents to his deathbed where he confessed to seven murders including seagulls according to cannazaro's confession quote it was a clean hit i was picked because i knew siegel and wouldn't make a mistake end quote i don't know if a murder being personal necessarily makes you less likely to make a mistake but i guess if he's on his deathbed let him have the sentiment uh you may in the sense that you know them better you know maybe how they react you know maybe where they but wouldn't that also like bring into emotion what if you like remember like you're about to do the hit i have the scope right at your big head and i'm thinking we did have some good times on the road maybe i shouldn't do this yeah you know that kind of thing but then you're but then i got your professionalism wins over professionalism and you pull that trigger gallagher your head yeah so you know casting doubt on canizarro's confession are a few inconsistencies in his story canizaro claimed he was questioned in connection with the murder at the time but there's no record of an interview with him in the bugsy case file as well canizarro claimed that after the murder he drove off in the direction of wilshire boulevard a neighbor questioned after bugsy was killed however told police that after the gunshots a car was heard hurtling in the opposite direction towards sunset boulevard at the time of his death canazarro was living with his mother and over 30 cats in the agora hills neighborhood of western la county he was hoping to create a birth control serum for cats and had asked some of his old pals in las vegas for funding very funny that this man has 30 cats and is trying desperately to stop them breeding yeah maybe like i like to think he had two cats and then a year later had 30 cats and i was like i gotta i gotta shut this down yeah i just i don't feel like that's something you disclose to your mob buddies like you're tossing back beers and like you know i got 30 cats working on this yeah everyone's probably like telling them crazy stories like well you know i got 30 cats everyone's like he's like i mean uh i mean i'm trying to i brought the kids i'm trying to stop them i'm trying to stop them from i got a serum you want to try it um i'm working on a serum also i don't i hate that he calls it a serum it makes me feel like he is doing some like garage science special little juice that i inject in their testicles eddie get out of the garage start working on your damn syrup shut up mother the second theory is a world war ii vet robert mcdonald this theory comes from warren hull an executive assistant in nevada who said mcdonald's role in siegel's murder had been a family secret for decades on his deathbed hull's father urged his son to research the story and get it out there hull obliged the dying man's request going on to create a 400 slide powerpoint presentation laying out the points of his case yowza who's he showing that to i yeah yeah who is he showing that i guess investigators perhaps you just inviting friends over for margaritas yeah i got something i wanna show you it's crazy it's gonna take about four and a half hours is this your trip to niagara falls hope you went to the bathroom because there's no breaks mcdonald was married to hole's mother's cousin and best friend betty ann mcdonald betty ann's mother gaina rockwell worked at city hall in los angeles there she met jack dragna the al capone of california from our previous theory gainel told dragna her daughter was having troubles with her husband mcdonald who could be violent at times mcdonald also happened to owe the mob 30 thousand dollars dragna went to mcdonald explaining his debts would be forgiven if he offed seagull according to hull mcdonald's time in the military made him an expert marksman including with the 30 caliber carbine the alleged murder weapon again however the neighbor's report of a speeding car cast doubt on this theory hull thinks that mcdonald who lived just on the other side of a golf course from virginia hill would have escaped on foot sneaking back to his home less than a mile away in the dark he just lived on the other side of the hill he'd sneak you know through the dark covert like on foot so unless he wanted to throw them off yes why would i drive when i could just walk you really think he went that deep into it the old double bluff just three months after bugsy's murder mcdonald would go on to shoot himself and his wife betty ann hull says there's no evidence that beverly hills police ever investigated mcdonald as a suspect in siegel's murder despite the fact that mcdonald allegedly used the same type of weapon to kill himself and his wife as he did on seagull less than a mile away and only three months after buxy's murder hull believes it's even possible that howard hughes may have pressured police not to investigate mcdonald as he had worked closely with the man's father little howard a little howie a little how he came in here and most of these mob ones i feel like it's like maybe he did it behind the barn and buried him and you know tossed his body in the river whereas this one actually has things that link him to the crime i feel like tricky thing is the mob is good at covering their tracks that is true and that's what they're built on yeah a third theory comes from b sedway the wife of mo sedway bugsy's childhood friend coming up in the mob according to b mo had been sending casino numbers back to meyer lansky on the east coast including gambling winnings and crucially construction costs bugsy conducted a meeting in march of 1947 without mo there he reportedly said he was looking to get rid of mo saying quote i'll have mo shot chop his body up and feed it to the flamingo hotel's kitchen garbage disposal end quote i thought you were going to say he was going to feed him to the flamingos and that would have been cool as hell one of the attendees told mo who called his wife and asked her to drive from l.a to vegas the two then drove out into the desert and then walked even further to ensure a private conversation walking into the desert to have a private conversation well because that's the only way you could ensure hey i get it also not gonna lie if you do have a death threat on your head maybe not best to walk out where no one could find you or see you good point let's pre-package ourselves for this murderer make it real nice and easy this will be real nice they can't hear us at all let's have a private conversation you know what we ought to do dig a hole for ourselves they'll never find us down here six feet down i feel that'll be pretty good it'll be good it'll be great when mo told his wife of the threat against him b immediately called matthew moose panza a crane operator and b's lover moen b who married when he was 41 and she just 17 had a very unconventional marriage for the time they were very honest with one another and knew about one another's extramarital companions in fact mo had insisted that upon his death moose was to marry bee after their meeting moose arrived in las vegas to protect mo after the mob boss meeting in cuba where cost overruns on the flamingo were discussed however lansky gave mo his blessing to take matters into his own hands moose volunteered to do the job and spent weeks practicing his marksmanship i got a question about my boy moose yeah is he a little guy oh because you think usually in the mob it's kind of like yeah yeah like a big big tall lanky guy like me would be short stack or something they are a fan of oxy they are a fan of boxy marshmallows yeah i love i love a i love people people like wait till moose gets here a big knock at the door they open the door and a little hey there what's the problem mo's in trouble let me hop in the moose mobile drive according to b after pulling the trigger moose hurried to the car and drove straight to santa monica where he broke down the rifle leaving the butt of the gun on a rooftop and throwing the barrel into the ocean as his health was failing b's son robbie reached out to a reporter to tell his mother's story when that reporter reached out to the beverly hills police department to check whether moose had been considered a suspect they replied quote it's in the best interest of the city of beverly hills not to speak to you end quote i love the fact that that posh office could be possibly be dirty yeah that's just i think that's just how everything in california back then was just filthy really though oh yeah oh i guess beverly hills i always saw as a place that like you know i know a lot of la was corrupt all of it oh every all of it so you go by the principle that the more glamorous the more dirty perhaps oh for sure yet another theory suggests the chicago mob took down bugsy with the help of siegel's mistress virginia hill hill had been considered a trusted mob courier and according to author andy edmonds the chicago mob used hill as a source of information on bugsy's dealings while siegel was building the flamingo the chicago mob was financing a competing resort the dunes on the current site of the bellagio siegel's murder also took place at hill's home he would have been able to inform an assassin about siegel's habit of reading the paper in her living room at night and hill had conveniently skipped town for paris that day hill eventually moved to europe to avoid charges of tax evasion where she died at the age of 49. her death was deemed an overdose but some have their suspicions that the mob was involved chicago mob they're good at what they do yeah i knew you were going to come to this shocker as someone who was born under the bean let me tell you chicago we know what we're doing and it's interesting a lot of mob movies you look at good fellas stuff like that sure all takes place east coast but you really want something done go to those boys in chicago you know i gotta say in a shocking turn of events shane talked about chicago again in an episode frankly what an upset oh and the pizza as one expects with mob killings there are plenty of other theories out there mostly unsubstantiated to this day no one has ever been prosecuted in the death of benjamin bugsy siegel and while what happens in vegas stays in vegas what happened to the man who helped birth modern vegas remains unsolved i know i've busted this out before but this is very much a case of oh boy just gonna have to let it be a mystery there it is it took us three episodes to get to that and we've arrived some things you'll just never uncover and you just gotta yeah that's the way of the world if there's one where the evidence seems the most strong i would say that it's the one that involves moe moose and lansky and just love moose do love me big moose fan big moose fan um but either that or the hill one also makes sense too yeah but if i had to go with one i would go with um moose all all in on put it here put it in all of these slide them all in is that good it was that okay to end on a nice vegas reference yeah there you go see you next week this week on buzzfeed unsolved we take a look into the texarkana phantom killer a case that has been referred to as quote the number one unsolved murder case in texas history end quote number one baby yeah i love it i don't think they have like a big board in the texas police station where they think they vote oh it seems all relative right yeah i guess so but they seem pretty resolute about this guy being at the top of the heat and it's a rowdy town you'll see that is it really it's a rarity town you've been there no i haven't been there but i read it's a rowdy town fun to read about a rowdy town a rowdy town with two rowdy boys let's get into it on february 22nd 1946 in the texas arkansas border town appropriately named texarkana jimmy hall is 25 and mary jane larry 19 went on a date to the movies and began driving back to mary jean's home on the way they stopped their car on a quiet unpaved road about 100 yards away from some houses in a residential neighborhood that's what i like there you go yeah you know what they're doing how many here we go wait yeah but wait in this area funny it's 2019. when did this bit start like the god this had to be like caveman times you think like a neanderthal looked at this other neanderthal pals win probably it's one of the world's greatest bits i feel like people don't do it enough nowadays because we'd take it for granted spread that around this year you know if you see your two friends and you you think maybe they've been smooching behind your back be like i know what you guys are up to a little i actually don't think your angle is catching and i think we can still see your face a little bit so you might have to turn that if i turn it's like we're both making out after about 10 minutes a man walked up as mary jean would later relate quote he wore a white mask over his head with cut out places for his eyes and mouth he pointed a flashlight and pistol at us he came up on the driver's side of the car and told jimmy something like this i don't want to kill you fellow so do what i say end quote both jimmy and mary jean got out of the car the assailant made jimmy take off his pants then hit him twice over the head cracking jimmy's skull and knocking him unconscious the attacker then tried to sexually assault and rob mary jean oh okay i did uh yeah it was good it got a little rough yeah it's a little rough interesting that he would go through the theatrics of wearing a mask yeah anytime someone wears a mask and it's a serial killer situation you wonder did they intend to maybe let them go because the only reason why you're wearing a mask is so that they can't then identify you later yeah oh that's true if a killer approached me and he had a mask on i would feel a little bit better about my chances of surviving because if he walks up with a gun and his like you could just see his face like i could see it's your face i know that's probably the last thing i'm gonna see and right now i actually thought of staring into those dead cold eyes and if that's the last thing i see on this earth i made some mistakes along the way yeah i'd say so mary jean pleaded with the attacker telling him they didn't have any money the attacker hit mary jean knocking her to the ground when she got up the man told her to run mary jean took off down the road but was wearing high heels the assailant quickly overtook her and hit her again knocking her to the ground where he began to abuse her at this point jimmy struggled to his feet and managed to stop a passing car it's thought the assailant saw the car lights and fled from mary jean both jimmy and mary jean received medical treatment jimmy spent over 12 days recovering in the hospital this guy did literally get his skull cracked and still was able to get up and flag down another car which then saved their lives um yeah good for jimmy i mean it could just be like a fracture right i don't know how skulls really work from what i read it was pretty bad pretty severe crack from the description she thought that he had shot him that's how loud the cracking noise was oh which is not good so oh for two yeah over two but this as you'll see would be just the first of his uh attacks in the mid 40s texarkano was a relatively violent place killings robberies and other crimes were very common it might make sense then while the attack on jimmy and mary jean was brutal the community didn't pay it much attention until another attack occurred a month later this one fatal yeah i mean it must be an upsetting place if a masked man trying to assault two people is just passing news yeah it's like oh did you hear about that uh the masked phantom who tried to murder two people oh yeah hey uh let's go get a soda pop on the morning of march 24th authorities found the bodies of 29 year old richard l griffin and 17 year old paulie ann moore in a 1941 oldsmobile on what was then known as a lover's lane both had been shot in the back of the head richard was found between the two front seats on his knees with his head in his hands his pants pockets were inside out thought to be the result of someone trying to rob him pollyanne was discovered face down in the back seat of the car though there was evidence that suggested she may have been murdered on a blanket outside the car and placed there later the couple had last been seen around 10 pm the night before eating dinner with richard's sister they had been shot with what was thought to have been a cold 32 caliber pistol and any footprints that would have been around the car had been washed away throughout the day we got to give kids places to make out that's unfortunately most of these serial killer cases happen in the lovers lane scenario that's what i'm saying we gotta give them a well-lit area that is central to a town's location maybe some water vending machines nearby oh yeah some soda pops some sprees whatever you know yeah just a place with a bunch well i probably don't want to bring hammocks into the equation because smooching might elevate but um that is true also a hammock would be really hard to escape if a serial killer did come up to you while you were smooching in a hammock it's impossible it's just a murder battle you're trapped in a little nit yeah like a little spider net though there weren't many clues for authorities to go off of three days after the killings at least 50 people had been asked about the murder and over 100 false leads had been investigated while this attack ending in the murder of a young couple turned more heads than the first assault the community still believed these events to be isolated incidents three weeks later their indifference would change into a frenzy of fear on april 14th authorities found the bodies of 15 year old betty jo booker and 16 year old paul martin the previous night the two teens had attended a banned performance at the veterans of foreign wars club where betty joe played alto saxophone they were also seen leaving the dance around 1 30 in the morning paul had been shot four times and was discovered in a rural area on north park road betty jo had been raped and shot twice her body was found up in the woods about a mile away so escalating getting worse getting worse he's getting a little more bold one thing you can note though because you always see the trends of these serial killers all of these were couples interesting both had been shot with a 32 caliber colt the same weapon thought to be used in the previous attack this being the third attack in less than two months now with four young people dead the community was finally paying attention and they were panicked when their husbands and fathers were away for work women and children would move into the aptly named hotel grimm in downtown texarkana sort of like a staycation no it's not like a staycation it's more like a people around us are getting murdered let's all huddle together under the roof of a place named the hotel grim well clearly it's a popular establishment and if everybody trusts them they're going there as a place of refuge i suppose maybe stop being so uh judgy of these the thing is maybe i just don't have the insight that you have because this town as i said was a rowdy town he even called it little chicago and as we all know that's where you hail from i know from big chicago murder town usa okay well you know there's some uh big big issues there others bought guns and crafted homemade security systems from kitchenware and wire around their homes typically bustling streets went quiet the texarkana gazette named the attacker the phantom killer it doesn't help that the the press named him the phantom killer they gave him a nickname if you give someone a nickname it's a compliment it shouldn't we shouldn't never be doing that for the series don't pop them up because he probably read that in the paper next name was like that's got a ring to it i'm going to get some business cards printed tillman johnson one of the lead investigators said quote we were constantly getting calls mostly at night about prowlers people would call about any noise they heard at all end quote everyone was afraid they would be the next victim of the phantom killer seems like a little bit of a stretch for uh really any texan in the 1940s to say uh you know what i i think i might need to buy a gun it is also fun that they're setting little kevin mcallister booby traps i think people perhaps undervalue booby traps i don't think they're that practical in real life they could be if you do it well who are you trying to booby trap on a regular basis your cat your sweet obie he's a sweet boy you trying to booby-trap that cat no i don't want to do the opposite i want to booby hug him booby hug him i don't know what the term is that that's a trap a path of rose petals you know come this way sir i tell you what you're a sweet boy with a fuzzy face i'll give you a little hug on may 3rd 37 year old farmer virgil starks was listening to the radio when a 22 caliber round poured through his front porch window and hit him his wife katie left their bedroom to find virgil bleeding in the living room katie went to call for help when the attacker shot her twice in the face the bullets knocked some of her teeth out but she survived ducking to avoid more shots she made her way back to the bedroom as the attacker tried to break in through the kitchen window katie escaped out the front door with a bullet stuck under her tongue and trailing blood behind her katie made it to a nearby farmhouse where she was taken to the hospital and survived virgil however died i don't like i don't like any mouth teeth stuff don't like it no you know like when people get in fights and you can kind of see like the teeth coming like hold on they're falling out of their mouth i've got big issues with teeth even if i'm sitting with someone who is taking a fork and eating and it scrapes against their teeth oh yeah i don't like to either a drill we're also kind of like lightly glossing over the fact that she got shot in the face twice yeah that's worse than a fork scraping an indication of the fear the phantom killer had instilled in the community 20 to 30 police officers converged on the stark's farmhouse police tried to gather evidence and interview possible suspects and witnesses according to johnson quote people would stand out near the front of their homes and yell at you to identify yourself before you got too close you had to identify yourself or you would get shot end quote fair so yeah i mean we're on high alert here yeah if this was me i'd have a double barrel shotgun pointed directly at the door at all times you'd probably have to have shifts because i'd want someone out there at night too i'm staying up day and night i don't sleep well then now now you're setting yourself up for that's vulnerable because you're going to fall asleep maybe i'll take a nap yeah take a nap they'll take a nap and then okay let's do shifts you're right shifts are right shifts are good i wanted to be i've never even shot a gun so you've never shot a gun no you don't have to i don't think i have to authorities followed bloody footprints left by the killer that went from the house across the highway where they eventually lost the trail while this incident exacerbated the fear of the phantom killer it's possible this killing was done by someone else the other attacks had targeted people younger than the starks and had taken place in cars not homes in addition virgil was shot with a 22 caliber semi-automatic pistol a different weapon than the 32 caliber used in the previous murders of betty joe and paul still this incident was included in the phantom investigation as panic swept the area authorities took to dressing as young couples in an effort to lure the murderer but it appeared the phantom was done two months later with no more phantom murders the community's fear began to decrease and life started to get back to normal no one was ever found guilty of the murders backtrack just a bit about the dressing up exactly right yeah i thought so i'm imagining an old texan man with a large bushy muscle it's a chubby sam elliott a cop hat on a white t-shirt pack of cigarettes rolled up in it you're imagining a clearly adult burly police officer trying to look like a 16 year old boy 100 and it's hilarious yes and next to him also an adult male with a big old mustache maybe pretending to make out or maybe actually make an app or pre-recorded noises of smooching noises [Music] like a ferris bueller's situation just sort of that's like cartoon kissing no one sounds like that when they're kids [Music] with that it's time to look into possible theories behind the texarkana phantom murders of which there are basically only two the first theory is hb duty tennyson a college student who confessed to some of the killings in a note left behind after he killed himself according to a newspaper from the day of his death a sheriff reportedly said the note read quote why did i take my own life well when you committed two double murders you would too yes i did kill betty jo booker and paul martin in the city park that night and killed mr stark and tried to get mrs stark end quote according to duty's cousin forensic psychiatrist dr john tennyson duty had connections to all of the victims he was allegedly an usher at the theater where some victims of the attacks had seen movies before their deaths and had been in the same high school band as betty jo according to dr tennyson one of duty's friends lived under the same roof as the sister of katie starks alright so he had some connections to some of the victims but i will note that the sources when it came to that note in particular were shaky at best it was just him what if they say these things why is this hearsay people want to answer me it's like that people people in the public want answers there's this horrible thing happening in their town they look to the authorities for answers and if they don't have them there's outrage so you need to have something to say interesting so as a result some uh maybe some shoddy reporting but it is fairly convenient that he has all these connections to them and it is he's a he's a very interesting suspect for sure but for me because there's that note and these connections and yet he still wasn't indicted for the crimes there must have been something that ruled him out outright no our other theory is 29 year old yuel lee swinney around the time of the attacks arkansas state trooper max tackett observed that cars were reported stolen and later found abandoned whenever the phantom killer made an attack following this lead led police to stake out a downtown parking lot on june 28 1946 where a stolen car was abandoned this led to the arrest of 21 year old peggy swinney the new wife of one ul lee swinney while in custody peggy gave many detailed statements explaining how her husband committed the murders of betty jo and paul though descriptions of her own involvement varied from statement to statement on july 23 peggy gave a statement saying that on april 13th the day before the bodies of betty jo booker and paul martin were found she and uel parked at spring lake park and drank some beers according to her statement uel left the car saying he had to quote take a leak end quote peggy said quote he was gone from the car about one hour when i heard something that sounded like two gunshots it was just getting daylight when he came back to the car and started driving out of the park at a rapid rate of speed when he came back to the car i saw that his clothes were wet up to his knees and damp on up to his waist end quote she says that her boyfriend steps out of the car to go go pee yep and then he takes a long time comes back and when he comes back he's very rushed she's driving shots she's heard gunshots he's driving very fast he's wet not because of the pee i imagine because he went through a creek or something it's near lake so it's near lake washing off the blood she does seem to have a fair amount of details she does and there's one detail that she has that is very interesting that she knows and we'll get to that in a second okay on july 24th peggy gave another statement in this one she said uel had said quote he was going out to the park to rob someone end quote peggy said she went with uel to paul martin's car where uel pointed a gun at the young couple and told them to get out of the car peggy said that she refused to search the teenagers which angered you well and he shot martin twice peggy then allegedly held betty joe in place while joel got his car he drove it back made both girls get into the car drove west turned around and shot paul two more times as he had apparently been able to get up and move after the first two shots he took betty jo into the woods while peggy waited in the car when uel returned he told peggy he had tried to quote get some end quote with a young girl and then shot her after she refused wait so this is the same attack but a different story so she gave multiple statements about this day that they were at the lake one version she says he left and came back this version she says she was well involved she was somewhat involved and she said that he was going to go rob these people i see well peggy's story shifted she crucially told police information that only someone who had been at the scene of the crime would have known for instance peggy mentioned how paul's date book was thrown into some bushes a fact that only bowie county sheriff w h bill presley knew at the time as he had been the one who'd found the book that sounds like she knows what she's talking about okay so there's two scenarios right she was there when the murder happened or she happened upon it she happened upon it while they were at the lake found these bodies saw that there was that in the bush and then ran away and then realized later maybe they'll find out i was there yeah but i will say that if scenario two was true it does not make a bit of sense for her to be like yeah we decided we were going to rob them oh they might find out i was there i know what i'll tell them we killed them i'll tell them he killed them and i thought about it right and i just kind of went but i wasn't down uel was arrested at the arkansas motorcoach bus station as he arrived back from atlanta where he had attempted to sell a stolen car while his wife was willing to talk to investigators ul was not critically while peggy did give statements to investigators she could not be forced to testify against uel as they had gotten married mere hours before police arrested her i'm having a hard time taking a temperature on these two do they love each other uh clearly not because she's she's you know ratting him out but that also could be self-preservation she could have been involved did he get off that's what i was saying like a weird bonnie and clyde but bonnie and clyde stuck together bonnie wasn't like hey you gotta check out this clod guy uel was taken to little rock for a truth serum shot but he was given too much which caused him to pass out investigator tillman johnson said quote i think that if we had just kept him here in texarkana and kept questioning him we would have gotten the truth out of him eventually end quote well the truth serum is not real yeah i mean we we we've come across this this very elusive truth serum we've looked it up and most of these cases i mean whatever it is apparently you could overdose on it you could take too much true serum too much serum too much serum man yeah so you're bringing in this uh quack doctor who's like he's just he's not telling the truth give him more okay let me inject him with my lemon juice cocktail i'll tell him looking pretty woozy doc peggy was imprisoned for her own involvement in the car theft but eventually released uel was sentenced to life in state prison for being a habitual criminal after the auto theft charge but was released on parole in 1973 when the texas court of criminal appeals decided that he didn't have adequate representation on a car theft charge from 1941. uel died in a nursing home in dallas in 1994. crazy to think you can kill five people in the 1940s and then live long enough to see jurassic park in theaters thank you for that some other things thank you for that colorful i'm just trying to put into perspective the fact that this man so long ago committed these crimes and then and he's so far into the future and he saw the rise of industrial light and magic hi ellen they're wizards yeah i don't really know how to wrap this one up because it's just kind of upsetting because i feel like this man got away with it or the other guy gotta say that or the other guy but it does seem like this guy [Laughter] the texarkana phantom murder stand out as managing to stoke a frenzy of fear in a community that had been numbed to violent crime as w e atchison a resident of the area who was 16 at the time of the attack said quote the big wonder for everyone back then was whether the killings were being done by someone who lived among us and i still wonder who did it end quote across four attacks five people were shot to death and three others were severely injured as for who was responsible that remains unsolved i will say that since the the the time of the murders the town really has leaned into it the movie that was made about this was called the town that dreaded sundown i've heard of that i didn't realize that that was about that i've never seen it but yeah that's about that's about the texarkana phantom killer dang well that i don't really know how to wrap this one up because it's sad positive here's a positive spirit let's do it what do you got this made the town rally together and they thought like maybe we got to stop being so violent with each other that didn't happen but they certainly remembered the murders well then then they said let's remember these murders forever and i'm sure it's a lovely town yeah i've never been uh we'll have to go sometime okay we can watch the movie too yeah i'll just watch a movie on the town that dreaded sunday and we'll just watch the movie [Music] this week on buzzfeed and solve we take a look into the florida machete murder of athalia poncell linsley in our continuing exploration into why florida is the way that it is it is a unique place with some funny stories coming out of it they have the magical world of harry potter or the is it the wizarding world what about miami beach baby yeah sure miami beach never been yeah you don't seem like a miami beach type anyways we're here to talk about a machete murder and uh also we have talked about florida in the past we investigated that lady who exploded in her living room i loved that lady you did i mean i didn't love the fact that her head was the size of a tiny little teaspoon or a tea cup anyways let's get into it born into a life of privilege athelia poncel linsley was a former broadway actress model inventor real estate agent and author she was according to her detractors and the orlando sentinel a sharp-tongued aggressive woman who quote would not have won any popularity contest end quote indeed in 1970 athalia ran for florida legislature and lost i feel like a mark of true success is when you have detractors that's a wonderful thing oh like when you get haters oh yeah that's like a the old way to say that yeah yeah yeah i would love some haters i'd love some haters too why don't you take a long walk down a short pier i like it well that's too general and too hypothetical i like when it gets pointed like oh i hate his stupid beady eyes or like your little uh rooster yeah little rooster look at that little surf wave on his head i'm gonna go i'm gonna get my little boogie board and surf that in the morning in 1973 athalia married james linsley a real estate agent and the former mayor of saint augustine florida where athelia lived at the time while they were married in september by the next january the two still lived in separate homes athelia was trying to sell the house she was living in and didn't want to leave it unoccupied before moving to her new husband's home she never got the opportunity now it is funny that they are both real estate agents and they cannot sell their house you know you know maybe they're just not that good at their jobs or maybe just maybe no one wants to live in florida i'm just imagining a bunch of people going you need to buy a house here it's like i'm a real estate agent too do you want to buy a house here and there's just a big feedback loop yes you want to buy a house here it's a real estate agent selling real estate to other real estates and like i know you're ripping me off but i already have a house on january 23 1974 between 6 and 6 15 p.m the 56 year old athalia went outside to walk her pet blue jay clementine that is cool she's taking her bird for a walk i love that i had a wonderful little bird i understand we all know you kept your bird in a freezer for two years the ground was hard we couldn't bury him yet for two years no it wasn't two years it was just over the harsh chicago winter when the ground thawed we buried him in the garden we all know you ate that bird we all know you need a parrot you did tell me peter parrot i loved him i'm done talking about my parrot i'm not entertaining this [ __ ] because i love that little bird on her porch she encountered a man wielding a machete who proceeded to hack her to death by the time police arrived athalia had been nearly decapitated police chief virgil stewart said quote she was dead when we got there she had been badly butchered her head was almost cut off end quote clementine the blue jay was never seen again do you think this person maybe was clementine's original owner and just wanted the bird back i did not consider that possibility it's actually not even in my theories well it would be the first time you've glossed over things well i do think it's a bit of a jump to say hey that's my parrot i think your head doesn't look good on your shoulders anymore yeah so we know you're not one to jump to conclusions i don't talk about hobby theories only if i have some facts behind it big boy take it away a neighbor 19 year old lock mccormick said he could hear athalia's screams from his house when he went to check on athalia he discovered her butchered body he told police he saw a 40 to 60 year old man wearing a white shirt and dark pants walking away from the house a witness reported that there was blood in the grass quote leading all around the south side of the house end quote at one point a police officer ordered the ambulance attendants to hose down the blood is that fly in the face of like crime scene investigation or just hose everything down maybe let's get this evidence out of here all right now i could think clearly the sheriff offered a 500 reward to anyone with information on the case on february 17 1974 a county mechanic named dewey lee said he'd searched the marshes one mile from linsley's home and discovered a machete and a package containing a bloodied white shirt dark pants a watch and a pair of shoes after athalia's death francis bemis a 70 year old retired department store public relations exec and fashion consultant told her friends that she knew something about the murder bemus who was reportedly a friend of athalia's was even said to have been collaborating with a writer on a book about athalia after her death she did not seem afraid when nathalia turned up slain telling the saint augustine record quote i think saint augustine is the safest place i have ever lived i go out walking at night and will continue to do so i went out walking the same night that the murder took place end quote i don't know what i'd make of that do you if this grisly murder had occurred and a woman just proudly proclaimed like well i'm not afraid maybe if she knew her well it's her way of saying like well she must have been into something dirty baby yeah that kind of stuff doesn't happen around here and let me show you i'm gonna go on a walk right now yeah francis indeed continued to go walking at night including on november 3rd 1974 a little over nine months after athalia was murdered the next day not far from where athalia was murdered a man walking his dog found francis dead in a vacant lot oh no what that's unfortunately the old picture wrap on francis beamus oh oh you know she died doing what she loved she did die doing what she loved and look if you're an old lady and this killer has already killed an old lady with something as simple as a machete this is not the zodiac it's not someone who's you know pulling a lot of strings and putting a lot of production design into their work uh it's just walking up to someone with a machete yeah on the flip side of that too like don't challenge that who are you also like making yourself a big man out to be yeah like oh you murdered an old lady with a machete that's crazy wow you must be really dangerous man it's not like he murdered macho man randy savage out there it's a [ __ ] feat it's an old lady yeah so good for him i guess she had apparently been clobbered repeatedly with a stone block she was semi nude with most of her clothes having been ripped off though an autopsy report found no indication of rape an account by the new york daily news noted that her body had been burned as though a killer had tried to destroy the corpse another another thing about this one is the the attempt to destroy the evidence destroyed the body by burning it yeah and then him going didn't work all right yeah i guess i'll just leave it so just leave it i guess they'll just be evidence well we already know what they do with evidence hose it off [ __ ] last time police chief virgil stewart did not believe there was a connection between francis and nathalia's murders at the time with two women violently dead in st augustine florida in 1974 it's time to dive into the theories the first theory is that athalia's husband james linsley was responsible for her murder james was an easy easygoing real estate agent who had served two terms as mayor of saint augustine though they lived in separate homes james said they did not have marital problems athalia however had sent letters to her sister showing they were having issues quote jimmy is a complete leech a complete liar end quote she wrote in one letter she also said she changed the locks of her house there was also gossip among community members that the crime scene was hosed down to protect james's involvement according to elizabeth randall author of a book detailing athalia's murder james complained about how many rumors flew around the town florida seems like a gossipy state yeah oh what else are you gonna do there you're trapped by swamp and gators yeah you're essentially just left to your own devices yeah why don't you just spread some funny rumors whisper storm baby maybe rumors that are rumors like you eating that bird if you don't stop this bit i'm gonna you're gonna cut my head off with a machete i didn't say that in testimony at athalia's murder trial though interestingly not a trial prosecuting james more on that in a bit james told the jury that he owned a machete resembling the one used to kill his wife he usually kept it in the trunk of his car using it to hack at undergrowth while looking at properties for his real estate job after athalia's murder he turned the machete over to police at that time it was common for residents in the county to own one or two machetes used to fight back against the florida fauna at the trial james was shown the machete that was used on his wife james could not confirm whether it was his telling the judge quote all machetes look alike to me end quote i think it's important to say that because i imagine people who are watching this they were imagining jason voorhees murdering this lady yeah but in reality everyone had a machete so it could have been jim from go to the church on sunday the priest is standing up there with machete he's using it as a pointer yeah using it they're using it throwing holy water they're using it to point out items on powerpoint presentations everyone has a machete yeah that makes sense according to randall's book there was a gap of around 15 to 25 minutes in james's alibi it supposedly occurred between the time james drove home from the grocery store where he had been shopping with athalia and the time he drove back to his own home randall posits that james had enough time to drive to athalia's house during that period unfortunate that if you just have like a 20-minute gap in your schedule where no one sees you suddenly you're open to uh being a murderer yeah that is true i usually takes me about 20 minutes to cook my dinner usually and because of that i'm a murderer you're a murderer the second theory is athalia's neighbor alan stanford murdered her in the culmination of a months-long feud according to the new york daily news athalia loved animals and took many in including noisy dogs and even at one point a goat the noise from these critters often disgruntled her neighbors according to author elizabeth randall both of athalia's neighbors the stanfords and the mccormicks filed public complaints about the noise in 1972 resulting in a 50 fine for disturbing the peace randall then describes an escalating neighborly feud in which athalia outraged the stanfords by cutting back their trees that extended over her property line according to randall athalia also planted bamboo across a city easement at the corner of the stanford driveway which the stanfords had the city remove at the time stanford was the manager of st john's county of which saint augustine is the county seat athalia had apparently suggested to the county commission that stanford wasn't qualified for his job appearing at least four times before the commission to complain about him that's a strained relationship that is yeah you don't want to be that way to your neighbors yeah you don't want to have a petting zoo in your house the thing about cutting down their tree on her property that's fine so you would do that legally you're allowed to if there's hangovers you can you can lop those i did have a neighbor who had an overhang of a lime tree and it was great because i could go pick a little lime did you ever think about killing your neighbor when he didn't give me limes yeah oh okay all right athalia would claim that stanford had neglected his duties of maintaining and building roads but her complaints also verged into the personal randall describes a commission meeting where athalia publicly accused stanford of putting sugar in her cadillac's gas tank more saliently she also said on october 9th 1974 that stanford threatened her saying quote that man threatened my life he threatened to kill me end quote sure he seems fishy but it also seems incredibly risky to murder your neighbor especially after all of this has been public she has in public four times complained that he's not good at his job yeah every human is capable of murder if you push them enough i just don't know if this is enough of a push okay it's true is that so yeah i could i i bet you you would murder me if i pushed you enough yeah probably according to randall mere hours before athalia's murder stanford had been visited by the florida department of professional and occupational regulations at athalia's request randall says they were investigating to see whether stanford was in violation of florida's state statutes yeah that's that's a little fuel to the fire there i don't know if it's enough to push him over the edge it's certainly not good it's not good it doesn't look great but i still wonder but then when people start showing up to evaluate you yeah that is true you might you might lose it yeah i guess you can't really like tattle on her like she's doing this make her stop yeah when loch mccormick first heard athelia screams he looked to her home and told his grandmother quote mr stanford is hitting miss poncel end quote which was athalia's maiden name mccormick later explained that he'd assumed it was stanford based on his clothing and the fact that the man was walking back towards stanford's house but he didn't see the man's face or really know if it was him the police also noted a blood trail that cut across her driveway to a concrete wall that demarcated the divide between her property and stanford's well that's all not looking great that doesn't look good okay and that's a little bit more than hearsay at that point yeah actually this makes me wonder let's say you want to murder someone would it make sense to study them for a long time you know see who's in their life and then sort of try to disguise yourself or make it look like you're a different acquaintance of theirs so if i want this lady dead and i'm like she's got a feud going on with her neighborhood right over there he tends to wear these kind of things i'll put those on i'll just i'll put those on dress up like him whack a thwack run through his yard yeah just roll around in the grass yeah his front lawn get that blood all around there of course they're gonna hose it off but that is florida so you know they're gonna make sure that blood's really in the grass yeah yeah yeah it's close to a perfect crime maybe but it's certainly giving you an edge as a murderer that is true the sheriff took mccormick to a hypnotist in the hopes of unlocking further memories but the results were inconclusive that sounds about par for the course for investigative methods in florida what do we got how's the evidence looking well we hosed it all down okay what do you want next a hypnotist bring me a metronome recall dewey lee had discovered a package of evidence including a bloody shirt and a watch while the shirt had been sitting in salt water and mud for too long to determine conclusively if the blood on the shirt was athalia's blood type a forensic expert was able to identify a laundry mark as stanford's name ultimately however it was decided the mark was too faint and garbled to be conclusive it just seems like this guy murdered he really does to me is it maybe the fact that the name on the laundry that was found that was bloodied was his is that is that what it is i just know none of my laundry's laying out there uh one i don't have my name on my laundry yeah what is it this is my 70s maybe things are different i don't know or he's andy from toy story he just writes his name on everything yeah and two i don't think any articles of my clothing are covered in blood but no matter what crime comes up shane has no bloody clothing i don't not even a nosebleed i was in a church once it happened in a church i don't go to church i was just with one of my friends and he was like well go to church and i was like all right man i was like nine so you're telling me at nine years old you don't go to church the first time you cross the threshold into holy ground blood expels from your nostrils yeah yeah or they ran out of tissues mopping that up it was wild it sounds wild more damning for stanford was the watch which a jeweler identified as stanford's stanford claimed that after the murder he had discovered his watch was missing stanford was indicted for the murder his friends and fellow church members raised twenty thousand dollars for his bail and an estimated two hundred and fifty thousand dollar defense fund which would have the same buying power of more than 1.3 million dollars today as a quick side note at the time of francis bemis murder stanford was out on bail with the money raised by his friends stanford mounted a formidable defense stanford's defense posited that sheriff dudley garrett dewey lee and nathalia's husband james linsley had all worked together to frame stanford quote isn't it strange that all the deputies and trained police officers didn't know what to look for or where to look for it and without stopping lee went right to the spot walked up to the bank and there it was i submit to you that dewey lee put it out there that morning end quote the defense posited dewey lee as a scammer while he was on the stand a defense attorney asked dewey quote isn't it a fact that you were looking for a spot where nobody could see you put that stuff in the swamp end quote it does seem like they're desperately grasping at straws yeah because if you were trying to frame someone you would want it to look that i mean you'd go overboard you'd probably you'd probably try a little too hard to make it a little too obvious looking this is confusing i got a feeling it's gonna end up unsolved we'll see key to the defense was the testimony of one adele mclaughlin a data processing clerk and neighbor who was riding her bike past athalia's home at the time adele testified that she had seen dewey in nathalia's yard less than two hours before the murder took place after two and a half hours of deliberation on february 3rd 1975 the jury declared stanford innocent afterward sheriff garrett told reporters quote yes i think stanford did it i signed the complaint against him and i don't concur with the verdict end quote there is something weird to be said about a town believing so much that this man did not do it that they literally raised 250 000 and only deliberated in the jury for two and a half hours before saying yeah he didn't do it if i murdered someone and the entire town was like no he didn't he could be like this is [ __ ] this is this rules he earned enough goodwill tickets yeah to cash it in for that it's like a punch card like i've been a great guy my entire life and then you get that tenth punch and it's like all right here's your free machete use your machete have fun murdering you get a free one in 1974 in a span of less than 10 months two women were violently murdered by hand in the same florida community the person responsible for either or even both deaths is a mystery could it have been a disgruntled husband a fed up neighbor a scheming mechanic or someone else entirely the answer remains unsolved i think it was the neighbor look i'm a simple man i see a trail of blood going to someone's house even if they didn't do it come on you're going to jail i think it might have been a random person all right it just seems too obvious okay there's a paper trail of their feud why the hell would he be that dumb rage you know lust rage rage just just just building up bursting out well i've never really gotten that angry i don't really have that capacity it's building it's building inside you everyone sees it that's great oh man i can't wait for krakatoa then a shudder hope no one's in the way scary this week on buzzfeed unsolved we look into the disappearance of walter collins a 90 year old case about a nine-year-old boy who vanished on his way to the movies not the time you want to vanish and vanish on your way back from the movies after having seen a lovely film you'll come to see that there are lots of twists and turns to this case it's a it's hard it's a hard one to pin down huh so well let's pin it it's gonna get weird so let's strap in on march 10 1928 nine-year-old walter collins donned a lumberjacket brown corduroy trousers black oxfords a grey cap and set off to see a movie in the mount washington neighborhood of los angeles walter never returned home his mother christine collins a telephone operator reported her son missing five days later on march 15th well immediately there are some red flags here because i'm going to do the math and the math involves me hearing you say the words five days later yeah that is true five yeah that is true it's a bit that's a bit uh a bit of a difference it is 1928 i don't know if people just wander off maybe i mean you you strike me as a kid who wandered off maybe didn't come back i'm a wanderer but i always reported back by you know the certain time 10 p.m or so yeah you know it was a cul-de-sac where were we gonna go also they'd find you rather quick dude be on the lookout for a big head boy big head boy that's what they called me my parents yes big head boy at that time the city was still reeling from the kidnapping and gruesome murder of a 12 year old girl marion parker that had happened only three months earlier tips of alleged walter sightings started coming in from as far away as san francisco and oakland in one bizarre tip someone claimed they saw the boy at a glendale gas station his body wrapped in newspaper with only his head visible police searched for months but still no walter finally in august illinois police picked up a runaway boy who matched walter's description the child told authorities he was walter collins and gave authorities a quote hazy story about his abduction end quote he spoke to christine over the phone and christine paid 70 dollars to bring her son back to los angeles for the next three weeks the boy stayed with christine until she realized this boy was not her son that's c okay well now i'm on to something because it took this lady three weeks to realize that this boy who probably oh okay all right i'm gonna cut you off right there he's nine years old that's a full person yeah but here and she's like well i'm pretty sure he's my boy well he's got the same haircut he wears the same clothes yeah but you gotta add in the grief factor this mom thinks she lost her son and she is now hoping for the for any sign of good news and they say this is your boy he says he's your boy you're going to naturally want to believe it but after a while you you got to face the facts that's not her son he's like you're right he's 90 years old he clearly has defining features at that point so is the idea here that maybe this was just some down on his luck boy who had read the paper and thought well here's a meal ticket i look kind of like this boy maybe a little bit like him i'll tell him i'm this boy well i guess we'll have to find out okay detective brain christine found it suspicious that the boy was one inch shorter than walter and she used dental records to prove that this was a different kid christine told police quote yes he looks like walter and in some ways he acts like my son but still i'm not certain about it you see walter was quiet and well behaved he always called me mother this child calls me ma and at times he is hard to handle i certainly hope he is my son but somehow i can't bring myself to believe it end quote i love this new walter i'm a big fan of him oh like he waltzes into the place like he owns it hey ma why don't you make me some apple pies huh ma pb and j now i asked you five minutes ago what's up the police fixated on closing the case because of public pressure insisted it was walter they conducted a series of tests to prove the boy was walter they had the boy find his way back home from memory and brought in walter's pet dog who allegedly recognized the boy as its owner still christine was not convinced i mean dogs are dumb i love how she was like look at his dental records it's not him and they're like hey does this doggy recognize you also puppies just like little boys puppies are always like oh it's a little man let me wag my dumb tail and lick them allegedly lapd captain jj jones told christine quote what are you trying to do make fools out of us all are you trying to shirk your duty as a mother and have the state provide for your son you're the most cruel-hearted woman i've ever known you are a fool end quote bit harsh from j there from jj jones from comic book character jj jj jones does sound like the name given to a bad cop like a comically bad cop like if he was a character in a movie i would say this man's a caricature no one's that evil why is he calling this woman a fool he called her cruel hearted too yeah he also like you made it all about him this woman is missing her kid and he was like what are you trying to do make me look like a fool and incompetent at my job and she's like no i'm just trying to find my son yeah this is very rude of him the police then had christine forcibly committed to the los angeles county general hospital psychiatric ward on september 8th while christine sat in the psych ward jj jones again spoke to the boy police had picked up in illinois during that discussion the 12 year old confirmed to jj jones that he was not walter collins but instead arthur hutchins well j.j jones it looks like you've got egg on your face yes do you think when the kid said yeah that's not me was he like man i really thought that was you or do you think he was like [ __ ] just like shut up play along kid what are you doing at that point yeah because now he's now he's a fool no he's he's him now he's now realized the folly of his ways i kind of love when someone gets a good dose of karma you get their their their instant karma their comeuppance uh but yeah this guy definitely deserved it he put her in a psych ward because she wouldn't agree with him about who her son was christine had been correct the entire time the kid the police had dumped on her was not her missing son but instead arthur hutchins after arthur's mother died the boy ran away from his father and stepmother he was hitchhiking around the u.s when in a dekelb illinois cafe someone told him he resembled a missing boy from los angeles when he was picked up juvenile authorities were skeptical about his story but police were so desperate to close the collins case that they insisted on its veracity as for why arthur lied the 12 year old told authorities he wanted to go to hollywood to meet cowboy actor tom mix i love this boy yeah i mean there's nothing wrong you can't indict this boy for being an opportunist like well yeah and that's what i'm saying this is a beautiful story for him i really love this kid's moxie because he's sitting in some run-down cafe in the middle of the corn fields someone walks in and says hey you know you look like this missing kid and he goes is that so where is he from from hollywood you say get the cops in here these cops come in he's like yeah i'm that boy send him out to l.a he's going to meet his favorite cowboy person but they're like well first you have to go uh hang out with this crying woman for a while that's probably why he was so grumpy of course because he was like i just want to meet tom yeah you got this like whaling can we please go to the movies christine was released from the psych ward on september 13th and sued the lapd captain jj jones was suspended from duty by the lapd though he was later reinstated and ordered to pay christine ten thousand eight hundred dollars for the abuse she suffered under his custody however j.j jones never paid unbelief believable but like ten thousand eight hundred dollars is actually quite a bit for that time yeah i wonder what the inflation cost would be there i mean it's definitely not cheap no and not a big shocker that jj didn't pony up the dough i'm proud of her for suing him yeah dude's a freaking set of clown shoes he deserves it it seems like uh you know there's a lot of this is america you know people people press charges people sue a lot but apparently the lapd took that very seriously by reinstating him and not making him pay the amount that she needed we don't need to get into the practices of the lapd we do not we do not and as we all know we do know that you believe they are corrupt from past episodes that's true i do believe it meanwhile the real walter collins was still missing so with that let's get into some theories our first theory was put forth by walter's father walter j s collins who was serving time in folsom prison on robbery charges at the time the elder walter worked at the prison cafeteria and his responsibilities included reporting the violations of other inmates because of this he could have made many enemies which is why he believed his former fellow inmates may have kidnapped walter for revenge alright i guess that is a theory that is a theory not my leading theory but it is a theory you wouldn't just like knock him on the head or something a guy writes you up for like taking too many mashed potatoes and you're like i'll tell you what we're gonna do we're gonna disappear his boy once we're out of here i don't think they have like the foresight to plan that out you get angry in prison it's happening right there and then you're not going to be like i could that's what i'm saying i'm going to wait you'll execute your revenge quite swiftly exactly you're going to take like a fork and stab him right that's the cafeteria it's the only place where there's weapons on hand the second theory one with substantial weight behind it is that walter was kidnapped by a pathological liar named gordon stewart northcott and murdered on northcott's chicken farm days after christine was released from the psychiatric hospital and approximately 40 miles east of downtown los angeles immigration officers were closing in on a three-acre chicken farm in wineville california they'd received a tip about an illegal worker who had been smuggled across the american border with canada the chicken farm belonged to gordon stewart northcott after he convinced his father to buy him the land in 1926 gordon claimed he needed help running the farm he drove to canada to visit his sister winifred in saskatoon he talked winifred into letting him take her 14 year old son sanford clark with him to the farm chicken farms really scare me why is that i think it may be sort of a texas chainsaw vibe any sort of like super rural area where there's one guy and a lot of animals there's some crazy stuff happening in that farm probably smells yeah just a fair warning you're gonna want to buckle up for this one because it gets this is not my favorite story there gordon began to physically emotionally and sexually abuse sanford sanford's story unfortunately was only the start of the horrors young men met at the hands of gordon northcott gordon had a pattern of kidnapping and murdering boys then dissolving their bodies in quicklime in august 1928 sanford's 19-year-old sister jessie clark came to visit her brother on the farm sanford told her everything that had happened jesse alerted their mother and they contacted the american consul telling them that gordon had smuggled sanford from canada when investigators got to the chicken farm gordon along with his obsessive mother sarah louise northcott had fled so this is just a serial killer who may have been involved in all this may have been involved and we're going to get definitely a serial killer he is a serial killer i would say and we're going to get into how he was maybe involved police found blood-soaked ground and bodily remains around the ranch and sanford was safely taken into police custody items belonging to missing young boys from southern california were found about the property including boy scout badges library books and letters written to their parents nelson and louis winslow 10 and 12 year old brothers missing from pomona as well as a mexican boy named alvin kothea were among those victims whose possessions or remains were found on september 15th sanford told investigators his story police showed him 30 photos hoping to identify other victims who met their fate on the farm one that sanford positively identified was walter collins so yep yeah i mean i don't think you would forget that right i don't know and there's no reason for him to lie no no reason for him to lie it's just uh i i guess i don't know how many people he'd come into contact with while he was there right yeah i mean pretty damning though i would say yeah not great no gordon and his mother were arrested in calgary canada on september 20th and extradited back to the united states to stand trial gordon initially confessed to the murder of nine young boys but was only charged for the deaths of three there wasn't enough evidence for him to be charged in the death of walter collins but gordon was nevertheless sentenced to death by hanging and was executed on october 2nd 1930. though gordon wasn't convicted for walter collins's murder his mother spent the rest of her life in prison after confessing to having killed walter with an axe and burying him in a chicken coop the notoriety from the gruesome murders was so bad the town of wineville decided to separate itself from that chapter of its history when in 1930 it renamed itself miraloma you ever been no i haven't been to mira alone but if i had no you're a southern california guy before this story i would now be a little unnerved well that changed the name but just the idea that something so bad happened in the town that it changed its name ah bad things happen in every town i'm telling you yeah that's true we living in los angeles i'm sure there's dozens and dozens of bad things happening every day in los angeles it's a it's a dark town sometimes some of those things no we don't yeah as he awaited execution gordon sent christine a telegram saying he would tell the truth about walter if she came to talk to him in prison christine went to san quentin on the eve of gordon's execution but gordon backpedaled saying quote i don't want to see you i don't know anything about it i'm innocent end quote gordon also left several notes in his cell some saying he'd never met walter some accusing gordon's father of kidnapping and murdering the boy a pathological liar it's impossible to know what gordon said was true and what was fabricated it's weird that this case is unsolved because it seems pretty cut and dry but he wasn't convicted for the murder he's saying that he didn't do it but then his mom is saying that she did it he confessed to nine other ones though in some of the letters in his cell he said that he didn't even know the boy it goes back to that death bed confession thing where he knows he's about to be executed why not just come clean yeah so in a weird yeah i mean he's already taken the wrap for yeah so might as well just come clean but you know we're really we're trying to you know dissect the mind of somebody who is clearly capable of very very evil acts so i don't really know if there's much merit to that uh but this is i guess technically still unsolved because he wasn't convicted for the murder and he's saying that he didn't do it when i think it's safe to say that he did well we'll never know five years after gordon was put to death one of the young men thought to have been murdered on the chicken farm turned up alive and well opening up the possibility that walter 2 had escaped a fatal encounter in wineville on that chicken farm for the rest of her life christine collins never gave up hope that her son was alive while walter's most likely fate was at the demented hands of gordon northcott and his mother what actually happened to the young boy remains unsolved yeah that was a long windy uh uncomfortable road to get to the conclusion there but trust me when i say that i tried to make that as palatable as i could because i would not recommend looking up uh this man's history because he is far more of a monster than we presented here well i will take you up on that recommendation and avoid it entirely yes i would do the same it's been a treat here today thank you for inviting me on another spooky little uh tail yeah let's go home take a shower i'll call my mom you call your mom in the shower hey ending on a funny joke okay see you next week it was a beautiful sentiment and you ruined it [Music] this week on buzzfeed and solve we take a look at the death of vincent van gogh long thought to be suicide but as recent writings may suggest may actually be murder excuse me what we're going to cover a murder on this show no but of a man who long thought to have taken his own life i mean he was a bit eccentric and had a history of bodily harm so maybe people assumed it was suicide but there are some things in here that at least for me yeah are fairly convincing that it may be something a little bit more sinister well i'm here for it what you know about go what about you know he's a dutch guy painted a lot you know very dreamy cut off his ear he did that uh self-portrait you know yeah he did a selfie all right we're done here then he's closed no we got him we got him to talk about that okay all right season finale let's do it baby let's get into it vincent willem van gogh was born on march 30th 1853 in zunder netherlands he was the oldest surviving child of theodorus van gogh and anna carbentis vincent would eventually have five younger siblings the one he would form the closest relationship with being his brother theo despite his good grades vincent left secondary school before graduating at age 16 he began his art career as an apprentice with gupiel nc an international art dealer where his uncle was a partner vincent first worked for guphil in the hague then in london and finally in paris where he was dismissed from the company in 1876 two days after his 23rd birthday kind of a double-edged sword back then because it's neat that you can just jump into an apprenticeship at age 16. be like yeah i'm probably going to be a legend in the art field i'll do that you could still do that today though i feel like people start apprenticeships quite young but they don't really do like at 16 yeah i remember applying for an apprenticeship at warner bros at 16. how'd that turn out i didn't get it so i hope you're watching this now and know what you missed out on jack warner jack in 1881 after five years of wandering europe and bouncing between dead-end jobs such as lay preacher vincent moved back in with his parents who worried about their son's lack of direction in life theo who had also gone to work for the art dealer gu peel and sea but had risen through the ranks to become a manager began sending his older jobless brother money for the next few years vincent would move out for periods but return to his parents home it's interesting because nowadays people you know people get to age like 24 and they're like i just don't want to i don't know what i want to be in life well it is kind of funny that he is this 19th century millennial just wandering around yeah not really sure what his purpose is and if vincent this is a this is an aspirational tale for all you out there if vincent van gogh is going through this similar struggle you know you can make something of yourself just out there with his brush saying i'll put this on something you put it in front of me i'll put it to it that i feel like you're worried that better no no it's probably exactly what he said to people i'll put this on something give me a job i'll put this on i'll put this on something you put it in front of me i'll put it to it in 1884 vincent now in his 30s wanted to start paying theo back for all the support he had given him over the years vincent began sending his paintings to theo in paris for him to sell unfortunately for all parties vincent's work was not what the people of paris were looking for i always wondered about this when it comes to famous artists obviously it took them usually decades to find what made them famous wouldn't you say that the paintings like their early drafts when they really sucked wouldn't those be worth more because it's like seeing the journey i don't know if it's worth more but they're probably worth a lot like a year one van gogh yeah i feel like that when you say it that way sounds like it should be expected it's a little cheap yeah it did sound a little i didn't know he had a year one van gogh in his house i didn't know he was doing that well that's pretty good it looks like [ __ ] but you know well there's a lot of that out of there for a little picasso he's got a lot of early stuff out there well pablo yeah him oh you're not talking the other picasso not ted picasso over the next five years vincent's life would appear to once again be mired by foley as he started a failed art collective and continued his nomadic habitation of europe during this period however the style now associated with vincent began to take form the tones used in his paintings began to lighten he developed his characteristic style of using short brush strokes and he moved to brighter more colorful subjects such as portraits often self-portraits and city scenes unfortunately for vincent the progress of his art happened during a time of declining mental health culminating in late 1888 when vincent famously severed his own ear and wrapped it up as a present for a sex worker the day after this eerie occurrence you like that one [Music] he liked it i loved it too cheers vincent was admitted to the hospital where he stayed until early 1889 for the next few months vincent struggled with his mental health eventually checking himself into a psychiatric hospital in may during his one year stay at the hospital vincent made some of his most famous masterpieces in his first week there he started painting the irises in the asylum's garden while vincent considered the paintings merely a study irises is considered one of his most iconic pieces the starry night now one of the most famous paintings in the world depicts the view from a window in the asylum enhanced by vincent's imagination in january of 1890 theo and his wife welcomed their newborn son vincent willem van gogh into the world named after the infant's uncle vincent sent them his famous painting almond blossom from the hospital as a gift for his new nephew all told while in the asylum vincent made about 150 paintings and by 1890 his work was finally being exhibited and receiving positive reviews i don't know if i agree with this narrative all the time where art needs to come from this like darker place of misery or maybe like turmoil yeah within your head you don't need to be troubled to make good art it happens but sure i think um i think intense emotion or introspection can obviously fuel it yeah like a like a breakup or a death yeah but it is weird that great art is often not appreciated when it comes out and i don't know why that is i mean a lot of it is you know well maybe because like the artist's mind is more enhanced at that moment and the world is not ready for it yet so they're ahead of their after being released from the mental hospital in may vincent moved to overshaws an area with other artists not far from paris which allowed for him to easily visit theo's family in paris on one such visit in july theo told his brother he was considering starting his own business this news greatly unsettled vincent who not only felt like a burden to his brother who was still supporting vincent but also worried about the impact of theo taking this gamble on his own finances after lunch on july 27 1890 vincent left the raveau inn where he was staying in o'vere with his easel and painting supplies it was a warm evening so the innkeepers and guests were enjoying dinner outside after sunset when vincent returned he shuffled past without exchanging any words he also notedly had none of the belongings he left with and had his jacket buttoned all the way up despite the heat he clutched his abdomen and limped up the stairs to his room gustav revol the owner of the inn went to check on vincent the artist was curled up in his bed and when gustav asked him what was the matter vincent replied quote i wounded myself end quote he lifted his clothing to reveal a bullet hole under his ribs that's sad it is sad one thing to note from this is it's a bit odd that he would take all of his painting supplies and his easel out only to then kill himself and then walk back when none of it like why not just leave all that stuff in your apartment if that was what your plan was who knows how these things creep up on on a person that is true well we're gonna get into it more in the theories okay theo arrived midday on the 28th to find vincent in bed smoking vincent van gogh died just after midnight cradled by his brother after telling him quote i want to die like this end quote at just 37 years old vincent's life and career was over leaving behind nearly 1300 works of art on paper and more than 850 paintings with no autopsy ever conducted the exact location of the shooting never identified and a five-hour period between the time he left the inn and when he returned unaccounted for it's time to dive into some theories the first and prevailing theory is that vincent was a troubled genius who shot himself in a wheat field according to adeline revo the then 13 year old daughter of the inn owner gustav quote vincent had gone toward the wheat field where he had painted before during the afternoon as my father understood it vincent shot himself and fainted the coolness of the night revived him on all fours he looked for the gun to finish himself off but he could not find it then vincent got up and climbed down the hillside to return to our house end quote yeah i could see that often times when people commit suicide the weapon's right there the means is right there there's usually a note it's very odd to be like shoot myself now let's go hide this gun yeah i mean it's a wheat field you know i don't know how dense those are but unless he tossed the gun which maybe he did at the same time how thorough of a search do you think he's doing if he is currently bleeding out well you'll also come to find that no one else could find the gun either interesting now do you understand why i think that's so weird now i understand right perhaps no one was more adamant about this theory than vincent himself witnesses recalled vincent saying quote i wounded myself in the fields i shot myself with a revolver there end quote he was emphatic saying quote do not accuse anyone it is i who wanted to kill myself end quote witnesses did say however that vincent appeared confused as he laid dying replying to the police's question of did you intend to commit suicide with quote i think so end quote vincent had also in the past morbidly joked about suicide he once told theo he would quote cease to be end quote if he ever felt that he had become a burden or nuisance to his brother could his fear of complicating his soon-to-be unemployed brother's life have driven him to kill himself one hot afternoon while this story is the one vincent seemingly wanted the world to hear there are some glaring issues with it for one vincent was shot in the abdomen below his ribs which is an odd position to take if he had been aiming for his heart additionally the fact that the bullet did not exit vincent's body suggests there was some distance between vincent and the gun more distance than vincent could have achieved on his own it's also suspicious that vincent allegedly dropped the gun so far out of reach that when he came to he couldn't find it to finish the job what's more if he had actually passed out for hours after shooting himself his wound would have been much bloodier than it was when he returned to the inn so if he did shoot himself it would have been larger yeah because it had been so much time till when he got to the inn it suggests that it happened sooner than he said it did or like he watched negating his theory that he fell asleep woke back up came to the end it would have been so much bigger yeah so they're saying like he probably got shot right away then walked to the end which would also explain then why he carried out his art supplies because he didn't go oh yeah getting shots in the plans today right so you know it makes sense okay apart from the hard to explain ballistics no one knows where vincent would have obtained the gun revolvers were very rare in ovares at the time and no one would admit to selling or lending vincent a gun the next day no one was able to find a gun where vincent purportedly did the deed all of vincent's painting gear too seemed to have vanished all his painting gear yes from where he left it in the fields so no gun none of the paint stuff that he walked out with yeah all the other stuff that i just mentioned do you think someone was aware that this was vinnie's stuff and was like i'll get a pretty penny for this i feel like we would have seen it by now i mean frankly people at buzzfeed steal lunches out of the fridges all the time you don't think someone was just like hey free stuff true someone did steal some of the stuff from our set yeah some of we lose stuff from around here all the time our precious props you think we don't notice that co-workers timmy's ball is gone yeah this is this is this is a fake this is a sham this is a fake ball this isn't timmy's someone stole timmy's ball what if timmy came back and took it i thought about that but i don't think so you did think about it in addition to the questions the physical evidence raises vincent was a religious man who condemned suicide calling it wicked and a demonstration of moral cowardice at one point prior to his death he even said quote i really did not think i am a man with such inclinations end quote anytime he did have thoughts of suicide it was always by way of drowning saying quote i could understand people drowning themselves end quote suicide is wrong i do not understand it it'd be pretty baller to drown it's just a weird thing to just tack on as a button at the end of that yeah cause drowning arguably seems like the worst but why is it more morally sound i've heard that it is agony oh god did you really just sneak a prestige quote indeed i don't know theo also found no evidence that vincent was planning on killing himself finding no suicide note but instead drafts of letters on his desk that he surely didn't want anyone to read with so many loose ends in the suicide theory it's time to look at another hypothesis this one posited by biographer steven nefa and gregory white smith nefa and smith suggest vincent was shot by some local boys and that vincent protected their identities to begin it's worth going back to get a better picture of what life was like for vincent in ovares he was known to be quite eccentric and when he would approach people in the street to ask if they would sit for him most people retreated his appearance didn't help matters with wild hair ratty clothes and you know a missing ear as is often the case the worst bullies were the teenage boys they would pretend to be nice to the artist to gain his trust then pull pranks on him like throwing salt in his coffee rubbing chili pepper on a dry paintbrush vincent tended to suck and putting a snake in his box of painting supplies why are these boys the way they are sick pranks dude the snake bit the artist nailed them bro right yeah yeah what a nerd god i'd love to just transport them here and be like hey you know that guy who uh you put a funny snake in his mailbox you know you put some salt in this car he's in his museum he's he's the museum that you're standing in front of the museum i can't believe boys would be that mean to a funny old man i could believe it teenage boys are the worst i remember being obnoxious as a teen yeah it's inevitable if you're pranking a stranger i find it not as fun it's just me that just means just me and this is me one of the boys who would tease vincent was renee secreta who said quote our favorite game was making him angry which was easy end quote my favorite game was making him angry which was easy what a little stinker a little piece of [ __ ] oh look how red his face is getting ho-ho-ho-ho look at the tears oh my god what a little brat i love it renee's older brother gaston was an aspiring artist who liked to hear vincent's tales of the parisian art world vincent figured renee was just something he had to endure in order to have a friendship with gaston renee unlike his brother had no interest in art instead enjoying fishing and hunting after seeing buffalo bill's wild west show in paris renee came back to ovares with a full outfit of western clothes complete with fringe coat cowboy boots and added a 380 caliber pistol vincent started calling renee puffalo pill a mispronunciation of buffalo bill due to his accent which only angered the boy more i love it i love vincent getting back at him because i'm sure this guy just showed up and van gogh was just like oh buffalo pill and everyone was like i just said he's buffalo pill he's like oh he did it again vincent does it again and renee's sitting there like you shut up shut up in their hall like blow off those pistols vince oh what a bird what i love that kid taking his hat off slamming it on the ground stomping on it so to hear him get a little win in there a little prank war i love it that's great makes me happy in their book van gogh the life authors nafa and smith speculate that the secreta boys quarreled with vincent around a farmyard on boucher road they may have accidentally fired the gun striking vincent in his abdomen vincent then stumbled back towards the inn where he covered for the boys the boys in shock at what they had done may have collected vincent's belongings and fled the scene destroying what evidence might remain it seems plausible one because he's a sweet man yes and clearly he put up with this bullying for a long time so they're being very cruel to him and he's still just kind of like hey that's just how it goes he had a relationship with one of the brothers and that's the other thing if he's close with gaston then maybe he doesn't want to point fingers to renee yeah because it's going to ruin their life yeah it'd be a devastating thing yeah i buy it i think i think i could get behind this the theory is supported by the fact that multiple witnesses saw vincent leave the inn and head towards the hamlet of chappenvall and not towards the fields where he claimed he'd been painting that road leads to a spot in waz where renee enjoyed fishing it's possible renee and his brother met vincent on their way back from waz went to a nearby farm yard and then the boys accidentally shot the artist that would also make it easier for vincent to get back to the inn with a bullet in his stomach as opposed to a steep mile long trek back from the wheat fields this theory would explain a lot of things the suicide story does not such as the odd entry point of the bullet the lack of suicide note why vincent took his painting equipment to kill himself why all that gear and the gun could not be found and why he didn't shoot himself in the head they don't think that renee would have been so upset about the cloud about the cowboys yeah that he would i would hope not see that and that makes this story get a different kind of turn yeah still sweet of him to cover but i really really don't want to accept the fact that maybe renee did shoot him on purpose in the wake of the shooting renee gaston and their father left town when they returned renee who rarely traveled anywhere without his pistol no longer had the gun when asked about it decades later renee said vincent stole it from him in the 1930s as vincent's work was beginning to gain notoriety townspeople told an art historian that young boys shot vincent on accident and that vincent protected their identities for fear they'd be accused of murder still largely due to irving stone's 1934 novelization of vincent's life and death and the 1956 movie that followed the idea of vincent van gogh being a tortured genius who took his own life crystallized in the public consciousness in a story that may feel familiar for those of us in our 20s and 30s vincent spent much of his life looking for a purpose trying to find a path that could at once fulfill himself while also bringing joy to others what he didn't know at the time of his death was that his work would be beloved by generations inspiring countless others to pursue their life's true purpose what he did know at the time of his death was how that faithful bullet found a home inside his abdomen but as for the rest of us that truth will remain unsolved well that's a lovely little story i gotta be honest i didn't think that the alternative would be a little bit heartwarming yeah i would say so it would it definitely paints a different image completely of him in my mind because i like most of the public did think he was a torture genius who took his own life yeah but this paints him as a very empathetic understanding man the underlying theme being human kindness yeah not bad it's a good thing to try take it for a whirl yeah it's definitely a good way to end the season oh see we don't agree on anything but right now we hate everything we like this moment so you all take a cue from this and we're all going to be golden [Music] you

Channel: BuzzFeed Unsolved Network

Views: 2,527,589

Rating: 4.8970618 out of 5

Keywords: buzzfeed, buzzfeedunsolvednetwork, buzzfeed unsolved network, Unsolved True Crime Season 5 Marathon, Mystery, investigation, Ryan bergara, Shane madej, Mini doc, Cold case, Creepy, theories, unsolved mysteries, PL-Unsolved, PL-UnsolvedTrueCrime, PL-UnsolvedTrueCrime-S5, buzzfeed ryan, buzzfeed shane, watcher, unsolved true crime, unsolved network, eerie, crime, unsolved mystery, investigate, unexplained, supernatural, detective, scary, strange, K_fe, SffZ

Id: HBhXvLlB-kY

Length: 161min 24sec (9684 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 14 2020