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Episode: Episode 628: The Murder of Nancy Evans Titterton

Author: Morbid Network | Wondery
Duration: 01:05:08

Episode Shownotes

On the morning of April 10, 1936, Nancy Evans Titterton, novelist and wife of NBC Radio executive Lewis Titterton, was found sexually assaulted and strangled to death in the bathtub of her apartment in Beekman Place, a prominent New York City apartment building. Upon first inspection, the crime scene yielded

few clues—a fingerprint in the bathroom, a length of rope used to bind her hands, and little else. Within a week, detectives were no closer to solving the case than they were on day one, until a break finally came when the rope and a single horsehair was traced to a local upholstery shop, and ultimately to an apprentice upholsterer named John Fiorenza, who, along with his boss, Theodore Kruger, discovered Nancy’s body while delivering a piece of furniture. Eventually, Fiorenza confessed to assaulting and murdering Nancy Titterton, but claimed temporary insanity. At the trial, the jury rejected Fiorenza’s defense and he was found guilty and he was executed in January 1938. Although the case of Nancy Evans Titterton may seem rather straightforward, it stands as an early example of science and law enforcement coming together to solve a case that had previously seemed destined to remain unsolved. Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!ReferencesNew York Times. 1937. "Clemency is asked for John Fiorenza." New York Times, January 12: 3.—. 1936. "Fiorenza counsel accuses a 'fiend'." New York Times, May 21: 7.—. 1936. "Fiorenza doomed to electric chair." New York Times, June 6: 34.—. 1936. "Fiorenza insane, alienst swears." New York Times, May 26: 48.—. 1936. "Fiorenza's mother sets up an alibi." New York Times, May 23: 34.—. 1936. "Plea of insanity by Fiorenza likely." New York Times, April 23: 5.—. 1936. "Scientists study clues to slayer of Mrs. Titterton." New York Times, April 12: 1.—. 1937. "Titterton slayer is put to death." New York Times, January 22: 42.—. 1936. "Upholdwerter's aide confesses murder of Mrs. Titterton." New York Times, April 22: 1.—. 1936. "Woman writer, 34, found strangled in bathtub in home." New York Times, April 11: 1.Schechter, Harold. 2014. The Mad Sculptor: The Maniac, the Model, and the Murder that Shook the Nation. New York, NY: Little A Publishing .Times Union. 1936. "Countess tells of prowler knocking on door 8 hours before writer was strangled." Brooklyn Times Union, April 11: 1.—. 1936. "Arraigned and denied bail, he then retraces flght." Times Union (Brooklyn, New York), April 22: 1.—. 1936. "Fiorenza guilty in first degree." Times Union (Brooklyn, New York), May 28: 1.—. 1936. "Johnnie was a good boy, sobs mother of slayer." Times Union (Brooklyn, New York), April 21: 1.—. 1936. "Hunt mysterious prowler." Times Union (Brooklyn, NY), April 12: 1.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_03
Hey weirdos, it's Ash here, ready to share a little secret. Have you heard of Wondery Plus? With ad-free episodes and one week early access, it's like having an all-access pass to our lighthearted nightmare.

00:00:10 Speaker_03
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00:00:18 Speaker_01
You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast.

00:00:24 Speaker_03
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00:01:22 Speaker_03
Prime members can play select games free, including Fortnite and a rotating monthly selection of games from across the Luna library. Go to luna.amazon.com to get gaming. Hey Weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid. I know. I'm sick.

00:01:51 Speaker_03
She's like very loopy. Did you take Dayquil today? Uh, no. You didn't take anything? I didn't. You're so loopy today.

00:01:57 Speaker_04
No, I'm just, I'm raw dogging the day.

00:01:58 Speaker_03
Whoa. Settle down, brother. It's been very funny up in the pod lab today. It has. It's been a good, we're good time gals today. We are. Mikey included.

00:02:08 Speaker_04
Mikey is part of the good time gals.

00:02:10 Speaker_02
What's up with you?

00:02:11 Speaker_03
How's your, um... What day is this coming out? What's going on? I think this comes out like after Thanksgiving. Yeah. So like how was your Thanksgiving? It was great. You were there. Yeah, I was. I was just looking for things to chat about.

00:02:26 Speaker_03
You fucking asshole.

00:02:27 Speaker_04
No, I'm just being a dick. You douche! We just started screaming at each other. Fuck you! We just turned off the mic. Just an hour of silence.

00:02:36 Speaker_04
um no thanksgiving was great yeah i liked it you great cook thanks you bet i hope you guys ate all kinds of delicious things i forgot to take leftovers and then you went away for a weekend i know and i didn't get to go out we were all supposed to go away and do like this fun little family thing

00:02:53 Speaker_03
and I couldn't because my cat was sick, my little Frankie was sick, and it turns out it was very scary, you guys. If your cat has ever passed a stone and you think that somebody's been murdered in your house, same.

00:03:05 Speaker_03
The amount of blood that I was finding just in various spots throughout my house, I was like, Oh my god. That sounds terrifying. It was so scary and we knew that Franklin like wasn't feeling well because he gets super cuddly when he doesn't feel well.

00:03:19 Speaker_03
So we took him to the vet and it turns out he passed one stone but unfortunately my man still has one to pass so. He's out here. Yeah but they sent his like cultures to Italy or something. That's fancy as hell.

00:03:30 Speaker_03
I know and the the cultures came back and they didn't have bacteria so that's that's my cat's health for you. He's okay and I love him so much. We love Frankie. Frankie forever. You and Franklin have a spiritual connection. We really do. No, you do.

00:03:45 Speaker_03
And Franklin doesn't like very many people.

00:03:47 Speaker_04
No, that's what makes me feel so good. Yeah, he loves you. Because he'll come up and snuggle me on my lap.

00:03:52 Speaker_03
Yeah. And he's not snuggly with just anybody. No way. Like even Drew, he's like sometimes snuggly with, but most of the time it's just me. But me, always snuggly. Always.

00:04:02 Speaker_04
I know. Always. Me and Frankie for life. It's getting to the end of the day.

00:04:09 Speaker_03
It's getting to the end of the day and we're goofy. We're goofy-loofy. We're not gonna be goofy for long though because I do actually have a very sad case today. That's why we're getting it out now. Yes exactly we had to get it out of our systems.

00:04:20 Speaker_03
Do you feel un-goof-fied?

00:04:23 Speaker_04
I believe I do. By the way I just have a cold. I don't have COVID or anything.

00:04:27 Speaker_03
Oh yeah back to you.

00:04:28 Speaker_04
Yeah I just like I don't have a... I'm not like out here spreading COVID. Dash. Can you imagine if she did that to me? That'd be shitty as hell.

00:04:37 Speaker_03
Again.

00:04:37 Speaker_04
That'd be shitty. As hell. Your book tour gave us COVID and then. I know. And then. And then. And then. But no, it's just a cold. It's one of those. Kids are back to school. I get all the delicious germs that come floating in here. I just eat them up.

00:04:53 Speaker_04
The most wonderful time of the year.

00:04:57 Speaker_03
But you did determine that you actually did eat the germs up. I think I did.

00:05:01 Speaker_04
Oh, yeah. Because I determined my kids, like, they're not sick, knock on wood. They're just carrier pigeons here bringing it into me.

00:05:11 Speaker_04
When we have like lots of after-school activities that we have to like go in different directions to, I will like have to be like eating you know kind of quick and on the go. So if they don't finish something, I'll just like quickly eat it up.

00:05:26 Speaker_04
Whatever they didn't finish. I'll just quickly scoop that up. Just to like get some fuel for the next thing. Yeah. And I'm pretty, that's probably what happened.

00:05:33 Speaker_03
Yeah, their gross nasty saliva germs around them. That's why. I just ate it up. They're always trying to drink out of my water bottle and I'm like, get the fuck away from TT's stuff. It's true. Do not touch TT's water bottle. She doesn't say that.

00:05:44 Speaker_03
I don't say that. Can you imagine? Oh my god, no I can't. I would never. But I did say the other day at dance class, I was like, no, no, no, this is a grownup drink because I'm drinking like, uh, it's like armor colostrum.

00:05:56 Speaker_03
So I'm like, you guys probably shouldn't drink that. But I was like, Oh fuck. Everybody at all the other moms probably thought that I said like wine in your tumbler. I'm just sipping on the scissor.

00:06:06 Speaker_04
But dance class. Like, this is a grown-up drink. They're like, what? They're like, wow, TT. Yeah. You're crazy. Yeah. So any parents or people taking care of little kids out there, my thoughts are with you at this difficult time. Your heart will go on.

00:06:21 Speaker_03
Which means back to school during the winter and fall. It's rough.

00:06:24 Speaker_04
But we're good.

00:06:26 Speaker_03
You're good, but it's only the start of the season.

00:06:28 Speaker_04
I know. Hopefully I'm building some immunity. I'm on vitamins. Yeah, take some emergency. Yeah. We all have an emergency moment. I do too, yeah. Some liquid IV.

00:06:37 Speaker_03
Liquid IV, of course, a sponsor. Hell yeah. The colostrum I'm taking is great. 10 out of 10 recommend. Not a doctor. There we go. And that's health. And wellness. With me being sick. And me not being sick. So let's get into it today, brothers.

00:06:53 Speaker_03
I have an older case, but it's, you know how we always are like, we do the older cases because the way that they solve it is always like so interesting. Yes. This case in particular, the way they solve this case is actually wild.

00:07:07 Speaker_03
Like it took some, it took some serious detective work and it took somebody going back to the scene to find something that really even like drove it home further. Oh, I love the dedication.

00:07:18 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:07:19 Speaker_03
So we're going to be talking today about the murder of Nancy Evans Titterton and I just want to say she sounds like she was like so cool and just like sweet. Poor Nancy.

00:07:30 Speaker_03
I feel bad because she just had her career like really start to take off like she was really like climbing the ladder in the right direction and This crime, all crime, is obviously pretty senseless, but this one specifically was so senseless.

00:07:44 Speaker_03
So let's get into it. So Nancy Violet Evans was born in 1903 in Dayton, Ohio, to Frank and Stephanie Evans. From a very young age, she took a strong interest in reading and writing.

00:07:56 Speaker_03
And after she graduated from high school in 1920, she decided she was going to get her degree in English at Antioch College. She crushed it there. She won multiple awards for her writing.

00:08:06 Speaker_03
And once she graduated from college in 1924, she went back home to Dayton. She worked briefly in a factory, but then moved on to run a small bookshop, but then decided she wanted a little bit more for herself.

00:08:18 Speaker_03
So she moved to the Big Apple, New York City, and she decided there she was going to pursue a literary career. Wow. Yeah, just rolling with it. Rolling with the literary punches.

00:08:28 Speaker_03
So when she got to New York, Nancy rented a small apartment in Greenwich Village and she found a job as a bookseller at Lord & Taylor, which is funny to think about Lord & Taylor selling books. I know.

00:08:39 Speaker_03
But in her spare time, she focused on making connections in the literary world. She wrote book reviews for a bunch of New York newspapers, just writing anywhere she could. That's awesome. And really trying to get her name out there.

00:08:50 Speaker_03
And the work of writing book reviews back then wasn't really glamorous, but she did it so that it would keep her connected to her passion.

00:08:57 Speaker_03
And after a few years, she was offered a job at Double Day Books, which was one of the most prominent names in publishing at the time.

00:09:04 Speaker_03
And there she was instrumental in building the company's nascent but increasingly popular Crime Club series, which was a true crime series. That's pretty cool. Yeah, so she had an interest in that.

00:09:17 Speaker_03
One friend later told reporters, the principal thing about Nancy was that she was not flashy in any way. She'd rather discuss a new book, I think, than anything. She wasn't interested in politics or parties or clothes, as most women are.

00:09:28 Speaker_03
So in 1927, Nancy met Lewis Titterton, a British man who also loved literature and writing just as much as she did. Lewis Titterton had been a star academic at Harvard and at Cambridge University, so very educated man.

00:09:42 Speaker_03
He studied Middle Eastern languages there before he took a job as the assistant editor at Atlantic Monthly, which was a really, really impressive achievement for somebody who was still in his 20s.

00:09:53 Speaker_03
The job at Atlantic opened doors for him in the literary world, and within a few years he moved on to a position as associate editor at the Macmillan Company, one of the biggest names in publishing as well.

00:10:04 Speaker_03
And like Nancy, he also spent his spare time writing book reviews. Which you just think of the two of them, and they're a good couple, don't worry. You just think of the two of them. I know, I was like, please tell me I can like them.

00:10:13 Speaker_03
Yeah, just like sitting at home writing book reviews together. That's just such a cozy life. I love that.

00:10:20 Speaker_03
They dated for two years, and then they got married in October of 1929 in a small ceremony at the little church around the corner, famous landmark in New York City.

00:10:29 Speaker_03
And not long after their wedding, they moved to the Beekman Place Apartments on the east side of Manhattan.

00:10:36 Speaker_03
Now, in the few years that followed, Beekman Place would actually gain quite some notoriety for a series of unconnected murders, beginning in 1935 when Vera Stretz murdered her boyfriend.

00:10:48 Speaker_03
And then that was followed by Nancy Titterton's murder six months later in 1936. And finally, the murder of Veronica Gideon in 1937, which we actually just recently covered. So interesting. You just wonder what the energy was in that place.

00:11:06 Speaker_03
In a tragically ironic twist, actually just after moving into Beekman, Nancy wrote to a friend about how much she loved her new place. She said,

00:11:21 Speaker_04
Oh no.

00:11:22 Speaker_03
Which very much could. Oh no. But Nancy and Lewis had a lot of good years before tragedy visited Beekman Place. By then, Lewis had accepted a new job as the chief of the script division at NBC Radio.

00:11:36 Speaker_03
And for somebody who spent his entire professional life focused on literature and language, this new position was difficult. But as Harold Schechter wrote, Lewis was, quote, intent on elevating the cultural quality of radio programming.

00:11:48 Speaker_03
It's like really heady people, you know? Yeah. At the same time, Nancy had made a major transition of her own. She actually left her job at Doubleday to focus on her own writing full-time. At first, her success was pretty slow to come.

00:12:03 Speaker_03
She published a few stories in various literary magazines, but she was really struggling to find her home as an author.

00:12:09 Speaker_03
Then, in 1935, Story magazine, which was a prestigious journal known for launching some of the biggest authors of the day, they offered to publish her short story called I Shall Decline My Head.

00:12:21 Speaker_03
It was a story about a quote, old man adrift in dreams of the past. So the story actually caught the attention of some major players in the publishing world and some of them called her a writer of exceptional literary merit.

00:12:34 Speaker_03
Oh, that would be amazing to hear. Yeah, absolutely. So after that, Nancy was offered a contract for her first novel, which was published by Story Press, a new publishing imprint of Story Magazine.

00:12:45 Speaker_03
She was really, she had just really found like big success.

00:12:48 Speaker_04
Yeah, seriously.

00:12:50 Speaker_03
But unfortunately it was short-lived. On the morning of April 10th, which was Good Friday, 1936, Lewis finished his breakfast around eight in the morning and left to head into his office just a short time later.

00:13:02 Speaker_03
When he arrived, he found what he described as an amusing letter from a friend. So a little after 9 a.m., he called Nancy to tell her about the letter. This was the first of two calls that Nancy got that morning.

00:13:13 Speaker_03
The other call came from her friend, Georgia Mansbridge. She spoke with Georgia for a few minutes and then hung up around 10-15 a.m.

00:13:20 Speaker_03
She and Georgia made dinner plans for that night, and Georgia later told reporters, I feel sure no one was in her apartment when we spoke.

00:13:27 Speaker_03
Now, nobody heard anything from Nancy until about 11.30 in the morning when Oneida Smithhead, a maid in the apartment just below the Tittertons, actually heard somebody in the building yell, Dudley, Dudley, Dudley.

00:13:39 Speaker_03
And then the voice suddenly went quiet. Dudley Mings was the building's handyman, so whoever this was was presumably calling out for him.

00:13:46 Speaker_03
According to author Harold Schechter, there was an urgency to the cry, but since the tenants routinely shouted for mings whenever a toilet overflowed, a ceiling light blew, or a sash window wouldn't open, the maid disregarded the cry, just thinking it was nothing more than that.

00:13:59 Speaker_03
Which you can understand. Yeah, of course. So a short time later, a delivery boy from a local dry cleaner also arrived at Beekman Place. He had a dress for Nancy. And he was under the impression that she would be home.

00:14:11 Speaker_03
But after ringing the bell several times and getting no answer, he left. Just was going to deliver the dress at a different time. Yeah. At 4.15 p.m., another delivery arrived.

00:14:20 Speaker_03
This time it was an upholster, Theodore Kruger and his assistant, John Fiorenza. They were there to deliver a loveseat that Nancy had reupholstered.

00:14:30 Speaker_03
And after climbing the four flights of stairs, they were surprised to find that the Titterton's front door was actually open slightly.

00:14:36 Speaker_04
Oh, that must be so ominous.

00:14:38 Speaker_03
Yeah. Kruger knocked on the door loudly and didn't get any response, but he assumed that maybe they left the door open for him so he could deliver the last seat, like they knew this delivery was coming.

00:14:49 Speaker_03
So the two men entered and they set the sofa down.

00:14:51 Speaker_03
Kruger left the bill on the seat and he intended to call later, but as they were making their way downstairs to leave, he realized that he didn't have their phone number, so he wasn't going to be able to call them and make good on this.

00:15:02 Speaker_03
So he went back up to the apartment to get the number before he and his assistant left. He later told the police, I found the phone in the bedroom and took the number.

00:15:10 Speaker_03
And as he was turning to leave, Kruger noticed that the bathroom light was on and that the door was slightly open. So he went over and knocked, which pushed the door open just even wider.

00:15:21 Speaker_03
Standing in the doorway, he could see a woman's nude leg hanging over the side of the tub. He called out to her loudly, but there was no sign of movement. Now even more concerned, he inched closer to the tub and he looked inside.

00:15:35 Speaker_03
And he later said, my knees began shaking and I felt sick. I shouted to Johnny, my God, something's happened to the missus. Call the police. So Kruger's assistant did as he was told.

00:15:45 Speaker_03
And despite having not been in the bathroom at the time or having been told what his boss had discovered, he told the officer on the other end, there's a woman tied up in the bathtub.

00:15:56 Speaker_03
um that's suspicious uh-huh that's weird yeah so homicide detectives arrived at the apartment a few minutes later and they confirmed what fiorenza had claimed on the phone nancy was laying face down in the tub she was nude except for a white slip around her waist and the pink pajama top and house coat that had been tied around her neck and used to strangle her

00:16:17 Speaker_03
That's awful. There was really no sign of a struggle in the apartment, so detectives concluded that she had to have known her attacker and most likely let him in voluntarily.

00:16:26 Speaker_04
That's even worse.

00:16:28 Speaker_03
Based on the state of disarray in the bedroom, they assumed that some kind of assault had occurred there.

00:16:33 Speaker_03
The clothing that Nancy had been wearing that morning was strewn about the room, and it looked actually like it had been ripped from her body, so there was evidence of a struggle for sure.

00:16:42 Speaker_03
Examining the body, the medical examiner Thomas Gonzalez found ligature marks around her wrist and surmised that Nancy had been bound and most likely sexually assaulted before her pajamas were double knotted around her neck and she was dumped in the bathtub.

00:16:57 Speaker_03
Holy shit. Just thinking of her pajamas being used to strangle her is so dark. But the most chilling information from the medical examiner was his determination that Nancy was still alive when her attacker put her body in the tub. Oh, that's awful.

00:17:12 Speaker_03
And she eventually died there from asphyxiation.

00:17:14 Speaker_04
Ugh.

00:17:15 Speaker_03
Yeah.

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00:20:15 Speaker_03
After doing his preliminary examination, Gonzalez ordered that Nancy's body be removed from the tub and transported to the morgue.

00:20:22 Speaker_03
And it was at that point that they discovered a 12-inch length of cord underneath her body, which presumably was what was used to bind her wrists. But remember, they were no longer bound. Nancy's friend, Georgia, told reporters, poor little Nancy.

00:20:35 Speaker_03
She couldn't fight. She had no strength. She wouldn't know what to do. All she could do was scream. Because she was a woman of very small stature. She was very petite. Now, the crime scene didn't lend a lot of clues.

00:20:47 Speaker_03
The Venetian blinds were all shut and the apartment had been dark when the two men arrived to deliver the love seat.

00:20:53 Speaker_03
In the bedroom, both beds appeared to still have been made from that morning, but the bed near the bathroom was quote, slightly rumpled, as though somebody, perhaps during a struggle, had brushed heavily against it.

00:21:05 Speaker_03
Investigators checked the fire escape and concluded that there was no way somebody would have been able to reach that from the street. So the killer definitely would have had to come through the front door.

00:21:14 Speaker_03
And then in the bathroom, they did discover a fingerprint on the tub. And in the bedroom, they found a fountain pen on the floor. Just all the clues that they could have possibly found.

00:21:25 Speaker_03
While technicians continued to process the apartment, detectives fanned out around the building, just trying to talk to potential witnesses and any neighbors who may have heard something.

00:21:34 Speaker_03
The first person they talked to was obviously Nancy's husband Louis. He actually arrived at the apartment about an hour after police had started their investigation and he hadn't been told about his wife's death yet. So he just walked into this.

00:21:48 Speaker_03
Oh that's awful. And he was shocked to find countless detectives and police in his apartment when he got home. Imagine showing up to that. Yeah he actually when he heard what happened he collapsed. Ugh.

00:21:58 Speaker_04
That breaks my heart.

00:21:59 Speaker_03
Yeah, it's very sad. And given his horrified and very devastated response to what had happened, he really seemed like an unlikely suspect. Yeah. But they did confirm his alibi as well.

00:22:09 Speaker_01
Yeah, of course.

00:22:10 Speaker_03
And it checked out. So he had nothing to do with this. The others who were initial but not very strong suspects included four painters who had been working in the building that day.

00:22:20 Speaker_03
And actually theirs were among the fingerprints that had been discovered in the apartment. But since they were working in the apartment in the days leading up to this, that obviously made sense.

00:22:28 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:22:29 Speaker_03
But they also had alibis that were checked into and they were ruled out as suspects.

00:22:33 Speaker_01
OK.

00:22:34 Speaker_03
Other than the maid in the apartment below, none of the neighbors actually heard any noises coming from the apartment that morning. And one neighbor told a reporter, my collie is a very nervous dog.

00:22:44 Speaker_03
If there had been any great disturbance, I'm sure he would have barked. Oh, so there you go. Yeah. And I believe that. Yeah.

00:22:51 Speaker_03
There was, however, another strange occurrence relayed by Countess Alice Hoyos, who lived in the apartment two floors beneath the Titterdales. Countess? The Countess. Oh, shit. And because she's a Countess, I just refer to her as the Countess.

00:23:04 Speaker_03
The Countess. According to the Countess. And this is really freaky.

00:23:08 Speaker_03
An unknown man had rung the bell at her apartment multiple times in the days before the murder, and she said each time it was like he was trying to disguise his voice so he sounded like somebody different each time he did this.

00:23:21 Speaker_03
And she told detectives each incident went the same way. She said the buzzer would ring, she would answer it, and then the man would say, I'm looking for Miss, and then he would mumble a name.

00:23:31 Speaker_03
what but like not actually come out and say any name hoping somebody would open the door to be like who are you looking for yes exactly so obviously these freaked her out these these calls freaked her out because she was sure like you just said they were a ruse to get her to open the door so she actually tried to get a good look at the man before he walked away she told detectives he was young wore good clothing and seemed to be attempting to hide his face hmm

00:23:55 Speaker_03
And she told them that the last time the man rang the bell was actually just a few hours before Nancy was murdered. Ooh. Yeah. That's haunting. It is.

00:24:04 Speaker_03
So the following day, the medical examiner, Dr. Gonzalez, released his autopsy report, which confirmed, among other things, unfortunately, that Nancy had been sexually assaulted. And the cause of death was listed as ligature strangulation. Yeah.

00:24:19 Speaker_03
The report also stated that, quote, the strangulation caused a hemorrhage of the larynx and three slight internal hemorrhages of the scalp. Wow. So this was a violent assault.

00:24:28 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:24:29 Speaker_03
So the time of death was listed between 11 and 11.30 AM. And that was based on the fact that rigor mortis had, quote, become virtually complete by the time that Gonzalez made his preliminary examination around 5.30 PM. OK.

00:24:41 Speaker_03
And this more or less corresponded with what the downstairs maid said. She told police that she heard those screams coming from the apartment.

00:24:48 Speaker_03
And scratching and bruising on Nancy's hands and arms suggested that she actually had tried very hard to fight off her attacker. In their statement to the press, a spokesperson for the NYPD appeared optimistic.

00:25:01 Speaker_03
He told reporters, there are a lot of things that haven't been developed yet. The research detectives have taken something to the laboratories for further examination.

00:25:08 Speaker_03
We're making a thorough search, but we won't be able to get any real basis for investigation until final reports from them.

00:25:16 Speaker_03
Now, despite the optimistic tone, the truth was that they really didn't have a lot of evidence to work with, and they had almost zero leads.

00:25:24 Speaker_03
Other than the short length of cord found with the body, which was pretty unremarkable, the only other significant clue was that unidentified fingerprint in the bathroom.

00:25:34 Speaker_03
Now, at that time, police forensic departments were actually just starting to work with a new fingerprinting process. They would use silver nitrate to lift prints from surfaces like fabric and porous materials. Oh, interesting. Yeah, right?

00:25:47 Speaker_03
But the system was new and it was going to take a lot of time, so investigators had to be patient with that.

00:25:52 Speaker_04
Mm-hmm.

00:25:52 Speaker_03
So while investigators waited on science to provide any leads, the press seized upon the story of yet another murder in Beekman Place.

00:26:00 Speaker_03
Author Harold Schechter wrote that the killing occurred one week to the day after Vera Stretz's acquittal only added to its lurid appeal. Of course.

00:26:08 Speaker_03
Now, she was somebody who lived in the apartment, Vera Stretz, and she had been accused of murdering her lover in a jealous rage, but she was actually acquitted after she testified for hours on the stand that her murder had been committed in self-defense.

00:26:21 Speaker_03
The Daily Mirror was among the press who reported the story in a very crude manner.

00:26:25 Speaker_03
They quote, and this is awful, they quote, presented the gruesome sex killing as a five panel comic strip complete with graphic drawings of the corpse and a fedora wearing detective bearing a marked resemblance to Dick Tracy.

00:26:39 Speaker_04
Are you fucking kidding me?

00:26:42 Speaker_03
They made a graphic novel out of the crime scene? They made a literal comic strip, a five-panel comic strip. Like, you gotta be tapped. Damn. You gotta be tapped to do that. Yeah, that's... wow.

00:26:53 Speaker_03
And just to publish that and be like, yeah, this is a good choice.

00:26:57 Speaker_04
The amount of people that that went through to approve that is...

00:27:02 Speaker_03
astronomical zero zero integrity and nobody was like this is in bad taste yeah i don't know how that got through other papers particularly the tabloids focused on nancy's quote owlishly solemn bookish demeanor and claimed that she quote liked to parade around her apartment in a negligee even when delivery boys and workmen were present

00:27:24 Speaker_03
Oh, shut the fuck up. Number one, even if she did, that's her fucking prerogative. She's in her own home. And number two, oh, were you there? Did you know that? Exactly. Like, fuck off. Ew. And actually, that's incorrect.

00:27:36 Speaker_03
She was wearing pajamas, which she was strangled with. So that's awful. Nice try. She can do whatever the fuck she wants. Again, it's her fucking apartment.

00:27:44 Speaker_03
But the more reputable outlets, like the New York Times, focused on the scientific aspects of the investigation, drawing comparisons to other recent cases where science actually played a critical role in catching the killers, like Richard Hauptman, who was found responsible for the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and murder.

00:28:00 Speaker_03
A New York Times reporter wrote, test tubes bubbled, microscope experts bent over slides, and a group of police researchmen pondered possibly important notes yesterday.

00:28:09 Speaker_03
Fields of science almost ignored heretofore were entered yesterday, and some of the methods of scientific investigation suggested in the Hoptman case have been resorted to. I just love how they used to talk like that.

00:28:20 Speaker_04
I was just going to say, I love the heretofore of it all. Heretofore.

00:28:23 Speaker_03
Yeah. That's a fun, that's got a nice mouth feel.

00:28:26 Speaker_04
It does. Heretofore. Heretofore.

00:28:28 Speaker_03
Now, within days the tabloids had resorted to sensational tactics like hiring psychic mediums to comment on the identity of the killer. In a Daily Mirror article a few days after the murder, the paper quote, Ms.

00:28:40 Speaker_03
Myra Kingsley, prominent astrologist, is claiming, quote, that the crime was due to the conjunction of the planet Mars, the war god, with the sun in the eighth house, which signifies death.

00:28:52 Speaker_03
She also consulted Nancy's chart and deduced quote the murderer was an older man and that he either came from or has gone to a distance since the crime was committed.

00:29:02 Speaker_04
Okay.

00:29:04 Speaker_03
Which it's like there's a time and a place for astrology and I just don't feel like it's here. I don't I don't think it's here. And I don't know what somebody's chart can tell you about the person that murdered them.

00:29:14 Speaker_02
Yeah. I don't know about that.

00:29:16 Speaker_03
Like I know your chart can tell you a lot about you. Yeah. And you know maybe when you're gonna die but I just feels inappropriate.

00:29:23 Speaker_04
Yeah this just especially with how everybody else is treating it like let's not.

00:29:27 Speaker_03
Yeah and it's like it'd be one thing if like you know for some reason her husband wanted to consult with an astrologist about this but it's a taboo. To just take it upon yourself is really wild. Yeah but she wasn't the only one.

00:29:40 Speaker_03
The Mirror were not alone in their tacky sensational journalism.

00:29:43 Speaker_03
The New York Post, not wanting to be outdone, consulted their own astrologer, Bell Bart, and she claimed the murderer is German or English, has a light complexion, takes drugs or drinks, met Miss Titterton in the fall of 1935, and escaped from Beekman Place in a southwesterly direction.

00:30:00 Speaker_03
Again, I don't know how astrology would tell you that. Yeah, I'm not sure about that. Astrology is not going to tell you how and where this man escaped to. Yeah. That doesn't make any sense.

00:30:10 Speaker_03
Meanwhile, actual detectives focused on the few pieces of evidence that they did have in the case, and the biggest piece among them was the length of cord found in the bathtub.

00:30:20 Speaker_03
Unlike a traditional rope that you would expect to find in a case like this, this cord was thin, and it looked like the kind of cord found on the blinds in the Titterton apartment, but all of the cords in the apartment blinds appeared to be intact, so it wasn't from them.

00:30:35 Speaker_03
But given the length, a little over 12 inches, it seemed unrealistic that it would have bound Nancy's hands for very long, so detectives theorized that it had to have come from a longer piece of rope.

00:30:45 Speaker_03
And if that was the case, they believed, quote, the killer, intent on removing all physical evidence, had sliced off the rope and carried it away with him.

00:30:53 Speaker_03
However, in his rush to get away, he must have missed the shorter piece concealed under Nancy's body. And they were correct. Okay. No. Nancy's funeral service was held on April 13th and attended by over 200 people. Wow. That's telling. That's very telling.

00:31:11 Speaker_03
That same day investigators released another statement to the press, this time to address the growing number of rumors in the press that Nancy had been having an affair and was murdered by her lover. Oh my god. Which was just completely untrue.

00:31:23 Speaker_03
Seriously. Assistant Chief Inspector John Lyons said, we are satisfied now that Mrs. Titterton voluntarily admitted the man. This does not mean, however, that he was a lover or a close friend. It may have been a salesperson or a repairman of some sort.

00:31:36 Speaker_03
Someone who made a casual call. Yeah, that's the thing. It doesn't need to be salacious. Just because she let somebody in, it doesn't mean they were involved with each other romantically. Exactly.

00:31:46 Speaker_03
Investigators felt confident that they were zeroing in on the type of man who had murdered Nancy, but days after her body was discovered, they were still no closer to identifying a suspect.

00:31:56 Speaker_03
The fingerprints that they pulled from the fabrics on the ligature were too degraded to be of use, and the skin fragments found under Nancy's nails were equally useless, unfortunately.

00:32:07 Speaker_03
By midweek, the list of potential suspects had narrowed even further, as Nancy's friends and family were all cleared one after the other.

00:32:14 Speaker_03
By the end of the week, investigators had run down pretty much all of their leads and finally admitted publicly that despite the full-time efforts of 65 detectives on the case, they were at a loss. Wow. Yeah.

00:32:26 Speaker_03
That is so, that would be devastating to hear. Yeah, especially as her family, her husband, like I can't imagine.

00:32:33 Speaker_03
All attempts to trace the manufacturing of the cord used to bind Nancy's hands had proved fruitless, but still the cord remained one of the only viable clues in the case.

00:32:43 Speaker_03
And finally, on April 17th, detectives got a break in the case, when a representative from the Hanover Cordage Company in York, Pennsylvania, contacted them to confirm that that cord was one of many created in their own factory. Wow.

00:32:57 Speaker_03
Which is like, that's crazy. That is crazy. According to the representative from the company, the cord contained istly, which is a fiber nearly unique to their product, which led them to believe that it was one of theirs.

00:33:11 Speaker_03
And they also mentioned that it was commonly used in furniture upholstery.

00:33:16 Speaker_03
oh okay they gave detectives a complete list of their distributors and investigators started tracking the various shipments from the distributors to see if any cordage had made its way to service people in or around manhattan after combing through a very large number of records detectives finally traced a shipment to a new york city distributor who had among their clients theodore kruger an upholsterer on the upper east side and the man who had discovered nancy's body remember

00:33:45 Speaker_03
because remember she was getting a delivery from an upholster on the morning of her murder. Detectives had actually interviewed Kruger extensively and he had been ruled out as a suspect.

00:33:56 Speaker_03
They were able to confirm that he had been in the shop on the morning of the murder. His assistant, John Fiorenza, on the other hand, had not been ruled out.

00:34:04 Speaker_03
And as they started looking into Fiorenza's background, they learned that not only did he have a lengthy criminal history, but also a significant psychiatric report that described him as, among other things, a, quote, personality deviant who would have difficulty in learning to refrain from illegal acts from time to time.

00:34:22 Speaker_03
Oh. I also love that it's from time to time. Yeah, just every now and then. But sometimes he's going to have a hard time referring from illegal activities. He's good. Yeah. What's it like to get the new iPhone 16 Pro with AT&T NextUp Anytime?

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00:36:24 Speaker_03
The more detectives learned about John Fiorenza, the more convinced they became that he was the most likely killer amongst their suspects. He was described as a quote, grade school dropout with a dull, normal IQ and a face fixed in a perpetual smirk.

00:36:38 Speaker_04
I love the dull, normal IQ. They're like dull and normal. Like so boring. Way to have a normal IQ. Boring. So fucking dull. I loved it.

00:36:48 Speaker_03
I love that. Describing something as dull just hits. It does hit. You're so dull. That word just has like a uh. It really does. Yeah. But it seemed that he uh just really didn't have a lot going for him.

00:36:59 Speaker_04
No there's really nothing that sets him apart.

00:37:01 Speaker_03
Yeah never really had. At the time of the murder he was a 24 year old apprentice living with his mother and her second husband in Brooklyn and he was quote withdrawn to the point of extreme social isolation. Oh. Which is scary. Yeah.

00:37:14 Speaker_03
His stepfather told a reporter, and this was crazy, that, quote, Johnny had only spoken to him no more than seven times in the past 11 years. What? His stepdad, whomst he lived with, had spoken to him no more than seven times in 11 years. Holy shit.

00:37:35 Speaker_03
Like,

00:37:36 Speaker_04
what when you said extreme extreme you meant extreme yeah that's like a that's like agoraphobia isn't it something akin to that i would i mean yeah maybe is there something you know adjacent to that yeah probably like he left the house but it was like a it was like a social agoraphobia yeah like extreme yeah

00:37:58 Speaker_04
whoa like that's just like I like I'm a quiet person. Yeah you would consider yourself an introvert. Yeah I consider myself an introvert and that is mind-boggling to me.

00:38:07 Speaker_03
Well because you're living in the same home as somebody like you don't even and you're living in New York so presumably you're living in an apartment and you don't just like exchange pleasantries in the morning.

00:38:17 Speaker_03
That's the thing I'm like what's going on there. I'm also like what did you say in those seven times? Damn.

00:38:22 Speaker_03
Yeah he also it was said that he hadn't started dating until a few years earlier and he's 24 so of course that's a bit unusual but he had started seeing his girlfriend Pauline D'Antonio and he was planning to marry her in the fall actually they were engaged.

00:38:37 Speaker_04
Okay.

00:38:38 Speaker_03
Yeah but his criminal history went back more than a decade and his first arrest happened when he was 12 years old. I mean, that's not great. That's not great. It's not a good start. No, he had stolen a bicycle.

00:38:51 Speaker_03
And since then, he had just been in and out of trouble with the law on a regular basis. For the most part, the crimes that he committed were petty.

00:38:58 Speaker_03
They were like thefts, but there was a grand larceny charge for stealing musical instruments from a store.

00:39:04 Speaker_04
Okay.

00:39:04 Speaker_03
And during one of his periods of incarceration, he was examined by a prison psychiatrist who described him as a, quote, neurotic type of personality deviant.

00:39:13 Speaker_03
With him, the wish is father to the thought and leads quickly to action without consideration or foresight.

00:39:19 Speaker_04
Interesting.

00:39:20 Speaker_03
Yeah, more simply put, he was the type of person who acted very impulsively and based on what he wanted in the moment without any kind of consideration for consequences. Ah, I see.

00:39:30 Speaker_03
And this, the psychiatrist believed, was supported by his many brazen crimes, including stealing cars in the middle of the day in full view of crowds of people, but just because he wanted to take them for a joyride. Damn.

00:39:43 Speaker_03
But would literally just like break into a car and take it. Yeah, like whatever. And just didn't give a shit. It's mine. Yeah.

00:39:50 Speaker_03
Now, despite John's criminal history and dull personality, Theodore Kruger had taken pity on John and hired him, like we said, as an upholstery assistant three years earlier.

00:40:01 Speaker_03
Upholstery was a skill that John had actually learned during one of his prison stays.

00:40:04 Speaker_03
For the most part, his job was just to sweep up the studio, keep the front windows clean, help out with deliveries, but occasionally Kruger had him assist with more complicated tasks.

00:40:14 Speaker_03
As far as Kruger was concerned, John was quote, good-natured, but not very quick-witted. And his criminal record, which Kruger described as being over little things, had kept John from finding success.

00:40:25 Speaker_04
Okay.

00:40:26 Speaker_03
Kruger thought that John seemed determined to better his life though and he found that to be an admirable quality so he took a chance on him. Which I get that. Yeah and Kruger seems like a nice guy.

00:40:35 Speaker_04
Yeah seems like an admirable quality.

00:40:38 Speaker_03
Yeah if somebody is showing you. Seems like they really are. Yeah exactly.

00:40:43 Speaker_03
In fact, the morning that they were to deliver the loveseat to Nancy Titterton's apartment, John had arrived a few hours late to work, telling his boss that he had been at an appointment with his probation officer. So that's interesting.

00:40:57 Speaker_04
I was going to say probation officer.

00:41:00 Speaker_03
But you know, he's checking in with his probation officer. So Kruger's like, he's doing the right thing. He's being a good kid. Like he's doing what he needs to do. Yeah, he's trying to better himself.

00:41:11 Speaker_03
Now, although they had traced the cord back to Kruger's shop and they were pretty confident that they had found their killer at this point, investigators knew that the cord alone was not going to be able to hold him for very long and especially not on a murder charge.

00:41:24 Speaker_03
After all, that particular cord had been shipped to many upholstery shops, and they couldn't be sure if it definitely came from Theodore Kruger's shop. So this was all, like, very tenuous. Yeah, very tenuous.

00:41:35 Speaker_03
So rather than arrest him, John was placed under 24-hour surveillance while detectives and forensic experts desperately searched for any additional evidence that would lead to a conviction.

00:41:45 Speaker_03
Now after one week of investigation, the Titterton apartment had been thoroughly searched and it really seemed unlikely that any new evidence was going to be discovered.

00:41:54 Speaker_03
But just in case, on April 20th, Dr. Alexander Gettler, a biochemist who was working with the NYPD, went back to the Beekman Place apartments in hope of finding anything new.

00:42:05 Speaker_03
hmm now he had been the one actually to discover the isley contained within the cord and eventually traced its origin so without him like this all you'd be nowhere near this it never would have happened and if anybody was going to find something that somebody had missed it was going to be this guy

00:42:22 Speaker_03
At the apartment, he was combing over Nancy's bedspread with a high-powered magnifying glass when he discovered one single hair that the other technicians had missed. A single hair. This guy for life. No, honestly. It makes me think of Spencer Reed.

00:42:39 Speaker_03
It makes me think of Spencer from Criminal Minds. Yes, absolutely. I just picture him like going over it with like a high-powered glass. Yes. Now later, he described the hair as white and quote, strangely stiff. He said it certainly was not human.

00:42:54 Speaker_03
Now after examining the hair under a microscope, he determined that it was horse hair, which was the kind typically used by upholsters. Oh, I didn't even think of that. Yup.

00:43:04 Speaker_03
Now aware that the Tittertons had their love seat delivered on the morning of the murder, Gettler took a sample of the horse hair from the love seat and compared it to the one that he discovered on the bed, and the two were a match.

00:43:17 Speaker_03
So that hair that was found on Nancy's bed was a match to the love seat that had been delivered that morning. Shit.

00:43:24 Speaker_03
Now, given that the hair came from the love seat, it didn't seem unreasonable that one of the hairs made its way to another location in the apartment, but that love seat hadn't been delivered until after Nancy was killed, which meant that the only way it could have gotten mixed up on the bedclothes or the bedspread was if the killer had it on him when he sexually assaulted Nancy on the bed.

00:43:44 Speaker_03
Oh, God. Yeah. And this was precisely the piece of evidence that detectives needed to break that case wide open. Damn. So they went back to Theodore Kruger, who was absolutely shocked to learn that his assistant was even a suspect.

00:43:58 Speaker_03
He told detectives that John Fiorenza was a quote, perfect gentleman, and assured him quote, there was never anything about him that was bad. He said, why I've even seen him take the meat out of his sandwich for lunch and give it to our dog.

00:44:11 Speaker_04
oh which is very sweet but like okay murderers are nice to animals sometimes i was just gonna say okay so so we're trying to make a connection here that if you feed a dog you could have possibly murdered a human being no never Got it.

00:44:28 Speaker_03
Theodore seems very naive.

00:44:32 Speaker_04
I was just gonna say, but that just seems like, but that's such a nice thing to do, give a dog your sandwich meat. It is. How could you be that nice? But it doesn't mean that you didn't murder somebody. It's true. I feel bad.

00:44:45 Speaker_04
That's very, because you can tell it like, He was not wanting to accept what was in front of him.

00:44:51 Speaker_03
And I feel bad, too, because that would make you doubt any kind of confidence you have in anybody. Of course it would. You're like, I took a chance on this guy. I really thought he was wanting to better himself.

00:45:02 Speaker_03
And I mean, had he not given him a chance, Nancy would still be alive, technically, possibly. So you would just think constantly, like, what the fuck?

00:45:11 Speaker_04
And that's the thing, like, I can't imagine what it feels like to have interacted and found yourself, like, enjoying the company of a person who murdered someone. Like, that must be hard to reconcile. Absolutely. But it has nothing to do with you.

00:45:25 Speaker_03
No, absolutely not.

00:45:26 Speaker_04
In fact, in case you're out there and that happened to you, like, you probably don't think it has anything to do with you. No, you're a better person than most of us.

00:45:34 Speaker_04
You should be able to trust people who are showing you that they're bettering themselves.

00:45:38 Speaker_03
Exactly. And like we said, He was putting out all the illusions that he was bettering himself.

00:45:45 Speaker_03
And Theodore confirmed to detectives that it was true that John had been late to work on the morning of the murder, but he said it was only because he had his weekly appointment with his probation officer. He's like, he's doing the right thing.

00:45:56 Speaker_03
Now, Fiorenza's alibi, the probation appointment, was the last piece of the puzzle that detectives needed to knock down before they could arrest him. Fortunately, that proved a lot easier than they could have expected.

00:46:07 Speaker_03
Like I said, the Friday that Nancy was murdered was Good Friday. And John's probation officer, a very strict Catholic, had taken that day off. So there was no way John met with his probation officer. Wow. Exactly. So then why was he late? Wow. Wow.

00:46:27 Speaker_03
The way this case came together, like I said at the beginning, that's why these old timey cases are so intriguing to us because it's not, oh, his DNA was found at the crime scene. Or they saw him on a camera. Yeah, they saw him on a camera.

00:46:40 Speaker_03
This is like, old-fashioned detective work.

00:46:43 Speaker_04
This is like, you have to go talk to this person, you find out from this person that this person wasn't working that day, so this person's story doesn't line up. Right.

00:46:51 Speaker_04
And the fact that it lined up that way, that it was Good Friday, and so it happened to be the day that a strict Catholic took off. Yeah.

00:47:01 Speaker_03
that that's like crazy.

00:47:03 Speaker_03
That's crazy and like the guy who went the investigator who went back and found the hair that nobody else had found and it was this one just I mean picture one strand of horse hair like that's like a small hair it's like finding a dog hair on your bed yeah but just finding that back then and then going back and saying oh that's from the the furniture that was reupholstered like it's unbelievable it really is

00:47:26 Speaker_03
So with the newly discovered evidence in hand and John's alibi disproven, detectives moved quickly to arrest their suspect. And at first, John denied having anything to do with the murder. He insisted he was innocent.

00:47:37 Speaker_03
But after more than 16 hours of relentless interrogation, he asked to speak to Commissioner Louis Valentine. And he told the commissioner, give me a cigarette and I'll tell you all I know.

00:47:48 Speaker_04
Damn.

00:47:49 Speaker_03
All for just a cigarette. Wow. According to his confession, John had gone to the Titterton's apartment on April 9th, the day before the murder, to pick up the love seat with Theodore Kruger.

00:48:00 Speaker_03
And as soon as he saw Nancy, he said, the idea came to me of doing what I did to her afterward.

00:48:05 Speaker_04
Oh my god.

00:48:06 Speaker_03
Yeah. As far as he could tell, Nancy was a slight woman, just about 100 pounds. He said she seemed gentle and soft-spoken, so he was pretty sure she wouldn't put up much of a fight, which he was wrong about because she did. Fuck that guy.

00:48:19 Speaker_03
And the next morning, he called Kruger to say he'd be late, and then he grabbed the 52-inch length of cord he'd taken from the upholstery studio the day before and made his way to the Titterton apartment.

00:48:31 Speaker_03
When he arrived there, he rang the bell and Nancy released the door to let him in because she knew who he was. Upstairs, he told her he'd come about the love seat and he wanted to know where she wanted it.

00:48:41 Speaker_03
He said, just to get her in there, I asked her, didn't she want the love seat in the bedroom? And the question prompted her to go to the bedroom to see if maybe she'd like the furniture in there and Fiorenza followed her.

00:48:52 Speaker_03
Once they were in the bedroom, trigger warning, this is pretty graphic. He attacked Nancy and grabbed, quote, whatever it was she had in her hand and stuffed it in her mouth so she couldn't yell anymore.

00:49:03 Speaker_04
Oh my God.

00:49:03 Speaker_03
Which is why nobody heard anything.

00:49:05 Speaker_04
Yeah.

00:49:05 Speaker_03
With Nancy gagged, he started ripping off her clothes in a frenzy and then he sexually assaulted her. He said, from time to time when she started to scream as the gag worked loose, I throttled her with my hands.

00:49:16 Speaker_04
Oh my God.

00:49:17 Speaker_03
And just has this like, he's recounting a TV show that he watched. What a fucking animal. Yeah, truly. When he was done, he grabbed the pajamas and the dressing coat from the floor, knotted them together, and used that clothing to strangle Nancy.

00:49:31 Speaker_03
Which is like... I am. How do you how do you go from like the grand larceny stealing cars to murdering raping and murdering a woman this brutally?

00:49:43 Speaker_04
It's it's inconceivable. But when you look at this guy, he looks like such a little piece of shit. He sure does. Like he's got it right on his face. He does look dull. He's got a dull, stupid, perpetual smirk.

00:49:57 Speaker_03
And that's the perfect way to describe it.

00:49:58 Speaker_04
It's not a smile, it's a smirk. It's a little shit-eating smirk.

00:50:02 Speaker_03
Shit-eating grin, yeah. At first, he said he thought about filling the tub to make it look like Nancy died by accident, which I'm like, that wouldn't have worked because you strangled her and assaulted her, but okay.

00:50:13 Speaker_04
But cool.

00:50:13 Speaker_03
But he couldn't find the plug, so he left her face down to strangle. Before he left, he got a knife from the kitchen and cut the cord that he used to bind her hands, assuming that he had taken it all with him when he left.

00:50:25 Speaker_04
But he's dull. And dumb.

00:50:27 Speaker_03
So he didn't.

00:50:29 Speaker_03
He managed to get out of the apartment, he said, without being seen, tossed the cord in a public trash can, and then stepped into a drugstore to call his boss and say he'd be a little later than he thought because he was, you know, meeting with his probation officer, doing the right thing, cleaning up his act.

00:50:42 Speaker_03
He's such a good guy. Such a good guy. Gives meat to dogs. Fuck that guy. When he finally got back to the shop a little before noon, the two men finished fixing Nancy's love seat. So he's sitting there fixing her love seat.

00:50:54 Speaker_03
Knowing full well that she's dead in a bathtub. Holy shit. And then they loaded it onto the truck and headed for Beekman Place. Wow. When they asked why he had done what he did, he seemed just as confused and said, she wasn't my type.

00:51:08 Speaker_03
If I saw her on the street, I wouldn't give her a second look. The arrest did come as a shock to those who knew him personally. His girlfriend Pauline refused to believe that he'd committed the murder or was even capable of such a crime, which

00:51:32 Speaker_03
You gotta believe when he confesses that he did it, but also I can understand not thinking that somebody you love is capable of that. Oh, of course. And she told a group of reporters assembled outside her apartment, he did not do it.

00:51:44 Speaker_03
They're telling lies about him. He did not confess. He would not have confessed to such a thing. He will be back and we will be married in September.

00:51:52 Speaker_04
Babe, here's the thing. If that is the case, if he has been implicated in this, something's awry. Something is awry, for sure. Don't be so sure that you're going to get married in September. Yeah, don't be so sure.

00:52:08 Speaker_04
Because it's like, I don't know if he's a great guy.

00:52:10 Speaker_03
Probably not.

00:52:10 Speaker_03
you know if he's implicated in this most likely not obviously we see cases where false confessions happen and yada yada yada this is not one of those this exactly is not one of those and i'm just like he has a shitting and grin you got to be careful of those ones yeah honestly good for her that she was honestly and this is sad obviously john's mother was similarly stunned she told reporters johnny was a good boy he had a girl they were going to be married like murderers do sometimes get married

00:52:41 Speaker_03
Theodore Kruger echoed the disbelief, telling reporters, he was a nice boy, I always thought. Why, I remember, when he saw the body, he said to me, this must be the work of a maniac.

00:52:50 Speaker_04
And that's the other thing. It's like, we can look at it from this side and be like, no, like, he did it, come on. But these people were spending every day with him. Exactly.

00:52:58 Speaker_04
These people were actually getting to know him and had, again, there's so many people in my life that if something like this happened, I'd be like, what?

00:53:06 Speaker_03
No way.

00:53:06 Speaker_04
You know what I mean? Like, I can't think of one person that I'd be like, oh yeah, probably.

00:53:10 Speaker_03
Yeah.

00:53:11 Speaker_04
You probably shouldn't have someone in your life if you think that.

00:53:13 Speaker_03
His mom, his girlfriend, and somebody he worked every single day with. And I can't imagine working with somebody, discovering a body with someone, and having that experience. And then finding out they did it.

00:53:25 Speaker_03
Finding out that they did it and reacted in the moment like so... So normally, like you would expect? Yeah, like organically. Yeah, like, oh, this must be the work of a maniac. Meanwhile, he's the maniac. No, that would be really... Yeah.

00:53:38 Speaker_03
Like, that would fuck you up. That would fuck you up for a long time. For sure. Definitely. What a year it's been, you guys. I know that I have a lot to celebrate and a lot to give myself credit for.

00:53:56 Speaker_03
Honestly, the past few years have been pretty tough, especially for me and Elena, and it feels like a good time to step back and, you know, look at your life in this moment and commemorate it with something beautiful, something sparkly even.

00:54:08 Speaker_03
In all seriousness, if you're thinking of buying jewelry, there really is no better place to do it than BlueNile.com.

00:54:15 Speaker_03
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00:54:31 Speaker_03
If you know me, I agree with Marilyn Monroe. Diamonds are my best friend. I love a good sparkly sister. And Blue Nile actually helped me find this gorgeous tennis bracelet. And tennis bracelets are very in right now.

00:54:44 Speaker_03
So I went immediately to Blue Nile and they helped me out. And God, it is so beautiful. Go to BlueNile.com to shop Blue Nile, the original online jeweler since 1999. That's BlueNile.com. BlueNile.com.

00:55:02 Speaker_03
Now, despite their disbelief, John was arraigned the following day on charges of rape and first degree murder, which again, he confessed to the crime.

00:55:11 Speaker_03
After the arraignment, he accompanied detectives back to the Titterton apartment, where he reenacted the crime and also retraced his escape route.

00:55:18 Speaker_03
With a full confession and now very strong evidence, the assistant prosecutor predicted a very speedy trial and announced he would take the case to a grand jury in the coming days. The judge at the arraignment, Magistrate Aurelio

00:55:34 Speaker_03
commended the police and the prosecutor's office for their efficiency and skill. He said, this case proves that no crime can be hidden from effective police work. As a citizen of this city, I feel extremely proud of the work done by the police.

00:55:46 Speaker_04
Honestly, they deserve that praise because this was really good police work. Incredible.

00:55:52 Speaker_03
Yeah. In his statement to the press, Commissioner Valentine, quote, did not conceal his satisfaction of the unraveling of a mystery. The press and even several of his own detectives had deemed unsolvable. Yeah. Look where they were now.

00:56:05 Speaker_03
He noted that not only was this his big the biggest murder investigation in New York history to that point, but he also emphasized the fact that it wouldn't have been solved without the dedication of more than 65 police officers.

00:56:18 Speaker_03
and, quote, the help of their technical research lab in Brooklyn and of the city toxicology laboratory.

00:56:25 Speaker_03
While detectives on the case were relentless in the pursuit of Nancy's killer, quote, science, Valentine told reporters, quote, played a deciding role in the solution.

00:56:35 Speaker_04
Yeah.

00:56:35 Speaker_03
Which I knew you would love. I love that. It was science. Science. It was. With the killer caught, the DA William Dodge assured residents and reporters that he had every intention of moving quickly to secure his indictment and conviction.

00:56:49 Speaker_03
Just three days after the arrest, Fiorenza's case went to a grand jury on April 25th, and after reviewing the evidence and listening to the testimony from eight witnesses, an indictment for first-degree murder was returned in less than half an hour.

00:57:02 Speaker_03
Despite the hearing, Fiorenza's attorneys, quote, "...brought strong intimations that they would seek to have him declared insane and would assail the method with which his confession was obtained." Please. Yeah. Ridiculous.

00:57:14 Speaker_03
They insisted, despite the fact that he confessed multiple times to rape and murder, that he actually had nothing to do with the crime and had actually been coerced into a confession. I doubt it. Yeah, me too.

00:57:25 Speaker_03
True to their word, though, the district attorney's office moved very quickly, surprisingly quick. And John's trial started May 20th, just a little over a month after the murder occurred.

00:57:34 Speaker_03
Anticipating that Fiorenza's team would go for an insanity plea, Dodge's office enlisted at least four highly regarded psychiatrists to argue otherwise.

00:57:44 Speaker_03
But to their surprise, Fiorenza's lawyer, Henry Klobber, made a different claim and again asserted that his client had nothing to do with the murder.

00:57:52 Speaker_03
He told the jury, a fiend was on the loose and it was not this defendant who murdered Mrs. Chitterton, as he pointed over to his client.

00:58:00 Speaker_03
According to the defense, another woman had been attacked in the area days before Nancy, and they intended to show that it was the same attacker and not John Fiorenza who was responsible for the murder. It's a good tactic. That's cool.

00:58:12 Speaker_03
Why did he confess multiple times then?

00:58:14 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:58:15 Speaker_03
Klobber's claim certainly wouldn't have been the first time a defense lawyer had attempted to pin the blame on just a mysterious unnamed person.

00:58:22 Speaker_04
Of course.

00:58:23 Speaker_03
But the problem was that he had no evidence to support his claim. Oof. And once the jury heard Fioredza's full and very convincing confession read aloud in court, he changed strategies and started building that insanity defense.

00:58:36 Speaker_04
I love that he was like, ah, I knew I was missing something.

00:58:39 Speaker_03
It was evidence.

00:58:40 Speaker_04
My bad.

00:58:40 Speaker_03
My bad. My bad. And just to be safe, his cross-examination of the detectives who took the confession indicated that he was ready to challenge it on the grounds of coercion. I think that's all he's got. He's playing a dirty game. That's all he's got.

00:58:53 Speaker_03
Exactly. Much to the surprise of the prosecution, though, while their previous defense didn't appear to be working out, Klobber and the rest of the defense team just seem to be keeping all their options open and juggling several arguments at once.

00:59:05 Speaker_03
Yeah, you got to hedge your bets there. Not a great plan, though, to go for everything all at the same time. Probably not, but when you got nothing, you got to work with everything. You know, exactly.

00:59:15 Speaker_03
The insanity plea seemed the best bet, but they still called John's mother to the stand, Oop, who testified that contrary to the confession, her son hadn't left the house until a little before 11 a.m.

00:59:25 Speaker_03
on the morning of the murder, which would have made it impossible for him to have committed the murder and still made it to work by 1230 p.m.

00:59:33 Speaker_02
Which it's like, yeah, timelines are a little rough and I don't think we should rely on his mom's version of events, unfortunately.

00:59:41 Speaker_03
If anyone's going to lie for you, it's going to be your mom. It's your mom. In support of their insanity defense, the clubber also called John's stepfather Ignazi Cupani to testify to John's unusual behavior going back many years.

00:59:53 Speaker_03
Like he didn't speak to him for 11 years. Yes, exactly. In addition to hardly ever speaking at home. His stepfather told the court he, quote, used to sit down all the time in the rocking chair with his head between his hands.

01:00:04 Speaker_03
When this happened, he would look up and he would say, who's calling? And we would say, no one's calling. We hear nothing. That's strange. It is. And his stepfather also got down from the stand and demonstrated some of John's other unusual behaviors.

01:00:17 Speaker_03
He said he also had a tendency to, quote, catch something or someone invisible who was following or calling him.

01:00:25 Speaker_04
That's weird.

01:00:26 Speaker_03
It's weird. And it's very like specific. It's very it is very specific. And I believe maybe it happened like interest. I don't know.

01:00:33 Speaker_03
Other family members, including John's aunt, gave additional testimony in support of what his stepfather had told the court.

01:00:39 Speaker_03
But a lot of this testimony was undermined during cross-examination by the D.A., William Dodge, who clearly established that no matter how strange John's behavior might have been, it couldn't have been too severe because he managed to hold down a full time job and a romantic relationship for several

01:00:55 Speaker_03
years.

01:00:56 Speaker_04
That's, that's exactly what I was thinking is like, yeah, I'm, that was very specific what he was saying. So like there could absolutely be truth to that. But it's just being weird. That's the thing.

01:01:07 Speaker_04
Like it's not, I, that's not to me, I'm not like, wow, he's insane. It's like, no, he said he seems just strange. It seems a little weird. Exactly. But not weird enough that he's not fully functioning in society.

01:01:19 Speaker_04
And it's like, if you're fully functioning, holding down a job, having a romantic relationship, then you know what you're doing. You know, you're aware of the consequences of your actions.

01:01:30 Speaker_03
Right, exactly, exactly. So finally, Klobber called on Dr. Albert Crane, and this is where it all went wrong. Albert Crane was a psychiatrist from Staten Island who had examined John.

01:01:42 Speaker_03
According to Crane, John was a, quote, dementia precox case with a split mentality, incapable of realizing the nature and quality of his acts.

01:01:51 Speaker_03
Of course, the question of his sanity wasn't the issue so much as whether he knew what he was doing was wrong at the time, and that was something Crane couldn't deny.

01:02:01 Speaker_04
Okay.

01:02:02 Speaker_03
On cross-examination, Dodge asked the psychiatrist, quote, if he made a confession to the police and was then asked by an assistant district attorney to state the facts again, and he refused on the grounds that it would be used against him, would you say that he knew or did not know the nature or quality of his acts?

01:02:19 Speaker_04
Boom! Someone that could, like, just, can you answer that quick question, please?

01:02:23 Speaker_03
Yeah, could you just let me know? Could you remind me if that, uh, if that works out with your insanity defense? That was some top-notch lawyering.

01:02:30 Speaker_03
Now Crane, who's literally sitting on the stand and knew that this is exactly what had happened in the case, and had also sworn to tell the truth, had no choice but to undermine his own previous testimony.

01:02:42 Speaker_03
He replied, I would say that he was keenly aware of the nature and quality of his behavior at the

01:02:46 Speaker_04
Oh no. I could not stop there. I'd be like, so why did you say you were?

01:02:52 Speaker_01
So why?

01:02:53 Speaker_04
Wait a second. So why'd you say that?

01:02:55 Speaker_03
Explain to me. Imagine as a psychiatrist sitting on that stand and trying, you're a witness for the defense. Geek. And then the DA gets you that easily.

01:03:06 Speaker_04
Well and it's like you just said some bullshit. Like you just laid down some bullshit. And then had to sit up there and undermine your own shit. Yeah, they just untie that bullshit with one finger. Yeah. Bloop. Also, it's giving L words. It is.

01:03:22 Speaker_03
That's a, that's a, like, mic drop moment. Truly.

01:03:25 Speaker_03
Now, the insanity claim was even further weakened when Dodge called on four of his own psychiatric expert witnesses, all of whom testified that whether or not he experienced symptoms of mental illness, John Fiorenza knew that rape and murder were wrong, and that is why he went to great lengths to cover up his crimes.

01:03:42 Speaker_03
Exactly. Both sides, yeah clearly, both sides rested their cases on May 27th and at 3 30 p.m the jury retired for deliberation.

01:03:52 Speaker_03
However, after 11 hours the jury remained deadlocked primarily over whether or not Fiorenza was insane when he committed the crime.

01:04:00 Speaker_04
Guys, he wasn't.

01:04:02 Speaker_03
If he was they would have had the option of sending him to the to a state hospital for the rest of his life but if he was deemed sane and found guilty

01:04:10 Speaker_03
he would most likely receive the death penalty, which I can understand why they were having a hard time with that, like having that decision on your own heart and head is heavy.

01:04:18 Speaker_04
Yeah, that goes on your conscience.

01:04:20 Speaker_03
Right. But finally, after nearly 20 hours of deliberation, they did side with the prosecution and they found John Fiorenza guilty of the murder and rape of Nancy Titterton. I agree with that.

01:04:31 Speaker_03
He seemed pretty unfazed by the verdict, but those close to him were outraged. His father stood up and shouted, it's not fair. He's crazy. He should not go to the chair. They should lock him up. Which you can understand.

01:04:43 Speaker_04
Yeah, and honestly, I agree. Yeah. In that sense. Yeah. Where it's like, yeah, that's hard. That's his family. They know him better than anybody.

01:04:53 Speaker_04
I don't think he should be going to the death penalty because I don't really think it's, you know, we've already discussed how we feel about that. But it's like, so I feel like he's got to be locked up.

01:05:03 Speaker_03
Yeah, I agree. Yeah. But on June 6, 1936, John Fiorenza appeared before the Court of General Sessions for sentencing, and he was formally sentenced to die in the electric chair.

01:05:13 Speaker_04
Damn.

01:05:14 Speaker_03
At the hearing, his attorney continued to push his insanity defense, telling reporters, he doesn't even know what all this is about. He was more anxious to know when I can visit him in the death house, which is sad in some sense, you know?

01:05:27 Speaker_01
Yeah.

01:05:28 Speaker_03
Under New York law, though, a guilty verdict in a death penalty case automatically triggers an appeal. But like in the initial trial, the appeals process moved quickly.

01:05:37 Speaker_03
Not surprisingly, John's attorney insisted that although his client had killed Nancy, he had only done so because of what his psychiatrist referred to as a mental confusion. I don't think so. I don't think so either. I don't see this.

01:05:50 Speaker_03
I think he's possibly mentally ill, but I think he knew what he was doing was wrong. He tried to cover it up.

01:05:55 Speaker_03
He went to her house the day before, decided that he wanted to kill her, came back prepared to kill her, raped and killed her, and then disposed of evidence. Exactly.

01:06:05 Speaker_04
And then later, lied about it. At the scene, he said, oh, a maniac must have done that. That shows you he knew exactly what he had done.

01:06:15 Speaker_03
He continued to cover it up.

01:06:16 Speaker_04
That's why I can't like, well, I'm not like a fan of the death penalty. I don't think, like, he's crazy, but no, I don't think he is. I think he's just a weirdo.

01:06:25 Speaker_03
I think he should spend the rest of his life in jail.

01:06:27 Speaker_04
Yeah, I think he's like, in the negative connotation, a weirdo. Yeah, he's disturbed. And I think he needs to go to jail forever. Yeah. But that's it. Like, I don't think he's insane.

01:06:38 Speaker_04
I don't think there's this whole confusion that they're claiming I think is highly exaggerated.

01:06:44 Speaker_03
There was also multiple, if you rape somebody before you kill them, there's multiple times at which you can stop. Exactly. Before you kill them. And he didn't. And he didn't. He went further and further. Exactly.

01:06:53 Speaker_04
He even said when she tried to scream, he would throttle her to stop her, which that's showing that he didn't want to be caught and he knew he was doing something bad and he did something awful to make sure it was covered up. Exactly. So fuck this guy.

01:07:07 Speaker_04
Exactly.

01:07:08 Speaker_03
Thank you. And now all of a sudden I'm like, fuck that. Yeah, fuck him. It's the part where his family talks about... Yeah, you feel bad for his family.

01:07:16 Speaker_04
A family of a monster who, you know, seemingly has nothing to do with what they've done. It's like, that's a whole different... I do feel bad for them.

01:07:25 Speaker_03
Yeah, you have to. Like, they are victims too in this whole thing. For sure. Arguing in favor of upholding the death penalty though, William Dodge insisted, this man is a potential maniac.

01:07:35 Speaker_03
There is no reason for the state of New York to be cheated of the law, of the enforcement of the law by the pretense of insanity. Which I kind of agree with. Although, again, don't agree with the death penalty.

01:07:45 Speaker_04
Yeah, but I think he is, he's, a maniac is a great way to describe him.

01:07:49 Speaker_03
Yeah, he's a danger to society. Exactly.

01:07:51 Speaker_04
He's literally a leech. Yeah. He called it. In his own words.

01:07:55 Speaker_03
He said a maniac did that.

01:07:56 Speaker_04
He knows what he is. And it's like he should be kept away from society for sure.

01:08:01 Speaker_03
I completely agree. Ultimately his appeal was denied and on January 22nd 1937 he was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison. Just prior to his death he exclaimed, you don't know all I've been through in this place.

01:08:15 Speaker_03
I don't know why they don't give me a chance.

01:08:17 Speaker_04
I know. Because you raped and murdered somebody.

01:08:20 Speaker_03
Pick me.

01:08:20 Speaker_04
I know. Yeah, we all know. You did something fucking terrible. Like, God. You can't get a chance. Give me a chance. Can you give Nancy a chance? Nope, you can't.

01:08:29 Speaker_03
No, you can't.

01:08:30 Speaker_04
Because you raped and murdered her. Exactly.

01:08:32 Speaker_03
And then tried to cover it up and lie about it. Fuck you, John. Such a wild case from start to finish, though. It is. The key star here is the detective work. Yes.

01:08:45 Speaker_03
It's early 1930s and they had all this advanced, not advanced, but at the time very advanced fingerprint technology and just the dedication of people who went back to the scene. Yeah. I found the investigation part of this so interesting.

01:08:59 Speaker_03
Oh, I think it's amazing.

01:09:00 Speaker_04
Like, what an amazing case, like, on the police side of it. And what a sad, senseless. And what a tragic case on the crime side of it. Like, Nancy, you just feel like, holy shit. Like, yeah, she was just getting her career off the ground.

01:09:14 Speaker_03
She did literally nothing.

01:09:15 Speaker_04
And she was just having a delivery. She's just home. She's just home. We all get deliveries. All the time. You let someone come into your home and plop down a piece of furniture and you hope they're not there for nefarious reasons.

01:09:28 Speaker_03
A monster. That's awful. I know, and her poor husband too. Oh, it's awful. Stumbling home to that. Yeah, that's awful. Very, very tragic case. Yeah. But very, very interesting on the investigation side. Yeah, for sure.

01:09:40 Speaker_02
But, with all that being said, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird.

01:09:46 Speaker_02
But not so weird that when you deliver something to somebody's house you decide that you're gonna rape and murder them because, ew, that's really fucking terrible and you should stop yourself from doing things like that. Bye! Don't be a dick.

01:09:56 Speaker_02
Self-control is important.

01:10:55 Speaker_03
If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

01:11:05 Speaker_03
Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

01:11:11 Speaker_00
They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant.

01:11:27 Speaker_00
When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, There were many questions surrounding his death.

01:11:35 Speaker_00
The last person seen with him was Laney Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry.

01:11:47 Speaker_00
But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder.

01:11:58 Speaker_00
Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus.