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I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson.I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime.
And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them.
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes.
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens.
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
I'm doing well, except I've been sort of tortured by this story that we've been talking about so much about Joan Risch outside of Boston in 1961, who's gone missing.
I've been thinking about it actually a lot, just because she is like so many women who I know now who was just at home, trying to take care of her kids, and then all that's left is her blood.
And so I've been really thinking about, gosh, what could have happened to this woman?Have you been thinking about this case?
Yeah, you know, of course, I'm thinking about the case.I pulled up the crime scene imagery.I've got some more thoughts, you know, about the case, but you kind of left me in a lurch with some blood being found.
And I believe it was the master bedroom as well as a trail out to her car.So I kind of want to know more about that.
Okay, and then we still haven't even talked about Joan's background, and if any of this could be connected to her life.So, just as a really, really fast recap, October 24th, 1961, we're in Lincoln, Massachusetts, which is a nice suburb of Boston.
She's a 30-year-old homemaker who just goes missing, and all that's left is this bloody scene.A very confusing scene, I think, in the kitchen with the phone pulled out, and it looks like there's been some violence.She's missing.
She has a husband who's out of town, Martin, and then she has a four-year-old daughter, Lillian, and a two-year-old son, David, who David sounds like was in the crib the whole time.
You had mentioned in the last episode seeing, I think they labeled maybe some underwear and some overalls, It clearly was David.He must have just been in his diaper and nothing else up in the crib.He's crying.
The neighbor doesn't know what's going on.The police come.And they start, of course, investigating.And I think it just must have been daunting to them to see all of the blood that was happening in the kitchen.
And then they want to investigate, of course, the rest of the house, which is where I sort of left you dangling here. So what they find with the rest of the house is there are drops of blood upstairs, just drops in Joan and Martin's bedroom.
There are only about, I'm gonna get specific here, eight drops, which range in size from 1 1⁄8 of an inch to 1⁄4 of an inch.
And there are also two drops of blood in the home's upstairs hallway at the top of the staircase, which are about one-eighth of an inch in size.Lots of blood in the kitchen, I mean, from my point of view, and then some 10 drops maybe upstairs.
Well, it's very nebulous just off the bat, but when you start talking about dripped blood, that tends to suggest that you have an injury.
Let's say you've got a cut finger or a bloody nose, and you just have blood that is dropping from the injury onto the floor.If you have an individual with that type of injury, the drips indicate the movement.
But right now, absent any more information, I can't say if that movement is going to the bedroom.I can't say that it's coming out of the bedroom.It just indicates movement by somebody who has a bleeding injury.
Or if you happen to have a weapon with a lot of blood, there's blood dripping off that weapon.But that tends to slow down rapidly versus having an actual injury where you have a constant flow of blood.
But it indicates that the person who has that injury is mobile, is conscious, is able to move through the house.But I don't know anything.I can't extrapolate anything more than that right now.
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You've got that blood upstairs, and then the police find what they consider to be a trail of blood that starts from the kitchen and goes outside toward Joan's car.Joan has a 1951 Chevy sedan.It is about 20 feet from the house.
No one's been in her car.They don't find anything out of the ordinary, but this is what they say. There is more blood outside.
It's not a huge concentration of blood, but it starts in the kitchen and then abruptly stops in the driveway very close to her car, which is in the driveway.And they said the bloodstains outside, though, are very small.
Two are found just outside the home side entrance on the cement walkway. and four separate stains are found on Joan's car.One of these is two inches long and on the center of her trunk.There's also two one-inch stains on the car's right rear fender.
Then there's a one-inch stain on the left side of the car's hood.So, is this Joan?Or is this the offender who got hurt in this process?
can't tell without actually doing some typing on those stains.You know, I'm looking at the photo that you provided last week of Joan's car parked in the driveway, and it's not parked up by the garage.
It appears that there's a good maybe 30 feet from the front of Joan's car to the garage itself of the house.So it's kind of parked on the driveway away from the house.
Can't see the blood stains that you are describing on the vehicle, but its hood is facing the house, and then the trunk is probably facing the street.So these are significant stains.
One of the observations that I had made from the kitchen is there was also blood drops within the kitchen, in addition to the blood pool, the smears, the contact transfers.You know, this could be Joan.
It could be the offender who got injured in an interaction with Joan.Right now, there isn't enough information to be able to say one way or another unless we type those stains and figure out, is it Joan?And then...
Is she conscious and she's moving around or do we have a hurt offender that's moving around or somebody that is transporting Joan?
You know, I've seen this, where somebody is killed inside a house, and then as they're moved, they leave a dripped pattern from their body, from their injuries, and then that dripped pattern, all of a sudden, stops on the driveway when they are placed into a vehicle.
So that's one of the things I'm assessing, is could Joan have been killed inside this house and carried out of the house, and she's dripping, and then ultimately she's placed in a vehicle.
Or somehow she's, you know, wrapped up and is no longer free to drip.Don't know right now.
Okay, so now we aren't sure with these little bits of blood.Do you have any... Has your theory developed at all at this point?
I know we don't have a ton of information, but, you know, there's some other weird things that happen and there's lots of speculation based on Joan's background, but, you know, I'm just wondering what you think at this point.
Right now, I can't draw a conclusion as to what's happening with the blood, the dripped blood trails inside the house from the bedroom or outside.And looking at this crime scene,
with the various types of blood patterns, where the blood patterns are located at, the smears, contact transfers, some of the dripped blood.This does not look like a staged crime scene to me at all.This looks like a legitimate crime scene.
Staged crime scenes are usually very obvious.Joan is bleeding significantly inside this house.She's on the floor.There are blows to pooled blood sources.
There is movement with, you know, the contact transfer that's, you know, two feet up on the wall, as well as, you know, a place where likely a head would be laying in the corner.
I mean, all of this is entirely consistent with acts of violence being inflicted on Joan inside this kitchen.I know there's thoughts that maybe Joan is staging her own death and wandering away.And this is where, okay, the victimology
does come into play, but the physical aspects of this crime scene just look too authentic to my eye.And I think I have some authority to be able to say that, to go, you know what?Joan got hurt inside this kitchen.
Now, could she have survived and wandered away?Sure. But would Joan have left David, our two-year-old, in the crib, unattended?You know, what is Joan's victimology like?So, that's where I think it's the next step.
It would just take a lot, and I'm sure you're going to have some zinger for me down the road, but right now, it would take a lot for me to change my opinion about this crime scene.
Okay, let's talk about weird stuff.They find a coat hanger on top of her car.There's no blood inside the car.There's no indication that anybody tried to get in the vehicle around the time when Joan went missing.
So the coat hanger will eventually lead to the thought of a botched abortion.The coat hanger, to me, was more like somebody trying to get into the car, to take the car.But her keys are in her purse, which is in the kitchen.
Well, I'm going to give you a third possibility.I think it's possible that the offender has some obvious bloodstains on him or his clothing.And I'm using the term he kind of generically in this sense because I don't know.
And grabbed some item, let's say it's a male offender, grabs something of Martin's out of the closet. And he puts that item of clothing on to cover up the obvious stains.
This is why there could be a dripped blood trail going up to the master bedroom in order to be able to access the adult male's clothing.And then as this person is leaving, they just leave the coat hanger on the car.This is a possibility.
So we think there's definitely a possibility that the offender injured himself, and these are his blood drops.Where is Joan?Paul, it's between 2 p.m.and 3, let's say conservatively, 3.30 in the afternoon.
There's an hour and a half window in the middle of the day with a neighbor right across the street.Who does this, and where did they take this woman if that's what happened?And in what car, where?
Now, I haven't had a chance to, you know, see the layout of this house, the neighborhood, what kind of searching did they do, you know, because she had been pulled out into the backyard and hidden, and then the offender comes back later and grabs her body and then really disposes of it.
I mean, there's so many variables there.I'm not ruling out the possibility of Joan walking away from this, but I'm skeptical of that right now.
Why don't you go back to your photo document, because I didn't really give you a chance to look at exhibits two and three, which are her car, and that might, in the house, and that might give you a little bit of an indication of what we're working with.
It's not secluded, but it's not as, it's not my house, which is right on the street.I mean, it looks like you could be a little sneaky if you look at those two photos.
Yes, and that was somewhat of the impression I got as I scrolled through quickly last week.But to describe for our listeners, I'm looking at a photo of the house that's taken from the driveway.This house is set back from the street.
I can't even see where the street is.I can see Joan's car parked in the driveway facing the house.And the photo is taken from behind the driver's side trunk of the car.
However, there are large trees that appear to be surrounding much of Jones' house.It appears that there would be limited visibility at various spots along the street or in the neighborhood of Jones' house.
And, you know, with the distance away from the neighbors that is apparent in this photograph, You know, this is also where even if you had, let's say, an audible scream, if Joan's being attacked in that kitchen, would anybody have heard it?
This is not your typical kind of cookie cutter neighborhood that you see in modern California, where you're literally two feet away from your neighbor's house with a fence in between.
This looks more countryside, not quite farm, but at least it kind of has spacing like, you know, what you see in some of these farming neighborhoods.
Definitely a lot more space than what we're used to.I mean, in both of these photos, we don't even see another house near it in both of the photos.This doesn't look like a massive house, but it's two-story.It looks like it maybe has an attic.
But speaking of screams, let's go ahead and start talking about what witnesses say or earwitnesses say.We've kind of gone through all the forensics.I mean, our first, entire first episode was all forensics, very little setup. It was very quick.
We didn't know a lot about it.We haven't talked about her.We haven't talked about any dynamics.But we still have some investigative stuff that we have to deal with.So, I told you there's no evidence inside, inside Joan's car.
So, if somebody were trying to get into her car, they didn't do it.They weren't able to get in.But there's blood on the outside.There's this hanger, which, you know, I like your suggestion.
Barbara Barker, who is the neighbor at the center of this, who's in the mother of Douglas, and Lillian was at her house, and she walked her over, she said, somewhere around 2.10 p.m., so the last time we saw Joan was 1.55, so 15 minutes later, after Joan left Lillian at the neighbor's house, she heard Joan yell from across the street at her house.
She said, I thought this was a good description, she said it was a shouting type of noise, not screaming or someone in anguish, like she was mad or trying to force somebody to do something.That's what they heard.
So, there is a group of women playing bridge who is a neighbor at the home of a neighbor who's also, you know, lives close by to Joan.They also, around that time, heard what sounded like a woman yelling.
And the women talked with one another, and one or two said it sounded almost like a cat.But again, it wasn't a scream or somebody in pain.Then, one more thing, Barbara says that she saw Joan wearing a tan trench coat.
in the driveway around 215 to 220, she was running past her car toward the street and appeared to be chasing something red.So, not carrying, but chasing.I don't know if it was a ball or what that was.
So, Barbara said she thought at first that David was dressed in a coat and took off running and Joan went after him, but there was, you know, no obvious red clothing, toddler clothing anywhere around. And David was dressed in a diaper at that point.
So the coat that Barbara sees Joan wearing is later found hanging up in a closet in the house.But there's a gray coat that's missing that Joan had also worn a lot.I mean, I don't understand what's happening with this scene.
There are people who are hearing screams, and then Barbara says she saw Joan chasing something at 2.15.
Yeah, that's tough.That's also, you know, trying to, you know, assess the veracity of Barbara's vision as to what she could have seen from where she saw it.She obviously knows Joan.She'd recognized Joan.
It doesn't sound like she was paying a lot of attention to this action.She just looks up and sees this, you know, kind of this flash and probably goes back to her normal routine, whatever she was doing.
But this missing gray coat, that kind of matches up with the coat hanger on top of the car.You know, there's no photos of that coat hanger.
Was this coat hanger a metal coat hanger that was bent in a way in order to try to, you know, fish out the lock of the car?Or was just this a hanger that was in its normal configuration and set on top of the car?I don't have that information.
However, if there is this observation of this missing gray coat, that strengthens my thought that somebody put an item of clothing on in order to either disguise themselves or to hide the bloody evidence that may be on their person.
Well, the impression I get about the hanger is, you know, the note I have is that even though it's weird that the hanger is laying on top of the car, it's not bent in a way.
It's as if somebody had just taken off a coat, like you're saying, and laid the hanger on top of the car.Nobody saw her do that, but that's sort of one of the many weird things that now we have to talk about where people have seen things
Several of the neighbors are home when Joan vanishes in this time.Again, that's like it's so confusing to me.If you are going to try to take this woman or hurt her or assault or whatever, you're trying to murder her.This is the wrong time to do it.
I mean, on the one hand, I guess, you know, the husband's probably not at home, but all these women are home.
And it said that between 2.20, when Barbara saw her in the driveway wearing this trench coat, and 3.45, when Lillian returns home, no one reports seeing or hearing anything out of the ordinary other than what we talked about, the yells.
And those all happened about 2.15 or so.And that was it. as far as people being able to say, this is what happened at that house.Barbara says she was chasing something red.We can't find anything red with David.That's all very confusing.
And I know what you're saying is, is we don't know what Barbara really saw, but we do know she would have recognized Joe.
But could she be mistaken?You know, that could be part of it.Everything seems to be happening.You have two different earwitnesses hearing a woman either shout or scream.
Is that what the... Yes, it was like, it was a yell.
A yell.Okay, that's a good term.Okay, so a yell, and then around the same time frame, you have Barbara seeing, let's say, an adult running after something outside, right?Now, could that have been Joan?
You know, that's where it would come down to the interview of Barbara, you know, exactly how did you recognize that this was Joan, or did she just make an assumption it was Joan?
These kind of dynamic witness observations often get skewed, you know, and your own bias kind of comes into play.
Right.You're filling in the blanks, right?Your brain is filling in the blanks.
Absolutely.So I'm questioning what Barbara truly saw.And the fact that we had these other earwitnesses around the same time hearing this woman yell, it's like, OK, everything is happening at 2.15.Something is going on there.And this sounds
almost like Joan is inside the house and then notices somebody who shouldn't be in there.And now you got the get out type of, you know, yell, if you will, kind of this angry scenario.Yeah, I don't know right now.
Obviously, we have the issue of the missing body.Again, I go back to how authentic this crime scene looks as if Joan had been attacked inside this crime scene.
and then you have an offender moving around and somehow, some way getting Joan's body out and away without anybody seeing that.
Well, we did some checking.Maren looked into it very quickly for me.Reports were that Joan was a typo and all the blood was typo.So I know that doesn't mean anything.Our offender could be typo also, but at least it's consistent.
It is possible that all of this is only Joan's and that's it.
Which is part of, Paul, the reason why this feeds into a very popular theory that this is Gone Girl, that she faked it to get out of this sort of, you know, stagnant housewife lifestyle.And you said yourself, there's not a lot of blood.
There's not as much as, you know, I thought there was.So what do you think about that theory?
When I say there's not a lot of blood, as I explained in the first episode, you know, I've seen many murder scenes, many homicide scenes.And you can have a significant amount more blood in these types of cases.
However, there is enough blood and the types of patterns of blood that I said I would be investigating this as a homicide.It is significant enough.
And the fact that you have different types of blood patterns, a staged crime scene, I just do not see Joan throwing herself up against the wall.
seeing her punching into a bloody pool, you know, being drug along on the floor, out of that corner, and then, you know, laying on the floor for enough period of time to form the blood pool and the blood smears, and then wandering around, you know, with the dripped blood.
This is looking pretty legit to my eyes.I don't want to, because again, I know you're gonna probably throw a surprise at me, but right now, it's just like... The typo, everything's typo, means zero.
You know, they can't say anything about who's contributing that blood outside of its, you know, they all have the same blood type.And that's 50% of the population.
Well, let's talk about some weird stuff.Three different drivers report seeing a bloody, dazed woman walking along two different highways in Massachusetts on the day that Joan goes missing.This is walkable from her house.No one, jerks,
No one stops to help her.We don't know if this is Joan.We don't know if it's separate women.I cannot imagine it's separate women.It must be the same person.
But they said that one of these sightings takes place at about 245 along Route 2A, which is only 300 yards from the house.The other two sightings are around 315 and are about five miles from the house on Route 128.
That would be a massive coincidence, would it not?
That seems like it.I mean, do the three witnesses all give the same description of the woman?
And how do they describe the woman?
Just, I mean, the only details I have are days.I showed you the photo in there of her.She's beautiful.She's very attractive.But I think everybody was driving so fast, they just noticed her demeanor, which was out of it, completely out of it.
But it sounds like the physical descriptions had matched.So what does that mean?
You know, if she's looking that bloody and that dazed, she's not doing this to herself.This is more like she escaped, and now she is just completely mentally not, she doesn't have her wits about her, and she's wandering.
Now, do you have a scenario where she just wanders off the road and ends up dying somewhere, you know, being exposed, whatever it is, and just has never been found?
I have more information that is equally if not more confusing.So now we are deep into the investigation and they are canvassing and talking to more neighbors.And I don't know if Barbara picked up on this or not, but.
A handful of people, including neighbors and the milkman, who I think is probably the best source, see a car they had never seen before.It's a bluish-gray Oldsmobile, and it was parked in the driveway just a couple of days before Joan goes missing.
And it's also there the day she goes missing, at 325. She, if we think she's on the highway, is walking at 315.This car is there at 325 is when somebody notices it.
And then the car leaves the driveway 15 minutes later, around 340, when she is already on the highway. It is a stolen car.They trace it back to a guy who was not involved at all.It had been stolen and he had reported it stolen in Medford.
We have no idea who has that car.Martin didn't know anything about it and nobody knew anything about it.It was a mystery car.No one knew if it was a guy driving or what happened with it.
Well, I think that that probably argues against this woman that's being seen on the highway as being Joan.
I would argue that that stolen vehicle, which that kind of amps up the suspicion of that vehicle being present, Joan's driveway, is the disposal vehicle.That Joan was left inside the house, and then somebody came back and got her.
It's so weird, it's interesting because it's the window when Joan is unaccounted for, but after these drivers, right, after they see her walking on the highway, I had wondered if she had been so badly hurt and left, and for some reason, whoever did this, just, I don't know what he thought, but let her leave, it was a domestic kind of thing, and then went and got her after she was reported on the highway.
You don't think it's weird?I mean, how many bloody women are out there at this time so close to her?I don't understand.And people are very exact.I mean, 340, 325.
I guess people are looking at their watches and they're nosy and they want to know what's going on.Or maybe it's the milkman who has a very specific route.But everybody's pretty sure about the timing on all of this.
And I just don't understand how this is working.
It's, you know, but this is where real life, you know, when you work cases, you run across what you just assumed.It can't be a coincidence.That happens all the time.
And so, you know, in terms of explaining what's going on in this case, with everything that you've told me so far, I still go to my original theory, you know, is that Joan was killed or incapacitated inside the house.The offender is likely injured.
The offender puts on some clothes and then comes back with the car, scoops up Joan's body, and leaves.
I do leave open the possibility that Joan is so injured and dazed inside that kitchen that she could have wandered out and is the woman that is being seen.
But neither scenario, in my mind, indicate that this was a thought-out, planned, you know, Joan is doing this in a way to try to disappear.It just doesn't add up that way.That, to me, is the least likely of the scenarios.
I agree, it's the sexiest, but it's the least likely.Let me tell you a little bit about Joan.Told you she's 30 years old, and she was born in Brooklyn.
Her parents both died in a house fire when she was eight, so she was adopted by her aunt, Alice, and Alice's husband, Frank. So this was pretty awful because Joan told Martin, her husband, when she was older, that Frank had abused her.
So this is her adopted father slash uncle.Joan didn't say what the abuse was, but it was insinuated that it was sexual abuse. This is the relative I told you who they wanted to do the blood type on to see if his blood matched, and it didn't.
He was not type O. That doesn't necessarily mean anything, but that is a theory that goes out there that this is some 20 years later or whatever, Frank coming, and something came up with Joan, and Joan was gonna spill the beans on this, and Frank came and killed her.
But that's why Frank was investigated.And everything else is pretty standard.She meets Martin.He is at Harvard Business School.She got a job with a publishing company.And they seem to have a really nice life.There is not much on her background.
Frank does stand out, though.Her uncle, who she says was abusing her.
Yeah, worthwhile investigating.You know, when you start talking about blood typing, I did this, you know, early on in my career.I'd want to look at the analyst's notes, you know, and see how they did the typing.We would grade the typing.
You know, do you have, because when you're typing, you know, you have this antigen, you basically you're looking for this agglutination.And it's where you add the various blood typing components and you get these cells that group together.
They kind of stick together. And sometimes you can get them to stick together real strong.And so it's like very obvious, OK, this person's type A. But sometimes a few of them stick together.
And you go, I think that's type A. And you grade how strong this agglutination is.And it can be a little bit iffy.
So, you know, if they eliminated this adoptive father or this uncle through blood typing, I would say, yeah, likely he's not type O, but I think there is still a possibility that that blood typing done in 1961 was wrong.
You know, and if the evidence exists today, then just let's get these swabs out, if they collected swabs, or however they collected these various bloodstains, and just do the DNA.
And I, with what I'm seeing, I think you have a good chance that you're gonna have offender DNA in this crime scene.
Well, let's go down a little bit of a victimology hole.This is, I did not really believe the Gone Girl theory, but that is a prevailing theory on the internet, which tells you this is a very recent theory.
You know, the idea, of course, is that she's gone missing.How could this happen?It's, as you had said, not enough blood to say she's dead. and that she could have walked off on her own.You know, they see this woman who's dazed.
So when asked, I think, well, why would she want to do this?
I think the answer is, well, she probably wanted to run off with a lover or escape the oppressive lifestyle of being a housewife in the 1960s, which I get, except there's no proof of any of that, or that she adored her kids.
She seemed to really love Martin.They didn't seem to have any problems. But this is what's funny.
There's a big deal made about the fact that Joan checked out 25 mystery books, which, at the library, which are talking about murder and disappearances, but the author, Stephen Ahern, that I told you about, he actually went back and did a big review, and she had only checked out a few of them, much smaller amount, and it doesn't really matter anyway.
I mean, I love mysteries.That doesn't mean I'm gonna gone girl myself, you know?
I think there's a lot of boyfriends and husbands very nervous because they're seeing their wiser girlfriends, reading all these true crime books about murder, right?
Yeah, I don't know if I would put any weight on that whatsoever.And kudos to that author, Steve Ahern, for actually doing the legwork and showing, if you want to say, how much weight to put on that bit of information.
I think when you start talking about the online community, of course, there's a lot of debate about all these various scenarios and how to assess these scenarios.
Part of maybe the issue is not necessarily having the experience of going into a lot of homicide scenes and being able to interpret what is going on in those scenes.
And I've got a fair amount of experience doing that, well above the average person in law enforcement.
With what I am seeing here, and we're talking, she drops off Lillian and Douglas back at Barbara's house at 155, and then you have the woman yell, or the female yell, you've got Barbara seeing Joan in a coat at 215.
I mean, we were talking 20 minutes.
and you've got all of this if jones doing this she's doing you know she's throwing herself into the wall and cutting herself or somehow beating herself and wandering through yeah and she's doing this spontaneously um this just is not adding up and then of course we've got
you know, the phone that's been torn out, we've got a bloody fingerprint that supposedly doesn't match Joan.Who is that?You know, if they truly did eliminate all the possible sources of contamination,
That's an item of evidence that I put a lot of weight on.It's her blood on the phone that's been moved, and we have indications that, you know, the phone's been ripped off the wall.
You've got the TV stand that was underneath where that phone was located at.You have the phone book that's been opened up to the emergency services. And you have a bloody fingerprint on the phone.
That's not Jones Significant, you know, so I really really strongly like if I were to be looking at this case it I would say Joan is dead and Her body was removed.That is my predominant theory of
And my focus today would be trying to find offender DNA, either inside this kitchen with those blood, you've got isolated blood drips.I mean, this would be something that just stands out to a well-versed crime scene reconstructionist DNA analyst.
You have blood trails throughout the house that you can't say is Joan or not Joan.You have the blood stains outside and on the car.
Those are all target items, you know, so that latent print and DNA on some of these isolated stains that would be the the initial thrust of my forensic investigation of this case and that likely would I think support Theory number one in my mind
OK, I wanted to throw out the idea of Martin, the husband, hiring somebody.He was thoroughly investigated.They had no financial problems.They had, by all accounts, a good relationship, no stress.
He had really, like, nothing that we can see to gain from her disappearance.There was no life insurance policy.He didn't have an affair.He ended up getting married, but a long time from then, and then he died in 2009.
So my question would be, who else would know when is the right time to do this? It happens, right, kind of perfectly.David's having a nap.
I guess maybe it's like when he's waking up, but I guess somebody who's watching, maybe somebody who's been stalking her, right?And then there's a stolen vehicle.But I'm just wondering if this would ever be a hire.
It just feels like it's really risky. Somebody would really have to have either been watching her or had been told about what is happening in her house, because it does feel a little isolated.I don't know.Just throwing it out there.
No, I think it's a very real possibility.Whether the offender, whoever killed her, is hired or would just happen to be inside this house for one reason or another, you know, that all just adds up with what I'm seeing.
I would not discount that as a possibility.It wasn't done very well.And the reality is, is that, you know, these hit men that get hired, there's very few true professionals out there.
Yeah.You know, there are people for sure.And I think in my career, I've only got one case and it was not when I was active.It was a case I did for a TV show.
original investigator, you know, worked with the original investigator and went to the crime scene and looked at everything, I'm going, yep, this is probably a pro, based on the totality of everything that this killer was able to do.
So most of these hired hitmen are just, you know, Somebody who's willing to do commit the crime and may have never done something like this before.
Yeah, so that's I Can't you know conclude anything looking at the crime scene is are we dealing with a hired hitman?I just think Joan was confronted by somebody in that kitchen try to get to the phone and then is now
Somehow being injured to the point of having bleeding injuries of some type to where you know, they can form blood pools and contact transfers and then whether it's Joan or whether it's the offender there's Dripped blood in the kitchen and throughout the house or I should say throughout but at least up to the the master bedroom and why?
Why go to the master bedroom?
I think that's what the police think, too.
So their very best theory is, you know, when they talk to Martin and he says she has no enemies, she's never had a conflict with anybody, everybody describes her as lovely, very shy, very committed to her family, and he's the same way.
So they just say, they land on the best theory they have, which was that she was stalked, most likely, and was the victim of a violent abduction, which, you know, Martin says, I can't even believe that would happen.
But they think that when Martin was out of the house the day that she went missing, that this was somebody who had been watching or somehow knew, maybe it was like the milkman, not the milkman, but maybe somebody who knew that Martin left every day.
And the police believe it would have been very easy for the attacker to have wrapped Joan up in a gray charcoal top coat, the one that's missing, and maybe with that hanger on top of her car, and carried her through the woods onto Virginia Road.
Or he could have driven his own car into the driveway, the Oldsmobile, and carried her out.
I still don't know why there would be blood marks on the outside of her car unless maybe she was grabbing it and fighting and left blood before he shoved her into the Oldsmobile, if that's what happened.
No, well, there's no photographs I can take a look at of the blood marks on the car.But I think the way you described them, it sounded like you had some dripped blood or a contact transfer.
This could be just a matter of the body, if you're having it.Because this Jones car, this is a single lane wide driveway.So Jones car takes up the width of this driveway.So let's say the stolen car is the disposal car.
You could see where the offender is having to carry Joan past her car in order to get out to the stolen car to put her in the trunk or wherever he puts her.It's possible you could have some drips off of Joan's body.
This is what we see sometimes when bodies are removed by the coroner's deputies or the death investigators. So it's a form of scene contamination for us.Or it could be the offender himself.He's got still a bleeding injury.
So it's so hard to say without looking at the photos.And there could be probably numerous explanations for that.But I don't think I can say anything that, oh, it must be Joan touching the outside of her car.
I don't think that that is a singular conclusion that could be made with the information that we have.
Okay, one more theory.The investigators continue kind of pressing, you know, with Frank, the adoptive father slash, I'm just gonna say uncle, who she lived with, who it sounds like was abusing her.That's what Joan said.
So I told you the blood type didn't match.They start having a discussion with Frank's now estranged wife, who is Joan's aunt.And in the month leading up to her disappearance, Frank had been trying to get his wife back, to move back in.
And Joan had been writing letters that the police had back and forth.This is just a month before. saying at age 30, you don't know this, but your husband abused me.You cannot go back to him.Do not do it.They gave him polygraphs.
They were inconclusive.We know how we both feel about polygraphs, but there wasn't the blood type and they couldn't ever charge him.But actually it seems like that to me seems like our best suspect rather than a random person.What do you think?
Was he compared to the bloody print on the telephone?
So, I mean, you have two forms of physical evidence not matching him, his fingerprints and his blood type.I definitely put a lot more weight on the fingerprint evidence that they excluded him as being that bloody print.
Less weight on the blood typing.I mean, obviously, there's family history that leads to Jones' victimology and why.You know, maybe Frank has a motive. to make her, you know, disappear.But right now the evidence isn't showing that.
Yeah.Well, letters are tricky because he could have easily gotten ahold of those letters and read if his wife kept them, and I'm sure she did.But you're right, there's nothing against him.It sounds like he had an alibi.
I mean, we know how we feel about alibis.They could be great or they could not be.Right.But this ends up being a case that, as I said, goes cold, goes unsolved.And there are, I mean, just lots of sightings of Joan Risch throughout the years.
In 1968, there had been sightings as far away as Chicago, and we're in Massachusetts when this happens.There was one in a trailer park in Arizona, but nothing's ever come out of any of this.
So, we don't have a body, we don't have any idea what happened, and you've got two little kids who ended up with no mother.
And I'm assuming that this was a relatively high-profile case for the area?
Yes, absolutely.Just an enduring mystery.
Yeah.I will say, like, with higher-profile missing persons cases, we often get dozens, if not hundreds, of false sightings.I've even got a case where a family had a false sighting of their missing person.
And it wasn't this one woman's sister, unfortunately.Their loved one was dead and had been dead for a long time at that point.But, you know, so that's... I kind of don't put any weight on these sightings of Joan after the case.
Is that her walking dazed?I mean, I think it's a remote possibility, though I wouldn't eliminate it.
I really, I think I agree with the authorities, is that Joan was taken out of the house, was wrapped in something, and was placed in a car and driven away.
A car that had been stolen, so, yeah.
Well, that's kind of a clue.
Yeah.Boy, what a sad case.I mean, this is just a woman living her life.We don't know what happened, but we know that she was doing exactly what her family said she always did, taking care of her kids.
Watching over them, being a good mom, taking them to appointments, doing everything, this is a nice house, doing everything that she was supposed to be doing, a great wife, according to Martin.
And just in a flash, there's nothing to even bury of this woman.And that is so sad to me.
Yeah.And for the family, that often is one of the most difficult things, because they don't have that answer.I've talked to family members of homicide victims, and let's say they've had a loved one go missing.
That's tortuous, because they don't know what has happened.And then once they get the answer that the loved one has been found and had been killed, as horrible as that is, for them, it's at least an answer.
Yeah, I agree.Well, boy, this was a tough case.I think I just relate to this woman a lot.I'm so family-oriented.I know you are, too.And I just really felt for her family and felt for her for whatever happened.
Whatever happened was obviously very physically painful.I hope whatever else happened after that was very swift because this was not a good ending for her.This is why I don't like unsolved cases.I need a conclusion.
I mean, I am not delusional enough to think that she's in Cabo right now, hanging out, but I like to know what happened, and I like to, dang it, know that there's a bad guy that's been caught.
And we don't have either one of those in this case, but I do like to throw you a cold case bone every once in a while, because I know you like him so much.
There's meat on the bone in this case in terms of, like if I were to open this up as a case and I'm looking at it, I'm actually getting excited because I'm seeing things that I know can be used to solve the case.
And if they have any of this evidence, and from 1961 it's possible.Every agency was different in terms of how well they processed the crime scene from this era, to how long they stored the evidence, to if they can even find the evidence.
But if this evidence still exists, With modern technology, it's a solvable case.If I'm assessing a case today that's this old, part of it is, OK, what was the lead investigating agency?
If there was a Lincoln Police Department, sounds like Lincoln, and it looks like, based off of her house photo, it's probably a relatively low populated area.So it's possible that this was
A local sheriff would have taken on this case, or they reach out to the state to do it.And that's usually fairly easy to figure out once you start digging into the case itself.
And that can be, well, she never went to coroner, so you don't have an autopsy report.But it's just a matter of figuring out the history and who would have had jurisdiction over this location and going from there.
Well, what a case.What a case.Next week we are off.I deserve it.I don't know if you deserve it, but I deserve it.Do you deserve a week off, Paul?I don't know.
I don't, I don't know if I deserve a week off, but I can see where you, I mean, you, you do such a great job telling the story.I don't know how you do it.So yes, I can.You need a mental break.
I do, you know, a little dandelion break and then we can, we can hit it hard when you come back.How's that?
Got it.That sounds fantastic.Okay, I will see you.I'll see you in a couple of weeks.
Sounds good, Kate.Take care.
You too.This has been an Exactly Right production.
For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buriedbones sources.
Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi.
Research by Maren McClashen, Allie Elkin, and Kate Winkler-Dawson.
Our mixing engineer is Ben Talladay.
Our theme song is by Tom Breivogel.
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Executive produced by Karen Kilgareff, Georgia Hardstark, and Daniel Kramer.
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at Buried Bones Pod.
Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode the criminal mind, is available now.
And Paul's best-selling memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.
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