Crime Junkie: MURDERED: Patricia Newsom

Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

And I'm Britt.

And the story I have for you today could almost be a work of fiction,

because it has a little bit of everything.

Heroes and villains, hope and despair, murder and miracles.

But there's a reason they say that truth is stranger than fiction.

And to solve this mystery, investigators need your help.

So listen closely.

This is the story of Patricia Melody Newsom.

August 16, 1975 is a rainy, humid Saturday morning in East Haven, Connecticut.

And a truck driver is making his usual rounds, taking a shortcut on an access road

behind Bradley's discount department store, like he does most days, a few times a day, even.

But around 9.43 on his second pass through the area,

he spots something floating in a drainage ditch that borders the road.

It looks like a package wrapped in a canvas tarp.

He stops his truck and goes over for a better look.

You see, this guy isn't even just a trucker.

He's also a volunteer state trooper, so he's more curious than most.

And the closer he gets, the more he thinks the package looks body-shaped.

So he calls East Haven Police and gets an auxiliary trooper mode to secure the scene until they arrive.

Before long, police are there looking at the Colvert, which is about two feet deep.

And they're also pretty sure they're looking at a body.

The tarp is secured around what looks like the head, waist, and feet,

with twine and copper wire wrapped in black rubber.

So they're sure it's body because it is very body-shaped.

Yeah, there's really no mistaking it, but they don't want to open the tarp and lose potential evidence.

So all they do is they cut this little hole in it, just a peek inside.

And sure enough, they see a human leg.

So they contact the medical examiner who brings the body still wrapped up back to the lab.

Once they unwrap the twine and the wire, they peel the tarp off,

revealing that the victim's head and shoulders are covered in a green plastic trash bag.

Beneath that, another trash bag is fastened around the neck with a fabric cord.

Under that is a towel.

And finally, they get their first real look at the victim,

a badly decomposed young woman bloated from being submerged in water.

All she has on is a pair of earrings.

There's a piece of cloth stuffed in her mouth, and her wrists and ankles are bound behind her back with twine or some kind of rope.

The M.E. estimates she's been dead for at least a few days, and her cause of death was asphyxia by smothering.

Now, she doesn't appear to have any other injuries, and even though she's nude, there's no evidence that she was sexually assaulted.

Was there anything wrapped up in the tarp with her, like personal items that might be able to give them a clue to who she is?

No, nothing wrapped in the tarp with her.

Nothing even near where her body was found.

Best they can do is put together a description of her and see if it matches anyone who's been reported missing.

What they know is that she's either white or Latino.

She's 125 pounds-ish, maybe 5'5 or 5'6 with shoulder-length brown hair and hazel eyes.

The M.E. estimates that maybe she's probably like late teens, early to mid-20s tops, and he can tell that she never gave birth.

But, I mean, that's not really much to go on.

No, not at all.

But, according to East Haven Police Captain Joseph Mergo, everyone's optimistic as the investigation begins, because they don't think that their mystery woman will be a Jane Doe for long.

Her fingernails are well-capped, she's had extensive orthodontic work, and even a nose job, so someone had cared for her, I mean, herself at least.

And police have two strong potential identifiers.

Her intact teeth allow them to create a dental chart, and they're able to get clear fingerprints as well.

So the next thing they do is East Haven delivers all of its evidence to the FBI for analysis, knowing that the agency has more tools and resources at its disposal.

And during their examination, FBI investigators spot a few vague clues about the perpetrator.

There are white drops of paint on the tarp, which could indicate a connection to the painting trade.

Also, some of the knots used for binding are intricate, and while that might not mean anything, police wonder if the killer has maybe military or a fishing background.

Beyond that, there's nothing.

No footprints that were left at the scene, no fingerprints on her body or the tarps or whatever.

They don't even know whether she was dumped in the drainage ditch or maybe if she was stashed in a nearby drain pipe and then washed into the ditch by recent heavy rain.

But they can start putting together some things based on what they have.

For instance, wrapping her up like that would take time, so they don't believe that she was killed behind the store where they found her.

And some even start to speculate that this could be a mafia hit.

Oh, is the mafia even a thing in Connecticut at this time?

Oh, yeah.

And they're not even far from anyone's minds because as this is happening, like just 10 days before, the body of a convicted bookie was found in a river in nearby New Haven.

According to the Associated Press, the man had been shot in the head and bound into a sleeping bag, and with this young woman, police wonder if the mafia might have been sex trafficking her or using her maybe as like a drug smuggler.

But mob hit or not, police know that they'll have a better chance of finding Jane Doe's killer or killers if they learn who she is.

So that's where they direct most of their focus early on.

The FBI creates a composite sketch of the victim and detectives hit the streets, questioning everyone they can.

I mean, they're talking to sex workers and men known for violence against women.

They interview employees at Bradley's in a nearby grocery store and they're canvassing motels to see if anyone remembers her.

Now, when that doesn't work, they beam her information to police agencies nationwide.

They send her dental chart to orthodontists and details about her nose job to plastic surgeons, hoping that someone will recognize their own work.

They even compare her fingerprints and her teeth to dozens of missing women.

Even Patty Hearst at one point, the publishing areas at the center of one of the most high-profile and bizarre kidnapping cases in FBI history.

Yeah.

But every lead is a dead end.

There are no matches to any missing person's reports.

No one comes forward to claim her and nobody seems to know who she is.

Then in late November, an inmate at a state prison reaches out with a tip.

And just a heads up, I'm going to use fake names for these people.

So this inmate tells police that he recently ran into an old friend of his, a 28-year-old East Haven man, Jason, who he says was pretty upset.

According to the Hartford Current, Jason is currently in prison with this inmate because he and another local guy, 19-year-old Clyde, had just been indicted on federal charges for robbing a bank at gunpoint together with the help from a teenage girl.

But those pending charges weren't Jason's concern.

Instead, he tells this inmate that he was worried about being arrested for murder.

Because according to what he told this guy, Jason and another guy who he didn't name killed a girl that they picked up hitchhiking a few months back.

He said that they wrapped her body and left her near a shopping center in East Haven.

Yet police weren't on to them before, but now with the bank robbery charges looming, Jason is afraid that this other guy he was with is basically going to rat him out to save his own life.

So this inmate who's hearing all this, he might not have known the alleged accomplices name, but detectives are pretty sure they do.

Because if this conversation actually happened, Jason must have been referring to Clyde, who he's like being indicted on this robbery stuff with.

Right, but that's a pretty big if. I mean, it may snitch all the time and it's usually because they want something in return.

And that's true, but here's the thing about Jason. He has a long rap sheet.

He has been in and out of reformatory schools, jails and prisons since his early teens.

I mean, arrested from everything from assaulting girlfriends to attempted rape, to gun possession, bank robbery.

By our reporter Nina's count, he escaped from various lockups at least 10 times.

Oh my God.

And that was before he was shot in the back by police during a burglary in the late 1960s.

Here's what's wild. So that incident where he was shot paralyzed him from the waist down.

But he still managed to break out of prisoner jails or whatever a couple more times after that.

Whoa, this dude is paralyzed and still escaping jail.

Uh-huh.

Okay, so with that timeline, he also would have been paralyzed when our Jane Doe was killed and dumped in 75.

Right.

Yes. So hence the need for an accomplice if this turns out to be true.

So clearly, I mean, this is interesting enough that the lead is worth pursuing.

But police don't go straight to Jason.

They first visit his ex-girlfriend who's living in Pennsylvania at the time.

They show her the Jane Doe composite sketch thinking that their unidentified victim might be another one of Jason's exes.

But she doesn't recognize this woman and she doesn't have any intel on who she might be.

Though she does, however, give them more insight on her relationship with Jason.

She tells police that they met earlier that year and quickly moved in together.

He was working at an auto repair shop where his duties included spray painting, interestingly enough.

But she tells officers that they weren't involved for long because Jason had a terrible temper.

He even tried to strangle her with a telephone wire and so she left him for good on August 4th,

not even two weeks before Jane Doe was found.

I honestly lost count of how many red flags you packed into those couple of sentences.

There is a ton.

But keep in mind, Jason's name is one lead in a sea of leads,

many of which are coming from jails and prisons, which like you pointed out can be problematic.

So it kind of just goes on the shelf until months later when a new tip brings it right back into the spotlight.

On March 7th, 1976, a man we're going to call Angelo contacts East Haven Police Department.

Angelo tells a sergeant that he and Clyde are close friends,

so close that Clyde had just revealed a secret to him about Jason.

Clyde told him Jason admitted to killing Jane Doe.

Did investigators ever go talk to Clyde back when they first got the tip about Jason?

Not that we know of, but East Haven's Captain Murgo says it seems like some police reports were either never completed

or were misplaced over the years, so it's not totally clear what was or wasn't done or what's just missing.

Anyway, Angelo has a different narrative than the one police heard from that inmate a while back.

In this version, Clyde is not an accomplice.

Jason supposedly told Clyde that he picked up a girl from New Jersey named either Patty or Gale.

And after he killed her, someone from a local motorcycle gang helped bag her up and dump her.

He said he regretted killing her because she was pretty, but he had to because she was going to testify against him in court.

Wait.

Yeah, and you're wondering which trial.

Yeah.

No clue.

Because it definitely wasn't the bank robbery thing he was already in jail for because we know Jane Doe was dead before that.

Right.

You know, good old Nina doesn't take.

I don't know for an answer.

So I mean, she literally dug into a mountain of public records and news coverage.

And it appears that everyone who did testify against Jason in previous trials lived to tell about it.

So maybe what Jason actually told Clyde was a variation of she knew something that could get me in trouble and it got twisted up in, you know, this game of telephone because it's being shared through multiple people, whatever.

So even though it's not totally adding up, hearing these names again gets police wondering if there is a kernel of truth in there somewhere.

So now they do want to talk to Clyde.

By this time, the whole bank robbery case is over.

Earlier that year, Clyde pleaded guilty.

And according to the Hartford current, he testified against Jason, who was accused of being the getaway driver.

Jason got 25 years in prison.

Clyde got a short stint in a youth center and he's out now when they go looking for him.

So Jason wasn't wrong not to trust Clyde and seems like he kind of flipped on a dime.

Well, yeah, about the bank robbery.

But I mean, this whole time Clyde never went to police to say a word about any kind of murder.

So anyways, police hope that maybe with Jason still in prison, Clyde will be ready or more inclined to chat.

Well, yeah, and who knows how long they have before Jason shoshings it again.

For sure.

And that might actually be what he's afraid of because Clyde, when they come to him, he refuses to talk.

And he's apparently done talking to Angelo too, who was the one that started this whole thing again by coming forward.

And I'm not sure why, but police don't make a move toward Jason at this point.

Like there's no record of them trying to interview him in prison.

Do you think maybe they were just wanting like a stronger story to confront him with or?

Could be.

But whatever the reason, by the time Jane Doe is laid to rest that may after nearly a year at the medical examiner's office, police are no closer to learning her identity.

So she's buried in an unmarked grave at the back of an old cemetery a few towns over.

What about those women's names Angelo gave them?

Patty or Gail from New Jersey?

Were they ever able to make any connection with those?

I mean, no, but how do you track that down?

Patty or Gail from New Jersey?

Like talk about a needle in a haystack.

That's just absolutely not enough.

Now, eventually investigators start to wonder if Jane Doe even has a family, at least in this country.

Because if she doesn't, it would explain why no one matching her description has been reported missing.

And here's an interesting note.

They definitely don't think she's local because someone would have recognized her or seen her composite sketch on the news by now.

They think she came from somewhere else, but again, maybe it was really far or maybe it was from a family that doesn't even know she's missing.

For years, the case is at a standstill.

Although in March of 1983, police do receive two interesting letters.

One of them is from a man who was just released from federal prison where he served time with none other than Jason.

Yes, he says while they were locked up, they spoke about the girl who was found dead behind Bradley's and he tells police he has information that may help them solve the case.

He thinks he might know her real name, although he doesn't include it in the letter.

He just says she's from Pennsylvania, but it doesn't appear that police ever follow up with him.

At least Captain Murgo says there's nothing in the case file about any follow up.

Why not?

This isn't something totally out of left field.

This letter literally names the guy they've already been looking into.

It seems so obvious that this would be your sign to, I don't know, keep looking into him, do some follow up.

I don't know why it doesn't happen at that point, especially because a second letter comes in just a couple of weeks later.

This one from a current inmate at a state prison.

So two totally separate people are writing this.

Yes, the difference is so the first guy gave his name, like signed it, but the second guy doesn't.

He says he may be putting himself in danger by contacting the police.

But I think they're able to at least confirm that these are two different people since that first letter came from someone who actually did just get out of prison.

The second letter comes from someone in prison.

That's not something you can really fake, like those letters get like stamped.

Right, it'd have like the telltale correctional facility return address, but that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't connected though.

I mean, maybe two people coordinated.

Well, Captain Murgo says, because we asked this question too, he doesn't think that they are released.

There was no indication that they're connected.

But to be fair, he also says there's no way of proving that they're not connected.

Either way, let me just get into what that second letter said.

So the anonymous inmate mentions a man.

We're going to call this man Lenny, so not Jason.

And he says, if Lenny's name means anything to the case, he might be able to help police.

If they can help him, of course, because he's tired of jail and wants to get out.

And look, as far as detectives know, there isn't any evidence that this Lenny guy has anything to do with our Jane Doe's murder.

But Lenny does have a connection to Jason.

According to the Connecticut Post, Lenny and Jason were arrested together in the late 1960s,

after Jason allegedly threatened a woman with a gun during an argument.

Lenny was described as Jason's companion and charged with conspiracy,

and he ended up pleading guilty to aggravated assault.

But I don't think police put any stock into this second letter either.

Because it's not until the fall of 1985 that the investigation heats up again,

thanks to just this routine appointment.

So get this story. This is like every crime junkie, always stay vigilant.

This is why you do what you do, because you never know when you're going to be at the heart of a story.

So the wife of an East Haven lieutenant is at the dentist,

just killing time in the waiting room, when a story in People magazine by Kristen McMurran catches her eye.

It's about a murder in Hancock, Maine, about 400 miles away.

The victim, a 59-year-old woman named Amelia Cave, was beaten and strangled to death the year before.

Police found her body partially buried under a rock wall days after she was reported missing.

Like East Haven's Jane Doe, Amelia was bound and gagged with a plastic bag over her head,

and her wrists were tied with a nylon cord, ankles secured with twine,

and her mouth was stuffed with an empty birdseed bag.

And the perpetrator of that crime, who had just been convicted of murder,

happened to have lived in East Haven in the mid-1970s.

What? Yes.

And that article mentioned the killer's name, which is Samantha Glenner.

Now, if you pull the records for this case, you may notice Samantha is referred to by a different name,

but we're going to refer to her as Glenner throughout the rest of this episode.

Now, this People magazine article about Amelia's murder shows a pretty open and shut case.

So, again, this is still what she's like reading in the dentist's office.

Basically, in the early 1980s, Glenner moved to Maine where their parents lived,

and Amelia was friends with Glenner's parents, which is how they met.

Amelia's body was found under a rock wall, like I said,

but that rock wall was one that Glenner had built on the shoreline of their family's property.

Plus, Glenner tried to cash a $2,700 check drawn from Amelia's account

with her signature forged on it after she went missing.

So, when the lieutenant's wife reads this,

like, she is putting all of the pieces together.

She knows she has to show this to her husband,

and when she does, he sees the connections too.

Did Glenner's name ever show up on East Haven PD's radar for our Jane Doe's murder?

Girl, not at all.

Oh my God.

But now they look into Glenner, and not only do they live in East Haven,

investigators learn that in August of 1975,

Glenner was living in an apartment on Main Street

that was just five minutes away from where Jane Doe's body was found.

And police can't believe how similar the cases are

and how the circumstances are just lining up for them.

So at this point, they're probably all like, Jason, who?

But according to Alan Dury's reporting for the New Haven Register,

when investigators try to speak with Glenner,

they refuse to talk.

So I'm sure you can guess by now where this goes.

No, no, no, no, no.

There's no way this dies here.

There's got to be something, anything to link these cases.

Nothing, nothing happens.

And so that's how it stays for nine years.

But in all of those years, no one forgot about Glenner.

And this is a great example of letting fresh eyes and time

play in your favor, because in 1994,

a new police chief has investigators reach out again

just to see if now Glenner will talk.

And this time, for some reason, they finally agree.

So in April, detectives head to a prison in Maine

hoping to get some answers.

But unfortunately, the interview doesn't go well.

Glenner denies any involvement in Jane Doe's murder,

but is also evasive and not very lucid either.

In fact, Glenner is given a psychiatric evaluation

after the interview to determine if their mental state

makes them too unreliable for police to even speak with.

But even though Glenner is eventually found competent,

detectives don't see a point in going back

for a second interview.

And so for nearly three more decades, that's it.

There are a few leads to follow up on here and there.

Police kick around the idea of exhuming her

to see if they could maybe get viable DNA,

but it doesn't actually happen.

And as the case cycles through generations of detectives,

Jane Doe's composite sketch hangs on their bulletin board.

She is the only unidentified homicide victim in East Haven.

And according to Megan Friedman's reporting

for the New Haven Register, older investigators

pass on stories about her case down to rookies.

One of those rookies is Joseph Mergo.

He joins the force in 2003, and as he rises through the ranks,

Jane Doe's story just sticks with him.

He can't stand the thought of her case going unsolved,

much less never giving her her name back.

So when he and a colleague are promoted to captains

in July of 2020, they decide maybe it's time

to give the case a fresh look.

But there's a big problem when they try.

At some point in the early to mid 1990s,

all of the evidence stored at the East Haven Police Department

was thrown away.

I do not understand how this always seems to happen.

It's not like they threw it away for no reason,

like we hear about in other cases that does happen.

Captain Mergo says that the department's holding cells

apparently flooded, something to do with the toilets.

And I guess those cells were directly above the evidence room.

So that flooded, and this is like a note to everyone,

like don't have water above your evidence room.

I feel like this is like a new rule.

So everything was moldy or corroded,

and they had to just dump it all.

I'm sorry, there were no other options?

I mean, did they at least take pictures of what they could?

I don't know.

I don't know. No clue.

Okay, I feel like this is where crime junkies

are just way underutilized.

Like, get the NDAs out and ask for volunteers.

I can almost personally guarantee you'd have people lined up

to help with stuff like this.

I mean, I'd be the first one.

I was just going to say, I was like,

my name's Ashley Flores.

Here's my contact information.

I would love to like go through your evidence.

Exactly.

Yeah, I don't know if they tried to save or restore any of it,

but regardless, the end result is the same.

So in 2020, now they've got to work with what they have now.

And Captain Mergo knows they still have something.

You see, the Emmy had removed Jane Doe's pubic bone,

which is often used to estimate age,

and the bone, along with swabs taken during a sexual assault

forensic exam, were stored at the lab

and not the department's evidence room.

But don't get too excited yet,

because nothing in this case goes smoothly.

Basically, when forensic scientists try to extract DNA,

they learn that everything is contaminated with bacteria,

and the pubic bone that they do have

isn't good for extraction anyway.

But they're not totally giving up.

Investigators decide to consult with identifiers international,

which I'm sure if you're not,

every crime junkie needs to be familiar with by now.

They're a company that conducts forensic genetic genealogy.

But even identifiers says the same thing.

It is a no-go with what you've got.

And that's when police realize,

if they're going to solve this case,

they have no other choice.

They are going to have to exhume Jane Doe.

Investigators have their work cut out for them.

For one thing, all they know

is she was buried in the southeast corner

of the State Street Cemetery

in the nearby town called Hamden.

They don't know exactly where, though.

And tracking her down is going to be difficult,

because the cemetery had been closed for a decade.

So it's abandoned, overgrown,

and full of unclaimed bodies and unmarked graves,

some dating back to the 1700s.

Oh, my God.

According to NBC Connecticut reporter Angela Fortuna,

the association that ran it came under fire

for improper and inaccurate burial records.

They just can't catch a break, can they?

Well, it feels like it, no.

I mean, this could have gone a lot easier.

But this is where they finally see things starting to go right.

They managed to locate a former groundskeeper

with help from a retired cop

who had this long-standing interest in the case,

and the groundskeeper remembers

that she was buried along a chaining fence

next to other people in unmarked graves

from that time period.

Now, he tells them that half of the row

was reserved for children,

so they focus on the other half.

They're narrowing it down where all the adults are,

and they're supposed to be in chronological order.

So Captain Murgo and a colleague meticulously examined

burial records and death certificates,

and even a hand-drawn cemetery map.

They also know that she was buried

in a specific type of metal casket,

and the groundskeeper says that most of the others

in her area are wooden,

so they literally head out to the cemetery,

take a rod.

I thought they'd have a metal detector.

No, no, no, no.

This is, like, the most, like, budget-friendly.

They take a rod, and they're, like, poking it into the ground

until they hear a distinctive clink.

And so they figure this must be it.

They get their search warrants,

and on Wednesday, June 8th, 2022,

everyone holds their breath

as the casket is lifted out of the ground

and sawed open.

But when they look inside,

they get a terrible shock,

because the body is that of a young boy.

Now, there is not even a burial record for this kid,

so they have no idea who he is.

All they can do is transfer him into a new casket,

hold the vigil, and bury him again,

which is a devastating development,

but they have come too far to give up.

They know they're in the right vicinity.

They just need a better tool to pinpoint the exact spot.

So later that month, investigators return

with a U.S. Department of Agriculture employee

and a ground-penetrating radar device.

What Captain Murgo describes as basically

an X-ray machine on wheels to scan for unmarked graves.

But that's when they get another awful surprise.

There are five times more caskets

than they expected to be there.

Yeah, they are packed in.

They are stacked on top of each other.

And to make matters worse,

most of them are metal, not wood.

What is even happening at this point?

I mean, every time I think,

wow, I guess I can pick my job off the floor now,

won't get shocked or surprised again,

you hit me with something like this?

That's what they're thinking too.

But the New Haven Register published a photo

of the gravesite location years ago.

So comparing that with everything else,

they do manage to find the casket they think is hers.

And it's about 10 or 11 feet away from the original spot.

Now on Friday, July 1st, they exhume the second body,

and investigators are, I mean, just biting their nails,

terrified of unearthing another stranger.

But when they open the casket,

the medical examiner can tell this is their Jane Doe

because she was buried naked,

wrapped in an autopsy sheet,

and she has no pubic bone.

So they take her femur and her tooth for testing.

And forensic scientists try the tooth first,

but they can't pull any DNA from it.

So they go ahead and send the femur

and wait nervously for news.

And that news finally came this very year,

on Monday, April 10th, 2023.

That's when identifiers tell Captain Murgo

that Jane Doe has been identified at last.

She is 18-year-old Patricia Melody Newsom.

And what is wild is that while police

were knee-deep in their investigation,

Patricia's sister, Mary Ann,

had been doing everything she could to find her sister.

So Patricia had been reported missing?

No.

I'm not 100% sure why,

but understanding the family dynamic does help explain it.

So Nina spoke with Mary Ann,

who told her that overall the Newsoms were happy

until the late 1960s.

There were four siblings, so two girls, two boys.

Mary Ann was the baby,

nearly eight years younger than Patricia,

who she calls Trisha.

Now, their father's military career had moved them around a lot,

but they eventually settled in Philadelphia,

and everything was going well,

until their mother was diagnosed with cancer.

So she died in December of 1968,

and a year later, her father, Herbert,

who everyone calls Dawn, married another woman.

And their stepmother, whose nickname is Mimi,

turned their lives upside down.

Mary Ann says every trace of their mom was erased from their home.

They were no longer allowed to even mention their mother,

and they couldn't contact her side of the family either.

She sounds like the stereotypical evil stepmother

straight from this movie.

Yeah, and unfortunately their dad didn't intervene.

He pretty much let her take the reins.

So it was all downhill from there.

After Mimi gave birth to their little brother in 1971,

the family relocated to New Jersey.

Everyone except the oldest brother,

who was already an adult by that time.

And that move really solidified Mimi's authority.

After that, there was rampant physical abuse.

Mary Ann says Mimi would sick their father on them,

and she didn't mind doling out punishments herself.

Everyone was walking on eggshells.

But maybe because she was older, therefore,

harder to manipulate,

Trisha seemed to get the worst of Mimi's rage.

And to be fair, Mary Ann's memory of her childhood is hazy.

But what she recalls is that at some point,

her older sister was just gone.

The kids were told that Trisha and a friend ran away

from their boarding school to Maine,

where the friend's family lived.

And that was the only thing they were told.

That was the end of it.

Just like their mothers,

Trisha's existence was wiped from the house,

and Mary Ann knew better than to ask questions.

Wait, what boarding school was she supposed to be at?

So the details of that are super foggy,

but Trisha was apparently sent to a boarding school

after they moved, so that would have been around 1972.

And she supposedly ran off with that friend

in either 73 or 74.

Now, if we fast forward a couple years,

in 1979, Don and Mimi divorced.

And for some inexplicable reason,

Mimi got custody of Mary Ann.

Mary Ann only saw her father a couple of times after that,

and then he died of cancer in December of 1980.

As soon as Mary Ann could,

like the moment she could, she left home.

And she was estranged from her brothers

and wanted, I mean, nothing to do with Mimi,

but she never could stop thinking about Trisha.

And for some reason,

even though she was told this story of her running away,

she always assumed that Trisha was dead

because she was so protective of her little sister,

Mary Ann didn't think

that she would just leave her behind in that house.

So desperate for answers,

Mary Ann turned to the internet when it became accessible.

She searched through composite sketches on Jando websites.

She took an ancestry DNA test

in case Trisha ever had any children,

but there was no one out there.

And then in 2020,

Mary Ann saw a show about an unidentified homicide victim

known as Lady of the Dunes.

Now, this is a pretty like infamous story,

but for those who don't know,

Lady of the Dunes was discovered in July of 74.

She was naked on a Massachusetts beach

with half of her skull crushed and her hands missing.

Now, her estimated age range was pretty wide,

like 20 to 40.

But the composite sketch made of her

took Mary Ann's breath away.

The Lady of the Dunes had their mother's eyes,

just like Trisha did.

And even though this was promising,

Mary Ann had been hesitant to launch

a full on extensive search for her sister

because she knew

that it was going to uncover family secrets.

It was going to dredge up painful memories.

Is she talking about the abuse

or she thought Mimi was maybe involved in some way?

Well, I mean, I think she knew

that they would be airing

all of the family's dirty laundry, so to speak.

And at the time,

she didn't know if Mimi was involved or not.

By this point,

she and her younger brother had finally reconnected

and she worried that, you know,

again, if she's going to dredge all this up,

this new relationship she just formed

with her younger brother,

like might fall apart as well,

because I mean, he's Mimi's biological son.

But after discussing it with her loved ones

and dealing with some medical issues for a minute

that forced her to stop working,

Mary Ann eventually knew

it was time to ramp up her efforts.

And she did that in November of 2021.

That's when she started a Facebook page

called Find Patricia Newsome

and she contacted Massachusetts State Police

about Lady of the Dunes,

which helped get a Namist profile up for Trisha,

even though she had never been reported missing.

Now, at this point, I told you,

Mary Ann had done ancestry DNA

looking for, you know, potential nieces or whatever,

nephews.

Like relatives, yeah.

Well, this is when she takes that DNA,

whatever the match is, and uploads it to GEDMATCH.

And this is really important for anyone

who wants to support cold cases

and law enforcement and family in this way.

A lot of the companies,

when you'll do these DNA testing,

they'll give you your results,

but that does not mean that they're available

for law enforcement to access in cases like this,

where they're looking for family members.

You have to actually take your results,

put them in GEDMATCH,

and that's still not the only thing you have to do.

You have to actually opt in,

because it's automatically set to opt out for privacy.

So you have to opt in in GEDMATCH

for law enforcement to have access

to try and solve these cold cases.

To do comparisons, yeah.

So that's what she does at this point.

Now, meanwhile, her local sheriff's department

in Tennessee collected another sample of DNA

to compare directly against Lady of the Dunes.

But unfortunately, it wasn't a match,

much as she thought she had her mother's eyes.

So Mary Ann, at that point,

realized there was no way around it.

She was going to have to get her family talking,

even if it meant unearthing old skeletons,

maybe figuratively and literally.

Mary Ann learned that her oldest brother

remembered getting a letter from Trisha at some point,

presumably while she was in that boarding school.

Now, he didn't recall many details,

but he thought that the letter came from Vermont.

And when he tried to write back,

the letter was returned as undeliverable.

Undeliverable because she wasn't there,

or because the return address wasn't real.

They don't know.

So Mary Ann reaches out to Mimi directly next,

and she does this via text.

Mimi tells her that the boarding school wasn't in Vermont.

It was actually in New York, somewhere near Monticello,

which is a village in the Catskills region.

She said it was a regular boarding school,

like it wasn't like a reform school or anything,

but she claimed that she didn't remember the name of it.

Which is like, you know, this is decades ago,

fine, you don't remember the name, but Trisha...

I'm still a side-eye.

Yeah, same, we're all a little side-eye.

But, you know, it's been decades ago,

whatever we can't get the name, that would have been helpful.

But the real thing that Mary Ann wants to know

is why Trisha was sent there in the first place.

Like, surely that's something you remember, sending off your kid.

But Mimi said it was because Trisha was causing problems

with the other siblings.

And here is the example that she gave.

She says one time when their younger brother,

which is, again, Mimi's biological son,

one time when he was a toddler,

Trisha took him outside to play in the snow,

and they were on the lawn by the road,

and they were running around some trees, and he fell.

And then what happened?

No, that's it, that's the story.

He fell? That's it.

He fell, that's it.

Had you ever met a toddler before?

Joe can't stay on her two feet, like.

I would say you have won, I had won.

Falling is hard for the course, and with me, honestly,

sometimes it was even intentional on her part.

I'm confused, is this story supposed to be, like,

some devious thing that happened?

I guess the implication is that Trisha let him too close to the road?

Maybe, but this wasn't a traffic-filled neighborhood

with cars zooming by every second.

Everyone is pretty spread out.

But still, Mimi said,

Don happened to see this whole thing happen,

and he took Trisha, quote,

down to the cellar and nearly killed her, end quote.

Jesus Christ, I don't understand this at all.

I don't either.

So that's really the only explanation she gets from Mimi,

the only information she gets from Mimi.

Fast forward to a year later,

which would have been just this past April.

This is when Marianne is knee-deep

in doing anything she can to find her sister.

So, again, completely investigating on her own.

All of a sudden, she gets this knock on her door,

and it is the local sheriff's office.

And when she first sees him, she figures that,

oh, he must need another DNA sample.

He's the one that came and took it to compare to Lady of the Dunes.

But instead, he tells her that someone wants to speak with her.

And before Marianne can figure out what is even happening,

Captain Mergo is on the phone, and he tells her,

Ma'am, your wait is over.

We've found your sister.

I just got chills.

Everyone is in tears,

and Captain Mergo fills her in about everything that had happened,

the murder, the investigation since.

And it's difficult to hear the details,

but Marianne is just relieved to know something.

I mean, there were times when she felt like no one else

even remembered her sister existed.

So, to find out not only that, like, they remembered,

but they cared so much that this whole group of people

had been working toward this moment.

She said it was this miraculous feeling for her.

By Monday, April 17th, Marianne is in East Haven.

She spends some time with her sister at the cemetery,

and that afternoon, she joins police for a press conference.

Now, when the news breaks, the story is that in 1972,

Trisha attended a boarding school near about Monticello, New York.

And then sometime around 1974,

she ran away with a friend to Maine,

and they might have been hitchhiking.

But the more investigators dig after this press conference,

the more they start to wonder if this entire narrative,

the friend going to Maine,

maybe even the boarding school itself is all bullshit.

I mean, same, but does Marianne actually remember

Trisha, like, packing up and leaving for boarding school?

I mean, yeah, this is so long ago.

She's not sure.

She has flashes of memory that could be related to it,

like Trisha unpacking after being away

and feeling sad on a car ride home after dropping her off somewhere.

So maybe she was in boarding school at some point,

but Marianne really doesn't think she ran away from there.

She thinks that Trisha ran away from home.

Police even try reaching out to boarding schools,

not just in and around Monticello, but throughout New England,

and they cannot find any record of her.

Although keep in mind,

plenty of schools have closed or changed names

or who knows what happens to records since the 1970s.

Now, when Captain Murgo gets Mimi on the phone,

she maintains that Trisha did attend boarding school,

but she tells him that Don selected it

and that he was the school's only point of contact.

Mimi also shares with him that whole story

about her son falling in the snow,

but she says that Trisha was already enrolled

in boarding school by then.

So if both things are true,

she must have been home maybe on Christmas break, 74?

No, no, bulls*** meter just went off.

That couldn't have happened after Trisha was sent to boarding school

if it was also the reason she was sent to boarding school.

Both things can't be true, Mimi.

It doesn't make sense.

And Mimi isn't sure if that incident marked the last time Trisha came home.

She just remembers getting the house ready for her return

and then she says Don told her Trisha just wasn't coming home

because she was going to go to Maine with a friend.

So she's now saying this story came from Don.

But then she tells Captain Murgo that, you know,

as she's thinking about it now,

she doesn't believe Trisha did go to Maine.

She thinks her former husband might have just told her that for some reason.

This is all so sketchy.

It is.

But Don and Mimi are not considered suspects.

Based on the circumstances, like how Trisha's body was found,

police just don't think it adds up.

But Marianne does believe that the abuse Trisha experienced

is what drove her out of the house,

which was the catalyst for everything that followed.

So armed with all of this new knowledge about Trisha,

her background, her family,

Captain Murgo and investigators start going back through the case file again,

checking out old leads.

And can you guess what jumps out at them?

Holy shit.

There was a patty from New Jersey.

Patty from freaking New Jersey.

Plus, the former inmate who wrote them about Jason

said that the dead girl was from Pennsylvania.

And what is so interesting, it might seem like it contradicts,

but Trisha actually lived in both states.

And had Jason also spent time in New Jersey?

Definitely.

In fact, the police shooting that left him paralyzed happened in Jersey

in a town about 35 minutes away from Trisha's.

News coverage shows that he was in the area at least once

during the summer of 1974,

when he settled a lawsuit with the police department that shot him.

So maybe he picked up hitchhiking,

something happened later, who knows?

But at this point, he is now back to being the main suspect.

But the thing is, as much as this fits

in a great circumstantial stuff,

police still can't forget about the similarities

between Trisha's and Amelia Cave's murders either.

And so they start to wonder,

maybe they're not both wrong.

Maybe it's all connected.

But what if all their theories have been right,

just not by themselves?

Each was a little piece of the puzzle.

Maybe Glenner helped bind and gag Trisha.

Because of Jason's paralysis, investigators don't think

he would have been able to do that alone.

He needed some kind of accomplice at some point.

Now, Captain Murgo doesn't know of any direct connection

between Glenner and Jason.

But East Haven's not that big, so they might have known each other.

And at times, what they know from looking back at their histories

is that they lived relatively close to one another.

And interestingly enough, through records and a courier news article,

Nina found out that the two were actually paroled

from separate federal prisons for bank robbery convictions

on the same exact day in 1974.

Which, like, one of the odds,

but it doesn't mean that they would cross paths, right?

Like, when you're sprung from prison,

you just go, like, walk out the gates,

grab a bus or ride with friends or family,

and you go your own way.

They don't take everyone to one central place

and then let you all go at the same time.

No, that's true.

But you do generally have to check in with a probation or parole officer

within a certain amount of time.

So, again, the same day is just a weird freakin' coincidence,

but maybe they met somewhere along the way through that

because they were both kind of, like, on the same journey at the same time.

It's a lot of questions that would be great to ask Jason and Glenner, right?

But unfortunately, it's too late for police to interview either of them.

Jason spent pretty much the rest of his life in and out of jail and prison,

and he died in the early 90s.

And Glenner was released from prison in 2009.

Then, in 2021, they were indicted in Texas for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

It's not clear what happened with the charge,

but then Glenner died just last year.

Jason's old buddy Clyde is still alive,

but he still hasn't been willing to speak with police.

Honestly, it just sounds like everything kind of leads back to Jason.

It's just a matter of sorting out who helped him.

I mean, circumstantially, yes, but nothing is for sure.

Very well, could have been someone else.

I mean, for instance, investigators learned

that there was this local guy named William Shroff,

who's serving 120 years in prison for a whole host of charges,

including the murders of two young women.

And they find out that he mentioned an unidentified body behind Bradley's

during an interview with state police in 1983.

Oh, my God.

But I don't think that, or at least it doesn't appear,

that the state police ever told East Haven about that statement or whatever,

because investigators there literally just learned about this guy in April

when they saw old articles about the interview

by Hartford Current Reporter Virginia Sedaris.

Once they learn about it, obviously,

like they go and try and interview this guy,

but he refused to speak with them.

Now, for what it's worth, in this scenario,

I don't know that it's one of those where all the pieces come together

and they're all working together because there's no indication

he hung out with any of the other potential suspects.

So this past summer, Trisha's body was exhumed one last time.

She was then cremated,

and eventually Mary Ann will spread her ashes on their mom's grave.

But first, she wants some time with her sister.

They've been apart for too long.

Mary Ann told us that finding Trisha

wasn't the only miraculous part of this journey she's been on.

Miracles came from the search itself.

She found a caring community.

She adores the investigators working the case.

She reunited with her mom's side of the family

and reconnected with other loved ones.

And she says that she wants to be a symbol of hope

to other families in her situation,

to not give up and to keep pushing,

even if it feels like no one else cares,

because there might be a whole town out there that does,

and you just don't know about it yet.

And she also wants her sister's story, her own story,

to highlight the pivotal role of genetic genealogy.

And she wants to encourage people to upload DNA profiles to Jetmatch

and to opt in so they can be compared to kits submitted by police.

Now, you guys, if you want some more details about how to do that,

we are going to have all of that in the blog post for this episode.

It's linked right out in the show notes.

Police know that an arrest and conviction in this case

is probably not likely.

What they're after now are just answers.

And Captain Murgo reached out to us because they're hoping

all of our crime junkies can help.

They want to speak to anyone out there who has information about Tricia.

Specifically, they really want to find this friend

that she supposedly ran off with to Maine if this friend exists.

And they want to find the boarding school itself if that exists.

One thing to note is that if the school had a religious affiliation,

it would have likely been Catholic.

Tricia could have been just about anywhere in the Northeast.

She was white, about 5'4", 130 pounds with hazel eyes

and reddish brown hair that came just past her shoulders.

She had reconstructive surgery on her nose after an injury.

Tricia's family says that she always wore a class ring

that her aunt gave her from Sicilian Academy,

a shuttered Catholic school in Philadelphia.

And the thing is, police never found that ring

and the killer may have taken it as a memento.

You can find a picture of a similar ring on our blog post.

Maybe you were her classmate or know someone who was.

This is the perfect episode to share with your parents or your grandparents.

Maybe you or they called her Patty or Pat.

Maybe you saw her hitchhiking or picked her up or knew one of the suspects.

Whatever the circumstances, if you know anything about Patricia Newsome,

please call East Haven Police at 203-468-3824.

You can find all of the source material for this episode on our website,

crimejunkiepodcast.com.

And you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast.

We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

But if you need a little pick me up,

stick around because we have some good stories to tell you.

All right, crime junkies, we have reached the end of the month.

And I know I need some good in my life.

I am so ready for this.

I kind of forget, like, absolute record episode after episode every week.

Like, when I finally get to the good, I'm like, ugh.

I know.

Yes, I needed this.

And of course, don't forget,

if you want to send your story to us,

you can submit it on the Good Segment page on crimejunkiepodcast.com

or by following the link in our show notes.

Ashley, let her rip.

All right, you're going to love this one.

I love this one.

And I think it's particularly poignant for this month

because we're closing out October.

And I think it's particularly poignant for this month

because we're closing out October.

Which is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

And I mean, we like to bring attention to these cases year-round,

but it's especially important to talk about this month.

And this letter that we received just reaffirmed,

at least for me, my motivation of, like, telling these stories.

So let me just dive into it.

Hello, Ashley and Britt.

I just wanted to let you know what an impact

you and your podcasts have had on our family

and let you know you are not just honoring the memories of your family

and let you know you are not just honoring the memories of the victims,

but you are, in fact, helping new would-be victims

to not become victims.

Let me explain.

Been listening to your podcast for over a year.

Mostly in the car back and forth to work.

This last summer, June 2022,

we were heading on vacation two hours away,

and my 24-year-old stepdaughter, Kay, was with me in the car.

I came into her life when she was 14,

and she's super close to her real mom.

So long ride, awkward silences were to be expected.

So I just started playing a random crime-junkie episode in the car.

The one about the Powell family murders

is where the scroll and pick stopped.

I've literally heard every episode,

so at this point I just scroll and random stop for re-listen.

It dropped in October or so of 2018.

Anyway, after that story,

you guys posted a domestic violence professional

who just explained domestic violence.

I'm sure you remember.

Long story short, we listened to those podcasts,

the Powell family, the Q&A with the professional,

and that got Kay and I talking about domestic violence,

of which I have absolutely no experience,

and I felt we really connected.

At some point during our discussion,

I said something to the effect,

you can always come home.

Like, never stay in a place that's dangerous

or with someone who hurts you because you feel trapped.

You can always come home.

Which, unless you had just listened to a horrifying story,

when would that ever come up naturally in conversation?

Never.

But I just felt like she needed to know,

even though I'm just stepmom,

I'm still your home.

You can always come home.

This conversation felt weird to me after the fact

because Kay was on year two with a wonderful guy,

and from an outward appearance,

they just seemed to be in love and peachy.

Her dad and I even talked numerous times

that this might be the one guy that she marries,

totally a part of our family at this point.

Crime Junkie Rule Alert.

You never really know anyone.

Two weeks ago, I get a call from Kay.

She says, hey, I need to ask you,

do you mean what you said about I can come home?

I was like, huh?

Because, you know, three months have passed

since that long, slightly awkward ride.

But as she kept talking,

she began to explain to me she didn't want to be a statistic.

She doesn't want her story on Crime Junkie.

I was so confused at first,

but as she began to cry,

she says her boyfriend, who we all thought was this amazing guy,

had some serious anger issues,

and the screaming at her had escalated

to punching holes in the wall,

tearing down the door when she was hiding from him,

and even shoving her.

Scary stuff.

She was making the very hard decision

to uproot her life and get away from her abuser.

And how did she know to look for the signs to reach out?

Because of you and your words on that episode.

Kay has moved home,

and the boyfriend is still trying to win her back.

But because she has a knowledge now

of how things can go from zero to murder,

I feel she will stay away from him.

Not to mention, he knows we now know what he is capable of

and are no longer buying the sweetheart life.

Thank you again for everything you do, Amanda.

Oh, my God.

I know.

Wow. Amanda, thank you so much for sending this.

Kay, I am so thankful you are safe.

Ashley, I'm crying.

I love it.

And we actually get a lot of emails like this

where the episode is like spurring conversation.

And what I want to say is I hope that that's true,

like have the conversation after the episode.

But also don't wait for the episode to have a conversation.

You guys have heard hundreds of episodes now.

No, you will never think it's going to happen to you

or your loved ones.

You think you know people.

It's worth saying the words.

Even if someone seems so happy, it's worth saying.

No matter what, you can come to me.

No matter what, you can come home.

Like this is a safe space.

There is no shame.

There is no judgment.

We just want you to be safe and happy and healthy.

I think even just those words to your kids,

to your loved ones are good words to say

because I think they apply to a lot of situations.

So if you guys take one thing away,

go talk to the loved ones in your life.

Let them know that they can always come to you.

You are a safe space and they can always come home.

Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production.

So what do you think Chuck?

Do you approve?

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.