EP 60 | UNSOLVED New England Crime Cases with Emily Sweeney of the Boston Globe (recorded live at Faces Brewing, Malden, Mass)

We mark the 60th episode of Crime of the Truest Kind with the Unsolved show recorded live at Faces Brewing in Malden. It's another long one! It's a live show afterall. 

UNSOLVED New England Crime Cases
Recorded live on Thursday, February 15 at Faces Brewing, Malden
With Emily Sweeney of the Boston Globe Cold Case Files (subscribe here)
We break down a number of New England cases, covered in Emily's reporting and on this podcast. 

Unsolved: The 1996 as of Marcie Fusillo Martini, first believed to be accidental but later ruled as homicide, in Walpole, Mass

Unidentified and unsolved: The 1973 case of the burned body of a Black man found in Westford, Mass

Unidentified and unsolved: In 2005 the body of a woman - Dorchester Jane Doe - was found entombed in an apartment building chimney in Dorchester

Missing: In 2020, Mitchel Iviquel disappeared and little is known about her. She was reported missing in 2021, nearly one full after she was last seen in the Somerville area.

Unsolved cases
Missing and unsolved: Debra Melo of Taunton, 2000

Unsolved: Charline Rosemond from Everett, found murdered in Somerville, 2009

Missing and unsolved: Maura Murray - from Hanson, missing from Haverhill, NH, 2004

Unsolved: Rita Hester - found dead in Allston, 1998

The Charlestown 99 Murders, 1995

Whitney Bulger's reign of terror in Boston 

Crime of the Truest Kind
hosted by Anngelle Wood
Online crimeofthetruestkind.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Unsolved New England Crime Cases
• 11:24 Unsolved Cold Case Files Discussion
• 21:06 Unsolved Murder Case Revisited
• 33:04 Unsolved Cold Cases and Investigative Challenges
• 39:55 Unmarked Grave Exhumation Investigation Update
• 49:23 Cold Case Series Investigating Debra Mello
• 1:03:35 Unsolved Cases of Missing Women
• 1:13:33 The Maura Murray Disappearance Story
• 1:25:37 Boston Crime and History Discussion
• 1:35:05 Delicate Conversations in Victim Services
• 1:45:24 Cold Case Investigations and Media Pressure

Transcript

Anngelle Wood: 0:00

Well, hello, my name is Anngelle Wood and this is Crime of the Truest Kind. . Thank you all so very much. t hose who came out to the two live shows, one I hosted at Faces Brewing in Malden, Massachusetts, and the other last week at Off Cabot in Beverly, Massachusetts. We had quite a crowd and we did a long Q&A which really turned into a meetup conversation. It was great to see everyone in person and, yes, I will do more.

Anngelle Wood: 0:56

The live shows have been such a great extension of this podcast. I'm so glad I started to do them and I do have more in the works and I will tell you this I will be coming to New Hampshire. There are some of you who have asked live events go. Well, the way live events go. Sometimes the best laid plans don't always, you know, fall into place, which is something that happens at the Malden show. I had a projector that worked well, just okay, and I will say for the record, I did send it back. So, on today's episode, episode number 60, wow, 60?. Oh, that feels good.

Anngelle Wood: 1:41

I am going to share the unsolved New England crime cases live show audio that we did Thursday, February 15th at Faces Brewing in Malden. Emily Sweeney of the Boston Globes Cold Case Files was my guest. Now I will do my best to fill in some of the spaces here where guests who ask questions weren't picked up on the recorded audio, so I will do my best to include those in the transcripts so you can follow along. There are a number of cases that we covered in this live show. We talk about cold cases that Emily wrote about in the Boston Globe cold case files, including the 1996 death of Marcy Facilla Martini in Walpole, mass, initially believed to be accidental but found out she was murdered. In 1973, the badly burned body of a Black man was found in Westford, Massachusetts, still unsolved. We will talk about it. And in 2005, someone known as Dorchester Jane Doe was a woman entombed in a chimney in an apartment building there. We talk about her. And of course, you can find everything linked at crimeofthetruestkind. com and in the show notes. Some other cases that I did talk about we will talk about Debra Melo, who went missing from Taunton in 2000. Maura Murray from Hanson, Mass, missing from Haverhill, New Hampshire, in 2004. The unsolved case of Charline Rosemond from Everett, Massachusetts, found murdered in Somerville in 2009. And Rita Hester. Rita Hester was one of the cases I really wanted to get to. One of the guests in the audience brought her up and I was so glad that they did. Rita Hester was not found dead in Alston in her apartment in 1998, but she was found gravely injured, stabbed multiple times. Her murder remains unsolved. So the audio is okay. I think we can get through it. I didn't edit it. I didn't pull a bunch of stuff out. It is the live feed from the Faces Brewing show on February 15th. I lived in Maldon twice and it had nothing like this. So thank you, Faces.

Anngelle Wood: 4:22

My name is Anngelle Wood. Are many of you some of you familiar with the podcast that I host? Cool, okay, well, I host a podcast. It is called Crime of the Truest Kind. It is New England, Massachusetts and New England crime stories and history. It's not a comedy podcast, though sometimes I get some laughs at the expense of the villains in the story.

Anngelle Wood: 4:54

I started it in the early 2000s. It was a pandemic project. However, I had had many plans to do it and finally got the time. So I'm not one who sits around and watches TV. No, that's not completely true. I do sit around and watch Netflix a lot, but I decided I wanted to do a podcast and I will tell you exactly when I made that decision. I decided I wanted to do a podcast and I decided exactly when I made that decision.

Anngelle Wood: 5:29

I was in Maine in a cabin, it was pouring rain. I was reading a book called Hunting Whitey about Whitey Bulger by my friend, dave Wedge and his co-writer, casey Sherman. If you're into true crime, you might dig this quite a lot. I thought they did an amazing job and I said I want to do a podcast and I want to write about this Whitey Bulger story. I hadn't really intended on it being a New England-based podcast until I started to dig into everything that has happened here around us in our neighborhoods. That's really how it took off.

Anngelle Wood: 6:12

I had this list. I'm going to talk about this story in New York and that story in California, and all those stories deserve attention. But I found all of these amazing stories based here in Massachusetts and New England. I have covered a number of them. I'm not going to break it down right now and I left some. There are some postcards on the table that have the QR code that will bring you right to it. You can learn about it if you haven't listened to it yet I have some merchandise over here on the table. There are stickers, there are cards, there are pins. There is a mailing list if you would like to sign it. I have more events coming up. There is a special merchandise code here if you want 35% off anything in the store. So help yourself. This came to be. This came to be Because I decided I wanted to go out and meet people and see people in person, and I do a lot of things within the music community and I probably haven't mentioned the fact that I did radio for 20 years.

Anngelle Wood: 7:24

Do some of you remember me from the radio? Two people, all right, yay, rock and roll, thank you. Thank you, two people, for remembering me from the radio I did. I worked at WFNX you can cheer FNX if you're old enough to remember it. I worked at WBCN you can cheer if you're old enough to remember that and I worked at WZLX before they started playing Billy Joel. I like Billy Joel, but it was a whole thing.

Anngelle Wood: 7:58

So I the things that I love about podcasting are I love writing and researching. I love learning about New England, in our towns, in our cities, in our streets, in our landmarks. I love that part of our history and I have, as a result of doing this podcast, met some amazing people who are in the true crime world, in the industry, and that's a thing I didn't even know there was a true crime industry. So that's been a huge learning experience. I've gone to conferences and I'm learning a lot about advocacy in this space and we can talk about that after, because it's big and it's real and it's important. And when I say advocacy, it is helping these families speak and helping these families along the way. I hope nobody in this room ever is touched by this true crime world, but if you are, there are a lot of great people here to help you and support you.

Anngelle Wood: 9:06

That said, I had this big plan to introduce Emily Sweeney. I wanted to, you know, kind of roll out the proverbial red carpet and say Emily Sweeney's been running for the Boston Globe for more than 20 years. Emily Sweeney, you will find out, is a Dorchester native and has the accent to prove it, which I love. I do have a Boston-ish accent, but you hear it more when I'm making a joke or drinking, which I probably will do both of tonight.

Anngelle Wood: 9:47

Emily and I have been friends for a while. We've teamed up on a number of things. We did an episode about Karina Holmer which we will talk about tonight later on. Karina Homer, for those of you who aren't aware, is a unsolved murder case from Boston from 1996. She was a 20-year-old woman. We will learn more about her tonight. Emily has recently well the fall as recently as like October. Yeah, Emily has been writing a Cold Case Files series and it is a newsletter and you can sign up and you can get them mailed to you every week, as I do, and that's what we're here to talk about. So, Emily, if you would start off and share with us how you got into journalism.

Emily Sweeney: 10:44

Oh, wow, yeah.

Anngelle Wood: 10:46

Loaded question Way back when. What made you want to?

Emily Sweeney: 10:49

write the rights. Yeah, I mean, I've always been interested in media of all forms and yeah, I've been at the Globe now for over 20 years and the cold case files we just launched in the fall, like you're saying, and it's been amazing In only a few months I've gotten so much feedback and so many ideas and story ideas and suggestions and actually developments in two of the cases we covered.

Anngelle Wood: 11:20

Amazing.

Emily Sweeney: 11:21

Yeah, so it's been great. I appreciate you having me on to share some of the coverage that we've given to some of these cases.

Anngelle Wood: 11:29

And there's so many more that I'd like to cover. I wish there were far less but, unfortunately, there's a lot of crime, yeah, and a lot of unsolved crime that goes back decades.

Emily Sweeney: 11:39

Yes, yeah, and some of it didn't attract media attention at the time and I was really surprised to learn. Actually, every single day, I'm getting emails about cases that I'm like what?

Anngelle Wood: 11:50

Like I'd never heard of, I wasn't aware of, and a few of the cases that we're going to talk about tonight I had never heard of from the cold case files, which is great because it's another you know handful of cases that need more attention. And these aren't recent cases that we're going to discuss. I think the newest one is maybe 1996.

Emily Sweeney: 12:13

Yeah, yeah, a lot of them have been, you know, quite a few years old. Some of the ones I'm covering actually are more recent, but the three that I'm going to talk about are a little bit older.

Anngelle Wood: 12:23

So, before we get started, I want to ask you this how do you decide which ones you're going to cover and when? Is there a process? Do you talk it through with colleagues? How does that work?

Emily Sweeney: 12:36

Well, ever since we launched the series, I've had way too many cases to choose from and, it's honestly, it's been difficult to figure out, like you know, which one to do. Yeah, a lot of it's been like when I can get interviews, when police will like agree to talk to me, stuff like that lines up. You know, trying to get interviews as much as possible, like you know actual people involved with the case. Yeah, yeah, but again I have my list is like growing, as I'm sure yours is too.

Anngelle Wood: 13:08

I have more and more cases all of the time that people want me to write about and people email me regularly with things, some things that I'm aware of and some things I've never heard about, which is great because it's resonating in a way that people they want attention and that's one thing that we really need to remember that you know you have families of loved ones of missing, missing or murdered loved ones and many of them get no attention. Nobody talks about their cases, no one gives them attention about their cases, and it's a it's a massive struggle for a lot of these families and we're going to talk about some of oh look at how cute that is, nice and crooked we're going to talk about some cases with Emily Sweeney from the Boston Globe tonight that all of these are unsolved. I don't know. Maybe maybe you know during this conversation we can talk about if there are known suspects, but some of these folks remain unidentified. Some of these folks we don't even know who they are yet, and that's a whole other component to this. So let's cold case files. Boston Globe.

Anngelle Wood: 14:25

You can sign up for the newsletter. I have shared the link and I will continue to share the link. Yeah, please do so case one, sorry, sorry. Dorchester, jane Doe, unidentified, unsolved, dorchester.

Emily Sweeney: 14:45

Yeah, this is a wild case about a woman that was found entombed in a chimney. Stop please In in my old neighborhood.

Anngelle Wood: 14:56

Very sorry, let's go back. All right, this, this young lady we need to see. Stop, please, all right, yeah, so.

Emily Sweeney: 15:09

So yeah, so this, this case happened then 2005,. A father and son get hired to clean out a chimney or furnace at this apartment complex on Winter Street in Dorchester, in the meeting house Hill section, kind of by St Peter's, and they're in the basement and they go down to the cleanout door. Usually, you know, you can start sweeping out ashes and everything and it's like blocked by cement. So they take hammers and they start like breaking up and they're like, wow, that's weird, we've cleaned chimneys and furnaces, we never seen this before. So they break through the cements, then they they reach another barrier of wood. They break through that and then the dad reaches inside and pulls out what he thinks is like a tree branch or a tree stump, maybe grown through the ground, and it's a human arm, the skeletal remains of an arm, and they both saw it had red fake fingernails on the hand and he dropped it.

Emily Sweeney: 16:14

They called 911. So authorities showed up. There is a remains of a woman. She was entombed in this chimney and you know she was definitely the victim of a homicide. They determined and she to this day has not been identified Thanks to forensics. We have like a the kind of recreation of what she may have looked like, and they determined that she was definitely the mother of at least one child. So you know, it just makes me think you know who was she and what happened to her child. Her child would be over 18 years old now, so that's one of the cases we I wrote about recently.

Anngelle Wood: 16:58

This is the apartment complex. So if anybody lives in Dorchester, if you live in this apartment complex, oh shit.

Emily Sweeney: 17:06

Ask around about 2005,. The chimney.

Anngelle Wood: 17:10

But you help be a super sleuth on this case.

Emily Sweeney: 17:14

Yeah, but in all seriousness it's, it's had to believe that you know somebody. This woman was hidden away. You know. Thank God they found her. You know, and authorities believe she had been killed, you know, pretty recently.

Anngelle Wood: 17:27

That was going to be my next question. How long do they think that this woman was entombed in this chimney space in this apartment complex?

Emily Sweeney: 17:37

Yeah, so it definitely wasn't like decades or anything like that. It was probably like, I think, within a year or months. It was somewhat recently and again, thanks to forensics, they she had extensive dental work and they couldn't identify her through that, but they did find a dental plate that is, they thought would she either got it maybe in the Caribbean or was by a dentist who was trained in the Caribbean and she was of, you know, mixed ethnicity, possibly of Brazilian ancestry, and again it's. The address is 1719 Winter Street in Dorchester. So this is one of the cases we tried to spread the word about and one of the cases, yeah, that we've highlighted as part of the series.

Anngelle Wood: 18:27

So no one has reported this person missing.

Emily Sweeney: 18:32

Not that, not that authorities know of no.

Anngelle Wood: 18:35

And there's DNA that could potentially be tested.

Emily Sweeney: 18:41

I mean, yeah, there was full skeletal remains that were found. So and again, angie had at least one child too.

Anngelle Wood: 18:50

And that you think might, at this point, be close to adult age? Yeah, definitely adult age, over 18. So we don't know if this woman is from here, right? So that poses another interesting question. If no one locally is looking for her, it's very possible that she comes from another part of the country or another part of the world and people may not even know she's been found.

Emily Sweeney: 19:13

Yeah, I mean and that's the thing about spreading the word being so important Because I mean I just think, like you know, she probably her child is, you know, might still be alive and maybe knows like something happened. You know what I mean. And if, maybe, if they see, you know the the.

Anngelle Wood: 19:30

Well, that happens a lot, that someone goes missing and they're not aware. I remember, for example, the case of Ruth Marie Terry, who was known for decades as Lady of the Dunes. You know that story from Provincetown. She was only very recently identified and she was known as Lady of the Dunes a body that was found on the beach in Provincetown buried in the town cemetery. And they finally identified her through DNA technology and her family had always been wondering where she was and only very recently discovered that that that she was that person. So, years and years later, things are still. Things still have the ability to be solved. Yeah, it just takes work like you're doing.

Emily Sweeney: 20:23

Yeah, awareness, and also to every single day. You know, genealogical, like forensics, dna testings, but and also just more and more people are uploading, you know their, you know their profiles and the. The databases is growing by the day, so it just increases the chances of unidentified folks like this poor woman. You know the first step is figuring out who she is and then hopefully finding our killer.

Anngelle Wood: 20:52

Do you have any idea where her remains are currently? Do you know if they're stored somewhere?

Emily Sweeney: 20:58

I don't know right now. I'd be curious to know. Yeah, I'm sure they are, but that's, that's a very good question I'll definitely be asking tomorrow. And what?

Anngelle Wood: 21:06

has the feedback been on this particular case when this come out in January? I think this case was issued in January, right yeah?

Emily Sweeney: 21:16

I just wrote about, like I think it came out a few weeks ago, with within the past month or so, but again it's 2005,. But it's one of those stories that was in the paper a couple times. In the globe, you know, comes goes and then, like you know, a couple of years later, you know we didn't have this, we never ran that photo in the paper. You know what I mean. So, again, these are the cases I'm just trying to like raise more awareness about Right.

Anngelle Wood: 21:43

We don't know her name, we don't know where she's from and we have a likeness of her which have likeness. Likeness is like these have been successful in the past.

Emily Sweeney: 21:56

Yeah, I mean, every bit helps.

Anngelle Wood: 22:06

Now we're going to move on to Marcy Fasillo Martini. This is a woman who was murdered in Walpole. Found in Walpole, massachusetts. What does the year 1996? Initially, whomever killed her? They know that she was murdered, but initially somebody tried to make it look like a drug overdose.

Emily Sweeney: 22:27

Yeah, yeah. So this was another wild case that again at the time didn't get much media attention. When I first wrote about this case it was like actually years ago. I was shocked just to find out like how screwed up the investigation was from the stat.

Anngelle Wood: 22:47

So so tell me about that. What? What did you learn about the initial investigation and how? What has left it still unsolved to this day?

Emily Sweeney: 23:00

Yeah, so you know, walpole police get a, get a call from Marcy's boyfriend, whom she was kind of on the outs with. She had taken out her strain and ordered on him they were kind of you know together but not that type of thing and he told police that you know, he found Marcy on the floor and there were pills all over the place, you know. And so the medical examiner, a representative from the medical examiner's office, shows up. The police show up, they see her and not wearing much many clothes on the ground, pills scattered everywhere, and the representative from the medical examiner's office was like, oh, apparently this is an overdose, maybe it was a suicide. Even so, they wheel out her body.

Anngelle Wood: 23:54

Okay, Just assuming that they already know what happened, right.

Emily Sweeney: 24:00

Yeah so so the autopsy is conducted, the evidence is, or, you know. Again, they do not treat it like a crime scene because it's like more like an accident scene, you know what I mean or maybe a suicide. So her body's wheeled out and then it stays later that they find out. Wait a second, oh, she was strangled and they counted up all the pills on the floor. It was exactly the prescription that she was supposed to be taking, like totally normal. So now, days later, they're suddenly investigating a murder, you know. So it got off to a late stat and yeah, like there's been a few other things in the investigation too that have really, you know, bothered.

Anngelle Wood: 24:47

That's her dog, rocky, by the way.

Emily Sweeney: 24:49

Yes, rocky didn't bark. You know neighbors never reported any barking so they think that it was somebody you know she was familiar with. Whoever did it, there's no signs of forced entry. And at her wake her family noticed. You know she always had very long, nice fingernails manicured. They noticed that her nails were cut off, you know. And now if you're investigating like a you know DNA, somebody's defending themselves Fingernails, that DNA evidence underneath those fingernails, that's huge. That could like point to who the killer is.

Speaker 3: 25:28

Absolutely.

Emily Sweeney: 25:30

So you know, they inquired about her fingernails and it's like nobody has nobody had any answers for them. They were told by one official that the fingernails were maybe lost.

Anngelle Wood: 25:45

But they were cut off they were cut off. Yeah, and it was like sort of a jagged edge too, right yeah.

Emily Sweeney: 25:53

So it just seems like anything that could go wrong with this investigation. You know what I mean. Did so to this day. So the boyfriend that found her, he obviously was looked at as a suspect right, you know he police, never used the word suspect, or even at least with me, the person of interest, you know. But he moved to Florida right after it happened.

Anngelle Wood: 26:25

Everybody from Massachusetts moved to Florida, by the way.

Emily Sweeney: 26:28

I think we're naturally snowbirds, I don't know. But the permanent move, I don't know. Yeah, so anyway, it's just a wild case that you know. It's a case that should have been solved. You know what I mean.

Anngelle Wood: 26:46

You have to wonder, given the way it lined up. Initially, they went in there, they took a look around, saw pills. They just assumed that it was an accidental overdose or a suicide and then discovered days later that it was none of that. So then, what was the shape of the home which this is the condo and wall pole where she lived with her dog Rocky? That didn't bark, by the way. Nobody heard anything. You have to wonder what the condition was of the condo once they went back.

Emily Sweeney: 27:25

Right.

Anngelle Wood: 27:26

What did the police say?

Emily Sweeney: 27:28

Well and again. So I mean a crime scene. The most important thing is, you know, keeping it pristine. But you know that clearly didn't happen. So it's hard to say like what it was like, even before or after there were crime scene photographs taken. I haven't been privy to like the case file, but I've spoken to one of the detectives who used to work on the case. I was familiar with it but you know, again, it's just a very frustrating case. But since we highlighted this case in the cold case files in the globe, a man contacted me and he's like you know, I might have some information, you know, and I was thinking to call the tip line. I was like, yes, please call the tip line. And he got in touch with authorities and was interviewed by, you know. He told me detectives at the DA's office for an hour and he gave them information, new information, and you can't be privy to that because it's part of the investigation, I'm guessing.

Emily Sweeney: 28:32

Yeah, I mean like I know it could possibly, you know. So her boyfriend at the time had an alibi of where he was that night and so he had given information about stuff related to that.

Anngelle Wood: 28:49

So you know, and that she had an ex-husband as well. Yes, she had just gone through a divorce. Do they know anything about?

Emily Sweeney: 28:56

him.

Anngelle Wood: 28:58

Were you able to learn anything about his whereabouts. When this happened, you know he had a solid alibi.

Emily Sweeney: 29:06

He was never looked at seriously. And again, there's a lot of just missing information just due to the crime scene being. You know, the investigation didn't get enough to lead stat. But like the detectives told the guy they called the tip line that they might be re-interviewing people now. Yes, so I mean for a case like nothing's really happened for like years.

Anngelle Wood: 29:30

From 1996.

Emily Sweeney: 29:31

Oh my, God, like you know, even one tip it could change things.

Anngelle Wood: 29:34

So I'm sorry for anybody who has OCD. I know this crooked screen is driving you nuts. I apologize so much. I think it looks kind of cool, it's like. So this is where she lived. This is the neighborhood in Walpole where she lived.

Emily Sweeney: 29:55

Yeah, swan Pond, swan Road.

Anngelle Wood: 29:57

Swan Pond. It's like a. I'm not familiar very much with Walpole. I know it borders Foxborough and you drive through it when you're going to a Patriots game. Same. And it's where the prison is Exactly, so it's got a couple of things going for it.

Emily Sweeney: 30:12

Yeah, it's a very quiet like kind of like neighborhood of townhomes where she lives.

Speaker 3: 30:16

And this is the neighborhood of Walpole Does anybody live near Walpole?

Anngelle Wood: 30:20

Do you live it?

Emily Sweeney: 30:21

I don't know if they did that. Are you kidding? Oh, no way. Was she there in 96?

Speaker 3: 30:24

Yeah, so she lived in Walpole when she first came out, I was like I don't know exactly where that is, All the houses in the state.

Emily Sweeney: 30:32

Yeah.

Anngelle Wood: 30:32

It's not exactly the same. All that whole condo, that whole condo community, is all the same. Does it still look like that now? Yeah, wow, wow, it's right by the train station. Yeah, it's. I don't know if I have any more photos of her, I'm going to skip over and see if there's any left of her. So we have it. We'll wrap up with Marcy and then we'll move on to our next one.

Anngelle Wood: 31:03

So success is that it has shaken the tree a little bit and people are coming forward and sharing new information from a murder in 1996.

Emily Sweeney: 31:18

Yeah.

Anngelle Wood: 31:19

Which they almost totally effed up. I mean, imagine for a moment, if they didn't do an autopsy in this poor girl. They might just think forever that she accidentally overdosed or took her own life.

Emily Sweeney: 31:33

Seriously, no, it's scary.

Anngelle Wood: 31:35

I mean that happens a lot in cases, that Familiar cases that we read about all the time, but these cases where there's foul play involved and some people never actually know that about their loved one.

Emily Sweeney: 31:49

Yeah, and the one good thing is technological advances with DNA investigations and stuff, and also I think even law enforcement investigations have come a long way from years ago protocols, so but yeah, thank God there was an autopsy Sidebar.

Anngelle Wood: 32:10

Do you find in your work now, 20 years on reporting for the globe, do you find Is it easier dealing with law enforcement with information for information, or is it the same?

Emily Sweeney: 32:29

It's hard, it's always hard.

Anngelle Wood: 32:31

I told you about the accent, right, I wasn't lying.

Emily Sweeney: 32:34

It comes out now and again.

Anngelle Wood: 32:36

I love it.

Speaker 3: 32:37

Now I'm going to be like.

Emily Sweeney: 32:38

what's that? Yeah, no, especially Well. One thing over the years I noticed, like years ago when I first reported on Massi Mattini's case, I think it was 2008.

Emily Sweeney: 32:52

And I'm not making fun. I love it. I'm not making fun. I was given so much information. You know, not everything, I couldn't see the case file and everything, but I was given a lot of information.

Emily Sweeney: 33:04

Today, like for most of the cold cases that I cover, police are very hesitant, and I understand why, like because anything to do with the investigation, they're just keeping close to the vest. So I've been trying to, you know, talk to more police and they're seeing the articles that we're doing and also explain to them that you know, maybe if you can give up a little bit of information, it might lead to more information. You know, we're doing like a report of another missing person. You know, and that was one of my arguments. I was like, well, can you tell me, like, what she liked? Because, like, you know what, if she liked Bowling, maybe somebody saw her at a bowling alley somewhere in Michigan, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. So so you know, I understand where they're coming from, but I think, slowly but surely, with coverage in podcasts like yours, I think law enforcement is also seeing there's an upside to sharing some information. For sure.

Emily Sweeney: 33:58

You know you don't want to. Obviously I don't want to jeopardize any investigation. That's the exact opposite of what I want to do.

Speaker 3: 34:02

Right.

Emily Sweeney: 34:04

But so yeah, so I'm hoping it's changing, but yes, it's very hard.

Anngelle Wood: 34:08

I imagine that there's. I imagine that law enforcement can be a little wary of people who are investigators. Because you know you have a podcast, that doesn't automatically mean you're a reporter. Those are some of the things that kind of irk me about the podcasting genre or the true crime realm. You know, people feel like they can just knock on someone's door and ask them about the worst fucking day of their life, and that's not good either. All right, yeah.

Anngelle Wood: 34:36

Well, keep up the good work, because you've already gotten people who are coming forward to talk about Marcy. Marcy, matine's case, matine's case. Let's talk about this gentleman. This is another unsolved, unidentified person. Can you imagine dying and no one knows who you are?

Emily Sweeney: 35:04

Yeah murdered. Westford. Anybody from Westford area, anybody know where Westford is, even.

Anngelle Wood: 35:12

I know where.

Emily Sweeney: 35:12

Westford is yeah, so it's out. It's out West a bit. You know it's very, you know it's kind of like. You know, deep in the suburbs, let's say. And back in 1973, it was quite rural, and January 1973. This guy wants to buy real estate, is walking along this old farmland and there's two like pits where, like a farmhouse and a bond one stood, and he's like looking around because he wants to buy the property, probably to develop it or whatever, and he sees a body, a burned body, in one of the cellars, kind of like tucked in some rubble, and it was a body of a black man in his 20s. And again, this is Westford, massachusetts, like one of the whitest towns today, in 1973, like even you know the whiter, and also close to Fort Devons, you know which.

Emily Sweeney: 36:14

Perhaps he was a soldier, you know, or again, we don't know who he is. Authorities could never figure it out. He was missing his shoes. His body was burned as if somebody had set him on fire. And he was. He was well dressed, wearing a tachiki kind of like an African styled shirt and jeans, no shoes and again, this is January, you know no wallet. So somebody did something with those shoes, in coat probably.

Anngelle Wood: 36:51

Do you have any indication of how long he may have been there?

Emily Sweeney: 36:55

So he hadn't been there that long either, like it had happened recently. And what's really interesting is like so this old farmland isn't like yeah, it's out of the way, but back then it was a popular hangout spot for teenagers. You know People would go up there to hunt like snowmobile, but teenagers and locals knew about this place. You know what I mean. Like if it wouldn't be a place, like if you didn't know, you wouldn't go there.

Anngelle Wood: 37:24

So it's interesting that this whomever this person was that was looking to buy real estate found this person and not whomever may have been hanging out there right, yeah, yeah, so they think like he had only been there like a matter of like days.

Emily Sweeney: 37:42

Yeah, it happened very recently. I think he was found like he was probably killed over the weekend and he's found a couple days later.

Anngelle Wood: 37:49

So they don't think that he was killed there. Do they think that he was killed someplace else and brought?

Emily Sweeney: 37:54

there. That's definitely a possibility, you know. But they think he was a victim of a homicide. He was set on fire afterwards to you know, possibly, I guess, hide the crime or hide who he was. So they never figured out who he was. They ended up burying him in Fairview Cemetery, which is one of the town cemeteries in Westford, in a numbered grave just with the number nine, real small square.

Emily Sweeney: 38:21

And so when I first started reporting the story, I went down to the cemetery and figured out where he was, john Doe, and yeah, so started reporting the story. And what's really interesting is that right before the story ran right, it was like almost like a year of me making calls until we finally launched the Cold Key series. So now the story's coming out, I go down to the cemetery because I'm like you know what, I just want to make sure like he's still there. So I go down the cemetery and guess what? The number nine's gone and there's a depressed like kind of you can kind of see where, like you know, maybe somebody was stuck up, maybe not Like, am I seeing things?

Emily Sweeney: 39:11

Yeah, so what happened was, in between the time that I started making calls and just like asking about the case, they ended up exhuming his body. Now again, he's been there for 50 years, you know 73. And so a police wouldn't tell me anything. You know, I'm like, look, I talked to the cemetery worker. They said they saw like police cars down here, that they saw the body. The number nine is gone.

Anngelle Wood: 39:38

The number nine is gone, you know, it looks like there's been some disruption to the area and they're like no, no, nothing happened.

Emily Sweeney: 39:46

They're just like no comment. It's under investigation.

Speaker 3: 39:49

No comment is a comment.

Emily Sweeney: 39:52

And I understand it is under investigation, but I'm like, come on. So I was able to confirm, you know, not only with the cemetery worker but through other sources, that yes, he was definitely, you know, obviously, exhumed and presumably to, you know, review any evidence that's left and to see if any, you know, any of his remains can be tested for DNA. And also, when I first started reporting the story, you know this case wasn't listed. There's a national database called Namus and you know he wasn't listed.

Emily Sweeney: 40:26

And again I'm happy to report that since we've done, you know, kind of just shed light on this case, again they've added him to the database, which is a huge step Because you can see if, like you know, a black man that fits his description maybe went missing around that time in 1973, you know what I mean you can there's possible leads out there. So where I'm waiting to hear what's going on and when he'll, like you know, with his body and stuff. But it's a case that a lot of locals had no idea about, you know, and I'm like this case is crazy, I'm like I had no idea you know, I had no idea until I read your story that this had even happened.

Anngelle Wood: 41:09

And this I mean Westford's still a very small town. It's certainly more populated than it was in 1973. But it's still a very small town and I'm going to venture a guess that people in Westford don't even know this happened.

Emily Sweeney: 41:23

Yeah, no, it was definitely. It came to a surprise as many A few old times had heard of it and I got the idea for it because I was just talking to a retired law enforcement source out that way. It suggested it because I was looking for cases and yeah, so again, this is a case that. So I did a follow-up story about the body being exhumed and you know who knows, you know, hopefully you know, we'll get more news that way.

Anngelle Wood: 41:50

Were they forthcoming with anything other than what you were able, what you were able to put together from talking to the cemetery workers and the no re-between the lines, no comments from law enforcement.

Emily Sweeney: 42:00

You know actually. So the Westford department was actually more forthcoming than a lot of other departments at the beginning, when I first started calling because they were like oh what, you know what I mean Like who's working on this case? Oh yeah, this guy, this, you know, and actually the chief was super helpful because I was looking up like just whatever I could find from old newspaper articles, which again wasn't much, and just telling them like, look, this is what I'm going to go with you know Like sometimes as a journalist, it's a good way to like actually get people to confirm information and be like look, this is what I'm writing, like please tell me if it's wrong.

Emily Sweeney: 42:35

You know what I mean, even though you know like again, this is like inside baseball journalist stuff, but he was very helpful, like there was stuff he confirmed for me, stuff he's like I don't know and but then as soon as the body was exhumed, like there's like no comment, no comment. But when I went down to the cemetery that day I can only tell I was like like walking around, being like he's gone, like bizarre that it lines up like that.

Anngelle Wood: 43:07

Because you hadn't issued, you hadn't published the story yet at that point, correct?

Emily Sweeney: 43:11

So I had been calling for and asking questions about it for months. Ah, there you go. So, it was weird timing and I told my editors I'm like, just run the story as is. We'll do a follow-up Because again it brings more attention. You know what I mean? Like let me figure this out next where he went. But again, for a case 50 years old, I mean it's a development of some sorts and I'm just, you know this is. I want to just do more of this.

Anngelle Wood: 43:40

That's an incredible thing 50 years, this more than 50 years, this man has been unknown, buried in an unmarked grave. Emily Sweeney from the Globe starts making phone calls and what happens? The body is exhumed and they start doing testing. There's no doubt in my mind that there's something going on to locate or to identify this person and think about that. You have a loved one, this person, no one. Someone's got to be looking for this man, someone somewhere. It's got to be looking for this man, whether he's from Massachusetts or not. Likelihood that he's not from Massachusetts if they haven't put this together.

Anngelle Wood: 44:21

I mean we also have to remember it was 1973. Things were very different then. Some family members might just say I don't know they maybe it was a trouble. We don't certainly don't know the extent of the relationship with the family members. Yeah, that happens a lot. Sometimes they don't know it. Maybe this is a person who was known to disappear or known to take off or said I'm going to this place, we have no idea.

Emily Sweeney: 44:50

Yeah, yeah, and then not knowing is difficult. Totally. I mean it's yeah. I just can't wait to hear. Hopefully there'll be more information coming out from like you know, whatever they were able to get, so, but I'll be following up on it.

Anngelle Wood: 45:05

Can you speak to? We don't. Unfortunately, we don't have any photographs of this person, for obvious reasons. Can you speak to? That might be the last photo we have in this series. There it is. It's cold case files. You can sign up to get the newsletter delivered right to your email. Can you speak to a couple of cases that you have since written about or maybe are planning to write about that you want to preview a little bit.

Emily Sweeney: 45:39

Yeah, sure, well one, I actually just. We taped a segment of the Globe Today TV show today on. It is on Nessun on weekdays at five o'clock and it'll probably air sometime next week. But a woman, an Iraq war veteran, black woman, named Michelle Evichel honor student military career, came back. She served in Iraq, kuwait disappeared without a trace in 2020.

Anngelle Wood: 46:13

Where were?

Emily Sweeney: 46:14

you from, do you recall? You know, I'm not sure her family wouldn't talk to me directly, but I got a statement from them, from police. But she was last seen in Somerville and visiting her father's house. And she was also last seen traveling with a man who was deaf and his daughter who was also deaf, and all three of them were using sign language to communicate with each other. But again, iraq war veteran just disappears. Like you know, she wasn't reported missing until a year later, which is also, you know, unusual. But again, we're hoping by just getting the word out. How old was she? She was, I believe, 42 years old at the time of her disappearance.

Emily Sweeney: 47:04

What year was that? Do you recall 2020. Oh, wow, yeah, yeah, so that was like so this is really really recent 2021, she's reported missing, the Cambridge police, and that's when they start spreading the word of like. You know, here's this decorated military veteran who just is gone.

Anngelle Wood: 47:23

And no one reported anything.

Emily Sweeney: 47:25

Yeah, so that's one story will be coming out next week, and the TV segment too. We got, like you know, lots of photos of her.

Anngelle Wood: 47:35

We need to shake the tree on that one.

Emily Sweeney: 47:38

And her family said you know that they're holding on, hope that she's okay you know and you know who knows Like. You know what I mean. She was a war veteran. I don't know they don't know anything about.

Anngelle Wood: 47:51

Whomever these people were that she was with. I wasn't able to get any of that information.

Emily Sweeney: 47:58

But you know, you never know, especially with the sign language aspect of it. Maybe somebody's seen her, maybe somebody saw her. Her family just says like, hopefully she's okay because it's been almost four years now since she's been heard from. But do you know if she has children? Not that I'm aware of, but I'm not sure.

Anngelle Wood: 48:17

Wow, what are? What is something that you've worked on that you think is aside from, probably, marcy Martini that one sounds like it is solvable or could have been solvable if they, if the investigation went differently? Is there something that you have covered to date that you think is pretty obviously solvable? They just need a little bit more eyes and person power. Yeah, I mean, maybe Is there something that comes to mind.

Emily Sweeney: 48:53

I'm just like, since starting this series, I'm just convinced that you know every single case. Come on, somebody knows something. I think somebody knows something and you know, sometimes with the cases that are like very old, like this 1973 case, 50 years, okay, you're stretching it now, you know, but come on, you know, somebody drop, you know, dump this person's body in a local like hangout spot. You know what I mean, Like it's just.

Emily Sweeney: 49:23

It seems like somebody who knows the area would have done that you know, so when I first was assigned the cold case series, it was a year before we even launched. I started asking around and I actually live out in the air now, which is right by Westford.

Anngelle Wood: 49:47

Air.

Emily Sweeney: 49:48

Yeah, I know people like where I'm, like that's my dog, it's on the sticks, like way out there. Yeah, so I, you know, I have friends in law enforcement in Boston and like everywhere. But somebody out there who was, I think, connected to the acting department had suggested that they're like, hey, I heard like they gave me a couple cases like, oh, the ones that always bothered me like or didn't get much attention, and I was like, wow, westford, like you know, not a lot of murders happen there at all, and just the circumstances of this and the lack of even coverage at the time, the Lowell Sun, those articles that were up, those are the Lowell Sun, the globe just ran little, you know, little snippets you know. So, yeah, that's why I found out law enforcement. Source.

Anngelle Wood: 50:42

The Lowell Sun to their credit has done some really great reporting.

Emily Sweeney: 50:46

Oh yeah, I mean thank God, I mean the Lowell Sun's archives too. Yeah, it's a treasure trove of information, you know so.

Anngelle Wood: 50:58

I recently did a two-part series on a case that was out the well. I don't know how close they are to Westford, but in Townsend and Pepperill area, and a lot of the information that I was able to find in archives came from the great reporting from the Lowell Sun. It was pretty outstanding. So there's a lot to be said with these little town papers.

Speaker 3: 51:24

Oh yeah.

Anngelle Wood: 51:24

There's great reporters everywhere. There's great reporters everywhere, any reporters here, any reporters. Okay, that's all right, I'm going to move on to. Why is she upside down? Oh, great, an unsupported file. Well, that's Deborah Mello, and I don't know why she's sideways. This is Deborah Mello.

Anngelle Wood: 51:53

Deborah Mello is a case that I covered very recently. I spoke to a family member. Deborah Mello is a woman from Taunton, massachusetts, who went missing June 20, 2000. So we're at almost 24 years that Deborah Mello disappeared. She from Taunton, in the house. That would be a long drive and I will love you if you drove up here from Taunton.

Anngelle Wood: 52:24

Deborah Mello, what is going on? Sorry, ocd people, I truly apologize. All right, let's keep it right there. So this is a young mom. A 30-year-old mom had two young children. Her daughter was, I believe, 13 when she went missing. Her son was about eight years old. Can you imagine being 13 and eight and your mom never comes home? She well, I guess I'll just say it because I covered it in the series.

Anngelle Wood: 52:59

She was married very young. She got married at 16. Her husband was a few years older than her. He was very, by all accounts, everyone that I spoke to, all family members, anybody that knew her and her husband. He was very controlling. Any time she went out he would be calling, looking for my wife, my wife. She never had a first name. My wife was my wife, was my wife Any time she went out, even to just have coffee with a girlfriend or go and chat and have coffee with her sister, whom she was very close to.

Anngelle Wood: 53:34

There's her husband driving around, basically stalking her. You're nodding. Do you know the story? Stalking her, always watching her. They worked together. Both of them worked at local Dunkin Donuts. The last place they worked together was a place in Braintree.

Anngelle Wood: 53:58

So here's the story of the last day of Debra Mello. It's June 20, 2000. Her husband his name is Louis Mello. Louis Mello drives Debra Mello to a doctor's appointment in Weymouth, massachusetts. Now, if you're familiar with Taunton and Weymouth, it's a very far away. It's at least a 45-minute drive. He brings Debra to this appointment. That has been confirmed. Debra is not seen or heard from again after this doctor's appointment. What her family and law enforcement has been able to put together is the last place that she was seen is at this doctor's office. There are people who worked in the doctor's office that confirm that she actually did go to this doctor's appointment. It was a dermatology appointment. She bought some face cream.

Anngelle Wood: 55:02

Her husband, louis Mello, told police that he brought her to the doctor's appointment. They got in a fight and she demanded to be let out of the car on a very busy roadway in Weymouth Doesn't add up, but we'll keep going. He says he let her out. She got out. She left her cell phone she had a cell phone at the time. She left her purse. She left the items that she had purchased at the doctor's office at the dermatology appointment, left everything in her car.

Anngelle Wood: 55:39

I don't know about any of you, but if you are 30 plus miles away from your hometown, you're not going to say let me out of the car right now. Even if you're having a fight with your significant other we've all been there You're not going to say let me out of the car, leave all of your possessions in the car, including the really probably expensive face shit you just bought, and get out of the car. None of that adds up. The story goes that the husband, louis Mello he's senior. By the way, they had a little boy they named after him. Louis Mello's senior story is yeah, we got in a fight, I let her out. I went back looking for her, she was gone. He drives back to Taunton, which is far. He claims that he went back. He went to see his children who were young. He bought them pizza. That has been confirmed that he actually did buy them pizza. Then he said I drove back to Weymouth to look for her. He didn't. They discovered that he never left Taunton to go back and look for her.

Anngelle Wood: 56:54

Remember how? This was a man who if his wife went out for a coffee, he was looking for her. If his wife went to a friend's house, he was calling looking for his wife. Do you know that on 622,000, he didn't call anybody looking for his wife? Not one person that knew her got a phone call that his wife didn't come home that night.

Anngelle Wood: 57:22

Their two children, a little girl and a little boy, found out the next day Well, mommy just didn't come home last night. That's all the kids ever learned about their mother is that, well, mommy just didn't come home last night. The girl their, her daughter, who was 13 at the time, called her auntie, who her mom was very close with, and said auntie, mom didn't come home last night. I don't know what happened. That's how the family learned that their sister, debra Mello, didn't come home. The little girl called and said I don't know where my mom is. She didn't come home. So then the sister Patricia is her name called Lewis Mello and said what the F? What happened with my sister? You have to call and report her missing because he hadn't. Finally he called and reported her.

Anngelle Wood: 58:18

He was questioned. He told the story about how they got in a fight, left her out on the highway At first he didn't say. Initially the story was that he went to Waymouth to look for her. They determined later on through his own cell phone records. I'm actually impressed that he had a cell phone in 2000. I don't, I'm not sure. No, I think I did have a cell phone in 2000. I take that back. I did. It was a really shitty Nokia one, but I did have a cell phone. Did you have the Razor? I think.

Speaker 3: 58:50

I did.

Anngelle Wood: 58:52

So here we are, almost 24 years later. Debra Mello's children are grown in the 24 year, almost 24 years that Debra Mello has been missing. Her stepfather, whom she was very close to, was murdered. Her mom passed away, I don't know officially by COVID or because of COVID, but passed away during COVID. Her two brothers have since passed on and her son, her 30, I want to say he was 34 years old, I'm not sure her 30 something year old son, lewis Mello Jr, passed away. So this family has been visited by so much sorrow and still they have no idea what happened to their mom and their sister.

Emily Sweeney: 59:45

Is Mr Mello still alive?

Anngelle Wood: 59:47

Yes.

Emily Sweeney: 59:48

Where does he live?

Anngelle Wood: 59:49

He lives in Taunton, still in the same house that they lived in together as a family. Very shortly after Debra Mello went missing, he had a new girlfriend who was considerably younger than him. That's cool. I don't judge. However, when your wife is missing, that's a big fucking red flag. So she was like a teenager when he got together with her.

Speaker 3: 1:00:18

Wow.

Anngelle Wood: 1:00:20

She ended up moving into the house. A couple years after Debra Mello went missing, that woman filed a restraining order. Oh, I should back up and say Debra Mello filed an order of protection against her husband, louis Mello, in 1996, four years before she went missing. Subsequently she led him back into the house and nothing really became of that. She went missing four years later. She had had it. She wanted to leave him. They had had a conversation about them breaking up, about him moving out, her keeping the house, and then she went missing.

Anngelle Wood: 1:01:07

Her family will say he's definitely responsible for whatever happened to her. Some of her family members have been, I'll say, kind, for lack of a better term, and said well, maybe it was an accident, he really didn't mean to do anything to her. But no one's found her or seen her. Sense, no mother, I don't care what anybody will tell me. No mother is going to disappear and never talk to their children again. No mother is going to run away for safety or change of scenery and never talk to their children ever again. It's just not possible. They have not seen her. They have not heard from her. There have been no phone calls, there have been no letters, no postcards, no notifications indicating that she is alive.

Anngelle Wood: 1:01:59

Fast forward to I believe the year was 2017. There was a break in the case. There was a dig in the neighborhood, a neighborhood in Tontin Now. At the time when Debra Mello went missing, this was an under an undeveloped area. There was there were no homes there. But in 2017, there were homes, there was a dig there. They went and they dug up this one area that was pretty close to the Mello home in the general vicinity we'll say it wasn't like in the neighborhood, but in the general vicinity. Somebody came forward with a tip and said I remember when I was a kid, they were digging in that area and I saw that this person that came forward with this information was a little boy at the time and I saw something was going on and I even I had a question about it and there were like items there. Well, fast forward to 2017. They did a dig, they brought in excavating equipment and what they found was a bag that had some items in it some blood, I think, a pair of underwear. None of any of the items that were found could be connected to Debra Mello or her disappearance. So, 2017, until now, nothing has happened.

Anngelle Wood: 1:03:35

There's been no movement in her case at all. Her family knows what happened. Well, the movement in the case has been that she's lost more loved ones that still have all these unanswered questions about Debra Mello. So Debra Mello 24 years on, no information. And her family. She has a brother in law, steve DeMora, who has been incredibly dedicated to her case. He was married to her sister, patricia. They have a family together so they have kept in touch and you know this person has been a soldier for her because a lot of people it's tiresome, it is a club you don't want to be in.

Anngelle Wood: 1:04:16

You don't want to be in the club of a family. You know you don't want to be a family member of someone missing or murdered because it is a lonely place to be. But fortunately, that is improving for people all the time. It's improving for people all the time because there are advocates and kind people who are here to help and that's something that I really strive for. Debra Mello, beautiful young lady, 30 years old. Can you imagine she's 30 years old? She was very young when she started her family.

Emily Sweeney: 1:04:48

I'd like to interview Mr Mello. I think he'll talk to you. I can try. That's wild. I wonder how police who worked in the case feel about it.

Anngelle Wood: 1:05:06

You know to their credit. I actually asked Steve DeMora that. I said what is your relationship, ben, with law enforcement? And he said great things. He said that they were great, the Taunton police were great. He said working with the Weymouth police, they were really responsive. And he even has a detective on the state police that he's in contact with regularly.

Anngelle Wood: 1:05:34

Which is impressive because that's not every family's experience. That's actually no family's experience, quite frankly. This is Charlene Rosemond. Charlene Rosemond was found. Charlene Rosemond's family is from Everett, Massachusetts. Charlene was found murdered in her dad's car. I would find the year but I'm not even going to go through there and find the info sheet. She was found in Somerville, in Union Square. Anybody familiar with where the Midnight Convenience Store is in Union Square in Somerville? She was found murdered, shot in the head, in her car in the parking lot behind Midnight Convenience in Somerville.

Anngelle Wood: 1:06:30

Her story goes a little like this. She was very close with her family in Everett. She had a job at a car dealership in Brighton. She asked her dad. Typically she would take the T to work from Everett to Brighton. She asked her dad that day if she could borrow his Honda because she wanted to drive into work and then go look at a car that she had planned to possibly purchase. She took a bunch of cash with her from her savings account. It was about $4,000. Her mother was very upset by knowing that she's like you don't want to walk around with that kind of money, which could very likely have led to her death. She goes to work. Her mother speaks to her.

Anngelle Wood: 1:07:20

Later that night, probably about 7pm, she was at the gym. She told her mother I'll be home shortly, she's going to drive. Her dad was waiting for the car. By the way, Her dad needed the car. She told her family that she was going to leave the gym and she'd be back in Everett pretty soon. She didn't show up. Her family, of very concerns, reported her missing, as often happens, and I don't know why. Even today. Why police say you've got to give it 48 hours. Police say you have to give it 24 hours. Why do you have to give it a full 24 hours before you can report an adult missing?

Emily Sweeney: 1:08:04

That's a very good question.

Anngelle Wood: 1:08:06

Because they just think they're going to show up. They're going to end up just walking through the front door. Yeah, I'm not sure. They told them. Well, give it a minute. She didn't come home. They know they're a daughter, people know their children, people know their family members. She didn't come home. They reported her missing. Days went by. They eventually found her slumped over the front seat of her dad Silver Honda in the parking lot behind the midnight convenience in Union Square in Somerville. She'd been shot in the head. That's all they knew.

Anngelle Wood: 1:08:47

They think you can suspect that somebody found out she had a bunch of money on her, hid in the back of her car. This is one of the theories Unsolved. Nobody knows what happened to Shirley Rosemont to this day. The theory is. One of them is that somebody hid in the back seat of her car, ambushed her, made her drive to where she was found in the parking lot in the back of midnight convenience in Union Square in Somerville. The shooter took her money. But all of these years later nobody knows what happened to this young girl. She was in her early 20s, going to school, working. Nobody knows.

Emily Sweeney: 1:09:42

It's another wild case of somebody with local knowledge you know what I mean Of where to pull in, you know what I mean. I mean Union Square. Oh my God, parking there. It's a nightmare to me, but you got to know the area. And who knew she had that cash on her Right.

Anngelle Wood: 1:10:04

Probably Right. Who did they question? Where did they go? They tried to trace her steps, yeah.

Emily Sweeney: 1:10:11

Or then you have to think what if it's like a friend of one of them?

Anngelle Wood: 1:10:15

But wow, and I am convinced that people talk and you can't keep these people, don't keep these kinds of things to themselves. People are afraid of talking to the police or afraid of implicating themselves at times, but somebody definitely knows what happened to this woman.

Emily Sweeney: 1:10:32

That's the one, I guess, on the bright side of like these older cases. As years go by, you know, things do change. Relationships change. People might have been scared that a person would hurt them and now maybe that person's dead, or you know what I mean. But people you know will talk, you know. Hopefully that's the hope.

Anngelle Wood: 1:10:56

I believe that people have talked about this case. I'm trying to find the. She was 23. She was found April 13, 2009. So, yeah, some years have passed, but there are people, somebody, somebody somewhere along the line showed up with a whole bunch of money. Yeah Right. So if they stole $4,000 from this woman, somebody somewhere who was close by suddenly had a windfall. What do you say? I won $4,000 on a scratchy. I mean it's possible.

Speaker 3: 1:11:38

Yeah.

Anngelle Wood: 1:11:38

But we know what happens when people who are people who are a part of crimes like this or involved in crimes like this, their behavior changes. Their behavior most definitely changes. So you have a family whose daughter was murdered. They did not find her right away. A couple of days passed before they found her in that parking lot, which is incredible to me. Summerville is really populated, even in 2009,. Summerville is really populated, even a parking lot behind a convenience store. There are people that are driving in and out of there. If they lived in, if there was an apartment complex right there, which there is I don't know how different it is now from when it was then, but there are people driving in and out. How do you not see a woman slumped over the steering wheel of a car with a clear injury to her head for days? Wow, yeah.

Emily Sweeney: 1:12:38

Or even shots fired. The sound I don't know.

Anngelle Wood: 1:12:45

I believe she was in the driver's seat. They forced her to drive there from Brighton, which isn't a close drive really.

Emily Sweeney: 1:12:52

Yeah, no.

Anngelle Wood: 1:12:53

And, given Boston traffic, it takes you three times as long to get there. That is Charline. I have not done an episode on Charline yet I plan to. I would like to talk to a family member. I have tried to reach out to a family member and I have been unsuccessful. I will continue to try to contact somebody from Charline's family. It won't let me go to that. Yeah, I did have. Yeah, it does not support my images, unfortunately.

Anngelle Wood: 1:13:33

Who is familiar with the case of Maura Murray? Have you heard Maura Murray's story? Wow, okay, so say that again. What, just for me? Okay, well, maura Murray is. Maura Murray's story is a big story. When I say big story, what I mean is it's 20 years old. And when Maura Murray first went missing in 2004, February 9th 2004, as a matter of fact, facebook had just become a thing, so when Maura Murray went missing, they had many more resources to help families like theirs, like the Murray family. So the story of Maura Murray she is from Hanson, massachusetts, anybody from Hanson, anybody from the area. It's south shore, probably not too far from Weymouth in that area.

Anngelle Wood: 1:14:39

Maura was 21,. She was a student at UMass, Amherst. Whatever was happening in her life at the time unclear because she emailed her professors at UMass. She was a nursing student at UMass and said I need to take a few days. There's been a death in my family, I need to leave town and I'm going to turn in some of my work. And I need to leave town, which wasn't true. There was not a death in her family. She took $280 out of her bank account, leaving about $20 in her account.

Anngelle Wood: 1:15:23

She stopped at the liquor store, bought some wine, some liquor, and drove from UMass Amherst and headed to New Hampshire. Now we should add that her family, whom she was really close to, had no idea why she was driving to New Hampshire. They have no idea why she told her professors that she had a death in the family. They have no idea where she was headed, why she was going there. She got some liquor. She got some wine. She had made a phone call to a condo in New Hampshire that her family was familiar with but didn't book it. She didn't book anywhere to stay. She took a road trip.

Anngelle Wood: 1:16:11

Now, for those of you who are very familiar with what New Hampshire in February is like, it's freezing cold typically. Right now we've had some weird weather, but it's typically freezing cold in dark. She headed up to New Hampshire and ended up in Haverhill, new Hampshire, on Route 16. For those of you not familiar with Haverhill, new Hampshire is very rural, it's very dark, there's no cell service. I was just there. I can vouch for all of that. Still to this day, 20 years later, it's dark, it's desolate and there's still no cell service, because I couldn't even use my GPS and I almost got lost. But she drove down this very windy road and hit a tree. So she obviously hit some ice, didn't judge the turn very well, drove into a tree. She was okay, although her airbags had deployed. They looked like there was some wine spilled in the back. So here's what happened Just after seven o'clock at night, february 9th.

Anngelle Wood: 1:17:19

It's cold, it's dark, there aren't any streetlights. It's really not a lot of people even out. Somebody sees what's happening. Someone stops. A local bus driver stops and says do you need some help? Do you want me to call AAA? No, no, I'm fine, I already called. How could she have? There was no cell service.

Anngelle Wood: 1:17:42

So this poses more and more questions. The deeper we go into this case, the more questions are posed. The bus driver and then another concerned neighbor ends up calling the police to say there's a person. She's on the side of the road. It looks like she's had a bit of an accident. The officer shows up, she's gone. The car is there on the side of the road. The doors are locked. There are belongings of her still inside. She is gone. There are no trucks in the snow.

Anngelle Wood: 1:18:23

They have no idea where Mora has gone. And that remains the story. To this day, 20 years later, nobody knows what happened to her. Nobody knows where she went. Nobody knows. Her family doesn't even know why she was driving to New Hampshire that day. They have some you know email exchanges that she had with her boyfriend at the time. They're familiar with the conversation that she had with her professors at UMass. They know that there was a phone number written down in the car that belonged to somebody, but not that far from the case of Marcy Martini.

Anngelle Wood: 1:19:10

The family isn't completely sure that it was investigated, that they even looked for her in the entire area. You know they went. I believe that they looked east but didn't look west. It was February in New Hampshire. It was cold. I'm sure that she wasn't all bundled up. Where could she have gone? They didn't find her. There was no trace of her. They didn't find her body. They didn't find her remains. They didn't find anything that belonged to her that she could have dropped, she could have left. It points to somebody picked her up, but 20 years later the family still doesn't know anything and, to the credit of the Murrays, who I have since met and have developed a friendship with, they're not going to give up. It's been 20 years.

Anngelle Wood: 1:20:00

They had a candlelight vigil for her on Friday night in Havreau, in the area where she went missing, and I got to say it was surreal to be there because you hear these stories for years and years and years. You've heard the stories of Maura Murray and her disappearance and all of these true crime documentaries covering it and all these true crime cases who have covered it. And then you're there and you're walking the street, this dark, dark street, and actually when I left they had a vigil at this lodge that was just yards away from where she was last seen. When I left I didn't know how to get out of there. It was dark. My GPS didn't work. Thank God I could figure my way around. But I'm thinking about what happened to Maura. She didn't know where she was going. She didn't know where she was.

Emily Sweeney: 1:20:55

Yeah, I just recently wrote about this case and you had more details than I was privy to. It kind of blows my mind, but I'm very curious.

Anngelle Wood: 1:21:08

I'd say I was.

Emily Sweeney: 1:21:11

The press release that was sent to me just said a private citizen had an interaction with her at the side of the road and that's probably presumably the bus driver and the neighbor calling. But in New Hampshire, well, I wouldn't, I mean, if I saw somebody on the side of the road, even if they're saying no, I'm fine. I'm like, no, you're not fine. You know what I mean, especially a kid. It's just obviously who knows. You know what I mean, and I'm sure police have interviewed the bus driver, I assume. But it's a very bizarre.

Anngelle Wood: 1:21:48

There was a search situation. The time frame I don't recall. I apologize, but there was a search of a house in the area where she went missing because they were suspicious I don't know, that's not the proper law enforcement term, but there was a search done on a property there on a tip about Moore's disappearance and they did not find anything. Because somebody was implicated. Somebody in the neighborhood was implicated and well, maybe this person was involved and did something which I think all of us in our own human thoughts, right, well, somebody was what about that person? What about that person? They didn't find anything. They didn't find any footprints, they didn't find anything in the snow, they didn't find her belongings or possessions anywhere. They didn't find anything.

Emily Sweeney: 1:22:45

Yeah, I mean it could have been some other driver If the bus driver kept on going. And you know yeah.

Anngelle Wood: 1:22:54

Her family will say that Her family will say after 20 years, because not unlike Debra Mello, they were a close family. They didn't hear from her. They got no phone calls, they got no letters in the mail, they got no emails. They got nothing from her after she disappeared on that snowy day in 2004.

Emily Sweeney: 1:23:15

I thought it was interesting too how they released the age progression photo. I mean again, it's like you know, represents hope.

Anngelle Wood: 1:23:21

Which I would show you. But I'm not gonna make you sit through that anymore.

Emily Sweeney: 1:23:25

She looks pretty much the same. You know what I?

Anngelle Wood: 1:23:27

mean she looks the same. She looks like she's laid out in the sun a little bit like all of us for the last 20 years and you know she looks a little bit older but it's her.

Emily Sweeney: 1:23:37

Yeah, you know it's a bizarre case, and especially like desolate areas like that.

Anngelle Wood: 1:23:44

And her family. This year, this month, as a matter of fact, at the beginning of February her family has done their own podcast about Maura Murray. It's called Media Pressure, and her sister Julie, who has not stopped talking about Maura for these 20 years, and her entire family really, for that matter, you know, and their family has had a lot of tragedy too. Their mom passed away on Maura's birthday a number of years ago and their sister, kathleen, passed away. When did she pass? I think two years ago.

Anngelle Wood: 1:24:26

So the Murray family, you know they have no idea what happened to their sister Maura for 20 years. Their mom passed away on Maura's birthday a few years after she went missing and then their sister passed away two years ago. No answers. This family has no answers. They are as bewildered today as they were 20 years ago when she went missing. They have absolutely no idea why she drove to New Hampshire, what the reasoning was, what she was dealing with, why she told her professors that there was a death in the family. I can only guess, because that's all we have. I can only guess that she was going through some emotional times, like all of us do, and she wanted to get away and she felt like the only right thing to do was just make up a story.

Emily Sweeney: 1:25:16

Or maybe she was meeting somebody.

Anngelle Wood: 1:25:19

That's also been posed, like was she going to have some you know secret meeting with somebody we don't know? We don't know. That's crazy. How are we doing for time? We're doing pretty good for time. There are a lot of other cases that I could tell you about, but I always want the accompaniment of some visuals. We do have a microphone here for questions. We would love questions on Mike so we can pick it up for the recording about anything you wanna talk about If it's about a case that we've covered, if it's a question for Emily, if it's a question for me, about anything maybe you've heard on the podcast, or if it's about a case that we haven't talked about yet. If you have information you wanna clue us in on, we'd be interested to hear about it.

Emily Sweeney: 1:26:19

Yeah.

Anngelle Wood: 1:26:28

Cricut Whatever you wanna know, Hi thanks so much for highlighting these stories.

Speaker 3: 1:26:36

I'm wondering if there is any special training that you get to do these types of stories, as opposed to just another newspaper story. Do you need to learn how to do specific research dealing with old records or your requests?

Emily Sweeney: 1:26:54

Like all of those types of things. Yeah, I mean, I don't think you need any specific training. I think anybody can start doing research and start talking to people knocking on doors and at the globe. That's what I've done for many years, like covering breaking news A lot of times it's tragedies showing up on people's doorsteps, interviewing people that way and also filing public records requests, and I've covered a lot of crime and I have a crime column too, so I have a lot of law enforcement sources. So I think that's what, like you know and I'm a huge history buff as well so I was just so happy when the globe said I could do this series. You know, I felt like everything that I've been doing in journalism kind of like came together, you know.

Anngelle Wood: 1:27:50

So You've written a couple of books I have. What's the most recent one? Tell us about it. It's all. Everything that Emily writes about is crime related, really.

Emily Sweeney: 1:28:01

Almost everything. Almost everything but the latest book.

Anngelle Wood: 1:28:05

The Dropkick Murphy guy right.

Emily Sweeney: 1:28:07

Yeah, yeah, which is a person, not just a band.

Emily Sweeney: 1:28:11

You guys heard the Dropkick Murphy's, right, they're named after a real guy who was a professional wrestler in the 1930s and 40s and Dropkick Murphy after his wrestling career. Actually, during his wrestling career, he bought a farm and opened up like a rehab center for alcoholics and it was also a training facility for athletes and like a gym like for the public where you could go like get like you know, fitness training, lift weights. This was 1940. The 40s. So, yeah, so I wrote a story of biography of his life and Ken Casey, the front man of the Dropkick Murphy's, he wrote the forward for the book. But it's called Dropkick Murphy A Legendary Life and it's just a, you know, compilation of all the research I did into, like this farm where all these, like you know, alcoholic guys would go to dry out and meanwhile professional boxes were training like in the background in the bond, and professional wrestling thrown in. So yeah, that's my latest book.

Anngelle Wood: 1:29:21

What did? I'm fascinated with the idea that Ken Casey was involved. What did he add to it? Like he was a kid growing up here right when did Dropkick Murphy grow up?

Emily Sweeney: 1:29:32

Yeah, so Dropkick Murphy is from not that far. What's his real name Like?

Anngelle Wood: 1:29:37

Frederick Joseph John.

Emily Sweeney: 1:29:41

Mikhail John Murphy.

Anngelle Wood: 1:29:43

John Murphy, not boring.

Emily Sweeney: 1:29:45

Dropkick cause he could like jump up and kick people two feet and land on his feet and he was born in Maldon in 1912. I, like you, grew up in Medford and the farm that he ran, the place, the rehab center, was in Acton. And so Ken Casey, like he had heard of like growing up people going to Dropkick Murphy's, that meant like back in the day, like you were going to dry out. You know what I mean.

Speaker 3: 1:30:17

You've been a bit of a lot too long You're going to, like, you know, take a break.

Emily Sweeney: 1:30:20

And so you know he thought it'd be a cool name for band, which obviously is, and yeah, and so I got in touch with him early on. It was kind of like a 10 years in the making, me doing the research and getting in touch with the Murphy family and Dropkicks kids, and you know, yeah, it all came together. It was kind of full circle. You know, Ken told me like the early Dropkick Murphy shows, like at the Rat and stuff, you know the kids would be coming out wearing the T-shirts, Dropkick Murphy's, and old guys would be going up to them in the street like hey, oh my.

Speaker 3: 1:30:53

God, how is they? And the kids?

Emily Sweeney: 1:30:54

are like what Like so yeah, the Rat, the old the punk rock venue in Kenmore Square.

Anngelle Wood: 1:31:02

Boy. Kenmore Square has changed a lot.

Emily Sweeney: 1:31:04

Yeah, true.

Anngelle Wood: 1:31:05

Now it's all foofy and shishy and shit. Yeah, it's boring. But you've written extensively about Boston. Can I say the M word? Can I say mafia? Oh yeah, OK, Mafia. You've written extensively about. It's not organized crime. There's nothing organized about it. Yeah, it's Boston. You know what drew you to that?

Emily Sweeney: 1:31:33

You know I've been writing about organized crime since before I got to the globe. Even when I was at the Brookline tab I was doing research into like the mob ties in Brookline and like all the guys that live there. But yeah, I got two books out about organized crime and I'm working on another one about the mob wars of the 90s that went on and the 1995 Charleston massacre.

Anngelle Wood: 1:31:59

At the 99s. Yeah, remember that. Ok, so there was a broad daylight. It was broad daylight, right.

Emily Sweeney: 1:32:09

Yeah.

Anngelle Wood: 1:32:10

Like a lunchtime rush murder at the 99s in Charlestown. Let's talk about it.

Emily Sweeney: 1:32:15

Yes.

Anngelle Wood: 1:32:16

What do you know about in your research? What does your research tell us about it?

Emily Sweeney: 1:32:20

I mean you know it's interesting because there's just so many details. You'll have to buy the book. Sorry, I'm in the middle of researching it. But yeah, I mean it was a crazy broad daylight shooting, a mass murder right there, the 99 in front of a full restaurant. What led up to it? It wasn't like a mob hit or anything like that. Some of it was like misunderstanding, some of it was you know what I mean Like a lot of things in life. It was complicated and so the book covers that, and the backdrop is a lot of what was going on in the 90s in Boston, everything from the big dig just you know what I mean going on to all the shootings and the mob wars that were going on. I mean you've got to remember like the early 90s the homicide rate in Boston was like, I want to say, almost like triple what it is now.

Emily Sweeney: 1:33:26

And yeah, so it's going to be called four on the floor and yeah, it'll be coming out probably this fall.

Anngelle Wood: 1:33:34

And when did Whitey take off 96? Mid 90s, whitey Bulger ran because they were coming for him. It was around 96, right.

Emily Sweeney: 1:33:44

Yeah, I think it was at 95 that the indictments were coming down. I don't want to be misguided.

Anngelle Wood: 1:33:49

So Whitey Bulger kind of had a stranglehold on everything for a long, long time, and then when he bailed he was still sort of in charge.

Emily Sweeney: 1:34:02

We'll see. And then also it depends on who you talk to. So usually I research history, right, there's records, there's testimony, there's court records. Now I'm talking to guys who are still alive. You know what I mean. Some of them did time in prison and everybody has a different perspective on what happened.

Anngelle Wood: 1:34:19

Well, there are people who think Whitey Bulger is a folk hero still to this day, and there is a fair amount of everybody else that knows he's a murdering piece of shit.

Emily Sweeney: 1:34:29

Yeah, and then there was crime going on in the North End that Bulger didn't have a piece of, and it was just kind of. Maybe he didn't run everything. You know what I mean. So yeah, it's been an interesting process doing the research for this book.

Anngelle Wood: 1:34:46

Boston has a very vibrant history when it comes to just organized crime.

Emily Sweeney: 1:34:50

Isn't it you have?

Anngelle Wood: 1:34:51

found.

Speaker 3: 1:34:52

Yes.

Anngelle Wood: 1:34:53

Yeah, a lot of family wars, a lot of family wars. Yeah, any questions from the crew, anything you want to know about? Hi, hi, there I have a question.

Speaker 3: 1:35:05

So I'm here with some colleagues who work in victim service space in Battlecran, so we're going to go over the number of people and I'm going to just a question for you have you ever across families, were you trying to gain permission for the emotional case whether it's both case files or advice? Were there hesitant to not speak to or open up, for a sort of reason, to that trauma? And how do you go about having that conversation with them before encouraging them that this could be the right move for it to open up some of the different ways, sort of like that, and have those conversations?

Emily Sweeney: 1:35:40

Yeah, so awesome. You guys are here, you guys do important work and I've only done the cold case series for a few months, so it's hard to judge, but I've tried to interview families who've been victims of tragedy. I mean, I have well over a decade of experience doing that and every case is different. I always approach with respect and approach like how would I want to be approached? And sometimes it's just leaving a card being like, hey, if you change your mind, if you change your mind five years from now, here's my card. I try to treat the victims' families with the ultimate, utmost respect and also try to find, if there's maybe sometimes as a family member or a friend, who can be a spokesperson, because I don't want to be bothering them or because when things happen, there's a lot of media just trying to get in touch and it's a chaotic time For the cold cases.

Emily Sweeney: 1:36:47

I've had a couple different experiences Masi Matini's family from the first time I wrote about that case in 2008,. I've stayed in touch with them and it always bothered me that we could never write about the case more because there's always other news going on. Oh, it's not an anniversary of the case. I'm like, ah, you know what I mean. And so now, with the cold case series, I mean I can write about incremental things, you know, and they're really happy about that and just drawing attention to it the case that I mentioned about the woman who disappeared in 2020, michelle Ivichel I did try to reach out to her family and then, you know, I interviewed a detective. We said, you know, the family doesn't really want to talk. Here's a statement.

Speaker 3: 1:37:35

I was like cool.

Emily Sweeney: 1:37:36

Thank you for letting me know, because I don't want to be making calls, or you know, you know whether or not I wanted in this and again in this case. So it all depends. You know, in the case of, you know, mr Mello, you know who lost his wife. I mean, there's one guy I would like to call and, you know, knock on the door.

Anngelle Wood: 1:37:58

Lost his wife and be a little bit more persistent with.

Emily Sweeney: 1:38:01

You know what I mean? Yeah, so yeah, I don't know if that answers your question. I hope that's not too roundabout.

Anngelle Wood: 1:38:08

It's delicate. I mean it's very, very delicate. You know I've had families who have reached out to me after. You know I always want a family representative for any story because it adds that much more. You know it's fact-based. I always want to tell the true and authentic story the best I can. But some families never want to talk I invite them to. I've had families reach out after the fact who've listened to the story and then say and then thank me for that and I still invite them Would you like to ever talk about it? And some families it's just even 30 plus years on, it's still too difficult for them to ever address, to ever talk about in that way. It's very, very delicate. Most definitely, yeah, thank you, hi. Yes, that was one of the cases I really wanted to talk about today, if we got to it.

Speaker 3: 1:39:27

Yeah.

Anngelle Wood: 1:39:34

I think I really am an optimistic person, that any case is solvable if we can continue to generate enough attention and information for the case. Rita Hester is a really interesting story because she was a member of both the LGBTQ plus community and the Boston Rock and Roll community. She crossed these really interesting lines. She was included everywhere she went and back in the mid-90s a black trans woman had trouble. Even to this day in some communities has trouble. But Rita Hester was somebody who moved to Alston in the early 90s Well, I actually think in the late 80s maybe is when she first came here. She was here, set up, found community was involved and she went to Jocks and performed in Jocks, at Jocks in the South End, which is a very famous drag bar, for those people who don't know, and she went to all the Rock and Roll clubs in and around Alston. She was a regular at the silhouette, which still exists. She was a regular at Bun Raddies, which doesn't exist anymore. She was part of so many different communities and welcomes. She was found.

Anngelle Wood: 1:41:18

She lived on Parkvale in Alston off of Brighton Ave, for those of you who are familiar with the area. She lived in one of those apartments. She lived in her first floor apartment on Parkvale. She was found alive but stabbed 20 times in the chest, died on the way to the hospital. But there are a couple schools of thought. One of the schools of thought was that if people got to her sooner, if the police went into her apartment and took her and brought her to the hospital sooner, then maybe she could have survived. It took them a very long time to go into her apartment. That's still a question to this day. Is her case solvable? Yeah, I do think her case is solvable, but we need to keep talking about her case. We need to keep talking about her. There is a mural, there's a Rita Hester mural in Alston, very close to where she lived on Parkvale. She was loved by everybody that knew her, anybody that you talked to that knew Rita and had experience with her. She was a lot of fun, very sweet and didn't deserve what happened to her. She didn't deserve to be stabbed 20 times and left to bleed out on the floor and the police didn't go into her apartment to take her out and bring her to the hospital where she might have survived. So, yes, I think it is solvable and people that are close to the case will say that they think they know, or at least they have some working theories about who was involved.

Anngelle Wood: 1:43:14

And there are some questions about her activity. That day she was with one of her friends in the morning and she planned on meeting up with one of her the same friend later on, and she was going by the silhouette, where she was pretty much a regular, and she was meeting another friend for drinks and then somehow she ended up back at her apartment. So there's some questions about why she went back to her apartment. When she did, was she with somebody that she was familiar with? And they went back to her place. Who is that person? Who knows that person? Who was at the sill with them when they left? So there's a lot of questions that are unanswered for me, and what law enforcement will tell us may differ from that. I don't know.

Anngelle Wood: 1:43:58

But keep talking about her case. I think those are the most important things that we can do is just talk about it. Around the anniversaries, around her birthday, and the anniversary are very close. They were like two days away, you know, she was murdered and then her birthday was like she was murdered on the 28th and her birthday was like the 30th of November or something. But, yeah, keep talking about it for sure. Thank you for asking about her, because I really did want to talk about her tonight. Did you know her? Yeah, my friend, right here is a mural.

Speaker 3: 1:44:28

Yeah, yeah, her murals Do you know the story that I was like telling, the story that I had to meet with a team of all the law enforcement.

Anngelle Wood: 1:44:39

I do think her case is solvable. Yeah, and her friends, the people that knew her. I don't know Rita and I did not know her, but I have friends that did know her and know about the case and will say that they have a lot of theories around it. Yeah, it is an interesting case for sure. Yeah, yeah, unsolved, unsolved. You probably figured that out. Unsolved to this day. Yeah, some more questions.

Speaker 3: 1:45:19

Hi, hi, recently started listening to you and I enjoy it very much. Just a basic question about the whole case. Yeah, what makes it a whole case? How do people get the case reopened? Have you seen an improvement over the years in terms of how long a key case is open and to compare it?

Emily Sweeney: 1:45:32

with the real event.

Anngelle Wood: 1:45:41

That's kind of for both of us. That's a tough one to really have a succinct answer for because, like a lot of things if it's not super obvious, where police can clean it up and tie it up in a bow and close the case I think there's various schools of thought. There's a lot of cases that are very obvious and can be solved very quickly given the nature of the case, whether there's a lot of very obvious evidence or if there are eyewitnesses or if somebody confesses. Those are the very obvious things. But when there's so much more work involved I think you will agree, it becomes a little bit more. You know, resources come into play. Law enforcement will say we don't have enough resources to focus on this and we'll work on it as we can. That definitely is a major player in cases like this. You see that I'm sure.

Emily Sweeney: 1:46:51

Yeah, I mean, the experts I've interviewed have said that. You know, yeah, it comes down to a lot of times resources. You know, when you have somebody who was murdered yesterday, like you know what I mean, there's a crime scene, now you know that things have to take precedent. Also, folks in law enforcement I think it's pretty, I don't know. They hate the term cold case because technically they'll always say the investigation is open.

Speaker 3: 1:47:22

You know and it is.

Emily Sweeney: 1:47:25

Unresolved cases. They usually like to use that word more Cold case. I mean it's very subjective. I feel like it's like very colloquial, like everybody knows when you say cold case what you're talking about.

Anngelle Wood: 1:47:40

It's old and they've stopped looking at it.

Emily Sweeney: 1:47:43

Yeah, or there hasn't been much movement. Like you know what I mean. They hit a wall. So, yeah, I mean I feel like with the improvements in DNA technology, I think there's been renewed interest in all the not that there ever was no interest, like you know. I mean, there's been cold case units in the DA's offices, but I think it's like especially now and then again I'm biased, maybe just because I'm paying attention to it more, but there is, like you know, a lot more I feel like being done. I don't know.

Anngelle Wood: 1:48:24

But you know, the best way to get a case new attention is media pressure, when people start talking about it and it shows up. And I see that with Murray's case and that's exactly why this podcast that the Murray family has started is called Media Pressure, because they they'll be very diplomatic publicly about their relationship with law enforcement and they are, but they've had their challenges. I can't speak for them because I'm in no way a spokesperson for any of these families, but there are a fair amount of a great many challenges that that loved ones face when their loved one is missing or murdered and it's not solved quickly and tied up in a bow. I wish that more of these cases could get more eyes and more resources and more attention, but it's just it's. It doesn't happen unless you really put the screws to them, sometimes unless you really pressure them, and that could be through. You know, something like Emily is doing, writing about it more or something like you're doing, writing about it and podcasts.

Anngelle Wood: 1:49:43

You know I make fun of podcasts a lot and I see that you know some people are podcasters and YouTubers and they want us. You know they think they're going to crack cases. Yes, they can, they can be helpful, but I feel like in a lot of ways, some of this is harmful. And there's a case and you have somebody that's you know, throwing their theories all over the internet. Reddit is a is a is a hellhole for that stuff. Reddit is a hellhole for people just making things up. Well, maybe they're, you know, maybe they were taken up in a spaceship by aliens. Okay, yeah, that's a great theory that's helpful, but, yes, the I don't I kind of rabbit hole that it's.

Anngelle Wood: 1:50:40

I think that podcasting can be very helpful and there are podcasts out there that have helped and have been instrumental in getting cases re you know, re looked at, reevaluated, re-open, however you want to term it and have brought people to justice, brought people into a court of law. A great case endpoint is the case of Kristen Smart, who is a young woman who went missing in California and a podcaster. What is this podcast? In your own backyard, you're familiar with it. A novice podcaster just started investigating this case because they were bothered by it and ultimately helped get the person who was responsible for killing her, hiding her, lying about, having even seen her convicted of her murder and is now in prison.

Anngelle Wood: 1:51:51

If you haven't heard about the Kristen Smart case, read up about it. It's an old case and I'm quite sure it was probably a cold case On by many. You know many people's descriptions, but yeah, it was a family, a family basically. Well, did cover it up their son's crime. The family helped cover up a murder of a young girl. The father was brought to court and charged but not convicted, which is fascinating. So, yeah, it's tough. We said a lot of things to say.

Emily Sweeney: 1:52:36

It's really difficult, yeah but more awareness can only help. You know yeah.

Anngelle Wood: 1:52:44

Yeah.

Anngelle Wood: 1:52:45

So, so, to wrap up, thank you to Faces, thank you to everybody here for coming and, except for you, I already I have already responded to my husband saying we are sending this projector back. He's like how's it going? I'm like it's not really working. Thank you for coming. My podcast is called Crime of the Truest Kind. It is about Massachusetts and New England crime cases. I throw in some local history and some knowledge about the area. I'm going to be doing this again. There is another event similar to this that's going to happen at Off Cabot in Beverly on March 7th. I plan on coming back to Faces maybe in the summer, I don't know. We'll do it again. Thank you Ryan, Thank you to the crew here, Thanks to everybody who came out, Thanks to everybody who spread the word about it, who talks about the podcast. I love you for that.

Anngelle Wood: 1:53:54

Come up here and grab some goodies from the merch table. There's some, if you want. If you're interested, sign the mailing list. If you're interested, there is a code there where you get a discount on some merch. And thank you to Emily Sweeney from the Boston Globe's Cold Case Files. You can read all about everything that Emily does. Sign up for the newsletter. I wish it wasn't the case, but there are so many stories that Emily has to cover, so very many. My list of cases is very long. I get emails regularly from people wanting me to add something to my very long list of cases. You must have a thousand.

Emily Sweeney: 1:54:47

Yeah, I mean I'm just keeping my editors well aware of every case and just trying to push for more, you know, just to be able to give more coverage to this important topic. And if you know of mine, can I crash your merch table and throw down a pile of business cards.

Anngelle Wood: 1:55:07

You sure can Thank you everyone. Thank you for coming. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, it was fun. Thank you very much to Emily Sweeney, the whole crew at Faces Brewing in Muldon and everybody that joined us for the live show. Thank you to everyone who joined us for the live show at Off Cabit. They really are a good time and I know I set it up that I wouldn't edit anything in the episode. I did. I edited out some breaks where I'm fussing with my projector, which I did send back. This has been very long. Thank you for listening.

Anngelle Wood: 1:55:55

Coming up on Crime of the Truest Kind, I have a collaboration in the works. Brandy of the missing persons blog, evaporate the Missing, was my guest to talk about missing persons cases when we were at Off Cabit and we have decided that we're going to team up on one of those cases that we covered and I really did not intend on it, but I have yet another layer to the La Plante, townsend, pepperyl, massachusetts, stories, I know. Thank you for listening. Thank you to all the fantastic Patreon patrons, including my honorary executive producer, lisa McColgan, and Riannan. I am overdue for a mailing so I will be dropping some thank you packages in the mail. If you want a sticker, reach out, send an email. The monthly mini for Patreon patrons is coming up, so be on the lookout for that. All right, this has been long.

Anngelle Wood: 1:56:58

I must be going. Bye everybody, bye, all right, I think we've got the鍾 going.