New England's Unsolved & Serial Killer Hysteria, with Bob Ward of Boston 25 News

Veteran crime reporter Bob Ward of Boston 25 News joins me for a candid conversation about the recent online hysteria surrounding a New England serial killer after 12 people have been recovered around Massachusetts and Rhode Island. 

Drawing from his nearly three decades as host of "New England's Unsolved," Bob shares the profound impact of covering cases like Theresa Corley's 1978 murder—a young woman he personally knew before her death. This intimate connection frames a deeper discussion about the responsibility journalists carry when amplifying victims' stories.

The conversation turns to the troubling social media frenzy claiming a serial killer is responsible for recent bodies discovered throughout New England. While acknowledging the region's history with serial predators, we agree that there is cause for concern about how unfounded speculation harms legitimate investigations and re-traumatizes families. 

"It's very tempting to think that one bad guy or two bad guys are responsible for all this evil, "but I just don't think life works that way."  -Bob Ward

We spotlight numerous cases deserving attention—Melanie Melanson, Debra Melo, Bruce Crowley, Reina Morales Rojas—whose families continue waiting for answers while internet sleuths chase shadows.

• The justice system often fails victims' families by providing few updates while requiring them to repeatedly relive trauma at parole hearings

• Online speculation about a "New England serial killer" diverts resources from legitimate investigations

• Internet misinformation is causing real harm, from false confessions to wrongful accusations

• True crime advocacy should focus on supporting families and respecting victims rather than sensationalizing cases

Join us at Middlesex County Superior Court on Monday, May 12th at 10am for the arraignment in Charlene Rosemond's murder case, whose family has waited 16 years for justice.

Other cases included: Andy Puglisi, Beth Brodie, Jeffrey Curley, Janet Downing, Colleen Ritzer, Shaun Ouillette, Miguel Oliveras, New Bedford Highway murders, Boston Strangler, Henry Bedard, Jr, Deanna Cremin, Bruce Crowley, Brittany Tee, Maura Murray, Shannan Gilbert, Lonene Rogers "Lonnie's Law"

Up next, the history of serial killers in New England.

More at crimeofthetruestkind.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Crime of the Truest Kind
• 5:09 Meet Bob Ward of Boston 25 News
• 8:47 Teresa Corley's Unsolved Murder Case
• 21:54 Impact of Cold Cases on Families
• 31:48 Justice System Challenges for Victims' Families
• 37:37 Serial Killer Hysteria Discussion
• 48:30 Forgotten Missing Persons Cases
• 59:23 Internet Misinformation and Harm
• 1:08:17 Advocacy and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Anngelle Wood: 0:00

Well, hello. My name is Anngelle Wood, and this is Crime of the Truest Kind. It's always an exciting week in the headlines, isn't it? I talk about this a lot. I tap out often from the chaos that's swirling around us and I recommend it. My name is Anngelle Wood. This is Crime of the Truest Kind. I talk about Massachusetts and New England crime stories.

Anngelle Wood: 0:42

I talk about history, generally, and always advocacy- focused. I am always on the side of the victims and their families and in this true crime space that I have found myself in, I do believe some people don't want that, that being the advocacy part. I think some people are drawn to true crime because they like the sensationalism of it, and I say this all the time. I don't sit here and clutch my pearls and tell everybody they're doing everything wrong. I watch the documentaries. I watch the documentaries, I read the books, the serial killer docs. Yeah, if I were to say you know, the true crime on the fringe is where it gets weird, I don't actually think that the weird stuff is on the fringes. I think the weird stuff in true crime is right smack dab in the middle, and those of us who are trying to work for the greater good may be the ones on the fringes. That's how I feel about it today. Trying to work for the greater good may be the ones on the fringes. That's how I feel about it today.

Anngelle Wood: 1:47

When I prepare an episode of Crime of Truest Kind, I'm constantly reading and researching to find more information, so I'm always writing scripts. I have a number of scripts that are in various stages of completion. For this week's show, I had planned to do something completely different and I changed course, as I often do. You've probably heard me say this a lot. My background is in live radio. You learn to fly by the seat of your pants. Sometimes those best laid plans get thrown out the window for something else that has hit the wire, so to speak. That's what I did this week. I have a script that's nearly complete about the history of serial killers in New England, because, yes, they have and do exist. If you've spent any time listening to my show, you know that I love New England history, I love researching it, I love reading about it, I love telling you about it, so much so that I often have to stop myself from telling you too much before you totally tune me out.

Anngelle Wood: 3:00

On this week's show I talk to reporter Bob Ward. He's from Massachusetts. I love my mass hole friends. He kid mass native Emerson graduate. He worked at WJAR-TV in Providence, then WMUR-Chillin' 09 in Manchester, Then he landed at Boston 25 News in 1996. One year to go to the big 3-0. I hope he gets more than a pen and a windbreaker. That might be a little inside baseball but I spent more than 20 years in radio in Boston and I have a collection of ski jackets, ballpoint pens and a copious amount of bumper stickers, a Massachusetts Associated Press Award, the Mass State Police Superintendent's Commendation Award, the FBI Director's Community Leadership Award in recognition from the Molly Bush Center and Foundation for his reporting on missing children. Bob also served on the Board of Directors for the Garden of Peace, a memorial to the victims of homicide. As host of New England's Unsolved, the long-running investigative series on Boston 25 News, he shines a light on cases across New England, covering missing persons and cold cases, to amplify their stories, to generate new tips and hopefully get people talking the people we need to talk.

Anngelle Wood: 4:47

Bob and I had a couple of conversations this week, one of which will be on Boston 25 News next week. We talk about that question that we see continuously those of us who follow a lot of news and true crime feeds Is there a serial killer in New England? We know that there have been, and on the next show I will break all of that down. This is episode 86, New England's Unsolved, with Bob Ward of Boston 25 News. I find that this is a selective frenzy. There are a lot of missing people, some for years, decades Maura Murray, Deborah Mello, Reina Morales Rojas, Melanie Melanson, Brittany T, Bruce Crowley it's a very long list. We talk a lot about these cases in our conversation.

Anngelle Wood: 5:50

There is a contagious hysteria. It is a common phenomenon in the world of missing and murdered people, People with a hunger to exploit tragedy for sensationalist purposes. There are people who claim to be someone who has been missing. This wastes valuable resources In crime cases like this, in the ensuing chaos that people seem to love. This narrative, this perpetuation, this rumor and speculation, will cause people to report innocent people. They have a weird neighbor who looked at them. Funny. They don't like their boss, they split up with someone and now they are reported as a possible serial murderer. It's real. It also affects how law enforcement might respond to such claims.

Anngelle Wood: 6:34

I'll say it again. So many cases, Cases I hope people learn about and put some energy into. We live in a world where people are trying to get internet famous on other people's heartache. There still are good ones out there. I know it sounds very PBS, but look for the helpers. In the first part of my conversation with Bob, we talk about a number of crime cases that I'm familiar with and that he has covered and the impact of those crime cases. I really enjoy talking with somebody like Bob Ward Because he's been in it. He's been talking to families, he's been learning this information, he's been going to detectives, he's in parole hearings, he's covering trials. It may seem really glamorous to some people, but it's hard work and it's important work. We talk about the impact not only on the families who are most affected by this, but the impact that it has on us.

Bob Ward: 7:38

When you do take the time to meet the families and really talk to them, it kind of changes you, definitely changes your approach to these stories and what's going on.

Anngelle Wood: 7:48

I have Julie Murray and the Murray's to thank for a lot of my sort of crash course in this, because I've learned a lot through their I'll say journey, because it's been 21 years that they've. They had no idea what they were dealing with and when Mara went missing it wasn't like it is now. They were trying to figure it out as they went along. Facebook had, like launched that week, so it wasn't even that they could go to social media and do the things that we do now. That family's been through so much and talk about people hijacking their story and exploiting them. Oh my, they have a coalition, which is something that we're trying to do in Massachusetts, where we're starting sort of a chapter of it, if you will.

Anngelle Wood: 8:40

We didn't know what to do. We don't know where to go. They try to report their loved one missing. They're told that, oh, they're not missing, They'll be home. You know these same stories over and over and over again. I've met families of murdered loved ones. To where they're. Oh my God, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And more recently, you see the justice for Beth.

Anngelle Wood: 9:02

Mm-hmm you see the justice for Beth. One year ago her teen killer went up for parole.

Bob Ward: 9:07

Her family was, I mean, understandably furious and hurt and freaked out because they were told that kid was never going to get out. I think the way they grandfathered in all of those cases was really probably the cruelest thing that the state has done in a very, very long time.

Bob Ward: 9:25

It's just unfathomable how that happened and on that decision or the yeah, I think the initial decision came from the SJC came on Christmas Eve. Then there were a couple of court rulings. You know the decision to do it retroactively and grandfather everybody in so that these people that the families thought they didn't have to think about anymore. Not only did these perpetrators get a parole hearing, they get them every five years or less. So Bob Curley's you know Bob, well, bob, this isn't the same thing. Because James Charles James was convicted of second degree. He was always going to get a parole hearing, but his first parole hearing five years ago it was COVID, so it wasn't in person, it was all remote and I covered it and I listened to it. But the problem was that the parole board I don't know why took over a year to make a decision. They had a five-year setback but they were already a year into it. So now Bob Curley all of a sudden finds himself having to go to the parole board. June he's got another parole hearing. It felt like we just did that.

Bob Ward: 10:33

Philip Chisholm same thing. He couldn't get life, no parole. And so the judge, who later became an SGAC justice. He tried to stack the penalties as long as he could to spare the family. But 40 years I think it's 40 years Philip Chisholm gets a parole hearing and you know the parents of the victim are. They said, you know we're not going to have to deal with this, but my, our two children will, you know, brother and sister.

Bob Ward: 11:01

And that's going to be their. They're going to be my our age and they're going to going to be there. They're going to be my our age and they're going to have to be doing parole hearings every couple of years. And for what, to what end? You know and you see what happened to that danvers teacher, colleen ritzer, brutal it's so cruel to see this.

Anngelle Wood: 11:17

One nice thing that comes of this is I see the families come together. I went to Beth Brodie's killer's hearing and that was eye-opening. He just gets to sit there and talk.

Bob Ward: 11:30

Yeah.

Anngelle Wood: 11:30

Talk and talk, and talk, and talk and talk and I see his family's just like beyond devastated, and it was nice that other families, like Janet Downing's family was there. I met her son and I have subsequently had sort of a online friendship, if you will, with her daughter, and I've had communication with Shaun Ouiellette, the little boy from Canton who was murdered back in the 80s. I've had communication with his younger brother, half-brother Rod Matthews. He's going to get out, if he's not out already. That's heartbreaking.

Bob Ward: 12:00

It is really heartbreaking. I know I've covered all those parole hearings and I'll probably cover Jane's when he comes up. The fact is he's a relatively young man and I could see a time where he does get out and people forget how heinous Jeff Curley's murder was. But he's entitled to it. I mean it was second degree murder. The jury didn't get first degree. I don't know. I didn't cover the trial. I wish I did, but I know that in his case and he was the mastermind of the whole Jeff Curley thing he had a different lawyer than Sicari and it was Robert Jubinville who sat on the governor's counsel for I don't know how long he had the case moved out to. I believe it was Worcester County and that's where his trial was. Sicari stayed in Middlesex and Sakari got life, no parole. But Janes got it moved, got second degree. I think it was 25 or 30 years to life.

Bob Ward: 12:53

It's just brutal because that murder, when you think about it, that murder brought the state within one vote of the death penalty, bringing it back, and the main person behind it is at some point he might get out, who knows and when Bob's not around to fight it. You know it's his children, you know will they have that same fight? It just really doesn't make any sense to me. My heart breaks for all of them. Beth Brody's brother I worked with him a lot and I was at that hearing too, and you know you're right. You sit there and everything is about the person seeking parole and the family doesn't get to speak until the very end. It's about two hours in, maybe three hours in, Everybody's tired. They just want to roll it through as fast as they can, and it makes you wonder how much the parole board weighs. What the families even have to say. It's sort of like a judge at sentencing when the victim's families have the right to speak.

Bob Ward: 13:49

The judge has already made up his mind and what the sentence is going to be, and it's all. It's a formality and I just I hope I'm never in the position to have to wonder you know why do I bother doing this?

Anngelle Wood: 14:01

I wish we didn't have to do this as much as as I have. Really, I've grown as a person in this space I don't know what to call it. It's something that I have put myself into and then it became something completely different and unexpected that I found these families and the suffering that they've gone through and I just want to help somehow. So, when all of these things are hitting the news and you know there's so much for us to talk about, Bob, because you're, you're, you know, we have. We're not from the same area, but we are and we were not. Our career paths aren't the same, but they kind of are, because you grew up around here and you went to college in Boston and you were lucky enough to be able to stay in Boston, and me too, you know, I'm from Northern Massachusetts, in Southern New Hampshire a little bit, and then I went to college in Boston and I got lucky enough to be hired at Boston radio stations and we have this great history, but we live in this amazing place.

Anngelle Wood: 15:02

And to talk with someone who knows the history of some of these things and I guess for me to say I've studied them sounds a little strange, but I do a whole lot of reading about this stuff and to be able to talk about these things. I mean, I think we could probably do hours and hours and hours about all of these cases. I know we want to talk about the subject at hand, the serial killer situation, this frenzy, but I want to ask you a little bit about your connection to Theresa Corley, because I know that you know her from your earlier days. Tell me a little bit about how you know her and how you came to understand her case.

Bob Ward: 15:42

Sure, when I was a teenager, probably 16 years old, I worked my first part-time job regular part-time job, where I'm not mowing lawns or something, babysitting, something like that. I was at Star Market in Franklin, massachusetts, and I was a bag boy and she was hired around the same time I was. She was a cashier. She was hired around the same time I was. She was a cashier and she was two years older than me. I remember that. So she was to me at the time. She was an older woman. Right, she was from Bellingham, which was the next town over, and back then, even though it was one town away, they might as well have had a wall up between the two towns because the Franklin kids didn't really associate with the Bellingham kids. Nothing out of spite or anything, it's just the way the social situation was back then. So I, you know, I just going to work and I was kind of intrigued by her. She was very friendly, she was funny, a little flirtatious, and it was just. You know, she was one of those people that was you'd go to work and a part-time job like that and you're going to hang around for four or five hours. It was a nice person to work with and you know, one day she didn't work there anymore. One day she left and she got a job, uh, somewhere else. She was putting herself through college I think she just started junior college and so she was doing something else. She was on another path. More people come in your life, moves on Well.

Bob Ward: 17:08

Shortly after she left, a few months after she left, it was Christmas time, and the reason I remember that is they had a Christmas party at Star Market, and just before that I think we were getting ready for it, or maybe I was still at work, I don't remember. But around that same time one of the other employees told me. She said to me did you hear about Teresa Corley? Do you remember that girl? And I said sure, and what she did is? She just kind of put her head down, whispered, and she did this. She put her finger across her throat and I said what are you talking about? And she said she's dead. And you know I was shocked and I said what happened to her and she said she was murdered. I just remember the moment, just being shocked by the whole thing.

Bob Ward: 17:55

There was a Christmas party a couple of days later and it cast a pall over the whole thing. As you might imagine, some of her really close friends were working with us at Star Market. I don't think they were at the Christmas party. You just got this sense of dread. I did go to her wake and I went to her funeral and I saw her. It was an open casket. It was just a horrific thing and all we heard was that she was out hitchhiking, she got picked up and she was murdered. The end and it was awful. You know we thought about it a lot and it was just terrible.

Bob Ward: 18:36

But you know, time goes on. You know I go off to college and I start my career and do other things and every now and then I would hear from somebody who remembered Theresa and would say something about the case and I got the sense that it was still unsolved. When I worked in Providence, rhode Island, from I think it was 88 to 96, there was a murder in Woonsocket, doreen Picard. That happened at around the same time as Teresa and the Woonsocket Call was reporting about potential ties to the two cases. I was also working in the Bedford Highway killings case that would have been 89-90. And they were finding murdered women along the sides of roads in the New Bedford area and occasionally someone would write something about how Teresa's case, even though it's a few years earlier, could somehow be connected, and I would always ask about it and I was always told that case is different. These cases are something else.

Bob Ward: 19:40

When I was working at, I started working in Boston in 96. In 1999, the station asked me we're going into a ratings period and they wanted some special reports done and the general manager had asked me to profile four unsolved cases. It could be anything, whatever you want to do, and I chose Teresa as one of the first ones because I wanted to know what happened to her and through that. That is kind of what started me on this journey on what became New England's Unsolved. But also it was very informative just working here. Her one case taught me so much about how crimes are investigated, how people are treated, how cold cases are dealt with by a district attorney, what it's like to be questioned by the police, because at one time the state police came right here to my house and talked to me and there was like a moment there when I thought they were accusing me of something. It was all of that. All of that just really, really helped, and to this day.

Bob Ward: 20:46

You know, I just I can't believe her case isn't solved To this day. I think it should have been solved in 1979. If this happened, if this happened today, I do believe it would have been solved pretty quickly. But it was a different age, it was a different time. I think it could still be solved, but they're going to need a couple of lucky breaks.

Bob Ward: 21:06

One of the saddest things for me was I had been pushing for an exhumation for Teresa. I went privately to meet with the district attorney. I brought a lawyer with me and I made the case that you should think about exhuming her body because she was raped and there may be DNA underneath her fingernails and the reason that was even necessary was there was a rape kit done on her. But the rape kit was lost in a fire flood. I don't know what really happened, but the rape kit doesn't exist. Bottom line rape kit doesn't exist.

Bob Ward: 21:39

So I had a meeting with the DA, agreed to privately meet and made my case and they wouldn't do it. They said it was too expensive, they didn't think they would get anything out of it, and every time I talked to the family I kept saying you know, I really think the exhumation, exhumation and Jerry Hood, who is Teresa's sister. She finally pushed for it. When she realized it wasn't going to happen, she started raising money to do it herself and in the 11th hour the state police came to their senses and they said we will take care of this, because Jerry not only was going to exhume the body, she was going to send it out of state to have it examined.

Bob Ward: 22:15

Luckily, cooler heads prevailed. They did the exhumation and I was in the cemetery with Jerry and her other sister, linda, and we were watching as the casket came out of the ground. You know, I knelt at the side of that casket and at the open casket and there it was again in front of me. It was chilling. Jerry told me the saddest thing I think I ever heard. She said Teresa was buried in her prom dress high school prom dress because we couldn't afford to have a prom dress. And she said I wore that same dress to my prom and that's what Teresa is in right now.

Anngelle Wood: 22:56

Wow.

Bob Ward: 22:57

Isn't that something? And all of that, just it's humbling to be. You know that they would accept me to be there for that moment. You know it was just surreal to be standing there and watch that happen, watch that casket come out of the ground. So I always keep that with me. I just gave a talk at Stonehill College about a month ago. They had me in and I talked about Teresa and a couple of other cases.

Bob Ward: 23:21

But I almost always when I speak to groups, talk about Teresa's case. And I've talked to prosecutors, I've talked to state police and I'll say I challenged them. I said you're the ones that investigate these things. Is there something here that nobody is thinking of? Can you put your minds to this? And it worked once One time there was somebody who worked in the ME's office. She lived in Bellingham, had never heard of the case, wow. And so she went and got the file and said I'm going to see if there's something here we can test. And it's just frustratingly slow to get progress on cold cases and you really need dedicated investigators to look into things because they've got a lot of other cases they need to look at. And you know it's just a sad fact of life that if these cases don't get resolved fairly, you know, within a year or two, the danger of them going stone cold is very, very high.

Anngelle Wood: 24:16

It's incredibly important for families to keep pushing because one else is going to Right.

Bob Ward: 24:24

I always tell them that. Don't be shy. Take out your calendar and whatever you feel comfortable with every 30 days, every six months, whatever it is, just write down. You're going to be calling whoever is the victim advocate, if it's a prosecutor, if it's state police and you're probably going to get an attitude back because they don't want to talk to you. But you have to do that. They do it and they talk about it. It ticks them off and I know it does, because they have these conversations and I think law enforcement could do a much better job handling and talking to the victims and I think that's what the New Hampshire we were talking about.

Bob Ward: 25:01

You know the event up in New Hampshire. They've done two of them so far. It was the same thing. They felt like they could not get. Nobody would take their calls, so nobody would listen, and now they're just supposed to carry on with their lives and live their lives like it was before. That's impossible. You can't do that. So that's one thing I would love to see improve on law enforcement is the way victims' families are treated. Sometimes some officers are great. I don't mean to paint everybody with a broad brush. Some of them could use some help there and have a liaison or somebody that can talk to them.

Anngelle Wood: 25:36

So many families have said to me or I've heard them say an advocate, we can have an advocate, and I don't know how to drive that point across. But you know we need to shift some resources somehow to see how we better serve families From law enforcement's point of view.

Bob Ward: 26:29

They have a case that they want to make an arrest and they want to prosecute, so they have to keep the facts of the case pure. They can't let it get out. The families want to know everything that's in that file. Well, those are two completely opposite viewpoints, and something has to be done where you can at least talk to each other. You can't share the contents of the file, but I think you can have a discussion with the family to at least let them know if work is being done, what work might be done and how it's going to happen, and then be honest with them. We tried this, this and this and we're not having a lot of luck. Let's be realistic here, because in the absence of that, a lot of families start thinking well, the cops either at best don't care or they're all corrupt.

Anngelle Wood: 27:20

We've heard that word a lot.

Bob Ward: 27:21

You hear it almost every day Cops are all corrupt. They're only in it for themselves and they're not interested when I know for a fact that's not true. I'm not saying there isn't corruption, but I'm saying for the vast majority of the cases that I've gone through you see some very well-meaning detectives that do put in the time and do care and they do go and talk to families when they can. But it does get to that point almost inevitably every single time family wants to say X amount of time has gone by. Let me look at the file. Just cannot do that.

Anngelle Wood: 27:56

They won't and I know of a. There's a woman in another state, believe in Pennsylvania, whose mother went missing many, many, many years ago and one of the legislative things that she's working on is in her state and I wish we could do this federally, but in her state she's trying to get legislation passed that if a case is X amount of years old say like 25 or years more cold, old and cold that family members can get access to those files. I'm behind her. I really hope that she can get that passed and maybe we can start working on some of this other legislative stuff. I mean, in Massachusetts we live in a great place but we have a long way to go right. I know Theresa Corley's case has been majorly impactful for you. There are a couple of other cases that have impacted you over the course of these years that you have been doing New England Unsolved.

Bob Ward: 28:52

Sure, I mean, there's so many. I hesitate to name them because I'll exclude something that I'm just not thinking of at the moment and I don't want anybody to think that I've forgotten, but there have been so many. Everybody knows about Molly Bish and Holly Peranin. At least everybody knows about Molly Bish and Holly Peranin. At least I hope they all know about those cases. And it's hard to think of those two young people being snatched and murdered in central Massachusetts in very bucolic places where, honestly it's a cliche, these things don't happen here. Well, they don't, but they did.

Bob Ward: 29:28

And you know I've done a lot of stories about the suspect in the Molly Bish case, rodney Stanger, and you know the connections that he had to that area and what he was capable of and everything are just incredible. Holly Peranin I was just in touch with the family a few weeks ago because her mother just passed. Yeah, and it's, it's, it's just so sad. And I've been to their home and I've interviewed Molly's dad, holly's dad and her cousins and the pain is you can just see it on their faces. The same with Molly Bish and I've gotten to know John and Maggie and Heather and they're just regular people thrust into these horrible situations. You mentioned Maura Murray. I've gotten to know the Murray family, the same thing and how frustrating they're spread all over the place. And Maura's case is way up in New Hampshire, almost. You know, one spinning distance of Canada, and you know how hard it is for them to keep going back and forth and advocate. And there are a lot of other families who maybe you know I've covered the cases but they don't get a lot of attention and people forget about them. But I'll still get people reaching back out to me and saying you know, thank you for doing this. Do you think we can do something else? And they all impact me in some way.

Bob Ward: 30:54

I just did Henry Bedard's story for the second time this year and I talked to his dad. I've had people today. It just ran last night, the story ran last night and I have people today telling me how touched they were to see Henry's father, who's 92 years old now and is justifiably concerned. He's never going to know who killed his son in 1974. And even though the case is 50 years old, for a dad who's 92, it might as well have happened yesterday, because things don't change. Things don't change and Henry Bedard Sr has a good group of investigators who are looking into this and are devoted to this, trying to find Henry Jr's killer.

Bob Ward: 31:35

It all kind of builds up together and you know, every now and then Facebook is great with those Facebook memories my Facebook page still has that as well and every now and then a story will kick up that I haven't covered in a while because some of them get resolved and you just see how. You know, I read what I wrote back in the time and I'm reminded of what these families are going through. So it's just really, really. I feel blessed to do the work, as much as it, as depressing as it can be. It is the one thing that I do that I feel like really makes a difference and helps me go to work every day.

Anngelle Wood: 32:15

You absolutely are making a difference, because you know I think we touched on it earlier in our conversation that you have to find a way. You can't just go on air every single night and, just you know, pluck the same stories over and over again, because that's not what you. You have people to answer to and in a perfect world we could just go on and talk about everything we wanted every single night. But you have to have sort of an angle. I know it does sound very corporate or however, anybody wants to receive that, but you have to have an angle and it's important that we are paying attention to the developments in the case and that we are a little bit closer to it. And that's when, you know, I try to keep a close eye on the anniversaries, right? That's when we can. We can do a little bit more with when the anniversaries are coming. I have a couple of things in the works that I will tell you about regarding a couple of case anniversaries in the not-too-distant future.

Anngelle Wood: 33:10

A case that recently astounded even her own family was the arrest of someone who's now being charged with the murder of Charlene Rosemond In some way the Everett family. Charlene has been 16 years almost to the day. Charlene has been 16 years. Almost to the day. Her sister Rose who's wonderful, who I've struck up a bit of a friendship with she got a call out of the blue getting on a plane. They called her to say here's what's happening. For years they thought that no one was looking into her sister's case. They can't tell you they're looking into it. I guess they didn't want that. They're looking into it. I guess they didn't want that. But to say you know, 16 years is a very long time for families to be wondering and hoping they had an idea all along. But they can't go after the people. It's amazing that this break in the cases come and it's a long way to trial. But the arraignment's Monday and I'm going to. I'm going to do my best to be there.

Bob Ward: 34:07

I'll probably see you there. I've gotten to know them as well and I was blown away by that. I had just done a story about her case and Deanna Cremin, Right, Because the city council had a resolution about, you know, just basically urging the DA, which was Mary and Ryan, to not give up on these cases and wanted to profile both, to not give up on these cases and wanted to profile both. And as that is being done, as that resolution is coming out, there's an arrest in Charline's case and Deanna's case, sadly, is still unsolved.

Bob Ward: 34:40

Her mom has been talking to Catherine Cremin for all these years, decades now, and I'm just touched by I, you just I'm just touched by the resiliency and the strength. I don't know where she finds it and she also lost her. Her other daughter died not too long ago and it's just a. It's just hard to believe how people, how resilient they can be and how strong they can be to carry on with their lives, when somebody close to them has been murdered and decades go by and there's no arrest and you start thinking that everybody out there must have had something to do with it or everybody knows. They're just not telling you and it's a terrible, terrible weight to carry. So we'll see. I know, and I know about two of the big anniversaries coming up next month the 25th anniversary, because those happened back to back. It's hard to believe that those things are still going on.

Anngelle Wood: 35:30

Debbie Mello and Molly Bish it's a week apart between Deborah and Molly, deborah's family, her sister's family and the Bish family. You know they did the right thing. They teamed up to support each other and I really see a lot of that with the families and I'd love to be able to bring more of those families together so they feel like they're not alone.

Bob Ward: 35:48

Right. I know Heather Bish is very active in the victims community and trying to make sure that victims' rights are respected. She's got all the credibility in the world because of what her family's going through.

Anngelle Wood: 36:00

You touched on some really important points there, Bob, when you said that it's really painful and the resiliency of these families go through. And that is one of the biggest things I think about now that we have found ourselves in this churning frenzy of the Internet, and that's really when they say everyone's talking about. Is there a serial killer in New England? Who's everybody the internet? Now we're up to 12 people reportedly found over the course of the last couple of months, Not all of which I'm going to list here, but I will certainly write about it 12 families who now have to deal with this news on top of their missing and or murdered loved one.

Anngelle Wood: 36:55

So they're finding people, some of whom are not identified. So that poses a lot of questions for me. I always try to drive home the message that families in this situation really should have their DNA in the databases. When somebody is found, the chance is greater that they'll be connected with their families. You've been covering this potential. Is there a New England serial killer? Let's unpack that a little bit. I know that there are a lot of people who have gone missing. We see the numbers and when we look at the databases it's not everyone who's missing.

Anngelle Wood: 37:34

I've gone through and pulled some numbers. Just this afternoon I was pulling through In New England 747 missing persons cases in NamUs. That's not everybody that's missing. Those are just the people who have been entered into NamUs. That's not everybody that's missing.

Anngelle Wood: 37:48

Those are just the people who have been entered into NamUs and we break it down with, oddly, right now, 222 missing people in Massachusetts and Connecticut respectively. We have the same number right now. That's bananas. Rhode Island the littlest state 35. New Hampshire has 62 people. I'm sorry 61 now because Amanda Grazuski was found. She was a part of that, so thankfully she was found in Derry in March. She was missing for five years. Maine has 149 listed on NamUs.

Anngelle Wood: 38:22

Unidentified is a whole nother can of worms. So when we're seeing people talk about, oh, there is definitely a serial killer, if you try to in any way bring a little bit of common sense to it, people just want to tell you that you don't know what you're talking about. I don't spend a lot of time in those groups, bob. For all of those reasons and more, I think a lot of things about this People. They want to be part of this hysteria, they like to inject themselves into it and you know, just regular folks like to do that because they like to feel like they're part of something and maybe there's a little bit of the citizen detective and we've seen that and we've talked about this. We've seen that and it can work for the good.

Anngelle Wood: 39:09

But oftentimes it just muddies the waters.

Bob Ward: 39:12

Absolutely can muddy the waters because it's taking time away from any investigation that's going to take place. It can move detectives into another area when they should be paying attention to this. They're now being pulled over here and that can definitely be a problem. It's very tempting to think that one bad guy or two bad guys are responsible for all this evil that's taking place all around us. It's a very enticing idea, and I wish life worked that way, because that would mean that we could solve a big problem very simply by just finding this serial killer or one or two other people and bring them in and find justice and somehow restore the balance to everything. And I just don't think life works that way. Now I do think that there have been serial killers that have gone through New England and Massachusetts that have not been brought to, that have gone through New England and Massachusetts that have not been brought to justice. I absolutely believe that Some of them are famous, like the highway killings in New Bedford, which is still unsolved. And then there's some other ones that you know. I look at them and think, boy, you have to think that there's something else to this than just a bunch of isolated murders, because of the types of victims they are when the case happened and how unusual something is. But I try to resist for the most part. I try to resist linking too many things together because it just takes away from the attention, away from the individual cases that have taken place. I remember when Molly Bish was taken, a lot of people looked at Holly Peranin and thought, because of the names and the fact they were both blonde, both female and taken 10 years apart, that aha, it must be the same person. And while I agree you cannot rule that out, I don't think you should be so invested that you can't look at the other possibilities. And I think that's the danger of linking everything together, because if you're only looking for one, you might not be looking for any. And I do respect people looking into it and having an interest in this. I really do. I mean, I look at the Facebook group and I kind of watch to see what they're talking about and trying to see well, do they have a point here, is something going on? To see what they're talking about and trying to see. Well, do they have a point here Is something going on In this particular case that's taking place right now. What I mean is, from the way I'm looking at it is from the beginning of March until now. Those cases I think that's where the 12 are.

Bob Ward: 41:41

I'm not really convinced that that's all the work of one or two people, a serial killer. And I know that the Massachusetts cases from the research I've done. Those cases are separate and there are. They've made an arrest in one of them. Another one is a suicide. There are answers to those. I don't know enough about all of the Connecticut cases and some of those are kind of close together and so who knows, maybe a serial killer struck a couple of places, but the ones near us in Massachusetts right now it does not appear to be the case. But you always have to be looking, you always have to watch because you know, in New Bedford I remember when that got started it didn't take long for police in New Bedford to start stitching it together that there was a serial killer because the bodies of women were being found. But these are marginalized women that were found actually not in New Bedford but on the highways around there and they were found. I think they were found one at a time. I think maybe a couple of them were found close together.

Anngelle Wood: 42:55

There's an MO to people like this generally you know ties together. Right, we see it with the Gilgo Beach slash.

Bob Ward: 43:03

Long.

Anngelle Wood: 43:04

Island serial killer case. Right, we see that when they were looking for one person, they were looking for the woman Shannon, and they ended up finding several victims all in this area of this lovely but also secluded area of Long Island and they started to connect them and subsequently, after they did make an arrest, they've connected more people that have been found. So, yes, and I think people see that case and they think there's a level not for everyone, but there's a level of excitement among certain kinds of people to where they're like what's the next thing I can fixate on and be fascinated with, Because you know, there are a lot of other pretty major crime cases going on around us in the greater Boston area that stems outside into other parts of New England.

Anngelle Wood: 44:04

Yes any time someone goes missing and any time a body is recovered, that is cause for major concern. But the first thing should not be to suggest it's a serial killer and we need to go and get someone because, as I've said through many conversations about this, this is going to unfortunately encourage certain kinds of people to just start dropping dimes on people. My neighbor is a bit weird. My neighbor is kind of goofy and tall, you know. I think about how they describe the man who was arrested for the Gilgo Beach murders. They called him Shrek or an ogre.

Bob Ward: 44:44

Right, right, he was weird looking right.

Anngelle Wood: 44:47

He was weird, looking big and very identifiable Right. But I think about all of the things that could sidetrack the investigations, because there are several in their response to legitimate reports, right, we always say we need people to talk, we need tips, drop an anonymous tip, all of these things to encourage people. We've seen cases with rewards and, surprisingly sidebar, not a lot of cases are solved through rewards. I did not know that.

Bob Ward: 45:23

Yeah, I know it's the strangest thing, isn't it?

Anngelle Wood: 45:25

It really is.

Bob Ward: 45:27

I know Whitey Bulger was found with a reward, but I think he's the exception, not the rule.

Anngelle Wood: 45:33

Oh my gosh. I could go on and on about that story, but you know this whole fascination with serial killers.

Bob Ward: 45:39

That just occurred to me that you go back to the 60s and the Boston Strangler, yes, and all those cases, yes, and all those cases. And there's a good amount of evidence to suggest that, yes, desalvo killed people, but not all of them, and they were all lumped together and it was sort of out of expedience for politics at the time. Try to find the quote unquote Boston Strangler. Imagine that the Boston Strangler might not have ever existed. So I know there's DNA in the DeSalvo case that ties him to one of the murders, but you know the other ones. There's so much written about that that we just don't know. And there's a case where the file is still sealed. You know, after all, this time it's still in the state archives and we can't go look at it. You know we can't see what they had, so we don't know what else is in there. But so the Boston Strangler case. So in its day it's just like this conversation we're having. These women were found in their apartments strangled. And is there a serial killer? The Phantom Fiend, I think, is what they called him back in the day, or is it something else? And I was just a little boy when all that was going on. But I've done stories on it and it's intriguing to think about it that even the Boston Strangler may not have just been one person. It might've been unrelated cases that for whatever reason were kind of lumped together.

Bob Ward: 47:02

When I was covering the highway killings in New Bedford it always struck me that they were always focused on the 11 women in that case in a certain geographical space Well Providence, rhode Island, is just down the road. There was one victim found in Marion, which is Plymouth County, and that was the only one that was found outside the area. The DA had to meet with the DA in Plymouth County, o'malley, ron Pena and William O'Malley. They met and O'Malley agreed to include it was just so strange, had agreed to include that victim from Marion into the case of the highway killings. But I remember asking Ron Pena you know what about these other cases down in Rhode Island?

Bob Ward: 47:44

There were women found on the side of the road around the same time and he said we're only focusing on this right now. We're not making an appeal beyond the New Bedford area. A lot of reasons, you know why. These things are kind of the way they are. But serial killers don't stay in one jurisdiction they can go wherever they want. Obviously they're not paying attention to county lines, which is, you know, the jurisdictional lines in Massachusetts. So that's why I say I don't want to like completely discount what people are coming up with, but so far I am skeptical about linking all of these cases together. I think and a lot of that is based on what I know about the cases locally for us that they do not seem to be related to each other at all, that they do not seem to be related to each other at all.

Anngelle Wood: 48:27

I do hope that some good comes of this. I do hope that people who have this level of interest in do-gooding, or however you want to term it there are a lot of missing people, there are a lot of unsolved murders it would be wonderful if people could take some of those resources, take some of that energy and put it into some of these other cases, because we know I mean, I can name so many cases off the top of my head just in this general vicinity Melanie Melanson from Woburn. Deborah Mello from Taunton, brittany T, who's been missing just a short period of time, just a short period of time, just very recently, just within the last few weeks. A man from Mansfield I don't know how he pronounces it Eric Wien, missing for several weeks. His family thought he was in Boston. His car was found in South Kingstown, rata Island. He is nowhere to be found. His family's doing whatever they can to get the word out. They're asking people who have properties on the water in South Kingstown to look at your ring cameras, see if there's anything that resembles this man. He's young, 30 something. His family says he does travel and sometimes he does travel solo, but it's not like him to be out of touch and his phone has been off since the beginning of April. So these are some really pressing cases.

Anngelle Wood: 49:49

Brittany T. Just a few years ago, there's a woman that went missing from East Boston. A Salvadoran woman, who was only in the States a couple of months, named Reina Morales Rojas, disappeared off the streets of Somerville. She took a rideshare, reportedly from East Boston to Somerville, never seen again. The public didn't even know about it because right at that time well, not really right at that time she went missing on November Thanksgiving weekend of 2022,.

Anngelle Wood: 50:21

I believe I'll have to double check the dates. And we only found out about Raina being missing because Anna Walsh went missing at the beginning of January and we know how that took on a life of its own and, by the way, everybody deserves that level of attention. And we only found out about Raina publicly because the police didn't release that information to the public until like mid-January.

Bob Ward: 50:45

I remember this. I remember this very clearly. But I also know that there were I think the FBI was looking into that as well and I had sources on this and I was covering Anna Walsh and then I was getting calls on the other case. I was trying to find out what I could and direct our resources as well to cover that, and we did, and then Anna Walsh turned into Lindsay Clancy real quick, absolutely Right after that.

Anngelle Wood: 51:15

Yes, it was just a matter of weeks when, when the story of Lindsay, clancy and Duxbury and murdering allegedly murdering her three kids.

Bob Ward: 51:24

Yeah.

Anngelle Wood: 51:24

Going to go to trial sometime this year, I believe I know that she's.

Bob Ward: 51:27

I think it's the end of the year.

Anngelle Wood: 51:28

She's in Tewksbury State Hospital now because she really doesn't. She's going to need lifelong care. Another question mark case that I have asked a detective about, when I saw them at there was the Massachusetts State Police Unresolved Cases Unit and the Boston Police Department's Unsolved Cases Unit different names and I'm getting them wrong, but when I see detectives I try to ask them questions and see what they can tell me. I asked about this man from originally from Groveland, which is where I grew up. His name is Bruce Crowley. He was living in Malden, working in Revere, went to Provincetown at the end of December, right at that same time that Anna Walsh went missing.

Anngelle Wood: 52:11

I believe the timeline. I believe it's the same timeline he disappeared. He was last seen by the innkeeper in P-Town, said he was meeting a friend for dinner. Never returned to the inn to collect his things. His car was found in a parking lot. Bruce Crowley, no one has any idea what happened to him. Not a thing. The last stories I've been sort of sort of on reddit trying to find information, see if there's anything new reached out to a family member. They didn't get back to me. That's okay.

Anngelle Wood: 52:44

That happens a lot yeah but we see these cases and those are the things that get to me. It's like we don't have any other information. This person's missing and not another. We don't hear another thing about it.

Bob Ward: 52:55

Right, they go quiet real fast but the reality is we don't hear another thing about it. Right, they go quiet real fast, but the reality is people don't just disappear into thin air. Something had to happen to them, whether natural causes or someone did something to them. There is an answer, and it's very frustrating to hear these cases and have no resolution. I cannot imagine being a family member wondering what happened to their loved one, who walked out the door one day and never to be seen again, and no story about what happened, absolutely nothing. We were talking earlier today about.

Bob Ward: 53:29

Miguel Olivares is the Boston boy, young man I should say disappeared up in Portland, maine, and that happened in 2006, I believe I've been covering the story since 2007. Most people have not heard about him and his mother calls me constantly and asks you know, can you do another story? Can we do something else? Well, finally they got the attention of the FBI and the state police in Maine actually did do some work on this. But you know, one person retires, takes a while for somebody else to take over the case and get brought up to speed, but now you know there's a $10,000 reward, fbi is involved and I think people behind bars are talking. So let's see what happens. But look how much time went by and how many years she was asking people to help Myrna Gonzalez, miguel's mom, and how many people you know she's been pressed please look for my son.

Bob Ward: 54:27

And they never found him. He was walking out of a club and was never seen again. And they have him on videotape, you know, walking out of the club. Well, where did he go? In Portland Maine. It's not like he's out in the middle of nowhere. It was Portland Maine, an urban area up in Maine, and he's not from Maine, he's from Boston. So there's no reason for him to disappear and no reason for him to take off. And he was. I don't think. I don't know if he was 30 years old, but he was a young, young man. It's very, very frustrating. Was he a victim of a serial killer? No, he wasn't. He wasn't. He was a victim of didn't OD. I don't believe he OD'd. Somebody wanted him dead and they killed him and they got rid of the body. But that's one case. But it's not a traditional Ted Bundy kind of serial killer that people like to think of. But who knows if that killer took out his or her aggression against someone else and killed someone else. That is very possible, but we just don't know.

Anngelle Wood: 55:21

We know when we look at. You know, the decades of crimes, particularly in this area, which I focus a lot of my time on, and I have learned a lot about the real life story behind a lot of these cases. The real life story behind a lot of these cases and one of the one of these cases that has resonated with me, because I grew up in Groveland and I didn't know the story growing up until I became an adult is the little boy Andy Puglisi, who disappeared from the public pool in Lawrence in 1976. He was just 10 years old. I have learned through, you know, melanie Perkins-McLaughlin's wonderful documentary that she produced a number of years ago called have you Seen Andy, and if it weren't for Melanie's work, I don't think anybody would truly know about Andy's case the way we know about it, and I have learned that we hear it on, you know, on the TV shows, and people don't really want to believe. It's true, but there are, there were, networks of child predators. It's different now. There are networks of child predators, but now we have the Internet that works in a very different way. We have reason to believe a number of these children who were missing across Massachusetts and et cetera, were in fact pulled into networks like this and there are a number of bad actors behind these things. So when we're talking about like serial things, serial crimes, it's very different than these serial things that were happening with children, particularly in the 1970s. I know what happens. It's happened since the beginning of time. You know children are harmed, unfortunately. I think Andy's case could very well be the work of these kinds of organizations and I've learned a lot. I still have a lot more to learn and that has led me to basically training in advocacy now at this point. But I do believe, because I have seen the work that people like Melanie have done or has done up until now, that there were these networks and of course, we saw it on the big screen when we learned about Spotlight, learned about Spotlight.

Anngelle Wood: 57:39

The Bartholomew wrote this series about the clergy and it was horrible information, but it was true information about child sexual abuse and the level that people would go to do these things and it's horrible. It's horrible information. It happens and I can look at this information they're talking about. They meaning these people on the Internet who are talking about it and breathing life into these rumors and speculation. I can see where they would say oh well, you know it could happen, it sure could happen. So we need to believe. We need to believe these stories. We've been telling you since the 70s that this could happen and still is happening. You know, I do have to look at it both ways. I do agree with you, bob, that is it possible? Yeah, it is. Are all of these 12? No, I wish people would spend some more time looking at all of these other cases that came before.

Bob Ward: 58:37

Yeah, I mean, the main thing is I do this every day. I try not to form an opinion that I marry myself to, and then if I'm proven wrong, I have to save face. So I just hang on to the previous theory. That's what I think is the real concern here. But I think people who educate themselves and have a real, genuine interest in something like this and want to try to do the right thing but always keep an open mind, I think can be a very valuable thing, and I am interested in what they come up with, because people do find things that somebody else might not. They might see a connection that someone else might not.

Bob Ward: 59:18

But as far as this, what's going on right now, I'm very skeptical about all of these being somehow the work of one or two people. I just don't think that's the case, but maybe a couple of them that I'm not up to speed on. I can't profess to be an expert on every single one of these individual cases. Who knows? I just know that in Connecticut law enforcement has gone out of its way to say that their cases are not connected. The Rhode Island case the family itself of that victim has said do not conclude this with all the others because there is a suspect here and we want justice. And that's just pulling away from the work that needs to be done.

Bob Ward: 59:59

The DA out in Hamden County he has also said that their case that has been so far tied into this recent body of a woman that was found there. He's saying it is an isolated case, it's not related to the others. So just keep that in mind as you consider the possibilities. The others. So just keep that in mind as you consider the possibilities. And I also am hearing from people that there are some young people who are freaked out by this to the point where they won't go for a hike in the woods because, they think there's going to be somebody out there, and that's when I think it goes too far.

Bob Ward: 1:00:33

Take a deep breath, enjoy your life, pay attention to this, but don't let it consume you.

Bob Ward: 1:00:39

Jack Levin is a criminologist at Northeastern University and I haven't talked to him in a while, but he's written books about serial killers and he told me once that in the western part of the United States, particularly California, I think during the 60s and 70s, there were so many serial killers out there they were numbering them. They didn't give them names, they were just numbered, and he studied all those and he said it's odd that you don't see the same phenomenon here, because people are people, but it's kind of the whole serial killing thing. For the most part there are always exceptions to everything, but for the most part that's a phenomenon on the West Coast and I think that may be a function of there's more land out there. People are further apart than in the East Coast where we're all kind of living on top of each other. But, like I said before, I mean there are definitely Massachusetts serial killers that have gone through that have not been punished and some of them have not I don't think have gotten the attention they deserve.

Bob Ward: 1:01:36

What's going on right now? I still have to be convinced.

Anngelle Wood: 1:01:40

Yes, we definitely need to be discerning in the things that we spend our time reading. They don't tell the truth on the internet. There's no gatekeeping on groups.

Bob Ward: 1:01:51

No, it's the Wild West. It really is.

Anngelle Wood: 1:01:54

I mean, I read something on Facebook. I mean, I read something on Facebook. I'm a friend with this woman who is involved very much, has involvement in the Bear finding themselves in about this and said some of the things that people were claiming in some of these groups that they were the child of so-and-so victim or they were a survivor of so-and-so. None of it's true, but there are people that will believe that and perpetuate that and there are people who will read that and perpetuate it. So you know we talk about sort of the water cooler chatter. You know that we used to have pre phones and scrolling and et cetera, although there is a little bit of that for people who work in an office together, I suppose.

Bob Ward: 1:02:56

Yeah.

Anngelle Wood: 1:02:57

They perpetuate the stuff.

Anngelle Wood: 1:02:58

Well, I heard it's not really unlike politics, Bob, but I heard and oh, someone said so. They take that as fact and unfortunately, I've seen that with so many of these cases, so many of these cases, these families have to see this information that people are saying about their loved ones and they're just victimized over and over and over again. So I always am careful to say this to people. I don't sit on this perch of sanctimony and say you're all doing things wrong. I watched Netflix, the serial killer documentaries, I got the books. I get it. I get it. However, this is real life and there were real families behind these things that you're. You're trying to create connections where they don't exist and it's really harmful for people.

Bob Ward: 1:03:48

And a couple of weeks ago, when the story first started gaining momentum, somebody wrote into, I think, the Facebook group, the New England serial killer Facebook group. Somebody wrote into, I think, the Facebook group, the New England Serial Killer Facebook group. You know a post that sounded like they were confessing to the murders and they buried bodies. I think it was in Rhode Island and people had to decipher what the writer was saying by taking the initials of the first letter of each paragraph and stitching it together. And you know that all got sent out to the police in Narragansett, rhode Island. They took time to go look into it. They had cadaver dogs out there. There was nothing there.

Bob Ward: 1:04:24

And then that person who wrote the post said well, that was satire, I didn't mean that to be anything more than what it was. See, and this is how it can just avalanche down inside of a hill. And that's the downside of this, in addition to people also saying I think here's a description and I think it looks like that guy that lives over there. Oh, and here's his name. Oh, we should go to his work and people, we need to take action. It can turn into mob justice if it's unchecked.

Anngelle Wood: 1:04:55

People are being doxxed on the internet their personal information and their photos and their children, and it becomes so much more than just a conversation about curiosities about crime cases.

Bob Ward: 1:05:10

Yeah, and that's why I caution people. It's good to look into it, it's good to be interested, but there should be a limit to it and don't get married to your position because you could be wrong and chances are you are wrong. Look, I do this, I get paid for this, I do this as my job. I can't tell you how many times that what I personally felt did not put on television or out in the media anywhere but what I thought turned out to be completely wrong. You know the difference is I didn't voice that. You know I might inform me as I try to figure out. What am I going to do for a story? Am I going to go after something? But I never. It never rose to the level of somebody being falsely accused, somebody being outed, and that never happened.

Bob Ward: 1:05:54

But I've just learned that you have to understand that we don't have access to the files.

Bob Ward: 1:05:59

Nobody does so what we can see on these cases is relatively superficial to other things and I've had that happen time and time again where I'll go and talk to an investigator and I've got I'm lucky in that I have quite a few of them who feel comfortable talking to me know that I'm not going to turn around and put everything out there, because they're telling me things to help understand why such a case is moving in the direction that it is moving where they're coming from.

Bob Ward: 1:06:28

And it's just really for context, and I can't tell you how many times I've been blown away by you know some information that they might have that I never heard before because it wasn't revealed, because they're trying to investigate a case. All of that needs to be remembered, that what we see is just a very small percentage of what actually is out there and what might be contained in a file. Now, sometimes, if you talk to the same people the police are talking to, you will find out that information. That can definitely happen A lot of times. You know what a source tells a police officer or detective we're not going to know unless that case ever goes to trial. Sometimes it's best to step out of the way and let the police do their job.

Anngelle Wood: 1:07:08

Yeah, because our intentions could be really good, but we could really step in it.

Bob Ward: 1:07:12

Yeah, there's no doubt. Yeah, exactly, you don't mean to step in it, but all of a sudden you find yourself knee deep in it and that's not a great place to be. So I'm a Gemini, so I'm always like this side and that side. So in this particular thing with the serial killer, I'm in the middle, probably over towards the side. I'm definitely skeptical. I think skepticism is a good trait to have.

Bob Ward: 1:07:37

When you're looking at information that's unchecked and unverified on the internet, you have to be skeptical, but you have to keep an open mind. So I do respect that people are interested in this. I do understand why people are so interested in this. I just hope they take their interest and their enthusiasm and keep it in check for themselves and just remember that, as you say, these are real cases with real people and real families, and the people saying all this on a keyboard, on a computer they're not the ones that are going to have to go up to a family and knock on their door and say can I talk to you about your case Because I think something else is going on. That's a very difficult conversation to have, and be standing face to face with a family member is not an easy thing to do.

Anngelle Wood: 1:08:20

If more people had to see family members face to face, I promise you they would not see the things that they say about families on the air.

Bob Ward: 1:08:26

Yes, yes, I know there's some horrific things that are being said about various families in the news right now, and I think it's horrible, absolutely horrible. Yes, it's the age that we're in. You know, I do believe in the pendulum swinging back and forth in society, so maybe it's swinging hard over to this side. Maybe it'll start coming back the other way. I hope so.

Anngelle Wood: 1:08:44

Well, I really enjoy talking with you about these things and maybe we can touch base and have an update in a bit. Yeah absolutely. Thank you so much.

Bob Ward: 1:08:55

You got it, Anngelle, thank you.

Anngelle Wood: 1:08:56

Talk to you later have a great night.

Bob Ward: 1:08:57

You too.

Anngelle Wood: 1:09:02

Thank you, Bob Ward. I'm a big fan of his work. He really does try to advocate for families in these situations. We covered a great deal there, A lot of cases we spoke of, Some with varying degrees of familiarity with listeners. I understand that I'll post more of that information in the show notes at crimeofthetruestkindcom so you can get a better handle of those cases that you're unfamiliar with. Cool, and you heard me mention that this coming Monday, May 12th, the person who has been arrested for the murder of Charlene Rosemond will be arraigned in Middlesex County Superior Court 10 am. I plan to be there. Let's show up for her 16 years. Her family has been waiting for this.

Anngelle Wood: 1:09:51

Thank you to the show supporters. To the show supporters you help fund my trips to AdvocacyCon and victim advocacy training, and the True Crime Podcast Festival is coming up in July. I'm reminded I need to buy my ticket because I haven't yet Support the show. Become a patron four tiers starting at just one dollar. You can drop a tip in the jar. You will be giving the dogs a bone. I have a lot of dogs and they do need a lot of bones. Tell people about the show. Follow it on social media at Crime of the Truest Kind. Leave a five-star rating and review. On Apple Podcasts. I got a new one the other day. I'm sorry I forgot to read it to you. I will catch up with you next time. New live show's coming. There's new merch on the website. I will let you know when the New England serial killer piece airs on Boston 25 News. I spoke to Bob about that the same day. We did this interview Very busy. Thank you for listening. I gotta go Lock your goddamn doors. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.