Main Line Murders /// Part 2 /// 792 | Forensic Files

[Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who 30 years later would still like to know what's the
frequency Kenneth here is the captain I thought at one point I knew but I I now know I have no clue it's good to be seen
and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for Tom [Music] friend I just fact checked it captain
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Colonel that's enough of the Beers N all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
crime the investigation into Susan reinhard's murder was unraveling for detectives
they weren't having much luck here Captain they talked to the ex-husband interviewed him interviewed everybody
that they could find that would be willing to tell them anything we talked a little bit about a potential
relationship remember there were some people that said no Susan was not in a relationship that I was aware of others
saying she was very deep into to a relationship and that was with a one bill Bradfield the two were teachers together
at the high school we also mentioned a principal now we we should be clear here the principal that we mentioned
yesterday Dr J Smith he was a principal at that school for 12 years but he was not a principal at the time of The
Disappearance of the kids in Susan's murder in fact he had left the school about a year prior he got into some
trouble his life really went off of the Rails about a year or two before he lost
his job as a principal part of that likely had to do with the death of his wife who was suffering for several years
with a very tough bout of leukemia the way that it's described is horrific and what he and she went through through
during from the time of diagnosis to the time that she passed sounds incredibly tragic and stressful and horrible to
have to deal with the the heartache with him had to be palpable but we'll get into Dr J Smith here in a bit what we
need to focus on right now though is this bill Bradfield he is as complicated of an individual as they
come he was a man who had been married twice before he had been a bachelor for quite
some time and he's in this relationship yeah he's in this relationship with suzan many people that
they talked to that were aware of this relationship said that they were going to be getting married and there was
further detail on that some people were even telling police well they were going
to get married and they were going to move to Europe at some point or move to England the other version that they're
getting is Bill Bradfield who's saying yeah we were kind of seeing each other not really I was more of a friend
there were some people that backed up those statements by saying well Susan thought it was one thing and it wasn't
it you know Bill had a whole different opinion of it it wasn't really a relationship but then it's when they
dive into Susan's Financial records detectives are starting to see some things that they're concerned with so
unfortunately Susan's mother had passed away about a year or so before Susan was
murdered she's left with a pretty handsome inheritance from her mother the reports that I've seen are
$200,000 in real estate and about $30,000 in cash now we're going back to 1978 1979 with these figures
$25,000 back then would be equal to about $100,000 today yeah it's a lifechanging
situation she's not going to be able to not work or anything but this is going to give her a huge boost like you said
not with just the real estate but also the money aspect just the cash alone would be over $100,000 in today's money
and then the $200,000 in real estate would be about $800,000 in today's money so a a good
amount of money here and what they are seeing is that for some strange reason shortly
before her murder she opens up several life insurance policies on herself and she already had at least one
pre-existing life insurance policy where her kids her two children were to be the
beneficiaries of that how however she changed the beneficiary to her boyfriend who when she sits down to make this
change to the life insurance she doesn't describe him as boyfriend William Bradfield she describes him as fiance
soon to be husband and in fact that those words make it onto the paperwork so she switches one from kids to future
husband as she put it and then two other life insurance policies that she takes out on herself again beneficiary is Bill
Bradfield Future Husband I've seen some varying descriptions of how much money this was but some say as little as half
a million dollars when you total up all of the life insurance policies others saying that was closer to $1 million
back then again to give a little bit of background here we're talking I mean this is this would be equal to millions
of dollars today and that doesn't include the inheritance that she had of the $30,000 cash and the real estate
that she had inherited from her mother well and if you're law enforcement this is fishy right you have people saying
well they're boyfriend girlfriend some people say NOP bill was her friend Bill's saying hey it wasn't that serious
well if it wasn't that serious then why is she calling you her fiance on these legal documents and why is she giving
you or you would be the beneficiary to three insurance policies and you would be the beneficiary to real estate and
like you said what does that total and today's money it could be up to three4 million and one person that was aware of
this prior to Susan's death was her brother and her ex-husband so what takes place here in fact they are the reason
why this ends up on the detectives radar in the first place so the ex-husband and
brother come forward and they say they file what I believe is called a caveat and what that is is they're
challenging the insurance companies saying wait a second yeah we know she she's been killed and you're probably
going to pay this out now keep in mind a lot of these life insurance policies are
not going to pay out with a pending investigation right it they would pay out once the investigation runs its
course and everything if everything's on the up and up then it will pay out but prior to that while this investigation
is ongoing brother and ex-husband come forward and they say wait a second you guys might want to
not pay this guy because he's one of many suspects I mean as said even the brother and
ex-husband were at some point on the suspect list because until you're ruled out you're ruled out you're you're still
a suspect this goes on to police radar now police through this they start figuring out well wait a second leading
up to her murder now we're going back a couple months before she was killed remember that $30,000 cas Cash She
inherited well that was in a in savings she was making large withdrawals from that
$30,000 multiple times leading up to her death and taking out money multiple occasions mainly because of daily limits
but they figured that it was about $25,000 that she had taken out of savings Jesus they're looking through
her financials they're looking through her home they're they're going through her life and they're going well there's
nothing obvious that she spent that money on so where did it go once again bring in Bill
Bradfield Bill Bradfield was according to him her friend her very close friend that was helping her and he even said
that she seemed troubled and seemed to make decisions that didn't make any sense he he didn't know why she would
name him as the beneficiary of these life insurance policies but maybe it was because she was looking at him as some
kind of financial advisor as he puts it he was telling her and this is going from her brother's statements and other
people that tell police well we know where the $225,000 went she was giving it to Bill and he was investing it for
her or at least that's what she told us and of course Bill's telling police I don't know what you're talking about
$25,000 I've never seen $25,000 this guy seems a little bit like a Scott peeterson well nowadays things are all
done online but back then when you buy stocks or bonds you would typically get a decorated paper receipt let's call it
for a lack of better term right a certificate right and so when police go to her home they are finding things that
are that are certificates of stocks that were purchased or bonds that were purchased
but what they quickly realize is a lot of these companies that she seemed to own stock
or thought she owned stock for didn't exist and now they're starting to say well she's telling people that he's
investing this money for her she must have believed it but we think he's doing something else with this money because
these stocks are for companies that don't exist so now right he becomes obvious suspect Prime suspect number one
the problem with him being a suspect though is the time of death and that's why I said earlier Captain I don't love
when you when you tell me cause of death is this we've narrowed it down to three
things I'm not so confident when you tell me that you've narrowed down the the time of
death because it's her time of death that takes him off of the radar that moves him and seems like
makes it so the likelihood of him being a good suspect is not so likely so he was with
three other people at a place called Cape May New Jersey and he is there the original reports that police get is he's
there the entire weekend now to complicate things he lives in the Greater Philadelphia area remember he
works at the same school as Susan to complicate things with when he comes back from this Cape May New Jersey he
he's returning home on the same Monday that she is found dead in the hatchback he goes home and then he
immediately leaves so within a few hours of getting back to his house he's now on
an airplane heading out to New Mexico all of these travels of his were pre-arranged okay so that's one thing
that's it doesn't look like he's on the run from anything it's suspicious but it's not highly suspicious because these
are all pre-arranged travels that he has set up so the the travel to Cape May New
Jersey he's traveling with three friends these are three people that he worked with that worked at the high school so
all three of these people know him and they know Susan of course the plane trip out to New Mexico
is because he is taking a course he's going to be attending classes there that he signed up for remember the these
people are all teachers and it's now summertime so it's the summer and they have the summer to go work other jobs to
further their education well that's what he's doing he's on a plane with one of these other teachers out to New Mexico
to take classes for the summer well this is quite convenient because every time the police want to talk to him about
Susan's murder he's busy he can't take the phone call it's easy for him to duck them because he's on the other side of
the country this is what leads police to Bill Bradfield as a possible or very good suspect in this case the problem
though is once again the timeline if if he is in Cape May the entire weekend with three other people that makes it
very difficult for him to have committed the murder especially when the coroner is saying that she had only died about
24 hours or so before being found 27 hours approximately after leaving her home on that Friday night I agree with
you on the sense of he's not a good suspect if their if their timeline of death is correct exactly
and what will move what will help to move police off of Bill Bradfield is this they start
talking to the three people that he's at Cape May with and these people they're all teachers all three of them are
teachers at the same high school they start telling detectives that oh well we were
hearing through the grape vine that Dr J Smith was going to murder Susan and who
are they hearing this from uh well that's that's interesting it's very raising guys well this this
case is very incestuous so they're hearing some of this and they're saying well okay well who's telling you that or
where did you hear this well they're hearing it from each other you know again a game of telephone one of them
said something to somebody and then it's kind of getting regurgitated around and
around in a circle but what it looks like here Captain is that maybe that rumor started with Bill
Bradfield that he started saying it and somehow this became regular conversation
over the course of weeks maybe even months leading up to her murder I don't like this bill guy well and police want
to know like well what what would be why would Dr J Smith who was her one-time principal her one-time boss why would he
have any motive at all to kill this person he's she's not worked for him for a year
approximately well this dude they start looking at him and he's he's already been in trouble with the law quite a bit
and that's why he lost his job as a principal I'm telling you guys if you don't know this case there's this
case put on your raincoat yeah put on your raincoat because there's going to be some [ __ ] you cannot make this stuff
up okay not too much [ __ ] but quite a bit of [ __ ] all right so let's take a look at this Dr J Smith yeah he grew up
during the Great Depression he enlisted in the US Army he became a colonel a lieutenant colonel in the Army and then
he transfers we know he's full of [ __ ] the United States Army Reserves okay well remember the comb
that was found underneath our victim in the hatchback yes well that was part of his
that that was his unit that was inscribed on the comb that was his unit that he was enlisted for with the Army
Reserves so most likely his com yes now I let's before we go too far because I know I'll forget to say it later
Captain they made a whole bunch of these combs at one point we're talking thousand they made thousands of them and
it was not just to give to the people that that served or that were in that unit but they were also handed out as a
potential recruiting tool so it stands to reason that he would have that comb in his possession but it also stands the
reason that maybe dozens if not hundreds or thousands of other people would have
had a comb like that at one time in their life well it's also possible that maybe he gave them out to his teachers
when he was a principal this part of it though is interesting because here we have a comb
that that he would have had in a unit that he served in and he has a direct connection to a Tob to our victim and
then it also makes you wonder was there some type of relationship between Susan our victim and Dr J Smith
well and depending on who you talk to there there either was or there wasn't so there are some people that say that
there was no never any relationship uh when Dr J Smith is asked about it he says I've never met her children I never
spoke to her once outside of the workplace place I didn't really know her other than she her and I worked at the
same school there are people out there that say they had a one-time Affair there are other people that
say he tried he made advances toward her and she rejected him and then there are
other people that say what he was saying they had no relationship outside of work
at all again very difficult for detectives to piece through this information when
you're getting conflicting information from really the same pool of people well it's also tough because look at our
victim Susan she doesn't seem to be an individual that she's telling every detail of her life to multiple
people so it's not like we have a bunch of people in her life like you said there's some people going well this this
relationship with Bill was nothing and other people say it was everything and then you have people in in her life
saying well there was no relationship with Dr J Smith and some people saying there was a relationship I mean and we
don't have an individual that we feel like she's giving every detail of her life too well in Dr J
Smith depending on how you want to cut it it's either good for your investigation or bad luck for him he's
he's a weird dude there's no way to put it uh so being a weird dude when you fall into a suspect pool is not helpful
to you if you're innocent if you're an investigator you're looking for the weird dude in the
suspect pool and this weird dude has a police record this is where I said you can't make this stuff up he this dude is
a respected Army Reserve Commander like a a ranking officer and he's a principal of good
upstanding for 12 years at this one school in particular right that's until August of 1978 so this is 13 sorry
this is a little short of one year before Susan's murder this is when police go and they
arrest a man so they all right there's this guy wearing a hood and carrying two pistols and he's trying to break into a
car in a shopping mall parking lot they the police get on the scene and they arrest this dude without
incident and the guy in the hood with the two pistols turns out to be principal Smith he's in the parking lot of the
Gateway Shopping Center trying to break into a vehicle now police search his vehicle after they arrest him they find
four handguns one that is fitted with an homemade silencer they don't know if he purchased
this thing or if he made the silencer himself and in a suit coat that is in a pocket of a suit coat that's found in
his car they find a syringe that is loaded with prescription medicine of some sort now this is going to INSP fire the
police to get a search warrant to search his home when they get to his home they find some things of interest
they find a a large stash of marijuana and the the thing that's of the greatest interest to them is they
find security guard uniforms and fake badges okay so the reports are here captain that they found like three
pounds of marijuana so he think about the charges already that this guy's facing right like this homemade silencer
is illegal as they come that's a charge the three pounds of marijuana that's drug possession charge and when you have
that quantity that's with the intent to sell too uh or intent to distribute and then he's trying to break into a vehicle
one thing that I've I've searched high and I've searched low my friends for two weeks I've been trying to figure out
whose vehicle was he trying to break into and why and that information ceased to exist as far as I aware so if
anybody knows that information that's what we that's one of the things that we want to hear in this case among some
others police are very interested in the security guard uniforms and the fake badges that they find in the basement of
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marijana so rest of the episode is going to be very interesting we we're going to
be high on Old Mar confiscated and now we will pursue what is often referred to as a
controlled burn yeah like when you said I've searched High well how how high were you all right cheers let's talk
about these security guard uniforms Captain because this this is one part of the story that I find to be very
intriguing this is a very um point breakish to me okay so this area had experienced some pretty big thefts
recently okay so in August of 77 there was a theft of $53,000 from a Sears department store in
a neighboring community and then there was the theft or attempted theft of $158,000 at another steer sears's
department store and another neighboring Community what they figured out was Dr J
Smith with these security guard uniforms and the fake badges had fash himself a Brinks armed car security
guard uniforms he made these things even giving himself an ID like a lanyard with
an ID identification badge and a and a a silver badge what they believe he was doing is watching these stores these
large box stores and he would figure out the routines and know what day and at approximately what time Brinks was
showing up to collect cash and check from these stores what he would do is he would dress up like the brink security
guard and go into the store shortly before the scheduled pickup it show him identification chat with them and no
one's the wiser and they would fill up the bag and he would walk out the bag and then what would happen is the actual
Brink security guard would show up minutes later and now the manager's wondering well if you're the real guard
who the hell did I just hand thousands of dollars to yeah officer your cash it's actually # don't try this at home
I'm not I'm not saying go out and do this but it's actually a rather brilliant plan when you think about it
okay but and not to diverge from the story completely but when I was reading this to me it almost reminded me a
little bit of Breaking Bad in a sense because we do have this criminal history of J Smith but it doesn't seem like the
criminal history goes back like that far and so I Wonder like you you were saying
his his wife was suffering from leukemia and he was under all this pressure and he's a principal and you just wonder if
he was just one of these guys that was like Hey life didn't work out for me the way I planned and I've been doing good
things I mean he had a lot of um he had accomplishments as far as career and I mean he had a doctorate and um he had a
life in the in the Army Reserve so he was working toward a good retirement and here's the thing I I don't somebody out
there is going to get mad at me I don't want anybody to think that I'm rushing to defend Dr J Smith J
Smith but I was reading something the other night that was absolutely heartbreaking and this is stuff that is
not unknown to others out there but I had never seen the actual number numbers they were talking about so this month is
breast cancer awareness month and the article I was reading reading was how much does it cost for a year of care for
somebody who is diagnosed with breast cancer they did a cost breakdown between stage one 2 3 4 stage one look nobody
wants to get any kind of cancer or any stage of cancer but stage one not very expensive stage two 17 times the cost of
stage one and then you can imagine where it goes from there stage four you you're
lucky to live but if you live you're you're you're bankrupt so I'm not rushing to to defend Smith I'm just
examining what's going on in his life in his timeline his wife has not died of leukemia yet and was diagnosed with
leukemia and it was not ever considered to be a situation that she was going to beat so I don't know if he just lost his
mind or if he was trying to collect funds to try to save his wife's life I don't know well and this and yeah and
that's it's like like I said breaking bad situation like you said this guy had accomplishments not just in military but
as a civilian also and so then the these the these crimes took place but I couldn't find anything that he was
charged with and that doesn't mean he wasn't committing crimes before this that he just wasn't caught for but I
couldn't find any one thing that's always been uh of heightened suspicion for Dr J Smith is his daughter and
son-in-law have been missing for a very long time they've they've been missing and they've never been found now did
they run off because Jay Smith would tell everyone that they ran off others based off of these events that we just
discussed and later events that he suspected of people think that he is the reason that they vanished his statements
have always been and and some of these statements are absolute fact his daughter he had two daughters okay so
let's be clear here nothing ever happened to his other daughter but the one daughter that disappeared his name
her name is Stephanie and I believe she was named after her mother she fell into
drugs pretty bad she was a heroin addict and her husband who was a couple years older than her he was a heroin addict as
well their last name was hunsburger they go missing and this is early 1978 like February of 1978 which again
you got this criminal activity plus the the family members going missing this is
setting him up to be equally as good of a suspect if not better than Bradfield because Bradfield has what seems to be a
pretty solid Alibi not only that if J Smith made two people disappear before never to be found it's reasonable that
he could do it again yeah and so Smith's daughter and her husband to this day Captain have never
been found they're reported missing early 78 as The Story Goes she had been arrested on a couple occasions for
prostitution son-in-law was up to no good I think he had got picked up for theft or something on occasion they were
living in his home at this time the last time that they're seen they're seen by his parents
the son-in-law's parents when they went to visit them for get together evening get together for dinner one night
everyone's suspicious of Jay Smith because they were living at his home with his wife at the time right he says
they were in trouble with some drug dealers some local drug dealers and they hit the road and the best they told him
was they were heading out to the West Coast to start all over and to hide from these people that they owed bunch of
money to I don't I've reviewed it Captain I don't have a strong opinion either way
as to what happened to these two individuals if they took off on their own if those drug dealers caught up to
them or if J Smith is responsible for their disappearance what I will say is this what we do know the way that this
all plays out is J Smith is now facing a whole hell of a lot of charges and Jay Smith wasn't known to be
the most social guy he didn't have a whole bunch of friends well when he's in trouble and he's facing all these
criminal charges the only person that comes to his defense is a one bill Bradfield who many people say they
weren't aware that the two were close and Bradfield even tells police that they weren't close he says but he went
to police and says I know on of a couple of these charges that he absolutely could not have committed these crimes
because he was with me and not only that he was hundreds of miles away at this and I think he
referenced Cap May one more time so this is the only person that comes to his defense and testifies in court as an
alibi for Dr J Smith that he couldn't have committed some of these offenses because he was with me the whole time
and we were out of town he was nowhere near I know you found those security guard uniforms in his
basement but uh he he couldn't have done it yeah but then it makes you wonder if
they are close and Bill Bradford was able to establish if Bill Bradford was able to
establish a solid Alibi for when Susan and her kids go missing and then her body is
found and somebody that bill Bradford is close to J Smith needs money for some reason and you're set to inherit again
let's just go over this again three life insurance policies real estate plus this
money that she was giving you that was obviously some kind of scam more than his the cash that she gave him to air
quotes invest for her as she told other people remember that's what she told her
brother that's what she told several people and she also told people that she gave him her grandmother's diamond ring
her grandmother's wedding ring that she inherited so that he he would go and get
it reset to give her an engagement ring so they could make it official and then go and get married soon she according to
everybody that knew her intimately and this includes uh a therapist that she spoke to on a couple of occasions they
all said the same thing she was telling them she's getting married to this guy now you go digging a little bit de
deeper and here's what you find out there are three other women that thought they were getting married to this
element this uh English teacher as well con artist three other women that thought they were getting married he one
woman was 20 years younger than him used to be one of his students they they started hooking up after she turned 18
and graduated play out play out play out play and he was living on and off again
with another woman that went by the name Sue Jesus one woman was so infatuated with him that even though she knew about
the other relation ships when he ends up getting arrested and we'll get into that
in a minute she pays thousands of dollars to bail him out there's I can't place it Captain there's an old rock
song where one of the lines is the world's greatest lover this dude must have been that they must have been
singing about him or something because hold on I'm I'm looking he seemed to convince four smart women that he was
going to marry all four of them well I'm looking this up on Wikipedia and you know we keep calling him Bill Brad
Bradfield but uh his real name was William golden [ __ ] Bradford so what we end up here with
Captain is this is what the way that this starts to play out police were under huge pressure to solve this thing
and I tell you what I think they got close to getting it right Bill Bradfield is not a great suspect because of the
timeline they can't put him and Susan together at the same time when they believe that she was murdered in fact
he's miles away in another city another Cape May with three different people that are that swear up and down he was
with us the whole weekend in fact we stayed together they had they had two rooms for four people he and one person
stayed in one room and the other two people stayed in the room next to it they had lunch and dinner and breakfast
together they went to church together on two occasions during that weekend but here's the problem he made prior
arrangements for this group to stay at Cape May New Jersey he did this about a week or two before the weekend in
question when he made these Arrangements he told the proprietor of the business hey we are going to arrive late Friday
night so just leave the doors unlocked with the keys inside we'll let ourselves in so he they pay for Friday Saturday
Sunday well Kate May it's not close to where they live so it stands a reason that they would arrive there late you do
a little bit of checking here the longest drive that it would have taken them even back then
and I'm figuring this up conservatively giving them the benefit of the doubt adding an additional time here
conservatively captain we're talking two and a half hours they according to the three people that he traveled with they
arrived there at 3:00 in the morning well that means that they didn't leave till midnight or a little after midnight
on that Friday and what do we know is happening that Friday at some point Susan and her kids are rushing around to
go where we don't no but that was at 9:20 p.m. that leaves about a 3-hour window on Friday
night where Bradfield is unaccounted for let's go through his day real quick remember
we said he's the world's greatest lover well he spent half the day with one of those other three women that we talked
about briefly and he spent part of that day too with a gentleman by the last name of
I shouldn't say gentleman because I don't know exactly his involvement in this he seems to have some involved he
might be a piece of [ __ ] yeah yeah yeah his last name is uh papis he was one of
the people that went out to Cape May with Bradfield they spent a part of the day
together too so when these two people talk to detectives basically their story is Bill Bradfield is accounted for up
till about 8:00 pm that night Susan and the kids take off at 920 and they him and friends don't
arrive in Cape May till 3 a.m. again there's there's enough window of time there if she was in fact killed
or abducted and bound so he could have had some direct involvement in what happened to
her and still made it out there to Cape May now how does Dr J Smith fall into all this well remember there were some
of those rumors but police and detectives needed a little more of a motive well the motive at some point
became well Bill Bradfield came forward and testified and likely perjured himself providing an alibi for J Smith
for some of his more serious offenses so Dr J Smith owed him one the thing that even points out more that J
Smith was involved is oh by the way her body's found in Harrisburg where was J Smith supposed to
be the same morning that Monday morning when her body was found in that parking lot in the
hatchback har he was supposed to be in Harrisburg checking in with police because he's going to have to start
serving his sentence on all of those crimes that he was convicted of that we just discussed and it's noted that he
shows up an hour later than scheduled so now detectives are saying well he was probably late because he's
busy TI in up the crime scene the other thing we should point out too and I know a lot of the
listeners are are circling around this detail like vultures remember one of the details about him breaking into that car
remember they found a syringe in his pocket and we know that our victim was doped 10 times level on
Morphine at some point so that's a little that's connective tissue there and even if she would recognize Jay
Smith as he got closer he could have used some kind of Disguise like a security guard or law enforcement or
something to get close to her well and they weren't going to let bill off the hook either they think that bill needed
to get rid of Susan one two to collect the life insurance money two that some of the Investments
he claimed he made for her it's believed that they were coming due to pay so she
was going to get her money back plus a return and in one case it was like 12% interest that he was claiming so at some
point she's would be notifi you know she would likely become aware that he's scamming her and at some point she'd
become aware like he's not really going to marry me and we're not really moving off to
England this's a con artist right and and so he's conning her and the only way out of it is to kill her but why the
children so the way that the theory goes is that the children were not supposed to be there this whole murder of of
Susan was very premeditated very planned out but the the wrench that got thrown into the whole situation was wherever
she showed up to wherever the Trap was that had been set she showed up there with two kids
that that no one had expected that it was going to go that way I don't know why maybe they thought that the kids
were going to be with their father that weekend or or whatever but she shows up for all we
know she well and for all we know that she changed plans and said okay well yeah you're
supposed to go with your dad but come with me anyways it's going to be fun one theory is
that J Smith calls in a an Emergency to her saying oh your fiance Bill's been in
a horrible accident uh I'm driving off to the hospital come and meet me at this location and I'll take you with me to go
see him that was one of the theories that was out there the the problem with a lot of these theories is the way that
some theories work out that we've not even discussed is that Jay could be responsible for killing Susan without
Bill having any information no involvement at all and you could also work it out that bill did this or had
other people involved with him and Jay had no involvement okay so we do have a lot to
get through here because what ends up happening is Bill who will not talk to police about Susan and what's going on
he's a he's able to dodge them because he's in New Mexico and he's conveniently busy every time that they want to talk
about it well what they end up doing is they end up Char ing him with with fraud
for all of his involvement in the financial affairs of of Susans well that's smart by law
enforcement because that's going to give them time to build cases against him but
that's no Justus whatever he gets charged with that that's no justification for him to get away with
murder and then his story gets even stranger his story starts to become well I knew that Jay was going to kill Susan
and I tried to protect her when we were at Cape May I was so worried that something was going to happen to her
that I insisted that that the group go to the church and let's light a candle for Susan and say a prayer can you
imagine you're a detective and you're talking to three people that provide an alibi for Bill Bradfield and they're
saying that they spent a portion of their weekend getaway lighting a candle and saying a prayer for someone who this
guy I think she's going to be murdered soon and then Monday morning she turns up dead in a vehicle in Harrisburg who
are these bags of trash that aren't just turning on him but again we don't know who these individuals are like
everything about him obviously and then it's like if he's scamming people is he teaching other people to scam or or or
these friends of his that are in on the scams and it seems far-fetched to say that a lot of people would be involved
in this but here's the thing police have a hard time nailing down bill because of the
timeline there's just not enough time for him to have murdered her place her where she was found and the vehicle
place where it was found and then make two kids disappear there just I don't care how you shake it there's not really
enough time for him to to do that and I really want him to be good for this because he looks damn good for it the
thing is I think he is good for it I just think he had help I think he did a good job of pointing out that there is a
gap in his timeline but there's a lot of things he would had to accomplished within that timeline but if this is true
that these bags of [ __ ] on their vacation are going down to the church to light a candle and and pray for this
lady and then she ends up she's found nude and dead in the trunk of her car you'd think one of these [ __ ] bags would
come forward and say you know you know Bill is an awful human and or maybe that's not even
true maybe that's just what he's telling law enforcement and then law enforcement
talks to these guys and they go we we never said a prayer for her we don't know what you're talking about you know
yeah well I mean there there's more than one person that confirms the the prayer
and C candle lighting Story one of the people on the trip with them that weekend was the woman who he had lived
with on and off again who was also under the belief at one time that they were going to get married or they had some
serious very serious relationship to the point that they live together old golden
[ __ ] strikes again well here's there's a few problems with this Theory remember the theory is
that Bradfield needs her to go away so the life insurance pays and he could absorb the
inheritance right that she came into recently and that he got his old buddy who's already crooked as they come and a
hardcore criminal and maybe he's he doesn't have murder in his past we don't know he his his daughter
disappeared but he certainly was caught with a lot of guns and Implements of murder and so he looks
like and Bill comes to his defense right that that's something that can't be argued we know that he sat and testified
in court on behalf of Dr J Smith that's a fact but let me let's examine it this way some people say Dr J Smith has got
to be guilty because oh it's obvious he he was in Harrisburg the same place where her body's found and he shows up
late an hour late okay but doesn't that also mean that even though bill came and testified on his behalf
that he was still found guilty on all of those charges so it really doesn't mean a damn
thing I don't owe you anything bill you may have come and testified for me but what I'm what am I going to do go kill a
woman and her two kids hours before I'm supposed to go and and start serving my sentence that just doesn't make any
sense yeah I mean and I know there's a lot of dumb people out there but this guy was a colonel at one time yeah maybe
his life went completely off the rails and he totally lost his mind I can't say whether or not that happened but he was
a colonel at one point and he he was he was a doctor he was an educated man again what we do know is it
seems that that Jay Smith took a turn and it didn't seem like it was a murderous turn
turn seems like it was a financial turn we I need money quick and and gobs of money quick like I said it's like a
breaking bad situation maybe J Smith doesn't owe Bill anything but maybe Bill said hey if you do this
for me there'll be a Payday and there'll be a large one but when's he going to get it he's going to prison so you're I
think you're barking I think you're barking up the the the right tree here so speak yeah I think you're on to it
you found the scent maybe it's the wrong tree because this is where I go we talked about the equivalent of what that
money compared to yester year was to today well that means there's a lot of money to go around you could pay
somebody to help you commit these murders it doesn't have to be Dr J Smith and a wise person once
said that getting away with the perfect murder the perfect murder isn't just getting away with
it getting away with the perfect murder is getting somebody else to take the fall for it Dr J Smith was somebody that
these the victim and this other suspect worked for for years it was no secret that Dr J Smith was facing all these
charges in fact it was big-time news and headlines in the area because all these
parents are going what the hell this guy was the principal of our high school so you're thinking Bill Bradfield
was like hey he's going to prison anyways pin it on him and and none the wiser well I think that if you wanted to
look for somebody and find somebody that might look like they're capable of such
an act he seems like an easy scapegoat I'm not saying that Dr J Smith had nothing
to do with this I'm just saying that if there's hundreds of those Combs or somebody had been to J Smith's home or
in his car or in his office dozens of times as it's been reported that Bill had how difficult would it be to snatch
one of those Combs and place it underneath the body of this victim and again he flies to New Mexico that
same day he just happens to be coming a going and if he's staying in regular contact
with J Smith he's going to know that J Smith is going to be starting his sentence in Harrisburg Pennsylvania that
morning because here's the thing Captain I don't think for a second had Jay Smith
showed up on time remember everybody makes a big deal that he was an hour late you mean to tell me that if he
showed up on time that everybody's going to go well he's innocent he couldn't have done it [ __ ] it's one hour's
difference they everybody would still think he's guilty I just think when you got he's
got three different women one who oh by the way was staying in a seat motel in Philadelphia for at least 3 weeks prior
to Susan's murder and she drives his car on that Monday from Philadelphia to New
Mexico where Bill is flying why wouldn't he take his own damn car he's going to fly she takes a car
and they meet up at the same place and and now you have some woman that was staying in a motel in Philadelphia
leading up to the murder who won't talk to police she by the way is the one that
ends up bail in him out when he gets charged with this fraud count so we kind of got to investigate this because the
way that this whole story plays out is now we have Dr J Smith who's serving his time in prison and it's not going to be
a short sentence at all we're talking years bill is facing fraud charges which should land him in prison for about two
years I believe two or so years and he's going to have to repay a whole bunch of
money he ends up being found guilty on the fraud charges mhm so the life insurance never gets paid out in fact I
think what they ended up doing was it that it got paid out but it went to Next of Kin which ended up being her older
brother older brother is a standup guy you know what he does he puts it in a trust for the two missing kids and says
that when they come home they'll get the money it wasn't until he's charged with
fraud and on the stand for those charges that he has to start answering some actual questions about Susan's murder he
can't duck and Dodge it anymore yeah and once he gets out of prison he gets convicted on the fraud
charges once he gets out of prison for that that is when they charge him with murder but it's not your standard murder
charges he gets charged with three counts of conspiracy to murder and it's with the uh with the
assistance of a person who is known or unknown but the person's never named in those
charges and to try to make a a long story short here through a lengthy trial he gets
convicted of three counts of conspiracy to murder now according to according to the
state if you read it the way that those charges are laid out he they are saying look we don't think that you
actually that you that you were the the one that actually murdered these people but you arranged for it to happen you
made efforts to get away with it you conspired to murder at least Susan and then maybe had to premeditate the the
other two once you've you know you they show up right he gets convicted of three counts
of conspiracy to murder he gets three life sentences consecutive life sentences which means homeboy you never
going to get out unless you live to be about 6 years old I don't think you're ever going to get out you're not you're
you're not a ladies man no more you you're a prison man and that's nasty but think about that charge
they've convicted this guy on that now we got to go find who who who did he conspire with to commit these
murders right they do the same thing they wait till Dr J Smith gets out of prison for his lengthy sentence and now
they're coming after him and remember that narrative is that favors for favors he helped you now you helped him
that is what they bring to court the problem is Dr J Smith had a good defense team
who said that the only evidence that they had against J Smith was these police had all these rumors
that Dr J Smith was going to kill Susan but they admitted in court that all those rumors were stemming from Bill
so that's not really evidence at all now but you got the blue comb and then you got the the blue comb you have the
fibers you have the the fibers but you also have like you said the syringe and you have the location of the death scene
which would have been in Harrisburg well the fibers uh what was determined was that they were they were believed they
were presented as fibers that were found on her that came from jce it home the defense rightfully so points out well
that could have come from any number of like thousands and thousands of different sources would
have matched those fibers so it's not unique to our defendant they also proved that how many hundreds or thousands of
those cols that were made and again it makes it so it's not unique to our defendant
the prosecution then presents a jailhouse snitch who at no time they they they set
him up with a wire they tried their damnedest to get Smith to confess to this jail house snitch he never says
that he murdered Susan he never says that he murdered the kids the only thing that he that they can get him talking
about is is an attempt to escape from jail or from prison mhm now remember they started setting this up while he was in
prison for these other charges this was this was what led them to even charging him with this to begin
with was this jail house snitch so the jail house snitch testifies at at trial saying
that that he not only did J Smith want to escape from prison but he he had said on
recording that he would be willing to if if at some point the Escape if they had
gone so far in the Escape at some point he would be willing to kill a guard if they got far enough in their escape so
the jury's going to look at that is okay well this guy has the possesses the ability to dream up premeditated murder
they never have him on record saying that he killed any of the three victims or even abducted the two kids
and made them disappear but they have the word of the jail house snitch saying well he did tell me that he did say that
he killed her he told me that multiple times but but anytime that you wire me up I can't seem to get him to say
it he gets convicted of three deaths he gets sentenced to three death sentences because by this point the two
kids have been presumed to be dead but that's not the end of the story my friend because what we're going to get
is a few years is going to go by this man is sitting on death row and his defense team starts uncovering evidence
prosecutorial and judicial misconduct in his trial and in the investigation against Dr J Smith
right and it's kind of sad too because he's on death row and they prove their point several times over and yet they
allowed him to remain on death row while they dragged their feet on getting a new
trial or getting this one tossed out but you know there's like shady [ __ ] going
on when once they start going a jail house snitch and once the jailhouse snitch can't really provide anything it
really kind of shows how much they're grasping at straws and so what other areas of the investigation or during the
prosecution did did they grasp at straws and and and work outside the lines of legal legal actions well one part of it
that was that would help to their cause is you have to disclose the prosecution has to discl closed to the defense team
if you are offering a deal to the jail housee Niche right like we're going to give him leniency we're going to take
some time off of his sentence if you come forward and help us with this right that didn't happen in this case in fact
the the the snitch is on the stand saying that he wasn't offered any kind of deal that he's not getting any kind
of leniency or getting any type of reward for coming forward that's test ony at a State Trial right that becomes
fact as far as the state's concerned his word what turns out is he perjured himself because
later it's easily determined that he he got out like they they pushed him to parole because they needed they knew
that the defense the defense could tear apart some of their evidence that they had and so they needed to build a better
case against Smith and that snitch was going to be part of that and he got a lenient deal
he got out he didn't have to pull any more time as they say and once that was revealed well
that's misconduct and then there's another angle to this we've talked about this a little
bit on off the Record where the a lot of the Publishers especially the big ones they True Crime isn't isn't isn't the
best-selling genre out there as far as books go so Publishers are taking a risk on
True Crime to start with but when they do the overwhelming majority of the time they want a case that is that is solved
that is done it is an open and closed case and as we said there were three books written about at least three books
that were written about this case one was turned into a TV movie and Joseph wau was one of the authors uh he wrote a
book called echoes in the darkness which is a fantastic read unfortunately when he showed up on
the scene he was interviewing police and interviewing detectives and he said his
next book he was already a best-selling author he was he's I mean he's written a
a whole bunch a whole catalog of fantastic books and he's a retired cop too so these cops and detectives like
talking to him he's one of their own but when he showed up on the scene he said this is my next book but it's got to be
solved first it's got to be solved well it was later one of the officers came forward years later
after J Smith had been in prison on death row for quite a bit of time saying you know I was paid $50,000 to make sure
that there was an arrest on Dr J Smith by the paid by by the author Jesus Christ and so that doesn't look good for
your case either So eventually what happens is Dr J Smith gets released after years
on death row eventually he would pass away in 2009 and under of course a cloud of
suspicion that he was still involved in this case and involved in The Disappearance of his daughter and
son-in-law so nobody really knows the truth all of these years later unfortunately the the kids have never
been found now the other person who we we the state still deemed to be guilty is Bill Bradfield who remained in prison
serving three life sentences until the day he died after he's convicted do we get any acknowledgment of Smith's
involvement with Bill or does Bill just continue to claim he's innocent Bill maintained he was innocent until the day
that he passed away um but look police have never forgotten about this case and and anybody from
Pennsylvania specifically the Philadelphia Harrisburg Area will will back me up on this nobody's ever
forgotten about this case and nobody's forgotten about those missing kids and I I wanted to make sure that we include
this here in our coverage after he passes away police they honed in on a photograph
that they found in his cell so William Bradfield passed away in 1998 yeah he died of a heart attack
while serving the life sentences they found a photograph which they think may have been developed
in 1986 we'll get into that in a minute they find this in his cell but they find
it among dozens of of other photographs and letters and writings and things of that nature and a
couple boxes that he had in his cell with him now this Photograph it's a Polaroid photo that depicts a stone
marker that that some say resembles a hooded figure rather than trying to describe it
the scenario put it on our social media well let let me read this this is from the Philadelphia Daily
News and the headline is is photo an eerie clue to rer Graves and it says it is a photograph of what
looks like a monument possibly a grave marker dead brown leaves clutter the foreground but the growth above the
stone is fresh and green nothing very remarkable about the Polaroid except it was found among the possessions of the
late William Bradfield The Man convicted of killing two children whose bodies have never been found could this crude
Stone mark their final resting place the Discover of the photo has added another
puzzling ingredient to a case that already abounds in mystery and then it goes on
to describe the crimes a little bit which we've we've done at length here so we don't need to to go into that but the
what's interesting is we know that the kids disappear in 1979 on the back of the this this marker this on the back of
the Polaroid somebody wrote a date on there which was 1986 and we know that polar Polaroid
film especially ones that old do not automatically date themselves so nobody really knows what this December
1986 date means which in fact sheds little light on the mystery at all because that has that date seems to have
no relevance to the missing kids right and it could just be simply this picture this item
in the picture has nothing to do with the murders and it's just simply that's the date that the person took the
picture correct and but what what I like about this story uh with the photograph and finding
it in the cell even though it's damn near 20 years after the homicides is that it does show a level of effort by
law enforcement to never give up on finding those kids just like that passionate call to action rally the
troops that we talked about in part one where he just said just find them you know Search Everything who cares about
the citizens rights we're looking for two kids here in the end Captain this case came to be known as the mainline
murders it ended up being the largest and longest running investigation ever conducted by the Pennsylvania State
Police as said it's been the subject of at least three books including echoes in
the darkness by Joseph woma and a TV movie which I did watch the TV movie again parts of it are
likely fictional fictional yeah um because I think woma was filling in some of the blanks and while he's a great
author we do have the accusation that he paid somebody $50,000 to speed up the case if you will or steer it in a
certain direction so he could write the book so I don't put a whole lot of weight into his version of the events
but it was it was a good movie Robert loia is in the book or in the movie I'm sorry he's he's a great actor you might
know him from big but as we know there are no signs of Michael and Karen and there haven't been and in fact all of
these massive and extensive searches have turned up nothing as far as the kids go and never turned up any sign of
their mother's clothing and some of her missing belongings as well so this mystery is far from over now we do have
one law enforcement officer amongst many who has been active and vocal to the media talking about this case decades
later who said that he considers the investigation open but quite inactive but he did say that at least
one person who has never been charged in the case may have intimate knowledge about these slays that person may know
what happened to the children and that's possibly the the female that helped bill out he said that that he would
certainly say that there's a possibility of a third person out there a high probability he said and with a reminder
to everybody out there with if anybody has any information about what may have happened to Karen and Michael Reiner to
call the State Police at 717 67175 37 want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage sharing these cases
on social media and telling your mother and your father about the show Colonel do we have any recommended reading yes
we do and this one is a great read I would recommend this this week next week and the following this one's called
principal suspect the true story of Dr J Smith and the mainline murders by William kopos Joseph waz's echoes in the
darkness and its subsequent TV dramatization have made household words of both of the names Susan reinard and
Dr J Smith who was the high school principal where Susan worked the naked body of Susan Riner was discovered
jammed into a hatchback of a car her two young children were missing and never found this is one of three there's at
least three books about this case but this was the one that I chose to read and it's a fantastic read and I say that
because this is a very complicated and difficult story to tell and William Copus told it as well as anyone in fact
he's an attorney who worked very close on this case for many many years so check out principal suspect you'll find
that recommendation and many more on our recommended page on our website True Crime garage.com and until next week be
good be kind and don't litter [Music]

Main Line Murders /// Part 2 /// 792

Part 2 of 2

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The Main Line Murders is the largest and longest running murder investigation ever conducted by the Pennsylvania State Police. On June 25th, 1979 the naked corpse of schoolteacher Susan Reinsert was found wedged into her hatchback car in a motel parking lot. Her two children Michael and Karen have not been seen since June 22, 1979. They were just ten and eleven years old, respectively. The two children were last seen playing in front of their mother’s house. Why did the family of three leave their home late that Friday night? Where were they going and why? This is a murder mystery with too many unanswered questions.

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Brief Summary

Susan Reinhard's murder investigation reveals complex relationships, financial motives, and the mysterious disappearance of her children.

Key points

The Unraveling Investigation. Detectives struggle to find leads in Susan Reinhard's murder case, interviewing her ex-husband and others.
Complicated Relationships. The investigation reveals conflicting accounts of Susan's relationship with Bill Bradfield.
Life Insurance Policies. Detectives uncover suspicious life insurance policies taken out by Susan shortly before her murder.
Dr. J Smith's Troubling Past. The former principal has a criminal history that raises suspicions in Susan's murder investigation.
The Disappearance of J Smith's Family. J Smith's daughter and son-in-law have been missing for a long time, raising suspicions.
The Alibi that Could Save Smith. Bill Bradfield provides an alibi for J Smith, complicating the investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This case is still unsolved.

Nick reflects on the unsolved case of Tim Watkins.

2:19WatchOct 9, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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