The Beatrice 6 ////// 529 | Forensic Files

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[Applause] [Music] [Music] the city of beatric is located in the southern portion of the great Corn
Husker state of Nebraska beatric was once featured on the popular show Unsolved Mysteries for a famous
story from the city's history that took place in 1950 when a natural gas explosion
destroyed a church during the church choir's regularly scheduled practice but miraculously all 15 choir
members survived because for a variety of different reasons each of the 15 were running late that day the True Crime
Story we are featuring today did not make it on Unsolved Mysteries and takes place 35 years later in
1985 today and back in ' 85 the population of beatric is practically the same right around 125,000 people lived
in beatric which is in Gage County Nebraska and we will reference both beatric City
police and Gage County Sheriff's Department during our garage exploration of this
case Helen Wilson was born in the nearby Village of picol which is also in Gage County she was born on July 13th
1916 and at the time of our story she was 68 years old and living alone Helen was retired and her husband passed away
years earlier she was very active in her local Methodist Church in fact she helped out quite a bit by watching some
of the children at the church while their parents attended she was also a member of the
Gage County Historical Society in the Eagles auxiliary in the days leading up to
February 1985 Helen was not feeling well Helen had pneumonia was relying on the help of others including her
daughter Jan Winters in Nebraska are cold and the February nights are even colder on the
night of February 5th 198 8 5 68-year-old Helen Wilson went to bed the next morning Helen's brother went to her
apartment on North 6th Street and sadly at approximately 9:30 a.m. on February 6th he found Hell and
dead she had been murdered sometime between when she went to bed the night before and that
morning this is true crime garage and this is a case of Helen Wilson in the beatric
[Music] [Music] [Applause] 6 68-year-old Helen Wilson lived alone in a small four room apartment located
near the downtown area of beatric across Route 77 from Charles Park in apartment
number four at 212 North 6th Street her lifeless body was found February 6th 1985 Helen had been raped and suffocated
to death Helen Wilson leaves behind three children seven grandchildren and six great grandchildren they held a
closed casket service in the days that followed and she was buried next to her husband Reay at Pleasant View Cemetery
let's take a look at the crime scene captain and go through some of the evidence in regards to this rape hom HDE
investigation first off there were very obvious signs of a Breakin and a violent
struggle at the scene the door had been Pride open Helen was found dead in the living room but there were things at the
scene to indicate that the attack started in her bedroom and then ended in the living room Helen's hands were bound
with the towel now the towel came from inside of her apartment her face was covered with a scarf that was tied
around her neck and or head covering her face this too was her scarf her night gown was lifted up there was a lot of
evidence a lot of physical evidence at the crime scene Sean was found on Helen's body and collected during her
autopsy it was also found on the carpet where her body was found on and portions
of her clothing as well and a cutting from her gown she was wearing contained blood stains they were also blood stains
on her bed they found three fingerprints at least three fingerprints found throughout the apartment that they did
not have a match for or any reasonable explanation why they would be there a knife was also left at the crime scene
and this contained fingerprints other than Helen's the knife came from Helen's kitchen so when you see a scene like
this Captain the first thoughts are someone broke into this home clearly in the middle of the night she
must have been sleeping in the bedroom he surprises her using a knife to probably try to control the victim and
the fight for whatever reason the scuffle ends in the living room where her body is eventually found the next
morning did they know if the unidentified fingerprints match the prince on the knife that's a good
question and I don't have a solid answer for you Captain because of the word in the information that we have it would
seem to me that this individual whoever committed this crime or individuals that
committed this crime at least one of them was not wearing any type of gloves to try to hide their fingerprints
because we found these on the knife itself right the other fingerprints that were found throughout the apartment I'm
guessing belong to the same individual but there is no definitive statement that I saw that says yes this is all
from the same individual there was a significant amount of cash and valuables that were found in her apartment meaning
that anybody that broke in that night during this attack could have loaded up on cash and other valuables before
leaving her apartment but for whatever reason did not and you could say maybe they didn't know that these things were
here or there but a quick search of her small apartment would have found it at least $1,300 in cash and other valuables
it's also a different time at that time period a lot of people kept cash on them
nowadays I just walk out of my house with my debit card I don't even carry cash on my person yeah and there was
$300 cash in the top drawer of her dresser in her bedroom that anybody could have found now blood type corology
at the time this is 1985 was considered to be the top scientific method to solve crimes when
the perpetrator left blood hair with follicles and or semen at the crime scene there are four main human blood
types A B ab and O I have that tiger blood people are either secretors or nonsecretors and about 85% of the
population are secretors Wilson's rapist and murderer left semen at the murder scene now test revealed that the killer
was type B blood which which is more rare than the other types and a nonsecretor so this is really going to
limit the population you know we're not using DNA technology back then to solve crimes but this is going to limit how
many people could have possibly committed this crime that is a big help for your investigation so in this case
captain we're looking for someone with type B blood and a nonsecretor and the information that I have seen says that
back in 1985 only about one in 10 people carried this rare blood type according to police reports and this wasn't a
single apartment this was a apartment building somebody actually messed with the fuse box and it turned all the
lights off in the hallways yeah so police immediately believe that this is connected to the murder itself that this
wasn't just something that was a coincidence and from my understanding Captain there's at least three floors in
this building and her apartment apartment number four was on the second floor what this indicates to me is that
whoever perpetrated this crime had some kind of knowledge of this building the other thing too is you have to wonder
would the perpetrator have known or known of no matter how Loosely the victim themselves yeah it seems like a
targeted victim to me also by cutting out the power so there's no light in the hallway it gives her no way of knowing
if somebody let's say knocked on the door mhm and then she went to the door to see who it was she would have no way
of seeing out of her people and we have a situation to here where we can really kind of narrow down the time frame of
when the murder occurred first off if you do believe that the cutting of the lights this also affected the furnace in
the building too remember this is February in Nebraska so some of the residents woke up to apartments that
were extremely cold because at some point the heat just stopped kicking on well the other reason that you cut the
lights off too is as you're exiting the crime that if a neighbor went to see you
they would have a harder time identifying you and the way that we can narrow down the time frame of the murder
in the attack itself is we have relatives remember we have Helen Wilson she's older She's suffering from
pneumonia at the time she's not been feeling well they were kind of taking care of her some of her relatives they
were there till I believe 9:45 p.m. the night before to which she said to them before they left that she
would be going to bed shortly afterward there were some phone calls that were made to her apartment that night that
went unanswered we also have the situation of her relatives finding her the next morning when they're trying to
call and again getting no answer answer so we really only have a time frame of about 12 hours where this could have
taken place pretty large time frame though again there was a significant amount of cash that was found inside of
the apartment easily available to anybody that was in there and from the attack itself and from the forensic
evidence that we just described it's easy to believe that the perpetrator probably spent a good deal of time
inside of the apartment now in regards to some of the autopsy information I mean this was a brutal
attack that not only involved rape but from the coroner's opinion involved necrofilia after the fact they found
blood under her fingernails right that belonged to the perpetrator but her body was in bad
shape as we said there was a towel wrapped around her hands and wrist and the scarf was wrapped around her neck
and head covering her face she suffered traumatic fractures to her sternum left fifth and sixth ribs and the left
humorous she also had suffered abrasions to the face thorax and right knee and she had clear defensive wounds on her
hands and wrist consistent with sharp instrument lacerations well the more that you fight the more chance that you
have to collect DNA evidence on your body as bad as this attack was bu and as brutal as it sounds Captain there is
belief by the experts that say that they do not think that the perpetrator intended to kill the victim and the way
that they explain this and it doesn't makes sense on the surface now does it but the way that they explain it is they
think that the attacker simply wanted to rape and incapacitate the victim and then flee at some point the combination
of using all of that force and uh the scarf on her face and around her neck combined with the pneumonia that she was
suffering from was enough to sadly do her in well like you said there was some sign of
necrophiliac you wonder if the murderer even knew that she was dead yes that's exactly right and we need to really
focus in on this Blood evidence that was found and the science that's involved in
that as we said according to the police reports in 1985 only about one in 10 people carried this rare blood type
police really worked this case good and what's going to sound weird by the time we get to the end of this case you're
going to go Colonel what are you talking about Buddy when this case first took place when they found Helen Wilson's
body the investigating agency at that time was the beatric police department we have beatric police chief luck and
Roth and detective Sergeant Stevens who will be up front and center in regards to this case lucken Roth will be the one
that will speak with media and will oversee the investigation but detective Sergeant Stevens will be the one leading
the actual investigation and they had some information early on that led them to several suspects because of the
fingerprints you start questioning is this one murderer or a group well one of the individuals that they were looking
at was a man by the name of Bruce Smith who was kind of a Drifter he was a one-time resident of beatric who had
moved away and was back in town briefly right Bruce Smith Captain was the early Prime Suspect and I'm talking about
March 1985 about a month after the murder the way that Bruce Smith gets onto the radar
of the beatric Police Department is an individual comes forward and says hey I'm friends with this guy he was in town
and we spent the night at a bar drinking and he wouldn't shut up about wanting to
get laid that night well we end up hanging out with some old friends of ours and going to an Afterparty that
just keeps getting later and later in the night and we end up crashing at these young ladies Place Bruce Smith and
his friend are in their early to mid 20s in 19 1985 but something happens in the
middle of that night and what happens is one of these young ladies says hey you know I'm sleeping and Bruce Smith
attacked me attempted to rape me or sexually assault me in the middle of the night so basically we know that he's
this local creep and that he's back into town so they start going through a list
of people that are capable of something like this yeah well his friend is the one that brings Bruce Smith to the
attention of police because he says well some friend that is the way that that works out is when he tries to assault
this young woman she gives him the business and basically kicks his ass good for her and his quote unquote
friend or you know sometimes you think you're friends with somebody and then you learn who they really are and decide
we're not really friends uh this friend also joined in on kicking brw Smith's ass so much so that he then escorted
Bruce Smith out of their residence and decided you know what Bruce where you want to go I'm going to take you
somewhere and drop you off you can't stay here so he drops Bruce Smith off and he just says look I want to tell you
police this is what was going on that night I know she never reported the attack but I'm not saying that they're
connected I'm just letting you know that this is the type of guy that was here in
beatric that night and this is what I know he did that night that he attacked this other woman police love this lead
right they end up tracking down Bruce Smith and he was out of town I believe in fact out of state and they track him
down and talk with him and he's pretty Cooperative he says yes I was in town that night some things happened it was a
misunderstanding and he was willing to cooperate with their investigation yeah I'm sure it was a misunderstanding they
have law enforcement has this Blood tip that they know is going to rule out most
of the suspects so they say plain and simple anytime they are interviewing anybody about this case they say just
give us your blood give us some your your blood and your fingerprints I want to suck your blood and we will check
into the information and it will either clear you or it will keep you on our list Bruce Smith submits blood and
fingerprints to the police dep department they run a check on it and it turns out that Bruce Smith who is now
their Prime Suspect ECT tested and the forensic showed that he was in fact type B blood but he was a secretor so this
cleared him and he was free to go police are going to have to move on with their
investigation I I just wonder if that if you have two blood types one a secretor
one a non secretor if that would mess up the testing well you can have a mixed sample like you'd have like the victim's
blood was a secretor so somehow that gets tampered with the other blood and that would confuse the test yes you can
have a mixed sample when it comes to the forensics on these cases in fact that's
what we had in the Barbara blatnik case that we discussed uh a couple years ago about 90 days into beatric police chief
Don luck and Roth's homicide of Helen Wilson investigation police announced that phone tips and police suspicions
led to checks into 62 men now around this time Helen's daughter Jan was interviewed Jan said that the citizens
of beatric and others from around the area were very sympathetic to her and her family saying quote this town is
fantastic I've lived here all my life and the people are just wonderful and she spoke highly of law enforcement
Personnel working the case as well saying quote they've been nothing but considerate of our feelings right from
the start shortly after the murder of Helen Wilson her family established a reward fund being offered for
information leading to the arrest of the killer when Helen's family set up the reward it was for $11,000 but after 90
days and with the help of other contributors from members of the public the reward as of June of 1985 was just
over $3500 now Jan urged members of the elderly Community to take security precautions and asked that if anyone may
have seen something out of the ordinary on February 3rd and February 4th or if they know someone acting strange after
the murder to please contact beatric Police Department well the FBI also was brought into this case pretty quickly
they sent out just a single agent but like we said this is a very small town just a little over 12,000 people and
with that blood sample you're able to eliminate so much of the population there will be a lot of blame to be
thrown around here captain in what will ultimately be a horrific investigation into this murder
case what I want to point out one more time is police chief luck and Roth and the detective Stevens look at the work
that they're doing it's 1985 they are making sure that they collect all of the proper forensic evidence at the crime
scene that it's stored properly that it's tested and that that information is kept and
used to steer their investigation they're also bringing in other agencies they recognize look we're the beatric
police department this might be above our bar so let's bring in an expert and have them assist us or at least tell us
where to go with our investigation because we need a little guidance usually these things are solved within
48 to 72 hours let's bring in the FBI so the FBI say special agent Peter Kismet to speak with and work with the beatric
police department and he's going to put together an FBI profile a perpetrator profile on Helen Wilson's homicide
investigation in my summarized version of his profile reads as follows it is not likely that Helen Wilson was a
victim of a crime of opportunity it is possible the victim was surveilled or possibly known to the offender robbery
was definitely listen to that robbery was definitely not the motive for the attack or murder the knife used came
from inside the home this was used by the perpetrator to gain control of the victim this attack is definitely
connected to the same individual that committed the failed attacks on single elderly women a year and a half to two
years ago all right so I want to talk about this and break in here for a minute here Captain so you want to break
into your own conversation in beatric yes in 1983 there were several attacks that
were undetermined to be related or not where someone broke into a single elderly woman's home or apartment and
attempted to either rape them or assault them but was unsuccessful for whatever reason may have gotten scared off maybe
she fought back got spooked whatever ended up leaving the scene fleeing the scene this information was given to the
FBI when they were reviewing Helen Wilson's murder investigation and this is our special agent saying this attack
in his opinion was definitely connected to those three failed attacks that took place a year and a half to two years ago
he goes on to add these attacks took place in the middle of the night within blocks within blocks of Helen Wilson's
apartment mhm the killer may live alone he might live close to the murder scene and the previous attacks he's probably
unemployed if he does work it's unskilled labor he has a terrible self-image and is confused about his own
sexual identity between the last known attack the attempted rape in August of 1983 that's the last of the three
attacks that took place previously yeah and the murder of Helen Wilson in February of 1985 5 the attacker may have
left town for a new job joined the military or been busted for prowling somewhere it goes on to say that there's
a strong possibility that the killer hated or resented older women and probably had a terrible relationship
with his mother oh not his mother he may have experienced emotional abuse or torment from his mother grandmother or
some other older female relative this attack rape and murder was most definitely committed by one single m
male perpetrator the man that you are looking for is most likely a white male short or of medium height in his early
20s thin a high school dropout considered a loner viewed as odd or wimpy in school and came from a broken
home he owns pornography and likely spent time in a juvenile facility or underwent counseling he has engaged in
fetish burglaries and or window peeping if he has not been arrested for these types of crimes he did it without being
caught he is sloppy he is dressed poorly he has bad hygiene he knew the area and
possibly the building he had a well planned Escape Route and did not feel that he would be
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cheers cheers to you people in the front the people in the back the people in the
bathroom cheers to you too wash your hands and that man wearing the red shirt you know somebody that's going to freak
him out how did the captain know was wearing a red shirt it's cuz we can see you I can see you Captain now's the
point in the story where we have to introduce Beret Cersei who is berett Cersei well he's an individual that was
a one-time beatric police officer and then goes on to become a private investigator and afterward he will then
become a deputy for the Gage County Sheriff's Office now I do not know this individual obviously but he comes off to
me as somebody who thinks of himself as one of these famous detectives that you see on TV you know fictional detectives
that you might see on HBO or on Netflix solving the unsolvable murder of the small town that he lives in Old Frank
dbon what happens in this situation is we have the beatric police department that's doing good work in their
investigation and they keep coming up with suspects and Persons of Interest and they're using the blood evidence
that they found at the scene to clear these individuals it's pretty simple right we have very unique evidence so
when we have that very unique evidence and we go okay well this guy is po this guy possibly could have done it or this
these people could have possibly done it and you go talk to them and you find out
hey they don't have a Alibi let's get them to test the evidence and so when they test against
the evidence they have to rule that individual out it's pretty simple just like what we saw with Bruce Smith the
police the beatric police department really liked him for this murder he gave his blood they test it it doesn't match
up 100% they move on to the next guy what ends up happening here though is because they keep clearing individuals
the case drags on for months and then for years in fact berdette Cersei does not become
a deputy at the sheriff's office until this case is a couple of years old mhm he is an obsessed officer obsessed with
the murder of Helen Wilson and obsessed with solving it he was considered by the
beatric police department to be an average cop it sounds to me like a lot of the other officers didn't care for
him much that he was hard to work with with and difficult to get along with that might be why he ended up being a
private investigator for a while and then he gets hired as a sheriff he did try to get back on at beatric but they I
don't know if they turned him down or if he was offered the deputy job before that was worked out so berett Cersei is
determined to solve the murder of Helen Wilson and look I love a good passionate
detective who is for the people and looking to right or wrong and bring Justice to uh any of our victims here so
I don't want to sound like I'm coming down on that side of it yeah but sometimes passion turns into stupidity
but what we're going to see here Captain is a situation where I think this man's
Obsession may have taken him over and I will cite just some of the portions of this investigation or his
investigation as it unfolds here so first he has information or claim claims that he has information from a young
woman named Lisa pendorf now this Lisa pendorf will go on to be labeled as informant number one
and I have a summarized version of the story that she told to Cersei Lisa stated that at approximately
7:30 or 8 a.m. on February 6th 1985 while she was standing in Charles Park located by the junior high school
in the city of the atress Nebraska that she was approached by Joanne Taylor who began to visit with her she stated that
during their conversation she noted that there were several police cars in and about the apartment building located
across the street from the high school building and that she had made a comment to Joanne Taylor that she wondered why
all of the police cars were at that location to which Joanne Taylor then replied oh haven't you heard there was
an older lady killed there last night Lisa asked Joanne Taylor what had happened and Joan Taylor stated to her
that an older lady was killed there and that she was killed by Suffocation Lisa asked how Joanne knew that information
Joanne stated that I know that because Joseph White and myself did it Lisa replied back to Joanne oh sure in
disbelief and Joanne Taylor said look I can tell you where the lady is lying and
what happened to her Joanne then advised her that the woman could be found lying
in her living room near a hallway on her back with her hands bound and that her face would be covered with an Afghan
Lisa made a comment to Joanne oh sure I'll bet you did it right Joanne Taylor then replied to Lisa hey look I can
prove it I can even tell you the color of the foot stol that's Lying by the body and Joanne Taylor proceeded to
state that there would be a foot stol Lying by the body turned upside down and that the foot stol was vinyl covered
green in color so there's a lot of information in that general statement that Lisa pendorf provided to brette
Cersei at his request some of that information is factual crime scene information and some
of it is incorrect yeah [ __ ] we do need to point out that this is information that Cersei says he received
shortly after the homicide but then received it again years later from this same Source one of the problems with
this Lisa's statement is right from Jump Street where she says at approximately 7:30 to 8:00 a.m. on February 6th she's
standing there she talks to Joan Taylor and they're discussing all of the police
cars across the street that that are in front of that apartment building well we
know that Helen Wilson's body was not discovered until 9:29 a.m. there were no police cars there during the time that
she say she was having this conversation and that police cars were there right the information about where the body was
located in the apartment was correct the banner of death was correct in fact the
stool kicked over lying on its side near the body was correct as well this is going to prompt deputy Cersei to
believing well by Jo I've got it I've finally solved the unsolvable murder of our small town well but every time you
know in his defense if you're if you hear this rumor years ago and now this rumor is creeping back up you start
thinking that maybe there's some weight there to it well and in a move that I don't love but I guess you know
sometimes if something's not getting solved you got to get other people involved the Sheriff's Office knowing
this information now they're determined to take over this case and I imagine they were probably assisting the beatric
police department along the way up to this point but basically what you have here
Captain is the beatric police department in particular detective Stevens and the police chief they are
now telling the sheriff and his Deputy Cersei like we understand that you have this information from this Lisa pendorf
we know who she is she's not a reliable honest person right this is not somebody
that we would take important information from you know this is stuff that you do
collect and you investigate it and you look into it and it's quickly it's usually quickly brushed aside because
there's no there's no weight there's no credit nothing backing it up and that was Steven's concern in regards to the
statements that were given to Cersei in fact he goes on to say another officer goes on to tell Cersei and warn Cersei
watch out what she's saying to you because this is a person who's not only unreliable but of very limited
intelligence right Cersei takes this her statement to be gospel that now we have
Joanne Taylor and her friend Joseph white who committed this crime so now this is going to lead Cersei to to
interviewing Joanne Taylor and this Joseph white so again they have this let's call
her eyewitness Alisa pendorf years earlier she's telling a story now she's kind of telling the same
story but everybody has dismissed the story because of her character and and she's just not a believable Source but
for some reason they're going to take her as a source now and run with this well not only that we have Cersei the
deputy Cersei who is now telling the sheriff's office that he works for look my confidential informants I have more
than one not just this Lisa person but they've given me information that has assisted in identifying several persons
who are known in the area where the Wilson homicide occurred so in addition to this Joseph
white and Joanne Taylor Cersei is now telling the sheriff's office that this investigation
has led him to consider Thomas Winslow Cliff Sheldon Mark Goodson Beth Johnson Debbie Brown and Charlotte mindenhall
also known as Charlotte Bishop as Persons of Interest in this case at this time at this time he's not necessarily
saying that all of these individuals did in fact commit the the murder right but
these are all Persons of Interest to him based off of information that he's been
told by you know these could be local gossip people they could be rumors that are going around town but whatever he's
hearing is leading him to believe that some of these individuals are involved in Helen Wilson's homicide well and
sometimes when you have a especially a local case and very small community you start hearing these rumors but you might
have okay one or two of these individuals or The Killers but we know that they were all at a party at some
point and this story was shared so all these individuals know about the crime the interesting thing here Captain is
now we have eight individuals that Cersei is concerned with as being possible Persons of Interest and he's
going to have to investigate each one of these individuals at the very least check into the their whereabouts see if
they have have aliis maybe obtain blood from each one of them in fingerprints interview them figure out who to leave
on his list of suspects or include on his list of suspects and who to eliminate so as he's investigating these
Persons of Interest he verified that on the night of the homicide one of his Persons of Interest Cliff Sheldon was at
a hospital and Beth Johnson was at her parents okay so they seem to have pretty good aliis Mark Goodson told Cersei that
he was out of town on the night of the homicide and it appears that Cersei believed Goodson's statement sounds like
Cersei is's willing to believe just about anything right Thomas winow claimed that he was working at a truck
stop on the night of the homicide but we have some information where Cersei does
some good work here he actually finds out later that this Thomas Winslow called in sick
that night so while Winslow may have thought that he was at work or at least was using that as a false Alibi Cersei
finds information to determine that that in fact is not correct and he does not have an alibi at this point in the
investigation they went from thinking that maybe eight people were involved or knew something about the crime to five
people that could be involved or know something about the crime and he's really going to hone in on three of
these characters in particular and that's going to be Joseph white Joanne Taylor who he's already been told by
Lisa were there and committed that murder and now he is interested in this Winslow guy because remember he does not
have an alibi for that night he does a little more digging into Winslow and figures out that he has a previous
arrest record it's all kind of Pretty Petty stuff but of interest on his arrest record is a situ ation where
someone kicked in a door to an elderly woman's home in the middle of the night she calls it in police show up on the
scene and they find a man walking in the area well this is that winow character so he's brought in and actually charged
with some kind of misdemeanor of menacing or vandalism vandalism something of that nature well he sees
that on Winslow's record and he says you know what this is a clear indicator that he was probably trying to break
into that woman's home so that he could rape and maybe even kill or Rob the woman that night yeah and his little PE
brain he's going got him got him to Winslow's credit he says he was simply just walking in the area when police
showed up he was the only one there so they believed that he in fact was the one that was guilty of kicking in This
Woman's door well and as they're doing more digging too they figure out that Joseph White and Joanne Taylor the ones
that he believes are responsible for these murders left town just a little bit after the murders took place that
information is true and that's certainly going to make them look guilty to Deputy
Cersei what we have here Captain is a situation where Winslow gets himself into some kind of trouble he ends up
being involved in a pretty brutal robbery that takes place and it sounds like Winslow was kind of the lookout man
and this robbery goes bad and his partner ends up severely assaulting the man that was robbed so Winslow is facing
now decades in prison for this violent robbery that he was involved in this is going to be cersei's in right he's going
to be able to go to the jail while this guy's waiting for his trial and he's going to be able to talk with him and he
says to him look I know that you have some kind of information in regards to the homicide of Helen Wilson tell me
what you know do you know a Joanne Taylor yes do you know a Joseph white yes you're friends with them I was
friends with them a long time ago I was friends with them four years ago just before they left town shortly after the
murder what ends up happening is after a long interview process Winslow is now saying and getting an opportunity to get
off of this long prison sentence for the violent robbery if he agrees to say that
Joseph White and Joanne Taylor told him that they committed the homicide and that is why they were leaving town right
because at this point we have Lisa that we can't believe even everybody in town saying we can't believe her but if we
have her saying it and another person saying it now we have two people going to be able to testify against Joseph and
Joanne today we will be recommending failure of Justice by John fck this book is fantastic on the case and it's a
really long process here Captain how they get from the FBI telling them one single male perpetrator committed this
crime to now we're up to three people right we're we're we're at two people were involved and one guy Winslow knows
about it and because he's facing a lengthy prison sentence he's all more than happy to throw his former friends
under the bus and say yeah they told me they were getting out of Dodge because they committed the murder right
interview after interview after interview he wants to know that they told him details they didn't just tell
you that they committed the crime and they're they're leaving town did they no they told you intimate details didn't
they tell you this that the other thing he's feeding Winslow information to help
fill in a lot of the blanks and give him details unknown to the public details about the homicide the rape and the
attack itself self showing him pictures of the crime scene well we see this all the time you know look at West Memphis 3
or whatever where it's like oh well they oh well they use this weapon and the the
cops go um you sure it was that weapon you sure it wasn't a knife you sure it wasn't this and they just kind of Point
them into the correct d Direction armed with this information they are going to go back to their original suspects
Joseph White and Joanne Taylor to which Joseph white he says look I'm innocent I do not know what you're
talking about I didn't kill any woman I didn't do it with Joanne Taylor I didn't
leave town because I killed a woman I I have no involvement in this at all and furthermore they don't have any evidence
that Joseph white did this other than this confession from this Winslow guy they just received and it's you know a
little bit of information that turns into a lot of information but then you have these fingerprints and you go how
about we test these finger fingerprints and this Blood evidence well that's the thing what happens is the blood evidence
doesn't match Joseph white the fingerprints don't match Joseph white well that's okay because we now know
that two people were there so does the blood match Joanne Taylor no did the fingerprints match Joanne Taylor no
wellow must be somebody else there Winslow knew about this crime he says that he knew about it maybe he knows
more than what he's telling us maybe he was there that night too and helped the two of them commit this crime maybe he
was actually even involved in the murder and rape itself now we're up to three people tied together being involved in
the murder and rape they test Thomas Winslow's blood it doesn't match the fingerprints do not match at some point
you'd start going hey all these uh NOS equal they're not involved but he doesn't stop there he
goes okay well now we got these three suspects but they don't match so while they knew about the crime possibly were
there so now I need to find another individual that actually matches the evidence through this they will get a
confession from Joanne Taylor and Thomas Winslow Thomas winow goes from just knowing about the crime
to now he's completely involved and he's confessing that he was in fact there and
was involved in the attack itself their stories are all a little you know they're not 100% lining up but they're
close Joan Taylor and Thomas Winslow's stories are close and what's interesting to me here Captain is that these are
fairly detailed actually not fairly they're very detailed accounts of what went down that night how much of that
information was fed to them is certainly to be called into question now note Joseph
white is still proclaiming innocence he never confesses to anything he never implicates anybody else in the homicide
and in fact he even says I believe you I was with Joanne Taylor that night so she
couldn't have committed the crime or committed it with anybody else through the statements that they get from Joanne
Taylor and the altered statements that they get from Thomas Winslow they will go on to implicate a Deborah Sheldon and
James Dean so now we have five individuals that committed this rape and homicide and what is cersei's theory the
theory is that Winslow white and Taylor had prior knowledge of the victim and prior
knowledge of her belongings and that she would have money and that they went there to Rob this elderly woman the
robbery then turned into a rape and a murder keep in mind right the FBI who originally assisted the beatric police
department who again was doing good work on the case before before the sheriff's
office took it over told the police department this is almost certainly a single male perpetrator and the motive
was definitely not robbery yeah single male now we're having females involved and there're we're up to five people
right well now and again the nose the amount of nose that they got the nose knows the nose NOS now with the addition
of Deborah Sheldon and James Dean we have two possible people that we can connect the fingerprints and blood
evidence to and again it's more nose no way it doesn't match the blood of Sheldon or James Dean come on if the
glove don't fit you must have quit we have a shirt that will tell you differently um the interesting thing
here though Captain is now we still need to find somebody that the blood evidence
will match right we're up to five perpetrators and no nobody's matched the blood well let's keep going why stop at
5 there's an interesting little tidbit to this whole story and part of that is that Thomas Winslow for about a week
maybe a few nights to a week stayed at the home of Kathy Gonzalez Kathy Gonzalez lived on the third floor of the
apartment building in fact directly above our victim Helen Wilson It is believed that Gonzalez and Winslow
because of this Arrangement he stayed there crashing on her couch for a few days she was trying to help him out
because he was basically homeless after his girlfriend dumped him and kicked him
out of her place get out you son of a [ __ ] so now Cersei believes that this provided knowledge about the victim and
her apartment and her belongings from Kathy Gonzalez and Thomas wio so they track down this Kathy Gonzalez she is
adamant I did not have anything to do with this I remember exactly what I was doing that night because the next
morning was very strange for me they found a murder victim a person that I knew that I lived near how could I
forget what I was doing she said that she had done laundry watched a movie went to bed and that winow was not
living at her residence at that time she had kicked him out too it goes from Kathy Gonzales doing laundry and
watching a movie that night to her confessing to being involved in the murder as well in implicating all of
these same people that have been implicated by the others six people will ultimately be charged with the murder of
Helen Wilson five of them confessed to being involved and confessed that the others were involved as well Kathy
Gonzalez her blood matched but not 100% And so we I thought the blood was from a male well the blood evidence is
not going to suggest if it's male or female they're not doing DNA evidence we're saying hey we got fingerprints and
we have blood evidence and we have seen so we know the semen's from a man so we're going to assume that the blood is
from a man as well that's what the FBI is stating and to be clear the forensics that were conducted the tests that were
conducted on the blood evidence found at the scene and the forensic evidence found at the scene they were conducted
in the state of Nebraska not by the FBI Kathy Gonzalez her blood matches but it's not a 100% match but it's close
enough for Cersei and the Sheriff's Office to continue with their charging these six individuals with homicide now
what their statement is going to be is that because we have so many perpetrators plus we have a victim that
they weren't going to be able to get a 100% match because it's probably a a mixture some kind of of blood mixture
yeah that makes sense the confessions the five confessions are what will ultimately win over these convictions of
all six of these individuals and in fact John fck says this in his book and I have to Echo this belief of his that if
the death penalty did not exist in Nebraska at the time I don't know that they would have gotten all these
confessions or any of them for that matter because the death penalty was what was the threat to these individuals
that took them from not being involved to confessing to being involved in a brutal homicide and I don't want to get
into opinions on death penalty for against that's not what we're here to discuss just know that that was used as
leverage against these individuals plus we also have a group that's really kind of a group of down andout people you
know some people that have had tough upbringings have had bad situations some that are not quite all there some that
are easily impressionable yeah but what they do is they use multiple people against each other not just one in one
if it's one in one you start thinking well it's he said she said once these law enforcement officers are saying look
we know you're involved and if you don't cooperate like the others are cooperating we're going to give you the
death penalty so then you're going to start contemplating in your head well I'm innocent of the crime I definitely
don't want to die because of it so if I go along with the others then at least I'm alive in prison and I have a
fighting chance to get out in 1989 the six that will go on to be known as the beatric six were arrested for the crime
of murder ultimately all six are charged and convicted and they will all serve pretty lengthy prison sentences now this
will be up until they are all all six of them exonerated in 2009 and the reason for this is that in
2008 DNA evidence implicated to a 100% certainty that Bruce Allen Smith the original prime suspect in the murder was
the sole perpetrator of this rape and homicide but I thought his blood didn't match but what we have here Captain is
that Bruce Allen Smith was eliminated by testing performed by later disgraced lab
analyst Joyce Gilchrist so she just did a shoddy job with her testing and her findings in her
test now unfortunately even though we've proven that Bruce Allen Smith committed
this homicide he could not be prosecuted because he died in Oklahoma back in 1992 so he's dead and gone while these
other individuals are sitting in prison for this murder charge now out of the six the way it works is some of them got
only 10 years and some of them got like 40 years and others got life in prison that's correct we have white who
received life in prison the two males were charged uh most heavily charged because they were the ones that were
implicated by the others as committing the rape and the murder itself right unfortunately in
201 Joseph white was killed in a construction accident at work and and the state agreed to pay compensation to
all of these individuals who served time in prison so there was a lawsuit that was filed against the Gage County uh
Gage County Nebraska it was actually dismissed a couple of times uh before it finally went through there was a trial
for the lawsuit and the jury awarded millions and millions of dollars to not only the five that remain but also to
Joseph White's heirs now this is not a extremely wealthy County right and so the county was forced to raise
taxes so that they could pay back the beatric 6 for the wrongful conviction well it's sad in this case too because
again law enforcement you have all these Force confessions at some point I mean how
many people do you have to have involved and this case I just don't understand how somebody in law enforcement could
it's almost like they had to make up the story as they went along and that's what
Cersei was doing and a little bit in his defense I'm not going to come to his defense too much but when you have these
suspicions and you have this completely bogus theory that he believed I I believe that he actually believed his
own Theory yeah why I believe that you believe that he believed his own Theory and the problem then becomes he starts
finding people that are going along with this Theory and filling in a lot of the blanks along
the way now they got to some of these fill in the blanks they got some of these blanks filled in by some
questionable Behavior you know you had a uh psychologist that was involved that was telling people you know well you
probably blocked it out you know you could have been there and completely blocked it out just because you don't
remember it doesn't mean you didn't do it that you weren't there and and they started relying on a lot of the
confessions a lot of the portions of the confessions that implicated themselves and the the others came from first the
notion of well the police tell me I was there so I must have been there and then
secondly it goes to they were taking information that some of the individuals said that they were they were having
dreams about the crime so they must have been there right and but I also want to
know how much force was used and that's that's something that law enforcement would know you see what I'm saying like
if if I'm going into the interview and I and within an hour or so I I start getting people to
confess yes we all know that innocent people will confess to crimes they didn't commit but I'm going to start
going well that was pretty easy so maybe I am on to something and what I'm saying
is we don't know those details of of how the interrogations went well if you want
to know the details check out John F's book because he details that in his book and what we do learn is that I don't
believe that there was any type of force or abuse that was used I mean I shouldn't say any type of abuse because
there was certainly some type of abuse but I would put that more on the mental and emotional aspect of really kind of
trying to Corral these individuals and convincing them that they did in fact do this and altering their own statements
and giving it back to them we're talking about a situation where we have multiple
individuals that were interviewed multiple times over series of days and weeks and and so on and so forth and a
lot of them started off with the story that they were innocent and had nothing to do with it and over time after being
interviewed over and over and over again and sitting with the police psychologist
and being hypnotized and this that and the other thing it morphs into this weird situation of they go from being in
to yeah I was guilty and they're guilty too but that's what drives me nuts about
some of the these law enforcement and some of these detectives it's the level of manipulation it's the level of
manipulations that you have to use on these individuals and multiple individuals to get any kind of
confession at some point you should understand that you're only getting that confession because of the manipulation
not because it's the truth [Music] [Applause] all right thanks for joining us here in
the garage and if you are freak nasty make sure you check out off the record our bonus show that comes out every
other week but only do so if you're nasty Colonel do we have any recommended reading for this week yes sir Captain
obviously this week we will be recommending failure of Justice a brutal murder and an obsessed cop and six
wrongful convictions by John fck you can find that wonderful title and many others on our website true Crim
garage.com click on the recommended page this book is incredible this is a very convoluted and difficult to understand
story because there's so many people involved there's so many different confessions John fck did an amazing job
of laying this case out in really detailing every portion of this case an investigation that ultimately took over
4 years so make sure you check out failure of Justice by John F it's also available on Audible so you can check it
out there I'm actually listening to it right now as we speak as we record make sure you join us back here in the garage
next week until then be good be kind and don't live [Music] Angie's List is now Angie and we've
heard a lot of theories about why I thought it was an Eco move for your worse less paper no it was so you could
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The Beatrice 6 ////// 529

Part 1 of 1

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This week we take a look at a homicide case from Beatrice, Nebraska. 68 year old Helen Wilson was killed inside her apartment sometime during the night. After 4 years the investigation looked like it was going cold but an obsessive officer changed that rather quickly. Join us in the Garage as we discuss the case and those accused - The Beatrice 6.

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Brief Summary

The murder of Helen Wilson led to six wrongful convictions, later overturned by DNA evidence identifying the true perpetrator, Bruce Smith.

Key points

The Tragic Case of Helen Wilson. 68-year-old Helen Wilson was found murdered in her apartment in Beatrice, Nebraska.
Community Support After Tragedy. Helen's family received overwhelming support from the community and law enforcement.
Investigation Intensifies. The FBI is brought in to assist with the investigation, creating a profile of the perpetrator.
A Shocking Claim. An informant claims to know details about the murder, raising eyebrows.
The Obsession of Cersei. Deputy Cersei becomes obsessed with solving the murder of Helen Wilson, leading to questionable decisions.
The Beatrice Six. Six individuals were wrongfully convicted of murder, leading to a long legal battle.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This town is fantastic!

Helen's daughter Jan speaks highly of her community.

23:02WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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