The Connecticut River Valley Killer /// Part 1 /// 636 | Forensic Files

[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign foreign [Music] garage wherever you are whatever you are
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round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] series of murders in the Connecticut
River Valley you suspect it was the work of a serial killer all were stabbed multiple times
times and that's why I'm here to look for results to have results to give those families an answer
34 years have passed since Jane Borowski sped through the New Hampshire night pregnant covered in blood and stab
wounds Jane borowsky was just 22 years old and several months pregnant and didn't know
it that night but she may have been a Serial Killer's only Survivor late in the evening of Saturday August
6th 1988 Jane Borowski is driving home from the county fair in Keene New Hampshire
along the way she decided to stop and grab a soda for the remainder of her drive
she stopped at a convenience store in West Swansea the little store was closed but no big
deal there's a vending machine out front Jane pulls into a spot right in front of
the store by this time it's already dark out the parking area is small and not well
lit there does not seem to be anyone else around she got out of her car and walked up to the well-lit soda
machine she put in a couple of quarters made her selection and bingo the can drops to the
open slot in the machine near her knees she grabbed the can turns around and immediately notices that someone else
has pulled into the parking lot a Jeep Wagoneer parked right next to her car Jane returns to her vehicle through her
rear view mirror she notices the driver of the Wagoneer walking around the back of her vehicle
it's a man and he approached Jane's open driver side door window he says something like hey
is that pay phone working Jane starts to answer when the man immediately grabs the door handle and
opens the car door he grabs her and pulled her from the vehicle as he's pulling her from the vehicle
Jane screams and says to the man please don't hurt me I'm pregnant now she's out of the car
the two struggle during which the man accused her of beating up his girlfriend and asked if she had Massachusetts
plates on her car owski responded that she had New Hampshire plates Jane manages to break free from the
attack she tries to flee the man chases after he grabs Jane and then he stabs her
27 times the man then calmly walks back to his vehicle opens the door and gets in
then he drives off this is true crime garage and this is the true story of the still unsolved
case of the Connecticut River Valley killer telling seven women stabbed and murdered
series of murders in the Connecticut River Valley yes [Music] a speller all were stabbed multiple times
and that's why I'm here to look for results to have results to give those families an answer
on a Wednesday night in October of 1991 I remember being a little boy sitting down to tune into one of my favorite
television shows Unsolved Mysteries my favorite Mysteries back then were the Legends things like the Bermuda Triangle
and the yeti my least favorite Mysteries featured on the show were the Lost loves
selfishly I thought let these people find each other on their own time because this is my time one hour each
week that I get to tune in and be amazed and intrigued by the Mysteries out there
in the real world many of them because of my young age I was learning about for the very first time
all with the great voice and delivery of Robert Stack to lead us through each story now on the night of October 9th
1991 without any prior knowledge I was going to learn about something much more terrifying than magnetic and frequency
issues leading aircrafts to disappear in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where some mysterious hairy
ape-like creature that inhabits the Himalayan Mountain range on this night's episode
Mr stack is schooling us all on the subject of serial killers the first mystery of that week's show flashed on
the screen with the bright blue letters the Bold blue word hit my screen and it read wanted the title of the case was
the Connecticut River Valley killer my first thought was well I might have a hard time falling asleep tonight Stack's
lead-in was as follows police estimate that there may be as many as 100 serial killers living among us on our streets
and in our neighborhoods they are cruel and calculating choosing victims indiscriminately with little or no
remorse for their actions the overwhelming task for authorities is to determine how the serial killer thinks
and hopefully learn where and when he might strike again one such investigation is currently
underway in New England since 1978 the bodies of seven young women have been discovered within a 50 mile radius in
the Connecticut River Valley along the New Hampshire Vermont border near route 91.
police believe that six of them were abducted and taken to remote wooded areas where they were murdered all
suffered similar stab wounds most were found off dirt roads none were sexually assaulted and police began to suspect
that the murders were the work of the same individual a serial killer pretty haunting scene you see Robert Stack
walking through the woods with his trench coat on it and I believe the comment was something like FBI believes
that there's over a hundred serial killers out there and you're like well if there's this serial killer and he's
responsible for seven eight murders then times that by a hundred and he got 800 and some victims out there yeah and he's
reciting a stat that was well delivered and for the time anyway so back in the 80s and the 90s one typical conversation
that was always being had about serial killers well how many are there and it was almost like you would think of them
like Senators well there's probably two in every state was the General thought and so that's how you come up with that
number of 100. now while Stack's narration was spot on as usual a few updates one today the estimated
number of serial killers walking amongst us just here the United States is between 350 to 500. another terrifying
update here Captain the case is covered in this segment of Unsolved Mysteries that aired over 30 years ago
well they're still unsolved many of them on the Cold Case shelves in Vermont and
New Hampshire and the one that they call the Connecticut River Valley killer has
never been apprehended for these homicides nor has anybody else the Connecticut River Valley killer is
the name given to an unidentified American serial killer believed to be responsible for a series of stabbing
murders mostly in and around Claremont New Hampshire and the Connecticut River Valley primarily in the 1980s yeah
that's some scary statistics anyone that would like to view the unsolved mystery segment for
themselves this case was featured on episode 4 of season four of Unsolved Mysteries and that is currently
available to view for free on Amazon Prime yes I just watched it again this week we briefly discussed the attack and
the attempted murder of Jane borowsky in today's trailer leading into this week's
case she is interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries for their episode as well her voice is
disguised and she appears Only In the Shadows on the show to help maintain her anonymity
now keep in mind if she is as the show portrays the only living Survivor of this killer of women well this is for
not just for her safety number one and the safety of the case as it stands because if they can prove that any of
these cases are in fact connected to each other or to the horrifying attack that took place and nearly killed Jane
barovsky some 34 years ago well then she would have been Paramount to the prosecution in the state's case against
the offender once identified arrested and charged right a Vermont newspaper this is the Rutland Daily Herald did a
follow-up article on the show's coverage of this case now keep in mind at the time in the late 80s even into the early
90s this case had many of the women in the area terrified and of course the case had the
detectives perplexed nobody could really agree if these cases were all connected
or how many of them were connected amongst the cases that they had outstanding the detectives had some
leads but one thing that we are going to see in this case Captain is that the remains of some of these victims were
not located for a considerable amount of time this of course causing a major issue for these investigations remember
we've discussed this all the time here in the garage that time is the killer time is the killer of evidence of
witnesses of their memories what persons with key information in any case can verify or even remember we just time
does not help as it goes by these investigations well in this area too as well as heavily wooded area New
Hampshire Vermont area a lot of back roads a lot of places to hide bodies here's a good summary of
that follow-up article the headline was exciting and intriguing and it reads Mystery Show leads to tip
on I-91 murder in fact the article states that the New Hampshire State Police received about
800 tips from around the nation since Unsolved Mysteries aired their coverage of the case months
earlier the article goes on to state that the New Hampshire and Vermont state police are investigating crimes
including the murder of Barbara Agnew a Norwich nurse who disappeared January of
1987 from a rest area off of northbound Interstate 91 near White River Junction Barbara's body was found 11 weeks later
89 feet off of an isolated Road in Heartland police said her death was caused by multiple stab wounds Barbara
agnew's murder at the time was one of seven unsolved homicides in the Connecticut River Valley since 1978. now
this article goes on to point out something very important to this case and is stated as although police have
not officially linked the killings they were portrayed as the work of a serial killer on Unsolved Mysteries New
Hampshire state police detective Sergeant clay young said quote that is one Theory which we have investigated
but have not fully endorsed he said the decision by the unsolved mystery's crew to portray the killings as serial crimes
probably made it more appealing to viewers quote it gave exposure to the case it did generate phone phone calls
from all over the country anything that keeps it in the eye of the public we welcome end quote it's really hard to
definitively connect these cases because the physical evidence was so there was so much Decay that we have a lack of
physical evidence in these cases some of them are not found for weeks months or even years after they disappeared and
like the captain pointed out many of these victims are believed to have been stabbed to death that gets a little
complicated when you have such decomposition with some of these victims to actually
discern exactly what took place or how the victim may have even been killed let's get into the victims here
and some of the victimology in this case the short version of it is this that for
roughly 10 years between 1978 and 1988 women were murdered in the Connecticut River Valley region that straddles the
border of Vermont and New Hampshire all of these victims are believed to have been stabbed many in a specific pattern
across the upper body and abdomen again that gets very hard to decipher in some of these cases because of such levels of
decomposition right two questions remain amongst others are all or some of these
victims connected to one killer or is one or multiple Killers still free the first one in the series
many consider this to be the first one is the unsolved 1978 homicide of Catherine Milliken
on October 24 1978 Catherine Milliken age 26 she was last seen photographing birds at
the Chandler Brook Wetland Preserve in New London New Hampshire her body was found just yards from where
she had been taking these photographs and it was determined later that she had been stabbed over 20 times she's one of
the cases Captain where she's last seen in this area her body's found not terribly far from
where she's last seen there doesn't seem to be any kind of threat that anybody else recognized at the time
yet she's found and she's one that is actually she's one of the few victims that were actually found relatively
quickly next up brings us to Mary Elizabeth critchley the details of her case are as
such Mary critchley was last seen on July 25th 1981 near Exit 13 of the Massachusetts Turnpike in Farmingham
Massachusetts Mary had been dropped off there by a friend and was then going to be
hitchhiking to Waterbury Vermont this is where she lived with another friend Mary was attending classes at the
University of Vermont and at the time of her death was working to get this education finish
her schooling and go into a career sadly her body was found on August 9 1981 in the woods off of unity Stage Road and
unity New Hampshire the medical examiner was not able to determine a cause of death because of the condition of the
body so there's extenuating circumstances here Captain we know that the circumstances surrounding her
disappearance and her death are considered by law enforcement to be suspicious and that's why this victim's
name finds itself on this list and as a potential victim in this series right but the complications in the condition
of the body did not allow the medical examiner to determine the cause of death even though she's found relatively
quickly notice that we have she's last seen July 25th and her body is recovered August 9th well again like I said this
is a breeding ground for serial killers this is a you have heavy heavily wooded areas
and then those areas which are not highly they're not highly trafficked by by individuals
and then you have a plethora of rodents and other animals that are going to get to
these Vic the problem being with a lot of these cases and you take a look at them and when you
dissect the case you start to see similarities you'll see similarities with these victims where some of them
were hitchhiking were known to hitchhike in word known to be in the act of hitchhiking on the day that they were
last seen and then you compound that with the location of where the bodies are recovered from later
and it looks like you have if not the same killer in a lot of these cases you at least have someone with a
relatively trite MO but a very similar modus operandi picking up a hitchhiker picking up a stranger and then went
discarding of the body in a remote wooded area yeah I would define all these cases as
crimes of opportunity but I believe this killer or killers is putting themselves in the right
positions for those opportunities yeah I think you're spot on and the experts would agree with you in this
case captain that you're exactly right these are mainly victims of uh crimes of opportunity
Predator spots prey random procures them whether it's snatch and grab talking them into a vehicle
or showing some kind of threat Gunner threat enforcing them into being captive now a captive victim and
you're exactly right we often in anything that we do we often create our own opportunities right and what you
have here is very high probability that if look I'll go ahead and get it out of the
way now we don't need to dance around it too much I don't think that all of these cases
are in fact connected to one killer I do believe however that several of them are
in fact the work of one individual and I think it gets a little difficult to to decide which ones belong in that
category and which ones don't but whoever whoever committed these crimes is somebody that was out looking for
somebody right I think that the the perpetrator of several of these homicides was
somebody that was out trolling in the area trolling near Interstate 91 for a good deal of time for several years and
you're right crimes of opportunity but the killer created their own Opportunity by constantly be driving out by
themselves trolling around in their free time and looking for a potential victim
that brings us to Bernice Court Comanche that brings us to Bernice Court manchi she was only 17 years old she was last
seen alive around 3 30 in the afternoon on May 30th 1984. she was last seen hitchhiking on Route
12. this is near Claremont New Hampshire she was working as an assistant at a nursing home part-time while also
attending High School Court manchi was a nurse's aide and she's last seen on the 30th of May 1984.
she's reported missing the very next day authorities said that her skeletal remains were found nearly two years
later so this was April 19 1986. The Remains were discovered off of cat whole Road in Newport her body was
decomposed an autopsy revealed that Comanche had been stabbed to death Court Menchie's case has been popularly
linked to these this series of crimes the unsolved killings of the Connecticut River Valley killer
but Cold Case officials don't believe that all of the cases that we are going to discuss are connected the thing that
they keep pointing out though when they anytime that they say we don't believe that all of these cases are in fact
connected they usually follow it up with a statement that's similar to this saying that the possibility can't be
fully investigated until one of these cases gets solved which makes sense so you have this the span of in depending
on where you go for your information or who you talk to you get a varying degree
of how many victims are we actually talking about that could be in this series and unfortunately we're going to
be telling you the same thing that we we can't look at all these cases and say they're all 100 connected no ifs ands or
buts but again I feel strongly that many of these cases very likely are connected
so those numbers we keep seeing saying eight women or ten women but really those numbers vary captain from as few
as seven victims all the way up to potentially 13 or 14 victims I would actually argue that it could be
double that and the reason why is because like I said this is a these are grounds
for every hitchhiker that we have in this area that we then found the remains of how many of these hitchhikers were
never found and so yes we have eight bodies that are found now we got to figure out if these
bodies are connected in any way shape or form but how many victims did they not find
how many missing persons within this time frame and roughly this area and again law enforcement is putting these
crimes within 50 miles is the hunting ground for this individual or multiple individuals even further than that
so if you then figure out that a couple of these cases might be connected and you got to put them in this group over
here group a and then you connect a couple other of the other victims and they're connected put them in group b
and now we got two killers how many victims are not found in that area and I think here one thing that I
paid close attention to Captain was more so where the victims were last seen right or what evidence suggests to where
the abduction took place or where whatever went wrong started to occur because and this is going to sound very cold of
me to say this but this is nothing new here in the garage we talked about this way back when we
first covered the Tony Anthony Muncie case we had seen in several cases in the 80s
where victims were either abducted or something went down which led to their death their
murder in Columbus or the Greater Columbus area but it was not uncommon especially in the 80s it's still
unfortunately not uncommon today to then find a Columbus victim to find their body in Delaware County
north of Columbus right north of Franklin County and sometimes unfortunately you have a situation where
you find bodies in similar areas over a great length of time or a period of time
and it doesn't necessarily mean that all the cases have to be connected sometimes
unfortunately again this is going to sound cold but sometimes there's just good places to put a body and therefore
people do it well and it's easy place because of the terrain be just to get lost yeah and you see that in the
Unsolved Mysteries coverage too when it shows Robert Stack and then later shows the psychologist who helped police on
the case them walking through this wooded area and very quickly when you're looking at
this segment and you see them in the woods you go yeah I kind of get it why somebody would place the body there and
that you have these cases where the remains are not found for months or even years
we have two years almost two years in this last case that we just talked about in Bernice's case
and you understand why it took so long for the body to be recovered there's nothing that suggests that anybody held
Bernice Comanche for a long period of time right it's very likely that unfortunately she was killed shortly
after she was abducted or shortly after she hitchhiked and got into the wrong vehicle and so it you you can look at
the terrain as you've pointed out and understand that there are a reason why a killer or somebody that killed somebody
would place a a victim there it's in the hopes that they're not recovered or if they are recovered that time is the
Killer and evidence has been destroyed due to time that leads us now to Ellen freed from
Newport she was age 26 when she was last seen talking on a pay phone she was talking to her sister on the pay
phone outside of Leo's Market this is a convenience store small convenience store in Claremont
this took place July 22nd 1984. Freed's sister would later tell investigators that at
one point during their phone conversation her sister Ellen told her that a car had
driven by and out of fear freed had checked to make sure that the engine of her own car was still working
that this car had spooked her that had drove by I'm getting the feeling here that she probably saw the vehicle more
than one on one occasion if she's checking to make sure that her engine is still working and then noting that to
her sister there's a bunch of things in this case or these cases that bother me or give law enforcement trouble
one is just lack of eyewitnesses but this case in particular out of all of them really haunts me because
because we've all been there when we've been somewhere or we feel like a car is following us or something doesn't seem
right seems like in some of these cases like especially with The Hitchhikers they were hitchhiking and got into the
wrong vehicle but in this scenario she's well aware of what's happening and she's well aware there's something not
right going on here and then she goes missing yeah and her case reminds me Captain of
Jane borowsky's case the Survivor and it also reminds me of another one of these cases I can see some connections
in some of these cases and some some similarities as we go through these now she's last seen
last heard of talking to her sister on this pay phone then a few days later Ellen fried's car
was found two miles from the Leo's Market where she was on the phone with her sister
her skeletal remains were found in a wooded area next to the Sugar River this in Kellyville in the greater Kellyville
area of Newport New Hampshire now her remains are not recovered until September 19
1985. so again we have a situation this is over a year later after she was last heard from alive and well the autopsy
revealed the cause of death to be undetermined again because the the skeletal remains
were in such a state of decomposition that it didn't really give proof positive evidence as to how she was
killed however the circumstances of her disappearance and the findings at the scene where her body was later recovered
were consistent with Ellen having been sexually assaulted before her death the case has been treated as a homicide her
body was found in the same wooded area as Bernice curmachi we also have the unsolved homicide of Ava Morse her
remains were found in Unity on April 25th 1986 she was 27 years of age at the time that
she went missing she was last seen on the morning of July 10 1985 hitchhiking on Route 12 near
North Charleston New Hampshire the medical examiner determined that Morris had been stabbed to death
[Music] foreign [Music] [Music] we are back thanks for joining us here on the garage cheers to everybody and
Happy Holidays happy holidays Merry Christmas everybody have a safe wonderful holiday season I want to give
a quick shout out here Captain to Dennis and Jax and beautiful Parts Unknown Dennis checked his Spotify year in
review and he has listened to over 29 000 minutes of True Crime Garage in 2022 that's over 483 hours of Captain and
kernel goodness for the ear balls big balls so if you have listened to more than Dennis
tweet at me a screenshot at tcgnic I want to hear from you I'm searching for the garage's most Avid listener of 2022.
so big cheers to Dennis out there and his dog Jax who I imagine Jax has got to be in great shape as well as Dennis if
if the if all of these minutes listening were conducted during dog walking sessions
this now Captain brings us to one of the more difficult victims in this series for me anyway and this is the victim
Linda Moore who was age 36 and I'm gonna go ahead and throw this out here right now
her murder her the details surrounding her murder and the speculation on her case is
is enough to cover one or two episodes on her own and this is the one to me where I
quickly look at it and have a very difficult time lumping it in with the others this case is quite different in
my mind simply because she was killed inside of her house in Sexton's River Vermont on April 15
1986. so we know she wasn't out hitchhiking we know that she wasn't found you know somebody out trolling around
and finds a potential victim at a rest area or on a pay phone this woman was found killed in her own
home we know where her body was found and her body you know it wasn't like she was at a pay phone and that that her
body was found in the woods like some of the other victims but this is what I think makes it so
difficult for law enforcement about connecting these cases is because if you have
these killers and we see this all the time these killers could have a loop oh well I drive to this gas station
because they have a pay phone and I see if anybody's at the pay phone and then I
go to this rest stop and I see if anybody's there and then I drive along the freeway and see if anybody's
hitchhiking see if anybody's car broke down right and is it possible that this killer stops at a convenience store
and and sees her and follows her back to the house that's a possibility too the good thing for the investigation in her
case is that you have a good deal more of evidence and information to really try to hone in on
what exactly went down and who is responsible for her homicide where you don't have that in many of these other
cases so in the case of Linda Moore look that afternoon her husband is the one that found her stabbed to death
inside their home and there's this tragic story this true tragic story of not only of this wonderful lady this
mother of two who was killed in her own home but they tried to okay so her husband finds her in the
afternoon he drove home from work discovers his wife has been murdered and inside their home
the police are now on the scene and they're looking through the evidence and trying to figure out what happened but
at the same time they are scrambling to stop the school buses so the school buses are out in the area
and they're driving the kids home from school that day Linda Moore's two children were on a bus in route to their
home they were scheduled to be dropped off at any minute that's awful and of course the father and police nobody
wanted the children hopping off the bus walking into this murder scene and and seeing
their mother in this condition they hadn't even removed the body from the scene yet
and the police tried their damnedest but this is one of those additional tragic stories that comes
along with these stories that we tell each week that they kept stopping bus after bus
they couldn't get a car to the bus that actually had Linda Moore's children on it in time the kids showed up
and were dropped off at the driveway of their home now fortunately by that time of course we already have their father
on the scene he's the one that discovered Linda having been stabbed to death but the grandparents had also been
notified and were on scene on the scene and able to intercept the children put them in their car and unfortunately
deliver the bad news then and there to them at that time so they didn't have to witness anything unnecessarily but it
was just one of those weird stories where police did their damned is to try to spare further trauma
now prior to being stabbed Linda Moore was sunbathing on her lawn several people were seen outside of
Linda Moore's household including a mysterious dark-haired man with cheap sunglasses I I should be clear with
cheap glasses I there's nothing to indicate that they were sunglasses and a blue knapsack although Linda Moore was
not left in the woods like the other victims her body she was stabbed in that specific pattern shown in other stabbing
victims in the valley profiler John philpin who we talked about he's the psychologist that
assisted police in this investigation and others related to the Connecticut River Valley homicides
he believes that it's possible that the killer had been interrupted which prevented him from then moving the body
to a more secluded area or more secluded location like we found with some of the
other victims the other thing that gets difficult in these cases Captain is trying to
determine where the victim was killed I'm of the belief that it's it's possible that some of the victims
were killed where they were found or near where they were found but like you had said earlier there's also the
possibility in one two or several of these cases they may have been killed in a vehicle or killed elsewhere and then
transported to the secluded area for the purposes of hoping that the bodies would
not be found and like we said there's not a lot of eyewitnesses that are connected to these cases so we
don't have a vehicle that we're looking at that connects all these cases together after
the murder of Linda Moore this brings us to what many believe to be the last of the deceased victims this is Barbara
Agnew who was 38 when she vanished Agnew was a divorcee with a young son she was
working as a nurse at a cardiac unit Barbara was last seen at the Stratton Vermont ski area where she had been
skiing with her friends in January of 1987. her vehicle this is a BMW was found at a Interstate
91 Northbound rest stop in Hartford Vermont on the 10th this is just a few miles from our home
on March 28th her body was found and it was determined that she had been stabbed
to death in the rural area of Heartland Vermont she too displayed that v-shaped stabbing pattern
this cases is really weird to me too because where her bot where her vehicle is found
is just a few miles from her home so police friends and family have been baffled as to why Barbara Agnew would
stop her vehicle that night she's heading home and as said her car was later located
just a few miles from her home now some have suggested that look the snow was heavy that night maybe she decided to
take a break from driving maybe she wanted to throw out some garbage from her vehicle or even make a phone call
and a pay phone at that rest area but or the simplest thing is that she had to use the rest yes that that's on that
list of of speculation why why did she stop again many people have said but if she
if it wasn't an emergency why stop at all when the vehicle she's just a couple miles from her home you
know two three four more minutes she's at home I look at this one and wonder if we have a completely different situation
in this case that we might not have in some of the other ones I wonder if she had been forced off of the road or
someone someone tricked her into stopping somewhere along the way and that could
this be a situation where the killer or Killers moved her vehicle after yeah very impossible but like I said and
and it's scary to think about and once we get to Jane's case because Jane stopped
um because in Jane's case she stopped to get a soda and a vending machine so I to just to think about this we have
a killer that is gone in some kind of pattern and he's checking the areas that people hitchhike at he's checking
convenience stores he's checking for people that are uh their cars have broke down on the side of the road he's
checking rest stops he's checking pay phones he's checking places that are vending machines
and it's probably there's there's probably some kind of high that he's getting just by going into these locations
knowing that he might be finding a victim well then once you see somebody at these locations well how many people
are around is there opportunity for you to pounce yeah and I think you're exactly right here in this situation
Captain I think that it's very similar to some BTK activity you know after Dennis Rader was arrested
and even tried and convicted and and he pled guilty to a lot of charges one thing that was weird was they the
experts and the authorities kept pointing out to him you know you're one of the The Stranger
serial killers because you unlike most of them stopped killing well first of all very few serial killers killed for
the length of time that Dennis Raider did and so naturally there are going to be
times when they stop killing and stop is a weird word to use because it's more like a pause right it's a pause between
homicides and Raider pointed out he said look no I never stopped killing I may not have actually killed anybody after
this this last homicide but The Act of Killing involved so many other things for him and a large part of
that was trolling and driving in in the excitement that he got looking for victims or his projects as
he would later call them and you may have a similar situation here where this guy
doesn't ever truly stop killing he just didn't acquire a victim he was always out driving and looking around and like
you said had his spots where he would like to go these hot spots that he's checking for a potential victim and a
pay phone given the time frame and given the cases that we've brought up and the victims
that we've brought up pay phones seem to be wrapped up into a lot of this guy's trolling or the methods that he's using
the other thing going back to this idea where maybe you have this one case where
Barbara agnew's car may have been moved later to throw off investigators I think you can go back to the Ellen
freed case as well age 26 she's on the Payphone talking to her sister they find her vehicle a
couple of miles from that Leo's Market that convenience store where she was last known to be alive and well
you know did did this killer find a way how do you find a way if Ellen gets back
in her vehicle and starts to drive off when they find her vehicle there's no signs that there was a struggle in the
vehicle there's no signs that the vehicle wasn't working she had mentioned to her sister hey this car has spooked
me that's driven by it spooked me so much I was double checking to make sure that my
engine still works so I can get in the vehicle now could she have run into car trouble and they weren't able to trace
that when they found her vehicle yes that could be a situation but if her car was working fine as she indicated to her
sister then how does she get back in her vehicle she's already spooked she's already said that to her sister spooked
enough to double check that the engine worked how does then somebody trick her out of her vehicle or get her out of her
vehicle to me it almost looks like a situation where she may have never got back into that vehicle and whoever got a
hold of her did it before so and then chose to move her vehicle because they when they spotted their victim they
spotted her on the pay phone they wanted to distance that vehicle or finding Ellen freed from that pay phone
yeah or the attacker attacks are in her car and takes off in her car and then doubles back on foot to get his vehicle
and you're right captain that could be the scenario because we know with Jane borowski's case our surviving victim
that she was taken from her vehicle so yes we could see a similar Mo in some of these other cases all right I think it's
now time this is the part of the case captain that I like to call the great debate
the reasons for and reasons against that these cases are in fact all connected now a great website New
England unsolved Blogspot made a list for similarities between the cases as well as a list of a case against a
serial killer offender in these cases let's go ahead and review those now for similarities between cases the first
that they know is that all of the cases except for critchley's definitively involved a knife attack and yes this is
true we see the choice of weapon here in most of these cases but one we have a knife attack that is involved
four of the cases had a specific stabbing pattern across the upper body and abdomen the other cases may have
also displayed this pattern but were too decomposed to tell although an attack to
the upper body was present yeah so similar injuries this is interesting this is a little more specific
than just victim after victim being stabbed to death this is a specific stabbing pattern across the upper body
and abdomen which is found in at least four of these cases could have been present in some of the other cases but
due to decomposition we can't tell third on the list Captain is with the exception of Linda Moore and Jane
Borowski all of the victims were killed in a wooded area that they had been transported to
whether they were transported there and then attacked or if they were attacked and then transported afterward that is
certainly Up For Debate but what we do know is that with Jane borowsky's attack her attacker attacked her in that
parking lot and that small parking lot of the little convenience store that was closed and
essentially just left her there to die and as you pointed out may have even thought that she was close to death when
he left her and then we have Linda Moore who we pointed out is very different just
simply for the fact that she was killed and found in her home some of the experts in this case share
the opinion that Linda Moore in that attack in her home that the killer may have been interrupted
and some even say that the attack on James borowsky who survived May simply have been interrupted as well
they go on to point out the two sets of victims were found in very close proximity to each other that's one thing
that look we pointed out that sometimes you just have a good location where people tend to
for a lack of better word dump bodies or try to hide bodies but one thing that we
cannot move off of is the fact that two sets of victims were found very very close to
one another it's almost like a Green River Killer type situation where he was dumping and discarding of victims in
clusters right one thing that's problematic for the the investigation is that three of the victims were known
to be hitchhiking at the time that they were last seen two of the attacks this is in the freed
and the baroski attack definitively involved a pay phone and we're near pay phones at the time of
the attack we know that freed was on the phone with her sister and then she vanishes we know that in the baroski
attack the killer or the attempted killer for whatever reason used the phone as a
way to communicate with the victim saying hey does that phone work what we don't know is with some of the
other cases it is possible that a pay phone or soda machine or a stop at a convenience store may have been an
element in some of the other cases the Agnew case the Morse case the richly and the corbanchi cases that's certainly a
possibility just because we don't know exactly when our victim was abducted or how right that makes sense and as the
captain pointed out earlier and John Philbin points out with his assessment of these cases
that he speculates that it's possible that the Killer would regularly check these areas looking for spots
along his route his trolling route that that include pay phones that include soda machines or places where victims
May potentially stop at a rest area here John Philbin goes as far as suggests that
it would be interesting to learn of who would service these machines the pay phones or the
soda machines the vending machines yeah or similar to like the BTK I believe BTK
or Dennis Rader got his job with ADT because it gave him the opportunity to hunt
when he was working and so like you said is somebody servicing these pay phones or servicing
these vending machines or possibly even cleaning these locations the rest stops or
convenience stores or or even maybe trash pickup or multiple different jobs that would allow this individual to
be trolling or hunting for a victim and you're right with BTK that job with ADT gives him Insight gives him Intel into
people's homes and their concerns with their own safety while they're at home and that's very interesting it's
it's like on the job training right where he's out there he's getting a job and doing a job that he's getting paid
for but at the same time he's getting Intel and he's getting insights into things that of his Fantasy Life right of
his cubed life of the cubed version of Dennis Rader the one that wants to gain access to somebody's home and then
kill whoever he finds inside we also don't know how large the hunting ground was because there
could be a difference between the hunting ground and the dump sites so there could be a a smaller area where
this person can go out oh I'm I'm going to tell my wife I'm going to the store real quick to to pick up a couple items
but I can drive around for about 30 to 40 minutes without her suspecting that I'm doing this
I think he would get off on the hunting as much as he did the actual killings I think you're right and I
think that there's plenty of evidence to suggest that you're right in this case here they also list a case against a
Serial offender and here are some of the items they suggest that would say hey these are not all connected we're not
looking at at one killer who's committed all of these crimes so and they point out that in the past 20 years the
Vermont and New Hampshire State Police have officially declared their opinion that these attacks could not all be
related one case to be made was that all of the women LED very different Lifestyles had
different appearances and were a variety of Ages they go on to point out that serial
killers often work within a particular group such as young women with blonde hair another concern was the timing even
if a few attacks were related and occurred within a short amount of time what could explain the long gap between
the killing of Millikin and then critchley but then a very abbreviated period of
attack between the other women to sum these attacks off the timeline seemed unrelated to the three attacks
that occurred in just one year and two months in Claremont New Hampshire finally one must question why so many
different suspects have Arisen with different physical attributes the person believed to be involved with Linda
Moore's attack was described as having dark hair and then in some of these cases we have a suspect that is
described as having blonde or light hair I think that the this list here is a little problematic I I like that it was
put together and to be honest with you if someone asked me to create such a list I would put together the exact same
list of a case against a serial killer however we keep referencing BTK and that's not
by mistake that's because you and I are in you and hopefully I'm not talking out
of turn here Captain but from our conversations about this potential serial killer here right I've already
stated I do not think that all of these cases are connected I think that likely some of them are
the the result of one single killer however it's not by mistake that we're referencing BTK because if you look at
the extended profile of this individual it aligns with that of somebody like Dennis Rader BTK somebody that is not
just fits into the general public but is a part of the public it is a part of the community
could be a father could be a husband and a father probably works a job may maybe
even attends church and is a member of their Community an active member in their Community I think
that there's a chance of a chance for that here I also think that there could be reasons that would explain away why
you have these weird gaps in The Killing so we know with Dennis Rader he took gaps in his killings and a lot of it had
to do just with what was going on in his regular life in his normal person life right that that life got in the way of
his Hobby and his hobby was hunting and killing and we know that with Gary Ridgeway the Green River Killer that
happened with him as well you know he went through a couple of different marriages and when he was in love and in
the early stages of his marriage he wasn't out hunting and killing and we've also reviewed other serial killers
and other offenders that only offended when their wife was pregnant or when they were triggered by something
some event in their normal life they were laid off from a job and and because they had nothing to do for six weeks
they managed to kill two people in a six-week window where they had only killed one person a year leading up to
that or well so I've seen with a lot of different serial killers is they they kill somebody and then they tell
themselves they're not going to do it anymore and they're not going to succumb to these urges that they have so that it
was just a mistake it was a one-time thing I'll never do it again I lost control right so this whole to me it's
poppycock every I'd say not every but I would say the majority the majority high
percentage of serial killers have gaps in their killings so to me it's a poppycock statement
I think where I fall is a little differently than than where you're at I think that
traditionally the the killers that I have reviewed they tend to kill and then they increase the frequency in which
they kill but at the same time they're they're also going off the rails they're losing control of themselves while they
might be getting better in the early stages with the first handful of victims right eventually they start to go off
the rails and they're losing control of themselves and start to create a whole lot of mistakes and then they get caught
the problem with applying that here is if in fact the serial killer is responsible for the majority of these
cases we're talking about a killer that has not got caught right somebody that is different from those that do get
caught so I think when you review this list of a case against a potential serial killer you could easily take
serial killers that we've reviewed here on the show and otherwise and look at this and say yes while all of these
items certainly do present a case against a serial killer you could then argue okay well here's three examples or
five examples of why it fits with this this other type of killer that we know about that we caught that that we are
fully aware of who he was what he did and who his victims were right but I I'd make an argument look I agree with you
yes there's a lot of killers that you can look at that they kill somebody and then
then there's a Time Gap then they kill somebody else and there's a Time Gap and then eventually those gaps become
smaller and smaller that happens a lot of the time but I would still argue that before
that urge and we've heard it from Dahmer we've heard it from Bundy some of these guys go look at some point
it just got to the point where I'm not going to fight it anymore I am what I am and I'm just going to do this
and I'm just going to go full full board but I would argue before that moment that you can find gaps and all of all of
their killings that brings us to another interesting question are the victims that we discussed are
they all the potential victims of the Connecticut River Valley killer now if you do some digging on this case
there are at least five other cases that some people include as part of this series
there's one still unsolved case way back in 1968 then there's an elderly woman in
1982 there's even a male victim in 86 we have unidentified remains found in 1989
and then we have the Cold Case of Carrie Moss of New Boston who went missing in 1989 and then her skeletal remains were
found almost exactly two years later a cause of death in her case has never been determined due to decomposition her
case has been treated as a homicide though now one thing here Captain due to time constraints and due to the fact
that we already agree as do so many others that when you review this list of seven or eight victims and it gets hard
to quickly discern who is connected and who is not it seemed a little rambunctious to me to
try to dissect all of these other five cases the male victim seems to be an outlier where it doesn't seem to fit
just because of the victimology and then the first one 1968 may just be way too early in the series
and then you have the complications with the cases in 1989 uh with the the unidentified remains and then the cause
of death unknown in the Carrie Moss case one again we don't know if these killings just stopped or if this killer
relocated and for armchair detectives out there that want to do a little further digging themselves the New
Hampshire Department of Justice has a victim map that is helpful it's not limited to the river valley case
but if you go to doj.nh.gov you can navigate from there to the interactive victim map and a victim list
for New Hampshire homicides and missing persons cases should someone want to troll that map
and see if any other New Hampshire homicides fit into this potential series [Music]
I want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage so much more to get to in part two so stick around why don't
you and until then be good be kind and don't litter thank you [Music]

The Connecticut River Valley Killer /// Part 1 /// 636

Part 1 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

For about ten years between 1978 and 1988, eight women were murdered and the bodies scattered in wooded areas in the Connecticut River Valley region near Interstate 91 along the Vermont and New Hampshire border. Many of the victims were stabbed to death. Some stabbed in a specific pattern across the upper body. With some of the victims a cause of death could not be determined due to decomposition. Was this the work of a serial killer? Many think so. Join us in the Garage as we take a look at this strange case and review some of the suspects. A very special thank you to Jane Boroski for joining us and talking about her experience as the only known survivor of this vicious killer. Check out Jane’s podcast - Invisible Tears.

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the Connecticut River Valley murders, focusing on Jane Borowski's survival and the unsolved cases of seven women.

Key points

Jane Borowski's Survival. The harrowing story of Jane Borowski, who survived a brutal attack.
The Connecticut River Valley Killer. A chilling overview of a series of unsolved murders in New England.
Unsolved Mysteries Impact. The influence of the show on the investigation of the Connecticut River Valley murders.
Ellen Freed's Disappearance. Ellen Freed was last seen talking on a pay phone before vanishing. Her remains were found a year later.
Linda Moore's Tragic Murder. Linda Moore was found murdered in her home, raising questions about the killer's methods.
Barbara Agnew's Mysterious Case. Barbara Agnew vanished after skiing, with her car found just miles from home. Her body was discovered later, raising questions about her disappearance.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Please don't hurt me, I'm pregnant.

Jane Borowski's plea during her abduction.

4:58WatchDec 22, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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