The Tragic Murder of Roseann Quinn | Morbid: A True Crime Podcast | Forensic Files

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you get your podcasts hey weirdos I'm Elena I'm Ash and this is morbid [Music] foreign
[Music] Feast that we have laid before us we do we just decided to go like full-blown
like yummy picky junk food to set off the week we were like you know what let's just go for it let's do it right
let's [ __ ] veg without the veg I mean there's some jalapenos on the nacho so it works out
yeah there you go there's some yeah there's some little peppers a little pepper a little red pepper green pepper
did I pick them off yeah did I eat them no I ate them though that's okay so at least one of us did look at you just
getting your Greens in that's right I'm all about getting the veggies oh yeah after I eat an entire Snickers bar
you know you're not you when you're hungry that's very true actually that is true I get angry you get hangry yeah we
we're angry as a unit okay angry we anger we do we hang great together but not today no not today today we are fed
I hope you are fed me too I hope that you're enjoying the week so far exactly it's Monday so like let's hope it's
going okay it'll be Monday when you listen to this I think you know what this is gonna be a great day for you
make it a great day or not the choice is yours at a man at that guy yep so have a good week though just manifest it
we weren't being good at that the last couple weeks so we're being good at it now no we're being a little bit negative
nancy-ish but I did um cleanse the studio today with some Palo Santo don't worry we got it from an ethical place
it's all good yeah and we cleansed the [ __ ] out of this [ __ ] exactly and I think you should too the cleanse your
space you know because I feel like everybody everybody's there's a little bit of toxic yuckiness happen around
everybody but not anymore but not here not here no no tomorrow I get to wear my hair like Pamela Anderson so well you'd
be negative about that and I get to dress as someone I think you can say it because that's okay
yeah because this isn't coming out today it'll come out next week yeah yeah so actually like two weeks from now the
rest of the world will hear it yes you would definitely see how far ahead we are [ __ ] but yeah so I dress I
dressed up in the future and in the past as Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I live to my best life I am
sure of it oh yeah and Mikey made Elena's dress yes and made the necklace that went with it and it's literally
like spot on the exact same I can't wait for you guys to see it slash I know you
guys loved it when you saw it yeah and Mikey's gonna be there at the show John's brother-in-law Dave is gonna be
there at the show we're all gonna be there yeah Dave's related to us somehow a little inside joke Insider because
just putting it out there white is a very good I think Orion and Matt coming to the
show I think they are from The Blacklist on the Black Veil maybe Joe will be there I think Joe's gonna be there who
else is coming there's a lot of there's a couple John Drew's coming yeah it's this is a virtual show but like we're
we're packing the pack in the place yeah we need like a full Good Vibes full of family and friends yeah you know it's
gonna be fun slash it was fun it was so much fun so much fun uh it's fun to live
in the future and the past all at once yeah it's not fun to live in the future if you have anxiety that's called future
tripping that's true and I am not for that no but in a good way this is gonna be fun and you know what if you were
like wow that's a cool costume you should go watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer and you should listen to The re-watcher
Buffy the Vampire Slayer because it is just good clean not clean it's not good fun
dirty fun it's good filthy fun over there like tomater tomater we've been watching Cars a lot my name is
oh but you know what let's get into it let's just talk because we're really we're veering off yeah we are I don't
know it's it's a manic Monday it is but today we're gonna head all the way over to New York City the Big Apple baby the
Big Apple and I feel like we can all agree that like it's a city where it could be pretty hard for one single
person to make their Mark yeah absolutely let alone a Mark that lasts for decades after you're gone well [ __ ]
but that's exactly what happened to Roseanne Quinn who we're gonna talk about today she left her mark on the
city on the night of January 2nd 1973. it was also the night that she was brutally brutally murdered in her
Manhattan apartment oh God this is a really sad case and I think the biggest bummer about researching and kind of
putting this case together for me was the fact that because Roseanne was like a single woman who like went out at
night and met a man and brought him back home it was like oh well she asked for this yeah because that's what happened I
hate that it was the 70s so you know yeah the 70s but it's like don't blame the murderer definitely don't do that
yeah never do that yeah blame her so frustrating and at the time of her death Roseanne was young she was a single
school teacher and she was working at St Joseph's School for the Deaf so she was
like an incredible person and she was also pursuing at the same time a graduate degree that was going to help
Advance her in her career good for her in the evening she would go out to like the neighborhood Bars by herself meet up
with some friends she'd mingle with the single men at the bar she was just having a good time
from time to time she would take one of them home sometimes for like a one night
stand which is what single people do so I was gonna say which is well within her
rights as a human being yeah something plenty of people have experienced in this day and age and definitely back
then too yeah but no no what's a one-night stand for oh my God yeah oh God and that's the thing in an earlier
decade Roseanne's death probably would have gone unnoticed by the public but because this was the early 1970s an
American culture was kind of going through not even kind of we really were going through a huge period of
transformation it was like Roseanne's lifestyle and murder was a political talking point for liberals conservatives
and in everything in the middle yeah everybody just wanted to talk about it and to some people she was a modern
woman who was unashamed of her interest in sex and just fully capable of taking care of herself without a man get it
girl but then to others she represented this Reckless foolishness of the women's
Liberation movement because that was huge at the time poo so those people saw her as a woman
who was so caught up in her own empowerment that she failed to see the apparent danger in her deviant lifestyle
I hate when I get so [ __ ] caught up in my own empowerment I love when I get caught up in my deviant lifestyle such a
flaw of ours I'd like to live a deviant lifestyle like just have people like she
was a deviant she was a deviant no one would ever say that about me though no I'm too
um you too sweet too sweet oh you got that sweet face I was I couldn't come up with
the adjective I don't do I have a sweet face oh 100 everyone listening right now
agrees they all went yes you do Ash I also I need to work on my RBF a little bit you don't need to Mikey's working on
his RPS [Laughter] that was good that was really good no you have a sweet face too you do it's
very true him smiling all right well guys the murder of Roseanne Quinn it was actually it would go on to inspire two
novels and actually a major Hollywood film that you've probably heard of but that film kind of easily slipped into
the space between fact and fiction it's not really full-blown true but some just
there's no there's some artistic license yes exactly all of the projects focusing
on Roseanne definitely obscured the real life woman at the heart of the story though but people still tell this story
because it's representative of a centuries-old story that all too often ends in murder of the murder of yet
another innocent person at the hands of a man who wanted to punish her for her perceived sins we hate it so Roseanne
was born on November 17 1944 in the Bronx in the Bronx kid and her parents were John and Roseanne Quinn ah we have
another Lord I love a Lorelei moment now the queen were strict Irish Catholics and they passed their beliefs onto their
children and their children carried on a lot of the Traditions into their adulthood John the father he was an
executive with bell Laboratories and he ended up moving to Mine Hill Township in
1955 to be closer to his company's headquarters um which were in New Jersey but so Roseanne's childhood was
interrupted in 1957 though because she actually contracted polio whoa she had to have surgery and then obviously
recover from that surgery so that meant she had to spend almost a year of her life on bed rest holy [ __ ] polio is no
joke I've heard I've heard yeah her only time outside was when she was going back
and forth to doctor's appointments and hospitals so like it was like a year of her life and the disease left her with a
large Scar and a slight but noticeable limp that she was really self-conscious of for the rest of her life in reality
the effects of the surgery and the scarring weren't very severe but Roseanne was never able to shake the
feeling that her father couldn't stand the disfigurement that she'd gone through and she thought that was why he
shunned her all throughout her job that makes me so sad it's really really sad ugh it's like reading not made me made
my heart hurt yeah so after graduating from Morris Catholic High School in 1960 D2 Roseanne and Rule enrolled in the
Newark State teachers college and there she majored in elementary education she wanted to be a teacher from the jump she
was really excited about it and college offered her a path to an independent future and also the chance to get out of
her parents house they were again very strict Catholics and she loved her parents very much but their strict
Catholic home could really feel oppressive yeah like suffocating yeah the church doctrine dictated everything
between what was and was an acceptable behavior especially when it came to sex oh boy and that was like not Roseanne
didn't want to be told what she couldn't couldn't do not a recipe to make somebody listen so like a lot of us she
went off to college she found a group of like-minded people and they had been drawn to a flourishing counterculture
and feminism movements that were happening across the country hell yeah it was the 70s Peace Love Making Love
Not War it was great and she found her people yeah and so she was an average student at Newark State but the school
actually allowed her to explore her interests and it helped her develop a passion for teaching that would shape
her personal and her professional life so after graduating in 1966 she moved into a small apartment in a relatively
safe section of Manhattan's East Side she had two roommates who were also young ladies and she found work as a
teacher in the Newark New Jersey public school system so she was really just like off to live in her own life being
independent she's got a path finding her path but she got her first taste of kind
of the real scary [ __ ] world one night when she stayed late after school she was just staying late to clean up
her classroom literally and she was assaulted in her classroom oh my God by a student he threatened her with a knife
and actually tried to rape her wow she was able to escape before he could hurt her but the attack by somebody so young
a student and in a place where she felt safe left her very anxious and very paranoid for a period of time so she
actually ended up leaving that school and she found a new job teaching in the Bronx yeah she was like I don't need to
sit in this classroom every day and be reminded of what could potentially happen to me and what almost did happen
to me I'm good no because I can never feel comfortable again no I don't I couldn't either yeah so at the new
school the students and staff absolutely loved her and she loved them right back
it was a great fit for her oh good she actually would bring in breakfast for the student she taught quote because she
had so excuse me because she said so many had to ride buses to get to school and had to start out too early to eat
breakfast so she would just bring she would bring them breakfast like what a [ __ ] awesome person
now the religious values instilled in her by her parents were among the reasons actually and factors that drove
her to to be a teacher but at the same time the religion seemed to have a large effect on her relationship with men she
didn't seem to love or believe that women were meant to be subservient to men and then in the late 70s that was
forward thinking that limited the dating pool for her that's so wild isn't that crazy that is really wild like she was
like I don't think I like said beneath you I think we're equals yeah they were like oh get a load of this crazy girl
yeah they were like swipe what is it swipe left is that the bad one yes okay actually I was like I don't know I've
only heard swipe right it's been a while yeah I think you swipe right when you like someone cool so I said it right
yeah it wasn't like a big tender girl at least no no I was a bumble girl but the
same same emotion kind of deal anyways those days are long gone thank goodness but back to the 70s it limited her
dating pool and what also complicated matters for her and her personal opinion were the scar and the limp that she had
from when she had Polio it made her self-conscious and she felt like she was unattractive because of it she was not
she breaks my heart so as a result though her relationships with men were really hindered by shame and they tended
not to last very long or go too deep yeah really sad that's sad so instead she liked to spend nights at home she
liked to read she would go out with her friends um she really loved the neighborhood
bars WM Tweeds or the copper hatch and then again like I said she'd bring somebody home for back to her apartment
for a little fun every now and again so by late 1972 things actually seemed to be going really well for her she'd found
that new job that she loved she was teaching at St Joseph's School for the Deaf now she moved into a new apartment
and this new apartment was in a newly converted high-rise it was in an even safer neighborhood on the upper west
side and she had also just started classes at Hunter College where she was going after her graduate degree in deaf
education damn I think she was a bad [ __ ] she had a lot to look forward to when the school went on vacation in the
last week of December but unfortunately as 1972 flipped over to 1973 and Christmas break was winding down
Roseanne Quinn would not live to see more than a couple days after the New Year oh man on the evening of January
2nd 1973 she stopped at Tweeds which was a neighborhood bar it was right across the street from her apartment so close
and all she just wanted to have a drink just wanted to wind down after a day she's on vacation whatever yeah so she's
sitting alone at one of the tables in 20 she was like in one of the darker Corners having a little Johnny Walker
hell yeah which I was like hell yeah get it girl and I guess the bartender noticed that she looked a little lonely
looked a little depressed we went over to talk to him uh to talk to her excuse me and by that time she was kind of a
regular at Tweed so the bartender knew her yeah made his way over and they just chatted her a little bit she seemed to
be like a little cheered up by the conversation and she actually ended up getting up from the table when she
realized that a group of her friends were in the bar now so she headed over them to chat with them
and it was there that an acquaintance of hers introduced her to a man who she only met as John oh so John was in town
he was from out of state and he was visiting a friend and Roseanne actually noticed him across the bar earlier that
evening he was young he was tall and thin and she didn't think he was too bad looking we love it John yeah we do
usually when she'd seen him earlier sad face when she saw him earlier he was with another man but now he was actually
alone and it seemed like he'd had a couple of drinks that night okay but then again so had she so she was like
you know what let me make conversation [Music] oh a teen solo hiker is terrorized for Days
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foreign they chatted for a while he bought the next round of drinks as they kept
chatting and to those around them they both looked like any other couple in the bar they were sharing a drink having a
conversation just shooting the ship yeah so as the night went on the group actually got bored at Tweeds and
somebody suggested that they move across the street to another bar called The Copper hatch so Roseanne and John or
Roseanne kind of looked at John like hey you want to go and they decided to go the conversation continued at hatch so
did the drinks everybody was getting a little schwaisty it's okay and in the days that followed the bartender at the
hatch Tom Keating would tell the police that he had seen the man with Roseanne that night but he had never seen him
before and he couldn't quite recall what he looked like once the police came and
knock him which he feels so bad because I'm like how often do you remember exactly what someone's looks like when
you have no reason to know what they look like you know like you're not like so many people throughout the night I
feel so because he must have been like [ __ ] oh yeah you know I used to work as
a bar back and if anybody ever came to me for information about the people at the bar I would have been [ __ ] yeah
you'd be like I don't know like there's so many of them yeah and at some point like they blur together they blur
together yeah yeah it's like that guy with the blue hat was wearing a plaid shirt
the other guy who's bald like it's just one of them yeah honestly but he did remember Roseanne the bartender because
he knew her yeah he said he only remembered heard that she seemed happy while she was talking to this guy okay
so as the hours were on that night customers kind of slowly started making their way out of the bar people were
calling it a night and they kind of Roseanne and John noticed the trend so they actually decided to go back to her
apartment just to continue their conversation and then get to know each other yeah they seem to like each other
yeah but by the next morning Roseanne Quinn would be dead and six months later her
killer would actually take his own life while in police custody wow I didn't know that so what truly happened after
they left the copper hatch is anyone's guess really as far as anybody can tell they were seen together casually talking
as they went into Roseanne's building at 253 West and 72nd Street John would later claim that they reached
her apartment and after some light conversation they engaged in consensual sex but then in another version of this
story that he told to his court appointed lawyer he claimed that he was unable to get an erection and the sex
actually never occurred okay so in one story they did and it was consensual and then another he couldn't make it happen
and it didn't happen yeah so early reports indicated that Roseanne had been raped by her a Salient however the
coroner's report indicated that she had had sex within 24 hours of her death quote but that there were none of the
external and internal signs of force or brutality that would indicate she had objected to sexual intercourse oh that's
so tough that's the thing that's tough it's really hard to say whether or not she was yeah because there's obviously
Hallmarks of it yeah in an examination right because when you unfortunately and like you know trigger warning because
we're just gonna get into it for a second if you are fighting someone off and you
do not want it to happen it is going to hurt you in some way they're going to have to force it that's the whole point
and there are going to be consequences biologically and physically right from that but then again we've seen cases
before where there wasn't like super clear physical evidence of it but it actually happened exactly so it's like
well I think there's a lot of factors you know like yeah we you know there's there's a lot of variables at stake that
we don't know because it's like did she pass out right she could have because then she wouldn't be fighting back and
it wouldn't be as you know evident exactly I would think exactly and she very well could have I mean yeah one
they had a lot to drink that night two he did get violent with her at some point that's a really good point she
could have passed out and he could have done what he wanted to do with her absolutely so according to John and his
story where they did engage in sexual in um consensual sex excuse me once they were done Roseanne quote and this is
insane like this didn't happen but he said she quote went nuts and started pushing me physically to hurry and get
dressed and leave which also even if you did have sex with her and then she said
okay like I'm all done like you need to leave now that's her house you're in her
[ __ ] apartment get out yeah it doesn't matter if she went nuts and if she did go nuts you would think that
you'd be like okay like I gotta get out well that's the thing you just leave and
be like wow okay I won't that's why I will not hang out with her again like that is that right you know so it's like
okay that doesn't excuse anything yeah his account of the events leading up to her murder are very questionable that
sounds it in one version she went nuts for no reason but then in another version of the events which he gave he
said that she mocked his inability to get an erection and that's when everything started
no matter what man if she made fun of your dick it's not a reason to kill her no so definitely not I don't care to be
honest like I don't care if you couldn't handle that leave exactly and don't talk
to her again right like that's what adults do exactly it's whatever happened in the moments before Roseanne was
attacked something switched and John and he just went into a full-blown rage I can't imagine what she saw before her oh
God when Roseanne tried to stand up and this was according to him he grabbed her
by the throat and began choking and hitting her claiming that he actually even used her own pants that he grabbed
from the floor to continue choking her until she lost Consciousness ah there you have it there you have it I didn't
want to say it too early so when she passed out John said he went to the kitchen and he grabbed a paring knife
and he proceeded to stab her 18 times Jesus 18 times this is a Stranger by the way God or potentially somebody that
he's just had sex with it's insane at least one of the stab wounds hit her jugular vein which then
released a torrent of blood that not only covered John's chest arms and pants but also splashed a [ __ ] ton of Blood on
the walls the floors the windowsill oh my God everywhere so when he was fairly certain that she
was dead he grabbed a lard this is very graphic by the way you might want to skip forward he grabbed a candle and he
quote stuffed it into her vagina until it broke off in his hand oh my God so it's like if that's the case how could
they say that she wasn't raped like in that that's right that's rape yep right and you're
so wait you're telling me that postmortem examination showed no physical effects of being forced well
that's the thing because it's like something was rammed in there early reports indicated that she had been
raped but then they switched up their story and said and this is quote none of the external or internal signs or force
of brutality that would indicate she had objected to sexual intercourse um what about the candle inside of her are you
kidding me yeah and it's like a candle is going to cause damage red candle yeah any foreign object is
going to cause damage that's the [ __ ] lie like what the hell is that about I'd be questioning the hell out of that
autopsy I'd be like um you tell me what you're looking for and what you didn't find I think that autopsy speaks to the
time and speaks to potential judgment 100 for inviting a stranger into our home you know that's wild isn't that
crazy that there was a foreign object inserted like yeah it doesn't seem like she was trying to probably post-mortem
and there was no signs of any brutality oh and it wasn't even probably postmortem it was post-mortem she waited
he said until he was sure she was dead and then he did that that guy needs to be locked away and the key thrown away
but unfortunately like we know he ended it himself which really really so frustrating yeah so it was nearly 3 30
in the morning by that point and he knew that he had to leave before the building
started coming alive in the early morning hours so before leaving he started traipsing around the apartment
rifling through drawers and cabinets stealing what cut what little money she had in the market look like I don't even
know if it was to make it look like she had been robbed I think he literally just wanted to rob her and damn maybe
like the the cover-up was the second part of the motive but I think the first part was that he needed money he's just
a dick because he's kind of like a transient like okay like goes around here and there everywhere yeah once he
grabbed everything of value he then went around the apartment a second time carefully wiping his fingerprints off
anything he thought he had touched wow anything he remembered touching and probably a few more things that he was
just like you know what let me wipe that down just in case so it's like you definitely can't claim that like I
snapped and I black like that kind of thing because like girl you clean that up you thought about it yeah like
exactly and so once he wiped everything away he went into the bathroom and showered wow yep rinsing away copious
amounts of blood from his body redressed himself and then slipped out in the apartment down the street
there was a very real possibility that he wasn't going to be caught when you find out why he was caught it really
depends on one person and thank God that person decided to be a good person oh damn because he could have gotten away
with this and wasn't really never 100 never would have seen him again or if we did see him again he would have killed
at least one other person oh yeah you don't end here no and I wonder if do you start in here yeah like this is pretty
insane so staff and administrators of course found it weird when Roseanne failed to show up for work on January
2nd it was the first day back to school after Christmas break she had been there
for like over two years at that point she'd always been on time or called if she needed a sick day so the fact that
she didn't show up on the first day back was definitely of some concern oh man so
they made phone calls to her apartment no one was answering when she failed to show up the following day A co-worker
was actually sent to her apartment explained the situation to the superintendent of the apartment oh no
and then they them and superintendent let that co-worker oh the apartment was a [ __ ] wreck there had been chairs
knocked over drawers were pulled and just thrown around the whole entire Place objects were strewn about the room
and Roseanne's absolutely brutalized nude body by the way she was completely nude was discovered on the pull-out
couch she was barely recognizable through all the blood the bruises the stab wounds everything that's horrific
and then like I said the walls the couch the floor the windows everything was color was covered in blood splatter
and this is so [ __ ] weird so for him to say he snapped I don't think it's true at all no her killer left quote a
hollow sculptured bust of a woman on on Roseanne's face like he was obscuring her Humanity yeah like don't like you
don't come at me and say you snap you took the time to go find a bust of a woman and put it over her face like how
[ __ ] bizarre the hell isn't that so weird so weird and this is so sad Roseanne had a cat named Missy and like
so everybody walked in and she started weaving through their legs when they came in oh for like comfort for Comfort
or to be fed like you know whatever just so sad that makes me sad so the police were called obviously they
arrived a short time later and they send officers floor to floor canvassing for any kind of lead but nobody in the
building had seen or heard anything suspicious that night at a quick glance Roseanne's death kind
of seemed motivated at least in part by rape and secondarily by robbery yeah but
the fact that it was so brutal led the investigators to think something more had happened yeah again I feel like I've
said this a lot with all my cases it wasn't a typical robbery yeah but still the apartment had clearly been tossed
around Roseanne's wallet was found on the floor empty so they were like I don't know yeah like is this is this a
robbery is it not so the discovery prompted actually surprisingly large investigation for a single murder in
Manhattan officers went through the building in search of leads and then a second team of 10 officers fanned out to
Sherman Square which was a large Plaza between Broadway and 72nd Street it was commonly referred to as needle Park
which is like really shitty there was a large number of people who were using drugs while in the park so it got its
nickname like that but despite Roseanne having moved to the neighborhood for its safety it really
wasn't as safe as she thought it was the area had experienced a relative increase in violent crime which included
the murder of a teacher two years earlier and that had occurred just around the corner from Roseanne's
apartment and then there was a drug-related murder that occurred in the building in her same building six months
earlier oh so yeah that's a little close it wasn't that safe so although the canvas of both the building and the
nearby park turned up no leads investigators learned that in 1969 the building where Roseanne had lived had
actually been redeveloped from a hotel into an apartment building and this remodel included a major overhaul to the
building's entrance ah now there were a ton of security protocols in place that provided on-site doorman and prevented a
majority of unwelcomed or unapproved visitors yeah so this fact provided the important Insight that whoever had
murdered Roseanne had likely been let into the building by Roseanne herself so the investigators scoured the
building scoured the surrounding area and while that was going on a third team of investigators started kind of digging
into Roseanne's personal life they were interviewing friends co-workers they figured they could find her killer quote
somewhere amid the numerous yet fragmented activities of an attractive single woman living in the interracial
world of the West Side whoa it's like the 70s was wild it was a very wild time they're like she was a she was a crazy
cat she was a crazy lady it's like she was just a teacher that lived in New York to the bar sometimes like they make
it seem like she was just like running rampant in the streets so the detectives were so sure that she had welcomed her
killer into her life that they very much limited their investigation to only her
personal life yeah which completely disregarded any possibility that her killer was from work or from a world
unknown to her entirely yeah because it's like yeah I understand you you look at it and you look at the evidence and
you say okay it seems like she let her attack her in because then the security has gone up but it's like you can't
limit your scope to that you just focus your scope on that exactly you have to still doing the side there looking at
all possibilities which like it's it happens so many times in different cases where they go in with a narrative in
mind and they just limit the scope well and that's exactly what happened here because like you were just saying it's
normal like we have to dig into the person's personal life to figure out what happened and when the evidence is
pointing that way of course you're gonna shift Focus there right standard practice for sure yeah but in this case
there was a very judgmental tone to the narrative yeah and it was taking shape of the entire investigation Captain John
McMahon told the Press quote the West Side world she belonged to was not the quiet peaceful one that some families
find here it was a friendly relaxed world of young artists teachers professionals swingers all of them all
of them every single one did you find a pineapple on the front door yeah every single one of them I can't just swinging
like you don't know these people what a generalized like what a blanket to throw
over an entire all artists teachers and young professionals are swingers all of them I don't think so yeah all right I
don't think so but just because I'm good at painting means I switch Partners what
yeah that doesn't mean anything I'm young so I switched Partners like John get a grip John get a grip get a [ __ ]
grip I don't like any of the Johnsons I was just gonna say I take it back I like
one John you give John a burner there you go okay so anyways in the early 1970s like I
said earlier the US was on the verge of major major social change the war in Vietnam was losing support among the
American public it was kind of shining a spotlight on the Stark divide between the young people in the country and the
older people in the country conservatives liberals everything in the middle like I said in the beginning and
at the same time groups that had been pretty quiet and Underground we're actually gaining social capital and
political power through the collective action like the black power the feminist movements so to conservative and older
Americans who were like pretty bewildered and frustrated with the rapidly shifting social change Roseanne
Quinn represented the irresponsibility of the supposedly sexual sexually liberated Modern Woman yeah they're like
we don't want this [ __ ] we want things to say the same they're like look what will happen to you if you're sexually
liberated let's go back to the 50s you'll be at home and you need to be subservient to all men and then you
won't get murdered because no one got murdered in the 50s never nope just this is new not by their husbands either
absolutely not never happened never ever never covered a case like that foreign [Music]
so McMahon he had to open his mouth again and he said that's the captain he said quote this city is dangerous if you
live on the west side like she did and your friendly affable mixed with all kinds of people and have a lot of
nightlife well A lot's open to you oh if you're friendly and mixed with all kinds
of people that's a that's a long-winded way of saying your fault yeah yeah his comments explained why detectives were
focused exclusively on her personal life yeah and how a large diverse Social Circle can present some kind of
complicated challenge when you're trying to identify a suspect like don't be friends but also if you read between the
lines a little more he was just trying to warn women that being sexually liberated was gonna have tragic
consequences oh yeah you don't even need to read between the lines no you're just
like he's like here it is I just said it in a long way he's just flipping the bird to any young woman who like doesn't
have a man and doesn't have one he's just like I said it yeah an artist too yeah artists and teachers oh yeah you
don't want that young people no way like I can't imagine I always say I wanted to
live during the 70s but this case made me realize I do not makes you think about it I mean being a woman now is
pretty tough but we won't get into that so even though there seemed to be a shaming tone and a judgmental spin on
the narrative surrounding Roseanne's murder the Deep dive into her personal life actually did prove to be valuable
because it produced the first viable lead investigators had discovered a report that Roseanne filed a year before she
had been killed and this report explained that a man she had taken home one evening had actually slapped her in
the face after they got into an argument and she was able to get him out of her apartment luckily and went right down to
the police to report this according to the investigator she had only filed the report quote to frighten
him off but the assault resulted in a conviction and the man ended up spending several months in prison oh which led
the detectives to wonder if he had held some kind of grudge against Roseanne and
killed her in retaliation yeah because consequences for your actions should definitely be held against the person
that you did it to yeah always for sure I mean I can understand why they thought
that oh I 100 understand that but that's it's just so infuriating that it's like
you did something terrible yeah you literally physically assaulted someone and you got a consequence for it so now
you like them well now I have to seek revenge on that person that I hurt right because it's not your fault for hurting
them yeah no definitely not ridiculous makes sense so while detectives were chasing down that kind of it was pretty
flimsy to be honest yeah flimsy Revenge killing motive a few of the people who had been at Tweeds and golden hatch they
started coming forward with descriptions of the man that they had last seen with
Roseanne most of the people who had been there that night could only describe the
sky in vague detail they couldn't even provide enough information to get a composite sketch oh wow but there was
another man who'd been seen with Roseanne's companion earlier that night oh yeah remember I said she had seen him
with a guy earlier but then when they started talking that guy wasn't really around yeah
but the detectives hoped that they would be able to I to come up with a composite
sketch for this guy so that they could track this guy down and start talking to him and they actually were able to
according to the police the witness they hoped could identify Roseanne's killer was a white man 28 to 32 years old six
feet tall weighing 165 pounds with a fair complexion and short cropped light brown hair with a wet look ew he was
doing the Kim K wet look I know that sounds so foul in other words wash your [ __ ] hair yeah I was gonna say grease
ball in other other words lay off the gel and other other words gross ew so the NYPD Blue I had to say it blue
set up a tip line urging anybody with information to call and leave an anonymous message they circulated the
composite drawing of the potential witness to the media and they insisted to everybody they were like this guy is
not a suspect he is going to lead us to our suspect so please know that there you go so nearly a week had passed since
the discovery of Roseanne's body but all the police had to work with were some vague descriptions of generic white men
in their early 30s that helps it doesn't I will narrow it down the forensics lots of lots of generic white men in
their early 30s really narrowing the focus yeah so the forensic team search of the apartment really didn't turn up
anything significant and the man who had assaulted her almost a year earlier that
I was talking about he had a quote-unquote Loctite Alibi for the night of her murder it basically ruled
him out as a suspect oh bummer so under the circumstances the sketch was their best and really their only chance at
catching Roseanne's killer and they were about to get a very lucky break oh damn
yes on the morning of January 7th Gary Geist no excuse me Gary guest actually walk
down to the newspaper box not like really guys no no different no way very different man very different this is
Gary guest hi Willie guest hi Willie I think he listens right I I don't know or no did he like your book uh no it wasn't
him it was um uh it was something else it was somebody else okay um anyways I was like wait who was it
we're not talking about Willie we're talking about Gary I was just saying hi to Willie you can always say I don't
care thank you I appreciate that to Gary there's not even a Gary there I don't know where we are anymore Where Do We Go
From Here back to the store I was just gonna say back to the case oh good job good job so Geary so Geary he walked
down to the newspaper box which like that was a thing on the corner and he bought the Morning Edition of the New
York Times oh I know somebody who's on the New York Times bestselling author list oh I'm sitting right in front of
her it was me it's crazy I'm gonna tattoo it on my arm you should I'm not going to but I would
if I did that if I did that [ __ ] if I did that if I was out there on the New York Times okay so this New York Times
written in large print eight columns across the headline read police if you issue a sketch of witness they hope will
identify a killer of teacher and it included a composite drawing of a potential witness that police hoped
would lead them back to the teacher's killer okay so to Gary the sketch looked incredibly generic and probably fit the
description of thousands of men in Manhattan alone I'd say so but regardless of whether anybody could
identify the sketch he knew the drawing was of him Gary Geary what is him a few nights earlier on
January 7th you see Gary had gone out drinking on the upper west side with his friend
John John Wayne Wilson wait is his name Gary or Geary it's Gary like gear okay like
g-e-j-r-y-r-y-g okay yeah um I wasn't saying I thought you were not saying it with awareness it's really
scary all right Gary but Geary when you keep saying it but he went drinking with
his friend John oh [ __ ] John Wayne Wilson at around 10 30 or 11 he said you know what he personally Gary Gary
decided he had had enough to drink and he suggested to John that they head back to his apartment where John was staying
while he was in town oh so he was even trying to get John out of there but John Wilson however had just started talking
with a young red-haired woman at the bar and he didn't want to leave oh no so he
was like no Gary go on without me and the next day John literally told Gary that he had gone home with the woman
they smoked some weed they started to have sex but then she began berating and mocking him when he was unable to get an
erection the cruelty he said caused something in him to snap and before he knew it he was on top of her with his
hands around her neck choking the life out of her so he made a full-blown confession Gary Gary what the [ __ ] so
from the moment he heard the story Gary wasn't sure what to make of it he had known John Wayne Wilson for years and he
felt like John wasn't the type of person who was capable of flying into a rage and murdering somebody but at the same
time he could never dismiss the story in its entirety it's like okay Geary so so
John isn't the kind of guy he's not the kind of fella that's gonna straight up murder someone is he the kind of fella
who normally comes home and says like oh what a crazy night I can't just totally
raped and murdered someone does he say that often and then he's like just kidding a joke funny jokes
I hate when people do that they're like I just couldn't reconcile it it's like but do they often tell you that they
murder people because that happens when the guy was sitting in his passenger seat and he came back with the
sock full of rocks it's like what did you think sir like I know it's hard to reconcile that it a human being you know
could take another person's life totally but if they're telling you who they are
believe them yeah I believe that in every sense of the word when people show you or tell you who they are believe
those [ __ ] because they're showing you first reason he told you what he did you should have gone to the
police and let them sort it out so he was like I don't think he's the kind of guy that could do that yeah but
then he started seeing the reports about the teachers be it the teacher who had been murdered and he said that he had
become quilt frightened all along about how this whole thing would turn out so he said at first he tried to ignore
the article in the composite drawing but as the day went on and on he just couldn't shake the urgency of the
request for information and the seriousness of the situation which like I'm glad he finally came to the
conclusion to do the right thing I don't think he should have struggled with it that hard but I've never gone through it
so I don't know because again it's like he's either the kind of person who would
do that or he's the kind of person who will pretend that he did that either way you should go tell someone about it yeah
because that's a dangerous person well and I think what really started to shift his decision making was that he was
wondering if he didn't go forward to the police could he be held as like implicated to murder yeah so that
afternoon he ended up calling his lawyer and he asked his lawyer to come over to
his apartment they sat in the living room and Gary explained the entire situation and his lawyer explained that
he could indeed be indicted for obstruction of justice destruction of evidence being an accessory after the
fact being an accomplice to the crime itself like he was he was facing a lot of [ __ ] here you got a big storm coming
honey you got a big storm coming Fury and that's what the lawyer said he said as far as I see it you have three
options you can go on the Run you could do nothing or you could go to the police and tell them what you know
yeah and he said as your lawyer I suggest the latter yeah I'm gonna go ahead and tell you to do that last one
yes so his lawyer placed Gary agreed he was like I think that's what I need to do yeah and he the lawyer called the
District Attorney's office and explained the situation careful not to mention any
names his client had information about the killer he said and he would only share that information in exchange for
immunity from prosecution so he played a bit of a game here that's a smart lawyer
but honestly I would play the same [ __ ] game absolutely hopefully I never find myself in the situation yeah
no I don't think I would because I don't really have that many friends so there you go especially not ones that pretend
to kill people or actually kill people I've never had a friend that pretended to kill someone or I've never killed
anyone I've never had a confession confessed to me that was like just kidding I just like to do that sometimes
like no no and if I did that person wouldn't remain in my life much longer it would be clip Clapton
peace and love to Duran peace and love to Dorinda so a few days later he sat down with the detectives Gary and Gary
it's hard to say and he told them everything he knew about the murder he said he exactly what he knew and the
level of detail included um his description from the early part of the evening at Tweeds to the extent
of uh extent of Roseanne's wounds and that convinced the investigators he was telling the truth he knew literally
everything now in the day since the murder John Wayne Wilson had returned home to Indiana huh so Manhattan
detectives had to get a warrant for his arrest and they booked the first flight they could to Springfield where they got
that [ __ ] extra don't man they would be actually joined there a short time later by nine other NYPD officers
oh damn and in the meantime Captain McMahon asshat McGee called the authorities in Springfield and brought
them up to speed on what was happening so back at home with two detectives Gary actually received a call from Wilson and
was able to confirm for the investigators that Wilson would be at his brother's house in Indiana and he
knew where that was so it's a setup it's a walk-off it's a walk-off now in the year that followed
Gary would actually struggle with a lot of guilt and a lot of Shame he felt like
he had betrayed his friend which I don't think he betrayed his friend in any stretch of the imagination but I can
understand why it might feel that way they had been best friends for a long time and now he did the right thing but
he feels like he made a mistake sure he didn't but I can understand why you would feel that way I can understand
that it sucks to be in that situation yeah but like you shouldn't feel guilt he literally brutally murdered a woman
exactly but his guilt got so bad that he was having nightmares he went to a psychiatrist on multiple occasions and
on New Year's Eve in 1973 he actually flew to San Francisco he got a large amount of sleeping pills and he took
them in a park that night fully intent on ending his own life oh wow it wasn't successful he lived but it marked a
full-blown transformation in him he decided to move forward in life confident that he had done the right
thing from that day forward good it's not amazing I mean I hate that it took that me too like jeez I hate that it
came to that but like I'm glad he could finally accept that like you did nothing
wrong like you did like the right thing like you should have told you should have told earlier to be quite honest but
I'm I'm one I think maybe that could I'm sure that mixed along with it but it's like you did the right thing you told
using forward and I'm happy that he was able to kind of get like a second chance
yeah I'm glad that he was able to move forward and be like I did the right thing with a clear contract because
someone [ __ ] this piece of [ __ ] John have your have guilt hell no like no he's not worth it so on January 9th
detective John Lafferty and Patrick Toomey arrived in uh Indianapolis and they arrived at the home of John Wayne
Wilson's brother a little after nine in the morning and they were able to arrest
John without incident good the investigator spent almost all day talking with him and they learned about
the 23 year old's history he was only 23. Jesus he had inconsistent employment he lived everywhere and he had a notable
criminal history in May of 1969 he was arrested in Florida for disorderly conduct he was convicted and served 10
days in jail on June 1st 1969 so like pretty much right when he was arrested or right when he got out he was arrested
and charged for larceny in Kansas City and he served two years in jail well and then in the spring of 1971 he was
actually arrested three separate times in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas for petty theft of alcohol small amounts
of cash that he had stolen from stores and houses and he was sentenced to a longer prison sentence but he actually
escaped from jail on July 6 which was six months before he murdered Roseanne Quinn oh wow so he was on the run when
he murdered her wow like should have been in jail that's even worse how [ __ ] is that
[Music] oh so Lafferty and to me those detectives they returned to New York with John
Wilson the following day a little after 3 30 and he was taken to the 20th Precinct where he was formally booked
for the first degree murder of Roseanne Quinn once he was booked and photographed he was taken before a judge
in Criminal Court he was indicted and he was ordered held without bail pending a
psychiatric evaluation so his arrest generated a ton of curiosity among the press and the public for one thing it
was significant for somebody so young that his criminal history consisted mostly of petty theft and non-violent
crime to suddenly escalate like this exactly yeah like that's wild family and friends described him as an
easy going and didn't care kind of guy but they said he was never violent like this was insane to them wow but that
being said his father told reporters that on two occasions he and his wife like so his parents had actually become
concerned enough about his mental health that they took him to the Madison State
Hospital for an evaluation two times oh okay but both times he said quote nothing was found wrong with the boy oh
boy isn't that interesting yeah so emotional difficulties and poor interpersonal skills continued for
Wilson into his late teens and early 20s in 1969 he actually got married to a woman named Kathy and he had two
children with her before divorcing oh this man's a father Yelp in 1971 but he abandoned his child of course he did he
left them and he married again in March of 1972 this time to a 17 year old named
candy who he was still married to at the time of his arrest oh yeah so the absence of a History of Violence
or aggression in his past actually only served to deepen the mystery and baffle the press in public as to what the [ __ ]
could have happened to transform him this seemingly mild-mannered man into a rage-fueled killer like they were like
what the [ __ ] like that can just happen now investigators and this is nuts they
actually developed kind of a fondness for him like they it reminded me of the case that you just covered the Clutter
family murders yeah they they like felt for him one detective later said I guess
we all felt a bit protective of him I told him he could put his coat up over his head and hide from the photographer
guys we gotta stop doing that like we gotta stop you and murdered a woman and that I
think it speaks so much to the time that they were in it was like yeah I know you
murdered that girl but it really sucks that you're going on trial for it why don't you hide your face but we'll
plaster her face in every newspaper and talk about what a crazy woman of the night she was and how she invited this
and how it wasn't this poor guy's fault it was hurtful exactly and letting him spin that story about how she sat there
and like berated him about not being able to get it up like I don't think she did I don't think she did and even if
she did and even if she made like some kind of joke I'm sure she wasn't berating you about it and also get up
and walk the [ __ ] out no you like being killed someone because they make fun of
you no and so yeah so he's like the the detective told him he could hide and Wilson insisted he was gonna take it
like a man he said oh yeah like this isn't like that kind of stuff you can't grow for your manliness you're here
cause you killed a woman take it like a man but still even the district attorney
Frank Hogan who never who excuse me who made a point of never developing any kind of opinion of the individuals that
he was Prosecuting he said Wilson was pleasant enough and very Cooperative but at the same time noted that he had no
feelings no remorse he didn't care he didn't care about anything so it's very easy to be pleasant and Cooperative when
you're a [ __ ] robot like exactly yeah of course he was he's remorseless and emotionless exactly easy it's on it's
just bananas I love how it's like highlighting his good points it's just crazy that they're like hide your face
sweet boy yeah we don't want people to be mean to you you don't deserve this you're on trial for murder of course you
do ask you kill the woman so stupid it's around 9 30 then I thought he was extradited all the interviews were done
and administrative requirements were all squared away he was taken to the or he was taken from the 20th Precinct to the
Manhattan House of detention for men which is otherwise referred to as the tombs oh and he would sit there while he
awaited his trial date damn so about one month after his arrest in Indiana his lawyers John lanuzzi and
Aaron heif I believe filed a motion with the Supreme Court Justice who at the time was Gerald P Culkin and they
indicated that their uh that they were intending to rely on Section 3005 of the New York Penal Code which quote provides
that evidence of a mental disease or defect excludes a person from Criminal responsibility in other words they were
going for the inside so the pre-trial hearing was set for February 15th and their client had
actually recently undergone a psychiatric evaluation and among other things the psychiatrist actually
diagnosed Wilson as schizophrenic homicidal and suicidal oh wow and their argument would also be supported by the
fact that Wilson was being held on the 10th floor of the tombs which was designated at the time as the
psychiatric ward okay so he definitely wasn't mentally well yeah his days were filled with a whole lot of nothing he
just kind of sat in his cell and didn't really talk to anybody he kept to himself sometimes he would get a call
from his mom or a letter from candy or sometimes old cell mates would write to him but he insisted that he didn't want
anybody to visit him he wouldn't take any visitors wow so on Friday May 4th he was released after a two-week stay at
Bellevue a hospital where he was being evaluated prior to his mental competency but rather than return him to his
individual cell on the 10th floor in the psychiatric ward administrators they would later claim that the 10th floor
was overcrowded so the guards returned him to a shared cell on the fourth floor which housed the general population
Wilson was given a tray of lunch which he did not eat and then he was sat down on one of the bunk beds and he wrote a
short letter to his wife candy he said this is only to let you know that I'm back at the tombs I don't know why I'm
here but I am love John Wayne the next day a little afternoon he actually ended up getting in an argument
with the guard on duty when he asked for fresh sheets the guard yelled at him for
several minutes and then went to get the sheets and threw them at him I guess through an opening in the cell and the
guard walked away Wilson started preparing the sheets in a way where he could use them to end his
life all around him the other inmates who could see what was going on in the shared cell yelled cut up cut up cut up
which is like yelling at the guards about what's happening and the two guards on duty they could hear the
inmates yelling but they took their sweet time to reach themselves I think they knew what was I think that happens
a lot Wilson was actually still alive when they got to the cell and they cut him down he had and he had hanged
himself but by the time he was able to be cut down and they laid him out on the floor he was dead wow so he had
successfully ended his life and in a room full of people in a room full of people like that's very [ __ ]
traumatic for the people that were there and back then they weren't gonna have any kind of help no of course not his
suicide actually was the sixth to occur in city jails that year so it sparked an
administrative Firestorm from the District Attorney's office and from his own lawyers they all accused the New
York Board of Corrections and its chairman who at the time was William Van Der hoovel they accused him of ignoring
the psychiatric and law enforce reports that warned of his suicidality suicidality and they said it allowed
Wilson to languish in his cell unattended and untreated even though it was known that he had mental issues yeah
so the board of Corrections though shot back in the form of a 47-page report damn accusing everyone from the district
attorney and even Wilson's own lawyers to admitting in his admitting Physicians and psychiatrists and the tombs
themselves they said they failed to properly identify the risk to the appropriate parties
whoa they didn't they did not he was at the 10th floor of the tombs for the reason that's the psychiatric floor
exactly but him ending his own life brought the Roseanne Quinn murder case to a very unsatisfying conclusion sucks
and it simultaneously robbed the Quinn family of Justice yeah absolutely his death and the administrative Fallout
kept the story in papers for a few more weeks but eventually the story just faded out of the spot yeah and it would
stay out of the spotlight for a few years but then it got revived in an unexpected way
in the mid-1970s a woman named Nora Ephron a columnist for Esquire magazine she was asked by the editors to curate
an upcoming Edition that was dedicated exclusively to women's issues so among those asked to contribute to the issue
were a novelist or excuse me was a novelist Judith Rosner and she wanted to contribute an article about Roseanne's
murder a few years earlier actually and she was given the green light to do so but when the time came to publish the
issue the editors at Esquire thought that the article was going to result in some kind of legal action being taken
against them by the family uh so they refused to to put it in there completely but Rosner she was really she really
wanted to get the story out there so she decided yes persistent so she decided to
actually develop her article into a fictional account of the story which she later published as the novel Looking for
Mr Goodbar oh that's what this is based on I've never seen that have you no I haven't seen it have you
none of us have seen it but like the investigation and press surrounding the case that inspired for it listed Looking
for Mr Goodbar presented the story where it's heavily implied that the main character's murder is her own fault
awesome yeah that's what we're looking for the result of her sexually liberated lifestyle and it could have been avoided
if she had used better judgment cool that uh message was carried into the 1977 film adaptation which actually
Stars Diane Keaton and Richard Gere I was just looking I'm like damn yeah in his positive review of the film Roger
Ebert points out that the main character Terry Dunn is quote looking for a combination of good times good sex and a
father figure but she isn't looking for danger mistreatment or death at the same time though he was quick to
point out that Dunn is at least partially responsible for her own death saying promiscuous young women who
frequent pickup bars and go home with strangers are likely to get into trouble isn't that just so funny that it's like
it's their fault but it's like we're definitely not going to look at or try to remedy the man problem there like
we're definitely not going to touch to that we're gonna say women who do this are in danger yeah that said it's like
okay so can we can we take a little like like side step over and start talking about like the root of that issue which
is yeah the Mayans you literally it's like you're walking me into my next step okay because it just it shocks me that
we're not like yeah maybe we need to start thinking about how we're raising these guys and like what's going on and
like how we're allowing them to it's wild to me yeah I know it's insane just like the press the investigators before
rosin or Ebert and everybody else with similar understandings of her story completely overlooked the fact that
Roseanne's murder could have been avoided had John Wayne Wilson not murdered her exactly like that's all it
comes down to that's what kills me like we don't look at that we look at what she did to get murdered and it's like no
no can we just talk about how like he probably shouldn't be a murderer yeah that that would be the thing that would
fix all of this exactly and the thing is it's easy to kind of like dismiss this and I actually am guilty of doing it
throughout this episode we're dismissing the victim blaming and the slut-shaming
comments as like old-fashioned and it's such a a product of its time it's not though but that conversation is still
happening to this day oh yeah stay we're still victim absolutely or not but people still are yeah people like it's
wild yeah it happens everywhere at all times it's a persistent narrative it's really just like so sad in 1973 just to
like end this Roseanne Quinn's life held such promise she had such a bright future ahead of her she found a way into
a career that she loved working with deaf children she found her way into a great group of friends who appreciated
her accepted her for who she was and she discovered that she could have an active
sex life without the traditional patriarchal structure yeah and she was willing to do so
but back then and even [ __ ] today people are still judging her and all of us good time gals like her all the all
of us good time yes good time gals it's a bunch of crap that's a bunch of is what it is Malaki it's a bunch of
[ __ ] and it really bums me out because she seemed like such a cool girl and just to have
this be like the mark that she left I don't think that's what she would have wanted no and it sucks like that sucks
that this is all that gets talked about and that that movie was made that kind of further pushed that narrative into it
I know and I love Diane Keaton she's like I do too but now I want to watch it just to kind of like see it for myself I
hate it I do too it's like really sad and it really it like breaks my heart that her family was never able yeah
first of all never able to get any kind of justice and then that movie ended up kind of furthering The Narrative that it
was her fault exactly and that sucks exactly it's a really sad case that's a really sad case yeah I feel like she was
just brutalized in life and in death yeah truly it's like they didn't let her rest so stop judging people is the moral
of the story yeah don't judge people let let good time gals be good time gals and
maybe just don't be a murderer yeah don't [ __ ] murder people that's a great way to avoid this stuff is don't
be a murderer because that's the thing that people are missing like you should be able to go out and have a good time
and do what you want to do as a liberated free woman yeah and go home and be able to share the story with your
girlfriends the next day that's the thing it's like it doesn't have to do with you being who you are it has to do
with you shouldn't have to worry about coming in contact with a murderer like that's not it shouldn't be like well I
can't do what I want to do because that man could murder me but sadly it's so true for all of us it is have you seen
my keys exactly I have like a pokey thingy that could stab somebody in the eyes are wild I have a personal alarm on
my keys based on my keys and I'm always walking around the Target parking lot holding that dagger like [ __ ] with me
yeah at one point I drove Ash's car somewhere oh my God and I had to take the key off the the big giant chain
because I was like I literally can't bring this inside because it's so loud and heavy because there's so many
different jangly large things you would have been so protected girl I was like this is very loud it is pretty uncommon
but it's protective it is it's very protective remember when we were driving and I accidentally set off the personal
alarm and I couldn't figure out I thought I was gonna fly through a window I was like what just happened I thought
the same yeah but necessary because unfortunately people be murdering people people are murderers unfortunately
unfortunately we are the people that are most often yeah like women are the victims of that crime yeah so rip
Roseanne I know and um guys we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird that you blame a
girl for her own death when really it was the motherfucker's fault who killed her yeah don't do that love you bye bye
oh [Music] hey Prime members you can listen to morbid early and ad-free on Amazon music
download the Amazon music app today or you can listen ad-free with wondery plus and apple podcasts before you go tell us
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Roseann Quinn was a young, single school teacher working at St. Joseph’s School for the Deaf and pursuing a graduate degree that would help her advance her career. She was independent and had a bright future. Then on January 2, 1973, she was brutally murdered in her New York apartment by a man she met at a neighborhood bar. Her death would become a talking point for those against the Woman’s Liberation Movement—citing her "high-risk" lifestyle as the catalyst for her own demise. Of course, we know that the only one to blame here is the vicious killer himself, and Roseann Quinn was merely a symbol for his rage.

Associated Press. 1973. ""Murdered teacher was dedicated to her work with deaf children." Reporter Dispatch, January 5: 2.

Churcher, Sharon. 1999. ""Could Sex and the City lead to murder?"" Mail on Sunday, February 14.

Ebert, Roger. 1977. Looking for Mr. Goodbar. January 1. Accessed February 8, 2023. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/looking-for-mr-goodbar-1977.

Fosburgh, Lacey. 1977. Closing Time: The True Story of the ""Looking for Mr. Goodbar"" Murder. New York, NY: Dellacorte Press.—. 1973.

""A man seen with teacher on slaying night is sought."" New York Times, January 6: 16.—. 1973.

""Suspect seized in Indiana in teacher's slaying here."" New York Times, January 10: 1.

Gelb, Arthur. 2003. City Room. New York, NY: Putnam.

Kaufman, Michael. 1973. ""Teacher, 28, slain in her apartment on West 72d Street."" New York Times, January 5: 1.

Knight, Michael. 1973. ""Suspect in killing of a teacher on West Side hangs himself."" New York Times, May 6.

McFadden, Robert. 1973. ""Police issue a sketch of witness they hope will identify killer of teacher."" New York Times, January 7: 39.New York Times. 1973.

""Insanity defense planned in killing of teacher here."" New York Times, February 2: 14.

Weisman, Steven R. 1973. ""Corrections board assails city aides on Tombs suicide."" New York Times, July 22: 33.

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Brief Summary

The episode covers the murder of Roseanne Quinn and the victim-blaming narrative surrounding her case in 1973 New York City.

Key points

The Murder of Roseanne Quinn. Roseanne Quinn's tragic story highlights the dangers faced by women in the 70s.
Empowerment vs. Recklessness. Roseanne's lifestyle sparked debates about women's liberation in the 70s.
A Life Interrupted. Roseanne's childhood was marked by polio, shaping her self-image and future.
The Night of the Murder. Roseanne and John were seen together before her tragic death. By morning, she would be dead.
Brutal Crime Scene. Roseanne's apartment was found in disarray, her body brutally mutilated, raising alarms for investigators.
Judgmental Investigation. Detectives focused on Roseanne's personal life, ignoring broader possibilities for her murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She was just having a good time.

Describing Roseanne's carefree lifestyle.

6:38WatchMar 7, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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