Veronica Gedeon & the Easter Sunday Murders (Part 1) Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm [ __ ] okay leave it in hey weirdos I'm Elena and I'm Ash this is morbid
[Music] it's Friday so we're like hella unhinged in the office very unhinged going we're
going cray cray today day I also just pulled out of my what is that weirdo a um picture of a cricket that my youngest
Drew for me and it's the most uh unhinged and adorable looking Cricket I've ever seen I can't even see it from
here cuz the green is very light I just see a Long Branch perhaps very happy little Cricket she greeted me
this morning she goes Titi which cat do you like and just showed me a picture of
two cats and I picked the one I like and she goes okay and then she just whips a
pair of scissors out cuts it out and hands it to me that was her thing this morning I made this for you I made this
for you I was like all right good morning thank you yeah now that I just pulled it out of my pocket cuz I felt it
like rustling and she had asked me and John this morning like first thing like welcome to Parenthood everybody like
first thing you just hear would you like a cricket a worm a centipede a spider or
a ladybug for a pet and me and John both go ladybug at the same time and she goes
only one of you can have it and John said ladybug and I was like damn it and I was like all right I guess I'll take a
worm and she was like worm is mine and I was like why did you offer it then okay
and I was like I I don't want any of those other ones and she was like you get a cricket what about Cricket
crickets aren't bad crickets are ugly when you really look at a cricket they're also loud yeah like have you
ever had a cricket locked in your house yeah you it's a form of torture I'm sorry do you remember the day that we
were cleaning Ma's room in a [ __ ] Cricut just yes like dive bombed at me and tried to live inside of me crickets
are no joke like that one was beautiful I love the sound of crickets outside I don't want it in my house but Google a
snow wasn't it a snow Cricket yeah maybe maybe that's those are beautiful how I get out of it maybe I just be very
specific about the type of cricket yeah it's called manifestation look it up there is like a a cricket I didn't even
mean to do this like what a seg I'm a segue Ken right now there's a cricet infestation happening what somewhere in
the United States right now it's like it's like a migration or something but they're like Mormon crickets they're
called and I think they're like reddish color they're like very Tick Tock it guys people are taking video of it no
it's horrifying it's like the end times like people can't come out of their house people are Lo like they're
literally like a blanket of crickets is covering the side of their house oh my God it's the end times don't say
that to me I already me like it looks like the end times but it's not it's a normal thank you of nature speaking of
the end times though since we're on the [ __ ] subject and this is going I'm U let me just from the jump here this is
going to sound absolutely unhinged but it's a genuine concern of mine and it's a genuine thing that I have been
experiencing lately and I need to know if other people are experiencing it I exp I've experienced it with you
multiple times in like the past couple weeks birds are [ __ ] Wily lately yeah birds are being weird birds are just
going right in front of your car like flying in front of your car trying to get you to hit them it happened to me
this morning again on the way to your house and I was like why are you trying to make me kill you I don't want to do
that yeah you're right I've seen it happen a couple of times like bad lately bad I will say my crows are are doing
okay yeah no they're acting totally fine they're not acting a fool I have a lot of crows in my neighborhood all of a
sudden because they're like hey we're family do you think they're like following me from your house like
there's like multiple families of them maybe damn my crows are real guys no they are genuinely they're really my
crows now yeah they are my family did you leave them anything um I started feeding them that's good yeah so I have
little you have to I want you to like leave them a treasure though cuz they'll bring you back a treasure yeah I want to
do that that's that's fun I want us to have that kind of relationship you know there was one that would bring like oh
no I'm sorry that was a squirrel you're like we we don't want those I don't want
a squirrel No squirrels are far too common I want a murder of crows you know I just have a lot of cats
personally I thought you were going to say I just have a lot of feelings those two I do have a lot of feelings I have a
lot of a lot going on all right but that's where we are on this Friday yeah weird un a fun Journey kids crickets and
birds yeah gross there you go and MERS which we're going to talk about legiate ones here there you go segueing right in
I have a very interesting today it's uh Veronica Gideon and the Easter Sunday murders I do not know this no you don't
I do not um I looked up like 1920s 1930s crimes to get in a place of like I really was looking for something like
ash like socialy kind of thing and I ended up with a model o Veronica's a model okay but it begins with her
parents okay mhm so in many ways the lives of Joseph and Mary Gideon her parents were like a lot of other
immigrants who had come to to the United States just before the outbreak of World
War I Joseph Gideon left Hungary in the early 1900s and he moved to New York a short time later not long after arriving
in the US in New York he met Mary katosi I hope I said that right she also immigrated from Hungary like right
around the same time so they bonded over that shared experience and culture and after dating for a little while they got
married in 1908 and they moved to atoria and queens a few years after marrying Mary gave birth to the first of the
couple's two children a girl that they named Ethel and then a few years later in 1917 Mary gave birth to a second girl
who they named Veronica but she went by Ronnie which I love oh that's really cute also this entire time all I can
think of is The Veronicas I feel so untouched you know that song I do I remember that I also it
makes me think of a Gilmore Girls episode when she goes to when Rory goes to college and they spell her name wrong
on her ID and they call her and it's spelled Ronnie and she was like Ronnie is not even slightly short for any
girl's name on the entire planet and Laura says Veronica but like that's not helping and because she's like freaking
out and it made me think of that I love that I also love that you can find any Sabrina the Teenage wge Gilmore Girls or
there's another show too Boy Meets World I can usually yeah I can usually hit all
those with references yeah I love that that the amount of like um like movie or TV quotes that stick in my mind mind
Yeahs other things it's alarming isn't that the worst when like things like that stay like yeah like I can recite
that entire scene we played out of your mind this morning I know all the words yeah that see that's wild and I I don't
even know when that song came out like early alss but ask me what I had for dinner last night and I couldn't [ __ ]
tell you tell you yeah anyway Ronnie is a nickname for Veronica and that's what Veronica used very cute the girls were
both really beautiful in appearance but they ended up being very different in their personalities Ethel was always
kind of somewhat Stern uh but Ronnie was more Carefree more fun she had like a a very wild Soul since
Joe Gideon had arrived in the US when he was still fairly young he didn't have a
ton of marketable skills and so in the early years of their marriage he relied on kind of just various odd jobs to
support himself and his new family he worked as a janitor a bartender an industrial painter and although the work
was somewhat menial they were able to live modestly and after just a few years they were able to combine their savings
with a small dowy that Mary bought brought to the marriage dowry that's wild I know early 1900s bro and with
their combined savings they were able to purchase a little bit of a rundown Brownstone but nonetheless a [ __ ]
Brownstone a brownstone in Manhattan yeah on East 53rd Street so they moved into the first floor of the building and
then they rented out the upstairs rooms to the borders and for a little bit of time I love this Joe operated a Speak
Easy in the basement because [ __ ] 1920s anytime you bring a speak EAS easy into my world I'm just there for it
there for it I love a Speak Easy I love a Speak Easy now and love easy like there's I sorry we're very tangent to
you today but it's just it's Friday you know Friday uh I saw that there there's a vampire Cafe in New Orleans what yeah
and you can drink like you get a a drink in a blood bag okay I told John this last night and he was like I don't want
to do that and I was like I do do you know somebody who does though and he was like I do do you know anybody I was like
let's be real is she sitting right in front of you asking you to love her do you know someone who wants to drink out
of a bud bag yeah you do you married her uh but I was but also there's a Speak Easy associated with it that you get
like a card and then you have to go to a separate place and like show them the card and they let you into the speak e
that's so cool and that is so [ __ ] cool to me there's one in Hudson and um it's in it like looks like an an ice
cream shop in the front like it is an ice cream shop in the front and then you have to like go to this special door and
me and Drew went to it one time I forget the word that you have to say but you have to like or it's like a question you
have to ask and they like kind of lead you into it to but you have to figure it out and it's fun I love it I love a
Speak Easy moment we need more make them everywhere let's open a Speak Easy let's
open a speaky no that restaurant business is crazy yeah no [ __ ] that I mean like good for you if you want a
restaurant hard like shit's real hard that's cry anyway for a short time he did operate a Speak Easy in the basement
but unfortunately it was shortlived because that was when you like kind of weren't allowed to and that was the
whole vibe lame lame local police shut it down prohibition so without the income from the Speak Easy Joe was
forced to fall back on the only skill he really like had that he could maintain and was like actually very good at which
was upholstery so he opened a shop a few blocks from the apartment Ander shop quite a skill it is yeah it especially
back then that was like a great skill to have he could do a lot with that so in time Joe built up his uh upholstery
business business and the income provided Financial Security for the family but behind closed doors domestic
life was their specific domestic life was one of conflict and dysfunction unfortunately no I was really hoping
that wasn't the case I know cuz they like in the beginning great a you're really like putting your pennies
together and making this work and you got two beautiful daughters and then damn it conflict bummer yeah cuz the
thing was like many men of his generation Joe was a strict disciplinarian and he had a very rigid
personality he saw little value in things like fun and social activities oh he said the [ __ ] is that for he said
none of that he said no get a job live your life don't have fun what's fun jump rope as far as he saw it the culture of
his adopted country was far too permissive and he rallied against the quote unquote rotten American System
where children laugh at their parents and start running wild before they cut their
teeth I mean yeah like kids run wild it's giving Kim from Gilmore Girls it really is what the [ __ ] are you guys
doing what the [ __ ] are you doing get these kids together yeah so Joe's rigidity and personality usually uh
caused tension in the relationship that he had with his very American daughters cuz they were born there being raised
there and had friends there and everything uh specifically Ronnie she was a lot more stubborn she was wild she
was quote unquote boy crazy far much more than her sister Ethel I mean their names are kind of fitting for their
personalities I feel kind of just like did that to them that's on you dog yeah and well and
also she's the little sister the little sister's always crazy of course the youngest is always going to be the crazy
the way it goes but Ronnie she saw her father as spineless and irresponsible that's a quote damn and at times it
seemed that she may have gone out of her way to defy him by staying out past her
curfew coming home drunk which her father respond responded to with quote unquote corporal punishment so he okay
so which was something that was going on at the time yeah you know not okay in any
way but it very much accepted in the time though it was not outside of the norm yeah so desperate to escape her
abusive and oppressive really father Ronnie dropped out of high school after just three semesters and enrolled in
beautician or what we would call cosmetology school today her goal was to get training as a hairdresser but where
she went the Muller butiti program they provided training on a wide range of subjects from hair styling to treatment
for scalp and skin diseases it seems like a really good school but the program proved itself to be far more
rigorous and complicated than what Ronnie was really looking for so after just 6 months of training she quit and
just kind of vibed in unemployment for a while she was still young at you know fun employment there you go now a few
years later in the spring of 1933 Ronnie tried again to get away from her parents
This Time by marrying Bobby flowers he was a friend of the family whose parents owned a bowling alley in the
neighborhood not surprisingly the teenage marriage was something of a disaster you don't say it's crazy and
after just a few months the couple had the marriage and nuled and Ronnie ended up moving back in with her parents I
think it was early 1934 now even though the marriage itself didn't last very long it did seem like
it was the final Act of defiance that Joe Gideon was willing to tolerate but rather than kick his daughter out of the
house he actually was the one who opted to leave the family he told he left the house he told his
friends that he was tired of the Disobedience and the fact that his wife always took Ronnie's side instead of his
so he packed a bag and went to live in a small corner of his upholstery shop interesting just did he was like you
interesting response you know what ladies I'm good ladies I've had enough of you women wow wow Joe yeah here here
I was rooting for you with your with your Speak Easy I know right you know I mean at least he didn't kick his teenage
daughter out I guess yeah absolutely I mean that's a plus and he's still like like he maintained a relationship with
his family he just stayed mostly at the upholstery shop okay so it was an interesting dynamic in in the 30s in the
30s [ __ ] was complicated yeah this is also like mid Great Depression too as soon as you said [ __ ] was complicated I
my brain just went 30s and then it was like where are we de yeah so you know everybody
feeling things walking on eggshells kind of Vibes that that we don't know what it
feels like so you know very essive time it is so it turned out that Joe's departure was just the first major
change for the Gideon family not long after her father moved out Ethel who was actually coming off of her own brief
teenage marriage oh my decided to start planning for her future her future excuse me and enrolled herself in
secretarial courses at Hunter College those courses actually eventually led her to Vanity Fair where she quickly
Rose through the ranks and became the personal secretary of the Magazine's editor at the time Helen nordon good for
you Ethel right just like bang bang boom I love that Ethel just was like you know
what I would like to start planning for the future and then she was like baboom and just went on like a trajectory to
Vanity Fair good for you insane and around that same time she had been introduced to a man named Joe I think
it's cner he was a friend of the family and an aspiring lawyer so like boy with a good head on his shoulders hey look at
that now had recently been flirty with her mother's uh her mother Mary's last border he was an yeah she was just young
and getting it this guy was an unemployed sculptor so she didn't really see him as a viable husband yeah but
just flirt with him yeah flirt with the hot artist or I don't know if he was hot
but for Ethel's sake I hope he was yeah you know you know but she was like uh aspiring sculptor aspiring lawyer what
am I going to pick here in the mid-30s in the mid-30s during the Great Depression lawyer so in June of 1936
after after dating for a while she and Joe cner were married in a small ceremony in Manhattan and she said Peace
Out sculptor bye now with Joe and Ethel both out of the house the multif family Brownstone on East 53rd Street was way
too big way too hard to manage for just Mary and Ronnie who had moved back home at this point so they moved to a much
more affordable fourth floor walk up on East 50th Street their previous home like the bigger one on 53rd Street it
hadn't it wasn't a lot to speak of but honestly it was a man compared to the quote unquote cramped and dimly lit
apartment on 53rd Street that's tough yeah the new apartment consisted of three very small bedrooms a kitchen and
a combination dining and living area so it was tight quarters in there yeah but despite that extremely limited amount of
space Mary still insisted on having a border to help with the rent she was like I'm not paying this whole [ __ ]
rent by myself D all right so the cramped accommodations of the new apartment probably would have been
unbearable but Ronnie's new work and social schedule kept her occupied on most nights through her sister Ronnie
had actually made the acquaintance of a p a magazine publisher at kast oh [ __ ]
who was taken with her beauty and suggested that she model for his daughter an aspiring artist oh wow look
at these cows I know like just using their connections and at that point Ronnie didn't have a job so she was like
hell yeah yeah and literally within a few months she became a working model she was posing for artists photographers
and her most lucrative work serving as the model for lurd covers of detective fiction magazines oh yeah so like a like
a pulp model of the time yeah and very interesting where those magazines take some people yeah like we've had we've
had many criminals who are very interested in this one we just uh recently spoke of yeah so interesting
and Harvey Harvey glatman yeah yep we had a few yeah that's how he would lure people there was there's a few that were
very into those magazines they were troubling it makes sense yeah and it I were the I don't know like a lot about
those magazines were they like they were pretty like normal magazines where like
girls were just posing as detectives or it was just like you know detective fiction kind of thing so it was very
like over the toop very like um like newr kind of the old black and white yeah but it was just the um the visuals
I think were two weird things like two things and making a yeah I think it was like I
mean it was obviously like people with a healthy mind could read those and move on with their life an unhealthy mind
took it to a place so it's not the magazines I would say it's like the person reading them yeah that makes
sense so yeah that's what she was doing she was just modeling for a bunch of different stuff including those sure
that was the heavy paying thing I'm sure yeah it sounds like it was so now even though Ethel had moved out and Joe's
relationship with his family was still challenging The Gideons particularly Joe and Mary actually made a point of
staying in contact and insisted on spending major holidays together okay well that's nice yeah and I feel like
really big for the time you know what I mean that's pretty that's pretty big yeah like we're going to stay together
for holidays like our family unit is important but disfunctional butun but definitely yeah it's nice that they were
trying to stay together in some capacity yeah and aside from that Joe's a holstery shop also had no place to bathe
so keeping on good terms with his wife meant that he could use her apartment to bathe every couple weeks when usual
routine of washing himself and just the sink wouldn't cut it yeah I I mean a bath is nice stay on good terms for a
nice show every once in a while valid yeah in the early afternoon of March 28th 1937 Joe woke up late and started
making his way to Mary and Ronnie's apartment to have Easter dinner on this day he was particularly eager to see
everybody because he and Mary had recently decided to reconcile oh wow and they were going to tell Ronnie and Ethel
over dinner like we're getting back together wow I didn't see that coming I know so he reached the apartment
building around 2: p.m. arriving just a couple moments before eth Ethel and her husband showed up and Joe rang the bell
for Mary's apartment waited to be buzzed in but nothing happened he was just about Turing the Bell again when one of
the tenants was leaving the building and held the door open for them to enter so
unsure whether or not his wife and daughter were home Joe Joe told Ethel and her husband just like hang on wait
in the lobby and I'll run up the four flights and see if they're home like why climb the four flights of stairs if you
don't have to yeah so he climbed up the four flights knocked on the door when he
reached Mary and Ronnie's apartment and when no one answered he tried the door which wasn't just unlocked but also
slightly a jar oh that's always a bad sign yeah inside he was greeted by another pretty awful sign um Tucci
Ronnie's uh pecking dog I think that's how you say it Peck came over to him like nervously and then just crawled
beneath the living room couch so like clearly was off something was off now Mary 100% knew that the family was
coming over and would have at least started preparing dinner by this point but in the kitchen Joe found only the
ingredients for dinner which seemed to have been sitting out on the counter all night oh no so like something was very
off here and the abandoned feeling of the apartment was starting to make him feel really uneasy but what he really
noticed was how eerily silent everything was like you could hear a pin drop in there yeah so he moved to the main
bedroom where everything was equally undisturbed the bed was neatly made everything was as orderly as he had come
to expect from his wife she was a very neat person yeah but there was however what appeared to be a broken up bar of
soap on the floor and that was strange now stepping over the soap Joe walked from the main bedroom to the adjacent
room and pushed the door open slightly which is when he saw the nude body of his daughter lying dead across the bed
Veronica Ronnie Joe didn't need to touch her to know that Ronnie was dead her skin at that point had taken on a
slightly blue tinge a stark contract to the bruises on her neck and her eyes were open just staring lifelessly at the
ceiling oh so absolutely horrified he quickly backed out of the room and entered the third bedroom where he found
the body of Mary's border Frank Burns dead in his bed he had a blanket covering everything but his head which
was just caked in blood and gore what the [ __ ] so Joe ran down the stairs from
the apartment where his daughter and son-in-law were still waiting in the Bobby and he screamed to them they're
all dead murdered what the where's Mary you'll find out oh no so they went back up to the apartment all together and
Ethel just sat in the kitchen sobbing while her father and husband continued looking around the the apartment cuz
nobody knows where Mary is after just a few minutes it dawned on Ethel that wait
nobody knows where Mary is like what's going on here so they're trying to figure it out and Joe suggested maybe
she went to the nearest precinct for help like maybe she She Came Upon the scene too and ran to get help damn so it
was then decided that Joe would go check for Mary his wife at the station while Ethel and her husband called the police
and waited at the apartment for them to arrive which I can't imagine having to sit in that apartment cuz remember it's
a tiny cramped apartment yeah where your sister's dead in one room a border B is
dead in his and your mom's missing and you're just waiting for the police to show up and that poor dog was scared and
he was so scared yeah so detective Martin Owens and William Gil Martin were the first to arrive at the apartment
just a short time later among the first thing they noticed was that other than the two dead bodies the apartment
appeared to be completely undisturbed there was no sign of forced entry really no sign of a struggle it was like the
killer had been let into the apartment and the victims really didn't offer any resistance when he attacked huh
detective Gil Martin entered the room where Ronnie's body lay and as he looked around he noticed that something was
sticking out from underneath the bed crouching down to look beneath he found the body of Mary Gideon oh no she was
fully clothed but it did look like her underwear had been torn and she too had been strangled holy [ __ ] less than an
hour later the apartment was packed with detectives Patrol officers the district
attorney and of course because it's the 1930s a slew of photographers some of them with the police but most of them
just from the Press of course aside from the bar of soap crumbled on the floor nothing seemed to be out of place or
disturbed but Ethel did notice that a small green alarm clock that Ronnie kept on her dresser was missing from the room
hm otherwise nothing had been taken and anything valuable was just literally sitting right out in the open all things
considered the investigators were quick to conclude that whatever this was it wasn't motivated by robbery that was
very clear that's interesting so a preliminary examination of the bodies revealed that Frank Burns's death had
been quick and likely happened while he was sleeping he'd been laying on his side when the killer crept into the
bedroom and delivered 11 quick stabs in the head and neck with a long pointed instrument that they believed to be an
ice pick or something very like it damn there was no way to determine the order where in which the wounds were inflicted
but the fatal wound was delivered to the base of the skull quote unquote just below the foran Magnum foran Magnum
that's hard to say and that's where the spinal cord enters the skull so that would have killed him instantly yeah uh
later it was learned that he was deaf in one ear and he was laying on the side of
his good ear so he didn't even hear that's why he didn't wake up when the others were being murdered oh man yeah
both Mary and Ronnie died by manual strangulation and it says the Killer's hands applying such for force that Miss
Gideon's thyroid cage was torn while Ronnie's throat so showed signs of hemorrhage in the larynx and muscles of
the neck holy [ __ ] that takes a lot of strength and a lot of like determination
and to think at least one of them was was being strangled while another was nearby you know and to think that like
they weren't able to stop that person you would assume that's a big scary [ __ ] person but Mary's knuckles were
really badly bruised indicating that she put up a big fight against this attacker
oh man and finally although they wouldn't be able to know for sure until an autopsy had been completed given that
Ronnie was discovered nude and Mary's underwear had been torn Detectives assumed at least one if not both women
had been sexually assaulted oh that's awful unfortunately with the exception of the missing clock and a few strands
of gray hair found in Ronnie's hand the scene was very light on evidence and leads but there was one thing that
investigators found curious as soon as detectives arrived at the apartment Tucci the dog had been barking nonstop
in a loud shrill tone to the point where the ASPCA actually had to come remove him from the
apartment and according to the neighbors this was a common occurrence anytime somebody new or unfamiliar came to the
apartment but none of them recalled hearing that dog barking at any time the previous evening oh that's interesting
so it supported the theory that whoever the killer was they had been to the apartment before at least enough that
they would have been recognized by the dog and assumingly L into the apartment cuz no sign of a struggle but like the
lack of evidence in the apartment a canvas of the neighbors proved pretty equally unhelpful one man who lived two
floors below Mary recalled hearing a scream around 11: p.m. followed by a brief scuffle I it's always wild to me
when people are like yeah I heard this woman scream was crazy I didn't do anything and it's like okay what what
and this guy was like not quite sure what he heard so he stuck his head out the window to listen for further sounds
like he heard something enough that he was like wait what the [ __ ] was that but
then he didn't hear anything following that so he just went back to bed like what the [ __ ] just like I could I feel
like I couldn't go back to bed after either I don't maybe that's just me yeah maybe that's just us another neighbor
Charles Robinson reported that he'd come home late a little after 2: a.m. and noticed that the Gideon's door was a jar
but as and this is so [ __ ] creepy he said as he passed by the door slowly began to close as if someone were behind
it oh shut the [ __ ] up and he said I don't know there was something about the way that door started to close that gave
me the creeps and I beat it to the sixth floor as fast as I could and that's a gross ass man yeah not blame on that one
I would do the same thing there's no like violence that you can hear you're just like something about that that's
just like I just don't like that that's strange and so creepy so while the apartment yielded frustratingly few
Clues detectives did find Ronnie's diary which they hoped might include some information on who she was with the
night of the murder in addition to containing a long list of phone numbers the diary entri is actually dated back
to 1932 and they were surprisingly detailed but most importantly were the most recent entries referring to
somebody that Ronnie only referred to as b h just the letter B who's B yep as one
of the detectives slipped through the pages of the Diary the phone in the kitchen actually rang so detective
Charlie mcgallen was standing closest to it and picked up the receiver and the man on the other end asked to speak to
Ronnie McOwen explained that she wasn't available and after identifying himself as an NYPD detective he asked for the
names the man's name and address the man said his name was Steven butter m M and
he had been out with Ronnie the night before Oh so thinking that they may have found the be referenced in the diary
detectives rushed over to Butter's apartment just a short distance away and immediately brought him down to the
precinct for questioning are you butter who are you but because the detective on the phone
and the officers who escorted him to the precinct had given him literally no indication about what this was all about
he had no idea why they wanted to see him or talk to him when they got to the precinct he could tell from the
reporters crowded around out front that something awful had happened oh no once inside it was eth who finally told
Steven what happened to Ronnie and the others what way to find out I know from her sister from that moment that he sat
down in the interrogation room detective lions and commissioner Valentine could tell that Steven butter was not their
subject no no one who's last name butter seems like they could do something that
horrible I know butter you know yeah it's like flowers yeah you know those are just nice last names there is a
flowers yeah I remember you mentioning the flowers did I already say that you did I remember hearing the flowers name
andan flowers yeah now he was obviously and very genuinely distraught by the news of the murders he was scared of the
veteran detectives peppering him questions and he seemed eager to help in any way that he could according to
butter his best friend Lincoln Hower had gone out of town for the weekend and asked Steven to quote keep an eye on his
girlfriend Ronnie while he was away because he had no other plans and because it wouldn't hurt to be seen with
a beautiful model Steven was like sure meanwhile Steven's like Jesus yeah right what did I do he's like what a weekend
for you to go away sir originally Ronnie and Steph's plan was to get together with another one of Ronnie's friends for
dinner but when Ronnie arrived to Steven's apartment a little after 8 she was alone and just said that her friend
had to cancel so abandoning their previous plan Ronnie and Steven met up with one of his friends and they all had
dinner at a local restaurant they had some drinks Steven's friend left at about 2 a.m. a.m. and at that point he
and Ronnie went to the Monte Carlo bar and grill for another drink and he walked her home at about 3:00 a.m. wow
he told investigators he walked her right up to her apartment door on the fourth floor and they made plans to
attend Sunday mass together at 10:00 a.m. and then he just walked back to his apartment man he returned right at 10:
a.m. the next day and rang the buzzer for Ronnie's apartment but when nobody answered he returned to his apartment
and tried calling a few times throughout the afternoon oh that's why he was calling that's why he was calling
convinced that he was telling the truth the detectives let him go uh a little after 9:00 p.m. and as soon as he
stepped on onto the sidewalk reporters essentially pounced on him oh yeah I'm sure trying to get any information the
guy right so the next day as investigators started digging more and more into Ronnie's background the story
of the murders hit the paper in an insanely Sensational way in 1937 Americans were still feeling the
crushing effects of the Great Depression and welcomed any story that could distract from the reality
and the Press of course was more than happy to deliver which it's like the fact that this was like an escape from
the reality of the Great Depression is like here listen to this pulp model's horrific murder in her apartment oh her
mom was also killed and another man yeah that's an escape from the bleess of the
Great Depression well just the way they went about this was so [ __ ] up that's the
thing like the Press is so Sensational about it like they're just like hey everybody it's a pulp model like you
know like you know that was the the number one thing here it's just so gross yeah now although three people had been
murdered and investigators couldn't say which if any was the primary target the Press instantly zeroed in on Ronnie's
Beauty and her career as a model I knew it of course the New York daily news dedicated the entire front page to a
provocative photo of Ronnie with an inset photo of her lifeless dead body being removed from the apartment wow
alongside a headline that read three murders and models flat she opened the door for
death [ __ ] you don't even know if she opened the door it's also not her flat yeah you don't know anything and
it's like it's not even it wasn't just her flat of all like she was living with other people and to just be like she
opened the door for death and it's like what do you open the door when somebody knocks on it back then yeah today my God
it's like in my story that I just had last time where like the Press just says whatever they want yeah just Mak [ __ ] up
talking about Mary and Parker's kidnapping and death how they just like made up that she was like horrifically
tortured and all this [ __ ] it's like you didn't even verify that information and
it was wrong and it's already bad enough why are you dramatizing it or dramatizing it whatever the [ __ ] word
is now stop making it cray you're making it cray cray in a lurid melodramatic tone the article detailed what they
referred to as the murder of the artist's model and the other two murders that is so [ __ ] up awesome that's
[ __ ] up and they all but declared that Ronnie was the Target and Mary and Frank
were just collateral damage she like how do you know that you don't she's a model
that has to be the reason like no one else had any kind of life that could have made this happen spoiler alert it's
not the reason see so it's like we're really just actually wow wow The Daily News reported as she stepped into the
apartment the killer was thought to have dragged Ronnie into the bathroom throttled her and started ripping off
her clothes the dying Beauty was born to the room where her mother lay lifeless and thrown on the bed it's like so crazy
that you guys have all this information that the detectives don't who told you what the that just made that [ __ ] up
like detectives had no [ __ ] idea what happened there was actually no actual like signs of violence other than the
bodies themselves I was going to say cuz part of the whole thing was like nothing
looked like it was T nothing looked out of place nothing looked victims like like yeah exactly wow yeah almost every
last article was written next to picture showing Ronnie in various St states of undress because of the kind of modeling
that she did and actually would have been more at home in the pul magazines that she modeled for versus the
Metropolitan newspaper like what are you guys doing but the salacious story of a
beautiful model murdered under mysterious circumstances was just too good for the press to resist it was like
right out of one of those detective novel um magazines yes very much that soon every photographer who had ever
shot Ronnie came out of the woodwork hoping to sell their nude and semi-nude photos to the highest bidder which was
always the tabloids with the lowest standards people are always going to people it's the theme of every single
story it's at least one of the underlying themes is people are always going to people and they've always been
people in it's just [ __ ] people have been people in in the best of times and in the worst of times in all the times
there's always going to people always that's that that's imagine imagine being one of those photographers and being
like hey I got a nude picture of that dead girl it's like what the [ __ ] is wrong what goes through your bra Splash
it on the front page of your tabloid and pay me a couple of dollars for it it's like and it's like yeah I understand
that this is like a tough economic time like do you have [ __ ] morals you don't have like a soul like come like
jeez like I'm that's not lost on me that people are like very very desperate clearly but I mean selling photos or sem
nude photos of a murdered girl to be splashed onto an unethical tabloid cover is not the way to do it no but within
days of their deaths the story had become almost entirely about Ronnie and had a uh noticeably misogynistic tone
that basically just blamed her for her own death before anyone knew the details of the actual case yeah I mean she was
the one who opened the door to the killer right obviously in reality anyone who met Ronnie immediately liked her but
for those who didn't know her she became another low class nude model with a diary full of men's phone numbers yeah
that we've heard that story before and actually even Ronnie's own father didn't hesitate to pretty much slander her in
the Press Jo Joe what the [ __ ] on March 30th just one day after he'd found his
wife and daughter dead Joe Gideon gave an interview to the Daily News and told them Ronnie made fools of lots of men
one of them killed her with my wife and the Rumor and in an article that more or
less placed the blame for the murders his daughter he continued on saying it's hard to say now but Ronnie was wild and
willful girls Ronnie's age don't realize it but you can't treat men that way oh Joe oh Joe
yikes yikes Joe I have so I have a string of things that I would like to let out of my mouth right now that I'm
just going to like be a quiet [ __ ] yeah you know what just Joe shut the [ __ ] up what theut F you can't treat men
that way what kind of grieving process is this I'm like slandering your child in the press your dead murdered child
and essentially blaming her and saying that she did it cuz she cuz she made fools of men and she shouldn't have
treated men like that not men if this is a man also that's the other thing assuming this is a which I know like you
know statistically but it's like we're just like assuming this is a man that Ronnie made a quote unquote fool out of
and that you know like you don't treat men like that this is what happens it's like you get murdered so we're not going
to say men shouldn't murder people we're going to say like don't make men feel bad women be subservient or else you'll
get killed if you make them feel bad they'll come and murder you and it's like can we maybe say don't do the
murdering part no okay got it okay we're just going to stick with this like fantasy world that everyone's living in
yeah it's really awesome love it love it love it wowers it'd be so hard to be alive back then yeah but while the Press
continued their campaign of slander investigators were really struggling to find viable leads that could move the
case forward given the lack of evidence the for the lack of a for entry and the fact that the dog was never Disturbed
investigators believed the killer could have been one of the many former borders
and within a day of the murders they had publicly identified 45-year-old chaur I
don't know why I said it like that chur uh George gay I believe it is as their Prime Suspect at the same time
they also identified 20-year-old Mary boo I think as a person of interest gay had been a tenant at the Gideon's
previous boarding house on East 53rd Street before moving out the previous December and Mary B I think it is
claimed to have been living with Mary and Ronnie as recently as a week before their deaths interesting yes which also
Imagine knowing that you were living there a week before H like that's intense but like that's and it's just
interesting that there's a uh there's a woman involved here mhm imagine that Jo so Joe now police detained and
questioned gay briefly but let him go after few a few hours later without giving an explanation to the Press which
they didn't need to Chief Inspector John Lions told reporters we hav't a thing to
hang our hats on and not long after Mary B was also cleared of any suspicions so
the lack of evidence or any kind of lead was frustrating but investigators they still had Ronnie's diary and they were
convinced that the Killer's identity had to be somewhere in its Pages among the more intriguing entries were those
related to that man only referred to as be oh yeah I forgot about that and from what the detectives could tell Ronnie
had known bee for at least a year and in that time the relationship had gone from
friendly to fearful oo she never said why but there were a number of entries where she made it clear that in the
weeks leading up to her death she had very much come to fear this man and worried that his behavior would escalate
to violence interesting now while the references to be were a promising lead lead police still didn't know the man's
identity so they turned back to Ronnie's personal life and before long they found
out about Ronnie's ex-husband Bobby flowers flowers that's where it I was like I knew I heard that name missing
Ronnie's ex-husband B Bobby B oh with a B mhm according to flowers he and Ronnie
had gotten into a handful of arguments during their relationship and one or two of them may have gotten physical oh no
and I here I was saying your last name is flowers I know but he swore that all of that was in the past it was true they
Rel ship had come to an end he said but not because of Any animosity they just got married too young and for the wrong
reasons so they decided that it was best that they parted amicably his explanation seemed reasonable and in
addition to that he also had an alibi for the night of the murder he'd been working as a hot dog vendor in a very
public location so that could have easily been verified by hundreds and hundreds of witnesses so he's not the be
okay now by March 30th more than 200 NYPD officers had been assigned to the case
and dozens of potential Witnesses and suspects had been interviewed but no new leads presented themselves having ruled
out guay as a suspect and confirming Bobby flower's Alibi detectives were back at square one all they could be
reasonably certain of was that these murders or at least the murder of Ronnie were a crime of passion and in addition
to that much to the shagrin of T of the tabloids the test results of the vaginal
swab showed that neither women had been raped oh okay I mean yeah so it seemed unlikely that this
actually was a sex crime but if not the ex-husband or her companion for that evening Butters there the most likely
suspects who would have had such anger towards Ronnie that they would have wanted to kill her in absence of any new
suspects detectives turned back to the person who had reported the crime in the first place father and husband Joe
Gideon I was wondering if they were going to ask some questions they did when detectives ow and and Gil Martin
arrived at the apartment right after the family's called to the police they both
seemed to notice that Joe's Behavior seemed out of the ordinary for what one would expect in those
circumstances unlike his daughter and her husband Ethel and they were sufficiently shaken up but Joe they felt
seemed unaffected H their suspicions were raised again in the days that followed when he gave those interviews
to various tabloids where he pretty much slandered his daughter and spoke quite frankly about his wife and their
separation they were like [ __ ] this is a little weird so also when Ronnie's body
had been processed technicians found several gray hairs on her body which they believed might have come from the
Killer and Joe Gideon had gray hair so during their initial interview with him he claimed that on the previous evening
like the night before the murder he'd gone out to a bar or the night of the murder excuse me he'd gone out to a bar
around the corner from his upholstery shop where he stayed all night drinking beer and playing ski ball until 2: a.m.
so detectives went to this bar this Cafe to check on his Alibi and the bartender
did remember seeing him that night and actually even had Joe's uh ski ball high score recorded on the board for the
night oh wow but he said he didn't remember seeing Joe around closing time he was like yeah he definitely was here
but like I don't know I don't think I saw him around closing time so that meant that Joe had been where he said he
was that night but he very well have could have left early and gone to his wife's apartment to commit the murders
yeah like the time frame is a little shaky so no longer to verify Joe's Alibi detectives returned to the upholstery
shop on April 1st to ask him some followup questions the officers confronted him about what the bartender
had told him but Joe insisted that the man was mistaken and he had definitely been at the cafe the bar all night so
while one of the two detectives asked the questions the other looked around the shop and that's when they came
across the upholster kit lying out on the counter oh no the kit contained that everything somebody would need to
upholster furniture and including several large needles oous about this one of the needles the
largest one that most resembled an ice pick appeared to be missing based on The unconfirmed Alibi his obvious anger
towards his daughter and his being in possession of what could have been the murder weapon as well as a pistol
without a permit that was also found Joe Gideon was taken to the local precinct for further question I'm really hoping
that this is not what I think it is well at the precinct Joe stuck to his story about playing ski ball and drinking all
night on the night of the murders and offered his own Theory as to the identity of the killer according to Joe
a quote millionaire from Boston had been infatuated with Ronnie and had vainly offered her a car an apartment and some
money when Ronnie rebuffed his advances The Man became quote frustrated and had and had hired somebody to kill her that
was Joe's theory he told detectives about this theory on the day of the murders and it was investigated and
quickly dismissed as unfounded so he's been saying this from the from the gem yeah so they weren't very receptive when
he repeated it at the precinct because they pretty much ruled it out they thinking you're just trying to get out
of it exactly by the end of the day on April 1st a spokesperson announced to the press that Joe quote would be
arraigned on a formal charge sometime before morning however by the following day he had yet to be arrested or charged
with any crime but finally on the morning of the second he was charged with being in possession of an
unlicensed gun a pretty minor charge but enough to him for further questioning easy yep so detectives intensely
interrogated Joe keeping him awake for nearly 33 hours denying him food threatening and physically assaulting
him but by the end of the interrogation his story remained exactly the same wow nothing was breaking him I didn't see
that I thought you were going to be like and then wow now convinced that the police weren't doing it and this is
crazy convinced that the police weren't doing enough to find the killer the editor of true detective magazine where
Ronnie actually posed as a cover model sent one of his writers to Joseph's building to ask whether neighbors had
seen him come or go that night the editor did the police work yes okay this actually wasn't the first time that the
magazine had gotten involved in the story when the press and tabloid started printing all these slanderous lies about
Ronnie the magazine published a full page editorial intent on combating those lies and telling their considerable
readership about what a good person Ronnie had been God that just gave me chills yeah I know same I gave me chills
and it still gave me chills oh I love that they did that yeah they were like no [ __ ] all of you is who she was she
was our friend oh my God that like really gives me chills yeah especially back then yeah they didn't have to do
that and it's like the fact that he's sending he's like [ __ ] that they're not doing enough I'm going to send my own
investigation going out here like they're not asking neighbors whether they saw Joe I mean come on like this
guy's figuring it out and me like let's fig wow I love that it's amazing what a turn now it's unclear how much the
editorial influenced the case but this second intervention would prove to be a critical move the writer from True
Detective had knocked on only a few doors before he found a neighbor that said he absolutely saw Joe Gideon come
home drunk at 3:00 a.m. holy [ __ ] since investigators knew Ronnie had been killed a little after 3:00 a.m. that
meant Joe Gideon couldn't possibly have been the killer wow the editor of the True Detective
magazine cracked that just knocked and it was like one of the first couple doors he knocked on so it's like why
didn't I have to wonder if they were getting frustrated and they had to and felt they could place the BL and felt if
they beat the [ __ ] out of this older man that he'll admit to it like a false confession and we'll just go with it and
people will buy it because he kind of has been slandering his daughter in the past like he's kind of made it easy
right oh my God I'm like wow this is amazing but then I'm like but who the [ __ ] killed them well with the neighbor
having confirmed his alibi was released from custody on April 3rd having suffered more than 2 days of brutal and
not to mention illegal interrogation tactics according to the Press reports upon his release he had quote numerous
black and blue spots swelling cuts and abrasions on his face and head and his lawyer claimed that he had been kicked
and pulled and dragged and slapped for hours and he's innocent and he's innocent wow and no matter what he's
saying in the press that is his wife and his child like that's he feels something
deep down there I hope yeah so having lost their Prime Suspect detectives were right back to where they started days
earlier when the bodies were discovered detective Walter Harding told reporters there are four or five different angles
we're working on now and when we've cleared these up we'll have a complete and direct case but the truth was they
were no closer to catching the killer than they were on day one with no other leads to pursue they turned again to
that diary which is when they discovered an entry where Ronnie made it clear that
whatever feeling feelings whatever her feelings for bee might have been his attention was clearly focused on her
sister Ethel wait according to the diary and the weeks leading up to the murders
Ronnie had been concerned that be had become obsessed with eth and she was worried that he might do something
irrational to Ethel okay I have a couple of things here one why didn't they read
the whole diary that was my immediate question they're like oh we we did some some work and we found this thing we
didn't read before it's like it was I mean just read the whole thing read the whole thing I think it was a lot to get
through because it was five what yeah five years of entries High here start reading this [ __ ] or
like give people parts and have a book club exactly all of you read different parts of it get through it cuz I'm like
why was this so long coming but and also I'm like wait a second I'm immediately thinking something but I
don't want to like slander someone before I know so I'm gonna let you tell it good for you yeah good for you I
think you might be on to something wait a second uh so armed with this new piece
of information detectives went to Ethel Gideon and asked her whether she knew the identity of the man referred to as
be somewhat surprised she said she didn't just know his identity she knew him quite well the entire family did his
name was Robert Bob Irwin a former border at Mary's boarding house who'd become somewhat infatuated with her but
moved out and left the area when Ethel rejected his romantic advances and married Joe
cner and that is where we're going to pause and wrap up part one and we'll see you for part two I know who it is I
think if you if you listened pretty good in the beginning you might yeah pretty carefully in the beginning you might
have a clue yep I think I know but you'll find out in part two oh no this is such a sad case and especially if
this is the the scenario where this person was obsessed with Ethel and then went M identity it's like holy [ __ ] yeah
damn brutal it's really rough and there there really is like for lack of a better way of saying it a lot of
collateral damage here absolutely almost the entire thing is collateral the entire case yeah wow but we will talk
about rest of this in part two so we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but that's wor that you
don't go listen to part two bye [Music] [Music] [Music]

On the afternoon of March 28, 1937, Easter Sunday, Joseph Gedeon and his daughter, Ethel, arrived at the home of Gedeon’s wife, Mary, for a planned Easter dinner. The Gedeon’s had been separated for some time but had agreed to have dinner together as a family, which included their other daughter, Veronica, a moderately successful pulp magazine model. When they entered the apartment, it appeared as though no one was home; however, upon checking the bedroom where his daughter slept, Joseph Gedeon found the nude body of his daughter lying lifeless on the bed and immediately called the police.

During an initial search of the apartment, investigators found the body of Mary Gedeon stuffed under her bed; like her daughter, she had been strangled to death. In a third bedroom, police also found the body of Mary’s boarder, Frank Byrnes, who’d been stabbed several times in the head and neck with a long, thin implement. There was no sign of a forced entry, no sign of a struggle, and nothing appeared to be missing from the apartment. Given that Veronica had been found nude, and Mary was clothed but her underwear had been torn away, investigators assumed the murders were a sex crime.

Still caught in the grip of the Great Depression, New Yorkers welcomed anything that could distract from the unpleasant realities of daily life and the salacious murder of a pulp magazine model—a sex crime, no less—was exactly what they were looking for. The story dominated the press, as reporters and tabloid journalists dug into Veronica’s personal life and dating history and published lurid photos from her past. But when the killer was finally caught and the motive revealed, the story was far stranger and tragic than anyone had imagined.

Thank you to the wonderful David White of the Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research!

References

Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 1937. "Cops question ex-lodger in triple murder." Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 29: 1.

—. 1937. "Doubts student is killer." Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 6: 1.

—. 1938. "Irwin's guilty plea." Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 15: 10.

Buffalo Evening News. 1938. "Irwin, ruled insane, sent to Dannemora." Buffalo Evening News, December 10: 1.

2015. A Crime to Remember. Directed by Jeremiah Crowell. Performed by Jeremiah Crowell.

New York Daily News. 1937. "3 murdered in model's flat." New York Daily News, March 29: 1.

—. 1937. "Gray hair in model's hand chief clue in triple murder." New York Daily News, March 30: 1.

—. 1937. "Willful Ronnie 'made fools of men,' dad says." New York Daily News, March 30: 3.

New York Times. 1938. "139-year sentence imposed on Irwin." New York Times, November 29: 48.

—. 1937. "Fingerprint clues found at scene of triple murder." New York Times, March 31: 1.

—. 1937. "Gedeon gets bail." New York Times, April 3: 1.

—. 1937. "Gedeon questioned again in murders; solution held near." New York Times, April 1: 1.

—. 1937. "Irwin flown here; boasts of killings." New York Times, June 28: 1.

—. 1937. "Irwin, wild-eyed, meets reporters." New York Times, September 1: 20.

—. 1937. "Women jam court to glimpse Irwin." New York Times, Jukly 1: 56.

People v. Robert Irwin. 1938. 166 Misc. 751 (Court of General Sessions of the County of New York, March 24).

Schechter, Harold. 2014. The Mad Sculptor: The Maniac, the Model, and the Murder That Shook the Nation. Boston, MA: New Harvest.

United Press. 1937. "Sculptor hunted as triple killer in Gedeon cases." Buffalo Evening News, April 5: 1.

Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

Brief Summary

The episode discusses the Easter Sunday murders of Veronica Gideon and her family, exploring family dynamics and the investigation's challenges.

Key points

Unhinged Friday Vibes. Elena and Ash embrace their chaotic Friday energy, sharing quirky stories about crickets and birds.
The Cricket Dilemma. A humorous debate over the merits of crickets as pets leads to unexpected parenting insights.
Ronnie's Defiance. Ronnie's rebellious spirit leads her to drop out of high school and marry young, seeking freedom from her strict father.
Ethel's Rise. Ethel's determination to succeed leads her to a career at Vanity Fair after a brief marriage.
Joe's Shocking Discovery. Joe arrives at the apartment to find his daughter Ronnie dead. He is horrified.
Detectives Arrive at the Scene. Detectives find the apartment undisturbed, raising questions about the murders.

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