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The Unsolved Murder in Room 1046 · The Infographics Show Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: You know, there is this, there's an inherent trust we
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: place in hotel rooms, like you walk in, you lock
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the dead bolt, you pull those really heavy curtains shut,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and for a night, right, that space is completely yours, Right,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: it's sanctuary. The world outside just can't get to you.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Well, it functions as a temporary fortress. Really you are
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: You're essentially purchasing the illusion of total control over your
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: immediate environment.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. But what happens when that fortress becomes a cage,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: like when the lock on the door isn't keeping the
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: danger out, but it's traving you inside with it.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: The terrifying thought it.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Is, and welcome to beyond defographics. Today, we are stepping
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: back into the shadows of the nineteen thirties to unravel
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: one of the most baffling, most gruesome, and honestly perfectly executed,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: unsolved misses I have ever come across in my personal research.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: It really is a standout case.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: It's wild. We've been pouring over declassified nineteen thirties police logs,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: original Kansas City newspaper clippings, and these archived letters sent
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: to a grieve new mother to piece together exactly what
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: happened inside Room ten forty six. And hey, real quick,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: if you enjoy exploring these forgotten historical enigmas with us,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: please take a quick second to rate the show five stars.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: It truly helps us keep bringing you these incredible stories.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: It really does make a huge difference.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Definitely, So set the stage for us, because the setting
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: is vital here, right.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: So the setting for this mystery is genuinely just as
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: crucial as the crime itself. To understand how something this
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: bizarre could even happen, we have to immerse ourselves in
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: January nineteen thirty five in Kansas City, Missouri.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: The era of Tom Pendergast exactly. Okay, let's unpack this
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: because the premise of what we've recently uncovered reads exactly
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: like a classic Agatha Christi locked room novel. You have
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: a secluded setting, you know, a cast of really strange characters,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: and a brutal murder. Except the clues left behind here
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: make absolutely zero logical sense in the real world.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: They completely defy conventional forensic logic. Yea, even by the
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: standards of a century ago. It's baffling, right, You have
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: to remember, Kansas City in nineteen thirty five wasn't just
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: any city. Tom Pendergast was this political boss who ran
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: it as a completely wide open town.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Wide open.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, while the rest of the country was recovering from prohibition,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, provision had just ended, but the liquor never
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: actually stopped flowing in Kansas City anyway. It was this
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: chaotic haven for mobsters, jazz, gambling, and just rampant vice,
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: just a free for all exactly. And the police force
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: was notoriously corrupt. They functioned almost as an administrative arm
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: of the criminal underworld, which.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Means the local authorities were used to covering up crimes,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: not really solving them. Yet this particular murder completely stumped
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: that very police force. It is labyrinth of false identities,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: intense psychological manipulation, and these post mortem mind games that
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: border on the theatrical.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: It really is theatrical.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: So let's pull focus from the wide frozen streets of
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Kansas City and step through the revolving doors of the
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Hotel President. It is early afternoon on January second, nineteen
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: thirty five. A young man walks up to the front desk, and.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Based on the clerk's testimony, he is well dressed. He's
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: in a dark overcoat, but physically, he immediately stands out.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: He has a cauliflower air, which is that thick, calcified
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: cartilage you typically see on boxers or wrestlers.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Right from blunt trauma.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Exactly guys who take repeated blunt trauma to the head.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: And even more noticeably, he has a prominent, hairless hexagon
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: shaped scar on the side of his scalp.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Which is very specific.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: It's a highly distinguishing feature which plays a massive role
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: in how this story unfolds years later. Anyway, he signs
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the register as Roland t Owen from Los Angeles. But
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about the red flags here because
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: they pop up before he even gets his room key.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what's fascinating here is the immediate establishment of a
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: defensive posture. He arrives with absolutely no luggage, no trunk,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: no suitcase, not even a breeze case.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Nothing. All he pulls out of his coat pocket is
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: a toothbrush, a comb, and a tube of toothpaste. It's
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties equivalent of a burner phone.
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: It really is.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: You check into a massive hotel under a fake name,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: with absolutely nothing tying you to the physical space.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: It suggests extreme impermanence. You know, he's not planning on
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: settling in. But beyond the lack of luggage, he makes
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: a very specific demand.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: He requests a high up.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Interior room right no views.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: He is absolutely adamant that he does not want a
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: window facing the street. Now, in criminal psychology, when someone
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: seeks elevation and isolation avoiding exterior sightlines, they are usually
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: trying to control their environment to an extreme degree, like
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: they're hiding. Yes, they are either planning an illicit activity
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: they don't want observed from the street, or they are
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: anticipating a threat and want to limit the angles from
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: which someone could watch them.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: So the bellboy takes him up to room ten forty
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: six on the tenth floor. Later that afternoon, the hotel
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: maid Marysoptic goes in for her routine cleaning, and the
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: atmosphere in that room is incredibly unsettling.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Oh Soopticus's warn accounts provide some of the most vivid
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: atmospheric details in all the police files. She enters with
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: her pastay and she finds Owen keeping the room.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Pitch black in the middle of the afternoon.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in the middle of the afternoon. The heavy shades
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: are drawn tight against the sun. The only illumination is
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: a single dim amber.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Table lamp, and he's clearly on edge. Like he tells
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: her she can clean, but he puts his heavy coat
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: back on to leave, and as he's walking out the door,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: he explicitly tells Mary to leave it unlocked because he
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: is quote expecting a friend in a few minutes.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: See.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: He wants the environment seamlessly accessible to a specific individual,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: but he remains highly guarded. He is essentially waiting in
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: the dark.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So Mary finishes up and leaves. Fast forward a
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: few hours to around four pm. She goes back to
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: drop off fresh towels. The door is still unlocked, just
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: as he asked. She walks in, and in the pitch dark,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: she sees Owen lying fully dressed on the bed, just
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: lying there, just lying there in his clothes, but sitting
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: on the writing desk. Clearly visible in this sliver of
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: hallway lights spilling into the room is a handwritten note.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: It says, down, oh way back in fifteen minutes.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: Wait.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: It's a mundane message on the surface, but it introduces
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: the first phantom player into our narrative. Don It confirms
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: that Owen is actively coordinating a rendezvous and that don
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: has permission to enter this highly controlled space.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: But that illusion of control Owen had on Wednesday it
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: completely shatters by Thursday morning because the power dynamic in
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: that room shifts from the inside to the outside.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: This is where it gets really dark.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Mary Sooptik comes back around ten thirty am the next
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: day to make the bed. She turns the knob and
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: it's locked. But here is the crucial detail. Not locked
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: from the inside, the hotel president's doors required a physical
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: key to be turned from the hallway to lock the
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: dead bolt. Assuming Owen had left for the day and
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: locked up behind himself, she uses her master pass key
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: and pushes the door open.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: And she finds him sitting silently in the pitch.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Dark, just sitting in a chair in the corner of
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: this blacked out room, which means someone else had to
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: have locked him in there from the outside. Wow, he
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: couldn't have done it himself. So let me ask you,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: was he hiding from someone or hiding with someone?
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: That is the critical behavioral pivot of the entire case.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: The door being locked from the outside fundamentally alters his status.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: He is no longer just a hotel guest controlling his environment.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: He is either a willing participant in his own confinement,
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: you know, perhaps hiding from an external threat while his associate,
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: presumably Dawn, secures the hallway, or he is already.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: A captive, just terrified into silence.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly waiting in the dark because he was told to.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: And while Mary's in the room cleaning, the phone rings.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Owen answers it, and she overhears some say no, Don,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I don't want to eat. I am not hungry. I
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: just had breakfast.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: So Don is on the phone now.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sounds like a mundane conversation.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: But then later that Thursday afternoon, Mary returns yet again
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: with fresh towels. She knocks, She hears two distinct men's
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: voices inside. Okay, she announces she has towels, and the gruff,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: unfamiliar voice barks back through the wood. We don't need any, even.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Though she knows for a fact she took the soiled
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: towels earlier and there are absolutely.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: No clean ones in that room.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: The control of the environment has now completely shifted to
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: this secondary, unseen figure. Owen's voice is no longer the
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: one interacting with the outside world. He's been sidelined, he
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: has been silenced or he is choosing to let this
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: gruff voiced man dictate who enters.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: And while Mary felt that eerie, claustrophobic tension during the
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: daylight hours, it was nothing compared to what happened when
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the sun went down. Oh boy, the night of January
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: third into the early hours of January fourth is an
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: absolute circus.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: The physical environment of the hotel just becomes highly unstable.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: To understand the chaos, we have to map out the
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: other characters moving through the corridors that night. Because the
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: nineteen thirties hotel was a deeply porous ecosystem.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Entered Gene Owen and acted it right away. There is
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: absolutely zero relation to our victim, Royalty Owen. Just a coincidence,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: total coincidence. She's a local Kansas City woman who checked
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: into room ten forty eight, which shares a wall with
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: ten forty six. She just wanted to sleep off a
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: long day of shopping downtown, but she gets no sleep.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: According to her police statement, she is kept awake all
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: night by loud cursing, violent arguments between male and female voices,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: a physical scuffle hitting the shared wall, and at one
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: point a distinct horrible gasping sound.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: That is chilling.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: And simultaneously we have the night elevator operator Charles Bloscher,
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: his testimony adds another layer of bizarre.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: Foot traffic to this floor.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: What did you see?
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: He observes a woman he discreetly described in the police
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: logs as a commercial woman, right, a sex worker, yes,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: wearing a black coat. She asks to be taken to
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: the tenth floor, specifically looking for a room ten twenty six,
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: which is notably a very close to ten forty six.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Just down the hall. Yeah.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: She complains to Bloscher that her regular client isn't there.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: She leaves the hotel, comes back an hour later with
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: a slender man, goes up to the ninth floor this time,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: and then they both finally leave the building around four
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: fifteen am.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: And as if that's not enough chaos for one night,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: at eleven PM, about a mile and a half away
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: from the hotel, a city water worker named Robert Lane
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: is driving through the freezing january coal Okay, he sees
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: a man running down the sidewalk in just an undershirt
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: and pants, no winter coat in the dead of winter.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: In January in Missouri.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: That's freezing the man flags him down. Jumping into his car,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Lane notices the man has a deep, bloody scratch on
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: his arm and he's cradling it in a way that
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: looks like he's trying to hide an even worse wound underneath.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Oh wow.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: The man mistakenly thinks Lane is driving a taxi, apologizes frantically,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: and asks to be taken to a cab stand. And
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: during that brief tense ride, the man mutters an explotive
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: and says I'll kill him tomorrow.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Tomorrow.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He jumps out of the cabstand and vanishes into
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: the city. So what does this all mean? Because eyewitness
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: accounts are notoriously unreliable, very true, If gene owmen heard
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: a woman through the wall and the elevator operator saw
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: a woman roaming the tenth floor, does this rule out
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: the mysterious dawn Or are we looking at a mob
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: had gone wrong, a violent lover's quarrel, or just random
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Kansas City chaos overlapping by coincidence.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: It is the sheer volume of transient activity that really
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: confounds the timeline here.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: In the nineteen.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Thirties, major hotels were central hubs of urban activity. People
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: came and went completely unchecked. There were no security cameras,
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: you know, no key card logs to track who was where,
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: just a free flowing lobby exactly. The commercial woman and
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: her slender companion might be entirely incidental, just ghosts in
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: the machine of a busy city night right. However, if
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: gene Owen heard female voices arguing in ten forty six,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: we really have to consider that Dawn might have brought
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: an accomplice, or that the conflict involved a sex worker
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: whose presence escalated.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: Out of control.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: And the guy in the undershirt.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: The man in the undershirt is the most perplexing variable.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Is he the killer fleeing the scene early after a
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: preliminary altercation?
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: Maybe, but why would.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: He flee in the freezing cold without a coat, muttering
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: about killing someone tomorrow? Or is he just a completely
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: unrelated casualty of the Kansas City underworld, just bleeding in
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: the wrong place at the wrong time.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: It's madness, it really is. But all that chaotic, overlapping
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: nighttime noise connects directly to the chilling, absolute silence of
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the next morning. Let's move into Friday, January fourth, the
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: morning of the discovery.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: The timeline of inconfidence here is genuinely staggering.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. The switchboard operator notices the phone in room
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: ten forty six is off the hook. At seven am.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: A bellboy is sent up to tell the guest to
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: hang it up. There's a do not disturb sign hanging
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: on the knob. Okay, the bellboy knocks. A gruff voice inside,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: the same kind of voice that made heard the day before,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: says come in, turn on the lights, but the door
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: is locked from the outside. Again. The bill boy just
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: yells through the door to hang out the phone and
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: he leaves.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: This is a really striking psychological detail. The voice inside
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: invites entry, specifically demanding light, but the physical reality of
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: the lock prevents it. It implies the person speaking is
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: incapacitated or totally unaware they are locked in.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Right. An hour and a half later, the phone is
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: still off the hook. Another bellboy goes up, uses a
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: pass key, and walks into the dark room. He sees
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Owen lying naked on the bed. There's a dark, wet
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: shadow on the sheets, which we know is blood. Yeah,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: but the bill boy assumes the guy just passed out drunk,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: puts the phone back on the hook. And literally leaves
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: him there.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: The normalization of strange behavior in this era is astounding.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, a guest is entirely naked in a pitch
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: black room with a knocked over telephone, and the immediate
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: assumption by the staff is simply extreme intoxication. No one
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: questions the dark stains on the bedding.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: It's wild. Finally, at eleven three am, the phone is
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: off the hook for a third time. Bellboy Randolph Props
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: goes up, uses his passky, and walks into a literal nightmare.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: The scene he discovers is one of absolute, unmitigated savagery.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Owen is on the floor two feet from the door,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: on his knees and elbows, cradling a bloody head. Props
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: turns on the lights and there is blood everywhere, everywhere,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: the ceiling, the walls, the bed, the bathhub.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: The forensic details from the initial police reports paint a
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: picture of prolonged, systemic torture. Owen was bound at the neck, wrists,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: and ankles with a white cotton clothesline. The knots were
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: described as amateurish but incredibly tight. His skull had been
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: fractured by multiple targeted blows from a blunt instrument.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: It's just brutal.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: He'd been stabbed repeatedly in the chest, with one severe
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: wound actually puncturing along. Furthermore, there were deep ligature marks
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: around his neckating attempted strangulation before the stabbing even occurred, and.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: The doctor who arrives on the scene estimates these wounds
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: are six to seven hours old, meaning the torture happened
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: around four or five in the morning, right after those
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: nighttime noises stopped, and right when the sex worker and
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the slender man were seen leaving the building.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: The timing lines up perfectly.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: It does, but here is where the puzzle pieces completely
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: refuse to fit together. The crime scene manipulation.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Right, because the absence of evidence is often more telling
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: than the evidence itself.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Exactly, every single piece of clothing Owen brought with him
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: is gone. His shoes, his pants, the overcoat he was
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: wearing when he checked in, gone, just vanished. And not
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: just his stuff. The killer took all the hotel issued soap, shampoo,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: and the towels that Mary Sooptick had brought the day before.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: They systematically stripped the room of any identity markers and
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: any means of biological cleanup. They didn't just want to
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: kill him, they really wanted.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: To erase him.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: But look at what they left behind. Yeah, it's like
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: a theatrical set strike. Yeah, the play is over. The
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: stage hands are removing all the props to leave a
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: blank stage for the police, but they purposefully leave a
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: few random props behind just to confuse the audience.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: They left a label torn from a cheap necktie, a hairpin,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: an unlit cigarette, four small, seemingly female fingerprints on the
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: telephone stand, a broken water glass in the sink, and inexplicably,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: a full, unopened bottle of diluted sulphuric acid.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: It is a profound psychological contradiction. I mean, the killer
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: exhibits extreme forensic awareness by removing all clothing and towels,
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: completely erasing the victim's identity and their own cleanup process.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Taking the clothes ensures the body cannot be identified by
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: tailor marks or laundry tags.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Right, very smart for nineteen thirty five.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Very Yet they leave a bottle of acid, which is
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: a classic tool of underworld disfigurement, often used to burn
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: off fingerprints or faces, sitting completely unused on the desk.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Why it suggests an interrupted plan. Perhaps they intended to
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: disfigure him but were spooked by a noise in the hallway.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Or perhaps the scene was meticulously staged with random items
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: like the hairpin and the Thai label to send investigators
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: on a wild goose chase.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: But the biggest mystery isn't the hairpin or the acid.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: It's Owen himself. The police cut the clothes line. The
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: detectives are hovering over him. He's actively dying on the floor.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: They ask him, who did this to you? And Owen
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: whispers nobody, nobody. They ask how he got hurt. He says,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: I fell against the bathtub. He absolutely refuses to name
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: his killer. He falls into a coma and dies the
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: next day.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: The victims silence is paramount here. In law enforcement, a
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: dying declaration is usually considered a moment of ultimate truth.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: When someone knows they are at the end, they generally
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: want their killer brought to justice.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Right, you have nothing left.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: To lose exactly.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: His absolute refusal to cooperate speaks to a powerful code
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: of silence. This is often associated with underworld o Martas,
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: or conversely, a paralyzing fear of retaliation against his family.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: If he were to speak the killer's name aloud, he
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: made a conscious decision to take the secret to the grave.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: And while he took the killer's name to the grave,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: the killer wasn't done playing games, not even close.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: The post mortem events of this case are arguably more
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: disturbing than the physical murder itself, because they reveal the
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: true psychology of the perpetrator.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Because Owen used a fake name and had no identification,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: his body goes unclaimed. He's lying in a funeral parlor,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: and the police announce in the local papers that they're
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: going to bury him in a potter's field, a pauper's
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: grave for John does right. Suddenly, the funeral home gets
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: an anonymous phone call from a man. He offers to
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: pay for a proper burial in Memorial Park cemetery, and
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: he tells the funeral director cheeters usually get what's coming
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: to them. In some of the archived reports I dug up,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: he also claims he's doing it for his sister.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: A justification rooted in vengeance and moral retribution. The language
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: implies a deep betrayal.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: The cash for the funeral arrives via special delivery, wrapped
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: tightly in a newspaper. And on the day of the funeral,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: which is a tended by absolutely no one except police
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: detectives acting as pallbearers, an anonymous floral order is delivered
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: to the gravesite. Oh at this part thirteen American beauty
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: roses attached to a card with a handwritten note love
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Forever Louise.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, we are
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: witnessing an unprecedented level of taunting.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: The perpetrator is not just.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Evading capture, they are actively directing the victim's final narrative
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: from the shadows. Funding a funeral and sending flowers signed
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: with a specific name is a display of ultimate control.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: It's so arrogant, it really is.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Is the way of saying to the police, I am here,
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: I am watching, and I am dictating how this ends.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: And it gets so much worse. Fast forward almost two
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: years to November nineteen thirty six. A woman in Birmingham,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Alabama named Ruby Ogletree is flipping through a true crime
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: magazine called The American Weekly. She sees an article about
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the Room ten forty six mystery, looks at the photo
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: of the victim's profile, and her heart stops.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: She recognizes the hexagon shaped greaseburns scar on his head.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: The victim finally has a true name.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Artemis Ogletree. He wasn't some hardened thirty five year old
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: mobster like the police assumed from the cauliflower ear. He
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: was a nineteen year old kid who had left his
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: home in Alabama to hitchhike across the country in April
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty four. So young, but the ultimate stomach dropping twist.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Ruby Ogletree tells the police that she'd been receiving letters
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: from Artemis after he was murdered.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: This is where the psychopathy of the offender truly crystallizes.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: The mechanics of post murder taunting are rare, but when
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: they occur, they indicate a highly organized, sadistic offender.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: She received three typewritten letters in the spring of nineteen
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: thirty five claiming Artemis was in Chicago and then sailing
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: to Europe. Ruby knew something was wrong immediately because Artemis
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: didn't know how to type and the slang was all wrong.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: The killer was forging communications to maintain the illusion of
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: life on a practical level. This delays the family from
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: filing missing persons reports that could lead detectives back to
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Kansas City, right, but psychologically it allows the killer to
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: extend the thrill of the crime. They are playing god
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: with aggrieving mother's emotions.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: But the killer didn't just type letters. In August nineteen
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: thirty five, eight months after Artemis was brutally murdered, Ruby
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: answers the phone in Alabama. A man calling himself Godfrey
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Jordan is on the line, claiming to be calling from Memphis.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: Unbelievable.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: He tells this grieving mother a wild story that Artemis
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: saved his life in a brawl, that Artemis has married
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: a wealthy woman in Cairo, Egypt. And when Ruby asks
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: why Artemis isn't writing his own letters anymore, Godfrey Jordan
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: says Artemis lost a thumb in a fight and can't
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: hold a pen.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: The sheer audacity is staggering. To engage victim's mother in
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: a forty five minute long distance phone call, spending an
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: elaborate cinematic lie about Cairo and severed thumbs, It reveals
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: a perpetrator who genuinely enjoys the act of deception. It
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: requires incredible nerve and a complete lack of empathy.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting. Because why go through
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: all this Troubleema Ogletree was a nineteen year old hitchhiker.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: He checked in under a fake name. If the killer
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: had just washed the blood off their hands and walked away,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Artemis would have been buried in a potter's field as
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Roland t Owen, a complete John Doe. The killer would
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: have been free and clear forever. Why write the letters?
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Why pay for the funeral? Why the thirteen roses?
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: It implies a deeply personal, entangled relationship between the victim
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: and the killer. This is not a random robbery. The
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: killer felt a compulsion to manage the aftermath. It could
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: be out of a twisted sense of guilt, a desire
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: to mock the authorities, or most likely to satisfy a
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: psychological need to control Artemis even in death. The letters
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: aren't just a cover up. There a continuation of the abuse.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: With his true identity revealed. Our research opened up a
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: torrent of dark theories about what actually happened in Room
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: ten forty six, and I want to really dig into these,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: because none of them wrap up perfectly. Let's break down
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: the most prominent avenues of speculation.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: We have to evaluate these based on the forensic evidence
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: and the historical context of nineteen thirty five.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Theory one is the underworld or mob hit. Artemis had
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: a cauliflower ear, which implies he was fighting or wrestling
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: for money while hitchhiking. He used multiple aliases across different hotels.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: We found records of him checking in elsewhere as Eugene case,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Scott Cecil Verner and then rollin' to Owen.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: Lots of aliases.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was restrained with what looks like interrogation tactics
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: and he adhered to his strict code of silence on
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: his deathbed. Was this nineteen year old kid in over
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: his head with the Pendergas mob.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: It is highly plausible on the surface, the Kansas City
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: underworld was ruthless if Artemis had accrude gambling debts or
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: crossed the syndicate member while drifting through the city. The
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: brutal beating, the sulfuric acid brought to the room, the
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: methodical stripping of identifying clothing, these are all hallmarks of
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: an organized hit designed to send a message or extract information.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Like they were looking for something exactly.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: The forged letters to the mother could be a mob
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: fixer's way of ensuring the family in Alabama doesn't hire
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: private investigators who might stir up trouble in Kansas City.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: But wait, if this was a professional mob hit, why
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: use amateurs knots on the clothesline? The police specifically noted
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the knots tying him up were rudimentary. The mob doesn't
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: use cheap cotton clothesline and tie bad knots. That's true,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: and why write letters for a year? The Kansas City
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: mob in nineteen thirty five doesn't care about nineteen year
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: old's mother in Alabama. They just dumped the body in
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: the Missouri River and forget about it.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: That is a very strong counterpoint. The intimacy of the
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: violence and the post mortem contact doesn't fit the clinical
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: nature of organized crime, which leads us to the deeply personal.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Theories right into theory two, which leans into the personal
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: clues the download relationship or a hate crime. We know
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Artemis was actively meeting Don. He checked into an interior room,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: kept the lights completely off, and didn't want the maid
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: to lock the door so Don could slip in unseen.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Was he having an illicit affair in nineteen thirties America?
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: This requires us to contextualize the era in nineteen thirty five.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: A same sex relationship could entirely ruin your life, leading
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: to imprisonment, institutionalization, or severe violence. The absolute secrecy required
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: for such a relationship explains the fake names, the burner
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: phone mentality of having no luggage and waiting in a
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: pitch black room, and.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: It recontextualizes his silence on his deathbed exactly.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: His refusal to name his killer might not have been
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: out of fear of the mob, but fear of being
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: outed to the police and his family. The extreme violence
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: could represent a crime of passion or a panic induced
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: rage by a partner desperate to protect their own reputation
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: if they felt Artemis was going to expose them and.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: The female fingerprints.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: The presence of the hairpin and the female fingerprints, perhaps
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: a female accomplice was brought in to assist, or the
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: commercial woman seen by the elevator operator was utilized as
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: a cover for a clandestine meeting between men.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to thorty three, the vengeful Brother. This
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: is one that gives me chills. In my notes, I
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: found that years later an investigator identified a man named
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Joseph Ogden. Joseph Ogden used the alias Don Kelso Don
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Helsa Yeah, a name Artemis was seen using with a
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: companion at a previous hotel. Joseph Ogden was later arrested
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: for a completely different murder where he shoved a body
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: in a trunk. What if Artemis did something terrible to
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: a woman named Louise or to Don's thirteen year old sister.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: This theory aligns perfectly with the anonymous phone call to
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: the funeral home. You know, cheeters usually get what's coming
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: to them, and I'm doing this for my sister.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Under this framework, Don is exacting brutal, calculated revenge. He
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: tortures Artemis to extract a confession or an apology, leaves
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: him to die, and then Louise, perhaps the mother or
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: sister of the wronged girl, sends thirteen roses to the grave.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: The number thirteen could mark the age of the wronged
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: girl or the specific date of the transgression.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: It turns the thirteen roses from a gesture of mourning
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: into a terrifying symbol of a settled score or receipt
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: for murder. But just when you think the trail is dead,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: just when you think the pass has buried, all the
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: answers we jump forward to the year two thousand and three.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: The librarian researching the case at the Kansas City Public
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Library receives a mysterious, anonymous phone call.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: Almost seventy years after the murder.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Almost seventy years. The caller says they were cleaning out
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: a dead relative's belongings and found a box. Inside were
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: dozens of nineteen thirty five newspaper clippings about the murder
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: in room ten forty six, and the caller claimed they
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: found the physical missing item mentioned in the police reports.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: But before the librarian could get them to identify what
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: the object was or who their relative was, the caller
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: hung up and vanished.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: So what do you think was in that box? The
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: bloody clothes, the missing hotel key, the murder weapon.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: This raises an important question about legacy and the physical
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: artifacts of violence. In the nineteen thirties, lacking DNA testing,
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: luminal and modern forensic databases, killers could literally vanage into
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: the vast American landscape, taking the truth with them in
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: a suitcase. The box in two thousand and three represents
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: the enduring physical trauma of these unsolved crimes. History is
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: full of victims who lived in the shadows whose final
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: moments are reduced to parlor games because the truth is
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: locked away in attics and old cardboard boxes.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: Inherited by people who don't even know what they are
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: looking at.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Artemis Ogletree died protecting a secret, and that secret remains
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: buried with him in a Kansas City cemetery. Uncovering these stories,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: digging into the past, trying to understand the why, behind
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: the what. That is the whole mission of Beyond infographics,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: because if we don't remember them, these mysteries just fade
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: into the static of history.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: The preservation of the narrative is our only real defense
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: against time. Artemis that was nineteen years old. He suffered
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: immensely in that dark room, and whoever orchestrated it walked
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: away into the night, likely living out the rest of
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: their life completely unpunished.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: But I want to leave you, our listener, with one
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: final chilling concept to Moulover on your own. We've explored
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: the theories. We've assumed the thirteen roses signed Louise were
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: from a grieving lover or wrong family member. But what
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: if there was no sister? What if there was no
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: lover named Louise at all?
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: What if the person who sent the roses was the
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: killer themselves, adopting a female persona, mocking the Kansas City
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Police by placing the ultimate theatrical confession right on top
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: of the victim's grave, a beautiful bouquet bought with blood money,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: just to prove they could get away with it.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: It perfectly fits the psychological profile of the caller from Memphis.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: It's a final arrogant bow on a gruesome stage.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Something to think about the next time you slide the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: dead bulk closed on a hotel door. Thank you so
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: much for exploring with us today, Keep questioning, keep looking
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: beyond the surface, and we'll see you on the next one.