Latest / Heavyweight / #40 Barbara Shutt

Transcript

#40 Barbara Shutt · Heavyweight

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hello, Did you just butt dial me? Because I have
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: on my call display that a call from your number
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: but got my numbers blocked. That's how I know it's you.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: You're the only person I know with a block number.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Is it where we have to go today?
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: Wait?
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: A couple of days ago, I think it was like
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: yesterday morning. Were you thinking about me?
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: No?
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I just thought that would be weird because I was
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: thinking about you, and I thought, huh, wouldn't it be
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: funny if she was thinking about me at the same time?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Shut from Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Today's episode the first in a two part series, Barbara
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Part one. Barbara shut right after the break. Hello, Becky, Hi,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: this is Becky, my mother in law. Last April, at
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the start of the pandemic, my wife Emily told me
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: that her mom had a mystery to solve. Phoner. Emily
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: said immediately it was all very dramatic. How are you?
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I'm fine, Becky, it should be said, is not the
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: dramatic type. There's a famous story about how while making
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: brunch for the family, her oven caught fire and as
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: everyone ran around phoning nine to one one searching for
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the instruction manual to the fire extinguisher. Becky sat at
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: the dining room table silently, eating fruit salad. So while
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Becky may not have a flare for the dramatic, her
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: daughter does. There's no time to waste.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Emily said, these events happened fifty two years ago. By
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: the way, so wait a second.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Emily said that they have like She was like, you
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: better pounce on this.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: There were new revelations today.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Okay, how about an hour or two hours ago? Yeah,
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: did she tell you anything about it?
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: She told me nothing. She should just call just call
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: my mother.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Okay, you want to hear this story from the beginning.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's a good place to start.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to help out with CEO's homeschooling just a
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: little bit.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: THEO is my nephew and Becky's grandson. Last April, his
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: school shut down because of COVID, so Becky stepped into
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: tutorim over zoom.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: So THEO.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Do you know what the word biography means? Biography is
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: a book written by the person that it's about.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: No, yes, if I wrote a book. Becky and THEO
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: met weekly, and for each lesson she gave him a
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: small homework assigned.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: So the first assignment was to write a description you know,
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: a person, a place, to thing, just you know, a
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: couple paragraph descriptions.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: THEO and Becky each did the assignment and then shared
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: their essays. THEO wrote about a World Cup soccer game,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: and Becky, what.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Popped into my head was this friendship that I had
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty eight, before you were born.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty eight, Becky was nineteen years old. She
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: lived in smalltown Minnesota and had never been out of
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the country. She wanted to see Europe, so she linked
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: up with a work abroad program that got her a
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: job at a commercial laundromat in Copenhagen.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: But it was kind of lonely because there was a
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: language barrier and there was no one else my age,
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: so it was kind of lonely. And then the third
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: week another American girl came.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: What is her name?
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: Barbara shut.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: My wife, Emily says that when she was growing up,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: about once a year, Becky would remove the pictures above
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: the living room couch and project slides from Copenhagen. Emily
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: called this Becky Time a journey back to when Becky
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: was Becky not Mom, And right there with Becky. Hovering
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: above the couch was Barbara Shut. Becky and Barbara Shut
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: on a park bench eating sandwiches, Becky and Barbara Shut
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: partying in a room full of young Danes. Do you
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: have it in front of you, the thing that you.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: Write my story? Yeah? I do.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Would you feel comfortable reading it?
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Here it is Looking for adventure. In the summer
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: of nineteen sixty eight, I found a job in Copenhagen, Denmark.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: The first two weeks were lonely, but when a new
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: worker started the factory, everything changed. Her name was Barbara Shut.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: She was thin and wiry, with short, dark hair and
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: big eye. She was twenty one years old and had
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: just graduated from college. She was rich. Her mother was
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: a doctor and her father a retired college professor. Because
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: her mother was a doctor, she loved dispensing medical advice,
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: whether it was asked for or not. The only advice
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: that stuck with me was how to pop a ZiT
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: with a razor blade, something she did regularly. She loved checkers,
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: and when she couldn't find a checker set in all
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: of Copenhagen, she made the board in pieces out of cardboard.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: I hated checkers, but in the way that rich girls
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: who are doted on by their parents can be. She
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: was very persuasive. Barbara always knew what she wanted, so
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: we played checkers. She bought a bike as soon as
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: she arrived and rode all over Copenhagen. She only managed
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: to persuade me to ride with her once, though I
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: was terrified of the traffic. We spent a lovely Saturday
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: biking all over the city until the bike she had
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: borrowed for me gave out. For eight hours each weekday,
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: we were at the same table folding bath powels. It
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: was a boring, mind numbing job, but I loved it
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: because we had so much fun. We had silly nicknames
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: for all the other workers. We sang to the pop
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: music coming over the loudspeaker. We laughed our way through
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: each day. As the time in Copenhagen was coming to
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: an end, we were excitedly planning our next adventure. Barbara,
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: who loved horses more than anything in the world, was
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: going to a fancy riding cap in England. I left first,
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: riding the train across Italy, Austria, Switzerland. I missed the laughter,
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: the singing along to Winchester Cathedral a dozen times a day,
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: our endless checker games. She was my best friend. But
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: it wasn't forever.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: That's lovely, Becky. It wasn't forever, Becky says, because at
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: the end of the summer, in spite of their closeness, we.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: Never exchanged any information, anything, phone numbers or anything.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Why do you think that was?
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: I think it was because we we didn't. Our lives
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: seemed so different.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Becky was from Waconia, Minnesota, population two thousand. Barbara was
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: from Cincinnati. Her parents were professionals. They had four cars,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: five TVs, a horse. But Becky wasn't envious of Barbara's
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: material possessions. What she did envy, though, was Barbara's close
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: relationship with her dad. Becky had lost her own father
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: a few years earlier.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: She was very close to her father. She talked about
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: him a lot. She just was so in love with
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: her father, and he wrote her these long, beautiful letters
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: every single day.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: When Becky left for Copenhagen, she was still feeling grief
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: over her father's death. For Becky, those letters had to
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: have seemed every bit as magical as Tivoli guard lit
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: up at night.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: So I was writing about her, and I thought, you know,
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: in all these years, I've never tried to find out
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: what happened to her, and so I googled her and
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: I found her immediately. It's easy to find people who are.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Dead, and she is dead, which brings us to the mystery.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Becky stumbled upon.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: She died in twenty twelve at age sixty seven, and
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: I read the obituary and I thought, wait a minute.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Becky's sadness over the death of her long lost friend
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: was suddenly overshadowed by another feeling confusion. The more Becky read,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: the more the obituary seemed to contradict everything Barbara had
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: told her that summer. There was no mention of growing
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: up in Cincinnati, no mention of her doctor mother, and
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: most of.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: All, there is no mention of a father whatsoever. You know,
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: it had the people that preceded her in death no father,
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: the people who survived her no father, And there is
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: no mention of a father. And that is what she
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: talked about constantly. She was and I'm reading this to
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: you now from the obituary. She was raised at the
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: Galileean Children's Home near Corbyn Kentucky, where she also attended
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: primary school and had numerous friends. Does that sound too
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: like she was raised there? I mean it says raised.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: Does that mean orphanage? To me, it sounded like orphanage.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: So it doesn't sound like anything I knew about her.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: My thought was, wait what? I was kind of stunned
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: when I read this. The details were so different from
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: what I would have expected. Then I started thinking, well,
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: I'm stupid. Why didn't I figure out if she was
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: so rich, why was she working this menial job she
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: could have probably afforded to. Yeah, yeah, I think that
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: what she had told me was mostly fiction. I don't
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: know how I should think about it. Yeah, was she
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: just playing me for a stap? I mean, why if
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: that's it, it's a cruel thing to do.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: If you were able to find somebody who is still
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: around who can speak about her and tell you about her, like,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: what would you want to know?
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, I want to know the truth.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: You know, what was her life? If it wasn't what
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: she was telling me it was, what was it and
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: why was she telling me the things that she was
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: At the bottom of the online obituary is a comments
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: section where several people have posted short notes about Barbara.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Becky figures there must be someone among them who knows
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: the truth. If only some brave soul would reach out
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: and ask, some brave soul other than Becky.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: I would never, in a million years do it, Jonathan,
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: how well do you know me?
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Becky doesn't like to make a scene, and if there
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: is a scene, that's when she reaches for the fruit
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: salad I want.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: But okay, else to get it?
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Sure? Sure shirt? You know if at any points you're
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: made uncomfortable and need to hide behind my skirts, I'm
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: very happy to supply the skirts.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I need skirts.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: A biography is a book that someone else has written
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: about another person. Yes, if an obituary is a kind
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: of biography, then an online obituary is a collaborative one.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: People leave comments that exist as windows onto a life.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: But the comments on Barbara's obituary page contain no stories
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: or anecdotes, nothing to shed light on who she really was.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: There is one comment, though, that feels like a lead.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: It's from a guy who would have known Barbara around
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: the same time Becky did. He says they were good
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: friends from college. His name is Chris. I have questions
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: for Chris, so I send him an email telling him
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: about Becky inter connection to Barbara. But after about a
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: week without any response, I dial a telephone number I
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: find online. Someone picks up on the fourth ring, and
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: what ensues is one of the stranger conversations I've ever had.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Is this Chris? I ask yes? Chris says, I sent
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: you an email last week? Do I have the right person? Yes?
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: He says, I got your name from Barbara's obituary page.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I say yes. He says, Chris isn't what you'd call chatty.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: When I ask a question, he replies with only yes
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: or no. When I ask if he can elaborate, he bristles.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: I won't give you things, he says, but I will
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: verify what things are true or not true. There's a
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: deep throat quality to the interview. For whatever reason, Chris
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: has cast me as the intrepid journalist, himself the shadowy source.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: In fact, when I ask Chris if I can record
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: him for broadcast, he brings up Watergate and threatens legal action.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: But in spite of that, there were moments when Chris
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: seems eager to talk, like this is the call he's
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: been waiting, eating by the phone four for fifty years.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: In the end, Chris and I talk for over an
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: hour and a half during that time, and almost in
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: spite of himself, he reveals details about Barbara's life that
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: are precise and top of mind like. At one point,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: in response to a question about Barbara's childhood, Chris points
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: me to a nineteen forty's issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: It features an article about the Galileian Children's Home. The
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Galilean Children's Home, he says, is the orphanage in Kentucky
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: where Barbara was raised. So it seems the obituary was right.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Contrary to what Barbara told Becky and Copenhagen, she was
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: actually an orphan. She had no fancy home, no doting father.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not looking forward to telling my mother in law
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: that her friend Barbara lied to her. But then Chris
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: tell me something else. At the age of seventeen, Barbara
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: was adopted by a couple named Charles and Jane Shutt.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: The Shots were wealthy, They lived in Cincinnati and had
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: a horse. Her adopted mother was a doctor, and her
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: adopted father, who Chris tells me Barbara was very close
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: with was a college dean. Those were the parents that
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Barbara always talked about in Copenhagen, her adopted parents. So
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: while the story from the obituary is true, the story
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Barbara told Becky is also true. I asked Chris if
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: he knows why Barbara's adopted family wasn't mentioned in her obituary,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: not that I would talk about. Chris says, would you
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: say that Barbara's life after the adoption was a happy one?
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: I ask until she graduated from college, Chris says, And
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: what happened around graduation? I ask that I won't discuss.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Chris says, I feel like he's baiting me, but I've
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: no idea why or for what. Whenever any of this
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: stuff happens, Chris continues, you have to ask yourself what's
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: in the public domain and what isn't. You could look
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: up legal information about Barbara, he says. He pauses, Well,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: this part I can tell you because it's in the
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: public domain. In May of nineteen sixty nine, Chris says,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Barbara killed her mother. For a few moments, we sit
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: in silence, Chris waiting for me to react, Me not
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: knowing how to her adopted mother. I finally ask that
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: is correct. Chris says, how is the murder committed? I ask, gunn.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Chris says, do you know the circumstances? I ask, And
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: this next part, Chris says like he's proud. I knew
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: some of the details that the police never knew.
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: Oh my god.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: After hanging up with Chris, I try to unpack what
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: I just heard with my producer Stevie. Oh my I can't. Yeah.
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I was not expecting that, Like, it just froze me. Yeah,
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: I don't know that I even want to share that
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: with Becky. I have to admit that when my mother
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: in law tasked me with looking into Barbara's obituary, I
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: assumed I discover the story of a fabulous someone from
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: humble origins who thought Europe a good place to reinvent herself,
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: if only for a summer. I never thought murder would
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: be an my report, and now that it is, a
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: part of me feels protective of Becky. Her summer with
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: Barbara is a memory she cherishes. I don't want to
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: compromise that. But at the same time, I know Becky
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: is someone who flips to the end of novels because
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: she just can't wait to know what happens. She's curious,
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: and so am I. So I start digging. Over the
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: next several days, I'm buried in news clippings with headlines
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: like this woman doctor found slain in her office home.
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: At the time, the trial of.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Barbara shut for the murder of her adopted mother Jane
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: dominated Cincinnati headlines. And just a quick warning, some of
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the details I'm about to share are disturbing. The newspapers
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: describe the murder in gruesome, nearly pornographic detail. Her almost
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: nude body was found lying face down, says one article,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: a full blown blood path says another. As well as
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: being shot, Jane was also beaten with a fireplace poker,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: struck seventeen times in total. Just a few days ago,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: I'd thought of Barbara as my mother in law's European
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: summer friend, with whom she gossiped and rode bikes. Now
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: I was reading about her violently beating her mother to death.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: It's like their two different women. In the photos I've
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: seen of her, Barbara is striking, and the papers couldn't
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: get enough of the mysterious twenty three year old who's
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: referred to as Slender olive skinned, elfin faced, pixie faced,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: and gammon faced. One headline, rather than referring to the
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: trial as a murder trial, refers to it as a
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: waifs trial. The newspapers carry descriptions of Barbara's hairstyle and clothes.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: On her first day in court, The Cincinnati Inquirer calls
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: her dress quote fashionably short, but not mini mini. It's
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: almost like Barbara is a movie star. From the papers,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: I learned that Barbara had initially confessed to the police,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: but recanted her confession a few days later. Why would
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: someone admit to a crime only to take it back immediately?
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: To find out, I contact the Hamilton County Court in
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Ohio and request the trial transcript. What I receive is
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: a document over twelve hundred typewritten pages long. From it,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: I learned that the prosecution's case was mostly built on
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Barbara's confession, which told the following story. On the morning
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: of May twenty fifth, nineteen sixty nine, Jane told her
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: that she and Barbara's adopted father, Charles, were separating and
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: it was time for Barbara to go out on her own.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: An argument ensued. Barbara grabbed a gun from her father's
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: dresser and shot Jane. She then dragged her down two
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: flights of stairs to the basement, where she beat her
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: to death with the poker. If she was alive, Barbara
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: explained in her confession, she was going to tell everybody
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: and I was going to be in a jam. The
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: defense's case, on the other hand, was built around the
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: fact Barbara later recanted her confession. Barbara maintained her innocence
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: throughout the trial, claiming the confession was given under false pretenses.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: According to her lawyers, Barbara was horseback riding that morning
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: and came home to find Jane dead at the bottom
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: of the basement stairs. I was thinking that Daddy had
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: done it, Barbara testified on the stand. She feared Charles
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: had committed the murder, and so she confessed in order
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: to protect him. I was going to do anything that
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: I possibly could to take the guilt off him. Barbara
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: said anything. This meant cleaning up the crime scene and
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: disposing of the gun in the Ohio River. It wasn't
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: until later that she learned her father was innocent. During
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the investigation, police found blood on Barbara's riding boots and
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: gunpowder as a jew on her hands. Also Barbara had
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: no defensible alibi. She was found guilty and sentenced to
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: life in prison for murder in the first degree.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: I hope my voice is okay. You know, we're very
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: froggy around here because the allergies. I'll sound like Demi Moore.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Late one Friday evening, my mother in law, Becky, and
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I meet up in here Den. I've been looking into
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Barbara's life, and I'll just get in front of it
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: by saying that some of it is shocking. Really, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: The interesting thing is in the end, I think generally
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: the things that she told you are true. And I
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: begin with the information Becky had asked for. I tell
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: her that Barbara had not played her for a sab
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: so she grew up an orphan. She was adopted by
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: a wealthy family three months. But then I tell her
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the other stuff I learned. In May of nineteen sixty nine,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Barbara murdered her adopted mother, Jane.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah really, yeah, yeah, oh my god.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: I last saw her in August of sixty eight, so
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: this was, you know, nine months later.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Becky says that in Copenhagen she never saw any
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: evidence of violence or temper.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: Boy, I never saw that would have been in her
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: I can't wrap my head around it. I don't know
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: what to think of it. What should I think about that?
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: I thought she was a really nice person. We had
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: so much fun together.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: In fact, the time Barbara and Becky shared in Copenhagen
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: came up in the court transcript. Barbara's lawyer asked her
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: about her trip to Denmark and the work she did
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: at the laundromat. Reading it, I half expected my mother
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: in law's name to appear, but Barbara doesn't mention Becky.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: But while Becky's name doesn't make an appearance, another familiar
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: name does, someone I'd spoken to just weeks earlier, Barbara's
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: old college friend, Chris Chris, who wouldn't let me record
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: our call. A week into Barbara's trial, Chris is called
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: to the stand for questioning. Were you in the vicinity
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: of one twenty two Glenn Mary in Cincinnati? The defense asks,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: on the morning of May twenty fifth, nineteen sixty nine,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I respectfully declined to answer that question, Chris responds, taking
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: the fifth. Did you kill doctor Jane Shott? They ask again?
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Chris takes the fifth. Chris and I spoke for an
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: hour and a half, and at no point did he
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: ever say anything about being questioned as a suspect. What
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: the hell was going on? Was this why Chris had
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: been so cagy with me? Was this connected to what
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: he knew that the police never knew? Becky wonders too,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: What does Chris have to do with all of this?
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: What did he have to say that he didn't feel
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: he could say because it would be incriminating. Why did
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: he do that? Does he know something that nobody else knows?
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: I respectfully declined to answer that question, for the answer
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: that question might incriminate me in this jurisdiction or any
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: other jurisdiction in the United States.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: This is Chris reciting the Fifth Amendment for me, now,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: fifty two years later, I remember it today. A month
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: after our first conversation, I received an email from Chris
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: that I didn't know what to make of. In it,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: he told me he now wanted to talk to me,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: and if that wasn't surprising enough, he also said I
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: could record the conversation. I think maybe we could achieve more,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: he wrote, if you're still interested, Hey, Chris, I'm.
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: Glad we finally made contact.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, I asked Chris My burning question,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: why did he take the stand?
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: It was to protect Barbara, and it was suggested to
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: me by Bernard Gilday Junior, who was her attorney. Gil
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: Day said they needed another suspect. It didn't have to
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: be somebody who actually did.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: The effect Barbara's lawyers were looking to achieve was exactly
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: the one it had on me. Chris pleading the fifth
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: raised suspicion with all the evidence against Barbara, Gilday was
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: just hoping to cast a shadow of doubt. So her lawyer,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Gilday was just looking to sort of to muddy things somehow.
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and have a second suspect.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: But why would Chris, Barbara's college friend, implicate himself in
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: a murder trial. It turns out that while they were
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: friends in college, they weren't just friends.
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: We were engaged. She sat right in front of me
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: in the German class in the summer of sixty seven,
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: and one time I made a joke or something and
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: she turned around and smiled at me, and that's when
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: I started talking to her. That was the beginning, and
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: it went pretty quickly.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: The end came pretty quickly too. Chris was going away
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: to California for graduate school, and the relationship would be
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: long distance. They began to picker. The enormity of the
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: commitment started getting to them, so just a few months
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: after they were engaged, and well before Jane's murder, they
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: called it off. But Chris's feelings for Barbara endured. It
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: was something her lawyers took advantage of when they asked
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: him to testify.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: It's just a strange thing, what you'll do to help someone.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: It was a desperate, if not legally questionable move, but
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: the defense didn't have much Chris was never taken seriously
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: as a suspect. In fact, the judge ended up telling
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: the jury to disregard his testimony altogether, claiming it had
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: no real bearing on the case. And today, if you
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: ask Chris if he thinks Barbara was guilty, he's unequivocal.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: This is the part he learned later that the police
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: never knew.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: She had purchased a gun in Richmond, Kentucky, and she
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: went over to some woods and she practiced with a gun,
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: so she knew she was going to use it because
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: she practiced with it.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: I'm unable to verify if Barbara bought the gun, but
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: it is true that when her adopted father, Charles, took
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the stand during the trial. He testified that he'd never
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: owned a gun or kept one in the dresser where
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Barbara claimed to have found it. After the trial, Barbara
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: was sent to a women's prison in Marysville, Ohio to
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: serve her sentence, and Chris says he visited a few times,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: but most of their contact was by mail. He kept
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Barbara's letters and sends me a photo of one. It's
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: written on prison stationery, and most of it is pretty mundane.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: But what strikes me is how Barbara records the date
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: rather than the day, month, and year. She instead writes
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Mother's Day. Chris also tells me that Barbara was given
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: a wide berth at Marysville.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: She was favored by Miss Wheeler, the superintendent. For example,
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: Miss Wheeler loved Ohio state football, and she would invite
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: Barbara only of all the prisoners to come over and
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: watch the game. No other prisoner could go into Miss
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: Wheeler's house.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: In that he sees Barbara's special talent for manipulation. In prison,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Chris says Barbara was somehow allowed to keep a camera
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: and even a small dog, and she was paroled after
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: fifteen years, five years earlier than the minimum stipulated by
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: her sentence. It's all part of a bigger pattern, he says,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: like how his parents put up half the money for
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Barbara's bail.
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: She used people. Okay, she could get me to do things.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: I drove her weekly to her horse riding lessons, I
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: bought her presence, I started smoking with her. She had
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: this feeling of entitlement. I think I would say that
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: was part of her character.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: Hmm.
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: She wanted to get her away.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: My mind returns to what Becky said about being with
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Barbara and Copenhagen, the checkers game she was forced to play,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: the bike ride she had to take. In nineteen seventy two,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Chris got married and he and Barbara fell out of touch.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty four, Barbara moved to Columbus, Ohio after
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: being paroled. Then in nineteen ninety one, Chris's marriage ended.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: He didn't wait long before reaching back out to Barbara
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: and beginning a correspondence, why do you think you reached
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: out to her after all those years apart?
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: Curious and I still had strong feelings for her.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Talking to Chris on the phone fifty years later, it
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: still feels like Barbara exerts a strange force. Chris tells
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: me about this one day in nineteen ninety one, when
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: he was passing through Columbus on his way to visit
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: family in Cleveland. The way Chris describes it, it almost sounds
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: like his car started driving itself.
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: I had my daughter with me, and Barbara had sent
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: me a picture of her, a little Toyota or Mazda
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: whatever she had, with a flower on the antenna. And
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: I remember stopping and looking at the house and telling
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: my daughter, who was maybe thirteen at the time, I said,
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: that's Barbara's car, and this is where she's living, and
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: I'll never forget. My daughter said to me, Daddy, are
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: you going to go in and see her? And I said, no,
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: I just want to know that she's okay.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Hearing the story, I can't help but wonder if the
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: real reason Chris changed his mind about speaking with me
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: was simply because he longed for someone with whom to
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: share Barbara stories. When I asked Chris if, in the
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: years after Barbara committed the murder, he'd never heard her
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: express remorse, Chris says no, But then he tells me
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: one more story from Barbara's life after prison.
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: She was cutting the grass, wet grass, and wet grass
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: sticks to the bottom of where the blade is and
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: you have to clean it out. So she stopped the engine,
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: but she didn't disconnect the wire to the sparks blog,
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: and she moved the blade to get all the grass out,
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: and the motor started and so two of her fingers
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: were cut off. And later, at some point she said
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: she thought it was punishment for killing her mother. She
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: didn't say it as bluntly as that, but that's what
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: she was saying.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: What started this all was the obituary. Yeah, And although
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: everything in it was accurate, it sure didn't tell the
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: whole story.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Which is what Becky wonders about now, the whole story,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: because while the evidence against Barbara is overwhelming, neither Becky
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: nor I are convinced by the motive the prosecution presented.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Why would be told to move out cause the three
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: year old college graduate to fly into a murderous rage. Plus,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: if Chris is to be believed, Barbara had been planning
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: the murder for months, what was her motivation before Becky
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: met her in Copenhagen, before Charles and Jane adopted her
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Barbara Shutt was a girl named Barbara Wilson. Barbara Wilson
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: was born in Kentucky, raised in an orphanage. Who was
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: this girl the shots ushered into their home at the
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: age of seventeen? And why did you kill Jane?
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: There's so many questions I still have, so maybe some
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: of those questions you'll find answers to.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: On the next episode of Heavyweight.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: When you want to solve the murder, you discover the
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: secrets that spawned it.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: I set out to unlock some secrets.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: The story we got was that she had no family,
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: and it wasn't even true.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: What's this place called Galilee's Children's Home? Galilean Children's Home?
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: I searched for the Kentucky orphanage where Barbara was raised.
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: There's a kid's size book right there.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: And the kids now grown who were raised there with her.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: I try to forget the bad ones.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: There were bad ones.
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: Well, from the outside it look like candy and cookies.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: What was going on in the inside was far from that.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Part two is out now. It's available only on Spotify.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Go there right now and search Heavyweight to listen to
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: the conclusion. This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Stevie Lane,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: along with Me, Jonathan Goldstein, and Moheey mcgauker. Our senior
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: producer is Khaleila Holt. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Brendan Klinkenberg, Mitch Hansen, Fia Ben and Justin mcgoldrich, j T. Townsend,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Rachel Strom, Mark Bartlett, Jason Alexander at the Hamilton County
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Clerk of Courts, and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Blue Dot Session and Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: be found on our website, Gimletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Our theme song is by The Weaker Thans courtesy of
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: Epitaph Records. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight. We're always
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: looking for new stories, so email us at Heavyweight at
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: gimletmedia dot com. Part two of this episode is available
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: right now only on Spotify. We'll be back with new
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: episodes after Thanksgiving, exclusively on Spotify