Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / Helle Crafts - The Woodchipper Murder - Part 2

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Helle Crafts - The Woodchipper Murder - Part 2 · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Today we continue on with last episode's story of Helicrafts.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Today we're talking about Part 2, and if you've yet
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: to listen to Part 1, we recommend you do so
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: before joining us in this episode. But if you are ready,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: then let's sit down and let's begin with Part 2 now.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: My name's Ben.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked and Grim.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: A true crime podcast.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Warning. The following podcast contains graphic content... Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: So have you been struggling with the Antissa... patient from
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: last episode?
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: What did that just remind me of?
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Rocky Horror Picture Show.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Okay. I'm like, that.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Just like brought me back some more than I wasn't sure. Okay.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: There we go.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: It's been a, it's been a long week. Let's just
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: say that.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Have you thought about the story much at all?
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Um.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: You were pretty angry with me when we left off
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: last episode. So I'm assuming one of two things happened.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: You have thought about it lots or two, you're just
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: repressing it and you're blocking it out.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Probably the latter, because also I had a super busy week,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: so I just kind of was hunkering down.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, so it didn't even matter that we skipped in
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: time then. That's what you're saying. You're just, it's okay.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I can do this more often. More part twos. Oh, gosh.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: More breaking it up.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Okay, I don't actually mind two-parters. Really? Well, because you
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: get to learn more of the story.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: I don't know. It's a bit of a deeper dive,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: but the waiting does kind of suck. But this time
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I was quite busy that I didn't really notice the gap.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: But usually you do?
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: I do more so, yes.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Okay. I was expecting a little bit more flack today.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: That's why I was bringing this up. So I'm glad
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: you were distracted. I guess that's what I'm going to say.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Well, I wasn't bitching at you, was I?
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Well, typical stuff, but nothing to do with the podcast anyways.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Oh my. Okay. Well, as soon as we stopped last episode,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: I was on your case though.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you were.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: I was asking you 50 million questions and you didn't
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: really spill any of the beans.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Nothing.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Nothing.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: So.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: So you're ready though?
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: I'm ready.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: You want me to spill the beans now?
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: I would love that. I think we all would love that.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, I'm going to start with a bit
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: of a recap from the last episode in part one.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: And in part one, we learned about Hella Crafts. She
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: was a Danish born flight attendant who came to the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: United States and built a career with Pan Am. She
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: met a pilot named Richard Crafts in 1969, and the
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: two eventually married and settled into Newtown, Connecticut, where they
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: raised three children. But by 1986, their marriage was falling apart.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Friends described Richard as repeatedly having infidelity issues and allegations
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: of physical abuse had started to surface. So Hela decided
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: she wanted a divorce. She hired a private investigator named
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Keith Mayo, who confirmed Richard was seeing another woman. And
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: as Hela prepared to leave the marriage, she even warned
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: people that were close to her if anything happened to her,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: they shouldn't simply assume that it was an accident. Then
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: on November 18th, 1986, Hela returned home from Europe during
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: a very powerful snowstorm. Another flight attendant drove her to
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: her family home at 5 Newfield Lane, where Hela went
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: inside and was never seen again. In the days that followed,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Richard claimed that she had gone to Denmark to care
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: for her sick mother. He even suggested that she might
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: have traveled to the Canary Islands, and even at other times,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: he was just like, I have no idea where she went.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: But Hela never went to Denmark. Her mother wasn't sick.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: and her car and belongings just remained behind at the airport.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: As Hella's friends pushed for an investigation, more troubling details
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: began to emerge too. The family's live-in nanny described a
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: very mysterious dark stain in the master bedroom and carpeting
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: that had later been removed. Investigators learned that Richard had
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: purchased a large new deep freezer shortly before Hella disappeared too,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: only for it to vanish and then just two days
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: after Hella was last seen, He apparently rented a commercial
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: wood chipper and a truck, despite investigators finding little storm
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: damage on the property to explain why he needed these things.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: By Christmas, police were ready to take a much closer look. Now,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: with Richard and children away in Florida, investigators obtained a
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: search warrant for the home on 5 Newfield Lane. And
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: on December 25, 1986, that's when they entered the home
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: to begin their search. And that is where we left off.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: What a sketchy mofo.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Any questions before we move on?
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: Nope.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: That just brought it all back in just a wave
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: of shit.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: A wave of shit.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: A wave of nausea.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, I would assume that if it's a wave
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: of shit, that would induce nausea for sure. Well, if
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: you're ready for the secondary wave of shit, let's keep going.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Let's do it.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: It was on December 25th, 1986, when Richard Crafts and
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: his three children were away in Florida for Christmas and
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: investigators arrived at his home on 5 Newfield Lane. The
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: search there involved Connecticut State Police investigators and forensic personnel,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: including Dr. Henry Lee. He then was the director of
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory. With the search
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: warrant in hand, investigators entered the house through the rear
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: window and began documenting everything they found. Now, they quickly
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: noticed that the interior of the home seemed to be
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: a little on the disturbed side of things. And I
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: mean things like furniture appeared to have been moved and
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: sections of carpeting, the reported ones, had been torn up.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Investigators even found indications that items had been burned in
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the fireplace recently. Now, none of those things, of course,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: independently established that anyone had been harmed there, but police
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: were examining the house as a potential crime scene. So
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: those were the kind of details that they were looking for.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: As they searched the garage too, that's where they found
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: a large deep freezer. However, investigators determined that this was
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: not the recently purchased one that they were trying to locate.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: The one Richard had picked up on November 17th, well,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: it was still missing. Now, police collected numerous items from
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: the house, including Richard's firearms, towels, washcloths, different fibers and
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: portions of bedding, different things to try and match anything
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: or test for any sort of substance. but it was
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: the master bedroom that produced the most significant discovery. Dr.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Lee examined the mattress very closely, and in doing so,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: noticed several extremely small discolorations. In total, there were five
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: tiny droplets, little spots. They were easy to overlook, but
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: enough for samples to be collected and tested. They were
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: tested with orthotolidine at the scene, which is a chemical
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: test used to detect the possible presence of blood. And
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: the reaction was positive. The stains were then subject to
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: further testing as well, and they were found to be
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: human blood. Investigators were able to determine that the blood
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: that they had found was type O positive, and Hella
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: was type O positive. Now, this was in 1986, before
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: DNA profiling could provide the kind of individual identification that
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: would become common in later homicide investigations and today. So
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: the blood type, therefore, couldn't prove that the stains specifically
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: belonged to Hela. Millions of people share the same blood type.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: What investigators could say was that this blood of a
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: human was O-positive blood, and it had been found on
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: the mattress where Hela slept, and that Hela's blood was
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: consistent with it. But of course, blood can get on
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: a mattress in dozens of different ways. A simple scratch
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, for example, could cause
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: something like this. So Dr. Lee wanted to know more
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: than whose blood it might have been. He examined the size, shape, placement,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: and direction of the stains to determine how the blood
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: had actually gotten onto the mattress in the first place. Now,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: the five spots were small and even had directional characteristics,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: which meant they weren't simply smears onto the fabric. Laboratory
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: examination led Dr. Lee to conclude that the samples present
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: were also not that of menstrual blood, which of course
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: can happen on mattresses as well.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: So from their angles on how these things would have
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: gotten on the mattress rather than smearing or anything, Dr.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Lee concluded that the person shedding the blood had likely
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: been positioned close to the edge of the bed and
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: not on it, possibly leaning or kneeling near the mattress
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: when the blood was then deposited. And ultimately, he classified
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the pattern as a medium velocity impact blood spatter, which
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: meant the blood was consistent with blood being projected after
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: a person was struck with a blunt object.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: That's quite a lot of detail that he's able to
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: figure out just from that. And I'm assuming each spot,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: it all happened at one time, basically.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they're able to determine that, but
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I think they can assume that. Yeah. So interesting.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Now, outside of those, there was actually one other bit
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: of blood found on the mattress as well. But this
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: one was different and it was much larger. It was
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: approximately six inches long and it seemed to be a
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: smear that was different from the five small impact stains.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Rather than droplets being, you know, projected onto the surface,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: this mark suggested that someone had already been wet with
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: blood and then made contact with the mattress and moved
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: across it. causing a spread or a smear in this
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: six-inch long pattern of blood. Now, they tested it, and
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: it too was human blood, and it too was type
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: O positive, and again, not menstrual. Hella was O positive,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: and in fact, the bedroom was not the only place
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: where investigators found indications of blood. Now, among the items
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: taken from the house were towels and washcloths. These were
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: recently washed. And laboratory testing nevertheless detected blood on some
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: of them. And Dr. Lee interpreted the findings as indicating
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: that at least some of the towels had previously been
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: soaked or heavily contaminated with blood before going through the laundry.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: For investigators, that was particularly important. Washing fabric could remove
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: visible stains, but it did not necessarily remove every single
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: microscopic trace that was left behind. So now they felt
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: that they had physical evidence inside the Kraft's home that
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: could not explain simply why Hela had chose to leave.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Seemed like there was more to the story. But still
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: there were limits to what this evidence they found could establish.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: The typo positive blood could not be individually identified as Hela's.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: The blood stain pattern could indicate how blood had been deposited,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: but they could not identify who caused the injury Or
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: exactly what object had been used either. In this missing freezer,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: it was still missing. And the discarded bedroom carpet had
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: produced no blood evidence. Most importantly, investigators still had not
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: found Hella herself.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, I have two questions before you continue here.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: Shoot.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: So... I think last episode you had said that he
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: purchased new bedding too, right?
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: That was shown on receipts or something?
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, there was reports of him purchasing new bedding. Okay.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: And then he had also... I'm not making this up, right?
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: He had abused her prior to or something, hadn't he?
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: There was reports of it. There was allegations of it.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: I don't think that there's any evidence of it.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: So there are people who claim that Hela told them...
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: that there was abuse going on. There was people saying
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: that they had seen bruises. So there's secondhand reports, but
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything beyond that.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: So some of this blood could have potentially been even
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: from that.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, theoretically, yeah.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: But I mean, I think we all know where this
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: is going, but I just wanted to clarify that.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: So I mean, but if you're going down that route, theoretically,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, you could have a scratch on your finger.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Maybe you got a paper cut from reading a book
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: and it hurt and you flick your hand, go, ah.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: And as you're flicking your hand, a couple of droplets
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: of blood could fling from that too. Theoretically, if you're
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: going down that path.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: But I feel like for the blood to be on
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: the mattress at this incident, it almost had to go
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: through the bedding first since he replaced the bedding. So
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: it would have been like quite a bit more blood
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: than say if you just cut your finger and did that.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, possibly.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Possibly. Now, as far as what I'm aware though, the
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: blood is actually on the side of the mattress. So
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: maybe there's the sheets are on the bed and that
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: portion was exposed and it didn't have to go through.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of scenarios and I mean, we
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: could spend hours trying to stipulate, but we do know
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: that it's typo positive. We do know hell is typo positive.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Which I honestly feel like you can just assume.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We do know that there is both spatter and
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: a smear. on the mattress, which is two separate, at
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: least ways of transferring it, but not necessarily separate incidents.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Considering that they're really relatively close together, probably the same incident.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: But yeah, anyways, after this, investigators turned their attention away
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: from the house and they began trying to reconstruct Richard's
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: movements during the day surrounding Hela's disappearance, particularly what he
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: had done with the rental truck and the wood chipper
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: that he rented. And that inquiry eventually led them to
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the man who had been working through the November snowstorm.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: His name was Joseph Hine. The wood chipper had been
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: rented on November 20th, 1986, while crews across the region
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: were still cleaning up damage from the snowstorm. And Joseph
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Hine was on the highway. He was a worker who'd
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: been clearing roads during that storm. See, Joseph's shift had
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: taken him through the area faster. And he was around
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: the Houstonic River and Lake Zor, near the boundary between
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Newton and Southbury. And late on November 20th and into
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: the early morning hours that followed, road conditions were very poor.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Snow had fallen, debris had left crews working at unusual hours,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: and traffic was extremely light because of it. And at
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: approximately 3.30 a.m., Joseph encountered something unusual near the steel
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: bridge crossing the water. there was a rental-style truck towing
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: a woodchipper. The equipment was odd enough at that hour
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: and conditions for Joseph to remember it, and as he
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: approached with his snowplow, he saw a man at the
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: truck and the chipper, and he directed him around the equipment.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Joseph continued on his way, thinking it was odd, but
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: not much more than just that. Then roughly two hours later,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: his route brought him back through the area again. The
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: truck and woodchipper were still nearby. This time, though, It
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: was along the River Road, close to the Houstonic River
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: and Lake Zor, and Joseph recalled seeing a man wearing
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: a distinctive orange hooded parka or poncho near the machine.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Investigators brought Joseph back to the area so he could
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: show them where he remembered seeing this equipment. The location
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: was relatively secluded. The river flowed through the area into
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Lake Zor with wooded shoreline and steep banks surrounding portions
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: of the water. If someone had been operating machinery in
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: this area during the middle of the night, there would
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: have been relatively very few people around to ever notice.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: So police began searching the area. And near the shoreline,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: they found piles of wood chips and debris.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: That is so bizarre. I would be incredibly creeped out
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: if I just stumbled upon someone in the middle of
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: the night who had a What is this called?
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: A wood chipper?
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: A wood chipper and was just out and about like
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: in a secluded area. I don't know that. I just
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: think I would be so freaked out.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: But the thing is, why would you be freaked out?
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Why would you make that assumption?
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Because that seems super suspicious. I can't say I've ever
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: seen a wood chipper, you know, in a secluded area
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: with someone operating it in the middle of the night
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: in the dark.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing with this, though. In today's age,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: we've been conditioned to be suspicious of such things, right?
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Of everything, yeah.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Have you heard tales of someone going into a wood
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: chipper before? Murder-wise, discarding a body or anything like that?
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Have you?
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Ever had a conversation? There you go.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: In 1986, that was not so much the fable going around.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: I guess so, yeah.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: In fact, if I may be so bold as to
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: potentially give away some of the story- a lot of
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: that sort of fable, a lot of that hearsay, what
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: you hear today comes from this story.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Or comes from the stuff that happened in the 80s
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: and the 90s. And that's why we're afraid of everything.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: But that whole idea of the wood chipper, evidence or
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: body or anything that you've heard of in any sort
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: of horror movie or true crime documentary, any of that
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: sort of stuff, most of it, Flows back to this story.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: This is one of the ones that actually generated that
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: whole idea in the first place.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Okay. So the guy passing by thought this was odd,
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: but it wasn't like his mind didn't go to a
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: true crime sort of thing.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Definitely not.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: No.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Or a crime of sorts.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: No, he's just like, what's this guy doing out here
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: with a wood chipper?
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: That's kind of fucked up. And then he continues home.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Basically, he's just like, that's an odd hour to be
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: chipping some woods out in the bush, like some tree
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: out in the bush. Who knows?
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: So yeah.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: So for him, it wasn't odd. Now, at first, this
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: pile of wood chips and debris and stuff is exactly
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: what anyone might have expected to find around where a
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: wood chipper was spotted in the woods. But investigators, nevertheless,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: began examining the material extremely closely, searching through the chips
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: and the surrounding ground piece by piece. And then they
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: found something that did not belong there. Mixed in amongst
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: the debris was some shredded mail. And one of those
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: pieces was a near piece intact envelope. I would say
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: at least 70% still intact, but torn up quite a bit.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: And it was an envelope bearing the name and address
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: of Hella Crafts. The discovery immediately connected the area to
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the missing person and the search became far more intensive.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: The scene was cordoned off and investigators began recovering additional
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: material from among the wood chips. There were chunks that
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: they found and strands of blonde hair, Pieces of blue-green
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: fabric that appeared in the debris, and there were small
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: fragments that looked like bone that were even collected. Small pieces...
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: of what appeared to be flesh. Oh, no. And even
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: a piece of small metal was found. Searches also recovered
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: what appeared to be parts of a human fingernail, still painted,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: though chipped, with bright-colored polish still attached to it. Seriously?
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Each item was carefully collected for laboratory examination. Now, the
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: location presented investigators with an enormous forensic challenge, though. They
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: were not searching a bedroom or a vehicle where evidence
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: could be contained within a few square meters. They were
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: working along a riverbank after a major snowstorm surrounded by mud, vegetation,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: wood chips, debris, you know, all this sort of thing. Plus,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: it's right beside moving water, which is very capable of
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: carrying away additional evidence. Much of the ground had been
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: covered by snow. And the sun that was coming out,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: and it was melting the snow and washing things away.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: It was a horrendous situation to try and find evidence in.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: No kidding. This is just terrible, though.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Now, police established a major search operation along the shoreline.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Investigators and forensic personnel arrived. sifted through material by hand,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: looking for anything that might distinguish ordinary wood and debris
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: from possible human remains. And the water itself also had
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: to be searched too. Divers entered both the nearby river
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and lake, while investigators worked the banks. At points, the
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: water level was even manipulated with the assistance of a
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: nearby dam to make portions of the area more searchable
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and more accessible. And by the time the material was cataloged,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: it included 2,660 strands of blonde or light colored hair,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: several pieces of human tissue, portions of fingernail and toenail,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: dental material, and upwards of 60 different tiny bone fragments.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: And some of those fragments were unmistakably human. Now, this
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: is actually why I kind of jumped ahead a little
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: bit and said, you know, this is kind of the
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: case where a lot of that wood chipper fable comes
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: from is because my next little bit was talking about
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: what they found and with what they found it's kind
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: of unmistakable what had happened.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Honestly a living nightmare yeah and i can't how would
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: you even begin to like investigate this really i.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Don't know it would be a nightmare as you put
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: it yeah now dr albert b harper a specialist in
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the examination of bone studied the material on hand Portions
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: showed anatomical characteristics associated with the human skull, including grooves
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: created by blood vessels, while other pieces displayed damage suggesting
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: they had been subject to a tremendous mechanized force, such as,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: for example, a wood chipper. The fragments were so small
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: that ordinary blood typing presented a harsh challenge. So Dr.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Harper froze portions in liquid nitrogen, making the material brittle
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: enough to grind into a fine powder for testing. And they, luckily,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: got a result. The blood was typo positive, just like
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Hella Crafts. As with the mattress blood, though, the blood
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: did not individually identify Hella. It was consistent with her
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: blood type. Now, the hair provided another comparison. Investigators obtained
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: known samples from Hella's hairbrush and examined them microscopically against
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the thousands of hairs recovered near the river. Hella's hair
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: had been bleached or dyed, and it gave examiners additional
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: characteristics to compare against. And the recovered hairs showed microscopic
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: similarities to the known samples as well, including an unusual
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: ridge and some displayed signs of severe traumatic damage. Now, again,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: This was before routine forensic DNA testing. So an examiner
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: could say that the hairs were microscopically consistent with Hela's,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: but not that each strand had been scientifically proven to
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: come from her.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Gosh, I feel like at this point it's like they
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: have enough.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Well, there's more. Investigators also focused on examining the painted
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: fingernail recovered from the debris. See, there was a bottle
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: of bright red nail polish that had been found on
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Hela's nightstand at Newfield Lane. and the chemical comparison found
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: the nail polish on the recovered nail to be consistent
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: with the polish in that bottle. And as for the fibers,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: the fibers were identified as a bluish-green cotton, and according
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: to Dawn Marie Thomas, the Crafts family live-in nanny, the
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: color of these fibers was consistent with the one of
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Hella's favorite cotton nightshirt, which was a loose shirt she
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: regularly wore to bed. Then there was the dental evidence.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Among the debris recovered from the wood chip pile had
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: been a small gray piece of metal. What initially looked
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: like an unremarkable scrap piece of metal turned out to
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: be dental material, including a crown. Connecticut forensic dentist Dr.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Constantine P. Gus Karazoulis was brought in to examine the
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: dental evidence and also joined investigators as they continued searching
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: the river area. He spent several days there, and during
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: one of those searches, Dr. Karazoulis slipped while carrying a
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: pail of evidence and after getting back to his feet,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: he actually spotted another tooth laying amongst the debris.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Now, Dr.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Karazoulis had multiple pieces of dental evidence at this point
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: to work with, and he compared them against Hella's dental
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: x-rays dating from 1982 through 1986, looking for features that
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: could establish whether the teeth belonged to her. In his opinion,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: there was no doubt that one of the recovered teeth
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: was Hella's lower left bicuspid. Now, Dental expert Dr. Lovell
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Levine independently examined the evidence as well and agreed with
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: this identification. That gave investigators something considerably stronger than a
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: shared blood type or microscopic hair comparison. A portion of
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Hella's dental anatomy had been recovered from the area where
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Richards rented a wood chipper and had reportedly been seen. Now,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: while searching the waters, divers also found something else. they
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: located a steel chainsaw. And when I mean steel, I
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: mean the brand S-T-I-H-L. There, in the water, it laid
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: with some other components, including the chain. The saw had
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: been dismantled and discarded under the water. But not only that,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: someone had attempted to destroy its identity. The serial number
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: had been deliberately filed and scratched away. Now, despite its
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: time under the water, there was still some biological material
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: that remained trapped in the grease on the saw, and
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: laboratory examination detected human tissue, hair, and blue-green cotton fibers.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Those fibers were consistent in color with the same type
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: of garment associated with Hella. Investigators then attempted to recover
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: the destroyed serial number, and using chemical restoration techniques, they
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: were able to bring the original numbers back from the
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: metal beneath the filed surface. The serial number was 5921616.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: And records trace that number back to a steel chainsaw
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: purchased and registered to Richard B. Crafts.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay. This is a lot. It also is just
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: enough to make you kind of just feel completely ill.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: It's pretty disgusting to say the least.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Like this is, this is, he has kids with her.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: Three.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: That's correct.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: So I don't know. I just can't believe someone could
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: do that and let alone think that they're going to
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: get away with this too.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: It's absolutely horrendous. And in all honesty, not to say
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: that he's lucky, but as far as his side goes,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: he kind of lucked out with this storm in a
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: bit of a situation. Because what was he going to
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: do without a storm?
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess so.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: He might have gotten caught. More evidence may not have
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: been washed away. It was ultimately for him almost the
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: perfect cover.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: Almost.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Perfect storm. Well, honestly, even if that guy didn't see
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: him with the wood chipper.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Like, I don't know.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: And also, no matter how much time they spend there,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: there's probably just debris that's going to be left behind too, unfortunately, right?
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, definitely.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: That they're not going to be able to recover.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. No, like even thinking like how much had
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: been washed away in the water alone.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Just that alone. And you cannot recover 100% of anything
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: that's been chipped up onto the ground.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: No.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: You're not getting every single piece. It's impossible.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: No one deserves that.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: No.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: That is unreal.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Now, finding all of this evidence, all these things, was
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: still not enough for investigators, though. They wanted to know
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: whether a wood chipper could actually create the distinctive damage
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: seen on the recovered material. So Dr. Lee obtained the
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: same type of machine that Richard had rented and conducted
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: an experiment using a pig carcass. The animal was passed
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: through the chipper, allowing Dr. Lee and the other forensic
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: specialists to examine the resulting damage. And as it turned out,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the machine produces very recognizable cutting and fragmentation patterns, patterns
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: that were then compared to the marks and damage on
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the material recovered, and it supported the conclusion that the
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: recovered remains had been subject to the same kind of powerful,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: mechanical shredding produced by the commercial chipper. By this point,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: investigators no longer needed to locate an intact body to
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: demonstrate that Hella was dead. They had recovered human bone, tissue,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: thousands of hair, all consistent with her. Type O, positive blood,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: a painted fingernail, dental remains, identifying Hella. They had also
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: recovered Richard's chainsaw from beneath the water, with human remains
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: still trapped in the grease on it. The evidence may
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: have been fragmented very literally, but it was enough for
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: investigators to say they believed they knew what had happened
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: to her. Investigators could now reconstruct a very likely sequence
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: of events for Hela Craft's death, although important parts of
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: it could never be proven with clarity. There were no
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: witnesses to this murder. Her intact body was never found,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: other than just pieces. There was no conventional autopsy, and
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: the object used to initiate or inflict the initial injuries
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: on her was never found. But what followed was the
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: scenario investigators and prosecutors developed from the blood evidence, the
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: missing freezer, Richard's purchases and rental, and the human remains
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: recovered near Lake Zoar. They believed Hela was killed inside
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: 5 Newfield Lane, sometime after she returned home from Frankfurt
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: on the evening of November 18, 1986, and before Don
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Marie Thomas woke up the following morning. The strongest evidence
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: placing violence inside the home came from the master bedroom.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Dr.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Henry Lee's examination had revealed five tiny spots of human
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: O-type positive blood on the mattress. Their size and pattern
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: led him to classify them as medium-velocity impact spatter, consistent
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: with blood projected during a blunt force assault. The larger
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: smear nearby indicated contact with something already covered in blood.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Investigators believed Hella had been struck in or beside the bed.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: One theory focuses on a heavy police-style flashlight. as a
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: possible weapon and richard had access to that type of
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: equipment through his police work and the shape and force
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: required to produce the suspected hand injury made it a
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: possible a possibility but the actual weapon was unfortunately never
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: recovered and the evidence could not establish that a flashlight
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: like this was specifically used so that portion only remains
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: a theory What could be established was the fragments recovered
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: at Lake Zor, including portions of a human skull and
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: all the other debris, including dental. Investigators believe Richard, after
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: striking her in the master bedroom, used a large freezer
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: he had purchased on November 13th and collected on November 17th,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: one day before Hela came home. Their theory was that
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Hela's body was placed inside the freezer and she was
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: allowed to freeze solid. The freezer would have made a
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: body considerably easier to cut apart while also reducing the
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: amount of blood that would be released during dismemberment. That
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: newly purchased freezer was also never recovered. It was never found.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: The prosecution believed Richard subsequently removed Hela's frozen body and
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: dismembered it with the steel chainsaw. But unlike the suspected
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: murder weapon, the chainsaw could be directly tied to Richard.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Its serial number had been deliberately destroyed, but forensic specialists
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: restored it and traced the saw back to Richard. Human tissue, hair,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: blue-green cotton fibers remained trapped in its grease on the chainsaw,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: despite it being submerged in water. They were still there.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Then they believed on November 20th, Richard rented a truck
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: and a commercial wood chipper and transported Hela's dismembered remains
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: to Lake Zor and the Houstonic River area and fed
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: them through the machines. Now that explained why investigators had
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: found so little. Rather than an intact body, the shoreline
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: contained only tiny pieces. Fragments, bones, pieces of tissue, fingernails, toenails, dental,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: all of it remained in pieces on that shore. That's
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: all that Hela was reduced to. With who knows how
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: much of her washing away in the waters. Hela's mail
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: and pieces of blue-green fabric had been shredded among the
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: same debris. And investigators believe the river and surrounding terrain
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: were intended to take away much of the evidence. Now,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: at some point during the investigation, Richard allegedly made a
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: remark that would become particularly chilling in light of what
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: police had found. See, according to his brother-in-law, Richard had said, quote,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Let them dive. There's no body. It's gone. End quote.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: I have to keep lowering my eyebrows because this is
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: just so, everything that you're saying is just so shocking
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: to me.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: You're just getting just permalines in your forehead right now?
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is giving me, this case is giving me wrinkles.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Rightfully so. If there's a case you're going to get
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: wrinkles on, this is definitely one of them.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: It's just so unbelievable that, because she has kids and
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: loved ones.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: They don't even have anything to lay to rest.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: I can't argue. You're right.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: It's just devastating. It's so freaking sad.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, he was technically right saying there's no body.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: It's gone. He's technically true. There was no body, at
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: least in that conventional sense. But there was at least
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: enough left behind for them to.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: I don't mean to.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: His confidence got the best of him there. He thought
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: that he did a... Like, spick and span job.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: And everything would have gone down the river or whatever.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: But here, no. There was evidence left.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Behind, buddy.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: And I don't mean this in a joking way when
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: I say this. I mean this in an actual way
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: so there's not a double entendre in what I'm about
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: to say. There was enough left behind for investigators to
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: piece together. Now, by January 1987, investigators believed the evidence
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: established that Hela had not abandoned her children. She had
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: not secretly returned to Denmark or disappeared voluntarily. They believed
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: she had been murdered, dismembered, deliberately reduced to fragments in
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: an attempt to prevent anyone from proving that she was dead.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: So police obtained an arrest warrant. And at around midnight
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: on January 13th, 1987, officers surround the Crafts home. Richard's
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: children were inside with him, making police reluctant to force
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: a confrontation. But they were outside and demanding him to
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: come out. He initially remained in the house while officers
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: waited outside, but eventually he did surrender. Richard was taken
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: into custody and processed through Connecticut State Police Troop A
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: in Southbury before appearing in Danbury Superior Court that morning.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: He was charged with murdering his wife and the bond
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: was set at $ 750, 000. But proving that whole case to
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: a jury would be a matter all on its own entirely. See,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Richard Crafts remained in custody as prosecutors prepared to do
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: something Connecticut had never successfully done before, and that is
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: obtain a murder conviction without ever recovering the victim's body
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: as a whole. The trial began in New London in
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: southeastern Connecticut in May of 1988, and the prosecution's case
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: was enormous to say the least. Over approximately 53 days,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: jurors heard from roughly 100 witnesses and were presented with
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: hundreds of exhibits. There was, of course, no eyewitness to
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Hella's murder and no confession. Instead, prosecutors built the case
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: piece by piece. Dawn Marie Thomas was there, and she
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: took the stand describing the stains in the bedroom and
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: the disappearance of the newly purchased freezer. Joseph Hine was
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: also there to testify about the truck and the wood
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: chipper that he had seen near Lake Zor that night
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: of the storm. Dr. Henry Lee explained the blood evidence
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: and the forensic testing.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: Dr.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Albert Harper testified about the human bone fragments while Dr.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Gus Karazoulis and Dr. Lowell Levine addressed the dental evidence
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: linking the recovered remains to Ella. All in all, prosecutors
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: agreed that the evidence formed a single, coherent story. Ella
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: had been murdered in her bedroom, then frozen, and dismembered
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: and put through the rented wood chipper before what remained
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: scattered near the lake The defense challenged a case built
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: almost entirely on circumstantial and forensic evidence. And after closing arguments,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: the jury began deliberating. They deliberated for 17 days in total.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I thought it was going to be like quick.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: 17 days. And eventually the jury announced that it could
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: not reach a unanimous decision.
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: There was a split 11-1 decision in favor of a conviction,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: with one juror refusing to join the others. And on
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: July 15, 1988, the judge declared a mistrial. So Richard
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Crafts would be tried again. The second trial was moved
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: to Norwalk and began on September 7, 1989. Prosecutor Walter
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Flanagan once again presented the forensic chain linking Richard to
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Hella's death and disposal. This jury, however, reached a decision
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: much faster. After approximately eight hours of deliberation on November 21st, 1989,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Richard Crafts was found guilty of the murder of Hela Crafts.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, that's what I expected.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Hela, at that moment, had been legally declared a victim
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: of a homicide, even though investigators had recovered only tiny
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: portions of her remains. Richard, however, continued to maintain his innocence.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: On January 9th, 1990, he appeared before the judge for sentencing.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Hello's family asked the court for the maximum punishment, and
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Richard's sister, Karen Rogers, she said that her brother had
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: shown no remorse. Richard addressed the judge and complained about
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: the way that he'd been portrayed, including descriptions of him
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: as a cold and unemotional individual, and he maintained he
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: was innocent. The judge ultimately sentenced him to 50 years
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: in prison.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, I like that. That is a good length of
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: a sentence right there.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Richard's attorney, Thomas E. Farver, continued challenging the conviction, and
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: in fact the case eventually reached the Connecticut Supreme Court,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: where the defense argued several issues, including whether the evidence
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: had been sufficient to prove murder, and whether Hella's statements
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: expressing her fear of Richard should have been admitted. But
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: in 1993, the court upheld the conviction in a four
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: to one decision. The majority concluded that Hella's statements could
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: be used in part to counter Richard's suggestion that she
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: had voluntarily disappeared. Justice Robert Burden, however, disagreed with the
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: majority on that issue, arguing that some of Hella's statements
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: should not have been allowed as evidence, but it did
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: not matter because the conviction stood. Hella's three children had
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: meanwhile lost their parents. Their mother was dead, their father
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: was imprisoned for killing her, and they soon went to
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: live under the care of Karen Rogers. Now, because Richard's
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: crime occurred under Connecticut's older sentencing and good time credit laws,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: he became eligible for release before serving the entirety of
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: that 50-year sentence.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: In late 2019, at the age of 82, Richard was
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: released from prison and transferred to the Isaiah House, a
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: halfway house in Bridgeport. where he remained under supervision while
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: finishing the final portion of his sentence. On January 29, 2020,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: he was allowed to move from that halfway house to
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: a veteran's shelter, also in Bridgeport. By then, after more
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: than three decades behind bars, his sentence was nearing its expiration,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: and he was expected to become completely free later that year.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Through it all, Richard Kraft continued to maintain that innocence.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: And as far as I can find, he is still
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: alive today. And if he is, you'd be 88 years old.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, I just need to say, I almost feel like
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: the veteran status should be taken away when someone like
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: is this much of a monster.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: I agree, actually.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: Because, yeah, when you just said that, I was like,
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: because you think of that as kind of like honor, right?
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: And something to be proud of.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: And so it just kind of bothered me actually a
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: little bit there.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: It's like you're smearing the good name. You know what
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: I mean? Now, the investigation became an important case in
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: the development of forensic science. It demonstrated how a homicide
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: could be established through hundreds of individual limited pieces of evidence,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: whether it be microscopic bloodstain, hairs, fibers, bone fragments, dental x-rays,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: chemical restoration of a serial number. The list goes on.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: But more often than not, the case is often more
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: described much more simply as something such as the woodchipper murder.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: But that nickname can obscure what investigators actually accomplished in it.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Richard had apparently been correct about one thing when he
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: reportedly said, there's no body, it's gone. There was no body,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: at least no intact one. There were pieces, though. And
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: investigators were able to establish what Richard had apparently tried
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: to make impossible to prove. He tried to make it
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: impossible to to determine if Hella Craft was murdered. But
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: they found that she was. And in 1989, Richard Craft
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: became the first person in Connecticut successfully convicted of murder
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: in a case where the victim's body had never been
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: recovered as a whole. Now, in the decades since Hella's murder,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: the case has remained one of the most infamous in
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Connecticut history, in large part because of the horrifying method
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Richard was accused of using to dispose of Hella's remains,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: and for another familiar one with a 1996 film called Fargo.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: The image of a body disappearing into a wood chipper
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: is probably an immediately recognizable one if you've seen this movie.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: The Coen Brothers cult classic film famously features a scene
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: in which a killer feeds the remains of one of
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: their victims through a wood chipper in the middle of
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: a snowy landscape. And because Hella Crafts was murdered in
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Connecticut during a snowstorm and her remains were believed to
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: have been fed through a wood chipper, The similarities have
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: led to widespread claims that her murder helped inspire that scene.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: The connection had never been definitively confirmed by the Coen brothers, though.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: And Fargo, the movie itself, famously plays with the idea
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: of being based on a true story, despite being a
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: fictional film. Still, the parallels between the film and the
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: case are rather difficult to ignore. And Hela's murder has
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: remained closely associated with the movie ever since. But unlike
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: the movie Fargo, what happened to Hela Crafts was not fictional.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Behind the woodchipper, the forensic breakthroughs, and the case that
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: would become known around the world, there was a real
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: 39-year-old mother of three who had decided to leave a
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: marriage that she no longer wanted to be in. And
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: that's the story of the murder of Hela Crafts.
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: That one is a lot.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: That one's a lot to take in.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: Because, okay, I was trying to rack my brain. Like what,
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: what exactly did she do to him? Just that she
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: wanted to leave or she wanted a divorce, right?
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: She wanted a divorce. She caught him cheating.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: Easy asshole that was cheating.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: He was. And there's allegations of abuse. So I'm not
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: saying that, don't get me wrong. I'm not, I'm not
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: arguing with you. I'm just trying to say that there's,
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: there's more reasons for her to cheat, to leave, sorry.
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: It's that and these other things.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: So, okay. Yeah.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: Like she literally did nothing wrong.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: No, nothing.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: He was the complete son of a bitch that did
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: a lot of shit wrong.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: He was a total douche canoe.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: And then doesn't let her leave.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know. That is just so gross.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: He didn't even let her serve the papers.
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: In part one, we were discussing how she was trying
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: to serve the papers and her and her attorney were
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: pretty sure that he was aware and he was dodging
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: them whenever possible. Papers never even got served.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The fact that he did this to his children, too,
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: I just will never understand.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: I kind of hope they have no relationship with him whatsoever.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: I hope so, too. I really do. I hope that
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: his time in prison was hell. I hope this planet
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: is rid of him at this point. I hope that his...
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: freedom was minimal when he was released and i hope
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: everyone around him was disgusted with him because i know
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: i'm disgusted with him.
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: Well yeah it's pretty freaking disgusting what he did yeah
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: also where the hell is that freezer did he just
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: like sell that on marketplace and someone has it in
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: their garage because that's also disgusting i mean.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: I doubt he sold it on marketplace 80s but he
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: could have sold it somewhere.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Yes or not even that they.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Not even no internet the.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: Newspaper i don't Newspaper or something. But then that would
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: have been very traced.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Garage sales. He could have went to a scrapyard, a junkyard.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Who knows? He could have just dumped it somewhere. Hard
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: to say. Jeez.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: If there's ever been a douche canoe, this is the
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: douche canoe.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, there's a lot of douche canoes we talked about.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: But this is like- He's up there. He's really pretty
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: up on that list.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: Definitely. Definitely. I think we should watch the movie Fargo
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: here soon.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I've seen that.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, you got to watch.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: You know what? Here's the thing. Every October. Well, not
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: every October. I'm pretty sure we've done it for a
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: few years now, though. We've done.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: At least two.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: A list on Patreon of Halloween movies to watch. I
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: think Fargo is going to be the first one on
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: that list.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, dang.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: So if you want to see more of the movies
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: that we put out, you can go ahead and join Patreon.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: You can get the rest of it, but I'm going
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: to put the first one out there for free and
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: very early.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: For free. I'm assuming that's a super scary movie, right? Oh, no.
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: No, it's kind of like... Actually, it's kind of comical.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: Oh, okay.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: It's... There's a bit of comedy in it, and it's
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: a thriller. It's a comedy thriller.
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: See, I'm not.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Light comedy thriller.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: I'm not a super... I'm not into scary movies. I'd
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: rather just listen to real life shit, which is... worse
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: but yeah i don't love like the jump scare oh
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: no jump scares and stuff.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: No if you can watch true crime documentaries and you
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: can see crime scene photos, then you can watch this
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: movie because it's very in your face. It's very blunt blood,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. It happens. But it's yeah, it's
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: just very dry, I guess you could say, with some
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: comedy kind of mixed in. It's it's such a unique movie.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: It's hard to describe.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: OK.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And, you know, I just I just feel like
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: I wish there was something we could do for this lady.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: For Hela.
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: Like, I don't know. I just wish we could like
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: cheers or do something.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Well, we can definitely cheers.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I just feel like her life. She
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: just deserved way better.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, she deserved way better.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah. This one's going to this one's going to live
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: on for with me for a while.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: And rightfully so. Anyways, with that, hopefully you guys enjoyed
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: part two. Hopefully the wait in between part one and
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: part two was not too long. If you want to
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: check out the description of this podcast, you can go
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: ahead and see links like to Patreon, where you can
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: go ahead and join us for our whole October of
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: different Halloween movies to watch. And Halloween week that is
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: coming up too, plus a bunch of other exclusive and
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: cool things that happen over there. But if you just
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: want to be here, listen with us like you are
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: right now, we appreciate the hell out of that too.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: You're amazing. We get to do this because of you.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: So thank you. And of course, as always, until next time.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: Stay wicked.
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: Thank you.