Latest / Heavyweight / #41 Barbara Wilson

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#41 Barbara Wilson · Heavyweight

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode is the second in a two part series.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: If you haven't heard Barbara Part one, please go back
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and listen. Thanks, and on with the show. Yeah, you
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: know I have a passion for dance.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: No, I know that.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: And I was wondering if I could because I'm gonna
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: be giving break dancing lessons online, and I was wondering
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: if you could put up a flyer about it at
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: the hospital. Do you guys have like a you know,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: like a little staff room or something not a lover
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: of dance, I guess from Gimblet Media, I'm Jonathan Goldstein
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and this is Heavyweight Today's episode Barbara Part two Barbara Wilson.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Right after the break, Barbara's online obituary contradicted everything my
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: mother in law, Becky, thought she knew about her old friend.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: So Becky tasked me with finding out the truth. In
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the process, I uncovered the murder Barbara committed in nineteen
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: sixty eight, But reading through the trial transcripts, the prosecution's
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: argument didn't make sense to Becky or to me. Why
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: would being asked to leave the nest provoke Barbara to murder?
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: To understand the why, I need to better understand the
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: who who was Barbara before Becky met her in Copenhagen.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: So I'm heading back to the beginning when Barbara Shot
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: was Barbara Wilson. I start where I always start when
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to get to the bottom of anything in
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: my life. YouTube. Me and a buddy, Brian are down
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: here off of Whipper Wheel. This is Douglas and his
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: buddy Brian. On their YouTube channel. They post videos of
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: semitaries and other creepy locales that have fallen into ruin, and.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: We have located the remnants to an old house down here.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: What's this place called Galilean Children's Home?
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: Galilean Children's Home.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: You can google it yourself.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: If you were to google it, you'd see that the
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Galilean Children's Home was an orphanage outside Corbin, Kentucky that
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: shut down in the nineteen fifties. The orphanage is where
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Barbara was raised, back before she was adopted by the Shots,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: back when she was Barbara Wilson.
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: Dad, Gum, here's an old boot.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: There's a kid's sized boot right there. Founded in nineteen
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: thirty nine by a self ordained mountain preacher named John Vogel,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the orphanage was home to over eighty kids who considered
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: themselves brothers and sisters and called John Vogel Daddy. When
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: he was a boy, a house fire killed Vogel's five
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: step siblings but spared him. He took it as a
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: sign that he'd been chosen by God for a higher purpose.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Vogel brag that the Galileean Children's Home wasn't supported by
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: any church, state, or public endowment. He raised money through
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: donations and by touring the kids around the country in
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: a yellow school bus as a children's choir. Much of
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: what I learn about Vogel in the Home comes from
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: his autobiography, which, as my nephew THEO learned during his
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: lessons with Becky, is a book written by the person
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: that it's about.
• 3:29
  Speaker 6: Right Otto means self.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Vogel's autobiography, This Happened in the Hills of Kentucky, is
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: filled with folksy anecdotes about precocious kids getting up to
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: naughty shenanigans. I search the book for a mention of Barbara,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: but only find one anecdote. It's about a little Barbara
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: who tries to convince Vogel to let her chew gum.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Barbara is a quote champion chatterbox who argues that if
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: her mouth is busy chewing gum, she won't be able
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: to talk as much. Barbara is given no last name,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: but she reminds me of adult Barbara, who knew how
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: to get what she wanted. One of the comments on
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Barbara's online obituary is from a fellow Galilean Children's Home resident,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: a man named Larry Brewster, whom I decided to phone.
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: Mister Bruce's speaking.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Oh Hello, mister Brewster.
• 4:24
  Speaker 7: Yes, how did I guess? I'll like you to get
• 4:28
  Speaker 7: to call the new Oh.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know how lucky it makes you, but I
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: appreciate you saying that I am. Once I've hand fanned
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the blush from my cheeks. I explained to Larry that
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: I'm calling about Barbara Wilson and what life was like
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: at the Galilean Children's Home.
• 4:44
  Speaker 7: We had as many as twenty twenty one, twenty four
• 4:48
  Speaker 7: of us in one room.
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: We had three months high m hmm.
• 4:53
  Speaker 7: I was taken there at the age of two years old.
• 4:56
  Speaker 7: I stayed there until nineteen fifty five. I brought them
• 4:59
  Speaker 7: thirteen years one long as it kids.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Hah.
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: I thought that's where everybody lived, had no, No, my house.
• 5:12
  Speaker 7: Wants me to tell you that we had Christmas dinner
• 5:14
  Speaker 7: with Colonel Sanders five years in a row.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Does Larry mean that Colonel Sanders? I wonder, But then
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I take stock of my Yankee bias. Can one not
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: earn the rank of colonel in the great state of
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Kentucky without being mistaken for a white van Dyke chicken
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: frying string tie tying fast food mascot. But Larry assures
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: me that indeed he is talking about that colonel. It seems.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Colonel Harlan David Sanders was a patron of the Galilee
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and Children's Home, and according to his memoir, life as
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I have known it has been finger licking good. The
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: colonel had many failed careers insurance salesman, army mule tender,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: ferryboat entrepreneur, and, perhaps most alarming of all, amateur obstetrician.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: But then, at the age of sixty five, the colonel
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: opened his first KFC, and where he'd failed at birthing children,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: the Colonel excelled at birthing chickens. His very first restaurant
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: was located in Corbin, near the Orphanage. So you guys
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: had fried chicken for Christmas time.
• 6:16
  Speaker 7: Chicken everything, apple pie and ice cream on the cob,
• 6:20
  Speaker 7: biscuits and gravy.
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: We had it all. He spoiled. He said he wanted
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: to be our grandpa.
• 6:26
  Speaker 7: Did you know it won't be legal, but I will
• 6:28
  Speaker 7: be your grandpa.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Larry speaks warmly of his time at the home. He
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: says he attended class in a little schoolhouse, sang in
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: the choir, and performed farm chores like milking goats and cows.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: When I asked him about Barbara, though he doesn't remember much.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: The boys and girls were kept pretty separate.
• 6:48
  Speaker 7: The one time we saw the girls are at school
• 6:51
  Speaker 7: because the miss Halls were separated. Girls had their own
• 6:53
  Speaker 7: Miss Hall and the boys had their own Miss Hall.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: John Vogel was pretty strict about segregating the boys and girls,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: especially as they entered puberty. Was John Vogel like a
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: like a father?
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: Oh? He was more definitely Uh?
• 7:06
  Speaker 7: In his mind. He wasn't for ours. It was was
• 7:10
  Speaker 7: we call him Dad Vogul. I have no nothing but
• 7:13
  Speaker 7: but uh.
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: The rest of the memories. I tried to forget the
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: bad ones. Sorry, I tried to forget the bad ones.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: And there there were bad ones. Well, Larry hesitates, as
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: though what he's thinking of saying next might stir up
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: the bad ones.
• 7:30
  Speaker 7: They didn't have me come back once after I had
• 7:33
  Speaker 7: left to go to court for Dad Vogel.
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: I had to go to court for some reason, and
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: I went to court. I gave him a.
• 7:41
  Speaker 7: Testimony, and I don't know if it helped the director,
• 7:43
  Speaker 7: if it hurt it did he did ask me to
• 7:45
  Speaker 7: come back anymore.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Huh, what what what do you remember about the court case?
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: No? I really don't know much about it.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: What court case is Larry talking about? When I get
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: off the phone, I look into it, and the records
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I discover reveal a much darker portrait of the place
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Barbara was raised than that of Larry's memory. And just
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: a quick warning, the details I'm about to share deal
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: with child sexual abuse and other sensitive subject matter. In
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five, sixteen years after opening the home, John
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Vogel was indicted for rape. A headline from the Lexington
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Herald reads, Daddy John Vogel was a serpent in a
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: hilly garden of Eden. Two sisters who had grown up
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: at the home accused Vogel of raping them. The abuse
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: began in their early teens and lasted years. Vogel threatened
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: to send them to jail if they ever told anyone.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Whennita was twenty when she finally came forward Ruby nineteen.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Ruby's case went to court first, and parenthetically it was
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Colonel Sanders who posted Vogel's bail. A hung jury led
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: to a mistrial, and at the retrial, Vogel was found innocent.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: As for Weanita, fearing a trial would cause her public embarrassment,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: she eventually withdrew the charges, but she always maintained that
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: her accusations against Vogel were true. John Vogel wasn't the
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: only person to publish a memoir about life at the
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Galilean home.
• 9:18
  Speaker 6: Memoir comes from a French word meaning memory.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it sort of sounds like memory, yes, Now a
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: memoir is the self anointed. Love and Terror in my
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Father's House is written by John Vogel's only biological child,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Leonor Duprie. Lenore is now eighty seven years old and
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: lives in a Senior Residence hotel in Michigan, where she
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: talks to me over the phone about her father.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: He could charm the bands off the people, you know,
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: and everybody thought he was a real wonderful person, but
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: behind the scenes he was pretty much of a dirty dealer.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: How do you mean, Well, if she got all.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Involved with these girls because he didn't want them ever
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: to go away, so he started missing around with them
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: so they would feel obligated to him. Oh, you know,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: then everything just kind of got in the wrong pocket.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: You know, people have can try to make you do
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: things for God, and it's not really for God. It's
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: for them, and they hold the power of you that way.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: In her book, Lenor describes her father calling her into
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: his study after a fight they'd had. All the other
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: girls seems so committed to me, Fogel says, why are
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: you so slow to commit yourself to God? He reached
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: up and put his hand on my breast, then pulled
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: me down and kissed me on the mouth. I shuddered. Later,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Lenor writes that she told one of the other girls
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: about what had happened. The girl just shrugged. He does
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: things like that all the time, the girl told Leonor.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: I explained to Lenora the reason for my call about
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: my mother in law, Becky, about Copenhagen, about a girl
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: who grew up at the home named Barbara Wilson.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, yeah, I do remember Barbara. Yeah, she was
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: a real cute little kid. She was sort of dark
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: haired and quite pretty, and she got along real well
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: with the other kids. She actually was adopted by somebody
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: after she left there, and she got in a lot
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: of trouble or something.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: I explained to Leonora that, in fact, it's that trouble
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: that I'm phoning about. Is there anything from Barbara's past
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: that might help explain why she later did the thing
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: she did? Lenora volunteers the details she remembers, including how
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Barbara came to live at the home.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Their background was kind of cool. I think that the
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: mother was slightly feeble minded and had a terrible palsy.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: A palsy a nervous disorder.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and she was shaking so hard all the time.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: She couldn't take care of her children.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Barbara wasn't the only Wilson and left at the orphanage.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: An older brother, Earl, had been brought there too. Growing up,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: though Barbara and Earl barely knew each other, since Vogel
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: kept the boys and girls segregated. When I ask Leonora
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: if she thinks John Vogel might have prayed on Barbara.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: She says she doesn't think so that it wouldn't have
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: fit his mo O. Vogel was mostly focused on the
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: older girls. Barbara was only a couple of months old
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: when she arrived at the orphanage.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: She was taken special care of by one of our teachers,
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Miriam Jones, just almost adopted her as her private child.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Was it was it typical like were there other teachers
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: who kind of adopted informally adopted students there?
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Or was that? Oh? Miriam Jones fell in love with
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Barbara and she raised her in her You know, the
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: workers had these separate rooms, and she kept Barbara in
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: there with her and took care of her, and really
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: it was wonderful to her.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Leonor depicts the Galileean Children's Home as a dogg eat
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: dog war. There were the favorites, and there were the
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: semi favorites, Lenor tells me, and then they were the
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: lost and forgotten. You needed someone looking out for you
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: to survive. Listening to Leonore, a pattern emerges. Miss Jones
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: at the galilee In Children's Home, the warden Miss Wheeler
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: at the Marysville Prison. Throughout her life, Barbara procured benefactors.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: One of the first things Becky told me about Barbara
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: was that she knew how to get what she wanted.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: But what Becky thought was a function of growing up
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: rich and spoiled was actually just the opposite. Barbara learned
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: to manipulate in order to survive, and it might have
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: all begun at the galilee In Children's home, but when the.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Home all broke open, she kind of, like everybody else,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: got scattered to the winds.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Though John Vogel was acquitted of the rape charges, he
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: lost his license to operate the orphanage, so he went
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: to Florida, where he tried reopening with the remaining children
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: from the Galilean Home. Among them Barbara.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: She was one of the kids that was left because
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: so many people came and took their children, and Welsare
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: came and took some of them. But if she went
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: to Florida, this means she was one of the core
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: group left that nobody claimed.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: And so unclaimed. At the age of nine, Barbara moved
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: three states away with an accused rapist. With his reputation
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: in ruins, Fogel wasn't able to get the orphanage in
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Florida off the ground, and when it finally fell apart completely.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: That was when Barbara's life became even less stable. She
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: bounced around in the Florida foster care system, and at
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: the age of thirteen, was brought back to Kentucky, where
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: she moved every few months between distant relatives, some so
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: poor their homes were without running water. In her junior
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: year of high school, at the suggestion of her benefactor
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: from the children's Home, Miriam Jones, Barbara enrolled in a
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: high school run by a nearby college called Berea, and
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: it was at Berea that she met the family that
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: would finally adopt her, the Shots. In a long interview
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Barbara gave to the Papers after her arrest, she recounts
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: the day she originally met Jane Shot. Jane was a
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: doctor at the Berea infirmary, but Barbara says she didn't
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: meet her as a patient. Instead, she went to the
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: infirmary that day to see the doctor that everyone said
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: was Barbara's doppelganger. All the kids on campus told me
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: that she and I looked so much alike it was uncanny.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Barbara is quoted as saying, and sure enough, we did,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: and it's true. In a photograph, taken around the time.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Barbara and Jane stand side by side. They're both petite,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: with small noses and tight lip smiles. They both have
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: dark hair the same short, boyish cuts. Barbara got close
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: with Jane and her husband, Charles, a dean at BREA.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Charles tutored Barbara in math, and Barbara babysat their two
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: younger biological children. When the family moved from Kentucky to
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Ohio before Barbara's senior year, they adopted her and took
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: her with them. Something still doesn't make sense to me, though.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: It's one thing to befriend a young high school student,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: but another to adopt her, especially at seventeen, one year
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: away from legal adulthood.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: He had a wife that was much younger than he was.
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: Other than that, I don't remember a single thing.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Charles was a beloved figure at Berea College. The class
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty nine even dedicated their yearbook to him.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: But when I reach out to alumni who might have
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: insight into the adoption, I don't find much.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: I don't really think that I have anything to contribute.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: He was a kind man.
• 16:51
  Speaker 7: I have absolutely no memories, no contact.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: I make a request to Barea for Charles's papers, his
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: personal notes and correspondence, which they keep in their collection,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: anything that might offer information about the family, And I
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: find something among the documents is the transcript of a
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: tribute Charles was honored with after his death. In it,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: there's a section dedicated to honoring Charles Shutt the family Man.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: But as I read further, I slowly realized that the
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: family under discussion is not the family he had with Jane.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: It turns out before Charles was married to Jane, he
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: was married to a woman named Elva Weidler, with whom
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: he had two children. In the tribute, neither Jane nor
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Barbara are so much as mentioned. They're missing from the
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: story of Charles's life. Just like in Barbara's obituary, anything
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: in anyone remotely related to the tragedy has been completely erased.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you really picked a story.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: This is Charles's granddaughter from that first family. Something new
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: to tell me about Barbara after the break.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you really picked a story.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Charles's granddaughter asked me not to use her real name,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: so we decided to call her Nancy. It seems I
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: phoned her in the middle of her daily exercise.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: I've been walking because I can't get my steps counted
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: while I talk.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, what do you how many steps do you average
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: a day?
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Five thousand is sedentary, so you have to have over
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: five thousand a day. Yeah, how many do you get?
• 18:46
  Speaker 6: Oh?
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: These days, after a few of my patented hems and
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: trademarked hawes, I reluctantly check my iPhone way below sedentary.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: It seems I haven't left my desk in days. Barbara's
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: case has become all consuming. Nancy is Charles's granddaughter from
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: his first marriage, but she grew up knowing Jane and
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Charles and their kids, which is to say, Nancy grew
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: up knowing Charles's adopted daughter, Barbara.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: She was aunt Barbara. She was part of the family.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: It is kind of a surprise, obviously when someone is
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: adopted when they're an adult, but we didn't really think
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: about that.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: According to Nancy, Barbara was distraught when she learned of
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: the move. Charles and Jane were planning from Berea to Cincinnati,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: which is why they adopted her.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: She was just begging them to take her with them,
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: don't leave her behind, don't abandon her. And then if
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: they left, you had no one she had no family,
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: She had no one. Barbara was communicating to them that
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: if they didn't adopt her, they were hurting her, they
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: were harming her.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Once the adoption was official, Nancy says Charles and Jane
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: were very attentive to Barbara, sometimes at the expense of
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: their other kids. She remembers family gatherings where all the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: energy was focused on to Barbara, what she was up to,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: how she was doing. Nancy remembers an extended family conversation
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: about Barbara's trip to Copenhagen, a graduation gift from Jane
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: and Charles. Nancy says was especially devoted to Barbara. He'd
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: buy her anything she wanted and take her on expensive vacations.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: In fact, the summer after Jane's murder, while Barbara was
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: out on bail, Charles and she went to Florida together.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Throughout his life, Charles remained convinced that Barbara was innocent.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: He continued to visit her in prison, driving the two
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: hours each way and always bringing little gifts.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: He had an emotional attachment to Barbara.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, wouldn't that have been why he I mean,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: did he think of her as a daughter? Nancy hesitates
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: choosing her words carefully.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: They were According to one of my cousins, they were
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: closer than you would expect a father daughter pair to
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: be in our culture.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: How do you think they meant that?
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: Well, I know what he meant. He meant that he
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: went to a drive in movie with them, and he
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: was in the front seat and they were in the
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: back seat. He described them as hugging and.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Kissing, like romantically like.
• 21:42
  Speaker 8: Yes, yes, that was one of the discoveries that they
• 21:54
  Speaker 8: had some kind of romantic relationship.
• 21:58
  Speaker 6: Charles and Barbara.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Yeh yeah. For my mother in law, Becky and I,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: the discovery fills a gap and are understanding of Barbara's
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: motive to commit murder?
• 22:09
  Speaker 6: Was it to get rid of a rival? I mean,
• 22:12
  Speaker 6: if she was in love in that way with her father,
• 22:15
  Speaker 6: how did she feel about her mother? Did she hate
• 22:17
  Speaker 6: her mother than her mother was in the way?
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Did Barbara murder Jane not just because Jane was kicking
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: her out of the house, as the prosecution argued, but
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: because she saw her mother as a romantic competitor, someone
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: who was trying to break up her and Charles.
• 22:34
  Speaker 6: In some ways, it kind of makes the story, It
• 22:37
  Speaker 6: makes it makes more sense I mean, if you're in
• 22:43
  Speaker 6: love with somebody and you feel like that's going to
• 22:48
  Speaker 6: be taken away from you, that's a pretty strong motivation.
• 22:55
  Speaker 6: You know, you can fall pretty hard when you're a
• 22:57
  Speaker 6: twenty three year old girl.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: You can also be taken advantage of. I think back
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: on the letters from Charles that Becky so envied in
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Copenhagen and what they might have actually contained. Charles had
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: been fifty one years old when he married Jane, who
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: was just twenty at the time, around the same age
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Barbara was when they adopted her. Was Charles using Barbara
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: to replace Jane? Did Jane want Barbara out of the
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: house because Jane was threatened by her? I put the
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: theory to Charles's granddaughter Nancy.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: I could only speculate that Jane would be more concerned
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: about the boundary violate about this as a boundary violation
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: than as a threat to herself. She would not see
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: it as healthy.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Not healthy for Barbara. Correct that is, Jane wasn't threatened
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: by Barbara, she was worried for her. She might have
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: been more concerned with Barbara's well being.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, in Barbara's mental health.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: There's another version of how Barbara first met Jane that
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: day on the Berea campus, one that has nothing to
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: do with them looking alike. According to the court transcript,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Barbara was brought to the campus infirmary because she'd attempted
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: suicide by drinking ammonia, and Jane was the attending physician
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: who received her. Jane would have known just how fragile
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Barbara was. Nancy believes that Jane was kicking Barbara out
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: of the house not because she was jealous, but to
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: protect her from Charles. All Barbara's life, she sought benefactors, protectors, mothers.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: It's ironic that the mother who was arguably trying to
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: protect her from the greatest harm, the one really looking
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: out for her well being, is the one Barbara killed.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: I would like to know what else your mother in
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: law knew about Barbara. Did Barbara ever mention her by
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: a lot her family of origin, No, because she never
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: mentioned them to us either. The story we got was
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: that she had no family, and it wasn't even true
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: her obituary it describes a family.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: The shots aren't mentioned in Barbara's obituary, but the Wilsons are.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Besides Barbara's deceased brother, Earl, the obituary names a few
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: surviving relatives, including a niece. Patty a reach out to her,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: and though she doesn't want to be recorded, she agrees
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: to talk. Patty tells me that in the last few
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: years of Barbara's life, her extended biological family reconnected with her.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: As it turns out, the Wilsons knew of their distant
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: and Barbara, who had been abandoned as a baby, and
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: finally tracked her down for the first time in Barbara's life.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: She wasn't the one seeking family, family was seeking her.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Patty tells me that in her later years, long after prison,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Barbara moved into a retirement home. The other residents were
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: from wealthier backgrounds, and Patty says Barbara try as she
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: might never really passed for the fancy type like she
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: had in Copenhagen. In Becky's eyes, Patty thinks Barbara was
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: shunned by the other residents and that drove her to
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: her death. It was a suicide. Patty tells me Barbara
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: committed suicide in twenty twelve. In the end, there were
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: no benefactors in the home to turn to, no one
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: to offer sanctuary. In trying to understand who Barbara was.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: I spoke to many people who knew her from many
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: different points in her life, her school days, her working life,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: her retirement. But when I talked to the kids she
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: lived with at the Galilee in Children's home, there was
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: a recurring refrain. No one wanted to believe that Barbara
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: had done it, perhaps because Barbara was the one who
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: got out, the one who graduated college, who found a
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: nice family and made something of herself. I'm eighty four
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: years old, said one woman from the home, who didn't
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: want me to use her name. What happens to you
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: as a child, you will never get over it, never ever, ever.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: I often wonder how many of these kids made it okay,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: how many of these kids didn't go to jail or
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: something like that.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: A baby was born at the county jail and we
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: were asked to take him. His name was Jackie.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: This is Leonora again, John Vogel's daughter, reading from her memoir.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: In it, she never mentions Barbara, but she does include
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: a passage about a little boy named Jackie. Jackie is
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: the pseudonym Lenor used for Earl Wilson, Barbara's older brother.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: His name was Jackie. The mother was a ripe victim,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: and the baby was tiny and sickly. It was a risk.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: If he had died, we would have been in for
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: some kind of investigation. But the baby lived and no
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: one ever inquired about him, and watched him grow and
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: become a beautiful child. Sometimes I stare at him, wondering
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: how such an exquisite thing could come into the world
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: under such horrible conditions. Was it possible that each life
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: was a fresh start, a gift channel straight from the beyond,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: without regard to its surroundings? Did Jackie have a chance
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: to grow up normal? Sometimes I get a bit choked
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: up and I can't do it on the Did Jackie
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: have a chance to grow up normal? Did any of us?
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Leonora. When my mother in law, Becky first
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: told me Barbara's story, Copenhagen was just one more interlude
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: in Barbara's life with privilege and good fortune. But Copenhagen
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: might have been a special for Barbara as it was
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: for Becky. The trip is mentioned in the court transcript.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: It comes up when Barbara's lawyer asked Barbara to give
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: an account of her life. She lists a series of
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: milestones getting into Berea, finally being adopted and the summer
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: she spent working at the laundromat in Denmark. The first
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: time I saw it, it surprised me. But now knowing
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: what Barbara's life was like before the trip and after it,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: I think I understand.
• 29:31
  Speaker 6: I believe that she was totally happy when she was
• 29:34
  Speaker 6: in Denmark, and I just wonder if maybe that wasn't
• 29:38
  Speaker 6: one of the happiest times, or certainly her last happy time.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it might have been.
• 29:46
  Speaker 6: Our friendship was almost I had a purity to it,
• 29:50
  Speaker 6: like we didn't bring our baggage to it. We enjoyed
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: the moment with each other and that was all. It
• 29:59
  Speaker 6: had no past and it had no future no matter
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: what she did afterwards. We had what we had and
• 30:11
  Speaker 6: that won't change for me.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: While at my in laws for dinner recently, I saw
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: pinned to the kitchen courtboard, beside the emergency phone numbers
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: and coupons, a photograph of Becky and Barbara. In the photo,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: they're in city Hall Square in Copenhagen. Becky is in
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: jeans and a striped t shirt, carrying a tote bag.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Barbara has an expensive looking leather purse and is wearing
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: a skirt and trench coat. She looks as glamorous as
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: she does in all the newspapers and courtroom photos, except
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: in this photo she's smiling.
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: Now that the fern entures riff turning to its goodwill home,
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: now that the last month's rent is scheming with.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: The damage to poss take this moment.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: To to solve.
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: If we ment, if we talked, we.
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: Remember felt around for five t from things that accidentally
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: talked to.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Stevie Lane, along
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: with me Jonathan Goldstein, and Maheiney mcgaukerd Our. Senior producer
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: is Khalila Holt. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Fia Bennen, Justin McGoldrick, j T. Townsend, and Jackie Cohen.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: John K. Sampson, Sean Jacoby, Michael Hurst, and Bobby Lord.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Additional music credits can be found on our website, gimltmedia
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: dot com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by The
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Weaker Bands, courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on Twitter
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: at Heavyweight or email us at Heavyweight at gimltmedia dot
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: com we'll be back with new episodes after Thanksgiving, exclusively
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: on Spotify