#41 Barbara Wilson

This episode is the second in a two part series. 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:06.080 If you haven't heard Barbara Part one, please go back 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:13.000 and listen. Thanks, and on with the show. Yeah, you 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:14.560 know I have a passion for dance. 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:15.720 No, I know that. 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:19.119 And I was wondering if I could because I'm gonna 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:21.880 be giving break dancing lessons online, and I was wondering 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:23.600 if you could put up a flyer about it at 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:27.120 the hospital. Do you guys have like a you know, 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:32.879 like a little staff room or something not a lover 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:42.200 of dance, I guess from Gimblet Media, I'm Jonathan Goldstein 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:48.479 and this is Heavyweight Today's episode Barbara Part two Barbara Wilson. 0:00:54.520 --> 0:01:09.320 Right after the break, Barbara's online obituary contradicted everything my 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:12.160 mother in law, Becky, thought she knew about her old friend. 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.880 So Becky tasked me with finding out the truth. In 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.360 the process, I uncovered the murder Barbara committed in nineteen 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:23.880 sixty eight, But reading through the trial transcripts, the prosecution's 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.520 argument didn't make sense to Becky or to me. Why 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:30.840 would being asked to leave the nest provoke Barbara to murder? 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.760 To understand the why, I need to better understand the 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:38.880 who who was Barbara before Becky met her in Copenhagen. 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:43.280 So I'm heading back to the beginning when Barbara Shot 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:47.240 was Barbara Wilson. I start where I always start when 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:49.040 I'm trying to get to the bottom of anything in 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:53.000 my life. YouTube. Me and a buddy, Brian are down 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.280 here off of Whipper Wheel. This is Douglas and his 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:59.720 buddy Brian. On their YouTube channel. They post videos of 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:03.680 semitaries and other creepy locales that have fallen into ruin, and. 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:07.440 We have located the remnants to an old house down here. 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:09.400 What's this place called Galilean Children's Home? 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:10.720 Galilean Children's Home. 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:12.080 You can google it yourself. 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:15.720 If you were to google it, you'd see that the 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:19.920 Galilean Children's Home was an orphanage outside Corbin, Kentucky that 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.679 shut down in the nineteen fifties. The orphanage is where 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:27.079 Barbara was raised, back before she was adopted by the Shots, 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:29.160 back when she was Barbara Wilson. 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:32.120 Dad, Gum, here's an old boot. 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.919 There's a kid's sized boot right there. Founded in nineteen 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:40.120 thirty nine by a self ordained mountain preacher named John Vogel, 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.400 the orphanage was home to over eighty kids who considered 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:48.320 themselves brothers and sisters and called John Vogel Daddy. When 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:50.839 he was a boy, a house fire killed Vogel's five 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:54.200 step siblings but spared him. He took it as a 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:57.240 sign that he'd been chosen by God for a higher purpose. 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:06.880 Vogel brag that the Galileean Children's Home wasn't supported by 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:10.880 any church, state, or public endowment. He raised money through 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:13.920 donations and by touring the kids around the country in 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.720 a yellow school bus as a children's choir. Much of 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:20.280 what I learn about Vogel in the Home comes from 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:24.000 his autobiography, which, as my nephew THEO learned during his 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:28.240 lessons with Becky, is a book written by the person 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:29.239 that it's about. 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:31.320 Right Otto means self. 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:36.240 Vogel's autobiography, This Happened in the Hills of Kentucky, is 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:39.840 filled with folksy anecdotes about precocious kids getting up to 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:43.840 naughty shenanigans. I search the book for a mention of Barbara, 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.480 but only find one anecdote. It's about a little Barbara 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.560 who tries to convince Vogel to let her chew gum. 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:55.000 Barbara is a quote champion chatterbox who argues that if 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:57.960 her mouth is busy chewing gum, she won't be able 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:01.600 to talk as much. Barbara is given no last name, 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.880 but she reminds me of adult Barbara, who knew how 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:12.480 to get what she wanted. One of the comments on 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:16.600 Barbara's online obituary is from a fellow Galilean Children's Home resident, 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:19.920 a man named Larry Brewster, whom I decided to phone. 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:22.919 Mister Bruce's speaking. 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:24.320 Oh Hello, mister Brewster. 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:27.920 Yes, how did I guess? I'll like you to get 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:29.640 to call the new Oh. 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:32.360 I don't know how lucky it makes you, but I 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.039 appreciate you saying that I am. Once I've hand fanned 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:38.960 the blush from my cheeks. I explained to Larry that 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.839 I'm calling about Barbara Wilson and what life was like 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:43.560 at the Galilean Children's Home. 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:48.680 We had as many as twenty twenty one, twenty four 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:50.039 of us in one room. 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:52.680 We had three months high m hmm. 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:55.960 I was taken there at the age of two years old. 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.360 I stayed there until nineteen fifty five. I brought them 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:01.880 thirteen years one long as it kids. 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:02.480 Hah. 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:12.120 I thought that's where everybody lived, had no, No, my house. 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.440 Wants me to tell you that we had Christmas dinner 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:17.120 with Colonel Sanders five years in a row. 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:21.080 Does Larry mean that Colonel Sanders? I wonder, But then 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.479 I take stock of my Yankee bias. Can one not 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:27.000 earn the rank of colonel in the great state of 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:30.599 Kentucky without being mistaken for a white van Dyke chicken 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:35.040 frying string tie tying fast food mascot. But Larry assures 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.520 me that indeed he is talking about that colonel. It seems. 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.840 Colonel Harlan David Sanders was a patron of the Galilee 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:45.200 and Children's Home, and according to his memoir, life as 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:47.800 I have known it has been finger licking good. The 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:52.159 colonel had many failed careers insurance salesman, army mule tender, 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:57.760 ferryboat entrepreneur, and, perhaps most alarming of all, amateur obstetrician. 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.520 But then, at the age of sixty five, the colonel 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:05.480 opened his first KFC, and where he'd failed at birthing children, 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:09.960 the Colonel excelled at birthing chickens. His very first restaurant 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.520 was located in Corbin, near the Orphanage. So you guys 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.200 had fried chicken for Christmas time. 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:20.320 Chicken everything, apple pie and ice cream on the cob, 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:21.840 biscuits and gravy. 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.159 We had it all. He spoiled. He said he wanted 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:25.840 to be our grandpa. 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:28.800 Did you know it won't be legal, but I will 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:32.440 be your grandpa. 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:35.359 Larry speaks warmly of his time at the home. He 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.320 says he attended class in a little schoolhouse, sang in 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:42.000 the choir, and performed farm chores like milking goats and cows. 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.880 When I asked him about Barbara, though he doesn't remember much. 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:48.239 The boys and girls were kept pretty separate. 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:50.440 The one time we saw the girls are at school 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.360 because the miss Halls were separated. Girls had their own 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:55.320 Miss Hall and the boys had their own Miss Hall. 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.159 John Vogel was pretty strict about segregating the boys and girls, 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.880 especially as they entered puberty. Was John Vogel like a 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:03.560 like a father? 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:06.200 Oh? He was more definitely Uh? 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:09.960 In his mind. He wasn't for ours. It was was 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.240 we call him Dad Vogul. I have no nothing but 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:13.720 but uh. 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:17.040 The rest of the memories. I tried to forget the 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.080 bad ones. Sorry, I tried to forget the bad ones. 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:27.360 And there there were bad ones. Well, Larry hesitates, as 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:29.760 though what he's thinking of saying next might stir up 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:30.440 the bad ones. 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:33.760 They didn't have me come back once after I had 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:36.440 left to go to court for Dad Vogel. 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:38.920 I had to go to court for some reason, and 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:41.000 I went to court. I gave him a. 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:43.640 Testimony, and I don't know if it helped the director, 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:45.480 if it hurt it did he did ask me to 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:46.160 come back anymore. 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:49.840 Huh, what what what do you remember about the court case? 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:52.080 No? I really don't know much about it. 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:58.240 What court case is Larry talking about? When I get 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:00.720 off the phone, I look into it, and the records 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:03.720 I discover reveal a much darker portrait of the place 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:07.200 Barbara was raised than that of Larry's memory. And just 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.440 a quick warning, the details I'm about to share deal 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:14.920 with child sexual abuse and other sensitive subject matter. In 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.760 nineteen fifty five, sixteen years after opening the home, John 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:22.440 Vogel was indicted for rape. A headline from the Lexington 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:25.760 Herald reads, Daddy John Vogel was a serpent in a 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:29.240 hilly garden of Eden. Two sisters who had grown up 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.440 at the home accused Vogel of raping them. The abuse 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:36.800 began in their early teens and lasted years. Vogel threatened 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:39.679 to send them to jail if they ever told anyone. 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.600 Whennita was twenty when she finally came forward Ruby nineteen. 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.520 Ruby's case went to court first, and parenthetically it was 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:52.480 Colonel Sanders who posted Vogel's bail. A hung jury led 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:56.280 to a mistrial, and at the retrial, Vogel was found innocent. 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:00.920 As for Weanita, fearing a trial would cause her public embarrassment, 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:05.080 she eventually withdrew the charges, but she always maintained that 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:13.880 her accusations against Vogel were true. John Vogel wasn't the 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:16.560 only person to publish a memoir about life at the 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:17.439 Galilean home. 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:22.920 Memoir comes from a French word meaning memory. 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:26.920 Yeah, it sort of sounds like memory, yes, Now a 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:31.040 memoir is the self anointed. Love and Terror in my 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:35.040 Father's House is written by John Vogel's only biological child, 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:39.320 Leonor Duprie. Lenore is now eighty seven years old and 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.480 lives in a Senior Residence hotel in Michigan, where she 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:44.800 talks to me over the phone about her father. 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:47.679 He could charm the bands off the people, you know, 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:51.440 and everybody thought he was a real wonderful person, but 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.600 behind the scenes he was pretty much of a dirty dealer. 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:58.040 How do you mean, Well, if she got all. 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:00.959 Involved with these girls because he didn't want them ever 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:03.440 to go away, so he started missing around with them 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:06.920 so they would feel obligated to him. Oh, you know, 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.400 then everything just kind of got in the wrong pocket. 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.280 You know, people have can try to make you do 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:18.560 things for God, and it's not really for God. It's 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:20.960 for them, and they hold the power of you that way. 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:25.120 In her book, Lenor describes her father calling her into 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:28.080 his study after a fight they'd had. All the other 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:31.559 girls seems so committed to me, Fogel says, why are 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:35.240 you so slow to commit yourself to God? He reached 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:37.720 up and put his hand on my breast, then pulled 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:43.760 me down and kissed me on the mouth. I shuddered. Later, 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:46.160 Lenor writes that she told one of the other girls 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:49.840 about what had happened. The girl just shrugged. He does 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:52.400 things like that all the time, the girl told Leonor. 0:10:57.360 --> 0:10:59.880 I explained to Lenora the reason for my call about 0:10:59.880 --> 0:11:03.200 my mother in law, Becky, about Copenhagen, about a girl 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:05.440 who grew up at the home named Barbara Wilson. 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:09.599 Oh, yeah, yeah, I do remember Barbara. Yeah, she was 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:13.360 a real cute little kid. She was sort of dark 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:17.360 haired and quite pretty, and she got along real well 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:21.200 with the other kids. She actually was adopted by somebody 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:23.600 after she left there, and she got in a lot 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:24.640 of trouble or something. 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:28.520 I explained to Leonora that, in fact, it's that trouble 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:32.040 that I'm phoning about. Is there anything from Barbara's past 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:34.600 that might help explain why she later did the thing 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:39.520 she did? Lenora volunteers the details she remembers, including how 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:40.880 Barbara came to live at the home. 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.079 Their background was kind of cool. I think that the 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:49.200 mother was slightly feeble minded and had a terrible palsy. 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:52.400 A palsy a nervous disorder. 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:55.560 Yeah, and she was shaking so hard all the time. 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:57.400 She couldn't take care of her children. 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:01.320 Barbara wasn't the only Wilson and left at the orphanage. 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:05.120 An older brother, Earl, had been brought there too. Growing up, 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:07.960 though Barbara and Earl barely knew each other, since Vogel 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:11.640 kept the boys and girls segregated. When I ask Leonora 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:14.200 if she thinks John Vogel might have prayed on Barbara. 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:16.880 She says she doesn't think so that it wouldn't have 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.880 fit his mo O. Vogel was mostly focused on the 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:23.040 older girls. Barbara was only a couple of months old 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:24.760 when she arrived at the orphanage. 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:28.160 She was taken special care of by one of our teachers, 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:32.199 Miriam Jones, just almost adopted her as her private child. 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:35.560 Was it was it typical like were there other teachers 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.760 who kind of adopted informally adopted students there? 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:43.520 Or was that? Oh? Miriam Jones fell in love with 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:45.920 Barbara and she raised her in her You know, the 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:49.880 workers had these separate rooms, and she kept Barbara in 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.720 there with her and took care of her, and really 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:54.160 it was wonderful to her. 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:59.600 Leonor depicts the Galileean Children's Home as a dogg eat 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.320 dog war. There were the favorites, and there were the 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:05.920 semi favorites, Lenor tells me, and then they were the 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:09.280 lost and forgotten. You needed someone looking out for you 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:15.079 to survive. Listening to Leonore, a pattern emerges. Miss Jones 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.080 at the galilee In Children's Home, the warden Miss Wheeler 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:26.079 at the Marysville Prison. Throughout her life, Barbara procured benefactors. 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:29.360 One of the first things Becky told me about Barbara 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:31.600 was that she knew how to get what she wanted. 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:34.360 But what Becky thought was a function of growing up 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:38.840 rich and spoiled was actually just the opposite. Barbara learned 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:42.120 to manipulate in order to survive, and it might have 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:45.880 all begun at the galilee In Children's home, but when the. 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:49.720 Home all broke open, she kind of, like everybody else, 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:51.080 got scattered to the winds. 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:54.680 Though John Vogel was acquitted of the rape charges, he 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:57.959 lost his license to operate the orphanage, so he went 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.040 to Florida, where he tried reopening with the remaining children 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:04.240 from the Galilean Home. Among them Barbara. 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.000 She was one of the kids that was left because 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:11.440 so many people came and took their children, and Welsare 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:13.520 came and took some of them. But if she went 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.200 to Florida, this means she was one of the core 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.320 group left that nobody claimed. 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:23.720 And so unclaimed. At the age of nine, Barbara moved 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:33.120 three states away with an accused rapist. With his reputation 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.720 in ruins, Fogel wasn't able to get the orphanage in 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:39.560 Florida off the ground, and when it finally fell apart completely. 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:43.320 That was when Barbara's life became even less stable. She 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:46.480 bounced around in the Florida foster care system, and at 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:49.320 the age of thirteen, was brought back to Kentucky, where 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:52.720 she moved every few months between distant relatives, some so 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:56.880 poor their homes were without running water. In her junior 0:14:57.000 --> 0:14:59.680 year of high school, at the suggestion of her benefactor 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:03.040 from the children's Home, Miriam Jones, Barbara enrolled in a 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.400 high school run by a nearby college called Berea, and 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:08.560 it was at Berea that she met the family that 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:15.840 would finally adopt her, the Shots. In a long interview 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:19.080 Barbara gave to the Papers after her arrest, she recounts 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:22.400 the day she originally met Jane Shot. Jane was a 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.760 doctor at the Berea infirmary, but Barbara says she didn't 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:28.640 meet her as a patient. Instead, she went to the 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.680 infirmary that day to see the doctor that everyone said 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:35.560 was Barbara's doppelganger. All the kids on campus told me 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:38.520 that she and I looked so much alike it was uncanny. 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:43.000 Barbara is quoted as saying, and sure enough, we did, 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.680 and it's true. In a photograph, taken around the time. 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:50.280 Barbara and Jane stand side by side. They're both petite, 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:53.480 with small noses and tight lip smiles. They both have 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:57.920 dark hair the same short, boyish cuts. Barbara got close 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:00.680 with Jane and her husband, Charles, a dean at BREA. 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:04.280 Charles tutored Barbara in math, and Barbara babysat their two 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:08.440 younger biological children. When the family moved from Kentucky to 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:12.400 Ohio before Barbara's senior year, they adopted her and took 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:16.080 her with them. Something still doesn't make sense to me, though. 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:19.000 It's one thing to befriend a young high school student, 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:23.520 but another to adopt her, especially at seventeen, one year 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:25.080 away from legal adulthood. 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:28.840 He had a wife that was much younger than he was. 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.560 Other than that, I don't remember a single thing. 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.400 Charles was a beloved figure at Berea College. The class 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:39.560 of nineteen fifty nine even dedicated their yearbook to him. 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:42.000 But when I reach out to alumni who might have 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:44.920 insight into the adoption, I don't find much. 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:49.320 I don't really think that I have anything to contribute. 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:51.200 He was a kind man. 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:55.160 I have absolutely no memories, no contact. 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:59.080 I make a request to Barea for Charles's papers, his 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.120 personal notes and correspondence, which they keep in their collection, 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:06.280 anything that might offer information about the family, And I 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:10.000 find something among the documents is the transcript of a 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:13.800 tribute Charles was honored with after his death. In it, 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:17.600 there's a section dedicated to honoring Charles Shutt the family Man. 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:21.119 But as I read further, I slowly realized that the 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:25.399 family under discussion is not the family he had with Jane. 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:28.520 It turns out before Charles was married to Jane, he 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:31.560 was married to a woman named Elva Weidler, with whom 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:35.119 he had two children. In the tribute, neither Jane nor 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:37.960 Barbara are so much as mentioned. They're missing from the 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:42.680 story of Charles's life. Just like in Barbara's obituary, anything 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:46.960 in anyone remotely related to the tragedy has been completely erased. 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:56.840 Yeah, you really picked a story. 0:17:56.880 --> 0:18:00.560 This is Charles's granddaughter from that first family. Something new 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:20.600 to tell me about Barbara after the break. 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:21.240 Yeah, you really picked a story. 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.280 Charles's granddaughter asked me not to use her real name, 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:28.119 so we decided to call her Nancy. It seems I 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.280 phoned her in the middle of her daily exercise. 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:33.240 I've been walking because I can't get my steps counted 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:33.880 while I talk. 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:37.119 Okay, what do you how many steps do you average 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:37.440 a day? 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:40.600 Five thousand is sedentary, so you have to have over 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:45.240 five thousand a day. Yeah, how many do you get? 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:46.280 Oh? 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:51.439 These days, after a few of my patented hems and 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:56.840 trademarked hawes, I reluctantly check my iPhone way below sedentary. 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.880 It seems I haven't left my desk in days. Barbara's 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:08.440 case has become all consuming. Nancy is Charles's granddaughter from 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.080 his first marriage, but she grew up knowing Jane and 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:14.520 Charles and their kids, which is to say, Nancy grew 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:16.960 up knowing Charles's adopted daughter, Barbara. 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:22.760 She was aunt Barbara. She was part of the family. 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:28.720 It is kind of a surprise, obviously when someone is 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:32.320 adopted when they're an adult, but we didn't really think 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:32.800 about that. 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:37.119 According to Nancy, Barbara was distraught when she learned of 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:40.520 the move. Charles and Jane were planning from Berea to Cincinnati, 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:42.320 which is why they adopted her. 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.480 She was just begging them to take her with them, 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:48.680 don't leave her behind, don't abandon her. And then if 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:51.679 they left, you had no one she had no family, 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:55.439 She had no one. Barbara was communicating to them that 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.880 if they didn't adopt her, they were hurting her, they 0:19:58.880 --> 0:19:59.760 were harming her. 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:03.840 Once the adoption was official, Nancy says Charles and Jane 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:07.040 were very attentive to Barbara, sometimes at the expense of 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:10.520 their other kids. She remembers family gatherings where all the 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.440 energy was focused on to Barbara, what she was up to, 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:17.560 how she was doing. Nancy remembers an extended family conversation 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:22.240 about Barbara's trip to Copenhagen, a graduation gift from Jane 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:26.280 and Charles. Nancy says was especially devoted to Barbara. He'd 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:29.600 buy her anything she wanted and take her on expensive vacations. 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:33.399 In fact, the summer after Jane's murder, while Barbara was 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.399 out on bail, Charles and she went to Florida together. 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.800 Throughout his life, Charles remained convinced that Barbara was innocent. 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:44.200 He continued to visit her in prison, driving the two 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:46.920 hours each way and always bringing little gifts. 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:49.920 He had an emotional attachment to Barbara. 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:55.760 Yeah, I mean, wouldn't that have been why he I mean, 0:20:55.760 --> 0:21:01.800 did he think of her as a daughter? Nancy hesitates 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:03.760 choosing her words carefully. 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:11.200 They were According to one of my cousins, they were 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:16.000 closer than you would expect a father daughter pair to 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:17.120 be in our culture. 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:21.199 How do you think they meant that? 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:25.000 Well, I know what he meant. He meant that he 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:27.760 went to a drive in movie with them, and he 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:29.399 was in the front seat and they were in the 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:37.000 back seat. He described them as hugging and. 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:41.440 Kissing, like romantically like. 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:54.840 Yes, yes, that was one of the discoveries that they 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:57.760 had some kind of romantic relationship. 0:21:58.160 --> 0:21:59.919 Charles and Barbara. 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:03.480 Yeh yeah. For my mother in law, Becky and I, 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:06.800 the discovery fills a gap and are understanding of Barbara's 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:08.200 motive to commit murder? 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:11.960 Was it to get rid of a rival? I mean, 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:14.879 if she was in love in that way with her father, 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:17.800 how did she feel about her mother? Did she hate 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:20.159 her mother than her mother was in the way? 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:24.160 Did Barbara murder Jane not just because Jane was kicking 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:27.240 her out of the house, as the prosecution argued, but 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:30.560 because she saw her mother as a romantic competitor, someone 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:32.760 who was trying to break up her and Charles. 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:37.600 In some ways, it kind of makes the story, It 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:43.879 makes it makes more sense I mean, if you're in 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:48.159 love with somebody and you feel like that's going to 0:22:48.200 --> 0:22:54.119 be taken away from you, that's a pretty strong motivation. 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:57.600 You know, you can fall pretty hard when you're a 0:22:57.600 --> 0:22:58.800 twenty three year old girl. 0:23:00.400 --> 0:23:03.680 You can also be taken advantage of. I think back 0:23:03.720 --> 0:23:06.119 on the letters from Charles that Becky so envied in 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:10.359 Copenhagen and what they might have actually contained. Charles had 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:12.720 been fifty one years old when he married Jane, who 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:15.280 was just twenty at the time, around the same age 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:19.160 Barbara was when they adopted her. Was Charles using Barbara 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:22.199 to replace Jane? Did Jane want Barbara out of the 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:25.600 house because Jane was threatened by her? I put the 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:27.760 theory to Charles's granddaughter Nancy. 0:23:28.320 --> 0:23:32.600 I could only speculate that Jane would be more concerned 0:23:33.640 --> 0:23:39.200 about the boundary violate about this as a boundary violation 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:44.000 than as a threat to herself. She would not see 0:23:44.040 --> 0:23:45.240 it as healthy. 0:23:46.520 --> 0:23:53.680 Not healthy for Barbara. Correct that is, Jane wasn't threatened 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:57.240 by Barbara, she was worried for her. She might have 0:23:57.320 --> 0:23:59.840 been more concerned with Barbara's well being. 0:24:01.720 --> 0:24:04.760 Yeah, in Barbara's mental health. 0:24:06.320 --> 0:24:08.919 There's another version of how Barbara first met Jane that 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:11.720 day on the Berea campus, one that has nothing to 0:24:11.720 --> 0:24:15.360 do with them looking alike. According to the court transcript, 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:18.680 Barbara was brought to the campus infirmary because she'd attempted 0:24:18.680 --> 0:24:23.120 suicide by drinking ammonia, and Jane was the attending physician 0:24:23.200 --> 0:24:26.880 who received her. Jane would have known just how fragile 0:24:26.920 --> 0:24:31.120 Barbara was. Nancy believes that Jane was kicking Barbara out 0:24:31.119 --> 0:24:33.960 of the house not because she was jealous, but to 0:24:34.000 --> 0:24:40.960 protect her from Charles. All Barbara's life, she sought benefactors, protectors, mothers. 0:24:41.480 --> 0:24:44.240 It's ironic that the mother who was arguably trying to 0:24:44.280 --> 0:24:47.240 protect her from the greatest harm, the one really looking 0:24:47.240 --> 0:24:50.080 out for her well being, is the one Barbara killed. 0:25:01.359 --> 0:25:03.000 I would like to know what else your mother in 0:25:03.119 --> 0:25:08.160 law knew about Barbara. Did Barbara ever mention her by 0:25:08.200 --> 0:25:11.600 a lot her family of origin, No, because she never 0:25:11.680 --> 0:25:14.800 mentioned them to us either. The story we got was 0:25:14.840 --> 0:25:18.240 that she had no family, and it wasn't even true 0:25:19.119 --> 0:25:22.240 her obituary it describes a family. 0:25:23.720 --> 0:25:27.400 The shots aren't mentioned in Barbara's obituary, but the Wilsons are. 0:25:28.160 --> 0:25:31.680 Besides Barbara's deceased brother, Earl, the obituary names a few 0:25:31.680 --> 0:25:36.480 surviving relatives, including a niece. Patty a reach out to her, 0:25:36.720 --> 0:25:39.320 and though she doesn't want to be recorded, she agrees 0:25:39.359 --> 0:25:42.720 to talk. Patty tells me that in the last few 0:25:42.800 --> 0:25:46.880 years of Barbara's life, her extended biological family reconnected with her. 0:25:47.520 --> 0:25:50.040 As it turns out, the Wilsons knew of their distant 0:25:50.040 --> 0:25:52.960 and Barbara, who had been abandoned as a baby, and 0:25:53.040 --> 0:25:56.879 finally tracked her down for the first time in Barbara's life. 0:25:56.960 --> 0:26:00.640 She wasn't the one seeking family, family was seeking her. 0:26:01.960 --> 0:26:05.080 Patty tells me that in her later years, long after prison, 0:26:05.400 --> 0:26:08.719 Barbara moved into a retirement home. The other residents were 0:26:08.720 --> 0:26:12.240 from wealthier backgrounds, and Patty says Barbara try as she 0:26:12.359 --> 0:26:15.399 might never really passed for the fancy type like she 0:26:15.440 --> 0:26:20.040 had in Copenhagen. In Becky's eyes, Patty thinks Barbara was 0:26:20.040 --> 0:26:22.520 shunned by the other residents and that drove her to 0:26:22.560 --> 0:26:26.760 her death. It was a suicide. Patty tells me Barbara 0:26:26.760 --> 0:26:30.760 committed suicide in twenty twelve. In the end, there were 0:26:30.800 --> 0:26:33.600 no benefactors in the home to turn to, no one 0:26:33.600 --> 0:26:44.760 to offer sanctuary. In trying to understand who Barbara was. 0:26:45.040 --> 0:26:47.040 I spoke to many people who knew her from many 0:26:47.040 --> 0:26:50.399 different points in her life, her school days, her working life, 0:26:50.560 --> 0:26:53.320 her retirement. But when I talked to the kids she 0:26:53.359 --> 0:26:55.919 lived with at the Galilee in Children's home, there was 0:26:55.960 --> 0:26:59.800 a recurring refrain. No one wanted to believe that Barbara 0:26:59.800 --> 0:27:02.679 had done it, perhaps because Barbara was the one who 0:27:02.760 --> 0:27:05.520 got out, the one who graduated college, who found a 0:27:05.600 --> 0:27:09.640 nice family and made something of herself. I'm eighty four 0:27:09.760 --> 0:27:12.040 years old, said one woman from the home, who didn't 0:27:12.080 --> 0:27:14.720 want me to use her name. What happens to you 0:27:14.760 --> 0:27:18.440 as a child, you will never get over it, never ever, ever. 0:27:19.640 --> 0:27:22.320 I often wonder how many of these kids made it okay, 0:27:22.760 --> 0:27:25.080 how many of these kids didn't go to jail or 0:27:25.160 --> 0:27:25.880 something like that. 0:27:26.720 --> 0:27:29.320 A baby was born at the county jail and we 0:27:29.320 --> 0:27:32.440 were asked to take him. His name was Jackie. 0:27:32.960 --> 0:27:36.720 This is Leonora again, John Vogel's daughter, reading from her memoir. 0:27:37.480 --> 0:27:40.560 In it, she never mentions Barbara, but she does include 0:27:40.560 --> 0:27:44.359 a passage about a little boy named Jackie. Jackie is 0:27:44.400 --> 0:27:48.040 the pseudonym Lenor used for Earl Wilson, Barbara's older brother. 0:27:48.600 --> 0:27:52.280 His name was Jackie. The mother was a ripe victim, 0:27:52.320 --> 0:27:55.440 and the baby was tiny and sickly. It was a risk. 0:27:55.920 --> 0:27:57.879 If he had died, we would have been in for 0:27:57.960 --> 0:28:01.159 some kind of investigation. But the baby lived and no 0:28:01.200 --> 0:28:04.520 one ever inquired about him, and watched him grow and 0:28:04.560 --> 0:28:08.840 become a beautiful child. Sometimes I stare at him, wondering 0:28:08.840 --> 0:28:12.480 how such an exquisite thing could come into the world 0:28:12.560 --> 0:28:17.040 under such horrible conditions. Was it possible that each life 0:28:17.080 --> 0:28:20.440 was a fresh start, a gift channel straight from the beyond, 0:28:21.160 --> 0:28:25.800 without regard to its surroundings? Did Jackie have a chance 0:28:25.840 --> 0:28:32.840 to grow up normal? Sometimes I get a bit choked 0:28:32.880 --> 0:28:41.600 up and I can't do it on the Did Jackie 0:28:41.600 --> 0:28:46.160 have a chance to grow up normal? Did any of us? 0:28:47.480 --> 0:28:54.320 Thank you, Leonora. When my mother in law, Becky first 0:28:54.360 --> 0:28:58.000 told me Barbara's story, Copenhagen was just one more interlude 0:28:58.000 --> 0:29:01.920 in Barbara's life with privilege and good fortune. But Copenhagen 0:29:02.040 --> 0:29:04.280 might have been a special for Barbara as it was 0:29:04.320 --> 0:29:07.680 for Becky. The trip is mentioned in the court transcript. 0:29:08.000 --> 0:29:10.320 It comes up when Barbara's lawyer asked Barbara to give 0:29:10.320 --> 0:29:13.360 an account of her life. She lists a series of 0:29:13.360 --> 0:29:18.080 milestones getting into Berea, finally being adopted and the summer 0:29:18.120 --> 0:29:21.960 she spent working at the laundromat in Denmark. The first 0:29:21.960 --> 0:29:25.520 time I saw it, it surprised me. But now knowing 0:29:25.560 --> 0:29:28.480 what Barbara's life was like before the trip and after it, 0:29:29.000 --> 0:29:30.080 I think I understand. 0:29:31.000 --> 0:29:34.000 I believe that she was totally happy when she was 0:29:34.000 --> 0:29:38.080 in Denmark, and I just wonder if maybe that wasn't 0:29:38.240 --> 0:29:41.160 one of the happiest times, or certainly her last happy time. 0:29:41.800 --> 0:29:42.840 Yeah, it might have been. 0:29:46.640 --> 0:29:50.239 Our friendship was almost I had a purity to it, 0:29:50.320 --> 0:29:54.520 like we didn't bring our baggage to it. We enjoyed 0:29:55.240 --> 0:29:59.680 the moment with each other and that was all. It 0:29:59.720 --> 0:30:04.240 had no past and it had no future no matter 0:30:04.280 --> 0:30:11.120 what she did afterwards. We had what we had and 0:30:11.280 --> 0:30:13.560 that won't change for me. 0:30:15.840 --> 0:30:18.520 While at my in laws for dinner recently, I saw 0:30:18.640 --> 0:30:22.080 pinned to the kitchen courtboard, beside the emergency phone numbers 0:30:22.120 --> 0:30:27.080 and coupons, a photograph of Becky and Barbara. In the photo, 0:30:27.200 --> 0:30:30.920 they're in city Hall Square in Copenhagen. Becky is in 0:30:31.000 --> 0:30:33.800 jeans and a striped t shirt, carrying a tote bag. 0:30:34.560 --> 0:30:37.680 Barbara has an expensive looking leather purse and is wearing 0:30:37.680 --> 0:30:41.080 a skirt and trench coat. She looks as glamorous as 0:30:41.080 --> 0:30:45.000 she does in all the newspapers and courtroom photos, except 0:30:45.080 --> 0:31:20.320 in this photo she's smiling. 0:31:25.680 --> 0:31:31.440 Now that the fern entures riff turning to its goodwill home, 0:31:34.960 --> 0:31:39.040 now that the last month's rent is scheming with. 0:31:39.280 --> 0:31:42.600 The damage to poss take this moment. 0:31:42.400 --> 0:31:43.600 To to solve. 0:31:45.880 --> 0:31:49.720 If we ment, if we talked, we. 0:31:49.880 --> 0:31:56.680 Remember felt around for five t from things that accidentally 0:31:57.120 --> 0:31:58.880 talked to. 0:32:01.960 --> 0:32:04.800 This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Stevie Lane, along 0:32:04.800 --> 0:32:08.840 with me Jonathan Goldstein, and Maheiney mcgaukerd Our. Senior producer 0:32:08.880 --> 0:32:12.200 is Khalila Holt. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, 0:32:12.240 --> 0:32:16.040 Fia Bennen, Justin McGoldrick, j T. Townsend, and Jackie Cohen. 0:32:16.600 --> 0:32:19.719 Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, 0:32:19.800 --> 0:32:23.280 John K. Sampson, Sean Jacoby, Michael Hurst, and Bobby Lord. 0:32:23.760 --> 0:32:26.560 Additional music credits can be found on our website, gimltmedia 0:32:26.600 --> 0:32:29.480 dot com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by The 0:32:29.480 --> 0:32:32.640 Weaker Bands, courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on Twitter 0:32:32.680 --> 0:32:35.920 at Heavyweight or email us at Heavyweight at gimltmedia dot 0:32:35.920 --> 0:32:39.960 com we'll be back with new episodes after Thanksgiving, exclusively 0:32:40.120 --> 0:32:41.720 on Spotify