Episode 581: The Murder of Patricia Lonergan

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery. Plus. Hey weirdos, I'm ash.

And I'm Alayna, and this is morbid.

It's morbid. Did you like my, like, weird, shrill introduction? I loved it. Thank you. I'm sure everybody loved it.

I hope so, yeah for them, I know they will for the people.

You know, I know it, you know, I know it. We're very silly today.

Yeah, it's a silly day, just a Tuesday, just a silly-ass Tuesday.

A silly-ass Tuesday. Why is that so funny? I don't know, because it's silly Tuesday.

I don't know what's happening. We're not on drugs, I swear it's true. We sound like it. It's life, man.

Just high on life. This is just a toasted Asiago bagel with cream cheese. I did not know where you were going with that cup of coffee, I didn't hear the part where you said, I just had.

So I thought you said, it's just a toasted Asiago? Oh, no, I did say that. Oh, you did, because you were saying like, this is just us. And I was like, Yeah, it's just a toasted Asiago bagel.

Oh, you're high on the Asiago, I see, I see. Yeah, do you have any? You should plug your book?

Oh, yeah, I have a I have a book, a couple, a couple. No, I have a sequel coming out.

A couple of books. You guys have been awesome with the pre-orders. You're fucking killing it. The Butcher Game comes out September 17th. You can pre-order everywhere right now.

It's going to be awesome, I promise you. It's longer, it's gorier, it's got some shit in it.

It's fucked and Ash has read it. I read it and I love it, and I would read it again. I'm probably going to read it again when it comes out.

I want, I think, I, yeah, I want a hardcover one. Oh yeah, the hardcover will come out first. Oh cool, I'll buy that.

Um, and it will be followed by a paperback at some point, so don't worry, I already have that, um. But but yeah, if you, um, if you can pre-order, that would be so fucking sick of you, sick, nasty.

I'd be forever in your debt. Uh, you guys have been awesome about it. But it's. It's very helpful to authors to pre-order, for sure. And you know, sometimes, sometimes you get the book like a day early, sometimes that's happened to me.

I'm not saying it'll happen all the time, but like it happens, so it's one of those things that it's like. You might as well roll those dice and see if you can get the book a day early. Being first is the best it is, it always is.

Like the drag Queen, Me, me, I'm first there you go. You can go to thebutchergame..com and it'll give you a list of all the places that you can order it at. And you know, like, I'm going to be letting out some little quotes from the book. I've been doing that now.

And then notable quotables that Mikey has made, Mikey's made those graphics, he's so good at that.

All by himself, so all by himself. I just you need to know that the talent is there, the talent.

The charisma, the the, the uniqueness, nerve, exactly, of course, can't forget the talent.

It's all there. The cunt is showing baby serving, cunt, cunt, cunt, so it's fun and the audio book will be available.

So you can pre-order that. It's all exciting, it's the same, uh. Narrators for the sequel, it is Joe and Sophie. We love Joe and Sophie.

They're amazing and I'm very excited that they came back. So, uh, yeah, yay, yippee.

I'm excited about it. This bitch on the New York Times bestselling author's list. Let's do it again. I don't know who I am today, I'm several different people.

I don't know who I am. I have anxiety today, I got things to do, but I'm silly today, feeling a lot of emotions, feeling a lot of things going on.

Yep, are you going to take us back in time? Today? I am indeed, um, right at the top of this story. Like, silly all aside, I want to get serious for a second.

Cause this is an interesting story and it's kind of like my typical kind of socialite vibe. But because I'm taking you back in time, there are heavy themes of homophobia. And that was a bummer going through this, to say the least, it always is. It was, um, very angering going through this. And it's not, I mean, the person who committed the crime is the one who faces these themes. So it's you're going to feel a lot of different feelings going through this, a lot of conflicting feelings.

Yeah, cause you're going to be upset for them that they face things like this, yeah, but then also at the same time they are the murderer. So so you feel a little bit, you feel a little bit stressed.

Yeah, it's going to be stressful, it will be feel all your feelings, feel them.

All feelings are valid, yeah, but let's get into it, it's they're not fact, but they're valid.

That's exactly what my therapist says, she says. My old therapist, she's actually not the new one. The old one said. Feelings aren't fact. Yeah, it's true. And the new one.

But they're valid. Probably would say the same thing anyway, so let's get into it, uh. Patricia Hartley Burton was born September 1st, 1921, the only child to William Burton and Lucille Wolfe.

I fucking love the name Lucille. that's I love the name Lucille. It's so cute, like I feel like, how could you ever meet a Lucille? And not like them? I don't know.

It hasn't happened to me, yeah, now. William was the son of Emanuel Bernheimer, the owner of Lion Brewing, which was one of the largest breweries in the United States in the early 20th century. So when William turned 21, he had inherited a trust fund of $250,000, which today would be like inheriting 6 million. Motherfucking smackaroos.

Oh my, or dollars. If you're nasty, Smackaroos is much better. Smackaroos is where it's at. Smackaroos is definitely where it's at.

That's a lot of money, a lot of smackaroos, a lot of smackaroos, they're rolling in, smackaroos, a lot of cha-ching.

A lot of ca-shash, I don't know, a lot of ca-shash, a lot of ca-shash, a lot of ca-shash.

I was going somewhere else and then my brain forgot where we were going. I saw you struggling and you were making this motion with your hand, and I was like, I want to help, but I don't know where you're going. Yeah, ca-sheesh, that's what I was trying to say.

Ca-sheesh, there you go, ca-shash, ca-shash, I like ca-shash.

Ca-shash Tm.

So as the heirs to the Bernheimer fortune, William, Lucille and their daughter Patricia lived a remarkably privileged life. Everything was insanely extravagant. They had butlers, they had this, they had that, they had everything, you know, like the Gilmores. Yeah, exactly.

You know, even richer, even more. Wow, don't tell Emily that.

I would never. But despite having been raised in a family of brewer industrialists, William actually didn't really have any interest in brewing or running a major corporation. That could present a problem. Yeah, it didn't even.

He was just like, Yeah, I'm not that interested, okay? So the business just went to his brother George and William. He still got to keep his money, and he pursued a career in painting and visual arts.

Hmm. Now, despite their seemingly charmed life, the Burtons had what people, especially back then, would have considered a non-traditional marriage. According to author Alan Levine, who wrote the book, A book about this case, uh, details are unprintable. Is the title Ooh?

Definitely a good read, I'd check it out, good title, Alan wrote. There's sufficient evidence to strongly suggest that William Burton was gay and his marriage to Lucille was somewhat of a sham. Or like a a cover up kind of, because obviously he couldn't be a very out gay man at that time, yeah.

Now, William's parents seemed to be aware of his sexual orientation, but they insisted that he quote Find a nice girl and get married, settle down and have children, okay. Hence the marriage to Lucille on September 25th, 1920. Not surprisingly, William and Lucille's marriage was not very happy because neither of them was really living their true identity. And their true lives. You know, can't truly be happy.

No. In March of 1925, less than five years after getting married, Lucille actually ended up filing for separation on the grounds of cruelty. And her filing? She alleged, among other things, that William had quote used profane language in front of their home and had caused a crowd to gather. And she also said that he was physically abusive on more than one occasion.

Whoa and had taken their daughter to an undisclosed location for several days without informing her. Oh so, things were nasty, that's fucked up.

It's super fucked up. Things were nasty behind closed doors. William denied the allegations. But the court did end up siding with Lucille, and in May of 1926, she was granted a divorce and she was awarded primary custody of Patricia. But just four years later, in 1930, Lucille and William actually ended up getting remarried in a small ceremony in France.

Later, Lucille admitted that she had only gotten remarried for the sake of Patricia, who William adored and couldn't stand to be apart from. It was kind of like keeping the family together for the sake of her daughter and for her, her ex-husband. But there wasn't real love between the two, like William and Lucille. Okay, it was from the jump, very fractured and very sad.

I was going to say, this is just very sad. And for William, I imagine it was lonely. Like, I hope the abuse allegations weren't true, but it sounds, I mean, the court saw them as true, yeah.

But it sounds like William was lonely, It sounds like Lucille was lonely. It just sounds miserable. And then Patricia just suffers because she's being brought up in such turmoil, yeah.

And it's like, that's not, that's not healthy, yeah. And she sees the example of her mother, just kind of like, dealing with it, yeah.

Just like bearing the load of all this, the other thing was, while the remarriage likely surprised those who knew them well, it was. It had the benefit of upholding social expectations and shielding them from any further gossip about William's sexuality. Very forties, very, very forties, and actually at this point, thirties.

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, we're not even there yet, we'll get there.

Don't worry, you're like, don't worry, we'll get there too. We're on our way. Very thirties.

Yeah, so. Throughout a good portion of Patricia's life, the family lived in Europe, spending most of their time in and around Paris. France was among the capitals of the art world at the time, and it also at the time was a country that had pretty accepting attitudes around homosexuality. At the time, gay relationships were definitely not encouraged, but it was a place that would have been tolerant of William's casual relationships with men.

Yeah, especially given his station, he lived a little bit more of a privileged life. So people were willing to kind of look the other way, which is silly, that that even had to be done, but they had to look the other way. Yeah, it's like, get over it.

That's wild. But during this period, the family spent considerable time traveling back and forth between New York, until finally deciding to move back to the United States. In the later 1930s, just before the start of World War II. Patricia often referred to her parents as strict. But there's actually a lot of evidence to suggest that when it came to their daughter, William and Lucille weren't any more strict than the average parent at the time. In fact, according to author Levine, Patricia was, quote, spoiled rotten by both her parents as they competed for her affection. Oh man.

To think of your parents competing for your affection is like, it's great, but they want you to know how much they love you. But that shouldn't be a competition. Yeah, and you just see all the chaos, so it's like, Yeah, it's a little hollow, it is a little hollow, I'm sure.

But by the time she reached her late teens, Patricia was receiving a regular and sizable allowance from her father. Was an active member of New York's Cafe Society and a regular contributor to philanthropic causes. In addition to the tea dances and luncheons that she hosted, she was also a regular at the Debutante club gatherings and fundraisers around the city. Oh, you love that, where my socialite shit is coming in?

I was going to say, you love that I do. I wish I could have been a debutante. a debutante. No. It was during this period, circa 1939. So you're right, we are approaching the 40s that Patricia, who was on the hunt for a husband, first met Wayne Lonergan.

Wayne was born January 14th, 1918, in Toronto, Ontario, to Thomas and Clara Lonergan, an insurance salesman and a homemaker, respectively. The family, which also included Wayne's siblings June and William, lived a middle-class life. They lived in a nice neighborhood, seemed to have like a fairly average life, but behind closed doors, there was a considerable amount of dysfunction. Clara, the mom, regularly suffered from crippling anxiety and depression, and she also experienced psychotic episodes. That, according to Levine quote, made her indifferent to her young children, as well as paranoid and delusional.

So it's really sad, yeah. She was hospitalized in psychiatric institutions on at least four occasions, including one hospitalizations. Uh, about six months after Wayne was born, oh wow, she was really going through it.

And yeah, Wayne and the kids were having to kind of figure it out, yeah, like, come to grips with that. Other than that, little is really known about Wayne's early life. But in 1932, his parents transferred him from a Catholic school to Harvard Collegiate Institute, a public high school.

But for whatever reason, that only lasted a year, and by 1933, he was transferred back to the Catholic school system. Later, Uh. After Wayne's trial, his aunt told reporters Wayne had always been a fine boy. But he fell into bad and fast company after he went to New York in 1938. Oh, eek, when you say after his trial, I said, uh-oh.

Oh no, but yeah, maybe not entirely true. Uh, auntie, auntie, Wayne there. oh. Alan Levine speculated that the reason for Wayne's transfers between high schools actually might've had something to do with, like, some delinquent behavior.

His own delinquent behavior. Yeah, not necessarily the entire state of New York. No, like he was friends with yucky people. Yeah. Once he moved to New York, he fell in with a bad crowd.

Not necessarily he did well in school, and he was actually highly intelligent, but his high intelligence left him bored a lot of the time. That's often an issue. It is. I think that was the case in my last story.

Yeah, and inevitably, that got him into trouble in December 1933. He was actually arrested a few days before Christmas when he was caught shoplifting a microphone, a purse and a lighter from a department store. And this, what an interesting array of items.

Yeah, a microphone, a purse and a lighter like the purse. You're like, Oh, like, was that like a Christmas gift? Like? That's kind of sad that you feel like you had to steal, that you have things to say.

Yeah, you have a shame to put on and a lighter fires to start, you know, Arson?

Great, yeah. But this was the first of several run-ins with the law. Wayne's poor behavior in his teenage years at the same time, though, might not have been entirely his fault. Life in his house with, you know, his mom, she was pretty emotionally unavailable.

She was going through her own things. It just wasn't really easy for the kids. That's sad. And, to make matters worse, when he was only 15 years old, Wayne's father actually died of coronary thimbrosis. Leaving the children solely in the care of Clara, who was unemployed and didn't really have a lot of skills. And this was during a particularly bad economic time period in Canada.

Oh man, so they were really going through it, yeah. So the year after he turned 16, or the year when he turned 16, excuse me. He dropped out of high school and attended Dominion Business College, where he took courses in business management. But after a while, this was also pretty unstimulating for him.

And within a few months, he dropped out. So in the years that followed, Wayne just kind of jumped from one job to another. He had a short stint as a special constable for the Ontario Provincial Police in 1937. But like the other jobs, all of these were unsatisfying for Wayne. He wanted bigger, more exciting things for himself.

So in 1939, he landed a job as a bus dispatcher. With Greyhound bus lines, from whom you can not buy a VIP ticket. I don't know if you guys remember that story. You're like, I need to be clear, there's no such thing no VIP ticket on Greyhound bus.

When you told me that I almost died, in case you don't know that story. I once bought a VIP ticket because they advertise VIP tickets and I thought I would get like a special, more comfy seat. No bitch.

I sat in the back next to the bathrooms and not anything about that experience. Was VIP so fake as fuck? Very important.

I wanted to be a very important Greyhound bus rider. Okay, and I wasn't. I love that you bought a VIP Greyhound bus ticket.

I mean, it's like my one of my top favorite things that you've ever done. Wouldn't you think that, like, you'd at least get like a seat with extra leg room? I mean, yeah, like, I've boughten, I've boughten.

I bought like, you know what, I rest my case.

Anyway, just for those out there, don't be fooled, you can't buy a VIP ticket. don't be fooled like me, don't, don't get yourself in the same situation. But anyway, he got a job with them.

Maybe the VIP tickets were his idea that took him to New York, but the job was hardly more exciting than what he'd done to that point. But the good thing was, it did get him out of Toronto and allowed him to get to the decidedly more glamorous New York City, New York.

Where he was confident that his charm, charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent would be rewarded.

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I love it now. Although he had always tried to make money through what back then would have been considered legitimate employment. Quote-unquote. There is ample evidence, including a number of Ontario police reports, that suggests he also made money as a sex worker or an escort prior to relocating to New York. Which they'll end up using against him. But it's like, who really gives a fuck? He needed money, yeah.

A job is a job, baby. I feel like that's not the issue here, me, too. But throughout his life, Wayne, mostly, he kind of, like, went back and forth denying that he was gay or bisexual. But there is evidence that his clients were almost exclusively male. Okay?

And on a few occasions, when he was feeling less.

Inhibited, inhibited. Why can't I say that? I understand, because when you say inhibition?....

Yeah, it changes the inflection that you use, so when you go to say inhibish, inhibited, you say like, in....

Inhibid Yeah, like, you know, it just makes you, and then you're going to say, like, in a inhibid.

Inhibid? Yeah, I can't, but it's inhibited on a few occasions when he was feeling less inhibited....

You got it? He admitted to having at least some sexual interest in men. It seemed essentially that he probably did have some kind of interest in men and women. Like, to me, it seems like maybe he was bi, yeah.

But obviously you couldn't come out and say that back then without facing legitimate consequences. That's wild, yeah, which is sad, yeah, but who really knows?

Yeah, and the only reason I bring it up is because his sexuality ends up playing a role in his later trial. Otherwise, it's like I wouldn't have brought it up. Who cares?

It's not pertinent to me at all, but it plays a role in the trial, exactly. But anyway, it was actually through William Burton, Patricia's father. In case you forgot that Wayne came to meet Patricia in 1939. William had met Wayne, so Patricia's father had met Wayne....

Okay, in late 1939, and despite their 20-year age difference, they kind of entered a short-lived relationship of sorts. Oh, wow. In later interviews, Wayne would acknowledge his relationship with William Burton, but he would always insist that it was Patricia he was interested in.

Huh, yeah, it's interesting, interesting. But at the time, homosexuality was not only a crime, but also considered by most, including medical professionals, to be a mental illness.

Which is insane. That's like, inconceivable. No, it truly is. It really is well, and it's sad that people are still trying to make that happen.

Yeah, but given the stigma and potentially serious consequences of being labeled gay or bisexual, you can understand why Wayne would have gone out of his way to conceal his sexuality. Absolutely, and remember, like I said earlier, William Burton had the luxury and protection of wealth and status where Wayne didn't really have that. He's a middle-class, blue-collar kind of guy.

You can't cover it up with that stuff exactly. But anyway, nobody really knows why. But William and Wayne ended their relationship after a few months, and with William's approval, Wayne started dating his daughter, Patricia. Okay.

Yeah, there's a lot of different theories. Some people think that it was kind of like, Do you remember the fucking William Woodward story? Yes.

Where he set Anne up with his son so that they could carry on their relationship, but then they kind of fell in love. Yeah, to me, it kind of seems maybe like that is what happened here. Maybe it was more like Wayne was dating Patricia so he could stay close to William, but then maybe it worked out that he actually did fall in love with Patricia. Wow.

Or maybe it just like.

The fact that you've had at least two cases where this scenario happens is pretty wily. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I love a fucked up high society.

Face you do, it's my favorite thing ever. Damn, these high society bitches are like....

Secrets on, secrets on secrets. Yeah, like, what? scandals on scandals on scandals, scandal-o.

But, according to journalist Dominic Dunn, one of my faves, Wayne Lonergan quote, was one of those young men in New York who liked to be taken care of. And he had the kind of look, swagger and charm to ensure that he was. I'm gonna look him up, I know you should. This certainly explained at least some of his interest in William Burton, but also his interest in Patricia. And for her part, Patricia didn't really seem bothered by this kind of arrangement.

She'd spent her entire life seeing her father carry on relationships with men while still being married to her mom. So the idea that the companionship of her latest love interest could be bought, honestly, seemed fine to her. Like this is not something foreign to her. Exactly. So, not long after meeting, Patricia and Wayne were frequently spotted at some of New York's fanciest restaurants and nightclubs.

They were really hitting it off and having a good time together. Their relationship, though, resembled Patricia's parents marriage in other ways, too. Most significantly, she and Wayne were decidedly non-monogamous the two of them. They spent a great deal of time together socially, but Wayne also courted other wealthy young women at the time to kind of climb the social ladder. It seemed, and Patricia may have been doing the same thing.

I think people just focus more on Wayne because of what happens later, yeah. But within less than a year of arriving in New York, he had pretty much integrated himself into the Burton family. While also gaining entrance to the prestigious Princeton club and acting as a popular escort for prominent historian and culture critic Lucius Beebe, among others, Lucius Beebe, Lucius Beebe.

What a cool fucking name now. While William Burton seemed to approve of Patricia's relationship with Wayne, her mother Lucille was vehemently opposed to their affair. Oh, her feelings were probably an amalgamation of worrying that her daughter was going to end up in a similar position to hers. And she also didn't love the fact that Patricia was dating outside of her social station.

Because, remember, they're high society, yep, they're going to all these nightclubs and, you know, like, afforded the best of the best. And now she's dating some middle-class blue-collar guy, yeah, who, like, reminds Lucille a lot of her father.

Yep, slash husband not great, which is not a flattering portrait to her, exactly.

Whatever the reason, though, Lucille strongly disliked Wayne and wanted Patricia to have a proper society debut. So in the summer of 1941, she took Patricia to California in hopes of breaking up the relationship. But unfortunately for Lucille, Wayne followed them there, and on July 30th, he and Patricia eloped to Las Vegas. So not only did he, like, be like, No, you're not breaking us up, we're just going to get married now. Yeah, and actually, he made it easier for us because Vegas is right there.

Yeah, yikes, damn. And you can imagine, for a high-society woman, her high-society daughter eloping to Las Vegas wasn't really what she'd hoped for. To the middle-class guy that she didn't approve of.

Yeah.

Scandals, yes, much scandal. So after the wedding, Patricia and Wayne moved into an apartment on Park Avenue in Manhattan. Back to high-society shit. William Burton had actually died from a heart attack a year earlier, leaving Patricia with a $230,000 trust, which is about $3.5 million today. Whoa?

And that allowed the couple to continue their life of extravagance and luxury. Now they had a butler, a cook, a laundress. Damn, yeah, sounds amazing. But there was a lot about Wayne that Patricia didn't know, and what she thought she knew was pretty much a bunch of lies.

Oh, according to author Alan Levine, Wayne Lonergan was a consummate liar. Among other things, he had convinced Patricia that he had his own money from investments and that he hadn't married her for her inheritance. O.OF. But it never seemed to occur to her that their expenses always seemed to be paid out of her pocket.

Anytime they did anything, it was on her dime. Yeah, that sounds like willful ignorance. It's just like, you know what, I'm just gonna believe this. And I think a lot of it probably had to do with the fact that they were also both carrying on other shit.

Yeah, so she's just like, all right, whatever, so she's like, Cool, yeah, we're married on paper.

My mom is pretty pissed about it, but at least I'm married. We go to social events together and that's it. Let's go off and do our separate things, you know? Now, as soon as they were back in New York, Wayne and Patricia, like, I was just saying, got back to their life of leisure, leisure.

They were dining at the finest restaurants, spending their nights at popular clubs like El Morocco and The 21 Club. They became members of a small group the society pages had dubbed celebutants. Stop it. They were young men and women whose notoriety and celebrity were purely the result of their wealth. Oh so, this started long ago.

Oh, it started that kind of. I watched a documentary recently where they were saying, like, Paris Hilton was the first of the celebutants. And that's my girl right there, yeah.

I ride for Paris. She's not the first celebutant, baby Patricia's one of the first, and this is in the 1940s at this point.

Absolutely, it goes way further than that. But they traveled by limousine daily. They gained entrance to exclusive clubs and rooms across the city, and they never had to worry about having a reservation. If they showed up, there was a table for them.

That must have been nice. I know I love the extravagance, that's fancy, I love it.

Yeah, I do love the fanciness of it. Oh, it's so fun. But the nightclubs and limousines were an important part of Patricia and Wayne's lives, but for Patricia, the excitement only went so far.

She had been brought up in this kind of lifestyle, yeah, but she also had been instilled with a desire to contribute to society in some way. So a few months after the wedding, she actually took a nurse's aid course at Bellevue Hospital. Oh, wow.

And she completed that in early 1942.

And she started volunteering at Bellevue and St. Clair's Hospital, three days a week. Damn, so she wasn't just like throwing money at causes, which, I mean, even still, that's great that you're supporting causes and giving your hard-earned money, or, you know, money.

Your money, your money. But she also was like, going to the hospital and doing the damn thing. yeah, she was actually getting involved. Yeah, exactly.

Wayne, on the other hand, didn't really feel a drive to contribute to anything other than his own life. And he was very happy to just lay around the apartment all day until it was time to go out in the nighttime. EW Yeah, it's not super hot. But it turned out this fundamental difference in character and ethics was going to be the first obvious crack in their marriage.

Oh yeah, there's no way that's going to last. No, no. Now, Wayne got a stipend of $700 a month, which is about $13,000 today.

Oh, just that a month, just a measly $13,000 a month as a stipend. But he would blow through that before the month was even close to being over, and would inevitably go to Patricia asking for more money. How, though?

Like, what are you spending that on everything? because you're not paying bills with that? Nope.

Because you don't have bills like, that's just your fun money. Yeah, how much fun are you having? The Most fun one could ever have.

And that's the thing. It's so clear that they were going hard. They were going to these nightclubs, these private rooms, these dinners, anything that they were going to. And they were giving to philanthropic causes. Of course, but Patricia was like, this kind of only goes so far.

You can only get so much out of this. Yeah, I'd like to be involved in actual normal society and like, go see the other side of life. Like, there's a finite amount of money here, we're not actively making money.

Exactly this is a trust that was given to me, you know, yeah, and just also I don't want to lay around the apartment all day.

Like, yeah, we can do that, but that doesn't mean we should. Yeah, and I think she saw that, but he didn't see that. And you have to remember she had grown up this way, so it got old for her faster. Yeah, she's like, this high life is like, fine.

Yeah, but like, whatever, I'd also like to, like, be a little bit regular, yeah, contribute. And he had grown up in, like, kind of a struggling household.

Working, going from job to job. And then he finally got here where he doesn't have to do shit, so he's just basking in it. That's a tough like conflict of just experience. Yeah, essentially, exactly.

Like, you both experienced totally different, like upbringings. Yeah, I was like, What is the word upbringings? And now you want the other one, exactly?

Like, you're used to the other thing now, you want the new thing. And when you're married and you want like, two vastly different things, it's just not going to work out. Yeah, like you don't have to want all the same things. No, of course not.

There's got to be a common ground. Yeah, that's what they like. You need a little compromise with each other, and they just didn't have that eek. So when she would suggest that, you know, maybe he go try to find a job, Wayne would just balk at the very thought of giving up this life of leisure.

Instead, he focused all his attention on climbing the social ladder. He played cards. Most afternoons, he went out of his way to make the acquaintance of the city's most famous residents. Later, when detectives interviewed their friends and acquaintances, nearly every single one of them reported that Patricia was usually unhappy.

That's sad, yeah, and also it's like, at least like, personally, man, that's unattractive. Oh, if you're just loafing around the house all day. Oh, the lack of ambition.

Not hot. oof, not hot like that is, uh, whirr, whirr, yeah.

Ugh, and you could tell it was having an effect on their marriage. Yeah, she's like, Um, this is not okay. Most people don't find that attractive, no?

So as the months went on, Wayne's less desirable character traits continued to show themselves, in addition to his just straight-up laziness. He also seemed to care little for Patricia's happiness and pretty much did everything without any kind of regard for her feelings. EW When they went out to nightclubs, he would just leave her for more interesting or exciting social opportunities. What the fuck?

Sometimes he would just skip their plans or obligations altogether. If he found something else he wanted to do, he'd just go do that. Wow, and other times he would literally return home. Like, essentially to her home, because she's the one with the fucking money, yeah.

From a night out in the company of men or women that she had never met or seen before, this sounds like a nightmare. Yeah, it's horrible. So she complained about his behavior and, like, tried to talk to him about it. But he ignored her and just carried on doing everything that she asked him not to do. More than anything, though, the tensions in Wayne and Patricia's marriage could be traced back to the fact that he had no control over their finances.

Mm-hmm. Because, remember, this is her trust, they're living off of her trust fund. But after all, Wayne reasoned, he was the husband, and it was a man's job to take care of such things in a marriage. To make some money, honey.

Exactly. But he felt it was emasculating that she was in charge of all the finances. Now. It got to the point where the arguments between Patricia and Wayne got heated and were generally carried out with little regard for whoever was in earshot. They would just fight in front of anybody. Oh, they're those people.

Yeah, they're those people that are like, there's that couple. You're like, we're still at dinner. Wait until we get in the car. I'm uncomfortable.

They fought like cats and dogs, there was never any peace between them. Once, when they got into an argument, I heard her say to Wayne, I suppose that's to be expected when a girl marries a man who's beneath her whoa.

Shots fired. Damn someone give him some aloe for that burn. You guys hate each other. Yeah, you don't like each other.

Maybe just go your separate ways, that's fine, just don't be married. Despite their increasingly fractured marriage, Wayne and Patricia did their best to keep up appearances for social expectations. Yeah, that's what's important.

And in October of 1941, Patricia became pregnant, and on July 1st, she gave birth to their first son, William. Wayne Billy Lonergan, named for his father and his grandfather, Patricia absolutely adored Billy. But if her new maternal responsibilities prompted any urge for her to change her priorities, or for Wayne to change his, it didn't show. Billy's birth did little to alter either of his parents social lives, and he spent a lot of his time in the care of a nurse named Elizabeth Black.

That's really sad. I never understand the mindset of like, Oh, my life doesn't need to change. There's a child here now. No, it does. I feel like it's very of that time in this social station.

This social class, for sure, definitely like the wealthy elite. Yeah, it's sad, though, because you're like,....

It's very sad, you're going to be so disconnected. Yeah, exactly, and it's like, why have a baby?

Yeah, like, why bother? Obviously it was like different back then. Yeah, it definitely was.

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She struck him with her motor vehicle, she had been under the influence, and then she left him there. In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

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If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover-up to prevent one of their own from going down. Everyone had an opinion and after the 10-week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision to end in a mistrial. It's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is. Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

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But by early 1942, the U.

S had finally entered World War II, and young men around the country were all driven by a sense of patriotic duty to join the military and fight. According to Dominic Dunn, it was actually an embarrassment not to be in uniform. Bullshit.

So never one to miss an opportunity to impress or meet social expectations. Wayne also desired to join the military, but he was turned down on more than one occasion due to rumors surrounding his sexuality. Rumors. What the fuck, literal rumors about him, you know, carrying on relationships with not-women?

Oh my God, so he couldn't join the military? What an embarrassment. Yeah, exactly, that's an embarrassment.

For the country this man wants to fight for his country. And they're like, No.

Not because of who you love, like, what?

So the denial from the military was a blow to his ego. I mean, I can understand that. But it was only one of what would turn out to be many frustrating disappointments that year. As the months went by, Wayne and Patricia's marriage continued to crumble.

And she actually started talking about separating and even getting a divorce. Probably for the best man, probably, and kind of a big deal for her to be talking about this one at this time, two in this social class and three as a woman.

Yeah, so Wayne strongly objected to the idea of separating, likely for financial reasons. But by 1943, the marriage had completely fallen apart. And they did separate in July of that year, when Billy was literally one years old, like he turned one that year.

So no longer socially tied to Wayne, Patricia just resumed her life of partying and nightclubs, filling her date book with social engagements. Seeing different men every night. Just going crazy. Wayne, on the other hand, floundered without Patricia, or, more specifically, without her money and status. Yeah, fearing that she was going to divorce him and cut him off completely, he started brainstorming ideas to get back into her good graces.

And he decided that she would be less likely to leave him if he was in the military. But, of course, he had already been twice denied by the U.S military. So he returned to Toronto, because, remember, he's from Toronto? Oh yeah.

In late summer of 1943, and he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force, or the RCAF. To his surprise, the ploy actually worked, and Patricia agreed to postpone the divorce. Wow. But unbeknownst to him. At this point, she removed him as heir in her will, and instead listed their infant son as her sole heir. That's not going to be good when he finds that out.

And he will. As a cadet. He managed to avoid combat and was stationed in Toronto, which allowed him to actually travel back and forth to New York to visit Billy whenever possible. Patricia, meanwhile, had moved on from her husband and was now seeing a man named Mario Gabellini. He was an Italian count who occasionally worked as a decorator. That is the fanciest shit I've ever heard.

Because sometimes I work as a decorator, I'm an Italian count who sometimes works as a decorator. Okay, Mario, that's cool, shit, damn.

That's hot girl shit, that is hot girl shit, No. On the night of October 23rd, Patricia and Mario went out to dinner with another couple. Then they made the rounds to the usual nightclubs, finally ending the evening around 4 a...m. at the Stork.

Meanwhile, she has a baby. Yeah, also, I would die. I'm 28 years old and I can't stay up until 4 a.m. I mean, I can barely get past 11 at this point. Yeah, I had a glass of wine the other night and stayed up until, like, midnight and the next morning done for.

Done for. But when he was interviewed by police a few days later, Gabalini told investigators that Patricia had been in a wonderful mood that night. And others even went so far as to suggest that she and Mario had become engaged that evening. Whoa, and that's why she was in such happy spirits. After leaving the stork, they went to an apartment of some friends for a few more drinks, and then Mario finally dropped Patricia off at her apartment around 6 a...m.

Holy shit, when we said all night, we meant all night.

By the weekend, Wayne had been given a 48-hour pass from his military duty. So that allowed him to return to New York for the weekend to visit his son. By all accounts, Patricia knew that he was coming to the city that weekend, but hadn't made any plans to see him. In the time that had passed since separating, Wayne had become aware that she had cut him out of her will, which caused an explosive argument between the two of them. And she really had no desire to revisit the topic again, so she was like, Oh, yeah, I don't want to see you while you're in New York. On the morning of the 23rd, Wayne went to a toy store and bought Toy Elephant for Billy. And then he returned to the apartment of his friend John Hargis, where he had been staying for the weekend. That evening, while Patricia and Mario were out on the town, Wayne was attending a Broadway show in the company of another friend. And after that, they went to the 21 club.

After visiting a few more clubs and had a few more drinks, he ended up dropping off this friend at her apartment. A little after 4 a.

M My goodness you two, yeah, they stay out late, mama. So, rather than return to Hargis apartment, Wayne's later story would be that he decided to go for a walk during which he encountered an American soldier by the name of Maurice Worcester. He said they struck up a conversation, and Worcester mentioned that he was waiting for a taxi to take him downtown and he was hoping to find a room for the night.

He didn't have concrete plans. Instead, Wayne said, he suggested that the man come back to Hargis apartment with him, and initially they slept in separate beds. But, according to an interview with Wayne later, that didn't last long and eventually he joined Worcester in bed. For what the interviewer described as quote-unquote acts of perversion, acts of perversion, it's like, nope, just two people engaging in consensual sex.

Yeah, but yeah. But just to show you what we're dealing with, wow. So on Sunday, Mario Gabellini called Patricia's residence, and Elizabeth Black answered Gabellini wanted to speak to Patricia, but Elizabeth told him she was still sleeping.

But Mario insisted he really wanted to speak with her, and Black tried to wake Patricia by knocking on the locked door, but she was getting no answer. It wasn't until several hours later that they finally got the door to the bedroom open, and they found Patricia's nude body splayed out on the bed. Oh, shit. By then, her body had become rigid and her quote arms were raised as if she had been attempting to thwart something from hitting her. There was a large gash in her head and her hair had become matted with a large amount of dried blood that also had seeped into the sheets and as far as into the mattress.

There was a lot of blood. There was also significant bruising around her neck, indicating that somebody had attempted to strangle her on the floor by the bed. Investigators found a heavy brass candelabra that usually sat on the nightstand, pieces of which had actually broken off in the struggle. Holy shit, like a brass candelabra was broken.

Based on the bloodstains found on the base of the candle holder, it was clear that this was the weapon that had been used to inflict her head wound. After an initial search of the apartment, detectives determined that nothing had been stolen and there was no sign of forced entry, so a robbery was quickly ruled out. Elizabeth Black was the first to be interviewed, but she explained to the police that she was actually somewhat hard of hearing. So she actually hadn't even woken up when Patricia got home that morning, and she hadn't seen her since the night before, when detectives learned that Patricia had been out all night with Mario Gabellini, suspicion naturally fell on him, so he was picked up by police and questioned for nearly 12 hours. And he actually was held in the tombs for several days, but eventually, they were able to rule him out as a suspect.

Later that afternoon, during an interview with her mother, Lucille Wolfe, investigators learned that Wayne and Patricia had become estranged. And although he was stationed in Canada at the time, he had in fact been in the city on the night of the murder. So, ugh. But unfortunately, by the time detectives got to John Hargis apartment, Wayne had already left the state and returned to Toronto. Oh shit, he just fled.

And just said goodbye. So. The following day, an autopsy was conducted by New York's deputy medical examiner, Dr. Milton Halpern. In his report, he confirmed that Patricia's cause of death was asphyxia by strangulation, with additional blunt force injury to her skull, likely caused by the broken candelabra discovered at the scene. He said she bled a great deal and put up a desperate struggle.

Several of her fingernails are broken, and I found the pieces scattered on the floor on both sides of the bed. Oh my, I also picked up an artificial toenail that probably came loose when she kicked her attacker. Wow, yeah.

And all of that is shocking. Also that artificial toenails were a thing. Yeah, okay, I'm glad that struck you as much as it struck me. You know, they're actually coming back.

I've seen people have them before, I've never seen anybody that I know have them. Yeah, but on my Discover page on Instagram, all of a sudden I'm seeing people putting almost acrylic tips on their toenails. Wow.

That's interesting, I mean, they look nice, but my goodness what a fight, yeah. For several of her fingernails to be broken.

And scattered all around, that's horrifying. Yeah, it is. His report also noted several bloody fingerprints that were discovered at the scene, though none would prove useful in identifying the killer. In that moment, oh, in that moment.

In that moment, while Dr. Halpern conducted the autopsy, investigators started digging into Wayne Lonergan's background and quickly determined that, Of all the men in Patricia's life, he was really the only one with a motive for murder and a very strong motive at that. Mm-hmm.

She had been his meal ticket for years, and now she had not only threatened him with divorce, but had cut him out of her will. That's a double whammy, yeah, that's it. Not to mention he also had a criminal history for petty crimes. And because of the time period. They looked at his admitting to having some sexual history with men as a strong indication of a deviant personality. My.

The fact that that factored into whether or not he could be a vicious murderer or not is.

Insane to me. It's not apples or oranges, it doesn't compute, but it played, and that's why I'm focusing on it. It played a heavy role.

Yeah, in this case, and especially the way that the press reported about this case now. Fortunately, among the belongings found in Patricia's room was an address book with the addresses where Wayne was staying in Toronto. So he was quickly located and arrangements were actually made to bring him back to New York ASAP. So, as legal arrangements were put into motion to get him returned to the U.S. Assistant District Attorney John Lower flew to Toronto to interview Wayne in person, according to the press. Wayne quote denied point blank.

He had any connection with Patricia's death, though he admitted he had been in New York over the weekend. Investigators were already deeply suspicious of Wayne by the time they caught up with him in Canada. But they became even more so when Lower discovered several notable scratches on his face. Oh, he also admitted that he had been wearing his uniform over the weekend, his Royal Canadian Air Force uniform. But when he was asked to surrender that uniform for examination, he claimed the uniform had been stolen by Maurice, who also had scratched his face while they were intimate. Wow.

Yes, okay, according to Wayne.

And that led to an argument, and during that argument, he said he scratched his face. After things calmed down, Wayne said he went back to his own room and went to sleep. But he got up a few hours later and said he found Maurice attempting to steal his watch and his uniform. Damn. Wayne claimed to have confronted Maurice again, and a second fight occurred. But he said Maurice managed to flee the apartment with the watch and the uniform. So that's why he didn't have his uniform to hand over, okay?

On its face, the story seemed absolutely ridiculous. Why would an American infantryman want a Canadian military uniform? I was a little confused by that one. I don't think he would. But still, Lower insisted that they'd look into the story. He told the press We want the uniform.

That Wayne was their primary suspect in this murder. The day after Patricia's body was discovered, Deputy Chief Inspector Patrick Kenny told reporters We consider Wayne Lonergan a very likely suspect. By then, detectives had already caught up with Jean Jayberg. I think it is the woman that Wayne had attended a show with that night before the murder, who confirmed that she had spent the afternoon and most of the evening.

It took more than two days, but investigators were finally able to get Wayne back to New York on October 28th, where he again denied having anything to do with his wife's death. Upon arriving in New York, he told reporters I had nothing to do with Pat's murder. I want to be at her funeral and I want to see our baby. It's unclear whether he knew it at the time, but at that point, Patricia had already been buried.

And there was not any chance he was going to see his son anytime soon. Patricia's mother, Lucille, had been awarded temporary custody of Billy, which would eventually become permanent. And if you remember, she wasn't a big fan of Wayne, and now that was going to be even worse. Those closest to the case were pretty positive that Wayne had murdered Patricia, but not everybody was convinced.

In those people's minds that were not convinced he had an alibi, that was.

One detective told a reporter A guilty man would never offer an alibi so degrading. Wow, yeah. But still, others found the story about Maurice Worcester impossible to believe.

Journalist Sid Boehm wrote in the New York Journal American He's lying. The only bit of truth in the whole story is that he admits he's a degenerate. Can we move on everybody? a degenerate? A woman was murdered.

Can we stop talking about this guy's sex life for a minute? Thank you. Literally just gets lost the fact that she was murdered at all, but she was brutally murdered in her own home, where her infant child is. Absolutely.

And nobody's focusing on that part that you're right, all they are focusing on is this man's sexuality, that's it. And trying to use it as proof that he's like a vicious murderer and some people are literally willing to believe his alibi. Just because there's no way a man would ever admit to being even slightly homosexual if he was guilty.

What, yeah?

It's wild to think that this even happened at all, and it's wild to think that some people still fucking think that way. I was going to say, this isn't completely gone, that's the thing, and I think it's important to say that.

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It was very clear that the salacious aspects of the story were far too irresistible for the press. Who, like we were just saying, latched on to Wayne's sexuality and quote unquote scandalous alibi. And just spread that across the front pages of the papers. All over the city versus a woman's brutal murder.

In reality, Wayne's story was actually a lot more plausible than people realized or were willing to admit at the time. Throughout a lot of history, queer men who risked anonymous sexual encounters because, remember, he met Maurice that night? With strangers? There was an exponentially greater risk for them, and a lot of times those people were victims of assault, robbery, murder. Like those things happened. But in Wayne's case, there really was no risk. So the police were right to be skeptical. Because within a day, detectives had interviewed John Hargis Butler, who actually only remembered Wayne because he had been so rude that weekend.

The butler told police there had never been an American soldier in the apartment that weekend, or anyone else for that matter. Similarly, when Wayne's alibi had made it to the papers, an American serviceman from Connecticut named Maurice Worcester came forward and told police that while he had been in New York that weekend, he had, quote, never seen or heard of anyone named Wayne Lonergan. Holy shit, yeah, the spam was just going to totally blame it on this guy we had never met.

Yep, wow, yep, so. Detectives interrogated Wayne Lonergan for nearly 24 hours straight with breaks, very few breaks and very little food. But he stuck to his story for a while but still.

Investigators had already begun reporting to the press that they had their killer, a detective told reporters. We feel that we have a very good, circumstantial case against him, a case that will be extremely difficult for any defense to attack, knock down or shake in any degree. Damn a strong case that was actually really starting to take shape. Because, despite Wayne's insistence that he had nothing to do with Patricia's death. After intense questioning and scrutiny. His story was beginning to fall apart when detectives confronted him with bloody fingerprint evidence collected from the apartment, which they insisted could prove his guilt.

He finally broke down and confessed in great detail to the murder of his wife, according to Wayne. Damn, that's so brutal. Yeah, wow.

According to Wayne, after he dropped Jean off at home early that morning, he returned back to John Hargis's apartment. But a few hours later, he decided to pay a visit to Patricia. He arrived at her apartment a little before 9 a.m and she let him in and then returned to her bed. They had a brief discussion about him wanting to see Billy, which turned into an argument during which Patricia allegedly told him. You're not going to see the baby again ever. Wayne claimed it was that statement that sent him into a rage and he continued telling detectives.

I lost my head. His connection to Billy was his last chance at accessing Patricia's fortune at all. And if she severed that tie, he was never going to see another penny from her. Yeah, so. He explained that after Patricia threatened to withhold their son. He grabbed the candelabra from the nightstand and struck her in the head. With it. The candelabra broke, so he grabbed the identical one from the other nightstand and hit her again.

Still not subdued, Patricia managed to get out of bed and began fighting him, punching, kicking, clawing at his face, hence the scratches. And finally, Wayne grabbed her by the throat, and he said he started squeezing as hard as he could. He estimated that it took several minutes, about three minutes quote unquote, for her to actually die. When he said he finally let go of her body, he realized that the blood from her head had gotten all over his hands and his uniform. So he went back to John Hargis's apartment, where he cut the uniform into strips for easy disposal, and then pulled a suit from Hargis's closet. And left a note that he hoped would later support his alibi.

He wrote John, thank you so much for the use of your flat. Due to a slight case of mistaken trust, I lost my uniform and borrowed a jacket and trousers from you. I will return it on my arrival in Toronto. I'll call you up and tell you about it, yours, Wayne.

Once he got talking, it seemed like he couldn't stop, and the only thing he didn't want was for the case to go to court. He actually asked the assistant district attorney, Jacob Grumet Suppose I say I'm guilty and have it over with? can I do that? Grumet explained that while he certainly could confess to the DA and the investigators in the room, any legal consequences would have to come from a judge. So he was going to have to see the inside of a courtroom at some point, yeah.

But for whatever reason, Wayne seemed very reluctant to provide the details of the murder itself. It was describing the act of killing Patricia that he wanted to avoid, especially in the court. Yeah, so. Grumet explained that he could bring in a stenographer and take the confession, meaning Wayne would only have to go over the details once. But if he planned to confess to first degree murder, a guilty plea actually wasn't permitted under New York law, and he would have to stand trial.

Now, the details of Patricia's murder, her brutal murder may have been the primary thing that Wayne wanted to avoid. But, of course, there was also the matter of his sexuality that the press was fucking harping on. Obsessed with, literally obsessed with, like, why are you so obsessed with me?

Yeah, Wayne asked the assistant. DA Well, suppose I have to go to trial? Will you bring all this out about what I am, about my morals? He had mostly denied, like I said, his homosexuality or bisexuality, but regardless of what he said, there was evidence of his supposed quote unquote deviance.

Like, No, his deviance is that he's a murderer, that's the thing, that's the deviance, that's the deviance right there.

Who he's sleeping with that is, he's a murderer. exactly, he's a vicious, callous, cold, piece of shit murderer.

Mm-hmm. what the fuck are you doing? Talking about who he goes to bed with, like and claiming that's the deviance of the story? He gives a shit.

He's an asshole, exactly like God, but like most queer men, he knew that. That was what was going to be splashed across the newspaper, every single newspaper in New York. And it would have probably a primary role in the trial itself. So that was a big, another big reason.

He didn't want this to, yeah, go to court, so Grumet and Lower tried to minimal minimalize his sexuality when speaking in hypotheticals. But the press had already seen to it that any version of the story that was told was going to be framed as a deviant murder. It's like.

No, he's just a. he's a horrible, vicious murderer. Also, all murder is deviant, exactly because it is murder. why is this deviant?

Exactly, and the others aren't, like all of them are deviant. mm-hmm. this one's very deviant because of how brutal it was.

The act itself nothing to do with preferences, nothing else. So, on October 30th, 1943, a grand jury indicated Wayne Lonergan for the first-degree murder of Patricia. After which he was returned to his cell at Rikers Island.

Damn, I know. If anybody had hoped for a speedy trial and resolution, they were going to be very disappointed. Five days after the indictment, Wayne's lawyer, Edward Broderick, succeeded in getting an 11-day stay in the Court of General Sessions in which to enter a plea. It's unclear why Lonergan or Broderick wanted to put off entering a plea to the charge. But it was going to be the first of many delays in the case that was receiving intense press coverage.

A few weeks later, Wayne ended up pleading not guilty to the charge of first-degree murder. But Broderick succeeded in delaying a trial with just one motion after the other. So, after multiple delays and shake-ups, the trial finally got underway on March 22nd in New York's Court of General Sessions. Despite the courtroom theatrics leading up to the trial, the opening statements from the prosecution and defense were actually surprisingly short. Not required to offer a motive for the murder, Grumet laid out the facts of the case, explaining that Wayne Lonergan had murdered his wife. And after a few days of attempting to deny his actions, he confessed to the crime.

He told the jury We have only his statement as to what transpired there. Just before he killed her, his wife, the only person in the room at the time, is dead. As for any of the salacious details emphasized by the press? Grumet did his best to live up to the promise that he had made to Wayne. Saying, I don't believe it's necessary to go into the sordid story of degeneracy that he told, indicating it had no bearing on the facts of the case because it doesn't.

It literally doesn't like I'm surprised it was even allowed to be brought up so much because it really doesn't have anything to do. It feels like it's a very extraneous thing to add into a pretty brutal and open and shut case. It's actually like.

It was kind of surprising to me that the prosecution didn't rely more on it because they could have. Back then, it just was a thing that happened a lot. I think they just didn't need to, they didn't need to in this case because he had admitted it.

But we've seen cases where they didn't need to, and they still did so. It was kind of surprising that he was like, Yeah, we don't have to talk about that. Yeah, that is a little surprising. I think. It was mostly just it's open and shut a little bit.

I mean, pretty much it's right there. He has all the motive in the world, he was there. It's an easy case for the DA.

There's nothing to really contend with here. Yeah, so they're probably like, why not just get this done quicker? Exactly which?

Honestly, good, because it has no place in a court room. It's ridiculous now. The defense, on the other hand, gave opening remarks in which Wayne was made out to be another victim in the case. Broderick told the jury We'll show you that this defendant, Lonergan, from the very inception of this case, has been the victim of double dealing, double crossing and double talk.

His defense was a very simple one. He said his client was innocent and had only confessed under duress and coercion. In fact, he argued, if anyone appeared guilty in the case, it was Mario Gavolini, who had been with Patricia just hours before her murder. According to Broderick, Wayne had only confessed after being subjected to illegal and immoral tactics.

That included quote allowing the defendant to go hungry for a lengthy period, plying him with brandy and pyramiding a series of petty discomforts. Okay? A number of witnesses were called to testify as to the discovery and facts of the case, including Elizabeth Black, Dr. Halpern, Lucille Wolf and Gavolini himself. But the most damning evidence that you just called it out against Lonergan, it was the confession.

Yeah, he confessed in great detail, despite Broderick's repeated attempts to prevent the confession from actually being introduced into the courtroom. Including badgering nine police witnesses into admitting coercion. About a week into the trial, the confession was read aloud for the jury. Through the confession, the jury heard in his own words how Wayne had killed his wife in the heat of an argument over their son and over money. How he panicked, destroyed his uniform and threw it in the river, and how he bought makeup later that day in order to conceal those heavy scratches on his face.

Wow, so. On March 29th, the state rested its case and the lead up to the trial. Broderick, the defense attorney, had made allusions to several important witnesses that he was going to call to prove his client's innocence. Including tombs, stool pigeons and a well-known wealthy lawyer who was in the murder chamber at the killing, the murder chamber at the killing, yeah.

None of those exciting supposed witnesses were ever called, and he rested his case after calling three witnesses. Cool, yeah. So on March 30th, the defense rested their case, having proven little, if anything, I was going to say.

After doing what? After doing theater? yeah. In his final remarks, Jacob Grumet revisited the facts of the case. He emphasized the violence of the murder. Which, like, Thank you, finally, somebody does that.

Can we talk about that part? He told the jury This was brutal, cold-blooded, deliberate murder. There, she was on the side of the bed, opposite to him, but he was determined to kill her. He grabbed her by the throat with both hands and continued to strangle her for three minutes. Yeah.

Given the brutality of the crime and the defendant's repeated attempts to cover up what he had done to avoid detection. Grumet encouraged the jury not only to find Wayne guilty, but also to impose a death sentence. The jury retired for deliberation on March 31st, and after ten and a half hours, they emerged to find him guilty of murder in the second degree, the jury. Foreman later said. There's no question that Lonergan murdered his wife, but I think it's obvious he did not premeditate it. I don't think he went to see his wife for the purpose of murdering her. I can agree with that.

I agree with that, from what I know, yeah, I mean, just that he didn't go there with like any weapon, with a weapon or anything.

It seemed like it was in the heat of the moment, heat of the moment. Wayne said nothing when the verdict was read outside the courtroom, District Attorney Frank Hogan addressed the press, saying he believed the jury's verdict was fair and just.

Joseph Broderick was similarly unmoved, saying that his client was a soldier of fortune. He said It's his belief that if his number's up, it's up. Okay, alrighty, I don't think it's that your number's up.

I think you murdered your wife, Yeah, I think that's more it, yeah. The jury also rejected Wayne's claims of coercion, saying the people assert that the defendant had sufficient sleep in Canada and Statler Hotel in Buffalo. And that this was all necessary in order to discover whether or not the defendant was guilty of murder, yeah.

Two weeks later, on April 18th, Wayne returned to the Court of General Sessions, where he was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Again, he said nothing after the verdict was read and he was transported to Sing Sing. Prison Woof went to some of the worst prisons. He hit the biggies.

Yeah. While Wayne seemed resigned to his fate, Broderick appeared more than hopeful when he stood before the press, he told them. Last week, District Attorney Frank S. Hogan received a major setback when the Court of Appeals reversed another murder conviction obtained by his office.

I expect my appeal will add to the list of Mr. Hogan's setbacks. I doubt it. His confidence notwithstanding, Wayne's appeal was ultimately rejected, as were his later attempts to a new trial. Not shocking.

According to Dominic Dunn, in prison, Lonergan enjoyed the sort of celebrity certain high profile killers achieve among the other inmates. His charm worked for him in prison as it had in life. Damn, which is crazy When you think of the prisons that he was in, that's crazy.

Yeah, and it's also like, No, I want you to not have a great experience in prison, like, I don't want anything bad to happen to you, like, I'm not crazy.

But you should go to prison and not become a celebrity. You shouldn't have a fun time. Yeah, you know, it's not for funsies, no, now. After serving several years at Sing Sing, he was transferred to Clinton Prison in Dannemora before being released in December of 1965 after serving 22 years of his sentence.

Oh, excuse me. Following his release, he was deported back to Canada, where he lived quietly in Toronto until his death from cancer in 1986. So this man's just went like 20 more years.

After strangling and bludgeoning his wife to death in her bed, where their infant son was in another room. Uh, huh, cool.

Yeah, sick. yeah, literally sick, really sick.

Wayne and Patricia's son, Billy, grew up in the care of his grandmother, Lucille Wolfe. Like I said earlier, a few months after Patricia was murdered, Lucille actually petitioned the court for a name change, and Billy was rechristened. William Anthony Burton. I think she didn't want him to carry his father's name.

And as far as anybody knows, Wayne never made any attempt to contact Billy after he was released from jail. In an interview later in his life, he told a reporter I know where my son is, but I'd rather not say he's had enough to put up with. No one ever hears of him or where he's living. He has a bodyguard to keep it that way.

Honestly, I'm glad he didn't. Yeah, it seems like hopefully William was better off without being wrapped up in any more of this. He does. He had enough to put up with.

And I hope his grandma was great for him. I know she seemed really loving. Her name's Lucille, Yeah.

So I feel like she was, you know, now. There was never really any question as to whether Wayne Lonergan murdered his wife. He confessed as much just a few days after his arrest. And with the exception of a few insignificant details, there's no reason to doubt that his confession no, was anything other than what it was.

It lines up perfectly, and the fact that he can't find his uniform, all that stuff, it's like it all lines up. Yeah, the scratches on his face, everything. But there are, however, a number of people who believe that he, how he was portrayed in the press had a significant and negative influence on the trial and sentence. Alan Levine said, given the lack of any physical evidence, which today might cause a jury to have doubts. The intense publicity around Lonergan's sexuality no doubt contributed to a preconceived and negative bias about him. In the minds of a typical 1940s male heterosexual jury, whose members subscribed to the anti-gay attitudes of the era.

Yeah, which I think it's a case of two things. It's gonna be true at once. Yeah, for sure. I'm sure that jury had some bias because of what they had read in the papers.

And you know, I'm sure they saw what they saw in the papers, but I think they also heard his confession and heard that it was detailed. They heard it lined up and it didn't seem. Where's his uniform? Why do you have scratches on your face?

Right, you lied about that guy. MAURICE WORCESTER Exactly. I feel like that's pretty pretty, cut and dry, pretty decent, especially when he's being like, Yeah, I did it, yeah.

I completely agree. Yeah, I think it's really shitty that his sexuality came into play as often as it did. Just like, what a waste of time, entirely unnecessary.

Yeah, because realistically, it didn't play a huge role in the trial. No, if I mean, if those jury members were biased because of what they read in the papers. It played some role, obviously, for sure.

I don't think you can say it didn't play any role, but, like logic, like it shouldn't have. Yeah, like, it just didn't. It didn't have anything to do with the crime that was committed.

Exactly So like, why are we talking about it exactly? And I wish somebody had said, like, somebody should have been like, why are we talking about this? His defense attorney should have said that.

That's like having, like being in a murder trial and them harping on the fact that you played field hockey, but that having nothing to do with it. It's like, why are we talking about that? Like, why? This is just like mess and noise, like, why are we talking about it? It's wild.

So weird, absolutely wild. But it's an interesting story I know, and I feel so bad that Patricia gets kind of lost in it all.

Because it's so focused on his shenanigans. And it seemed like she was like a pretty good person. Yeah, like the fact that she had all this wealth and status, but still decided to get wanted to give back, yeah.

And like, volunteer at the hospital and that kind of thing, yeah, that's nice. RIP Patricia. All of that was lost.

Yeah, and I hope that Billy, you know, I hope he, like, thrived. Yeah, me too, same.

Poor guy, I know. So that is another high society story for you, riddled with mess and mess, and mess and mess and mess and mess.

And mess and mess. But anyways, we hope you keep listening, and we hope you keep it. Weird, but not so weird that you murder your wife and clothe blood with a candelabra, because, holy shit, that is dark.

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