Episode 544: The Career Girl Murders (Part 1)

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 Alayna and I'm Ash.

And this is morbid.

We had a whole plan where we were going to say, Hey, morbid, this is weirdos. And then just not comment on it and act like it was just a big l.

L.

L I forgot, even though we talked about it five seconds ago. I forgot. Quite frankly, quite frankly, quite literally, seconds before the intro, quite frankly, and quite literally, seconds before the goddamn intro.

You know, we're wily up in here, we're wily up in here. It's crazy. This is one of those weeks where I don't fucking know what day it is. Yeah, it's been, you know, we've been working on. I think we mentioned in the last episode, or maybe a couple episodes, that we're like, kind of renovating our studio space a little bit.

It's so much better and it was like real up in arms for a little while, like it just. It looked like a bomb went off in here. And well, we had to be out of here for a little bit. Yeah, we couldn't be in here because they were doing some stuff.

So we have been putting it back together. Just me, Ash and Mikey.

Ash lightly I don't really sign on to the manual labor part of things. I don't know if you heard me go, Ash and Mikey.

I'm here for moral support. Baby. Mikey and I have put it back together, and Ash has pointed, Yeah, and I put a couple of frames together. She put a couple of frames.

Oh, wait, no fuck that. oh, she put a shelf up, two, two shelves, two shelves.

I got a fucking splinter in the process and that's exactly why I don't do shit like this, and I took the splinter out. She did. It was very impressive because it was well, actually, I thought it was small, but you thought it was big.

It was a pretty big splinter, but it was like it was like a small, like it was thin, small. Yeah, that's, that's the dimensions of my splinter.

Yeah, exactly, but yeah, so it was just a little crazy in here, like we were just trying to put things back together. Sorry if you have my stomach grumbling, I got you a bagel.

You had a little whirr, that was my stomach. Yeah, I don't know why.

Did you eat your bagel? I did. I ate my bagel, but my stomach's like, not enough, all right?

Not enough, I don't know if she's grumbly this morning, your stomach is all over twisted. Please sir, can I have some more? And I said, Shh, not yet.

I said, No bitch, not yet. You can have some water. But yeah, moral of this whole very long, very kind of stupid story of mine is that it's been a little crazy in here and now it's finally almost completely done and put together.

So we're feeling very exhausted, but very happy. Yeah, we painted a different color, I think. Did we talk to you guys about this? It was red before?

Yeah, I think we might have mentioned it now. It's blue, it's tranquil, it's safe.

It's good, it's very tranquil in here, I love it, I look forward to being in here, yes.

It's such a difference. Previously not so much, yeah, because of the color, not the company, exactly.

And it's like, you know, there's a lot going on at all times, so we need a tranquil color. Do it with me now I'm not.

To chill everything out and make us feel good. And we also painted the molding, which to me just says, fucking chic bitch, yeah, when you paint the molding in a room. You know, that's what this episode is about. Now we're just going to talk home design.

It feels this is our new HGTV show. No, we were talking the other day. Though it feels velvety, it does feel velvety. Sorry, I cut you off entirely.

That's OK. I was like, Anyways, we were talking the other day. It feels velvety. But next, I think I want to do an HGTV show with you, I love that you. next I'll just do an HGTV show.

Yeah, manifest it, that's how that works. Wouldn't that be so much fun? It would be fun.

Let's do it HGTV, Are you listening? Let's go Girl? I bet they are, they might be.

I bet HGTV is listening as a whole as a company. Well, you know what? Speaking of careers, this, actually, this segues pretty nicely into what we're going to be talking about today. That was impressive.

Because we're going to be talking about the career girl murders, and I say it segues, because this whole this is a really horrific case. And it kind of ushered in this whole thought process of like, the career girl, meaning the girl coming out of the 1950s, where like, women were like, you know what, I don't have to get married, I don't have to get married right away.

Like, I can get my own thing going, become independent, kind of stand on my own two feet. And then I can decide if I want to get married later. Like, I'm a career girl. So it's like, people, this whole like notion that society was putting in everyone's heads of like women. You have to either choose to, you know, like, like, you got to get married like right away, like out of school, that was all kind of going away and then this happened and it like shook a lot of people.

Because it made people think, well, wait a second, is this what's going to happen? Like, all of a sudden it kind of like, threw people backwards where it was like, Oh well, you know, women are vulnerable and see what happens when they strike out on their own kind of thing. And they kind of blamed it on that instead of just being like, Well, no, some, you know, some assholes are assholes.

Right, and we should make sure that we stop them from being assholes. It's not women are vulnerable, it's people are depraved. Yeah, exactly.

And it's like, let's concentrate on that and maybe stopping that first. So this takes place in New York City, New York, and it takes place in the early 60s. This was on the afternoon of August 28th, 1963. Patricia Tolis returned home from work to her apartment in New York City, and she found it ransacked. Oh, it was nothing like.

She had left it that morning and she also ended up. And we're going to get into the details of this, don't worry. But she found a bloody knife in the bathroom and her roommates, Emily Hoffert and Janice Wiley, were nowhere to be found. Initially, OK.

She, obviously, she was young, like they were in their 20s, like they were in New York City, living together, the three of them. She came into this apartment, saw it ransacked, found, like, took a quick glance of, like, what the fuck was going on? Didn't venture super far in because I wouldn't. That's smart, yeah.

Like, she was like, I'm going to call someone, I don't know what's going on, still be here. So again, the horrific details are to follow and we will find out that Emily Hoffert and Janice Wiley were in that apartment.

She just did not see them initially. But the murders of Emily Hoffert and Janice Wiley shined a light also on top. When it comes to, like the career thing, we're going to talk about that as well. But it also shined a light on how race and class can influence a police investigation and a jury verdict. And especially back then, and how justice can be delayed or diverted. Completely in the interest of efficiency and the illusion of safety, not actual safety. Not actually taking bad people off the streets, just giving everyone the illusion that we caught the bad guy, that's so fucked up.

And especially in the 60s. At this point, it was like, we're going to catch a bad guy. And we're going to make you think that. This is the perfect picture of what a bad guy is, when, in reality, the bad guy was something totally different. Of course, they were like, look over there, yeah, look at this, like, everybody's fine.

Don't worry about it, which is really fucked up in this case too, in any case, but in this case too. Because they were kind of being like, OK, we got the bad guy, we're going to take him off the streets, everything's fine.

Everybody calm down, don't worry about it. Ladies. Like you don't have to worry about getting murdered in your apartment anymore. Leave your doors unlocked.

It's fine. In reality, they had not removed any of the dangers and they were putting everybody at risk. I don't see it. Like, how do you not think about that? Like, you're like, what they were doing back then is saying, let's put somebody up for this and make it seem like everything is OK.

How are you not thinking like, but everything's not OK? But there's still a bad guy out there who did this, right, this guy is still prowling around and they like.

They must have felt some sense of like, OK, like we did it, but it's like, Yeah, that's so fake. Yeah, they just wanted the pats on the back and they wanted everyone to shut up about it. That's I can't imagine.

So, and also in race plays a role in this as well. And so they were just like, Well, whatever, yeah, whatever. We did it. And this is going to be a two parter because there's a lot going on in this case.

And I think a whole part needs to be totally talking about how fucked up the investigation and the trial, and who ends up actually coming forward as the person. OK, that's a whole thing in and of itself, so it needs some attention paid to it. Now let's talk about the victims here, yeah.

Janice Lamb Wiley was born March 6, 1942, in Evanston, Illinois. She was one of two children. Her parents were Max and Isabel Wiley. Now, not long after she was born, the family relocated to Manhattan, New York, and Max was actually working as an advertising exec and eventually transitioned into television production.

Most notably, he was the co-creator of The Flying Nun from 1967 to 1970.

Oh wow, so he was doing really well, I guess so. And as the daughter of a very powerful, and, you know, highly respected ad executive, Janice was raised in considerable privilege, obviously.

She attended the finest schools, the finest summer camps, like received tutoring from very expensive tutors. She got everything she needed. Nice, and from an early age. It was apparent that Janice was a very confident, very self-assured person as well, so it was all like it seemed like she was.

She was raised with anything she needed and everything she could ever want, right? But she really became like, such a, such a unique person in and of herself. OK, which is really interesting because sometimes when you hear about like, high society.

Yes, kids, you know, I mean, like, they end up all just being very spoiled, spoiled, and yeah, like having.

Yeah, exactly, silver spoon kind of thing, yeah, you know. And she didn't seem like that was who she was. She had what she needed at her fingertips, and she utilized it to, like, project herself forward.

Yeah, to kind of like, just be her own person, that's great. I feel like that probably. It seems like she was raised well that way, you know what I mean?

Like, it seems like they kind of put that into her as a person, which is nice. And as she got older, she would find herself all the time the center of attention. She was beautiful, like, truly beautiful, and she was beautiful inside and out.

She loved hosting and attending parties, like she was such a like girl of the time, like, you know what I mean like?

She just wanted to be out there everywhere, meeting all kinds of people. Oh, that's fun. She was said to have dated, quote, more than the average woman at the time, Oh, fuck off, and she had, and also Janice dated both men and women.

Hell yeah, which at the time, obviously very. And it also plays a little bit of a role at a time when they were investigating the investigations, I can only imagine.

Investigating the investigation, I just said, investigating the crime, I didn't even catch that. I caught it inside of myself. But she had, you know, this beautiful blonde hair.

She had stunning, what was described as like startling green eyes. She's so pretty I'm looking at a picture right now. And someone once described her as the kind of woman quote who surrounded overwhelmed you. At first meeting, she had a sensuality and animalism about her.

Like, So she was just like, people were like, you met her, took one look at her, she opened her mouth and talked, and you were just like, shot off your feet. She's like an enigma, yeah. And it was likely this confidence that allowed her to the confidence that she was able to build through her entire life here.

It allowed her to strike out on her own and make a career for herself as an independent woman. Yeah, that's great. And again, this was actually pretty unusual for young women at the time. So, when she was just out of college, she found work as a research assistant at Newsweek, where she and several other young women at the time spent their days clipping articles and pasting them into, like, huge reference books for journalists higher up in the magazine to look to use for their stories. And again, she didn't really need the income.

She came from a lot of money. She did it because she wanted to do it, she wanted to work, and she wanted to make a name for herself good for her. And to Janice, the job at Newsweek was even more than an income because she really didn't need it.

It was another opportunity for socialization. She loved being around people, according to journalist Bernard Lefkowitz. I believe, is how you say it. Quote. In a little more than five months working for Newsweek, Janice had become the office live wire. She relieved the tedium of routine, with her raucous humor, with her unabashed theatricality, with her blunderbuss candor, which, like, that's the best sentence ever. And Janice, again, didn't need the income, but it also the income did mean that she could prove to her father, especially, that she could take care of herself.

Nice, but she didn't need to rely on him, like, Daddy, look at me, yeah. And specifically, she wanted to be able to move out to her own apartment and take care of it. Not worry about him having to pay for the rent.

She wanted to pay for the rent, she really wanted that independence, yeah, and so she ended up sharing this apartment with two other women. So she was like, I know you can probably buy me a place and pay for it, or help me buy my own place, but you know what?

I'm going to find two, two friends, we're going to live together because I can afford this with my own shit. I was like, Hell, yeah, Janice.

That's really awesome.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like, at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad. I'm like, stop around, She's like, I can't.

A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast, like doubling and tripling. And it's all these girls with a diagnosis. The state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back.

Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, well, yeah, it's hysteria, it's all in your head, it's not physical.

Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem, or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here, something's not right.

Leroy was the new dateline, and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Hysterical Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught. I'm Sachi Cole and I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the host of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time. The impact on victims and what's left once the facade falls away? We've covered stories like a Shark tank certified entrepreneur who left the show with an investment but soon faced mounting bills. An active lawsuit filed by Larry King. And no real product to push.

He then began to prey on vulnerable women, instead selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs. To the infamous scams of Real Housewives stars like Teresa Giudice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. you can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad free right now on Wondery Plus.

Now, a few weeks after taking the job with Newsweek, Janice's friend Pat Tolis asked her to share an apartment with her. On the Upper East side. And it was just a few blocks away from where Janice had actually grown up. So she was very familiar with the area and she knew, because she was like a lifelong New Yorker. At this point, she knew that they definitely could have found a cheaper apartment somewhere else. Not on the Upper East side, but the Upper East side is a nice area.

It's a well, that's the thing. It's a very nice area. So she's like, Um, I'm pretty sure we could find something a little cheaper, but you know what, this neighborhood is actually really safe.

Like, I grew up here. So let's spend a little more money and live in a safer place worth the cost. That's so sad, like knowing what ends up happening.

Right, it really is that extra money bought her some kind of peace of mind, exactly, you would think, you know?

Yeah, exactly so. Because of the added safety kind of situation. She agreed happily to move into the apartment 3C at 57 East 88th Street. And it was managed. It was like a very highly managed complex, and doctors, dentists, other professionals were living in there.

So it was like a very like. They felt safe. It was a well-to-do apartment building and they were paying $208 per month on rent, and remember, that was expensive, honey.

That was it. It was a different time, honey, could you imagine it was a different time? Now? It was here that Janice met Emily Hoffert, who was a friend and former college roommate of Pat's, not Janice's.

Oh, okay, who was looking for a place to stay just for, like, temporarily for a short time? Because she was trying to work out like a longer term plan for herself, she just needed somewhere to kind of take a beat.

Yeah, and Emily grew up in Adena, Minnesota, I hope I'm saying that, right? A suburb just outside Minneapolis. And after graduating from high school, she ended up going out east to pursue a teaching degree at Smith College.

And after a year of graduate courses at Tufts University, Fuck, these were brilliant women, really, and a couple months teaching at a private progressive high school in Newton, Massachusetts.

NEWTon I used to work in Newton, which is, in case you were wondering, a suburb of Boston. Yeah, Emily decided that New England wasn't right for her.

Which I was like, Okay, Emily, all right, that's fine, that's fine, you know, she was a New York girlie.

Yeah, in two very different places, yeah. And in the fall of 1963, she relocated to New York, where she just kind of, like, went into a few short-term rentals with friends.

Just trying to look for work, figuring out what she wanted to do next. And after bouncing from shared living arrangements like one to the other, Emily's friend Pat Tolis was like, Hey, come stay with me and my roommate Janice for a little while, you know, until you find something more permanent. So Emily was like, That's amazing, awesome.

Thank you so much. So, in late July 1964, she moved in with Pat and Janice. So as far as roommates went, Emily Hoffert could not have been more different than Janice. Like, they were very different people, yeah.

But they got along like this, wasn't to say they, like, you know, butted heads or anything. So Janice, like we said, was very outgoing, very social, like just everywhere always, and Emily was like much more quiet, reserved, shy.

Janice was this tall like bombshell blonde, like by, you know, by social standards of the time, very conventionally attractive. While Emily was. And this like, upset me because look up these two women, they're both beautiful, but Emily was described as basically plain.

And I was like, I think she was beautiful, I don't think she was plain at all. Yeah, like she was like five foot three, dark brunette hair.

Like, she was described as having a very pale complexion, which I was like, easy, everyone. Yeah, honestly, because she's beautiful, okay, and she had glasses, which is very like the she's all that of the fifties.

It's like she had glasses, so she wasn't as like Bombshell as anybody else. Hey, shout out to Freddie Prince. To this, I say, like, fuck beauty standards because they were both gorgeous.

They were both just very uniquely gorgeous people in their own way. I agree, both beautiful, both smart, both capable. Just want to put that out there because a lot of times Emily gets put down as like, Plain.

She had glasses and it's like, Okay, they were both beautiful. Get a grip, everybody. But again, too, Emily was friendly, sweet, very smart, like, just like Janice, they were both and that's why they got along.

It seems like they appreciated the differences in each other. I think Emily kind of, like, looked at Janice and was like, fucking Janice, that crazy lady, and it's like, and Janice was like, Here's my very reliable, wonderful friend Emily. It worked, and Emily's personality, how sweet she was and friendly and very capable.

It helped her in her professional life because she was an elementary school teacher. And in fact, their professional pursuits were probably like, the biggest thing that they had in common together, that they were both very driven. They had both intentionally put off any serious romantic relationships or marriage to build their own careers for themselves. Something that the press would make a great deal about after their deaths, when, in reality, these were just two driven young women.

That's really as far as it went now. Despite their differences in personality, like I said, they got along very well. But again, Emily, this was temporary for her. She never intended to stay at 57 East 88th Street for very long. OK?

Which makes this even more horrific, yeah, tragic now. According to her friend Clark Montgomery, Emily had quote a fairly clear list of priorities Get a job teaching, preferably in a suburban school system. Move at the end of August into an apartment on Park Avenue and 37th Street with two Smith classmates. And save enough money for a trip to Europe next summer.

So she was like, let's go, like doing it. While her goals were ambitious, Emily was committed. And by the end of August, she had begun packing. What few belongings she had at this apartment and she was going to be moving.

She was starting to move them to Park Avenue, so she had already she literally started the process, she was starting the process when this happened. On the morning of August 28th, Emily had gone by the apartment to pack up the last of her belongings and say goodbye to her friends.

Oh, completely unaware that this would be the last time she spoke to anyone. Wow. Which makes this even more horrific now. Just as Janice, Emily and Pat were kind of establishing their independence and starting out on their professional paths. Like I was talking about before, the nation as a whole was undergoing a kind of social identity crisis with regard to race, gender, sexuality. You know, this was a time of like, immense, like, what the fuck is going on?

Lots and lots of change, everybody figuring out that, like, we don't all fit into this box. Yeah, it doesn't all have to go. Like, leave it to Beaver. Way exactly coming out of the 50s, being like, what the fuck was that?

You know, so? The civil rights and feminist movements, sometimes referred to as the women's movement, were gaining traction, very much so in urban areas. And they were directly challenging those attitudes that we were just talking about and the long held beliefs about what was appropriate and acceptable in social spaces, people were really striking out in different directions. For women, especially younger women, the idea of marrying young and immediately starting a family was no longer looking like a super attractive option. Womp, womp.

Some people did. That's the beauty of this movement. It was like, do what's right for you, as if you think this is what I want to do, I want to get married.

I want to have children, I want to be a homemaker, I want to cook dinner for my family. I don't want to go out and do anything else like, I want to do this.

Then hell yeah, Queen, it was all about what was empowering to you as a woman. But if you don't want to do that, then hell yeah, Queen, you're both Queens, no matter what you choose to do.

You both get to choose what you want to do, and that's the key word, the choice you get to choose, right. And whatever you choose. And you are happy with it, you feel successful and you feel productive. Fuck yeah, Queen.

Right, that's the whole point, right? Whatever you want to do, nothing is the wrong choice here. But for women, you know that idea of marrying younger and all that that was becoming less of like the. You have to do this at this point.

And many young women, like Janice and Emily, were like, You know what? I'm going to put it off for a little while and I'm going to work on this. And according to women's studies scholar Marilyn Johnson, this quote produced a panic about career, girls and crime. That reinforced notions of women's vulnerability at a time when young women were enjoying greater autonomy and visibility. Now, for the better part of the first half of the 20th century, the crime rate in New York City had actually remained relatively low. Which kind of made everybody feel a little safe throughout the city. Like nothing was really happening, so let their guard down a little.

Why wouldn't I feel safe? But by mid century, the murder rate had been slowly rising, not a boom, but slowly rising. It went from four homicides per 100,000 residents in the early 1950s to 7.6 per 100,000 in the early 1960s. Doesn't sound like a lot, but it's a jump, it is.

And it's a difference, so that has to be looked at. And again, notable uptick, in the grand scheme of things, in violent crime. And even despite this, Janice felt really comfortable living in the neighborhood she'd grown up in, so she was like, I've grown up here.

And she told her roommates like, Don't worry, nothing happens here. Like I grew up here, I know this place like the back of my hand. She's like, Nothing ever happens here. Oh, that's awful.

You know, like, why wouldn't you feel safe now? On the morning of August 28th, Pat Tolis was rushing to get ready for work, while 21-year-old Janice slept in and 23-year-old Emily was in the kitchen making coffee. Now, after finishing an orange and drinking the last of the coffee, Pat rinsed the cup, took the trash out to the garbage chute. Listened for the click of the automatic bolt that would lock the door behind her, and she heard it and was on her way, and Emily followed Pat's exit.

A short time later, and after loading a few items in the car that she was actually borrowing from her roommate's sister. She drove the short distance to Ann Rosenberg's apartment in Riverside to return the car, Ann Rosenberg was who she was borrowing the car from, so she was going back to the apartment to drop it off, you know? And apparently, like, they kind of, just like, sat with each other.

Emily and Ann had a cup of coffee and then they ended up going their respective ways now. Pat was at her desk at the time Life company when her phone rang. A little afternoon, and it was Janice's mother. And Janice's mother was calling to ask whether Pat had heard from Janice that morning. Because she said someone from Newsweek had called to ask where Janice was and why she hadn't come to work that day, oh no. As far as Pat knew, Janice was still asleep when she left the apartment that morning.

But she remembered she was like, you know what? She did mention that she was maybe going to travel down to a march on Washington that was happening. So she was like, you know what, maybe she ended up doing that.

I don't know if she called the job, I don't know, maybe she got caught up there. Yeah, like, who knows? But she didn't really tell anyone else about that.

Like, I think I'm the only one she mentioned it to, so she was like, You know what, maybe that's where she's gone. But whatever the case, Janice would have definitely left a note. She was like, So I'm sure she left something about it.

And it doesn't sound like she was the type to no call, no show. No, she really wasn't. She wasn't irresponsible, so Pat promised to call Mrs Wiley as soon as she got home.

She was like, I'm sure I'll find a note when I get there and I'll let you know. So she was a little concerned, like she was like, it was just like nothing outright, but she was like something was a little off here. And so Pat called one of Emily's new roommates to see if Emily had arrived at the new apartment yet.

Because she was like, I just want to make sure everybody's good, yeah. And the girl told Pat she hadn't seen Emily at all that day, so she was concerned. But she said she wasn't wasn't yet alarmed at this point, but she was like, Huh, that makes this weirder?

Something's off, like, something's a little off. But Pat went about her day as normal because she was like, you know what? We'll figure this out later. Like, I'm sure they're wherever they need to be.

And she got home around 6.

30 p.

M. And when she reached the front door of their third floor apartment, remember it's on the third floor? Pat unlocked the door, which was still locked, walked in. Nothing seemed unusual when she first walked through the door. But when she reached the kitchen, the service door that led out to the garbage chute, the one that she heard click behind her, Yes.

That was ajar, huh? Even though, again, she had heard it lock when she left for work, so things were becoming even more alarming when she reached the bedroom, she shared with Janice.

She found it in shambles, Oh no, like someone had torn through that room wildly. Clothes, shoes, papers, everything was scattered around the room and two suitcases, which were always stored on a shelf in the closet. They were never taken out, unless they were going somewhere, were open on the bed.

Huh, like, there's no way reason they would have been there. And on the other side of the room, the drawers of both dressers had been pulled out and all the contents were scattered all over the floor. And that must have been frightening, no matter what. But then you think you're seeing all of your personal belongings scattered.

That had been thrown about what, yep, there were hair curlers, half-empty packs of cigarettes and a pile of pennies on the floor, too. Now she was like, we've definitely been burglarized, so that's terrifying.

So she left the room and didn't notice the heap of sheets lying just on one side of the bed. Okay, made her way into the bigger of the apartment's two bathrooms. The light was on in the bathroom when she went in there, which again was weird. And Pat immediately noticed that there was a large 12-inch carving knife just sitting on the edge of the sink.

Oh my god. And so she's looking at the knife and she's like, why the fuck is that in the bathroom? And then she notices that there are streaks of blood on the handle, just on the handle. Like somebody had rinsed the blade and was like, Oh no, and then she thought, she said. Her immediate thought was, Oh no. Janice has slashed her wrists.

Hmm, which like, I'm not sure why that was, maybe that was just like what else could have? I don't know what's happening here. Yeah, because she said she was just panicked, like, this is panic.

And in that moment, nothing made sense to her, so she was like, that didn't make sense to me. But it was the I don't know what else to think like. I'm just freaking out because she didn't think Emily, because she thought Emily left, like, I know Emily left the apartment. Janice was the only one here.

She was sleeping late, right? and then when she didn't show up to work, she was like, Oh my, like, what happened? like, did something? Yeah, yeah.

So again, nothing made sense. So she was like, I gotta call someone for help, I don't know what's happening and I gotta get the fuck out of here. So she was like, I have to get out of here.

So out, she ran into the hall and she was trying to find somebody out there, but she found an empty hallway. So she ran down to the lobby. And from a payphone, she called her boyfriend Okay, again, she's very stressed out, she doesn't know what to do.

Yeah, he agreed to come over immediately. She was never able to remember exactly how the next hour unfolded. She was like, it was so panicked that I didn't know what to do, but she was like, I know that I called the police.

I just don't know if it was the second phone call I made, the first or the third, I don't know. She called the police and then she placed a call to Janice's parents. So she was like, I don't know what order I did this in, but I called them all who I needed to call.

I called everyone and when Mrs Wiley answered, she asked to speak to Max instead, and she said, I wanted to speak to you so as to not alarm Mrs Wiley.

Oh, now, Pat told Janice's father, before explaining that she'd returned home to find no note from Janice. And it appeared that someone had ransacked their apartment, right? Like, I don't know what's going on here.

She's like, I don't know where Janice is, and I did not find a note.

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.

Was it a crime of passion? If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia or a corrupt police cover-up?

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 Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

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Now, living just a few blocks away, Janice's parents, because, remember, that's where she grew up in this neighborhood, they arrived before the police. Okay, and Max, panicked, went into the apartment to try to survey what was going on and try to make sure Janice wasn't in there. And Max Wiley would later recall this to Bernard Lefkowitz, and he said. I stepped into the bathroom and leaned over and looked at the knife and realized that although it had been put under the faucet and the blade was clean, there was a quarter inch of blood on the hasp.

I was frightened and I went back to the bedroom that the two ladies were inspecting and told them to go into the living room and sit down and not touch anything. Now, Max entered Emily's bedroom and found it in a similar state of disarray, he said. When the door was half opened, I saw the first of the two twin beds. There was a lot of luggage on the bed, but the second bed was completely saturated by blood.

And she hadn't noticed this when she first walked in because she was so panicked. She's looking everywhere, I'm sure, he said. It was complete, and you look at a crime scene photo, it is completely saturated by blood. Oh man.

He said It was a massive gore, that's how he described it. And so Max entered the room and made his way around to the other side of the bed. By the window, where he unfortunately found the bodies of his daughter Janice and her roommate Emily on the floor, Oh my God. They were facing each other on the floor and appeared to be tied together with what they later found out was strips of bedsheets.

So this person, whoever had done this, had ripped strips from their own bedsheets, which takes a long time, he recalled. Quote And he's talking about his own child here, he said. Janice was nude, Emily was dressed. Oh my God.

Janice had been stabbed through the heart. Emily's knifing around the neck was noticeable. Oh my god, the curlers were still in Janice's hair. Emily had been frightfully cut.

It was very gory, that's how he described it. Oh my God. So he pulled the blanket from the bed and laid it across the girls. Then he went back out to the living room and called in the police to report the discovery.

And it's like, that's his daughter. He walked in on that. Oh my God, I don't know how you ever go on after that. Unfortunately, it affects him later.

Of course, I bet it did now. In reality, the attack on Janice and Emily was even more brutal than what Max had described. Oh, no. Both had been stabbed over 60 times.

Each, yep, what the fuck? Seven of which were directly to Janice's heart. And this is very graphic.

Janice's intestines were quote out of her stomach. Oh my god, yeah, and her father saw that, yeah.

So she was literally like she was disemboweled, disemboweled, and even worse. Somehow. The killer had actually initially stabbed them with a broken soda bottle. Oh my God, then a small knife.

That small knife broke in the process, so he went back to the kitchen, found a large chef's knife and returned to the bedroom and continued stabbing them. And was that the knife that she had found when she walked in? That's the knife that Pat had found in the bathroom. Wow.

So he stabbed them over 60 times using a broken soda bottle, which do you know how brutal and fucked up that is? Yes, and then when he had to stop doing that because he broke the soda bottle enough. He used a knife and so much fury and rage that he broke that knife and then went and found a third weapon to continue stabbing them.

This is insane, yeah, now. Upon closer inspection, detectives realized that Janice and Emily had actually been tied at the wrists and the ankles separately, and then the killer tied them together. Okay?

So, laying near the body. They also found the broken blade from that first knife, the broken bottle initially used in the attack. And an open jar of Noxzema cream. A Gillette razor blade, a pair of women's underwear and a piece of paper smeared with lipstick laying nearby Emily's head. Okay, everything was completely saturated with blood. I'm just thinking to myself right now. This was obviously mid-morning that this happened because one of them was expected to be at work. Pat was at work and then came back to this later in the day. Nobody heard anything.

It's wild and they're on the third floor, No one heard anything. It's wild. And just the fact that this happened mid-morning, it sounds like, yeah.

And just so, you know, we are going to find out what happened here, okay, exactly what happened here. And like, just as a quick little trigger warning, because there is sexual assault involved in this. And I'm not going to get into like the graphic details of it. But the open jar of Noxzema cream came into play there.

Okay, so this is how brutal this was, just so, you know, oh my God. Now for the officers on the scene, who had seen a lot of like horrors with their time on the police force. I mean, they're in New York City, they're part of the homicide unit. The violence that they saw perpetrated against these two women was overwhelming.

I mean, this is like, on a completely galactic level, like this is insane. They were shocked, like just the fact that her intestines were out of her body. And after hours in the apartment, Detective John Lynch came out into the hallway and was overheard to say quote, There's a slaughterhouse in there.

In 12 years, I've never seen anything like it, I believe that 12 years on the NYPD and he had never seen anything like that. Obviously saying something, but I mean, I believe that, yeah.

Now, nearly 10 hours later, investigators and technicians had finished the whole initial processing of the scene and the bodies were taken by ambulance to the morgue. That's all while. Max Wiley had to take it upon himself to call Emily's parents and let them know what happened, so Max Wiley was the one who called Emily's parents. Which he took on so much that day. Yeah, like. And his daughter was brutally attacked and killed as well, and I'm like, who was taking care of him?

That's remarkable that he even was able to do that. Yeah, now, I mean. Besides the complete brutality of this scene and just the absolute shock of all this happening, the crime scene was baffling to investigators as well. Right? Because, although the apartment was definitely ransacked, it was clearly as far as Pat could tell, nothing had been stolen.

And was there any sign of, like, any break-in? No, no sign of forced entry, right? Because when she came home, the door was still locked, which is so strange to me. Well, and all the jewelry was still on the dressers, Emily's purse was still at the scene.

And then there were, you know, Emily and Janice's bodies themselves, like I had mentioned before, again, trigger warning Janice had been violently sexually assaulted. Her wounds were also more severe. Yeah, I mean, and she'd been left nude.

Emily, on the other hand, was fully closed and based on the state in which the bodies were found and the lack of any other apparent motive. Investigators determined that Janice was likely the primary victim and Emily's death might have been her being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Oh, that's awful. And just the fact that she was, like, not supposed to be in that place like that day, she was going to go to the other apartment.

Yeah, and adding to the mystery was how, like you said, how the killer even gained access into the apartment in the first place. Because, like we said, there was no sign of forced entry and the doorman didn't recall seeing anything unusual that day. And the building had no fire escape on the exterior. Because that was going to be my next question. Because not only did they, like, they got in somehow, but then they got out and the door remained locked.

Exactly so it's like, what is that? somebody with a key? yeah.

Now, like we said, remember, when Pat returned home, that door was still locked. The only notable thing was an open window. Okay, but remember, we're on the third floor in New York City.

So, and all investigators determined was there was no way that someone could have gotten up there. It couldn't be. You can't scale a building, you can't scale the building, there's no fire escape.

So how the fuck did they get to the third floor? Like this doesn't make sense, and then also crazy that the windows open and still nobody heard anything. So they basically just kind of closed. Any kind of possibility that somebody broke in right away, which we find out, like, might have been a little too soon that they did that, okay?

But investigators were basically operating on the assumption that the killer was definitely willingly invited into the apartment by one of the victims. It really is the only possibility that looked likely at the time likely. But then how did they lock the door on the way out? Well, they thought, that's the thing, like, how did they get out?

That's what no one is really coming up with. And they were so focused on that idea that, like, Oh, they must have just been let into the apartment. They weren't thinking logically about what you just asked, like, asking the real questions that you should be asking, how the fuck did they lock the door on their way out, right?

So they were so focused on it that they kind of negated the idea that there was a stranger involved here. And they also said that they couldn't fathom that a random stranger would break in and inflict this much brutality on someone which you get, but also that does happen, and you can't close off an avenue, exactly.

Until you know that that avenue needs to be closed off, like we've seen this time and time again. When you enter a crime scene with a preconceived narrative in your mind, it is almost always wrong, and you almost always fuck up the crime. It's true.

And it's like, so. And also because of the status of the victims, daughters of an advertising executive and a surgeon. Yeah, wow. The murders were made the highest priority at the time, with roughly 150 officers and detectives assigned to the case. Many of them were pulled from other precincts and boroughs. And in their first press conference, Chief of Detectives Lawrence McKerny told reporters Quote the police had no suspects, no leads.

What they did, though, what they did have, was a basic theory that someone had come into the apartment. Either with a plan to murder Janice or something happened in the heat of the moment that led to her death. But again, no one can say how they got back out of the apartment, right? And this was supported by the fact that Emily was known to have left to return the car to Riverside that morning. So her coming back to the apartment would have been a surprise to anyone in there.

Like, she wasn't supposed to be there, she had left right, so if somebody was in there, they were like, Oh shit, I thought she was gone. So they're still running off.

This idea that it's Janice and Emily was just wrong, wrong time, wrong place. And also Emily hadn't been in New York for very long and really only knew a small number of people. So if the killer was known to the victims, as detectives really thought that they were, he was most likely going to be found among Janice's friend group. Okay now, knowing that Janice had, like we had said before, a very rich social and dating life. Investigators started running down the names in a small green address book that she had, that they found in the top drawer.

This included dozens of men and women, many of whom she had actually dated. And they were absolutely convinced it was somebody in that book, someone Janice knew. And the idea that she also could have been involved with women really threw investigators for a loop. They focused really solely on her, like, that was really it.

And there's actually an ID discovery about this, and there's this great quote about how. This is a great example of cops plunging into a lifestyle that they were just way over their heads about. And in the meantime, because, like, they were basically interviewing a couple. There was one woman that she was known to have, I think, lived with for a little while, named Pearl, and Pearl was like this, like, Brash, like, just like the fuck, do you want to know? kind of girl?

Like, she was just a hot shit, and she was just kind of like, I don't know. It's like, I clearly didn't kill her, you know what I mean like? But she was seemingly like, you know, fucked up about what had happened to Janice.

But she was like, I don't know why you're thinking I would do this. Like, we care about each other. And the cops were like, like, I don't know what to do. Because, remember, it's barely out of the 1950s at this point.

So the cops were like, what, like, what? She dated women, and then it became this whole thing of, like, Oh God, she did women too, like, what's going on here?

It must be some deviant lifestyle that has led to this, you know? So it's just ridiculous. How sad is it that that, like, would still happen? Probably exactly now.

In the meantime, Max Wiley, Janice's father, offered the first potential lead. Okay. When he told detectives that in the weeks before she died, his daughter had actually been plagued and terrified. Quote unquote by a series of obscene phone calls. Oh, unfortunately, all the people in Janice's address book had alibis for the days that the girls were murdered.

I say, unfortunately, fortunately, too, I guess, because I would hate to think somebody in her address book was this person. Yeah, no, but I see what you mean now. Similarly, the lead about the obscene phone calls really went nowhere, couldn't really go anywhere. There were also other holes in the theory that they were running off of.

That really couldn't be ignored. For instance, Janice had planned to go to the March on Washington that day and would have otherwise been at work. So like, there was really no reason for her to be home like this was out of her general routine, and she wasn't even planning on being at home for the rest of the day, right?

So the killer would have had to either know her plans that day, which seems unlikely, since her own roommates didn't know her plans that day. Yeah, or they would have had to have been watching the apartment, which seems sort of likely, which could be likely.

Now, if the killer had been watching the apartment building to find out whether Janice was home, that also had certain implications. Like, for example, East 88th Street was in one of the nicer neighborhoods and populated with middle and upper middle-class residents. So in that case, someone certainly would have noticed an unfamiliar face lingering in the area. People knew each other here and they were on the lookout, especially if that person was, like, noticeably out of place in any way.

Like, people would be like, you're not from around here, like, what are you doing, staring at this apartment? kind of thing. And after all, based on the viciousness of the attacks and the mutilations to the bodies, essentially Janice and Emily's killer would have been covered in. Blood covered, yeah.

Which someone would have noticed in broad daylight, you would think. And so armed with this new theory of, like, Okay, now we got to move away from that original one. An army of police officers descended on the Upper East Side neighborhood and started canvassing all the buildings around Janice and Emily's building. Because they were like, it's got to be someone around here that nobody would notice.

They wouldn't look out of place.

Now, among the investigators leading the canvas was Detective Eddie Bulger. Oh, I don't like that. Look, yeah. He was a detective from Brooklyn and he was brought on to assist in the case.

You're going to want to kick Eddie Bulger in the fucking chin. I got that feeling immediately, you had this look in your eye when you said that fucker's name. Now I'll give it to the detectives in Manhattan. They were not into him either.

So I'll give them that much, okay? They were appreciative of the help because they needed all the help they could to canvas. You know, there was a lot of people to talk to, but a lot of them found Bulger's, I'll say, his personality and his approach.

Distasteful, at best, okay. Particularly the way he interacted with some of the residents in and around Janice's and Emily's neighborhood, according to Bulger. So, according to this detective Bulger, not according to anybody else. According to him, he claimed that he had what he would call a sixth sense for knowing. Not when any person was lying, when Black people were lying. Oh so, he's a racist fuck.

Yep, cool. And he was known by all to treat Black interviewees with far less respect than he did anyone else. And he never got in trouble for this. Well, because this was such a high profile case, it was determined pretty quickly that Bulger's obvious racial bias was very risky to this case.

Like, it was not going to help. You're going to shoot yourself in the foot here. They knew they were like, he's going to taint this like this is going to happen.

He's going to push someone that's just because he's a racist. Fuck right, so bye, bitch. They kicked him off the case almost immediately. Oh good.

Yeah, because they got some reports that he was interacting with some of the people in the buildings around Janice and Emily's building. And it was very clearly who he was treating nicely and who he wasn't. And so I think people that were partnered with him were like, Oh, not only is this fucked up, but he's going to get me in trouble too. And like, this whole case is going to fall apart and you're going to get the wrong guy instead of....

You're out of here, bulger, but how fucked up is that? I know when a Black person is lying, that's disgusting. The fuck is wrong with you.

That's just literal, pure hatred, literal, you're just just say you're racist.

Like, just say it, you essentially are now. Unfortunately, even with bulger off the case, the neighborhood canvas really turned up like no substantial leads. And a month later, investigators were still without anything. I almost said, without nothing.

Without nothing, No. A police spokesperson said There's a complete lack of physical evidence, no description of the murderer, not one substantial clue, not one tangible motive, huh? Which is so frustrating. And despite having no new information or motive, investigators continued to reject the notion that the killer was, quote, a psychotic stranger who entered the apartment by chance.

Instead, they remained committed to the belief that whoever killed Janice and Emily was most likely an acquaintance of Janice. So they were moving slightly away from the original theory, but still focusing on Janice. Which, again, I get it, I get it because of what they're seeing. I'm getting the sense, though, that it's like, not.

Well, this was also refuted by Max Wiley, Janice's father, who insisted quote I knew most of the men Janice dated. They were a very decent crowd. And, according to Max, he said quote There was only one that I had my that I had any deep inner disapproval of Janice was infatuated with him.

He was a liar, he was mean, he was cruel, and so he reported the man's name to investigators. He was like, Here you go, go check him out.

He was instantly checked out and cleared because he had a rock solid alibi. Oh so, he's just an asshole, yeah. Now. Despite thousands of man hours and the offer of $10,000 in a reward put up by Newsweek where Janice worked, which now would be like $100,000. Oh wow.

The one year anniversary of the murders was coming up quick and they didn't find a single piece of evidence that was going to help them now. Months later, on April 14th, 1964, a 46 year old cleaning woman and mother of five named Minnie Edmonds was murdered. She was stabbed to death near Sutter Avenue and Chester Street in Brooklyn by a man who was trying to steal her purse. Now. This ended up being kind of the first break in the case because what they didn't know it at the time.

And what really ended up being what, like, I guess, kind of broke the was the first break. In the case was. Another young woman in Brooklyn was then reported to police that she had been attacked. Like a week later after. Minnie Edmonds was killed and she was attacked in the same area, and her name was Elba Barrero, and she was also in Brooklyn. And it was around 1.30 a.m. Again, a week after Minnie. And she was grabbed from behind by a man who held her by the throat.

And then, according to her, dragged her into a doorway and was trying to steal her purse. Now Elba screamed, and I guess he had told her, like, if you scream, I'll kill you, but she started to scream, obviously.

Cause she's like, Yeah, you gotta try. And her attacker ended up running off. Oh okay, so he ran off. And before he ran off, she tore a big button off of his overcoat. Smart girl.

And a nearby patrol officer, Frank Azola, responded to the screams and chased the suspect, and he ended up losing sight of the suspect at one point. But he saw a man named George Whitmore, who was 19 years old at the time and originally thought he was shorter and thinner. Like, didn't match the build of the person that he saw running away from the scene and who Barrero had described him as looking like. So he kind of lost sight and he was just like, I don't know about that. But the following day, well, Detective Azola and his partner, Detective Richard Adala, was on patrol in the same neighborhood.

They spotted Whitmore again, George Whitmore, sure, and just arrested him.

Oh, now, it should be noted he's a Black man.

Why did they arrest him when he didn't match the suspect that he saw with his own eyeballs running away from the scene? I don't know, like, what, what charge are you on, what are you charging him with? Out of nowhere? Well, what's? What's even better is they called Elba up and they were like, Hey, we have a suspect.

We need you to go identify him, which like, ooh, oof, tainted already, you can't say that he's nope, like, that's not how that works. We have someone we want you to look at.

Not how that works. So they asked her if they could. She could identify him, and she was like, Well, I never saw his face and it was dark and I didn't see him. And she was like, But yeah, I can identify him.

But you just said you never saw his face. I don't know about that. A million people in this world have the same build, not usually the same face. Yep, Elba honey.

And so what you think is that they would put him in like a proper lineup, correct just him, that's how this works. I don't know if I would think that, but yeah, it's even worse. Because they brought Elba to the door of the interrogation room where Whitmore was sitting and said, Is that the guy?

We just arrested him and we think he's the guy, is that the guy? Can you look at him in that interrogation room? no, where he is very clearly looking like a suspect?

No, you literally can't do that. No, of course you can't. And she hesitated and she was like, I don't know, and then she said, Can I hear him speak?

And they had him say something and she was like, Yep, that's him.

Oh, that's the shakiest shit I've ever heard. I don't know what, yeah. So Elba Barrero was helping to identify her attacker, and she was overheard by a detective who happened to be in the area.

No, don't you even a detective by the name of Eddie Bolger? No, not this fucker. I knew we hadn't seen the last of him.

I felt it in my bones. He happened to work in the same precinct. Oh, goody. He was also very bitter about being kicked off the Wiley-Hoffert murder case, so he wanted to solve it. Quote unquote.

So Detective Bolger saw this moment as an opportunity to redeem himself, and he was given permission to interview the suspect. Whose idea was that? Yeah? According to Detective Bolger, when officers searched George Whitmore, they found several photographs of women in his pockets.

Okay, or excuse me of a woman, I should say in his pockets. And when they asked who the woman was. Whitmore claimed he found the photos and had been showing them to his friends to make them think it was his girlfriend. Okay.

Detective Bolger, though, was like, No, that's a picture of Janice Wiley, and immediately was like, You are the killer of Janice Wiley and Emily Hoffert. Was it even a picture of Janice? I guess we'll have to see, huh, and we'll have to see in part two.

You son of a bitch. Because when I tell you that this is a twisty, turny series of events that is going to happen right now. Oh man, because, remember, Elba Barrero grabbed a button off of this person? So that's going to be a thing.

Yes, they have a button. She's identified him, George Whitmore. And now Detective Bolger here, who is racist, a known racist and was actually kicked off the case for being racist, is now in charge of dealing with this Black man who is a suspect. Based off a real wonky identification.

Based off of nothing, essentially, and is now. They found pictures in his pockets, like, just so you're set up for the next thing, yeah, of a woman who he's saying, I just found these pictures. I was just claiming it was my girlfriend.

I was trying to be cool, and now Detective Bolger is like, That's Janice Wiley.

So you would think, with all that, you're like, Wow, okay, that's a little weird. We got him right, we don't, so yeah, I had a feeling we didn't.

Stay tuned for part two because it's going to get very frustrating. But in the end, there's at least a tiny bit of justice. Do we get the right person? Eventually? We'll know who did it. Oh, no.

All right, well, we hope you keep listening, and we hope you keep it weird, but not so weird that you're anything like Detective Bolger.

No.

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