The Last Remains

but they've never made an effort. Time, money, a variety of excuses have been to blame, but Kennan Patty Wendell, they need to know if their bodies buried on their property, and most importantly, the victims families deserve answers. This has gone on for far too long. Previously on Paper Ghosts, he said, well, you know they're not gonna find anything. He said, I didn't do anything wrong to hurt your mother. Do you think Bob Larros is a guy who was

capable of killing his wife? Oh yeah, It's easy to point the finger and say he did it, or she did it, or they did it. Yeah, But to go down and prove me at something else and uh, like I said, I didn't hurt nobody, I didn't kill anybody, and I didn't kidnap anybody. My name is and William Phelps. This is Paper Ghosts. I began this po podcasting journey in two thousand nineteen on Ken and Patty Wendell's forty

six acre property near Crystal Lake. An indirect tip from the witness and a bag of seventies Eero clothing set things in motion. After years and years of false leads and dead ends, and now in I'm back at the Wendell's. Only this time I have some help with me. Hello, how you doing. It was a cold day in May, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, and I had somehow convinced canine team to meet me at Patty and

Ken Wendell's house. Hi, Marian, how are you? Marian? Baland and Don Minor are my field support from Connecticut Canine Search and Rescue, one of the most renowned condaver search teams in the country. I reached out to the organization in late two thousand nineteen, and after several meetings in further discussion, they agreed to help these families seek some sort of resolution, at least within this latest thread of the witness stirring things up after all these decades. How

the conditions you think? One issue that bothered me immediately was the weather, cold, wet, windy. Would it play a role in how effective the dogs are going to be? Well, it's warming up, so it's not real moist in the air right now, so so I'm hoping that that's going to give some kind of lath right now. It's been told we had a lot of rain over the past couple of times. Left to see how the dogs do. There are so many variables at play, Mary and explained,

and most are not what many would think. For example, a lot of rain, she says, can be helpful bringing up the water table disperses the scent of decomposition. She's learned this by training her dogs on burial grounds. Jane's pockets sister, Mary angle Brick, was also there. It felt appropriate it she be included since she was there when we toured the Wendell property one year earlier. Mary, how are you feeling about today? I'm kind of nervous, like

feeling a lot of things. I think nervous. I'm scared, I guess I'm I'm scared that they'll find something, and then I'm scared that they won't find something, so you know, I'm all over the place kind of. So we were joined by their colleague Liz Burne, who was the handler for the day, and it brought two English Springers Orva and Heiress, the springer of favorite breed for Scotland. Yard is traditionally a hunting dog used to flush out game for the shooter. Their ears are long, floppy and furry.

They are full of boundless energy. That much was clear as soon as I met them. That's Horri ready to work. Or of a We all stood massed up socially distanced about a hundred yards away from Liz as she brought one dog at a time into the areas. The idea behind this strategy is for Don and Marian to watch the dog for signs of alerting on a scent. Canine

searched the air. Mostly they scurry around trying to pick up on an airborne scent that spring foliage growing up from the ground might project into the air, or they can hit on water. They do all this while wearing a GPS tracking device, so every step the raw data is recorded. As they search. The dogs give tells which Marian and Don are there to pick up on and take note of Heiress. The first dog heading into the

window woods was hyper focused. She wore a bell around her collar so the handler could find her easily if she picked up on something, and kind of moved swiftly through the woods. We headed towards the spot where Ken Wendell found that bag of clothes. Procedure sent Liz and Arress well beyond the target area. The idea is not to bring the dog into the direct location. Instead allow that dog to seek out herself whatever it is of interest. So that's the well where UM the clothing was found.

There's a carpet in there that I was curious about. Blue carpet. Marion explained what an alert on an area would look like, and she whispers, because we didn't want to disturb the focus of Liz or Heiress. We're looking for UM. Possibly the dogs pacing to slow down on head hooks one way or the other. UM. Usually they slow, they slow down and get more intense. The dogs are trained on decomposing placentas and actual dirt samples from the

colonial period, civil war, and known slave grave sites. They are often brought to archaeologist digs and support as well. She's down inside that well now, hairis actually dove into the well and swam around in the water. This is the exact location where the clothes and that blue carpet were found. The well being full of water was actually helpful in bringing the potential scent of remains out of whatever might have been down there as quickly as area

seemed interested in it. However, out she came, shaking off excess water before moving on. Doesn't seem interested in anything in there? Huh Yeah. There she went in twice and she actually tasted the water, but she didn't. I mean, this is her saying, there's no set. I'm just being a goofy dog right now because there's nothing. The dog worked this section of the woods for about twenty five minutes, covering it in a grid like fashion, nose to ground at times, nose in the air at others. The green

roof well is towards that way. It's far, but it is that way, so maybe that area all nice, nicely fool now. The witnesses tip included the words green roofed well. There's only one of those anywhere on the property. So yeah, Liz, there's the green roofed well right there. Yeah, and then in about twenty ft in back of that is another well. Right then you want both of them checked, yeah, I thought, but that has the green roof which the witness described. Liz took the dog a hundred yards and more up

past both wells and unleashed. As we looked on, my gut was telling me there was nothing there yet. Investigation requires elimination. If I could eliminate the window property, the windows and the victims families could move on from this and go back to their lives. Oh, look at that. We were in the vicinity the witness had specifically described, and there was a noticeable change in Herriss's behavior as

soon as she started searching this area. You think she's just interested in that the dog picked up on something. She's back at that green roof well. The well is square about ten by ten with an upside down V shaped roof over it. Both ends are covered one side with a hatch door to look inside. Ken Wendell, if you recall, put an underwater camera down this well and found nothing but water on one side of the well. As a pool of water deep part of the well

runoff as it fills during a rainstorm. Harris dove into that pool of water, tasted it, jumped out, sniffed around the well, then made her way over to the hatch door. Fiddled with it a bit, trying to get in, just curiosity, not thing more. Harris actually found more interest in a second well nearby. See um, where that other sort of arcas in a well where there's the metal posts over the top around there, really yeah, where there was the deep. She's the deep sniffing and here she was scared. She

stuck her head and she actually stammed through that water. Um, but I heard more of the breathing changes, like if I'm working up there. Eiris went from the green roof well to an area about thirty yards behind it, up a hill in front of a large section of bedrock sticking out of the ground. Luz, can you work or above that rock in the woods behind? She's interested in that area. Huh, she's digging there. She's interested in that. Talking back, I'm really three times three times later I

got three times in yeah, um yeah. She went over there to back over there, laid down and started digging. She went back on her own. Yeah, laying down is Harris's trained indication that she has locked onto decomposition. Don and Marian, when they saw it, became incredibly focused. I had not seen them all day long look as serious as they were. If they come back, do it on your own. I mean she actually started pawn at it. She was digging to do out of frustration or CONSI

something there and you're not moving fast enough. I was trying to listen for her breathing, because if you're going to get a fossil lert, so I'll just they might go and give you their behaviors, but you don't hear that deep stacking beforehand. Like I'm working. I'm working on her breathing, drink breathing. Aara settled in on one spot in front of a large piece of bedrock protruding from the ground. She dug, vigorously, laid down over the spot she had dug, and waited for Liz to come over.

After Liz took Ariss away and allowed her to go where she wanted, the dog came back to the same location. The team all agreed there could be something there. What that something is would be to speculate a bone decomposition in the soil run off from a nearby cemetery or perhaps one of the missing girls. After Arius hit on that particular location, the handlers brought out the second dog, Orva,

and she showed interests there as well. The team then arraided the area probed as they call it, by spending a half hour poking the ground with skinny metal rods, then brought the dogs back. So how did the probeing go good? A lot of holes? He made good. She seemed that she saw the area. Yeah, it's above there, in front of that piece of lege. Yeah. Yeah. Seeing the two dogs show more interest in a well behind the one the witness had been talking about came as

no surprise. It's been decades since the girls went missing. Memories naturally fade over time, and sometimes they can even change. It's like a game of telephone, where a detail you once remembered make it slightly altered as the years go by. Dates maybe off colors can be different. So if you wanted to work the dogs more, we could go over here.

I pointed to the area near the flower memorial Tina LaRosa and her family members put on the birch tree in back of the old LaRosa property, and also where the state police once dug and came up with those five pairs of saddle shoes I mentioned in episode one, Yes through here and the rope stuff some time to ye, I think it's I think it's best if we walk them down the street and come in from the street on the side or it didn't show any indication whatsoever

near the LaRosa property or the flower memorial safe for her pawing at a tree close by. Sometimes canines will act as though they want to climb a tree, indicating perhaps there is something under the tree or even in the tree itself kind of sucked in or absorbed by the roots system. That second go around after probing, turned in the same results. It had been a long cold day.

The dogs were tired, same as we were in the weeks after we all met up at the Wendells, the Connecticut Canine Search and Rescue Team sent me its report for the day regarding the location around the artesian water well as well as the flower memorial near the LaRosa property. Canines arison or of a quote showed no behavior changes indicative of the odor of decomposed human remains being present.

As for the area surrounding the green roofed well. Both dogs exhibited deep sniffing and digging with airis, returning to the location three times before lying down her trained indication. This certainly adds more credibility to the witnesses supposed tip about bodies being buried somewhere in that area. Now knowing this, it's hard not to imagine the frustration felt by the victims families after the request for state police to bring

out search dogs has and ignored. More so when you learned that during the summer the state police actually acted on a psychics tip and brought canines out to a home in Tolland to search for Janic's pocket. They turned up with nothing. I just don't get it. A seemingly credible tip from the witness leads to new breakthroughs at Crystal Lake, and the state police are searching a home

six miles away based on a psychics tip. We had also gone to the location where Susan Larrossa was found, but the wind picked up and it was nearly impossible to search. I will say this, however, when we got there, the dogs were unleashed and ran straight toward the exact location where Susan's body had been dumped. According to the report, both dogs showed changes in body carriage indicative of attempts to locate the odor of decomposed remains, deep sniffing and

pasting in circles. The report ends with the Connecticut Canine Search and Rescue Team's recommendation to follow up with a search further into the woods west of Wendell Road, northwest of the Green Roof covered well area, and additional areas near where Susan LaRosa was found. What I do with this information becomes the question. The state police had made it clear they were uninterested in sharing information, but I had Connecticut Canine send them my Canine Search Info Report.

I've been providing the State Police in Tallan County States Attorney's Office with information at tips I have received and vetted for over ten years. I'm not about to stop now. Armed with the info I had, I went over to speak with Bill Meyer, the Vernon Police Department lieutenant, see what he thought. We made some progress. You know, generations of detectives have worked on this case, going back before

I was even born. But these are the types of cases to stick with you, and we know that someone knows something. Someone out there across the United States, across the world, knows the answers that we're looking for. Which out of the case is Debbie Spickler, Lisa White, I mean, you know, the Janis Pocket case, Susan LaRosa, Irene Larrosa. I mean, which which one you think is most solvable? Certainly the ones where we've recovered the remains have more

solvability to them. And with with her husband, Bob Lerosa being dead, what do you think the chances are solving that case. It's a challenge with any of these cases, you know, the amount of time becomes a challenge because memories fade, people die, people move away. But we don't give up, you know, we're still hoping for that breakthrough. It's going to give us the answers we've been looking

forward for many, many years. It's very important if you have some information to bring it forward, even if you think it's something we've already investigated. Part of the fallout from taking a cold case investigation public is the urgency for answers and expected resolution to have everything tied up in a nice little bow with papers filed away. Trust me, I'd love that too. But the best we can hope for is that the needle has been moved a bit more.

What's important is the facts are out there that so many more people are now aware of these cases. We have a cold Cake hotline um that that people can reach out to with that information that will get back to investigators so that they can be followed up. By early October, the podcast have been out for nearly a month and people were talking. More importantly, the state police

were moving. Ken Wendell gave me a call. He told me the police now want to come up to his property and survey the areas where I had brought the canine team, and they want to bring their own dogs out right away. All small town politics aside. The good news is that the state police is paying attention. I've since learned that their dogs hit on two areas, one not too far away from the spot Arras had laid down,

and another where that flower memorial is located. Next steps include ground penetrating radar in those areas of interest, and also possibly more digging. That's on the Connecticut State Police. All we can do now is wait and hope they follow up. I promised the families of the missing girls that I would tell them about my latest findings with the Canine team, their strength and candor, and sharing with me one of the most traumatic moments of their lives,

something for which I am forever grateful. Mary angele Breck, the sister of Jane's Pocket, April White Filetti, the sister of Lisa White. Terry Shanks, the sister of Susan Rosa. These three women share a bond that very few people can understand. We all met up at a campsite one night,

sat around a fire and just talked. You know, we all grew up with our experience, isn't I And I'm thinking each of us, did you ever think that you would find someone else that actually understands what you went through and how you grew up, in how losing a sister and the way we did. No one understands. No one understands. And it's it's so funny because when I

talked about Lisa and it sets me. Um. It's it's hard to do because it just takes you to such a dark place, but um, I always know that I have you guys it, and it makes it so much easier. And even April makes a good point that dark place all of this brings up. It's a daily reality for these families. We suffer the same, the three of us, like we are sisters. Forever we are, the three of us,

we will always be connected. I feel so blessed and lucky that we found my sister, but my bond still remains with the women who have not, because even though I we found my sister's body, we still don't know the particulars of what happened. And there's no justice, no justice, bottom line. Really, in the end, five females for missing,

one confirmed murder, and those responsible walk free. Mary goes on to say what many of us might forget about the day her sister disappeared, and that echo chamber of pain and what a tragedy like this does family and friends. It's crazy, And I think, you know, I think April

and Terry can identify with this. But I think in a lot of ways, you know, here we are all women are fifties now, but I still feel like a part of me is still six years old, a part of April is still ten years old, and a part of Terry is twelve years old, because that's when our life ended, our life as we knew it. Paper Ghosts has written an executive produced by me and William Phelps. I want to extend my gratitude to I Heart Radio

and will Pearson for allowing me to do what I do. Likewise, I could not have done this podcast without the great work of Christina Everett, who really shaped these episodes and stepped in co wrote an executive produced with me, and a big thank you to Pete Cardi from back Room Audio for sound editing and a booze afar from My Heart for sound editing and mixing. The series theme number four four two is written and performed by Tom Mooney

and Thomas Phelps. That cold case hotline number the Vernon Police Department set up is eight six oh three two to eight. It will be posted in the show notes of this episode along with my contact in phone. If tiplines and cops aren't your thing, you can send me a direct message on Facebook or email me personally. Any tip or a bit of information can be helpful, and

all of it is kept completely confidential. To stay updated on any new development on the cases, check out the Paper ghost podcast page on Facebook and be sure to stay subscribed to Paper Ghosts. But lots more to come for more podcasts from My Heart Radio visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.