The Girlfriends S2/E2: Mindy Goes Undercover

Novel.

Hey listener, In this episode, we'll be talking about acts of violence and murder, as well as the loss of a child. After the second break, there's one particular scene of extremely intense emotional distress which you may find hard to listen to, but at the same time we get to see doctor Mindy Shapiro reconnect with her New York roots.

If you feel.

Impacted by any of the themes while listening, I encourage you to check out our charity partner, DNA DOE Project. They work with law enforcement to identify Jane and John does. They use genetic genealogy in the hopes of reuniting the bodies of unidentified people with their families. You can find them at DNADO project dot org. And you guessed it. You're probably going to hear a few swears too, so sue me. I've got a dirty mouth. Before we get started.

A dog with the bone not.

I'm still angry about the dog with her bone, and I'm not going to get over it.

Why would you.

Take offense for a dog with the bone.

It just gives me the image of this little white terrier biting the ankle of some pants leg of some person who's.

Just trying to kick me off. That's why.

So, Mindy, let me say this, hand on heart. I apologize for referring to you this way, but I think you would agree.

Though, that you were a little obsessive. And don't get me wrong, that's what we love about you.

It's that very quality that makes you such a great amateur detective. Instead, I'll just describe you as you truly are, my unsquashable, tenacious, and relentless friend, Mindy fucking Shapiro. Doctor, Mindy fucking Shapiro, doctor Detective, Mindy fucking Shapiro. I know there's no mystery, medical or otherwise that she can't solve.

I like a puzzle about the puzzle.

I make puzzles.

Wait, they don't.

Said, but this thirty five year mystery of our lost sister's identity. It's her biggest and most important puzzle yet. If she's gonna bust this case wide open, like I know she can. This New York broad is gonna need to kick down doors and find the answers no one else could. Okay, Okay, I'm sorry that was the last dog joke.

I promise.

I'm Carol Fisher and from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts. You're listening to The girlfriends Our Lost Sister, Episode two, Mindy Goes Undercover.

Got you.

T t to speak with the librarian. We're helping you get some research.

Great a welcome, thank you, thank you.

When I first met Mindy in Las Vegas thirty something years ago, she'd only just moved from the East Coast, and you could tell. I mean, she was fast talking, fast walking, and she got shit done. And with every minute we spend in New York investigating the case of our lost sister, I can see that old East Coast attitude coming back. I mean I literally witnessed her jumping at turnstile on the subway.

For crying out loud.

This woman is sixty seven years of age. But who am I to question our chief investigator. First up on Mindy's tour of NYC, her and producer Anna Head to the New York Public library.

It's a very ostentatious library. They didn't need to make it.

This prect you know, they renovated it a while ago.

Libraries are often described as one of the last bastions of democracy. They don't or if you have money or what your background is, you can go there and access the same information as anyone else who comes looking for it. So it feels like a good place to start our investigation to see what's already out there. Newspaper articles about the torso washing up on Staten Island in nineteen eighty nine. Any killers who are in the news at the time

Okay, are you ready for the query of the day?

Right, I'm not sure? You better sit down.

I am interested in fundamentally two things. Is a torso watched upon the shores of Staten Island on May twenty first, nineteen eighty nine, and I'd like all information that I can find about that torso.

The next thing is.

I would like any and all information on the psychopathology of pillers that dismember their victims.

The librarians on the other side of the desk shoot a raised eyebrow in Mindy's direction.

Right, you know, I look like clearly someone who was investigating.

Do I look like all murders in the building?

Do I have that vague resemblance to Suna, no miss thanks, that's familia.

But unfortunately, not only does Mindy struggle to get a compliment from these librarians, they also can't find any relevant information. In fact, she and Anna aren't making much progress in Manhattan at all. Maybe we're finding it hard because what we really want, what we need is more information from the time when the torso was discovered on Staten Island. We should be able to get that kind of stuff from the original police reports, something we're not going to find in the library.

So we decide, fuck it.

Why don't we just turn up at Staten Island Police Department and ask for the reports ourselves?

Well, right under the sign twenty more Yeah.

The one hundred and twenty first Precinct in Staten Island is a big concrete building with a long line of steps leading up to the entrance.

It's intimidating.

We stagger up the stairs and we go through the tall glass doors and immediately we look out of place.

What's happening at.

Typical?

Mindy charges ahead while I hide behind producer Anna, who's concealed her microphone and a pair of fluffy gloves.

It's all very covert.

When we get to the front desk, we're greeted by this really sweet Officer's.

Interested in if I can get some old record it's from nineteen eighty nine.

What kind of records?

At first, understandably he doesn't know what to make of this strange, multi generational group of women digging into a cold case.

He seems pretty suspicious.

Luckily, we've got Mindy's New York charm to win him over.

And could you just jimmy one huge phavor because I grew up in New York. Could you say perpetrator for me?

Perpetrator.

But we're here on business, so we asked the officer to check the records for anything connected to the Torso.

When you find some baits here, let's say how far.

We go from?

But it doesn't go very far. When he types our case number into his it draws a blank. The case is too old and the files have likely not been digitized. But the suite officer, he does give us something.

Let me search for a cold case health album.

Okay, that would be great.

A phone number that we can call for information on cold cases.

You know, hopefully they'll be able to help you navigate through this journey.

Do you think that records?

So it's looking like we won't quite get what we came for, but we're not going to be leaving empty handed either. We've got a brand new cold case number to call and a new friend. It's dat n Island pd' from.

I'm from England's okay, not live England.

I'll never visited, but I always wanted as a teenager, but then I grew up.

Now I'm in my forties, I'm a grandfather.

Wow, you're a young Congratulations muscle us.

It seems we've garnered all the information we can and Mindy's also got her eye on an iconic Staten Island pizza joint for lunch. So, with stomachs rumbling, we exchange goodbyes with our new friend and make our.

Way out of the police station.

We got a number that we haven't had with goal, so tomorrow.

We're gonna call.

What do you mean we're calling in the car?

All right?

We jump in a taxi and have barely got our seatbelts on before Mindy starts dialing. We're hoping to find out if our Jane Doe is connected to a registered cold case, and if there's any information that can help us continue the story beyond nineteen ninety eight, which is when Elaine Kats's files end.

All right, we're calling.

Thank you for calling the New York City Police Department.

The party you are trying to reach is unavailable at this time.

Please goal again, goodbye.

Of course not that would be too easy. We keep trying, though, But when we eventually get through, it turns out that sweet officer point portrayer, he gave us the wrong number. I mean, can we catch a goddamn break? We still don't give up. Mindy is soldiering on, unperturbed. Through some digging, she manages to find the correct number. But dear listener, don't hold your breath.

Or more ontion.

Hi, my name is Mindy Shapiro, and I am calling about a cold case from nineteen eighty nine.

If you're exasperated just listening to this, imagine how we feel. It's like we're constantly hitting a wall, being sent around in circles from one agency to another. Maybe we're out of our depth here, even with Mindy on the case.

Maybe we need some advice.

From someone who's actually solved a cold case, and not just any cold case, but one that's very close to our hearts, the murder of gailcats.

Hi. Wo you good, thank you.

Anna just arrived at the office of Dan Bibb. He's a DA.

Prosecutor who put my ex Bob Bernbaum away for twenty to life. He's also the guy who helped prove instant for all that our Jane Do's torso did not belong to Gail Katz. He's eager to know the latest on our investigation.

So what's been going on?

So we're trying to identify this torso, which is maybe a fool's.

Errand I don't think it is. I remember we notified the precinct or whoever was in charge, that this is now an open case again because it's not Gail Katz. What happened to the investigation after that? I have no idea. You know, in ninety eight, did missing persons really want to deal with a nineteen eighty nine torso that washed up? I don't know. I mean, could it have fallen through the cracks? Yes? How is it dealing with the m's office.

Dan is talking about the Medical Examiner's office.

You already know that Mindy has put.

In a freedom of information request to them, so is Gail's sister Elaine, and they're not the only ones.

All the way back.

In the first series of The Girlfriends, Madeline parr Our, assistant producer and research Queen, reached out asking for any documents relating to the Torso.

Fifth of December twenty twenty two. Hither, I'm a journalist from the UK and I'm wondering if you might be able to help me find out some information about a body that was discovered in nineteen eight.

We get a response saying they're going to look into it for us, which is great news, and then a few weeks go by we haven't heard anything, so we decide to check in.

Fourth of January twenty twenty three. Hi, I hope you've had a lovely holidays and a happy new Year. I'm just wondering if you've got anywhere with tracking down those records.

Months go by, still nothing. Eventually we just get plane pissed off.

Ninth of January twenty twenty four, did happy New Year again? I'm writing to let you know that it has now been over a year since My initial request was sent to you on the fifth of December twenty twenty two, and we are yet to receive any progress a tool on these records.

Nothing's worked.

We've always been met with a wall of silence, and to be honest, we're starting to take it pretty personally.

I mean, why wouldn't they just tell you you could appeal to their foil officer and then you could chew. But why wouldn't they just tell you that instead of stringing and off for a year.

We don't want to get to the point of suing the Medical Examiner's office. We just want them to respond to us. We want to know what information they have on the Torso after nineteen ninety eight, which is a year she was exzumed from Gail Catt's grave. We want to know where she went and crucially, if she was ever identified. Our mission isn't about pointing the finger or

At the age of sixteen, I was busy swooning over boys.

In fact, that was the first year I fell in love, the first and a long run of terrible boyfriends. But Mindy, well, she was far too ambitious to be distracted by something as silly as boys.

At sixteen, she.

Was busy lining herself up to get into a good medical college, which meant internships. And where, you might ask, did she intern in the summer of nineteen seventy three, the Manhattan Medical Examiner's Office.

You just can't make this shit up.

I would get on the bus from my parents' apartment to the Medical Examiner's office, and I'd watched them do autopsies. And then one week I worked in the lab with the stomach contents. One week I worked in the bones, and it was like Wayne Heart.

Does something delivers.

And now, about fifty years later, Mindy's back at her old office, she wants to find out where our Jane Doe went after she was exhumed from Gail Kata's grave.

Hi, it's tact to Shapiro, and I'd like to speak with the deputy medical Examiner.

Oh, thank you.

To get us in the door.

And because we're getting kind of desperate here, we've decided to act like Mindy is simply stopping by to see an old colleague.

I worked here a billion years ago, and the entries good.

Never change.

Mindy's asking to meet with the deputy medical Examiner, not the chief. We decided that be too suspicious, and it seems to be working. The receptionist gets on the phone and says that the deputy is in a meeting but will be free in just thirty minutes.

Oh well wait, we've been waiting for over a year already, so what's another thirty minutes.

But it's nerve wracking.

For the first time, we're coming face to face with the people who've been avoiding us for so long. And it's not just that so much has happened under this roof. It was in this very same building where Elaine was first told that the torso was not her sister Gail after all, it's a lot for Mindy to take in.

Yeah, yeah, I'm just persons and processing in anticipating.

Then the strange silence is punctured by a woman a little waist down the hall, screaming.

Piece somebody, identify somebody. She has just identified the body of her son. Oh.

After a tense minute, the whales draw closer. The woman with someone we assumed to be her husband, burst into the lobby. We're not going to play any tape of her, out of respect for such an intimate moment. But all I can say is it's the rawest expression of grief that you can possibly imagine. This experience is one that no mother, including this one, should ever have.

To go through.

And yet here's she is, in the lobby of an office building on what should be a normal Wednesday afternoon, screaming into the void. That's not my son. My son had a home, my son had a family. He told me he was safe. Anna, Mindy and the security guards are all sitting in silence, trying not to intrude on the woman's grief or make her feel self conscious, but they also feel this pull to just jump up and

And that's why we're doing this. It's horrible.

It's horrible.

You know, it's hard enough for me watching you with like your Facebook.

But this is all normal for you. But it's not normal, you know it. Yes, it is. It is very very normal.

And they are experiences that you hope you never have, or if you have them, you only want them once and then you don't.

Talk about them. And what makes them tell is that we don't.

They're just not discussed.

Yeah, as much as that was a tough thing to bear witness to, it just brings it all home.

Our Jane Doe.

Get of a mother out there who hasn't even been gifted the opportunity as brutal as it is to know the truth about what happened to her daughter, bereft of the opportunity to wail and scream in public, to show the depths of her pain to the world and make them look. Five minutes pass and the deputy medical examiner walks out of some heavy double doors. Anna and Mindy had rehearsed what they were going to say to her,

I'm a physician, I retired, and I'm here on actually an act.

Of mercy for a friend of mine who has.

Had a remote tragedy.

Nineteen eighty nine, and I'm trying.

To get some closure the case for her.

Basically in nineteen eighty five, Mindy runs through the whole complicated story once again, and at first it seemed like we might finally be getting some answers.

You have like case number yes, yes, the Emmy case numbers eighty nine, five, six three.

Whereas yeah, think it's.

The oh, okay, we have someone like our anthropologists probably be able to I'm running.

At three o'clock.

If you want to leave your contact information with me. Otherwise, I mean we'll be out of a meeting probably at like four o'clock.

I can't promise anything's going to happen if you do. Wait.

Mindy and Anna sit back down to wait again.

But when the deputy pushes through the doors after her three pm meeting, her expressions changed.

She's still smiling, but now it's guarded.

The director of anthropology is in the meeting with me, so I just briefly mentioned to him.

He's aware of it and they were planning on reaching.

Out to you.

Oh, they're just finding out answers to your It's called love. Yeah.

Yeah, someone is aware of it and has an anthropologists have been working on it.

But someone will be in.

Touch with you.

Thank you.

That Phil's good.

Thank you.

Thanks. Anna and Mindy are getting the distinct impression that they've overstayed their welcome, so they high tail it out of the Medical Examiner's office.

Well we waited. We got some very interesting experience out of this.

Oh my god, I need a drink.

I'll buy you a drink and can go down here.

Spoiler alert, dear listener, we did not hear back about the files.

So what next. Well, if you're looking to track.

Down a body, the next best place to go is probably a cemetery. And if you're looking to track down an unidentified body in New York, then you're best head to the city's largest public burial ground, Heart Island. Coming up next time on the girlfriends Our Lost Sister.

Oh my god, wait, Oh my god.

Wait, look at what it says next to it.

Look at the day what I can't believe this.

The girlfriends Our Lost Sister is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio. The show is hosted by me Carol Fisher, and our chief investigator is Mindy Shapiro. To find me on social media, search Carol A. Fisher, That's Carol with an E. The season is written and produced by Anna Sinfield and Lee Meyer. Our assistant producer is Madeline Parr. The editor is Joe Wheeler. Max O'Brien is our executive producer. Our fact checker is