DETAILS ARE UNPRINTABLE-Allan Levine

you're free. Welcome bonus. That's Chumbuck Casino dot com and live the Chumba Lane. Nopevers necessary dripo where every I lost the terms conditions eighteen plus.

for her murder and his subsequent trial and conviction. But this story goes back in time to the nineteen twenties when Wayne Lanigan grew up in Toronto, and then forward to his post prison life following his deportation to Canada. It is the chronicle of Lonegan in denial as a bisexual or a gay man living in an intolerant and morally superior heterosexual world, and of Patricia rich and entitled a secret of attention who loved the night out on the town, All set against the fast paced of New

York's ostentatious cafe society. Part true crime and part of social history of New York City in the nineteen forties. This book transports readers to the New York World's Fair of nineteen thirty nine, when Patricia's father, William Burton, first encountered Lonegan the Stork Club, twenty one Club and El Morocco to experience with Patricia a night of drinking champagne, cocktails and dancing and I Maggie New York Courtroom, where Lonagan's fate was decided. What truly happened on that tragic

night on October twenty fourth, nineteen forty three. Should we accept Larnagan's confession at face value as the jury did, or was he indeed a victim of physical and mental abuse by the state prosecutors and the police, as he maintained for the rest of his life. This book considers these and other key questions. The book that we're featuring this evening is details are Unfrintable Wayne Langan and the sensational Cafe Society Murder with my special guest, historian, journalist

and author Alan Levine. Thank you very much for this interview and welcome to the program. First off, tell us how you came to want and be the author of this book.

the story properly in some originality. Any event, I had been leafing or I guess looking through on a computer screen old copies of Cosmopoultan magazine, and I came across an article by Raymond Chandler, the great techno novelist from Cosmopaultan in October nineteen forty eight and when she has his anielists for the magazine ten Greatest Crimes of the Century, and the first one was the Lindberg kidnapping, which was

in the thirties and still famous. But number nine was this case involving Wayne Langan that I had never heard of. And the case A drew was interesting. For the first reason it was interesting was that it was involved in Canadian lannaganet. As you said, I had been born in Toronto,

so that sort of was interesting. And I started digging into the case and realized there had been a well, actually sort of two books, one written in the fifties by a TV calumnist, which was you know, basically just lifted from newspaper articles, and there had been another book written in early seventies by a Florida crime writer named Hamilton Darby Perry. And I got a hold of that book, and you know, he had actually interviewed Lanigan before he died.

But there was stuff in the book that just didn't sit well in And then the thing that really got me into it was that I had access I started digging into where the district attorney files were on these

kinds of cases. And I discovered that in New York more than which I've since learned more than most states, to be honest, and you can get access to this stuff at the New York Municipal Archives and lo and behold, they had this fantastic collection over sixteen hundred pages of the district attorney's files from the case, the trial in forty four, as well as there was a peel in

the or mid sixties. So they had all that document and I was able to get access to it, get it digitized, get it shipped me into my home Winnipeg, Canada, and I discovered that it was just fantastic. It had witness testimonies, financial information of Patricia lanergen, biographies of people that I never would have been able to find information for, and private correspondence between the police and the lawyers, and

just really laid out the entire case. Lnergan's confession is alibi initially, I mean, and just every possible aspect of the case. So I was I thought, this is fantastic, and I knew that I could tell the story in a much more detailed way. And as you said, my aim was to not just tell the story of the murder, but to also put the murder in some kind of context.

And I because I discovered right away that the case also had a morality issue to it about Lanigan's homosexuality, and in the period under nineteen thirties and forties, this was an issue that was extremely controversial, and it does taint the trial, as I wrote a note, And it also played a sort of a strange part in Laanergan's story because he himself never admitted to his own sexuality, and in fact, when in Hamilton Darby Perry's book, it's

not mentioned at all or briefly mentioned anyways. But years later, before Hamilton Darby Perry died, he did make a note in another edition of his book published by a specialized publisher that he did believe Wayne was bisexual or homosexual, but that certainly affected his whole life, and it comes up in all sorts of strange ways throughout Wayne's life, but certainly during the story of the case itself, where it's an excuse in fact, that it plays a part

in his initial alibi when he's questioned by the District Attorney's office and the police. So that's how that's really how how I came to it, and I found it to be a fascinating story.

close to sixteen hours on a date. Tell us about New York cafe society as you write about, and tell us about Patricia Burton Launergren.

so a couple months before the murder took place. Patricia is you know, she was brought up in a very wealthy environment. Her family, as you said, had German American German Jewish roots. Rather her grandfather, great grandfather, I guess it would have been, came from Germany as an immigrant, started a beer business and became fairly wealthy, and his son that would have been her grandfather, built upon the business,

and so they lived a very high lifestyle. Her father, William, the family's name was actually Bernheimer, and later when Patricia's father was older, in his twenty or when he turned twenty one, I guess him and his brother changed the

name to Burton. It was like this was during the First World War, partially, he says, because he was being discriminated against because of a German sounding name, but really probably also because he was Jewish, and despite attempts to lead a rather assimilated life, he was probably just trying to fit in and too man and what he wasn't certainly the only New York jew with German roots, Sewer. We lived a fairly secular life to do this. I mean they belonged to a reform synagogue, and so that

was part of their story. William Burton is an interesting character because he probably too was bisexual, which plays into a little bit of the story later on. But he marries because in those days, you know, homosexuality or bisexuality was not talked about and you were expected to get married. And he ends up marrying this woman, Lucille, who comes from also an old moneyed family, although they had lost

some of their money. They came from the Deep South and lost some of their money during the Civil War. Louise Wilfer name was, and they end up getting married. They two also have a lousy marriage, partially I think because of the sexual issues, and she was, you know, she expected a lot out of life. But they lived, you know, Patricia was born in nineteen twenty one. They lived this rather idyllic lifestyle. They lived part of the

year in New York and fancy Park Avenue apartment. He was brought up by nannies like as it was common among wealthy people in those days. They had a house. They spent half the year in France, in Paris, where William fancied himself an artist, although he wasn't really any good. And then they had this villa in near Conns in the south of France. And you know, so that was she was brought up. I guess she went to boarding school or finishing school at some point in her life.

And she didn't never really worked much in her life. Even during when she was older, she was like a debutante, I suppose you could call her. She attended teas and socials, societies, met with other wealthy young women. During when World War two started, she did do a bit of fundraising. This is even before the United States got involved in the war, and after Pearl Harbor in December nineteen forty one, and she you know, never was had any money problems and

lived a very wealthy lifestyle. The death of her father, William in nineteen forty from a heart attack, which ran in their family. All the men died pretty young, including her grandfather, uncle now and her father, sort of affected her deeply obviously, and also set in motion her relationship with Wayne Long again because it was the father her father, William,

was the one who had introduced her to Wayne. Whether or not she knew about her father's other life, I don't know, you know, the as I said, homosexuality in the nineteen thirties and forties was like the one of the worst things you could possibly be accused of. People hit it. It was against the law. Both in Canada,

United States and France. It was more legal. You could do what you want, which maybe have been the attraction for living in fan but you know, you could be arrested bartender serving a drink to two men, dancing on the floor, or doing anything could have been their place could have been shut down. In New York, it was regarded as a sickness perversion, a psychopath. You know, people

were a psychopath. It was regarded as a learned behavior just just completely you know, not what most people would think of today, but plays a huge part in understanding

of what went on. I was just actually watching I don't know if you've seen the new Perry Mason series, but there was two of the characters are gay, living in the nineteen thirties in Los Angeles, and I thought to myself as I watched it, you know, they had to hide their other life, and this man and women who are both gay, had to pretend to be a couple on the night on the town. And it's exactly the way it was in the book as well. And even in a cosmopolitan place like New York, it was

dangerous to come out. So William, you know, William Burton, probably had to be very careful, and thus he was married, although he gets divorced from his wife maybe about five six years after they got married, and then strangely enough, four years later they remarry. They said they later did it to help Patsy because they loved her so much. But even after they got remarried, they lived fairly separate lives, and they just before World War two they came, although

Lucille's lived in Europe a little longer. William brought Patsy back to New York, supposedly with all of his very

expensive artwork. But I have since learned since the book was published, and I can talk about this later, but I since learned that in fact he had left his villa to the French resistance, but apparently the Nazis had taken a lot of his artwork, and a film crew in Paris of France that intered viewed me about the case discovered that in fact, the Nazis had taken it and they were trying to track down some of the artwork.

But gets into the story about what happened to their son, who's now eighty years old, and I can talk about it near after because it's quite fascinating. I learned something just recently thanks to the interview these peoples did with me from this French TV station.

childhood in trouble with the law. He spent a couple times literally had stints at reformatories and again, you know, being you know, he was said late he had run ins with the police, and you know, he told them he was making money and dealing by being intimate with gay men. And again sort of the beginning of this process. He has all sorts of other jobs, trying to make something of himself. I mean, I think he really wants

the good life. He's a bit of a liar, and I think he continues that for all the rest of his life, to be honest, he eventually decides in nineteenth after being a lifeguard and a helper of a conductor and other sort of jobs, he gets a job in nineteen thirty nine at the New York World's Fair, which was the time, was this massive extravaganza in Queens Now this where the US Open plays and was also the site of the nineteen sixty four New York World's Fair, but in nineteen thirty nine it was it was a

really huge deal, and he got a job as a bus dispatcher, and through that that brings him to New York and at some point he meets William, Patricia's father, I believe, and according to all the documents I can find and other sources and other authors, and they probably have some sort of intimate relationship. William was about at least eighteen to twenty years older than him and introduces Wayne to this fairly expensive lifestyle cafe society, going to

the Stark Club and ne Al Morocco. And through William, as I said, he's introduced to Patricia when William dies in nineteen forty Bizarrely, whether again Patsy knew about who Wayne really was or what his relationship with her father was, They start to date. They go to this their first date is allegedly, at least according to Wayne, because I

could never find out if this was true. At the Stark Club, where Wayne is apparently treated, he's only like you know, early twenties, he's treated with deference by the dorman who had all his power to let people into the club because it was extremely difficult to get in. Whether that's true or not, I suspect that still part of the story is not. Lucille was wary of Wayne, probably saw him as a bit of a hustler, because

that's what he was. She takes her. At one point, she takes Patricia to Santa Barbara, California for a holiday. Wayne manages to scrum some money together and travel and visit her, and they decide to elope in Las Vegas, and she runs away with Wayne, and in the summer in nineteen forty one, they decide to get married and they go to like one of these you know hitching places in Las Vegas, which was well more well known than gambling, and they come back to live there this

you know life in New York. You know, Wayne never works really a day in his life after that, and maybe maybe a little bit, but not much. I mean Patricia inherits a pretty good think of money from when her father dies. So you know, she's living on a certain amount of money, you know, a thousands, more than one thousand dollars every month. And they they she gives

support Swayne financially. She even supports them actually after they have problems, and she's always giving them money any and he develops a very high taste in suits and a lot of shoes and monogram shirts and you know, so he's living this high life that he plays bridge all day, doesn't get out of bed till ten thirty in the morning,

and doesn't do too much. And they spend a lot of evenings out, you know, trying to brush shoulders with the Broadway and Hollywood stars that are at the Store Club al Morocco, the twenty one Club and places like that where people with you know, dancing into the night and and those clubs were famous for being you know, you want to be seen, you want your picture taken by the photographer. You want to end up in the next day's gossip column by Walter Windshield or Dorothy Kilgallen

or Ed Sullivan. And you know, they were what I refer to as you know, in those days, that's what it's like Twitter. You know that that was the whole object to be to be seen and to be known. And and Wayne and they are mentioned. You know, they're they're sort of bit players really in the whole scheme of things until until the murder. You know, because the last night of Patricia's life she spends at the al Morocco and the club was never really happy that they

were associated with with with either of them. So you know that that their their marriage meantime is is poor, even after the child is born. You know, Wayne, Wayne's just a bit of a low to mean he according to one witness, a person who worked for them for a little while. They had servants, maids and nannies and so forth. They said that, you know, Patricia would come home crying sometimes in the evening after they went out. Wayne would just sort of desert her at the club

and she'd be left on her own. I'm sure that's quite believable. And you know, during this period of time, Wayne is in fact contacted by the US government Select Service about enlisting. Even though he's a Canadian, he's actually still eligible to be drafted in the US Army, and he is, in fact twice he goes through this process. Once he gets away he's just drunk and they dismiss him. Another he uses the fact that he's homosexual again to get out of He's eventually declared for f and is

let go and not accepted because of her immorality. Again. The US Army is it's just crazy how they had all these insane tests to try to determine if someone was homosexual. It's pretty when you read about it today, you can't believe that they actually did this kind of stuff. They would strip a guy naked and start asking him all these sexual questions to see what his response would be to determine. This was supposed to determine whether someone

was gay, because they either than communists. I think the greatest fear was that homosexuals will get into the Army. So Wayne is able to evade getting drafted. But you know, there's a certain tension and I suppose in their lives because of it and by them let's say the June nineteen forty three, so this is like a year after their child is born. The marriage is in trouble, and ultimately Patricia kicks Wayne out of their apartment. They live with this nice place at the time on Park Avenue

near seventy second Street. I stood in front of the building, still a beautiful building, and I was that's, by the way, just an aside. One of the great things about writing this book was in because New York so well, I could visit all the sites more or less. Other than the clubs, the Start Club and they El Morocco are along gone, but you know where Wayne Will lived and where Patricia lived, where the murder took place on fifty

first Streets. It's all still standing, so you at least get a sense of the geography of the arta, which is kind of interesting. And by this time, in fact, Patricia so Wayne leaves. He does some work as a photographer for a little while, actually supported by Patricia again, who pays his tuition to this a school of art to learn how to be a photographer and a photographer's assistant,

which does. Wayne gets a job, and then she decides she's going to move into this fifty first Street townhouse to ground floor and to other floor the first two floors and then above them as a family living on the third and fourth floor. So it's a really nice brownstone in a nice quiet area. Beakmon Hill's a very fancy, quiet place area of the city and it's sort of away from like off between second and third Avenue. Wrote

really nice. At some point, Wayne around this time, decides he's going to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He wants maybe he's trying to he thinks the marriage can be saved. He's I found a few. After one fight, he writes Patricia a bit of a love letter to

try to make up with her. But by this time she has actually written him out of her will, which I guess he does find out about it and probably does cause it because she I should add that not only does she have this trust fund that her father left her, but because a father died and along with his other she is the sole inheritor of the of the estate of the Bernheimer family. She has a grandmother

named Stella, who had remarried once her husband died. But when Stella dies and at the time she doesn't actually die till nineteen fifty four after Patricia died. But you know, the state is probably worth like seven eight million dollars, which is like, you know, about sixty million dollars would have been about worth sixty million dollars today or something along those lines. So she's destined to be a very, very wealthy woman when her grandmother dies. At least that's

the idea. So you know, maybe that's in the back of Wayne's mind as well. But he decides to enlist in the Air Force, you know, and he does get it. They have a program at the University of Toronto downtown and he's sort of learning, and he is allowed because he has a kid. And even though travel is restricted during the Second World War for variety every reasons between county United States, Wayne is allowed as a serviceman to

visit New York and and see his kid. And he goes there once or twice once, I guess, late fall of nineteen forty three, and then he decides on this fateful weekend to come October twenty second Friday, nineteen forty three to see his son. And that's the weekend of the murder. And then there's the whole story of what happens at the weekend, which I can launch into if you like.

And you know, which was decent of her. She again, as I said, she had this lifestyle or even though she was separated, she started dating other men. In fact, the weekend of the murder, she was dating this Italian decorator, probably about twenty years older than her. His name was Mario Gabolini. He's quite a character. I'm sure he only wanted one thing from Patricia. But actually this is just as another funny aside. We thought there was a funny

story initially. Of course, when Patricia's found dead, they suspect Gabylini, this guy, So they get to his apartment and find him his shirt and his shirt has red stains on except when the examine more closely turns out to be tomato sauce, not blood, so he was cleared. He had been married a few times. He was just a player, you know, after a young woman. Obviously he was rich. I'm sure that's all his story was. But you know, he gets drawn into this story as well. So you know,

Wayne comes to New York. He stays at the apartment of wealthy fan, a real you know, elite guy named John Harjes, whose family is in the banking business in Europe and in New York. And then Wayne had met I probably through his contact with Patricia's family, and he in fact was an usher at Harges's wedding, although his marriage also dissolved on grounds of cruelty. So he's living on this really nice place on seventy ninth and Lexington,

also still standing. And I talked to the dormant of the building and Wayne he he har just has a wedding outside of the city for that weekend, but he's told he is a butler and a maid a married couple they lived there named Peters and last name Peterson, and Wayne is allowed to stay in the apartment that weekend. He's wearing his real Canadian Air Force uniform because he was obligated to do that, and he stays there, he har Just before har just leaves, he introduces him to

this woman named Jean Murphy or Jean jay Burg. She's a divorced woman with a seven year old who was a showgirl, you know, mildly successful, though she also later claimed her association with Lannagan ruined her career, which may or may not be a good looking woman, and she was in a few you know, chorus line kind of parts. Anyways, she Wayne had tickets to a Broadway play and her just sets her up with this woman who lives right next door to him in an adjacent apartment adjacent building

rather and Wayne goes out with her. So on the night on the day that Saturday, the like October twenty third, Patricia leaves her place, as you said, around noon to a friend. She leaves her child with you know, with miss blackfair enough, but really she's gone from like noon's Saturday, doesn't come back till six thirty in the morning. She's out all night dancing with friends at the al Morocco

with Gabalini. They meet other friends, then they have a late breakfast and you know, he's gone for like eighteen hours. It's you know, it's you got to think it's a little unusual. I mean, she does have a child, so but you know who, Maybe I'm not Maybe I'm judging her too harshly. I'm not sure. In the meantime, Wayne

is also out that night, Saturday night with Jeane. They go to this Broadway play and they also try to get into the al Morocco where they would have bumped into Patricia, but they weren't didn't have reservations, and they ended up going somewhere else, I think the Waldorf Story Hotel, where they had supper. Wayne takes Jean Murphy back home. He later claims that they kissed each other good night. Jean Murphy says, no, there was no kiss. You know,

she was mildly liked Wayne. He was a pretty good looking guy and had a certain style, I imagine, and could tell a good story. But you know, they go separate. When Wayne was later confronted by the police, his initial story is this concocted alibi that is just beyond silly. Yet you know, eventually he does take it back, but the newspapers get a hold of it and it completely taints his reputation. I'm sure by that among the jury

members who later sat on that jury. And Wayne's story that he tells the assistant district attorney is that after he dropped off Jean jay Berg, he stopped for a cigarette outside the building because to get you had to walk outside between the two buildings where she lived and where Harjes's apartment was, And he has a cigarette and

he bumps into this American souldier uniform. They start to talking and Wayne invites him up to the Hearjes's apartment, so he says the peters, the maid, and the butler are sleeping. Wayne then says that they have homosexual intimacy and into my relations and that in the middle of the night, some kind of argument ensues in which Wayne is assaulted by the soldier, who proceeds to rob him of his money and strangely enough, take his uniform, his

Royal can in the Air Force uniform. Why why a US soldier would want to make a Royal Air Force unit worm is interesting enough. And that's Wayne's story. Well, of course, you know when when the story was leaked, probably by police sources, because Wayne actually offers this story to a guy named John lor who is like a deputy sistant attorney and his family. I tracked down he was a young guy working with the assistant district attorney on the case of a guy named Groomy Don Groome

was his last name, and Lare worked for him. Loric flies to Toronto and introduces Wayne, initially after the Toronto police had picked him up once because the New York police wanted him to tang. He had left after the murder. He had gone back to Toronto and Wayne tells the lore this crazy story. Well, someone leaks it and then it becomes part of the story. As Wayne is has the case is unfolding and the story the murders unfolding. The

daily news. It particularly has these huge pictures and there's one I have in the book that it says, top huge headline with a picture of Wayne coming down the stairs of a plane. He says, twisted sucks, and you know, he's described as being perverted. And the soldier's name, by the way, he comes up with a name. I always said it sounds like some of the name out of

a Seinfeld episode. The guy's name is Morris Worchester. I don't know quite know why he picked that name or who this guy was, But funnily enough, there was really a guy named Orris were Just who worked across New York in Connecticut and whose friends started rassing him that he was gay. So he comes forward at one point and declares that he's not the guy a soldier that

Wayne had met. I mean, the story is a socilly that, but it's just funny that he had come up with this name, and you know, so Wayne, that's Wayne's story. And then the next day he says he has lunch with Jean Jay Berg and her son at a restaurant, and then he ultimately he drops off a gift for his son Billy, not seeing anybody, just leaves the package and the vestibules sort of this main entrance to the building on fifty first Street, and then eventually leaves New

York and flies back to Toronto. Well, you know, that's one version of the story. It's not the version of the truth, but it's the version that Wayne initially has. So Patricia that same night, as I said, she was at the El Morocco and she was dancing and Gabolinia Mario Gabolini eventually brings her home six thirty in the morning. She doesn't invite him in. She's very tired, and she goes into her bedroom, locked in the door and goes supposedly goes to sleep.

it for free at ZipRecruiter dot com slash murder. Why should you let ZipRecruiter help you hire for your business? Because Ziprecruiter's matching technology finds you qualified candidates and lets you then send them a personal invite to apply. Let ZipRecruiter fill all your roles with the right candidates. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. See for yourself. Go to this ex exclusive web address to try ZipRecruiter for free.

ZipRecruiter dot com slash murder again that ZipRecruiter dot com slash m u r d er zip recruiter the smartest way to hire. We were going to talk about the official story, not the story that Wayne Lonergan gave to police.

attempts to get into the bedroom and they can't. It's locked somehow, And ultimately a friend of college of a friend, the big football player type guy who is in the Army, is going back to somewhere in North Carolina I think,

or one of those places too for some training. He comes over and they decide they're gonna He gets a screwdriver and he takes the hinges off the door and they get into the bedroom where they discover her half naked body strewn or she has a big gash on her head and she's lying sort of twisted on the

bed and she's dead. There's a terrible scene, of course, as you can imagine, and right away, you know, the police come and they investigate, and then they discover through witnesses and through what people, the people who work for her told that her husband that their separated. The separated husband had been in New York, and so he becomes a person of interest the New York police authorities on the DA they decide to track Wayn down. They ask

the Toronto police to track Wayne down. You find him at a boarding house that he's living at near the University of Toronto downtown and he willingly decides to come into custody. He didn't never ask for a lawyer ever, like then once he's in New York. Nothing, even though one of his relatives and in New York and Toronto did offer his uncle, I think, offered to get him

a lawyer. But somehow the police that was one of the issues that came up later that the Toronto police had violated his rights, although in those days, you know that police had a lot more latitude than they would have today. Anyways, you know, Wayne wasn't treated poorly. They Toronto police just really hold him until New York detectives and the this guy Lore flies in to question him. And so that takes place the following day, like it

would have been the Monday. They find him, and then on Tuesday, I guess they get him, they question him, or maybe it was Monday night and probably Tuesday, and Wayne then tells them this crazy story, but he agrees to go back to New York with them, again not asking a lawyer. They take a train and to Buffalo and then get kind of there's kind of some kind of bureaucratic snaffu where they detectives end up having to keep Wayne in a hotel and Buffalo over night, where

they handcuff him to the bed. Now here's a guy who's in charge with anything, but yet they're handcuffing up to it, bet because the don't want him to leave. That might be considered to be rather treatment that a lawyer kind of dealt with, but never really comes up. Wayne then is brought to New York the next day. That's that picture over the twisted sex already as his statements has already known, and the papers already are talking

about this crazy alibi. And then eventually, you know, he's brought to the District Attorney's always in downtown New York and where he eventually Lare sort of weighs him down, tells him that his alibi, but the homosexual relationship, is not a good idea, that he's leaving a terrible legacy for his son, and and brates him Wayne is. Wayne eventually agrees to tell them what happened, but he doesn't want them questioning anything to do his morality, doesn't want his morals questioned or anything.

doing this, which is rather strange. But again, he's only twenty five and not his birthday yet, and he tells them this story, which is a little more believable that for whatever reason, on the Sunday morning, October twenty fourth, he decided to go see Patricia. Maybe he thought they could reconcile, maybe not. Anyways, he shows up, maybe a thirty in the morning. It's pretty quiet Sunday morning. He knocks on her bedroom door. She's half asleep, and she

answers the door. She you know, what are you doing here? Everybody? She lets him in and then there's this interaction between them. You know. My view from what I can understand from the story and what happened is that ultimately the argument became heated. I believe that she told him, at least according to him, that she was going to not let them see their son anymore, and that just sort of triggered a reaction. Like many murders, you know, it wasn't premeditated.

I don't think he went there with the intention, which is probably the reason why he was charged his second agreement rather than first agree murder. But he just snapped and he reached four on her night table. She had these onyx or glass statues with brass bases, and he threw one at her or then struck her on the head with that, weakening her, and then he strangled her. And that's and then she died. And and I don't know if he intended to, you know, just in a

fit of rage. He had got blood on his uniform, which will explain why he had to get rid of it, and that's why he game up with his cockycock eyed story about the soldiers stealing it. None of the you know in those you know, as I've said, if this case would have happened today, it probably would have been solved in fifteen minutes with DNA, But there was no DNA testing, of course in nineteen forty three. Even fingerprints, there was good fingerprinting, but they nobody left enough fingerprints.

There was blood found in the bathroom of Patricia's bedroom, but course in those days they only didn't really know they had blood grouping. In other words, they could have determined that someone was oh, typo, but big deal, half the planet is typo, so that really didn't help at all. They had cigarette butts that both Wayne and Patricia smoke went Wayne was a chain smoker his whole life and end up dying of cancer from it, probably and he you know, they couldn't determine whose cigarette it was or

anything about it. So they had all these forensic experts there, some of the doctors and other medical experts and police experts, but they didn't really introduce any of it into the trial. But they did have Wayne's confession. He said that he got out of the house without anybody seeing him. The only person who may have probably did hear the murder was this nanny who was taking care of the kid who lived on the suite above Patricia's on the third

and fourth floor. She was a German housekeeper, nanny and young woman who came down for the paper. Heard somebody scream behind closed doors, then another scream, than silence. They didn't hear a man's voice, just a woman's voice, did it. Decided not to call the police. She was about to knock on the door and see if everybody was okay, but chose not to. Later said that it wasn't really my place, And you know, that's how she saw the situation, and whether or not she probably did hear the murder,

but I could never try. I don't know what happened to her. It was unsuccessful in trying to figure out what. She probably got married, changed her name. And I did talk to people. I talked to the daughter of the family that lived above, but no one alive was still around that lived in that apartment that this woman had been born after the family moved, but she did clue me into the family. And then Wayne eventually and he takes some crazy route back to Harjes's place, which I

also followed walked. He's back and forth between his first and second and third avenue and anyways, he gets back to Harges so somehow again manages to get into the apartment without the butler and the maid seeing him. At Harges's place, takes off the uniform, showers and then he puts He finds a duffel bag that he had. He takes the uniforms, cuts it up, puts it in the duffel bag, and then takes a dumb bell that Harjes

has and then walks to the East River. Now two things that he does at this point he gets some He takes the a florist who he in the neighborhood walking her dog on a Sunday morning, sees Wayne from a distance carrying the Duffel bag, and that's all she can testify too. She doesn't know anything about it, but she says she did see him. I think he took it to the East River, which wasn't too far and

there's a fence there. He threw the Duffel bag, weighed down with That's where the uniform was and it sinks and the police were never able to find the Duffel bag. For whatever reason, Wayne never explain lanes properly what happened to that uniform or where it is or what he did with it, or you know, or anything really about

it or why what happened to it. He then goes to a pharmacist and gets Patricia had scratched him, and he got some makeup which the drug a pharmacist somewhat remembers someone buying the makeup like Max Factor makeup, theatrical makeup, and he covers the scratches on his neck, which is

the reason. When he has lunch that day with Gene Murphy, he claims that he didn't have any scratches, but you can see plainly at a picture that was taken in the later like after they apprehended him, that he does have scratches under his net or chin around his chin, and clearly again scratch again. DNA evidence is going to have proven that it was Patricia, but they didn't didn't

have the weren't available. And then he drops off the present and it goes back to her apartment, drops off the present for his kid, leaves, no one sees him, and then he gets out of New York eventually and then comes back and then and then then Toronto police show up the next day. So you know, that's that's the story of likely she died. Wayne Wayne is then you know,

put on trial from second degree murder. But the only you know, the only real evidence they have is is the confession later he has actually there are two trials when one is called off and they have to start a second one soon after. But he's got this bombastic lawyer, you know, a big, huge guy named it Broader, and he causes fits for the DA and the judge, trying to every which way to figure out how to help

Wayne Wayne, you know, against the confession. And the only thing he of course could come up with is that somehow the confession is coerced. So Wayne uses this coerce confession excuse. He brings it up at his lawyer, brings it up at the trial, and twenty years later it's also brought up partially because of the law about confessions in New York changes in those days. You know, Okay,

let's look at it two ways. One, I can tell you that even though we know that the police did beat confessions out of people, and innocent people do go to jail, I mean clearly in New York and elsewhere in the United States and in Canada it happens. I don't believe it was the case in this I have AffA Davids from every single person in that room. Wayne was treated and normally by everybody. Really, he was never other than be blocked in a hotel room in Buffalo.

That's about the worst thing that happened to him. Mean, he was given cigarettes, food, water. Everybody in the room treated him respectfully. No one coerced him. They you know, he could have had a lawyer, he chose not to, and I know so he was never his confession was not coerced. Nor did any appeal court ever find that

it was. The you know, the only thing in New York was at the time and in other states had various ways in which confessions are treated in a trial, and the New York had one of the worst ways, really is that they the jury, themsel else could decide whether the confession was coerced. In the nineteen forties, other states had it that the judge had to at least consider this issue before the jury saw it, and the jury the judge would decide whether they should see it

or not. Later in the early nineteen sixties, the New York confession rule, or the way they did it, was found to be unconstitutional, which triggered a whole bunch of legal problems for New York prosecutors because a lot of trials that had confessions had to be re examined, and one of them was Wayne's. And that's ultimately why he gets a hearing in nineteen sixty five. He has been in prison.

for a little while. That certainly was the case in New York and Toronto. And there's a lot of publicity. And he doesn't testify on his own behalf as he could have. You know, they call the various witnesses describing there, you know, what went on between the two of them. But alas you know, it's the jury does. The DA

plays games with defense. The defense attorney is in New York up to very recently, the prosecution is under no obligation to give any evidence at all or telling anything they have, any witnesses they're going to call to the defense attorney. And that really only changes within the last

couple of years, believe it or not. I know, in Canada the nineteen nineties, this change in which they had to disclosure rules in Canada that you know they were defense attorneys are now can get access to information that the Crown prosecutor have. But in New York it took a long time to do that, and so you know, defense attorneys were at a complete disadvantage. But Broderick attempted all sorts of things. I mean, Groome doesn't give him the medical examiners the report, let's say, which I have

copies of. I have the whole report was maybe thirty pages. He gives Broaderick about twenty pages, twenty five pages. But the funny thing is there's nothing I compared them. I mean, the main thing that he gave the defense attorney was how she died and the contusions on her head and

the strangle what they medical examiner found. So there's nothing in the other pages of any consequence really, but he decided not to give them to him, and Broadwick of course decided that this was some kind of trick and that if he could get the whole medical examiners apart, he'd find information that would exonerate Wayne, which was that not the case, but he was just, you know, essentially

twining with them. It was. It's kind of strange. It's this gamesmanship I suppose you could call it that they played, and the jury is left with Wayne's confession, which they ultimately believed all men, because it's funny women were interviewed to be in the jury. They didn't think women could stomach the stuff about Wayne's life and the homosexuality is

just ridiculous really, so men. The men are on this jury and they decide with it, and they didn't have to meet very long to decide that Wayne was guilty. And he is sent to sing Sing initially and then ends up in dan Mora Clifton prison. I think it is, yes, and where he you know, he's convicted for he gets a thirty year sentence. He ends up serving from nineteen forty four till nineteen sixty five. In that period of time, he decides that, you know, he'd been railroaded and cheated,

and that his confession was coerced. And you know, by the time he later tells the story and is hearing in nineteen sixty five, as I said in the book, you know it's he describes his experience as being a kin to the Spanish Inquisition. I mean, he's had all these years in prison to come up with the story,

and he takes full advantage of that. But you know, the only other thing about him is that he also once he gets out of prison, gives an interview on CBC that I'm in and he's got to I guess maybe from being around New Yorkers for all those years, but he's got this thick bron again of New York accent and uses the phrase forget about it, and everything

is pretty funny. I only had the audio files that couldn't find the actual visuals of the of this TV show, This Hour at seven Days, which was like an early version of sixty Minutes. I was on CPC, a very controversial show. And then I actually talked to the journalist who interviewed him, who died recently, and Lefole just passed away. You know, he was his probably in his eighties, and

you know he didn't remember. He did remember Wayne. But you know, Wayne gets another lawyer, another controversial woman, Francis Kahn, who tries all sorts of tricks and uses the change in the law in New York to get this hearing, and so the whole thing is reconvened again in nineteen sixty five, and just before Wayne is released on parole. And you know, once he's released, they deport him back to Toronto, and you know, the hearing doesn't go anywhere.

There's there's really no written decision. They just refuse to overturn his conviction or anything like that. So he gets out in nineteen sixty five. He ends up back in Toronto. Got Young of the Globe and Mail, a columnist who's Neil Young's father. The musician takes an interest in the case and in Wayne. Initially, you know, he helps him, interviews him and actually sets up this interview that Wayne gives in December nineteen sixty five. Once he's back and

you know interesting in that interview too. I always thought Wayne Wayne did. The actual interview went for about four hours of time. Wayne never once mentions Patricia's name. He only calls her my wife in his line when they was. When he was asked by LAFOLLI, did you kill your wife? He says, my position is no. That was his response kind of telling I post you know he's a liar,

But he initially said he's he plans to go. He goes to London for a while, actually gets a passport and is able to get to London, then comes back to Toronto and ends up being taken him by yet another woman who fascinates a actress in Canada named Barbara Hamilton, who looks after him and I had an interesting conversation with the lake. Gordon Pincer, the actor who knew Wayne was friends with Barbara Hamilton, him and his wife were friends,

and his daughter, Leah, was also an actress, also remembered Wayne. Leah, who was like twelve at the time, probably thought Wayne in the sixties was rather creepy, didn't talk much. Gordon pins had said that Wayne drank a lot of drambiuti and Scotch and didn't say much. Barbara Hamilton, Barbara Hamilton had a rule that when she was interviewed, she was never no one was ever allowed to ask her about

Wayne or Wayne's other life. And I'm assuming she thought that he had been railroaded or was innocent, and then he died, you know, he died in nineteen eighty six. He probably never saw his son again when he got out of prison. His son, his son was raised by Patricia's mother, Lucille, who died in nineteen sixty six. Apparently Wayne tried to contact the boy, but I think from what I understand, he got a letter back from lawyers saying not to do this. So I'm assuming he never did.

The last piece of you know, any kind of some mention of the boy in the new his name was changed to Burton from Lonagan, so she changed his name to Burton. He sort of fades away. There's some mention of him going to Harvard in the nineteen sixties. This is what I just learned though, and it was kind of interesting. I was sort of searching for him. I wasn't sure what I could ask him because he was only like, you know, eighteen months old and all this

was happening. So his father was the heys of killing his mother, who he doesn't remember anyways, and he's also very wealthy. He's the one who inherited his grandmother's money eventually when she died in nineteen fifty four. I thought I found where he lived in New York by the name, and I was reticent about contacting him. I had read a Dominic Dunn had written about the story in a Vanity Fair article that he subsequently published in a book

he had chapters on true crime. One of them was in fact Wandergon storted that they got a lot of the facts wrong, but he did say that he too didn't decide not to talk to the kid, because you know, it's just sort of traumatic. So I sort of followed that, but I always sort of felt ambivalent about it. I sort of felt like I should have tried to talk to him. At least he might have been able to tell me more about the grandmother, but I'm not sure

what his reaction would have been. But this French TV station did find him, and I recently saw their video of the interview with him, which I am also in the show. Said he knows about my book I mean they didn't. A French TV journalist who I spoke to decided not to ask him about the murder. She thought it was too disrespectful. But you know, it's this old guy's wealthy living in New York, and he's exactly the

person who I thought he was. He just turned eight, he would have been eighty in twenty twenty one, so he's like, you know, going to be maybe three in a few weeks. So that I thought was interesting. And I'm not sure, you know, he seems like sort of a strange kind of to be honest, but he's the elderly who knows exactly his life. I don't think. I'm not sure if he married. I don't think he had

any children. But I thought that was interesting and the fact that they found out that a lot of William Burton's goods were stolen from by the Nazis from this villa in France, and thus ends the story.