THE GARDEN STATE PARKWAY MURDERS-Christian Barth

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where the murder scene at the time they occurred. The killers also resided next to one another on Florida's death Row and indirectly confessed to the double homicide, a culmination

of more than nine years of research. Bart's book is compiled from multiple sources, including interviews with retired New Jersey State Police detectives, law enforcement officials from other jurisdictions, federal agents, possible witnesses, victim family members, as well as information gathered from FBI case files, letters, journals, libraries, newspaper articles, and

university archives. In scintillating detail, Barth presents the case, including previously undisclosed information surrounding these brutal murders, as well as an examination of recent technological advances in crime scene analysis and FBI serial killer profiling that could help identify the killer. When all is said and done, the reader is asked to consider why hasn't this cold case been solved? The book that we're featuring this evening is The Garden State

Parkway Murders. A cold case mystery with my special guest, attorney and author, Christian Barth. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. Christian Barth, thanks for having me again.

you would travel, obviously down the Garden State Parkway. On one of these trips north on the Parkway, or in several of these trips north, I would always, as a kid, look out into the woods as we drive past them. I grew up in a town called Cherry Ill, New Jersey, which is strictly suburban. You know, street lights, neighborhoods, things along those lines. There really weren't any woods, So on these trips north, I would always look into the woods.

And I was interrupted from one of these reveries at one time from my mother saint my father who was driving I was in the backseat. She said they never found out who killed those girls? Did they? And it was just fascinating to me. Perhaps he was the mention of this case and the conjunction of me looking outside at the woods, and my bears perked up, and I said,

what case? And I'd learned the briefest of details. And I remember my father saying, yeah, for a while, they had a trailer in the woods, because the killer always returned to the scene of the crime. Now that part of it being in the woods wasn't an accurate recollection of it, But nevertheless, that memory just stayed with me

for a few minutes. I buried my subconscious until nineteen ninety three, when I had read on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquire a story by writer Larry Kelly that Ted Bundy had been in the area and his biographer, a guy named mister Larson, had in fact written The

Deliberate Stranger, which became the movie starring Mark Harmon. He was of the opinion that Ted Bundy was in the area at the time and had in fact confessed to the murders, based upon several marks he had made to a psychologist named Art Norman in nineteen eighty six while on death row, and later on even his execution, excuse

me to doctor Dorothy Lewis. So when about year two, two thousand and one, I had gotten in my mind to become a writer and had taken a class in at Rutgers University and a short story was a requirement, and I didn't have an idea, and for some reason, it just came into my head. Wow, that was an interesting story. So I fictionalized the story into a short story that was published soon thereafter. I think it was called A Smiling Knife, and it was a loosely based

interpretation of the story. And from there I said, well, you know what, I'm really into this fiction writing. I was really really discovering it, and writers that influenced me, like William Styron and guys like that. I just decided to write a book fictionalizing that the Parkway murders told him entirely from Ted Bundy's perspective for beginning of Death Row and then going back to his time in Seattle. Obviously, all this taking place in nineteen sixty nine leading up

to the murders. You know, he was Bundy was in New York City. He had lived in Philadelphia in the spring of sixty nine, staying with an aunt. So I really coalesced all these these this research that I did

into a book called The Argues. Event from me, I went to New York City to the Public Library, when the archives just got a real feel for you know, the pornography and those things that Bundy attributed attributed as influences, you know, is his motive to kill I believe he called it, you know, the entity that was formed in New York City, that of course was referenced later by him, not only to you Ainsworth uh and Steve michaud in Conversations with a Killer, but at Ladder Times as well.

So these are the in my say, Ladder Times. He had mentioned this to doctor Dorothy Lewis and Art Norman been discussing, you know, after he went to New York City, he went to the Jersey Shore. He ever mentioned the Jersey Shore component to Ainsworth or Michoudo, so that was fascinating, But he did mention it to these two other psychologiess so that's that's how it began. And I just I was just fascinated by the case from that point forward, and that's what gave rise to to the Argues of Infamy.

so great way. You had it's funny what the writers of the Ocean City Sentinel, the newspaper down there and the other papers had called, quote unquote the undesirable element. But that that was a funny way of looking at it. Started to go there, and they would stay at the houses, the young people, the college kids, and they would leave from there and go to the bars at Summer's Point, which was right across the bridge, which is sort of the bacchanalia of the Jersey Shore. Then you had bars

like Tony Mars Bay, shores and whatnot that were there. Actually, Tony Marx is where I don't know if you're familiar with the movie. It's a cult classic Eddie and the Cruisers with Tom Berenger. It was filmed there before it was torn down, so you had that real distinct difference

between the two places. So Susan and Elizabeth were both nineteen and they had been just wanted to graduated from Monticello College, which is a girls school in Illinois, no longer there, and they were friends and they decided to take a trip down to the Jersey Shore and they wound up staying at one of the many rooming houses that were down there at the time, affordable rooming houses for kids who was staying go to the beach and again to go to summers Point at night. So they

were there for three days. They stayed at a looming house. Susan, by the way, was from Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Elizabeth was from Minnesota. So they went and became president Monticella, went to the Jersey Shore, stayed there and by all accounts, you know, they didn't meet a lot of people. They were sun tan and these weren't real party girls, so to speak, their very nice, very nice girls from very

fine families. They had gone there, stayed for three days, and on the morning of May thirtieth, at about four thirty a m. They had gotten up to leave, spoke with their landlord and elderly gentleman named Walter Side and told him they were leaving, and they took off. He saw them, you know, leaving their car. Susan was driving a nineteen sixty six Marina Blue Chevroy Lake convertible. They left there and then they were seen at the summers Point Diner about again a mile and a half way

over the bridge in summers Point. Now to understand the the thing was summers Point Diner. All these bars that I referenced earlier would get out at two point thirty in the morning. There were two all night bars as well that would feed into every Every kid after the bars closed would just stagger on over to the Summer's Point Diner, which is the only place open all night back then twenty four seven, I talked to mister McGill,

the owner of the establishment. Back then, he said, literally there was a standing line there all day long, all night long, with the kids going in, so that's that's how they wound up being in Susan and Elizabeth wound up getting to the point of from there, of course, they drove off and the murders occurred about two miles away.

So by mid morning, when the kids didn't appear at the house immediately, mister Davis started to be broke concerned because it just wasn't Susan, she wasn't flighty. She always told them where she was going to be, And by about noon they still hadn't heard anything. And if the day went on, they grew more and more concerns they hadn't heard anything. They began contacting friends who hadn't heard

from the two girls. They contacted Elizabeth's parents, No one heard anything, and by the next day they started to get a little more panicky, and mister Davis went ahead and contacted a man who was then the Attorney General in the state of Pennsylvania, who I interviewed in the book, and mister Sennett and mister Senaton. I'll try to do what I can, but at this point they were really just because in the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies,

missing persons reports were rather common. Kids who both basically would go off for a few days, and there wasn't really noa Laura Bell's went off. But as time went on Dan over that week weekend, it became very apparent that something something had gone wrong. In fact, both both fathers had instinctly, instinctively something had gone wrong. So they wound up renting a helicopter and done a sleep over the woods to see if they could find any signs

of wreckage. So that's how the Davis and mister Davis had some of the investigation began into their into their disappearance.

time was actually Susan's convertible. He pulled over. It was near mile marker thirty one point nine on the Parkway mile plus thirty one point nine. He pulled over and he didn't see anything that would suggest that there was any foul play. Susan's straw purse was located downstairs, I'm saying down downstairs in the in the car itself, there was no indication again that the car had skidded off the side of the road and a mechanical breakdown. He

presumed it was abandoned. He then called in uh to both, I guess it was because there was a Pennsylvania tag. He called into the Pennsylvania Division of Motor Vehicles the port of the tag number, and the person there mistakenly relayed back that it belonged to another person, So he presumed it was abandoned. He had no idea at the point at that point Dan that in fact the fathers you know, had there was the missing girls. So he went ahead and had it toad at a place called

Blazer's garage, no longer in existence. They came along and they had the car towed and it remained there at this guy's garage Blazier's garage in Northfield not too far away, for three days and at this point, the parents had done the helicopter and it was you know, in the newspapers, The New York Times had reported that these these two

girls were missing. So when uh super Stir was back from a fishing vacation that weekend, he sees, you know, the teletypes of the missing persons and he puts two and two together and that's when he says, oh, you know, I went over there and it was these girls and the fact too, it was and that's when the investigation. That's when the investigation began. But it was it was I don't want to say it was an oversight, but I don't know there was anything really Trooper STERI could

have done. But maybe he should have investigated into the woods right there. But do we know that the girls were dead at the time that he came by. The corner had indicated that the times of death was about forty five minutes within the time they had left the diner, which was about six a m giver take. So he drove by and saw the car at about eight am, So the crime would have taken point at that place. But that's that's how they initially discovered Susan's car on the side of the road with.

And this is where they this is this is essentially how they how they found the bodies, and as far as you know, what was found there, there was no evidence really that it had taken place anywhere other than there. In other words, with the bodies dumped, et cetera, et cetera. They simply found them there, and they were concealed and obviously had been stabbed at death.

things that they weren't? They were left there. So as far as motive, this is difficult to discern from that what his motive was based upon him not taking anything and merely killing him, not robbing them, and basically fleeing the scene.

not either of the girls had been sexually assaulted. So you know that certainly that was the three day lag really contributed to sort of the mystery as to what exactly happened at the scene. So the also.

you know, was the car abandoned? Obviously, the police determined that there was no mechanical problems that had run out of gas, So we really don't know what exactly caused them to pull over in the first place, nor do we know what caused this person to go ahead and kill them in the manner that they did at that time of the day. Now, sunrise, according to my research,

was at five twenty nine am. So what you have to recognize is because this occurred at peak sunlight, you know, not peak sunlight hours, but when there was light at that time of the day. That sort of adds to the whole mystery of it. Why would a person, if in fact they were pulled over to the side of the road, why would he do this in pure daylight and commit this act so close to the side of the road with these people is presumably the guy was

a stranger. There were no reports if they had met anyone, you know, anyone that was seen, you know, with whom they may have had some sort of conflict. There was nothing like that. So all these factors contribute to the to the mystery of the case and fascination that I had with it.

And what they did was completely dismantle, got the interior of the place and put in bunks and so forth, and that's what everyone reported to and it became a twenty four to seven investigation. In the first days, the steep police had interviewed, you know, hundreds of hundreds this crew to you know, a few thousands of every young man could. They worked around the clock to find out

anything they could. They visited the bars Summer's point, they interviewed people that had stayed at the boarding house with the girls. They did everything they possibly could to try to find out who did this. But it always comes back to that three day lag between the time of the discovery of their bodies and when they had broken down on the side Roadhich really contributed to the delay and the problems with the investigation by the time that police loan and finding anything.

security guards, so Albert Hickey was one of them. Albert Hickey was working at the diner and he said that on that morning, around the time of the murders, he saw a blue convertible stop at the circle and pick up a hitchhiker he said was about five nine, carrying a wo looked like a flight bag. Apparently a long time ago, t w A used to give you a flight bag as for whatever reasons when when you took a flight, and he said that's what it reminded him of,

sort of a satchel. He was wearing a yellow turtleneck or shirt, got into the car and sped, uh, you know, left thereafter. I did interview Albert at length. He was also in addition to being a partich security, he was an Associated Press photographer and he was actually at the I think it was an absecon and covering the matter for the Associated Press when he had learned of the

lag in time or something along those lines. But he then told the police what what he had remembered of what happened, and he was actually brought in to be questioned as well as to what he knew. But he was the first person, Albert, to identify a person who appeared to be getting into a car, the two girls that fit the description of Susan and Elizabeth, and he

identified the person who's wearing a yellow shirt. From that point forward, the media just really attached themselves to his testimony and what he saw, and from that point forward they began their search for anyone who was wearing a yellow shirt. So that was Albert's real contribution to it. Early on, What.

of their questioning as to you know, the people. They didn't put in the paper yet at this point, you know who had to dive watches, anyone wearing to watch, et cetera, et cetera. Another thing they had withheld was the jewelry that Elizabeth had been wearing. And there was another,

you know, method of restraint that they had. You'd really probably keep that for the book the readers of the book that they had withheld as well, which obviously I indicate so forth in the book that was was found as well, and that they had held back from the press.

The reason they do these things oftentimes read the holebacks is because when once it gets out into the papers that there are these murders, you get a lot of publicity seekers and psychologically unbalanced individuals who will go to police and give false confessions, and they use these holdbacks to sort of ferret out the truth tellers from the people that are seeking publicity and want to be known as a killer and so forth. It's pretty pretty twisted, but that's why.

mess around. Back then, they would show up and there, because of the intense pressure to find these girls and the time component, they would show up and just interview several several several young men, as I said, into the thousands, to try to find out if they knew anything about the case.

else was what? What? What other information were the police conflicted with in terms of timeline for this story here for them to be certain about Albert Hickey's testimony.

convertible driven by Susan Elizabeth due to the timeline. I think he said he saw it at around four point thirty, but they were seen eating at the diner at about five thirty, so that the time didn't really jibe with what he had seen. But the yellow shirt would obviously, you know, come you know, come to fruition as a substantial piece of evidence later on down the road as far as identifying someone else.

and that was the car. So that again, once this became a public you know, there's a maroon convertible. Three boys came down there from Pennsylvania. They actually travel down to obsecon Absequon where the barracks was, and one of the boys voluntarily gave a statement with his father and said, you know it was us. We were actually driving north from Wildwood, had run out of gas and decided to park on the side of the road and go to

sleep for a few hours. And then you know, they would The plan was they would wake up and go and get gas or hitchhike, whoever, whatever the case may be. I actually what's fascinating is when they woke up, they saw the car there, but they said that when they originally pulled over the side of the road, Susan and

Elizabeth's car wasn't there. And it was determined that the girls were murdered at the time these three young men were sleeping, which I found just incredible because how did two girls had violently murdered about fifty yards away in the woods from where these boys were without hearing anything. I mean, several years ago, a friend of mine and I decided to conduct a test and I he was standing about one hundred yards away, and I said, you know, just just scream for me and tell me if you

can hear this. And I did. Granted I hadn't been drinking at the time, but it just, you know, you think about the times in your youth when you've had a few too many beers and you'd fallen asleep wherever the case may be. You think there's something in you, in your in your makeup that alerts you, or a sixth sense, something so tragic as that, but that that always amazed me and does so to this day.

into the woods. And obviously, you know, and I researched other things, Dan, you know about does a person get can he be frozen here? She'd be frozen into submission, be so scared that you can't scream, and that is that that's a condition. There's definitely, you know that that can happen, and maybe that's what happened here. But it's always struck me as odd that these three boys didn't

hear anything. However, the other two boys were interviewed and the one submitted to a second round of questioning, the one that initially went down from Pennsylvania to the Absecon station. All three, even past lie detector tests, aren't considered suspects and were released.

driving past it, it's very rural. The particular section. Okay, there are no homes back. There are now way back, but there weren't at the time. It was adjacent to a pig farm, so you know, there were There was called a trysting place as well, a lot of kids from local Mainland high school would party there and nearby was a beach along the pat Coon Creek called the Cove.

Where locals would would party. So it was definitely an area that was known to locals, but there weren't any entrances along the side of the road like trail mass or anything like that. It wasn't a public park, so there were people that had been back there. But as far as that turtleneck is concerned, they did initially find that, and in doing so and in tasking that obviously didn't discount Albert Hicky's theory, which lend itself to the fact

that they were taking anything. And considering that point of it, it's a little evidence.

a red Lake district, but it wasn't. It wasn't like Times Square in other words, So the these two women at this point, you have to remember, this is five days after the bodies were found, and it's in in just the really the the heady days of the investigation. So these two girls are in a clothing store on Market Street and they say that they overhear or they're talking to some guy who comes in there wearing a yellow t shirt with a yellow shirt who is wearing

a yellow turtleneck. Now, the clerk of the store overhears the man saying to them now words to the effect of, I was down Oh yeah, I was down there, down at the beach when that happens. I guess the girls were talking about the ocean city, the case, the murders, et cetera, et cetera. Now, the clerk overhearing this remembers that he had read in the paper of Albert Hickey's account of being allegedly a guy in a yellow turtle net getting into the car with the flight bag with

two girls driving Convertbile. On the morning of the murders, he contacts the Philadelphia Police Department, who thereafter proceeded to find this particular what they called as eighteen year old hippie type at the bus station nearby and brought him in for a round of questioning.

gave what be called quote unquote fuzzy answers. In other words, my understanding of that that they weren't able to really discern that he was telling the truth of nor could they say he had any knowledge. There's always been a vast gray area as to you know, what those tests revealed. But obviously there was enough there and their interpretation to immediately contact and I guess they would have done it anyway because they didn't have jurisdiction the New Jersey State Police.

So at about midnight, the tech is George Dix, who I interviewed several times. He got a call while he was eating dinner at his home in Atlantic County, New Jersey, from I think it was Mario Petera, who was the captain of the state Police the Times, saying, look, you got to get over to you know, Philadelphia, we may have the guy, and I want to correct what I

just said. He may have been He was either at home or he was at the Turners On New Jersey Barracks interviewing the three boys found in the tan mustang. It was I think right after them. When he did he went over. They actually drove Mario Paterra's car. He and mister Patterson, Detective Patterson went over and met with the eighteen year old suspect and he consented to be interviewed. And it went all night long, all night long. It was just a crazy, crazy, you know time. They interviewed

him at length. Yeah, about and they just obviously weren't They were really pushing to get that you're able to he was obviously did he know that at the time free to leave any time, but he did not. He chose to, you know, agree to the question and so forth. And the fascinating aspect of this is he was I guess there was a twenty four hour or twelve hour hold. But under Pennsylvania law, you either had to charge a

suspector or let him go. So there was another detective there named Donald Patterson, who coincidentally he was the head of the Philadelphia Major Crimes at the time. He later became Pennsylvania Inspector General. He approached the other Donald Patterson. By the way, the Philadelphia Donald Patterson Patterson excusing was African American, and mister Patterson at the news real State

Police was Caucasian, so infective. Patterson and George Dix were informed by this mister Patterson, look, you have to let these guys go, or let this kid go or charge him. And they're outside in front of the barracks, and mister Patterson was saying. He actually had an argument with Dix because Dix was convinced, look, you know, we got to keep this going, and Patterson's like, look, we have nothing

on this kid. You know, I'm not buying it that this kid knows anything about the cakes, so they say he's free to go, but they ask him, look, would you be willing to accompany us down to New Jersey, you know, to submit to another light et sector test and more questioning, and he agrees. So he gets into a car with these two and they're driving across it was either the Dell or mo or I think was the Ben Franklin Bridge to go into New Jersey and

then proceed from there to a barracks. And they don't have the money to get over the bridges, like a fifty charge told whatever it was. So the kid, the eighteen year old, proceeded to take fifty cents out of his pocket, gives and gives them the money to do it. So they then go from there after to the Berlin State Barracks, which is another road station, and you know, to proceed to question him further, et cetera, et cetera.

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we have this Mark Thomas. And as you write, despite one of the officers, one of the detectives, thinking that they got their man, that they were close to a confession, this Mark Thomas has serious mental issues and problems. Tell us how police finally get in touch with a woman named Francine Latkin.

had been found. Now, Francine uh was working in Atlantic City at the time, and when she had heard over the radio that the girls had been found and one of the girls had blonde hair, you know, she set her blood ran cold because she had met a guy a couple of months earlier. I think it was in March, while she was on spring break in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. So Francine proceeded to go to the police station and say, look, I know one of the girls had blonde hair. I

was when I was in Florida. I met this guy who had the blonde hair. I'm sorry he had bond. I had blonde hair, and he was obsessed over my hair. One of my friends was interested in him. We went over to this house where he lived with a bunch of guys, the group Hippy House, and they had dinner and the guy kept just fawning over her hair. And she had also noticed at the time that he had

a watch. And the watch was interesting because it was in case within a leather what they call a mod band again, a sixties fashioned staple on those thick bands into which the watch space itself is put. So she goes to the police and the place for asking her questions, and the police say to her, what you was there anything about him? Was he wearing any jewelry? And she said, noah, no, and I wasn't wearing a jewelry. Are you sure he

wasn't wearing any jewelry? And she's thinking gold chains, et cetera. And they said, was he wearing a watch? She said, yes, he was wearing a watch. Well, she winds up identifying the same They show him a picture of the watch.

It wasn't this watch, says, it was that watch, and she remembered the watch specifically because it said that had the word seventeen jewels on it, which was apparently somebody if you understand watches, and I don't one hundred percent, but that was sort of some sort of notation that was put on the watch basis for her depth or chronological something along those lines. But she matches the watch. That they go and with this evidence, they thank you, and they go to they put out an APD on

this guy. His name is Ronnie Walden. This is the same guy if she said she saw the watch wearing a watch and she had you know, she had the blonde hair, and she had also seen I should add that when he was down in Florida, she saw an unprovoked outburst of anger. The guy that really set her set her off. I mean, he just he flipped out for no apparent reason. So when she told the police gave her the information, they said they sent down an ATD for this guy, and he he turns out being Colorado.

But before we get to Colorado, Francine tells me several years ago that she had talked to a detective and the detective told her, you know, that they had evidence and this is in fact the guy that they may have found a half a fingerprint on Susan's car that matched Ronnie Walden. So we go out to Ronnie Walden and visit him in Colorado at the Garfield County Jail, which is where he was being held on auto theft charges.

Ronnie was a drifter. I mean by the time this fancy that had met him, he was all over the country car theft rapshet long long rap sheet, no violent acts, but a rap sheet. So the Garfield County Police, in response to the ATV, notified to the journey state please they have and the two detectives fly out to interview him. One of them was Detective William Hunter or the other was James Tod who was head of the polygraph unit.

So before they go out there, unbeknownst to them, one of the jailers at the time, a guy named Les Ecker, who I interviewed at length the day before the police come where it was made in the early morning, and they came later in the day. Was a real, real tight proximity. He says, he's driving into work and he learns that one of the apparently in jail, if someone there's if there's an alarm. Someone is trying to kill themselves. Something bad is happening. That the prisoners will wrap their

tin cups against the jail bars. And he said that was happening, and he and the other sheriff Ecker was the under sheriff, I'm forgetting off in the name of the sheriff himself, go in and cut down Ronnie, who had attempted to kill himself by fashioning a noose made out of bedsheets. He had done it on the top and mister Ecker said, look, this guy was blue lining. He said he was about dead when we got him down.

This wasn't a joke. So they got him down. And you know the strange part is he Ecker said, the next thing he knows, the police come in and Ronnie is there in a neck brace, proceeds to pass the polygraph test, and then you know, is left or leaves obviously, or I guess he was in custody for some other reason. He was transported off for federal charges least and Garfield County Jail. But it happened to me, and this is what I found stunning.

Atlantic City called A Man and a Woman. So but you know, when Ronnie comes up and comes to Social Security office and asks Francina where her friend is, and Francine comes out of the offices, I have to show you where to park so you don't get towed. He's driving a yellow Dodge muscle car of some sorts and she gets in the car them and literally something happened to trigger Ronnie, just as some you know, some crazy thing triggered him in in date in in Fort Lauderdale.

And she says, a six inch about knife. When he slams the brakes, flies out from underneath the seat, and she asks him about it, and he just says it's nothing or something along those lines, tucks it back under. So that was that was another piece of thought, interesting circumstantial evidence. And the girls were obviously killed with they said a paring knife or a pen knife, and the

knife that she described wouldn't be inconsistent. Again, I'm not a pathologist or anything along those lines, and consistently with the knife that was used to kill the girl. So that was another piece of incriminating evidence in addition to the watch that you really lends itself to Ronnie Walden being a person of interest.

One guy has a great story. He was working as a real estate agent in Colorado when one day this guy appears and says he's a writer for the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. He's looking to buy property, you know. And the guy says, oh, well, you know, why don't you know? Why don't you come over and he can stay with me. Then again it's the seventies, so he does, and the next day, you know, half of his apartment has been stolen, his fishing rolls and you know, fishing poles, et cetera.

And tells the police and again they're on the lookout for Ronnie again. And he goes in and out of jail, in and out of jail, and ultimately he has a very very dark fate because in nineteen eighty nine, coincidentally, within a few months of Bundy's execution, Ronnie is in jail for murdering a man in South Carolina in very strangely coincident a way to how he approached this other

guy in Colorado. He was in South Carolina, say, he's looking for real estate, and a broker takes him out to a secluded area where Ronnie proceeds to shoot him in the head during an alleged botch robbery. That's what he said at his trial. But he kills the guy point blank, range goes to jail, and while in jail, he's just not happy with his conditions. He winds up taking a security guard in the jail. Hostage comes part of a long drawn on overnight hostage standoff, brings some

brethren as brothers, is what's going on Ronnie? And Ronnie basically is having a breakdown at this point, not even consistent with these other strange mental episodes. I should also say that Francie had indicated to me, pursued to her conversation with the state police, that Ronnie did a stint at the Millageville, Georgia Mental Hospital. It was apparently schizophrenic.

So he apparently he was having an episode and winds up he had smuggled a gun into the prison and that's what he's using the hold the guard hostage, and he takes the gun and winds up blowing his brains out. In nineteen eighty nine. And that's what happens to Ronnie.

were stone cold fucking nuts. I mean, they say this guy was just really he was just to do whatever he could do, and it was down to him and another guy, Harvey Burns, even George Dixon, Detective Patterson's that they were. You know, they went on to work other cases when when Coles was down to Creps and this other guy, and they really proceeded to sort of circle back and look at what they had, and they went,

you know, they went back to Mark Thomas. The crazy thing about about Ronnie Walden is that, you know, even when I brought even when Francine had brought up the comma about him and what she had learned back in nineteen sixty nine to the New Jersey State Police later and said, look, do you guys remember him, This Ronnie Walden, the detective with whom she spoke, So they didn't have any information on the guy. And what struck me as odd as that Ronnie was dead by the time they

had this conversation, and he apparently didn't know that. So I don't know how after Ronnie was free, I guess is for lack of a better term, or no longer became a person of interested the police after he passed the polygraph test in Colorado. How they didn't know that is sort of interesting, But getting back to your point, Yeah, so it became these two guys who then went back to Pennsylvania and started to reinvestigate this kid over there to see what they could find, basically because I don't

really think they had anyone else to pursue. They did travel across the country, They went to San Francisco, you know, and did all sorts of investigation in the country. Any remote connection The police really did investigate. They just didn't have anything then, and that was the problem.

the time. Later he went to Florida and he killed all these women, and he started making these confessions to Detective Crow at the Daytona Beach Police Department where he was already been arrested for murder of someone down there. And then Crow started getting all these confessions from him, and one of the things he alluded to was an involvement in these killings. So that's how he came about.

And it turned out, well, you know, the state police did go down there, I guess, to try to question him back in nineteen eighty and he wouldn't cooperate, and they then went again in eighty two after more of these confessions started coming out and Detective Crow a learned them lest so you know, this guy's talking, and they sent two detectives down there to interrogate him about the Garden State Parkway murders and his admissions to them and

so forth, and you know, they were never able. I was understanding to, according to Detective Tom Kinser, to ultimately clear him, but nevertheless, they weren't really persuaded by what they learned during their trip down there to believe that he was responsible for the murders. But you know, that's what I find interesting, Dan, This is one of the things that always circles back to you know, it's it's now twenty twenty. These took place in nineteen sixty nine.

Gerald Stano, who for a time, this is again one of the strange coincidences, lived next to Ted Bundy on death Row. You know, why did the police or have the police? Again? These are the These are the answers I'd like to see as a result of this book. Was he one of the thousands that were interviewed back in nineteen sixty nine. We don't know that. All we know is that obviously did police know that he was

here in nineteen sixty nine? Okay, But you know, was he one of the kids investigated and questioned by the state beliefs? Because I think you'd have to agree that would go a long way towards solving this thing. Stano was in fact questioned back then by state police and then you know, later went on to become a serial killer. He was living in Philadelphia the time is close to it, he admitted to the murders, and he was known to

be a serial cullator. I would think he is worth further investigation as far as as the dated files are concerned.

was he was interviewing. He just didn't know enough about what had happened that I guess they had apprized me at the hullbacks. He was all over the place, and they just didn't feel that he had did it. And one of the detectives, again this is his version of events, said that he had told the detective crow down there that you know, one of the girls was wearing a

blue shirt or whatever the case may be. And he said when they returned from lunch and began interviewing reinterviewing Stano about the Darden State Parker murders, he indicated that, well, you know, they said, well, she wearing a blue shirt. He said, yes. So see, he determined that, you know, maybe that Stano was being fed danswers, and that a

lot of these confessions. Now Stano, who was executed I think in nineteen ninety four, I may have that day wrong, had always said that a lot of his confessions were you know, as a result of undue pressure by the detectives and so forth. So he had always held steadfast to the fact that he didn't kill all these girls and whatnot. But I had talked to an interview for the book, others detectives down there, and one guy told me, look, this guy killed every single girl, but he was ever

accused of killing. So don't don't think for a second that that these confessions, whoever they were obtained, were somehow falshed. This guy was guilty. Assent.

And I guess one of the reasons the police in New Jersey went down to visits down to begin with, notwithstanding his confessions, was because of the consistency of the crime scenes. I mean, you know that there's a whole other vein of serial killers, but as far as signatures concerned, signatures are concerned and the like, there's always a consistency, not always most of the timic consistency to their body of work. They'll do certain things like leave sticks or

bury them in sticks and leaves and everything. His pasmers were very consistent with how these two girls, Susan Elizabeth found the parker. He would also use his car to apprehend victims. So there was always that possibility, with the circumstances of the parking murders and girls found on the side of the road, that that Stano could in fact have done these, given his history of covering them with sticks, getting college aged girls using a car, and of course his his proximity to the crime scene.

conversation with Bundy. Art Norman had withheld what Bundy told him because if he didn't want to violate whatever the hipocratic oath was at the time. But right after Bunny was executed, Art Norman comes forth and says, in nineteen eighty six, Bundy told me again Bundy speaking the third person, out of nowhere, He said, well, it was you know, in spring of nineteen sixteen nine, he naming Bunny, didn't have a lot to do. He wound up going down

to a place they called the Jersey Shore. He wound up picking up a couple of girls on the beach, and it wound up being the first time that he did it. It was something he was never able to go back from. It was just a traumatic event that shocked him for years. Now he or Norman cannot confess, but it certainly admitted after this became public that Bunny never specifically stated in the first person I killed Susan Davis and Elizabeth Perry. But what he had indicated is

just so striking coincidental. Now, when he called the Atlanta County Prosecutor's office in the state Police and told them what Bundy had said to him in eighty six, Look, two girls were killed a Memorial Day weekend. Okay, they were at the Jersey Shore. Bundy is here saying I was, you know, he went to Ocean City, it was late spring, and all these factors were checked off. Bundy was in fact staying with an ant in the spring of nineteen sixty nine. He was enrolled at the School of General

Studies at Temple University. He was living with an ant. So all these things added up. I also found out that Bundy had a far greater history, and this has never been reported before, to Ocean City, New Jersey. He had according to the relative relative excuse me, I interviewed

at length. He was the same person with whom he lived in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, nineteen sixty nine while attending Temple University, that he had made several trips of his family to Ocean City, New Jersey, in fact, that there was a family there who had a house down there. So he had speaks to the serial killers and strike

in a familiar area with which they are comfortable. He certainly had ant law opportunity over the years if he in fact did this to scope out where he would kill these two women.

et cetera, et cetera. So the ms did not match up. However, deliberate stranger or Arthur mister author, excuse me, mister Larson believe, and this is what he said to Larry Kelly in nineteen ninety three, that this would has been Ted Bundy's. He believed, as one of Bundy's first biographers, that Jersey Shore murders were Bundy's first unplanned crime and that he sharpened hismos later. But he believed that the Garden State Park where murders were in fact, you know, something that

Bundy in fact had done. That was his opinion. He passed away a few years ago, as I was never able to interview him, but he last went on record at believing that Bundy had killed Susan Davison. Wasn't at Perry Memorial Day nineteen sixty.

would and would look at this as well. He was a thief for them. Why wouldn't he steal? How about the idea that this could have been a confrontation over the vehicle itself, just very much or similar to the other struggle he had which led to murder.

that go against it. And what happened with Ronnie was one of the things that Francine had told me, and then she had also told the police, and this also made the press in nineteen sixty nine. Is one in addition to him being down there, and she told it police he had a watch he was he had left Atlantic City, according to franc Scene, immediately after the murders had occurred. And that's one of the things, in addition to the watch that had prompted her to notify the

police he had left immediately thereafter. He was driving, they said, when they found him in Colorado with a car that he had stolen from New Jersey, which was I think a yellow Dodge with a trailer with a motorcycle attached to it. So if he had a car Dan again, you start to think, what would he be doing. He wouldn't be hitchhiking. He had left town in a car that he had stolen, and why would he be pulling two girls over to the side of the road. And if he was going doing that to rob him, why

wouldn't he have robbed them after killing him? If this was consistent with his murder of a guy named George Wells in South Carolina in nineteen eighty four, why wouldn't he have robbed Susan Elizabeth? And when you think of these girls being stabbed at that one of them, you know, stripped, these things are consistent. And this is what I've attempted to do in the book as well with with the

makings of a serial killer. So my uh. You know, although Ronnie is a very viable suspect, again, you have to ask yourself what he has is mo o consistent with how these girls were found, and given the fact that he had left town allegedly in a trailer, you know, with a motorcycle attention he had stolen from the owner of a man and a woman by the way right as he left hand after the merge. That those things

don't match, but everything else does. So I really think it comes back to Ronnie Walden needing to be further investigated at this point, at least his file by the state police.

percent certain that he was the guy. And she remembered that phrase because that's what Ivory Soap used to use as their jingle, that were ninety nine and everyone they're sent pure. So that's you know, that's how she remembered

as far as the print. I don't know, because again when she told again this detective of the state Police years later, in like two thousand and three, four or five six something, loans is before she had sent her notes to me in my office, she had talked to the guy and the guy said, well, I don't even know. Apparently said I don't know anything about this Ronnie Walden or anything along those lines. So I don't know if

he was. You know what the extent of is with the with their state police style the investigative reports, was he just not considered a person of interest after he had passed a light et sector test. I just don't know. But I again, to this day, given the fact that we have the watch identified as belonging to him, we have his past mental health, we have the fact that he murdered someone in South Carolina. All these things. We have the ledge fingerprints, we've got the ninety nine and

a half percent year. So many of these things add up to being Ronnie Walden being a viable person of interest. Fascinating.

this intuitive sense of evil and people. And they all said there was something about him, and you know, et cetera, et cetera, and you know, they said that the one of the reasons he went down the wrong path is because he always wanted a scholarship to Florida State University to play football, and I never got it. He got a you know, financial grant and aide and one of his former girlfriends told me that she believed him not

getting that scholarship. And he had also, uh, I think he had had a kid that at a team that died in Childer said a couple of these fact I sent him down the wrong the wrong path. But physically, the answer to your question is no, he was not seen wearing a turtleneck. Again, it wasn't but Francine the only one who and she had done it after the fact. You know, so Ronnie sort of name arose after the Albert Hickie thing was mentioned, but now he's never seen

Marnie Yeltrack. And physically the guy that was seen at the circle Summer's Point traffic Circle was like five nine, shaggy hair, dark hair, not not tall, six' two and blonde Like ronnie.

well you know it could have Been. Bondie they're very you can just hear the anguish in their, voice as though they are haunted because this is the one that got. Away and in, fact one of the state police detectives THAT i, interviewed he had a very interesting. Quote he, said you, know so many of these guys would have given a piece of their, pension you, know to find out who did. This and if you know anything about

state police pensions In New, jersey they're pretty. Substantial so it's fascinating how and even when you talk you, Know Detective, dix WHO i interviewed at, Length Detective creps before he passed, away these guys are so you could just just resonated sincerity and how much they wanted to see this thing get.

Resolved but it all came back, to at least they said the three, days and one guy said to, me if we could just have those three days back, again the three days being between the time the girls were found and the carr was.

McGann which is pretty interesting connection. There but, Yeah patrick McGahn got, basically you, know tried the case and. STIR i think str was a scapegoat because they wanted to have someone to pin this, on and he was the. Guy but ultimately his rank was restored and he did have his, knee his good knee brought, back you. Know years, later after this all all went, out he got a. PROMOTION i never had a chance interview he. Did he

did pass away some long time. Ago but it's a shame that this happened to him because my point About looster has always been. This and let's say he pulls over on to the side of the, road in the side of the road and he sees the, car you, know pretty much according to The carner's, report the girls were dead by this. Time so let's say he goes in and he finds the, body or rather, bodies you, know rather than the highway. Worker it wouldn't have brought them.

Back it still. Happened the people were long you, know whoever did this long since you. Disappeared SO i Always pelbitz chair was a little bit unfairly blamed in, it but again it is what it. Is it was an unfortunate, mark a, blemish if you, will on his. Career it just seemed very.

certainly wouldn't have changed the outcome of the investigation. Seemingly so it is just the overall extent of the brunt that the police take and, prosecutors but especially detectives in these cold case mysteries like, THIS i.

don't think about this case and what. HAPPENED i mean think SO i, can And i'm not a, detective BUT i can completely identify with the passion they have and that that that obsession to see some sort of closure with, this and that's just what we don't have at this. Point you, know AS i, SAID i keep returning to you, know we really need to do a read review of the.

Case given What i've disclosed in this. Book you know that many of the present day detectives THAT i SPOKE i shouldn't say present, day the detectives That i've spoken with that worked on the. Case you, know WHEN i begin to tell them WHAT i know about, it you, know in a preface to my attempt to, interview and they, say, wow you know more about the case THAN i. Do you,

KNOW i can definitely. IDENTIFY i say that just really to eliminate the point THAT i can identify with the passion and the accession that the people like you, Know Jack krepps And George, dixon these guys had with the case and it really haunted them for the rest of their. Lives.

this case so. Fervently you could order it from there and learn more ABOUT i also blogged about a little bit About Ted bundy as, well some some interesting and here too for unknown facts about him WHICH i think were sort of opposite of some of the things that are that are commonly understood about. Him so you can go To Wild Blue press website my biography on their order through there Or, amazon or at Sunt Rose words And. Music it's been.