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Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid. I know.

I'm sick. She's like very looped. Did you take DayQuil today? No. You didn't take anything?

I didn't. You're so loopy today.

I'm raw dogging the day. Woah.

Settle down, brother. It's been very funny up in the pod lab

It has.

Today. It's been a good we're a good time gals today. We are. Mikey included.

Mikey is part of the good time gals.

What's up with you? How's your,

what day is this coming out? Like, what's going on?

I think this comes out, like, after Thanksgiving. Yeah. So like how was your Thanksgiving?

It was great. You were there. Yeah.

I was. I don't know. I was just looking for things to chat about.

I could have just being a dick. You douche. We just started screaming. Like fuck you. We just turned off the mic.

Just an hour of silence. No. Thanksgiving was great.

Yeah. I liked it. You're a great cook. Thanks.

You bet. I hope you guys ate all kinds of delicious things.

I forgot to take leftovers, and then you went away for a weekend.

I know.

And I didn't get to go out. We were all supposed to go away and do, like, this fun little family thing. And, I couldn't because my cat was sick, my little Frankie was sick. And it turns out it was very scary, you guys. If your cat has ever passed a stone, and you think that somebody's been murdered in your house, same.

I the amount of blood that I was finding just in various spots throughout my house, I was like, oh my god. That sounds terrifying. It was so scary. And we knew that Franklin, like, wasn't feeling well because he gets super cuddly when he doesn't feel well. So we took him to the vet, and it turns out he passed 1 stone.

But unfortunately, my man still has 1 to pass. So He's out here. Yeah. But they sent his, like, cultures to Italy or something.

That's fancy as hell.

I know. And the the cultures came back and they didn't have bacteria. So that's that's my cat's health for you. He's okay, and I love him so much. Thank

you. We love Frankie.

Frankie forever. You and Frankie have a spiritual connection. We really do. No. You do.

And Franklin doesn't like very many people.

No. That's what makes me feel so good.

Yeah. He love you.

Because he'll come up and snuggle me on my lap.

Yeah. And he's not snuggly with just anybody. Like, even Drew, he's, like, sometimes snuggly with, but most of the time, it it just me.

But me? Always snuggly. I know. Always. Me and Frankie for life.

It's getting to the end of the day. It's getting to the end of the day, and we're goofy. We're goofy, Loofy.

We're not gonna be goofy for long, though, because I do actually have a very sad case today.

That's why we're getting it out now.

Yes. Exactly. We had to get it out of our systems. You feel you feel ungoofied?

I believe I do. And by the way, it's I just have a cold. I don't have COVID or anything.

Oh, yeah. That's to you.

Yeah. I just, like, I don't have a Yeah. I'm not, like, out here spreading COVID dash.

Can you imagine if she did that to me?

That'd be shitty as hell. It'd be shitty as hell.

Your book tour gave us COVID, and then

I know.

And then

and then

and then.

But, no, it's just a cold. It's 1 of those You

tell me what? Kids are

back to school. I get all the the delicious germs that come floating in here. I just take I just eat them up. The most wonderful time

of the year. But you did determine that you actually did eat the germs up.

I think I did. Oh, yeah. Because I determined my kids, like, they they're not sick, knock on wood.

There's carriers.

They're just carrier pigeons here bringing it into me. When we have, like, lots of after school activities that we have to, like, go in different directions to, I will, like, have to be, like, eating, you know, kind of quick and on the go. So if they finish don't finish something, I'll just, like, quickly eat it up. Of course. Whatever they just put it in.

Scoop that up. Just to just to, like, get some fuel for the next thing. Yeah. And I'm pretty that's probably what happened. Yeah.

Their gross nasty saliva germs are on. But that's why I stayed

it up.

They're always trying to drink out of my water bottle and then, like, get the fuck away from TT's stuff.

It's true. Do not

touch TT's bottle bottle. Say that?

I don't

say that. Can you imagine?

Oh my god.

No. I can't. Never. But I was saying the other day at dance class, I was

like, no.

No. No. This is

a grown up drink because I'm drinking like, it's like armor colostrum. So I'm like, you guys probably shouldn't drink that. But I was like, oh, fuck. Everybody at all the other moms probably thought that I said that.

Like wine in your your tumbler. I'm just sipping on the scissor by Dan's class. Like, this is a grown up drink. They're like, what?

They're like, wow, TT. Yeah.

You're crazy. Yeah. So I'm all any parents or people taking care of little kids out there, my my thoughts are with you at this difficult time. We're having a little bit of school during the winter and fall.

It's rough. But we're good. It's you're good, but it's only the start of the season.

I know. Hopefully, I'm building some immunity. I'm on vitamins. Yeah.

Take some emergency.

Yeah. We love the emergency moment here.

I do too.

Yeah. Some liquid IV. Liquid IV, of

course, is sponsor. Hell yeah. And the colostrum I'm taking is great. 10 out of 10 recommend. Not a doctor,

but And that's health and wellness with me being sick. And me not being sick.

So let's get into it today, brothers. I have an older case but it's you know how we always are like, we do the older cases because the way that they solve it is always like so interesting. Yes. This case in particular, the way they

solve this case is actually wild. Like it took some I love that.

It took some serious detective work. Actually wild.

Like, it

took some it took some serious detective work and it took somebody going back to the scene to find something that really even, like, drove it home further. Oh. I love the dedication.

Yeah.

So we're gonna be talking today about the murder of Nancy Evans Titterton. And I just wanna say, she sounds like she was, like, so cool. Oh. And just like sweet. Poor Nancy.

And I feel bad because she just had her career, like, really start to take off. Like she was really like climbing the ladder in the right direction. And this this crime, all crime is obviously pretty senseless. But this 1 specifically was so senseless. So let's get into it.

So Nancy Violet Evans was born in 1903 in Dayton, Ohio to Frank and Stephanie Evans. From a very young young age, she took a strong interest in reading and writing. And after she graduated from high school in 1920, she decided she was going to get her degree in English at Antioch College. She crushed it there. She won multiple awards for her writing.

And once she graduated from college in 1924, she went back home to Dayton. She worked briefly in a factory but then moved on to run a small bookshop.

But then decided she wanted a

little bit more for herself. So she moved to the Big Apple, New York City, and she decided there she was going to pursue a literary career. Wow. Yeah. Just rolling with it.

Oh my gosh. The literary punches. So when she got to New York, Nancy rented a small apartment in Greenwich Village and she found a job as a book seller at Lord and Taylor, which is funny to think about Lord and Taylor selling books. I know. But in her spare time, she focused on making connections in the literary world.

She wrote book reviews for a bunch of New York newspapers, just writing anywhere she could.

That's awesome.

Really trying to get her name out there. And the work of writing book reviews back then wasn't really glamorous, but she did it so that it would keep her connected to her passion. And after a few years, she was offered a job at double Doubleday Books, which was 1 of the most prominent names in publishing at the time. And there, she was instrumental in building the company's, nascent but increasingly popular crime club series. Oh.

Which was a true crime series. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So she had an interest in that. 1 friend later told reporters the principal thing about Nancy was that she was not flashy in any way.

She'd rather discuss a new book, I think, than anything. Oh. She wasn't interested in politics or parties or clothes as most women are. So in 1927, Nancy met Lewis Titterton, a British man who also loved literature and writing just as much as she did. Lewis Titterton had been a star academic at Harvard and at Cambridge University.

So very educated man. He studied Middle Eastern languages there before he took a job as the assistant editor at Atlantic Monthly, which was a really really impressive achievement for somebody who is still in his twenties. The job at Atlantic opened doors for him in the literary world. And within a few years, he moved on to a position as associate editor at the Macmillan Company, 1 of the biggest names in publishing as well. And like Nancy, he also spent his spare time writing book reviews.

Which you just think of the 2 of them they're a good couple. Don't worry. You just think of the 2

of them. Please tell me I can like them.

Yeah. Just like sitting at home writing book reviews together. Like, that's just such a cozy life. I felt they were living at they dated for 2 years and then they got married in October of 1920 9 in a small ceremony at the little church around the corner, famous landmark in New York City. And not long after their wedding, they moved to the Beekman Place Apartments on the East side of Manhattan.

Now, in a few in the few years that followed, Beekman Place would actually gain quite some notoriety for a series of unconnected murders beginning in 1935 when, Vera Struts murdered her boyfriend. And then that was followed by Nancy Titterton's, murder 6 months later in 1936. And finally, the murder of Veronica Gideon in 1937, which we actually just recently covered. So interesting. Jeez.

Yeah. You just wonder like what animal she was in that place. Yeah. In a tragically ironic twist, actually just after moving into Beekman, Nancy wrote to a friend about how much she loved her new place. She said, I'm so glad to get out of Hell's Kitchen.

Even though we had bars on the window, I never felt safe there. Nothing could happen to anyone on Beekman Place. Oh, no. Which very much good. Oh, no.

But Nancy and Lewis had a lot of good years before tragedy visited Beekman Place. By then, Lewis had accepted a new job as the chief of the script division at NBC Radio. And for somebody who spent his entire professional life focused on literature and language, this new position was difficult. But as Harold Schechter wrote, Lewis was quote intent on elevating the cultural quality of radio programming. It's like really heady people, you know.

Yeah. At the time at the same time, Nancy had made a major transition of her own. She actually left her job at Doubleday to focus on her own writing full time. At first, her success was pretty slow to come. She published a few stories and various literary magazines, but she was really struggling to find her home as an author.

Then in 1935, Story Magazine, which was a prestigious journal known for launching some of the biggest authors of the day, they offered to publish her short story called I Shall Decline My Head. It was a story about a quote old man adrift in dreams of the past. So the story actually caught the attention of some major players in the publishing world and some of them called her a writer of exceptional literary merit.

Oh, that would be amazing to hear.

Yeah. Absolutely. So after that, Nancy was offered a contract for her first novel which was published by StoryPress, a new publishing imprint of Story Magazine. And she was really she had just really found like big success Friday. Seriously.

But unfortunately, it was short lived.

On the

morning of April 10th, which was Good Friday, 1936, Lewis finished his breakfast around 8 in the morning and left to head into his office just a short time later. When he arrived, he found what he described as an amusing letter from a friend. So a little after 9 AM, he called Nancy to tell her about the letter. This was the first of 2 calls that Nancy got that morning. The other call came from her friend Georgia Mansbridge.

She spoke with Georgia for a few minutes and then hung up around 10:15 AM. She and Georgia made dinner plans for that night, and Georgia later told reporters, I feel sure no 1 was in her apartment when we spoke. Now nobody heard anything from Nancy until about 11:30 in the morning when Onita Smith head, a maid in the apartment just below the Titter Tins actually heard somebody in the building yell, Dudley Dudley Dudley. And then the voice suddenly went quiet. Dudley Ming's was the building's handyman.

So whoever this was was presumably calling out for him. According to author Harold Schechter, there was an urgency to the cry. But since the tenants routinely shouted for Ming's whenever a toilet overflowed, a ceiling light blew or a sash window wouldn't open. The maid disregarded the cry just thinking it was nothing more than

that. Yeah.

Which you can understand.

Yeah. Of course. So a

short time later, delivery boy from a local dry cleaner also arrived at Beekman Place. He had a dress for Nancy, and he was under the impression that she would be home. But after ringing the bell several times and getting no answer, he left. Just was gonna deliver the dress at a different time.

Yeah.

At 4:15 PM, another delivery arrived. This time, it was an upholster, Theodore Kruger and his assistant John Fiorenza. They were there to deliver a love seat that Nancy had, had reupholstered. And after climbing the 4 flights of stairs, they were surprised to find that the Titterton's front door was actually open slightly.

Oh, that must be so ominous.

Yeah. Kruger knocked on the door loudly and didn't get any response, but he assumed that maybe they left the door open for him so he could deliver the loveseat. Like, they knew this delivery was coming. So the 2 men entered and they set the sofa down. Kruger left the bill on the seat and he intended to call later.

But as they were making their way downstairs to leave, he realized that he didn't have their phone number, so he wasn't gonna be able to call them Yeah. Make good on this. So he went back up to the apartment to get the number before he and his assistant left. He later told the police, I found the phone in the bedroom and took the number. And as he was turning to leave, Kruger noticed that the bathroom light was on and that the door was slightly open.

So he went over and knocked, which pushed the door open just even wider. Mhmm. Standing in the doorway, he could see a woman's nude leg hanging over the side of the tub. Oh, no. He called out to her loudly, but there was no sign of movement.

Now even more concerned, he inched closer to the tub and he looked inside. And he later said, my knees began shaking and I felt sick. I shouted to Johnny, my god, something's happened to the missus. Call the police. So Kruger's assistant did this, he was told.

And despite having not been in the bathroom at the time or having been told what his boss had discovered, he told the officer on the other end, there's a woman tied up in the bathtub.

That's suspicious. Uh-huh.

That's weird. Yep. So homicide detectives arrived at the apartment a few minutes later, and they confirmed what Fiorenza had claimed on the phone. Nancy was laying face down in the tub. She was nude except for a white slip around her waist and the pink pajama top and housecoat that had been tied around her neck and used to strangle her.

That's awful. There was really no sign of a struggle in the apartment, so detectives concluded that she had to have known her attacker and most likely let him in voluntarily.

That's even worse.

Based on the state of disarray in the bedroom, they assumed that some kind of assault had occurred there. The clothing that Nancy had been wearing that morning was strewn about the room, and it looked actually like it had been ripped from her body. So there was evidence of a struggle for sure. Examining the body, the medical examiner Thomas Gonzalez found ligature marks around her wrist and surmised that Nancy had been bound and most likely sexually assaulted before her pajamas were double knotted around her neck, and she was dumped in the bathtub. Holy shit.

Just thinking of her pajamas being used to strangle her Serious. So dark. But the most chilling information from the medical examiner was his determination that Nancy was still alive when her attacker put her body in the tub.

Oh, that's awful.

And she eventually died there from asphyxiation. Oh. Yeah.

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Hello, ladies and germs, boys and girls. The Grinch is back again to ruin your Christmas season with Tis the Grinch holiday podcast. After last year, he's learned a thing or 2 about hosting, and he's ready to rant against Christmas cheer and roast his celebrity guests like chestnuts on an open fire. You can listen with the whole family as guest stars like Jon Hamm, Brittany Broski, and Danny DeVito try to persuade the mean old Grinch that there's a lot to love about the insufferable holiday season. But that's not all.

Somebody stole all the children of Whoville's letters to Santa, and everybody thinks the Grinch is responsible. It's a real Whoville whodunit. Can Cindy Lou and Max help clear the Grinch's name? Grab your hot cocoa and cozy slippers to find out. Follow 'tis the Grinch holiday podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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After doing his preliminary examination, Gonzalez ordered that Nancy's body be removed from the tub and transported to the morgue. And it was at that point that they discovered a 12 inch length of cord underneath her body, which presumably was what was used to bind her wrists. But remember, they were no longer bonded. Nancy's friend Georgia told reporters, poor little Nancy, she couldn't fight. She had no strength.

She wouldn't know what to do. All she could do was scream. Because she was a woman of very small stature. She was very petite. Now, the crime scene didn't lend a lot of clues.

The Venetian blinds were all shut and the apartment had been dark when the 2 men arrived to deliver the loveseat. In the bedroom, both beds appeared to still have been made from that morning, but the bed near the bathroom was, quote, slightly rumpled as though somebody, perhaps during a struggle, had brushed heavily against it. Investigators checked the fire escape and concluded that there was no way somebody would have been able to reach that from the street, so the killer definitely would have had to come through the front door. Yeah. And then in the bathroom, they did discover a fingerprint on the tub.

And in the bedroom, they found a fountain pen on the floor. Just Okay. All the clues that they could have possibly found. While technicians continued to process the apartment, detectives fanned out around the building just trying to talk to potential witnesses and any neighbors who may have heard something. The first person they talked to was obviously Nancy's husband, Louis.

He actually arrived at the apartment about an hour after police had started their investigation, and he hadn't been told about his wife's death yet.

So he just walked into this. Oh, that's awful.

And he was shocked to find countless detectives and police in his apartment when he got home. Imagine showing up to that. Yeah. He actually when he heard what happened, he collapsed.

Oh, that breaks my heart.

Yeah. It's very sad. And given his horrified and very devastated response to what had happened, he really seemed like an unlikely suspect. Yeah. But they did confirm his alibi as well and Yeah.

Of course. Checked out. So he had nothing to do with this. The others who were initial but not very strong suspects included 4 painters who had been working in the building that day. And actually theirs were among the fingerprints that had been discovered in the apartment.

But since they were working in the apartment in the days leading up to this, that obviously made sense. Yeah. But they also had alibis that were checked into and they were ruled out as suspects. Okay. Other than the maid in the apartment below, none of the neighbors actually heard any noises coming from the apartment that morning.

And 1 neighbor told a reporter, my collie is a very nervous dog. If there had been any great disturbance, I'm sure he would have barked.

Oh, so there you go. Yeah. And I believe that.

Yeah. There was, however, another strange occurrence relayed by countess Alice Hoyos who lived in the apartment 2 floors beneath the titter. Countess. The countess.

Oh, shit.

And because she's a countess, I just refer to her as the countess. The countess. According to the countess, and this is really freaky. An unknown man had rung the bell at her apartment

multiple times in the days before the murder. Mhmm. And she said that each time it was, like,

And she said that each time it was like he was trying to disguise his voice so he sounded like somebody different each time he did this. Oh. And she told detectives each incident went the same way. She said the buzzer would ring, she would answer it, and then the man would say, I'm looking for miss, and then he would mumble a name.

What?

I don't

like that.

Not actually come out and say any name.

Hoping somebody would open the door to be like, who are you looking for?

Yes. Exactly. So obviously, these freaked her out. These these calls freaked her out because she was sure, like you just said, they were a ruse to get her to open the door. So she actually tried to get a good look at the man before he walked away.

She told detectives he was young, wore good clothing, and seemed to be attempting to hide his face. And she told them that the last time the man rang the bell was actually just a few hours before Nancy was murdered. Oh.

Yeah. That's haunting. It is.

So the following day, the medical examiner, doctor Gonzales, released his autopsy report, which confirmed among other things, unfortunately, that Nancy had been sexually assaulted. And the cause of death was listed as ligature strangulation. Yeah. The report also stated that, quote, the strangulation caused a hemorrhage of the larynx and 3 slight internal hemorrhages of the scalp. Wow.

So this was a violent assault. Yeah. So the time of death was listed between 11 and 11:30 AM, and that was based on the fact that rigor mortis had, quote, become virtually complete by the time that Gonzales made his preliminary examination around 5:30 PM.

Okay.

And this more or less corresponded with what the downstairs maid said. She told police that she heard those screams coming from the apartment. And scratching and bruising on Nancy's hands and arms suggested that she actually had tried very hard to fight off her attacker. In their statement to the press, a spokesperson for the NYPD appeared optimistic. He told reporters, there are a lot of things that haven't been developed yet.

The research detectives have taken something to the laboratories for further examination. We're making a thorough search, but we won't be able to get any real basis for investigation until final reports from them. Now, despite the optimistic tone, the truth was that they really didn't have a lot of evidence to work with and they had almost 0 leads. Other than the short length of cord found with the body which was pretty unremarkable, the only other significant clue was that unidentified fingerprint in the bathroom. Now, at that time, police forensic departments were actually just starting to work with a new fingerprinting process.

They would use silver nitrate to lift prints from surfaces like fabric and porous materials. Oh, interest. Yeah. Right? But the system was new and it was gonna take a lot of time, so investigators had to be patient with that.

Mhmm. So while investigators waited on science to provide any leads, the press seized upon the story of yet another murder in Beekman Place. Author Harold Schechter wrote that the killing occurred 1 week to the day after Vera Struts' acquittal only added to its lurid appeal. Of course. Now, she was somebody who lived in the apartment, Vera struts, and she had been accused of murdering her lover in a jealous rage, but she was actually acquitted after she testified for hours on the stand that her murder had been committed in self defense.

The Daily Mirror was among the press who reported the story in a very crude manner. They quote and this is awful. They quote presented the gruesome sex killing as a 5 panel comic strip complete with graphic drawings of the corpse and a fedora wearing detective bearing a marked resemblance to Dick Tracy.

Are you fucking kidding me? Like, they made a graphic novel out of the crime scene.

They made a literal comic strip, a 5 panel comic strip. Like, you gotta be tapped.

Damn.

You gotta be tapped.

Yeah. That's

wow. And just to publish that and be like, yeah. This is a good this is a good choice.

The amount of people that that went through to approve that is astronomical. With 0.

Yeah. 0 integrity.

And nobody was like, this is in bad taste. Yeah. I don't know

how that got through. Other papers, particularly the tabloids focused on Nancy's quote, owlishly solemn bookish demeanor and claimed that she quote, like to parade around her apartment in a negligee even when delivery boys and workmen were present.

Oh, shut the fuck up.

Number 1, even if she did, that's her fucking prerogative. She's in her own home. And number 2, oh, were you there? Did you know that? Exactly.

Like, fuck off. Ew. And actually, that's incorrect. She was wearing pajamas, which she was strangled with.

So That's awful.

Nice try.

She knew whatever the fuck

she wants. Yes. Again, it's her fucking apartment. But the more reputable outlets like the New York Times focused on the scientific aspects of the investigation, drawing comparisons to other recent cases where science actually played a critical role in catching the killers, like Richard Hauptman, who was found responsible for the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and murder. A New York Times reporter wrote, test tubes bubbled, microscope experts bent over slides, and a group of police research men pondered possibly important notes yesterday.

Fields of science almost ignored heretofore were entered yesterday, and some of the methods of scientific investigation suggested in the Hauptman case have been resorted to. I just love how they used to talk.

I was just gonna say I love the heretofore of it all.

Heretofore. Yeah. That's a fun that's got a nice mouth feel. It does. Heretofore.

Heretofore. Now, within days, the tabloids had resorted to sensational tactics like hiring psychic mediums to comment on the identity of the killer. In a Daily Mirror article a few days after the murder, the paper quote, miss Myra Kingsley, prominent astrologist, is claiming quote, that the crime was due to the conjunction of the planet Mars, the war god, with the sun in the 8th house which signifies death. She also consulted Nancy's chart and deduced quote, the murderer was an older man and that he either came from or has gone to a distance since the crime was committed.

Okay.

Which it's like, there's a time and a place for astrology, and I just don't feel like it's here.

I don't I don't think it's here.

And I don't know what somebody's chart can tell you about the person that murdered them. Yeah. I don't know about that. Like, I know your chart can tell you a lot about you. Yeah.

And, you know, maybe when you're gonna die, but I it just feels inappropriate.

Yeah. This just especially with how everybody else is treating it. Like, let's not.

Yeah. And it's like, it'd be 1 thing if, like, you know, for some reason her husband wanted to consult with an astrologist about this. But it's

a task boy. To just take it upon yourself is really wild.

Yeah. But she wasn't the only 1. The Mirror were not alone in their tacky sensational journalism. The New York Post not wanting to be outdone consulted their own astrologer, Belle Bart. And she claimed murderer is German or English, has a light complexion, takes drugs or drinks, met miss Titterton in the fall of 1935, and escaped from Beekman Place in a southwesterly direction.

Again. Okay. I don't know how astrology would tell you that. Yeah. I'm not sure about that.

Astrology is not gonna tell you how and where this man escaped you. Like that doesn't make any sense. No. Meanwhile, actual detectives focused on the few pieces of evidence that they did have in the case. And the biggest piece among them was the length of cord found in the bathtub.

Unlike a traditional rope that you would expect to find in a case like this, this cord was thin and it looked like the kind of cord found on the blinds on the Titterton apartment. Oh. But all of the cords in the apartment blinds appeared to be intact, so it wasn't from them. But given the length a little over 12 inches, it seemed unrealistic that it would have bound Nancy's hands for very long. So detectives theorized that it had to have come from a longer piece of rope.

Okay.

And if that was the case, they believed quote, the killer intent on removing all physical evidence had sliced off the rope and carried it away with him. However, in his rush to get away, he must have missed the shorter piece concealed under Nancy's body. Oh. And they were correct. Okay.

Now, Nancy's funeral service was held on April 13th and attended by over 200 people. Wow.

That's that's telling.

That's very telling. That same day, investigators released another statement to the press. This time to address the growing number of rumors in the press that Nancy had been having an affair and was murdered by her lover.

Oh my god.

Which was just completely untrue. Seriously. Assistant chief inspector John Lyons said, we are satisfied now that missus Titterton voluntarily admitted the man. This does not mean, however, that he was a lover or a close friend. It may have been a salesperson or a repairman of some sort.

Someone who made a casual call.

Now that's the thing. It doesn't need to be salacious. Just because she let somebody in,

it doesn't mean they were Yeah. Involved with each other romantically. Exactly. Investigators felt confident that they were zeroing in on the type of man who had murdered Nancy. But days after her body was discovered, they were still no closer to identifying a suspect.

The fingerprints that they pulled from the fabrics on the ligature on the ligature were too degraded to be of use, and the skin fragments found under Nancy's nails were equally useless, unfortunately. By midweek, the list of potential suspects had narrowed even further as Nancy's friends and family were all cleared 1 after the other. By the end of the week, investigators had run down pretty much all of their leads and finally admitted publicly that despite the full time efforts of 65 detectives on the case, they were at a loss. Wow.

Yeah. That is so that would be devastating to hear.

Yeah. Especially as her family, her husband, like, I can't imagine. All attempts to trace the manufacturing of the cord used to bind Nancy's hands had proved fruitless, but still the cord remained 1 of the only viable clues in the case. And finally, on April 17th, detectives got a break in the case when a representative from the Hanover cordage company in York, Pennsylvania contacted them to confirm that that cord was 1 of many created in their own factory. Wow.

Which is like, that's crazy. That is crazy. According to the representative from the company, the cord contained istli, which is a fiber nearly unique to their product

Oh.

Which led them to believe that it was 1 of theirs. And they also mentioned that it was commonly used in furniture upholstery.

Oh. Uh-huh.

Okay. They gave detectives a complete list of their distributors, and investigators started tracking the various shipments from the distributors to see if any cordage had made its way to service people in or around Manhattan. After combing through a very large number of records, detectives finally traced a shipment to a New York City distributor who had among their clients Theodore Kruger Oh. In a pollster on the upper east side and the man who had discovered Nancy's body. Remember?

Ah. Because remember, she was getting a delivery from an upholster on the morning of her murder. Detectives had actually interviewed Kruger extensively and he had been ruled out as a suspect. They were able to confirm that he had been in the shop on the morning of the murder. His assistant John Fiorenza on the other hand had not been ruled out.

And as they started looking into Fiorenza's background, they learned that not only did he have a lengthy criminal history, but also a significant psychiatric report that described him as among other things, a, quote, personality deviate who would have difficulty in learning to refrain from illegal acts from time to time. Oh. I also love that That's scary. It's from time to time. Yeah.

Just every now and then.

Or sometimes he's gonna have a hard time referring from illegal activities. He's good.

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The more detectives learned about John Fiorenza, the more convinced they became that he was the most likely killer amongst their suspects. He was described as a, quote, grade school drop out with a dull normal IQ and a face fixed in a perpetual smirk.

I love the dull normal IQ. They're, like, dull and normal. Like, so boring. Way to have a normal IQ. Boring.

So fucking dull. I love I love that.

Describing something as dull just hits. It does hit. You're so dull.

That word just has like a

It really does. Yeah. But it seems that he, just really didn't have a lot going for him.

No. There's really nothing that sets him apart.

Yeah. Never really had. At the time of the murder, he was a 24 year old apprentice living with his mother and her second husband in Brooklyn. And he was, quote, withdrawn to the point of extreme social isolation, which is scary. Yeah.

His stepfather told a reporter, and this was crazy, that quote, Johnny had only spoken to him no more than 7 times in the past 11 years. What? His stepdad, whom's he lived with, had spoken to him no more than 7 times in 11 years. Holy shit. Like, what?

When you said extreme, you meant extreme.

Yeah. That's like a that's like agoraphobia, isn't it? Something akin to that?

I would I mean, yeah.

Maybe. Is there something, you know, adjacent to that?

Yeah. Probably. Like, he left the house, but it was like a it was like a social agoraphobia. Yeah. Like, extreme.

Yeah. Woah. Like, that's just like I like, I'm a quiet person.

Yeah. You would consider yourself an introvert.

Yeah. I consider myself an introvert, and that is mind boggling to me.

Well, because you're living in the same home as somebody. Like, you don't even that and you're living in New York. So presumably, you're living in an apartment. Yeah. And you don't just, like, exchange pleasantries in the morning?

That's the thing. I'm like, what's going on there?

I'm also like, what did you say in those 7 times?

Damn.

Yeah. He also, it was said that he hadn't started dating until a few years earlier, and he's 24. So of course, that's a bit unusual. But he had started seeing his girlfriend Pauline D'Antonio, and he was planning to marry her in the fall, actually. They were engaged.

Okay. Yeah. But his criminal history went back more than a decade, and his first arrest happened when he was 12 years old.

I mean, that's not great. That's not great. It's not a good start.

No. He had stolen a bicycle. And since then, he had just been in and in and out of trouble with the law on a regular basis. For the most part, the crimes that he committed were petty. They were like thefts, but there was a grand larceny charge for stealing musical instruments from a store.

Okay.

And during 1 of his periods of incarceration, he was examined by a prison psychiatrist who described him as a, quote, neurotic type of personality deviate. With him, the wish is father to the thought and leads quickly to action without consideration or foresight. Interesting. Yeah. More simply put, he was the type of person who acted very impulsively and based on what he wanted in the moment without any kind of consideration for consequences.

I see.

And this, the psychiatrist believed was supported by his many brazen crimes, included including stealing cars in the middle of the day in full view of crowds of people, but just because he wanted to take them for a joy

ride. Damn.

But would literally just like break into a car and take it.

It's like, whatever.

It just didn't give a shit.

It's mine.

Yeah. Now, despite John's criminal history and dull personality So dull. So dull. Theodore Kruger had taken pity on John and hired him, like we said, as an upholstery assistant 3 years earlier. Upholstery was a skill that John had actually learned during 1 of his prison stays.

For the most part, his job was just to sweep up the studio, keep the front windows clean, help out with deliveries, but occasionally, Kruger had him assist with more complicated tasks. As far as Kruger was concerned, John was, quote, good natured, but not very quick witted. And his criminal record, which Kruger described as being over little things, had kept John from finding success. Okay. Kruger thought that John seemed determined to better his life though, and he found that to be an admirable quality.

So he took a chance on him.

Which I get that. Yeah.

And Kruger seems like a nice guy.

Yeah. Seems like an admirable quality.

Yeah. If somebody is showing you.

Seems like they really are.

Yeah. Exactly. In fact, the morning that they were to deliver the love seat to Nancy Titterton's apartment, John had arrived a few hours late to work telling his boss that he had been at an appointment with his probation officer. So that's interesting.

I was gonna say probation officer. Okay.

Yeah. But, you know, still,

he's checking in with his probation officer. Yeah. I know. So Kruger's like he's doing the right thing. He's being a good kid.

Like, he's doing what he needs to do. Yeah.

He's trying to better himself. Yeah. Now, although they had traced the cord back to Kruger's shop and they were pretty confident that they had found their their killer at this point, investigators knew that the cord alone was not gonna be able to hold him

Yeah.

For very long and especially not on a murder charge. After all, that particular cord had been shipped to many upholstery shops, and they couldn't be sure if it definitely came from Theodore Kruger's shop.

So this was all, like, very tenuous.

Yeah. Very tenuous. So rather than arrest him, John was placed under 24 hour surveillance while detectives and forensic experts desperately searched for any additional evidence that would lead to a conviction. Now after 1 week of investigation, the Titterton apartment had been thoroughly searched and it really seemed unlikely that any new evidence was gonna be discovered. But just in case, on April 20th, doctor Alexander Gettler, a biochemist who was working with the NYPD, went back to the Beekman Place Apartments in hope of finding anything new.

Now he had been the 1 actually to discover the Istli contained within the cord and eventually traced its origin. So without him, like, this all You'd

be nowhere near this.

It never would have happened. And if anybody was gonna find something that somebody had missed, it was gonna be this guy. At the apartment, he was combing over Nancy's bedspread with a high powered mint, magnifying glass when he discovered 1 single hair that the other technicians had missed.

God. A single hair. This guy for life.

No. Honestly, I it makes me think of, Spencer Reid. It makes me think of Spencer from Criminal Minds. Yes. Absolutely.

I just picture him like going over it with like a high powered glass.

Yes.

Now later, he described the hair as white and quote strangely stiff. He said it certainly was not human. Now, after examining the hair under a microscope, he determined that it was horsehair, which was the kind typically used by upholsters.

Oh, I didn't even think of that. Yep.

Now aware that the Tiddersons had, Tidderton, excuse me, had their loveseat delivered on the morning of the murder, Gettler took a sample of the horse hair from the loveseat and compared it to the 1 that he discovered on the bed, and the 2 were a match. Ah. So that hair that was found on Nancy's bed was a match to the love seat that had been delivered that morning. Shit. Now given that the hair came from the love seat, it didn't seem unreasonable that 1 of the hairs made its way to another location in the apartment.

But that love seat hadn't been delivered until after Nancy was killed, which meant that the only way it could have gotten mixed up on the bed clothes or the bedspread was if the killer had it on him when he sexually assaulted Nancy on the bed.

Oh, gosh.

Yeah. And this was precisely the piece of evidence that detectives needed to break that case wide open. Damn. So they went back to Theodore Kruger who was absolutely shocked to learn that his assistant was even a suspect. He told detectives that John Fiorenza was a, quote, perfect gentleman and assured him, quote, there was never anything about him that was bad.

He said, why I've even seen him take the meat out of his sandwich for lunch and give it to our dog. Oh. Which is very sweet, but, like

Okay.

Murderers are nice to animals sometimes.

I was just gonna say, okay. So so we're trying to make a connection here that if you feed a dog, you could have possibly murdered a human being.

No. Never. Got it. Theodore seems very naive.

I I was just gonna say, but that just seems like but that's such a nice thing to do. And it is. Dog your your sandwich meat. It is. How could you be that nice?

But doesn't mean that you didn't murder somebody. It's true. I feel that. That's very

he because you can tell it, like, he was not wanting to accept Yeah. What was in front of him.

And I feel bad too because I mean, that would make you doubt any kind of confidence you have in anybody. Of course it would. You're like, I took

a chance on this guy.

I really thought he was, you know, wanting to better himself. And I mean, had he not given him a chance, Nancy would still be alive, technically, possibly. Well, then you So you just think constantly, like,

what the fuck? And and that's the thing. Like, I can't imagine what it feels like to have interacted and found yourself, like, enjoying the company of a person who murders someone. Like, that must be hard to reconcile. Absolutely.

It has nothing to do with you.

No. Absolutely not. In fact, in

case you're out there that happened to you, like, you're prob don't don't think it has anything to do with you.

No. You're a better person than

most of us. You should be able to trust people who are showing you that

they're bettering themselves. Exactly. And like we said, he he was putting out all the illusions that he was bettering himself. And, Theodore confirmed to detectives that it was true that John had been late to work on the morning of the murder. But he said it was only because he had his weekly appointment with his probation officer.

He's like, he's doing the right thing. Now, Fiorenza's alibi, the probation appointment was the last piece of the puzzle that detectives needed to knock down before they could arrest him. Fortunately, that proved a lot easier than they could have expected. Like I said, the Friday that Nancy was murdered was Good Friday. And John's probation officer, a very strict Catholic, had taken that day off.

So there was no way John met with his probation officer. Wow. Exactly. What? So then why was he late?

Wow. Wow. Wow. All the the way this case came together, like I said at the beginning, like, the that's why these old timey cases are so intriguing to us because it's not, oh, his DNA was found at the crime scene.

On the camera.

Yeah. They saw him on a camera. It's this is like old fashioned detective

work. You have to go talk to this person. You find out from this person that this person wasn't working that day, so this person's story doesn't line up. Right. Like the and the fact that it lined up that way that it was Good Friday, And so, like, it happened to be the day that he a strict Catholic took off.

Yeah. That that's, like, crazy.

That's crazy. And, like, the guy who went the investigator who went back and found the hair that nobody else had found, and it was this 1 just I mean, picture 1 strand of horse hair. Like, that's like a small hair. It's like finding a dog hair on your bed. Yeah.

But just finding that back then and then going back and saying, oh, that's from the the furniture that was reupholstered, like It's unbelievable. It really is. So with the newly discovered evidence in hand and John's alibi disproven, detectives moved quickly to arrest their suspect. And at first, John denied having anything to do with the murder. He insisted he was innocent.

But after more than 16 hours of relentless interrogation, he asked to speak to commissioner Louis Valentine, and he told the commissioner, give me a cigarette, and I'll tell you all I know. Damn. All for just a cigarette. Wow. According to his confession, John had gone to the Tittertons' apartment on April 9th, the the day before the murder, to pick up the love seat with Theodore Kruger.

And as soon as he saw Nancy, he said, the idea came to me of doing what I did to her afterward.

Oh my god. Yeah. As far

as he could tell, Nancy was a slight woman, just about a £100. She, he said she seemed gentle and soft spoken, so he was pretty sure she wouldn't put up much of a fight, which he was wrong about because she did. Fuck that guy. And the next morning, he called Kruger to say he'd be late, and then he grabbed the 52 inch length of cord he'd taken from the upholstery studio the day before and made his way to the Titterton apartment. When he arrived there, he rang the bell, and Nancy released the door to let him in because she knew who he was.

Yeah. Upstairs, he told her he'd come about the love seat and he wanted to know where she wanted it. He said, just to get her in there, I asked her, didn't she want the love seat in the bedroom? And the question prompted her to go to the bedroom to see if maybe she'd like the furniture in there. And Fiorenza followed her.

Once they were in the bedroom, trigger warning, this is pretty graphic. He attacked Nancy and grabbed quote whatever it was she had in her hand and stuffed it in her mouth so she couldn't yell anymore.

Oh my god.

Which is why nobody heard anything. Yeah. When Nancy gagged, he started ripping off her clothes in a frenzy, and then he sexually assaulted her. He said from time to time when she started to scream as the gag worked loose, I throttled her with my hands.

Oh my god.

And just says this like, he's recounting a TV show that he watched. What a fucking animal. Yeah. Truly. When he was done, he grabbed the pajamas and the dressing coat from the floor, knotted them together, and used that clothing to strangle Nancy.

Which it's like, I'm How do you how do you go from, like, like grand larceny stealing cars to murdering raping and murdering a woman this brutally? It's it's inconceivable.

But when you look at this guy, he looks like such a little piece

of shit. He sure does.

Like, he's got it right on his face. He does look dull.

He's got a dull, stupid, perpetual smirk. And that's the perfect way to describe it. It's not a smile. It's a smirk.

It's a little shit eating smirk.

That's what he's doing. Yeah. At first, he said he thought about filling the tub to make it look like Nancy died by accident, which I'm like, that wouldn't have worked because you strangled her and assaulted her. But okay. But cool.

But he couldn't find the plug, so he left her face down to strangle. Oh, god. Before he left, he got a knife from the kitchen and cut the cord that he used to bind her hands, assuming that he had taken it all with him when he left. But he's dull.

Mhmm.

So he didn't. He managed to get out of the apartment, he said, without being seen, tossed the cord in a public trash can, and then stepped into a drugstore to call his boss and say he'd be

a little later than he thought because he

was, you know, meeting with his probation officer, doing the right thing, cleaning

up the job. Guy.

Such a good guy. Gives meat to dogs.

Fuck that guy.

When he finally got back to the shop a little before noon, the 2 men finished fixing Nancy's loveseat. So he's sitting there fixing her loveseat

knowing what he's done.

That she's dead in a bathtub. Holy shit. And then they loaded it onto the truck and headed for Beakman Place. Wow. When they asked why he had done what he did, he seemed just as confused and said, she wasn't my type.

If I saw her on the street, I wouldn't give her a second look. Fuck you. Just to be a dick. Literally fuck you. I don't know.

I I

wouldn't have given her

a second glance, but I guess I just felt like it that day.

Oh, excuse me.

Go fuck yourself. Yeah. The arrest did come as a shock to those who knew him personally. His girlfriend Pauline refused to believe that he'd committed the murder or was even capable of such a crime, which you gotta believe when he confesses that he did it. But also Yeah.

I can understand not thinking that somebody you love is capable of that.

No. Of course. And she

told a group of reporters assembled outside her apartment. He did not do it. They're telling lies about him. He did not confess. He would not have confessed to such a thing.

He will be back and we will be married in September.

Babe, here's the thing. If that is the case, like, if if that if he has been implicated in this,

something's awry. Something is awry for sure.

Don't be so sure that you're gonna get married in September. Yeah. Like, I don't know if he's a great guy.

Probably not. You know? If he's implicated in this, most likely not. Obviously, we see cases where false confessions happen and yada yada yada.

This is not 1 of those.

This exactly. It's not 1 of those.

And I just, like, he has a shitty name grin.

You gotta be careful of those ones. Yeah. Honestly, good for her that she was gonna get away eventually. Now the and this is sad, obviously. John's mother was similarly stunned.

She told reporters, Johnny was a good boy. He had a girl. They were going to be married. Like,

murders do sometimes get married.

Theodore Kruger echoed the disbelief telling reporters, he was a nice boy, I always thought. Why I remember when he saw the body, he said to me, this must be the work of a maniac.

That and that's the other thing. It's like, we can look at it from this side and be like, no. Like, he did it. Come on.

But these people are spending every day with him.

Exactly. These people were actually getting to know him and had again, there's so many people in my life that if something like this happened, I'd be like, what? No way. You know what I mean? Like, I can't think of 1 person that I'd be like, oh, yeah.

Probably.

Yeah. Like,

you probably shouldn't have someone in your life if you think that.

His mom, his girlfriend, and somebody he worked every single day with. And I can't imagine working with somebody, discovering a body with someone, and having that experience.

And then finding out they did it.

Finding out that they did it and reacted in the moment, like, so so normally, like Yeah.

Like organically? Yeah.

Like, oh, this must be the work of a maniac. Meanwhile, he's the maniac.

No. That would be really Yeah. Like, that would fuck you up.

That would fuck you up for a long time. Definitely.

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Now despite their disbelief, John was arraigned the following day on charges of rape and first degree murder, which, again, he confessed to the crime. After the arraignment, he accompanied detectives back to the Titterton apartment where he reenacted the crime and also retraced his escape route. With a full confession and now very strong evidence, the assistant prosecutor predicted a very speedy trial and announced he would take the case to the grand jury and, to a grand jury in the coming days. The judge at the arraignment, magistrate, I think it's Aurelio, come, commended the police and the prosecutor's office for their efficiency and skill. He said this case proves that no crime can be hidden from effective police work.

As a citizen of this city, I feel extremely proud proud of the work done by the police.

Honestly, they deserve that praise because this was really good police work.

Incredible. Yeah. In his statement to the press, commissioner Valentine, quote, did not conceal his satisfaction of the unraveling of a mystery. The press and even several of his own detectives had deemed unsolvable. Yeah.

Look where they were now. He noted that not only was this his big, the biggest murder investigation in New York history to that point, but he also emphasized the fact that it wouldn't have been solved without the dedication of more than 65 police officers.

Mhmm.

And quote, the help of their technical research lab in Brooklyn and the, and of the city toxicology laboratory. While detectives on the case were relentless in the pursuit of Nancy's killer, quote, science, Valentine told reporters quote, played a deciding role in the solution. Yeah. Which I knew you would love.

I love that. It was science. Science. It was.

When the killer caught, the DA William Dodge assured residents and reporters that he had every intention of moving quickly to secure his indictment and conviction. Just 3 days after the arrest, Fiorenza's case went to a grand jury on April 25th. And after reviewing the evidence and listening to the testimony from 8 witnesses, an indictment for first degree murder was returned in less than half an hour. Woah. Despite the hearing, Fiorenza's attorneys quote, brought strong intimations that they would seek to have him declared insane and would assail the method with which his confession was obtained.

Please. Yeah. Ridiculous. They insisted despite the fact that he confessed multiple times to rape and murder, that he actually had nothing to do with the crime and had actually been coerced into a confession.

I doubt it.

Yeah. Me too. True to their word though, the district attorney's office moved very quickly, surprisingly quick. And John's trial started May 20th, just a little over a month after the murder occurred. Anticipating that Fiorenza's team would go for an insanity plea, Dodge's office enlisted at least 4 highly regarded psychiatrists to argue otherwise.

But to their surprise, Fiorenza's lawyer, Henry Klauber made a different claim, and again asserted that his client had nothing to do with the murder. He told the jury a fiend was on the loose, and it was not this defendant who murdered missus Chitterton as he pointed over to his client. According to the defense, another woman had been attacked in the area days before Nancy, and they intended to show that it was the same attacker and not John Fiorenza who was responsible for the murder.

It's a good tactic.

Like, that's cool. Why did he confess multiple times then? Klobber's claim certainly wouldn't have been the first time a defense lawyer had attempted to pin the blame on just a mysterious unnamed person.

Of course.

But the problem was that he had no evidence to support his claim. And once the jury heard fear read his full and very convincing confession read aloud in court, he changed strategies and started building that insanity defense.

I love that he was like, oh, I knew I was missing something. Evidence. It was evidence. My bad.

My bad. My bad. And just to be safe, his cross examination of the detectives who took the confession indicated that he was ready to challenge it on the grounds of coercion.

I think that's all he's got.

He's playing a dirty game. That's all he's got. Exactly. Much to the surprise of the prosecution though, while their previous defense didn't appear to be working out, Klobber and the rest of the defense team just seemed to be keeping all their options open and juggling several arguments at once. Yeah.

You gotta hedge your bets there.

Not a great plan though to to go for everything all at

the same time. Probably not. But Yeah. When you got nothing, you gotta work with everything.

You know, exactly. The insanity police seemed the best bet, but they still called John's mother to the stand. Oop. Who testified that contrary to the confession, her son hadn't left the house until a little before 11 AM on the morning of the murder, which would have made it impossible for him to have committed the murder and still made it to work by 12:30 PM. Which it's like, yeah, timelines are a little rough and I don't think we should rely on his mom's version of events, unfortunately.

If anyone's gonna lie for you, it's gonna be your mom.

It's your mom. In support of their insanity defense, the clubber also called John's step father, Ignazzi Cupani, to testify to John's unusual behavior going back many years.

Like he didn't speak to him for 11 years, basically.

Exactly. In addition to hardly ever speaking at all. His stepfather told the court, he quote used to sit down all the time in the rocking chair with his head between his hands. When this happened, he would look up and he would say, who's calling? And we would say, no one's calling.

We hear nothing. That's strange. It is. And his stepfather also got down from the stand and demonstrated some of John's other unusual behaviors. He said he also had a tendency to quote catch something or someone invisible who was following or calling him.

That's weird. It's weird. And it's very, like, specific.

It's very it is very specific, and I believe maybe it happened. Like Interesting. I don't know. Other family members, including John's aunt, gave additional testimony in support of what his stepfather had told the court. But a lot of this testimony was undermined during cross examination by the DA William Dodge, who clearly established that no matter how strange John's behavior might have been, it couldn't have been too severe because he managed to hold down a full time job and a romantic relationship for several years.

That's that's exactly what I was thinking is like, yeah. I'm that was very specific what he was saying. So, like, there could absolutely be truth to that.

Mhmm.

But it's just being weird. That's the thing. Like, it's not I that's not to me, I'm not, like, wow, he's insane. It's, like, no. He say he seems just strange.

Yeah. He seems a little weird. Exactly. But not weird enough that he's not fully functioning in society. And it's, like, if you're fully functioning, holding down a job, having a romantic relationship, then you know what you're doing.

Yeah. Like, you know, you're aware of the consequences of your actions. Right.

Exactly. Exactly. So finally, Klobber called on doctor Albert Crane, and this

is where it all went wrong. Uh-oh.

Albert Crane was a psychiatrist from Staten Island who, had examined John. According to Crane, John was a quote dementia pre cocks case with a split mentality, incapable of realizing the nature and quality of his acts. Of course, the question of his sanity wasn't the issue so much as whether he knew what he was doing was wrong at the time, and that was something Crane couldn't deny.

Okay.

On cross examination, Dodge asked the psychiatrist, quote, if he made a confession to the police and was then asked by an assistant district attorney to state the facts again and he refused on the grounds that it would be used against him, would you say that he knew or did not know the nature or quality of his acts?

Boom. So what I could like just can you answer that quick question?

Yeah. Could you just let me know? Could you remind me if that, Damn. If that works out with your No.

It's some top notch lawyering.

Now, Crane who's literally sitting on the stand and knew that this is exactly what had happened in the case and had also sworn to tell the truth Yeah. Had no choice but to undermine his own previous testimony. Oh. He replied, I would say that he was keenly aware of the nature and quality of his behavior at that time.

Oh, no. So that I could not stop there. I'd be like, so why did you say you was? So why? Wait a

second. So why'd you say that?

Explain to me.

Imagine as a psychiatrist sitting on that stand and trying you're a witness for the defense. Geek. And then the DA gets you that easily.

Well, and it's like you just said some bullshit. Like, you just laid down some bull

And then shit. Had to sit up there and they undermine your whole shit.

Yeah. They just untie that bullshit with 1 finger.

Yeah. Also, it's giving Elle Woods. It is. That's a that's a like mic drop moment. Truly.

Now, the insanity claim was even further weekend when Dodge called on 4 of his own psychiatric expert witnesses. All of whom testified that whether or not he experienced symptoms of mental illness, John Fiorenza knew that rape and murder were wrong. And that is why he went to great lengths to cover up his crimes.

Exactly.

Yeah. Clearly. Both sides rested their cases on May 27th. And at 3:30 PM, the jury retired for deliberation. However, after 11 hours, the jury remained deadlocked primarily over whether or not Fiorenzo was insane when he committed the crime.

Guys, he wasn't. If he was, they would have had the option of sending him to the to a state hospital for the rest of his life. But if he was deemed sane and found guilty, he would most likely receive the death penalty, which I can understand why they were having a hard time with that, like, having that decision on your own heart and head is heavy. Conscience. Right.

But finally, after nearly 20 hours of deliberation, they did side with the prosecution, and they found John Fiorenza guilty of the murder and rape of Nancy Titterton.

I agree with that.

He seemed pretty unfazed by the verdict, but those close to him were outraged. His father stood up and shouted, it's not fair. He's crazy. He should not go to the chair. They should lock him up, which you can understand.

Yeah. And honestly, I agree Yeah. In that sense Yeah. Where it's like yeah. That's hard.

It's like because I That's his family.

They know that they're gonna die. Going to

the death penalty because they don't really think it's you know, we've already discussed how we feel about that. But it's like so I feel like he just he's gotta be locked up.

Yeah. I agree. Yeah. But on June 6, 1936, John Fiorenza appeared before the court of general sessions for sentencing, and he was formally sentenced to die in the electric chair. Damn.

At the hearing, his attorney continued to push his insanity defense telling reporters, he doesn't even know what all this is about. He was more anxious to know when I can visit him in the death house, which is sad in in some sense, you know. Yeah. Under New York law though, a guilty verdict in a death penalty case automatically triggers an appeal. Mhmm.

But like in the initial trial, the appeals process moved quickly. Not surprisingly, John's attorney insisted that although his client had killed Nancy, he had only done so because of what his psychiatrist referred to as a mental confusion. I don't think so. I don't think so either. I don't see this.

I think he's possibly mentally ill, but I think he knew what he was doing was wrong.

He tried to cover it up.

He went to her house the day before, decided that he wanted to kill her, came back prepared to kill her, raped and killed her, and then disposed of evidence.

Exactly. And then later lied about it. Yeah. And made it at the scene, he said, oh, a maniac must have done that. That shows you he knew exactly what he had done.

He continued to cover it.

That's why you can't, like well, I'm not, like, a fan of the death penalty. It's like, I I don't think, like, the he's crazy, but no. No. I don't think he has

I think he's just been the worst of his life in jail. Yeah.

I think he's, like, in, like, in the negative connotation, a weirdo. Yeah. He's just And I think he needs to go to jail forever. Yeah. But that's it.

Mhmm. Like, I don't think he's insane. I don't think there's this this whole confusion that they're claiming, I think, is highly exaggerated.

There was also multiple if you rape somebody before you kill them, there's multiple times at which you can

stop Exactly.

Before you kill them. And he didn't. And he didn't. So I He went further and further. Exactly.

Even said when she tried to scream, he would throttle her to stop her, which that shows tells you. That he didn't wanna be caught, and he knew he was doing something bad, and he did something awful to make sure

it was covered up. Exactly.

So fuck this guy.

Exactly. Thank you.

And now all of a sudden, I'm like, fuck that.

No. I don't care. It's the part where his family talks about Yeah. You feel bad for his family. Family.

A family of a monster who, you know, seemingly has nothing to do with what they've done. It's like, that's a whole different I I do feel bad for them.

Yeah. You have to. Like, they are victims too in this whole thing. For sure. Arguing in favor of upholding the death penalty though, William Dodge insisted, this man is a potential maniac.

There's no reason for the state of New York to be cheated of the law of the enforcement of the law by the pretense of insanity, which I kind of agree

with. Mhmm.

Although, again, don't agree with the death the death penalty.

Yeah. But I think he is he's a maniac is a great way to describe him. Yeah.

He's a danger to society. Exactly.

He's a very leech. Yeah. He he called it.

In his own words.

Maniac did that. He knows what he is. And it's like, he he should be kept away from society for sure. Completely agree.

Ultimately, his appeal was denied, and on January 22, 1937, he was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison. Just prior to his death, he exclaimed, you don't know all I've been through in this place. I don't know why they don't give me a chance.

I know. Because you

raped and murdered someone.

I know. Yeah. We all know. You did something fucking terrible. Like, god.

And you you can't get a chance after you. Chance? Can can you give Nancy a chance? Nope. You can't.

No. You can't. Because she murdered her. Raped and murdered her. Exactly.

And then

tried to cover it up and

lie about it. So

fuck you, John.

Such a wild case from start to finish though. And the It is. The the key star here is the the detective work. Like Yes. For the it's early 19 thirties and they had all this advance not advanced, but at the time, very advanced fingerprint technology and just the dedication of people who went back to the scene.

Yeah. I I found the the investigation part of this so interesting.

Oh, I think it's amazing. Like, what an what an amazing case, like, in when on the police side of it. And what a sad And what a tragic case on the crime side of it. Like, Nancy, you just feel like

holy shit. Like, yeah. She was just getting her rear off the ground, and she's just having a delivery.

She's just home. We all get deliveries. All the time. Let someone come into your home and plop down a piece of furniture, and you hope they're not there for various reasons. Like, it's that's awful.

I know. And her poor husband too. Like, oh, it's awful. Home to that. Yeah.

That's awful. Very, very tragic case.

Yeah. But very, very, interesting on the investigation side, like, for sure.

But with all that being said, we hope you keep listening, and we hope you

keep it weird. But not so

weird that when you deliver something to somebody's house, you decide that you're gonna rape and murder them because, ew, that's really fucking terrible, and

you should stop yourself from doing things like that. Bye. Don't be a dick. Self control is important.

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