Pod Insights Criminology The Connecticut River Valley Killings Part 1 About this episode From 1968 to 1989 there were a large number of murders in what is known as the Connecticut River Valley. But with the long period of time and bodies found in multiple states, it's hard to know how many of these murders are connected. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss what has become known as the Connecticut River Valley Killings. Law enforcement and online sleuths have tried to dissect these unsolved cases for years, trying to figure out which of them are connected and whether a serial killer was operating in the area. You can help support the show through Patreon https://www.patreon.com/criminology For news about the podcast, old episodes and more, visit our website. We'd love to connect with listeners on social media. We are available on the following platforms: Facebook - Facebook Discussion group - Instagram - Threads - X Formerly Twitter - Blue Sky - Youtube - Twitch - Tik Tok Find all of our social media in one place at: https://linktr.ee/criminologypodcast Criminology is an Emash Digital production hosted by Mike Ferguson and Mike Morford.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 I'm Josh Manikowitz, and I hope you'll join us for season four of Dateline: Missing in America. In each episode of Dateline's award-winning series, we will focus on one missing person's case and hear from the families, the friends, and the investigators all desperate to find them. You will want to listen closely. Maybe you could help investigators solve a mystery. Dateline: Missing in America. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
0:30 Speaker 01 Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.
1:07 Speaker 02 Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 363 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.
1:13 Speaker 03 And this is Mike Morford.
1:15 Speaker 02 Morf, how you doing this week?
1:17 Speaker 03 I'm doing pretty good. Other than being a little bit cold in my studio here. How you doing?
1:22 Speaker 02 I'm doing great. Drinking my coffee. You know, it's you and I tape pretty early in the morning, but it's my favorite part of the, one of my favorite parts of the day is is sitting and drinking my coffee. I love coffee so much.
1:36 Speaker 03 Yeah, I'm right there with you.
1:38 Speaker 02 Well, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Nancy Ronzone, Angie, and Bree Smith. So some great new support. We really appreciate it.
1:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, thank you so much to everyone that contributes to the show. It helps a lot. And for anyone else that would like to head over to patreon.com/criminology. And just a heads up for listeners. Last week, we let you know that we have a brand new website that you can check out. It's criminologypodcast.com. This week, we want to let everyone know that our YouTube channel is now up and running, and you can find that at youtube.com slash at criminology podcast.
2:15 Speaker 02 All right. Now that we have all that out of the way, let's get right into this week's case. We recently looked into the possibility of an active serial killer in the New England area. This week, we're talking about a series of older murders close to the New England region, primarily in the Connecticut River Valley. None of the murders have been solved, leading to the question, was there a Connecticut River Valley serial killer, or were these attacks unrelated? It's such a big collection of cases that we're going to roll out the first part this week and part two next week. When you explore both the cases that are commonly thought of as quote unquote, connected, and the cases
2:59 Speaker 02 that have been mentioned as possible attacks related to this series, you find that this trail of terror spans two decades, all the way from 1968 to 1989. The accepted victims that are commonly connected are those who people generally agree were likely killed by the same person. And then you have the outliers. Those are cases that are included because they're from the same area or general timeframe, and there is enough to consider them as possibly being connected. And when a case is unsolved, you can't risk missing a pattern or connection. You have to look at everything. We'll discuss the cases chronologically,
3:41 Speaker 02 even though for quite some time, the murders were not linked to each other in the media or by authorities. To understand the murders we're going to discuss, I think it's important that we get a sense of the area that we're talking about, the Connecticut River Valley. This is an area that overlaps parts of Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont. This area features a lot of beautiful and stunning views, lots of woods, and plenty of streams and rivers and picturesque shorelines. The area is great for hunting and fishing, and it's also a historic region. Within these areas, there are a lot of towns and cities. Some of them will be key to the cases that we're discussing.
4:28 Speaker 03 The first commonly linked victim in the series was killed in 1978, but no one made a clear connection between all the cases until 1986, when multiple women were found dead in a period of just 10 days. Eventually, the cases were called Connecticut River Valley killings, though authorities have never actually confirmed a connection. Since none of the murders are solved, and many of them are extremely similar, it's hard to imagine that authorities are certain they are looking for different suspects in each case. But with no DNA in many of the cases, can they ever truly be sure? On October 24th, 1978, 26-year-old Catherine Milliken stopped at the Chandler Brook Wetland Preserve in New London, New Hampshire, on her way home from work.
5:12 Speaker 03 She was there to take pictures of different birds she saw. The last verified sighting of her was around 5:30 PM when she left Addison Publishing in North Wilmot, where she worked. Her body was found around 11:30 PM the next night, just yards from where she had been taking pictures. She had suffered more than 20 stab wounds to her neck, back, chest, thighs, and abdomen. This was a brutal attack, and based on the injuries Catherine suffered, it almost seemed like a crime of passion, but no one within Catherine's inner circle was connected to her murder. So, right off the bat, we see a case where no one within Catherine's circle can be connected
5:52 Speaker 03 to her crime, and those are usually tougher to solve for police. And I think this is a harbinger of what's to come in these cases we're going to talk about.
6:02 Speaker 02 Well, Morf, obviously, we know that serial killers exist. You and I have profiled quite a few of them, but I was watching a show the other day, I think it was one of the shows that Lieutenant Joe Kenda does, and he made a comment, and I think the number he gave was 98% of all murders
6:31 Speaker 02 Are committed by someone known to the victim. That is a very high number. So when you think about a murder like this and, and you know, a lot of the murders that we're going to talk about, it's no wonder that police immediately start to look at, you know, those closest to the victims. Because by and large, that's who most people are killed by. Someone in their life, someone they know. And you think about the, the brutality of the attack. And also, you know, kind of the personal nature. 20 stab wounds. That's up close and personal.
7:11 Speaker 02 Now, a lot of times that does lend itself to be, you know, someone who's angry. Well, who would be angry? Someone who knows you. Strangers don't usually have a reason to be angry with you.
7:26 Speaker 03 That 98% stat that you gave is pretty interesting. It's, it's pretty high, as you mentioned, and it makes you maybe a little bit at ease when you go out into the woods to enjoy whatever you're doing out there, whether it's hiking, camping, bird watching, in Catherine's case. But, you know, that 2% chance of running into somebody out there, that's got to be maybe in the back of your mind sometimes when you're out there and you're all by yourself.
7:55 Speaker 02 Yeah, no doubt. And I, I think it's why there is such a fascination with serial killers because, you know, by and large, they, they are rare. On July 25th, 1981, almost three years after the murder of Catherine Milliken, 37-year-old Mary Elizabeth Critchley, known to her friends and family as Betsy, was heading back to Waterbury, Vermont, where she was a student. That day, she had to hitchhike due to car trouble. She exited a car near exit 13 of the Massachusetts Turnpike in Framingham, Massachusetts and vanished. This was the last time she was seen alive. There was no internet
8:40 Speaker 02 back then, no cell phones. So it took a few days for Betsy's friends and family to be sure that she was missing. After this, her family hired a private investigator to try and find her. On August 9th, just a couple of weeks after she vanished, Betsy's body was found off of Unity Stage Road in Unity, New Hampshire, about 95 miles south of her destination in Vermont. Her body was still fully clothed, but her shoes were not at the scene. Due to having been left out in the elements, the medical examiner could not determine a cause of death. And because she
9:19 Speaker 02 was found across state lines and given the technology at the time, she was identified sometime later via dental records. Because these first two murders happened three years apart and 100 miles separated them, they were not originally found to be possibly connected. And here we have just another instance morph of somebody hitchhiking back in the day. And we know a lot of people did it, but we also know just how very dangerous it was.
9:54 Speaker 03 And I don't know what the stats are for hitchhiking, what they were back in the day for running into somebody bad, but probably you would think they're going to be similar to running into a serial killer. I think most people were just helpful and wanted to give someone a ride and not, you know, do what they could to help them out. I think most of them were not probably out to hurt someone or abduct them or murder them. But there were people like that that were cruising around, unfortunately.
10:24 Speaker 02 Yeah, and when you think about killers cruising around, you know, you're talking about a predator who is out searching, the hitchhiking scenario is one where someone is willingly getting into your car. And I hate to say it, but it's almost tailor-made for, you know, a killer who's out searching. And I think that's, that's why it's so scary. And it's why a lot of murders occurred with people who were hitchhiking. You know, the killer didn't have to lure them into the car. They were standing, let's say, on the side of the road with a thumb up.
11:05 Speaker 03 And this case is a little bit different from the first one. And the fact there's no confirmed cause of death due to the elements and decomposition. But I think they felt confident to say she was a victim of a homicide because, you know, she was relatively young, healthy, and to just die out in the middle of the woods when you're last seen hitchhiking a ride, I think it just, you know, screamed that this is a case of foul play to them. On Sunday, May 30th, 1982, a 76-year-old widow and grandmother named Sylvia Gray was found in Plainfield, New Hampshire, in a field just a few hundred feet from her home.
11:47 Speaker 03 She had been stabbed and beaten to death. Sylvia had last been seen alive two days before on Friday, May 28th. But on Saturday, when several calls to her home went unanswered, someone checked on her and she was gone. She was quickly reported missing. A search of her home by police revealed no sign of forced entry or robbery, although there were unconfirmed rumors that a ring had been taken from her finger. Police set up roadblocks and did house-to-house searches of the area, as well as offering a reward in the case. But they never found her killer. While there are some similarities in Sylvia's case to others we're discussing, notably her manner of death and the fact she was found outdoors, there are also a couple of key differences. Most of the victims in this series were found
12:30 Speaker 03 in areas not very close to homes, but Sylvia was found a few hundred feet from hers, which was in the center of town and not in a secluded area. Additionally, Sylvia is much older than most of the victims in the series. For these reasons, she's only considered to be a possible victim in this series.
12:48 Speaker 02 And I think that's one of the tough things about, you know, these types of cases where you have, let's face it, a pretty large number of murders in the same general area. First of all, you have to figure out, okay, are some of them connected or all of them connected? It would be very easy if, you know, all of the victims were 20 to 25 year old females, all had blonde hair, all were stabbed with the same type of instrument. But that's not usually the case.
13:30 Speaker 02 You have a lot of people who are killed. Sometimes the, the manner of homicide differs. You have large differences in age range. All of that makes it tough.
13:43 Speaker 03 Yeah, when you have multiple people, several people, as we're going to talk about, it makes me think about what we often discuss, what's more frightening that you have one maniac running around doing all of this or several. And that's pretty frightening to, to wonder.
14:02 Speaker 02 16 year old Heidi Lee Martin is not one of the commonly linked victims of the Connecticut River Valley Killer today, but due to her proximity and some of the details in her case, some people think she should be. She went for a jog in Heartland, Vermont on May 20th, 1984 and never returned. Her body was found the next afternoon in the woods behind Heartland Elementary School. Heidi's clothes were on when she was found, but they were on backwards, indicating maybe she had dressed or redressed in a hurry, or maybe that she had been redressed by her killer.
14:46 Speaker 02 Her bra was located a few feet downstream. Autopsy revealed that she had been stabbed four times with at least one of the injuries penetrating her heart and then drowned in the brook. She was found just on the edge. There were no signs of sexual assault, even though her clothes were on backwards and there was plant matter found in her underwear. A 21 year old man named Delbert Tolman confessed to her murder, but recanted his story before trial and he was acquitted of Heidi's murder. In 1996, Tolman was arrested again, this time for lewd and lascivious conduct with
15:27 Speaker 02 a child. In 2018, he was arrested for failing to register as a sex offender in Vermont, just as he returned to the state after serving a sentence for the same charge in Florida. It's clear that Tolman is not a good guy and is a confirmed sexual predator, but if he murdered Heidi, he was able to get away with it. And more of I don't know if he is responsible for Heidi's murder or not. But it is fascinating, you know, how many people come forward and confess to crimes and then later, you know, recant those confessions.
16:08 Speaker 02 Now, were some of those confessions coerced by the authorities? Yeah, we've seen that happen. But there are also people who just come forward to confess and then later say they didn't do it. And that that is something that's pretty hard to understand.
16:26 Speaker 03 And I think for investigators, they've got to have a letdown because here's this guy with a sexual crime history confessing only to back out of it. And that they probably thought, all right, we're on to the right path here. We've got the right guy and he changes his story and isn't claiming responsibility. So just more frustration for authorities.
16:52 Speaker 03 On May 31, 1984, 17-year-old Bernice Cordamarch was reported missing. The last 100% verifiable sighting of Bernice was around 3:30 of the previous afternoon in Clermont, New Hampshire, though there are reports that she was spotted hitchhiking near Leo's Market, a convenience store located in Clermont. Her skeletal remains were found nearly two years later on April 19, 1986, just off Cat Hole Hill Road in Newport, New Hampshire, a town 10 miles east of Clermont. She had been stabbed to death. It was mid-1984 that some investigators started seeing a pattern of missing and murdered women in the Connecticut River Valley area.
17:34 Speaker 03 They began to wonder if there was a serial predator operating in that area. Then there was another murder. The victim was 26-year-old Ellen Ruth Freed. She was last seen at around 2:00 a.m. on July 22, 1984. At the time, she was talking to her sister Heidi on a payphone outside of Leo's Market near the hospital in Clermont, New Hampshire. This was routine for Ellen and Heidi, who lived in California. The odd hour was due to Ellen's job as a nurse. Her shifts meant that she regularly left work just before midnight. And these conversations between Ellen and Heidi weren't short. Some articles mention the last call between them was an hour long. Others say closer to two hours.
18:15 Speaker 03 Whatever the case, at some point in this call, Ellen became nervous and told Heidi that she had seen a car repeatedly circling the parking lot where the phone booth was. Ellen then told Heidi that before she hung up, she wanted to make sure her car would start. She stepped away from the phone for a minute or two and then came back, talking to Heidi for another minute or so. Finally, the sisters ended the call. Heidi never spoke to Ellen again.
18:41 Speaker 02 The next day, Ellen never showed up for work. Her car was found abandoned on Jarvis Lane, locked with her purse still inside. There was no sign of Ellen. This location is a few miles away from the phone booth she had used to talk to her sister. Her skeletal remains would be found just over a year later. In September 1985, in a wooded area near the shore of the Sugar River, she was identified through dental records. An autopsy revealed that Ellen had died of multiple stab wounds and was likely the victim of a sexual assault. So more of a, I think we are seeing some similarities here.
19:23 Speaker 02 It obviously, there is the, the locations, this Connecticut River Valley. But here you have a 26 year old woman found to be stabbed, likely the victim of a sexual assault. Also, her remains were found in kind of a wooded area, a secluded area. Definitely some similarities with some of the other victims that we've talked about. And I think you couple that with the fact that she mentioned to her sister, this car, right, circling the parking lot. I'm sure that, that came out from her sister afterwards.
20:04 Speaker 02 During the call, probably didn't seem that ominous, but you know, once the person goes missing, to me, that becomes a, a big clue in the case.
20:16 Speaker 03 Yeah. And I wonder if her sister maybe regrets not asking more questions about what color it was, or what are the person driving it? Look like any of that stuff? Not that she would, you know, have any fault. It's not her fault this happened. But she probably wishes that she could give more information to help find out who did this. But one interesting thing, two interesting things actually that I noticed was that her purse was inside the car and the car was locked. If you're a, someone committing this kind of crime, why not take her purse too? And maybe get some money out of it or whatever. And why bother locking the door? If you've presumably abducted her, why go through that trouble?
21:00 Speaker 03 Unless somehow she was the one that locked her purse in there and went willingly, which that would seem kind of odd and unlikely.
21:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, I, I think it could lead investigators to believe that, you know, robbery wasn't a motive at all. This was more sexually motivated.
21:23 Speaker 02 Or maybe murder was the motivation. The one thing that jumped out to me was, you know, obviously we're talking about the early 1980s. There's no cell phones and these two sisters are talking on a pay phone. Pretty much about as far as you can get, right? From the East Coast to the West Coast. And it said, sometimes they talked up to two hours. I have no idea more of how much that would have cost on a pay phone back then. You know, I think we take for granted today that you can pick up your cell phone or your landline for that matter, and just make a long distance call for essentially nothing. You're already paying for the, the cell service.
22:07 Speaker 02 That was not the case, you know, in the seventies, the eighties. Long distance calls were very expensive, especially an hour or two hour call.
22:19 Speaker 03 Yeah, not to mention calls of that length. She's out there in a dark secluded area and anyone driving by, if they're up to no good or looking for a victim, that's a lot of time to be out there and exposed to, to somebody like that. And, you know, you're, I would think this is an area where there's not going to be any witnesses. So if somebody wants to do something nefarious, there's a good chance they can do it and get away with it.
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24:08 Speaker 02 On July 10th, 1985, 27 year old Eva Marie Morse, a single mother disappeared while hitchhiking after work. She was last seen trying to head north on Route 12 in North Charlestown, New Hampshire. It's unknown exactly where she was headed, but this area was north of her home. On April 25th, 1986, her body was found by loggers in the town of Unity, New Hampshire, 15 miles northeast of where she had last been seen. An autopsy revealed that she had been stabbed in the chest and neck area. The area where Eva's body was found was just 500 feet
24:50 Speaker 02 from where Mary Elizabeth Critchley's body had been found back in 1981. With the second body found within 500 feet of the first, it's hard not to think that the same person is responsible for both murders.
25:05 Speaker 03 I think this second body being found so close to a previous body, this is the most powerful connection yet to me that this might be one person doing this. Because we've talked about general areas up to this point, similar areas. But here we're talking within 500 feet of each other. So how likely is it that more than one killer is just going to be dumping bodies in that little area? So I think this is the first time we see of something that may indicate one person.
25:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, I'm with you. We know that killers and, and you definitely have to include serial killers in that mix. Sometimes.
25:55 Speaker 02 Prefer to dispose of bodies in the same area. You know, they're comfortable with that area for whatever reason. And they go back time and time again.
26:08 Speaker 03 This next case is accepted by some, but not all who follow this case as being part of this series of murders. Thirty-six-year-old Linda Moore was found dead in her home in Westminster, Vermont on April 15th, 1986. She had been sunbathing and doing laundry that day while her husband was at work and the kids were at school. There was no sign of forced entry, and it didn't appear that anything had been stolen. Linda had been stabbed more than 20 times and her throat had been cut. Linda's attacker acted in a short window of time. At 11:45 a.m., a neighbor saw her sunbathing and everything was okay. Her husband called her at 12:40 at home and Linda answered the phone. Everything was still fine. Shortly after this, he called again, there was no answer.
26:53 Speaker 03 Detective Michael LaClair told the Rutland Daily Herald, "I think she was outside sunbathing and was observed by her assailant, who stood from a distance to make certain she was home alone." He also went on to speculate that he walked into her house and she met him just as he came through the door and she was immediately assaulted. The scene was very bloody and it was clear that she fought back hard against the attacker. Although a stabbing death fits the pattern, the key reason why not everyone accepts this murder as part of the series is because every other victim we mentioned was found outside of a home. A witness in her case spotted a man near her home around that time and described him as a stocky man with glasses in his twenties, and he was wearing a blue knapsack.
27:37 Speaker 03 A sketch of this man was circulated, and according to the podcast Dark Valley, this man was later identified, questioned by police, and ruled out in the murder.
27:47 Speaker 02 So you know, all of these murders that we're talking about, they're scary. I mean, murders always are, you know, it's scary to think that you know, someone's watching you while you're making a call in a phone booth, walking down the street. It's also very scary to think that someone is watching you while you're at your home. Now she, you know, was most likely outside sunbathing, but that's a scary thought. Right? We always think of home as kind of the, our safe place, but to have somebody, you know, walk inside your house and attack you. That is such a scary thought to me.
28:31 Speaker 03 I think what's a little bit different about this case obviously is the fact she was found in her house, which is why a lot of people think there's no way this is connected to all the other cases. But I can see a scenario where maybe this same person, if it, if it's one person was out driving around and just saw an opportunity of a lone woman out sunbathing and maybe broke his, from his normal routine and targeted her. So I don't think you can rule it out without, you know, at least considering it as, as being connected.
29:09 Speaker 02 Yeah, I, I don't think the fact that she was found inside the home automatically rules it out. You know, the thing is here, we're talking about, you know, kind of the middle of the day. This is not nighttime where it's dark. So it would have been pretty difficult and, and to me unnecessary from the killer's viewpoint to remove the body from the house. First of all, it's broad daylight, so it's going to be hard.
29:45 Speaker 02 To get the body out of the house without being seen and why do you need to? You just leave. So it is very different, but the time of day is different too. So that I think could be why, you know, the killer decided to, to leave the, the victim's body inside the home. Let's say if it was the same killer.
30:12 Speaker 03 And if this daytime attack also resulted in a eyewitness description of a man who was later questioned by police. So, and this is the first time we have a witness to one of these crimes. I think committing these kinds of crimes during the day leads to a lot more possibility that you could be identified. So I think that's one reasons a lot of this kind of stuff happens after dark when it's harder to see people and what they're doing.
30:43 Speaker 02 By this point detectives working the various cases couldn't ignore the possibility that the murders in that region were connected. And possibly the work of a serial killer. A task force was created to investigate the murders and disappearances. One thing they found when they went through the history of murders in that area was that both Bernice Cordamont's and Eva Marie Morse's bodies were found just one mile from where the body of 15 year old Joanne Dunham was found on Quaker City Road in 1968. Her cause of death was asphyxiation, which didn't fit the pattern of most of the murders.
31:27 Speaker 02 But as Sullivan County Attorney Edward Tenny, the second told the Valley News in 1986, it's a little weird. They're all found in the same area. Joanne Dunham disappeared on her way to school in Charlestown the day before her body was found. The task force would be busy, not only trying to see if old cases may be connected to the series, but new cases would also have them scrambling to try and ease the minds of area residents.
31:59 Speaker 02 And more of any time, you know, I feel like you have a task force created. That means a lot of people are worried and how could you not be worried with, you know, so many women being found murdered in, you know, relatively small area. And I think residents would have to be scared, a lot of them. And that adds up the pressure on the police, right? To figure out what's going on. And a lot of times that's where you get the task force.
32:36 Speaker 03 I think the task force is a great idea because you can pull manpower, resources, go over all the details of all the cases and really just compile everything and condense it. And maybe that allows you to work these cases easier and maybe spot some commonalities, potential suspects that may be, you know, crossed over across the cases. So it does seem to streamline things a bit, but it's also an admission or confirmation by law enforcement that they recognize they've got a problem on their hands.
33:14 Speaker 02 The next case we're going to talk about is that of 38 year old Stephen Hill. He was last seen on June 20th, 1986 in Lebanon, New Hampshire after picking up his paycheck. Soon after, he dropped from sight and friends and family began looking for him. When there was no sign of him, he was reported missing. For a month, police looked for Stephen. Then on July 15th, almost a month after he vanished, Stephen's body was found by two boys near Heartland, Vermont, in the Connecticut River. He had died from multiple stab wounds, 12 in all.
33:54 Speaker 02 The area where his body was found is roughly 15 miles southwest of where he had last been seen. The key difference with Stephen Hill is that he's a male victim and every other victim that We're talking about was a woman, but the way he was killed is why Stephen Hill is mentioned in this series. And some sources say that Stephen's body was found within feet of Sylvia's body. Now, we can't confirm exactly how close their bodies were to each other. Sylvia was found very close to her home in Plainfield, New Hampshire, and Stephen Hill
34:36 Speaker 02 was reportedly found in Heartland, Vermont. And while these two areas are miles apart, they're relatively close. But their bodies being found in the same exact spot may be a bit of an exaggeration.
34:50 Speaker 03 When you look at the area on a map where Sylvia was found and where Stephen was found, you can see they are close to each other. But, you know, being on the same spot, as you mentioned, could be a big exaggeration.
35:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think saying that they were found within feet of each other is pretty hard when if they're found in in two separate cities and states, even though they're relatively close together.
35:17 Speaker 03 But it is interesting that they are close enough to want to link them together. And you have another stabbing body found outside. The key difference being now we have a male victim. But when you look at the pattern, if he was a female, he probably would be part of this series without hesitation. I think the only thing that holds people up from saying that he was a confirmed victim in the series is that he was a man. Thirty nine year old nurse Barbara Agnew was last seen around 10pm on Saturday, January 10th, 1987. Some reports say that she was leaving Stratton Mountain Ski Resort, and
35:59 Speaker 03 others report that she was last seen leaving a man's home whom she had a date with that What's clear is that she was heading to her home in Norwich, Vermont. She never made it there. Around midnight on Sunday, January 11th, a couple of hours after she was last seen, Barbara's green 1977 BMW was found by a snowplow operator parked in the parking lot of the White River Junction rest stop on Interstate 91 near Hartford, Vermont. This was less than 15 miles from Barbara's home. Although police don't know if Barbara is the one who drove it there, they estimated it was parked there less than an hour before, between 11:00 and 11:30 PM.
36:38 Speaker 02 The abandoned car was not parked normally in a parking spot and the door was ajar, which drew attention to it. Inside the car, there was blood on the steering wheel as well as the front and back seat. A bloody jacket, vest and sweater were found in a nearby dumpster. Barbara's wallet with no money inside was found inside the pocket of the jacket. Her skis were missing from the ski rack on top of her car. Outside of the car, there was blood on the ground, which had been covered by snow. Rest stop personnel contacted police and in turn, the car was towed away.
37:18 Speaker 02 When the car was towed away, police were not aware that its owner Barbara Agnew was missing, so they allowed it to be towed away. Barbara wouldn't be reported missing until Thursday, January 14th, four days after her car was parked there. But more of a, I think, you know, we have to talk about this. You find an abandoned car. The door's open, it's parked oddly. The police are called in and there's blood on the steering wheel and seats. Why would that car not immediately be treated as a crime scene? You know, whether you know the owner of the car is a missing person or not, you would think that you'd have to secure that car.
38:04 Speaker 02 Right? You can run the plate, find the owner, figure out what happened. It's also troubling that her bloody clothes and wallet were found in the dumpster before. She was officially reported missing on the 14th. We're talking from just after Sunday, the 11th, when her car was found, until Thursday, the 14th, when she's officially considered a missing person. And to me, this is troubling for a number of reasons. First off, there's the missed time, right? Those first hours in the first day or two, we know they're crucial. It seems to me that police should have done more in the very beginning. Once that vehicle was found.
38:50 Speaker 02 Also, why was this treated as a missing persons case as opposed to a probable homicide?
38:56 Speaker 03 Yeah, those are all valid points. It's one thing to find a car abandoned. I'm sure that happens a lot at rest stops. Somebody parks it there. It's there for a while. You have a toad that happens at airports, I think, a lot. But here you've got a strange scene of the car parked incorrectly, not parked in the normal spot. And then there's blood on the steering wheel, the seats, clothes. You know, things are found nearby during that three day period. I'm wondering what's going on here with the police. Why are they not, you know, classifying this as an endangered person? And why does it take three days to be classified as a missing person?
39:41 Speaker 03 You know, when everything at the crime scene, the blood, that would make me think this is a possible homicide, not a missing persons case.
39:50 Speaker 02 Or at the very least, we should immediately try to track down this, the owner of this car, right? I don't know. It seems like there was a number of missteps here, to say the least.
40:05 Speaker 03 Over several days, there were searches done for Barbara, including the use of helicopters to scan nearby areas, but nothing was found. According to the Valley News, by March 14th, police had conducted more than 100 interviews, but were no closer to finding out what happened to Barbara. The search for Barbara Agnew came to an end on Saturday, March 28th, two and a half months after she vanished. Hikers discovered her remains under an apple tree off Advent Hill Road in Heartland, Vermont, 10 miles south of the rest stop in Hartford. Barbara had been stabbed in the neck and stomach. The area she was found in wasn't easy to get to, especially in the snow. It was on a stretch of land with no houses in sight of it.
40:46 Speaker 03 Authorities believe that Barbara's killer had a large vehicle, possibly something with four-wheel drive to get back to that area. It's also worth pointing out that this area is about five miles from her Heidi Martin's body, who we talked about earlier, was discovered in May 1984.
41:03 Speaker 02 This latest death only fueled the fears of area residents, and it was hard to think that there wasn't a serial killer operating in the area. Police were fearful that after not catching anyone for these murders, that there would be another attack. And unfortunately, that's exactly what happened. But in the next attack, things would not go according to plan, and the intended victim would fight hard to survive, and she'd live to tell her story. On August 6th, 1988, 22-year-old Jane Borowski was seven months pregnant despite being far along in her pregnancy during the middle of the summer. She didn't let that slow her down much.
41:48 Speaker 02 That day, she attended the Cheshire County Fair and was driving herself home when she got thirsty. It was after 10:30 at night when she stopped at Go Marlowe's Food and Circus on Route 110 in Swansea, New Hampshire, about four miles from the fair. The store was closed, but there was a vending machine with soda outside the store that you could use after hours. After she got her drink, she got back into her car and cracked the can open. She took a sip and noticed that a vehicle was parking next to her. It was an autumn brown Jeep Wagoneer. The driver got out and walked behind her car to the driver's door.
42:33 Speaker 02 First, the man asked her if the payphone near the vending machines was working. Then suddenly, he opened the door and began to try to pull her out of the car. Instinctually, she fought back so furiously that she actually kicked her windshield so hard that it cracked. Jane was quoted by WMUR News 9 as saying, "I didn't know why. I was just thinking, oh my God, why is this guy doing this? He wanted me to go with him, and I was determined not to go with him."
43:07 Speaker 03 Despite Jane's resistance, the man then pulled out a knife, which scared her into listening to him. He ordered her to get out of the vehicle. The man held his knife to her throat and accused her of assaulting his girlfriend. At seven months pregnant, this doesn't seem like something Jane would have done, and she had no idea who the man could have been talking about. The man was sure of who she was and gestured to her car, telling her it had Massachusetts license plate, like the one he was looking for. But Jane's car was registered in New Hampshire, not Massachusetts. It had New Hampshire plates, adding to her confusion, but it temporarily de-escalated the situation for a few seconds. Thinking this was just an angry guy with a temper and a case of mistaken identity,
43:51 Speaker 03 Jane didn't feel like she was in serious danger. And at one point, the man did start to walk away. Amped up from the struggle and angry, Jane admits that she yelled at the man about her broken windshield as he walked away.
44:04 Speaker 02 Jane yelling at the man made him angry. He walked right back to Jane and put the knife to her throat again. At this time, Jane saw a car driving on the highway and tried to make a break for it. She ran from the man toward the highway, hoping the driver would see what was happening and stop to help her. But unfortunately, the driver didn't stop. As Jane ran, the man tackled her and stabbed her 27 times. During the attack, her throat was cut, severing her jugular vein. Jane decided to lay still, waiting for the attacker to leave. And that's what he did.
44:44 Speaker 02 He slowly and casually walked to his vehicle, got inside and left, leaving Jane for dead. Somehow, Jane didn't lose consciousness. And when she was sure it was safe, she crawled to her car and began driving to a friend's house that wasn't far away to get help. She wasn't only worried about herself, she had two lives to save. And the health of her baby was on her mind as she raced to get help.
45:14 Speaker 03 After driving for about two miles, Jane caught up to a car in front of her. She realized that it was the attacker's Jeep Wagoneer. She turned into her friend's driveway and the Jeep kept going. Jane made it up to the porch where her friend was at the door because he had seen Jane's lights as she pulled into his driveway. Her friend called for help immediately. Before the police arrived, Jane and her friend heard the squeal of brakes right outside. She knew it was the man who stabbed her. He was coming back for her and she was terrified. Fortunately, her friend owned a gun and he went outside with it, ready to confront her attacker, who was parked on the edge of the road. When the man saw Jane's friend was armed, he took off. And this time, it wasn't slowly or casually. Instead, he raced away.
45:59 Speaker 03 First responders were able to arrive and give Jane urgently needed medical care that miraculously not only saved Jane's life, but that of her unborn baby. Jane underwent an emergency C-section and her baby, a daughter, had to be kept in NICU on a ventilator for two weeks, but she went on to recover. Today, Jane's daughter Jessica is an adult in her 30s, but she has some difficulties that can be attributed to the attack.
46:25 Speaker 02 And more of this is the, you know, one of those stories that can give you chills, can make the, the hair on the back of your neck stand up. I mean, you think about how frightening a situation like this would be, and then couple that with the fact that this woman is seven months pregnant. So she's not only fighting for her life, she's fighting for the life of her unborn baby. And when you hear the details, stabbed, you know, 20 some times, her throat was cut, and her jugular vein was cut. That can be in and of itself, a life threatening injury.
47:10 Speaker 02 But this woman is able to get in her car and drive to a friend's house. I mean, it's just unbelievable.
47:19 Speaker 03 You know, with all the stab wounds, and as you mentioned, the serious one to her neck, it's, you know, I look at it as a miracle that both survived and that she was able to stay alert and stay awake and not pass out, even driving to her friend's house. She could have run off the road and hit a tree or something like that due to loss of blood. But she was able to make it there and, and get that help she needed. And I just think it's a, you know, really compelling story. And she's able to tell her story after going through that.
47:53 Speaker 02 Well, and that's the thing, right? A lot of the, the stories that we tell unfortunately don't have a good ending. But this one did. Now, what she went through was traumatic, but she lived, her daughter lived. Frankly, to me, it's just, it's amazing. Under hypnosis, Jane was able to give a detailed description of her attacker and his vehicle to police. Her attacker was a white male in his mid 30s to early 40s, clean shaven, five foot seven to five foot eight, and weighing between 150 and 160 pounds. A sketch was created and circulated of the suspect.
48:38 Speaker 02 The vehicle he drove was a golden brown Jeep Wagoneer with wood panel trim on the exterior, and his license plate. Started with the number 662, but Jane said the plate was too dirty to see the rest of it. It's not clear what state the plate was issued in, but it was possibly New Hampshire. Police found over 300 vehicles that might fit this description and it's unclear if they personally questioned every owner they found. And we just got done talking about how amazing it was that Jane was able to survive this and, you know, drive her car
49:20 Speaker 02 to safety, given the, the serious nature of her injuries. This part to me is also amazing that she's able to give such a detailed description of not only the man, but you know, his vehicle and even remember some of the numbers in the license plate, given what she went through.
49:40 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's frustrating that giving them so much in the way of details, you know, half the license plate number, the distinct vehicle, it's frustrating that it didn't result in identification of this man. And that Jeep, I think a lot of people probably know that what that Jeep is. It's a, the old 80's style wood paneled Cherokee. So unique looking, but at the time they, they were very popular too. So it's, it wasn't like there would only be one in the area. And as we said, police found 300 potential vehicles that might fit, but we don't know if they questioned every person and if so, what the outcomes were.
50:21 Speaker 02 The only thing that I, I think would have given police trouble is, you know, when you look at the description of her attacker, there is a lot of people, a lot of men who would fit that description, 30s to 40s, 5'7" to 5'8", 150, 160 pounds. There's, there's a lot of people in that category. It also sounds very similar to a lot of the serial killer profiles that come out from the FBI, right? White male, 30s to 40s.
50:59 Speaker 03 Despite it not. Revealing a suspect or not leading to a suspect, it does give some clues to work with. You know, for example, if they have a suspect that's six foot four, 230 pounds, they can comfortably move that person to the back burner. You know, if they have someone that just doesn't fit in any way with the description, they can be, you know, moved back. So I, I think this at least narrowed it down a little bit for police, but still probably, you know, as we mentioned, not an easy job either way. Jane and her baby had survived, but as they recovered, Jane faced a frightening and new nightmare when she realized that her name and face
51:43 Speaker 03 had been splashed all over TV news and newspapers. She knew that her attacker could use her name and any other information from these articles to perhaps track her down and finish the job. Fortunately for Jane and her daughter, the man that brutally attacked her and left her for dead, never did find her and come after her. She went on to become an advocate for mental health and PTSD, and she hosts the podcast Invisible Tears. She's the only victim believed to have survived an attack in the Connecticut River Valley Killing Series.
52:14 Speaker 02 So as we wrap up this first episode more, you know, we went through a number of attacks. And in many of them, you can see the similarities. We did talk about one male, but the majority of victims that we talked about were female. A large number of stab wounds. In a lot of cases, they were sexually assaulted. Some victims were found within close proximity of others. So, I mean, I, I don't think it's that hard to figure out why a lot of people think that there was a serial killer
52:56 Speaker 02 and that at least some of these victims can be grouped together.
53:02 Speaker 03 We mentioned at the beginning of this episode that we had recently covered the New England cases recently, where there's a question if there's a serial killer. But in those cases, we have all kinds of different manners of death, different circumstances. Whereas in this series, there's a lot more overlap of things that seem to match. You know, in particular, the stabbings, the bodies being found outside, all that stuff. It just seems to line up more than it doesn't line up. And I think all of that could make things easier for the police because then they, if they assume that a lot of these cases may be connected, maybe they can cross-reference different things
53:47 Speaker 03 from each case and find a clue that pops out.
53:50 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's true, but what I also think it does is it puts even more pressure on the police, right? You, you always have pressure anytime someone is murdered to solve that murder. But when people think that there's a serial killer out there and that a lot of these murders are connected, that definitely ups the pressure. And I, I think you see that in the fact that, you know, fairly early on, a task force was created and that's to me, the police reacting to the, the pressure. They, they've got to figure out what's going on. They got to try to solve these, that find the killer or killers.
54:36 Speaker 03 And I think in, in this case, the police couldn't, for the well-being of the public, couldn't say, there's nothing to worry about. This is an isolated incident. I think they, they had to err on the side of caution and put that task force together to try and get answers here and at least identify one or more people that could be committing these crimes.
54:59 Speaker 02 So that's it for our part one of the Connecticut River Valley killings. Next week in part two, we'll discuss a couple of more possible victims in the series and we'll also take a look at some potential suspects in the case. But as always, if you love the show and haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a rating, leave a review. Also, keep telling your friends, word of mouth about the criminology podcast really helps us out.
55:30 Speaker 03 If you want to find us on social media, we're pretty much everywhere. So go to your favorite social media platform and search for criminology podcast. As I mentioned earlier, we're on YouTube. We have our own website, criminologypodcast.com. Find us in any of those spots. And if you want to join a discussion with other listeners, head over to facebook.com and look for our discussion group, Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans.
55:55 Speaker 02 So that's it for another episode of Criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike.
56:04 Speaker 03 And Morph.
56:05 Speaker 02 We'll talk to you next week.
56:07 Speaker 03 Take care, everyone.
Previous The Fast-Food Killer Next The Connecticut River Valley Killings Part 2 Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated