Buried Bones - a historical true crime podcast with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes · Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts

Dead Weight PT 2

November 12, 2025·59 min·5 clips

A train arrives from Phoenix to Los Angeles carrying steamer trunks, a suitcase, and a hat box that smell - there are body parts belonging to one woman inside.

Buried Bones hosts Kate Winkler Dawson, a journalist with 25 years of true crime writing experience, and Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator responsible for some of America's most complex solved cases, present the second part of the Dead Weight case, a historical true crime examined through the lens of modern forensic techniques. The episode opens with characteristic warmth and banter between the hosts as they reconnect and discuss the case they have been working through across both parts. Winkler Dawson has been thinking about the case throughout the week and notices that Holes had trouble suppressing laughter during certain moments of the discussion about the offender, suggesting the case contains details that are both disturbing and, in retrospect, somewhat darkly absurd. The episode continues the format established in Part 1, with Winkler Dawson providing the historical narrative and period context for the crime, and Holes analyzing specific evidentiary questions, behavioral patterns, and investigative decisions in light of what modern forensic science would have offered investigators at the time. In this second part, the discussion likely moves into the investigation's later phases, the identification of suspects, the quality of the evidence assembled, and the eventual legal outcome if any. Holes brings his characteristic forensic precision to the analysis, noting what patterns in the case match those he has seen in other historical cases he has worked. The tone is collegial, intellectually engaged, and occasionally darkly humorous in the way that long-term exposure to true crime tends to produce. The audience is true crime enthusiasts and history lovers who appreciate the dual perspective of journalist and investigator.

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