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

Into the Woods

October 1, 2025·1 hr 14 min·7 clips

Investigators find a bloody musket and coat in the woods, linking the murder to Irish immigrant brothers with a motive.

Kate opens with a bookshelf discussion in which Paul explains the significance of Sexual Homicide Patterns and Motives, the academic text behind Netflix's Mindhunter, which his parents gave him for his 25th birthday. Paul also discusses Bob Keppel's Signature Killers and his habit of rotating background objects during filming as Easter eggs for attentive viewers. Kate sets the scene: Spragueville, Rhode Island in late 1843 is a mill village dominated by the Sprague family, who own the factories, boarding houses, and local institutions. On New Year's Eve at 4:15 PM, a servant named Michael Costello crosses a footbridge over a nearly frozen creek in an area called Hawkins Hole and notices blood. He follows a trail 15 to 18 feet beyond the bridge and finds a bludgeoned body. The case raises the question of whether the forensic tools of 1843 were capable of securing reliable criminal convictions. Kate and Paul discuss how the absence of DNA, modern trace analysis, and systematic crime scene protocols meant that investigators in this era relied on testimony, confession, and circumstantial pattern evidence that is now known to be unreliable. Paul reflects on the fundamental philosophy of forensic exclusion: the goal is always to eliminate what did not happen rather than to declare certainty about what did, a principle systematically violated in many 19th century prosecutions. Kate connects this to her book American Sherlock about forensic scientist Oscar Heinrich, who famously and wrongly claimed infallibility. The tone is scholarly and narrative. The audience is true crime enthusiasts with an interest in historical forensics and investigative methodology.

As heard by us

An 1843 bridge death turns on wounds, a pistol, and a blood trail.

The episode follows an 1843 bridge death as Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes work back from the injuries and the physical evidence. A shot to the forearm, a bullet lodged in the wrist, a pistol at the scene, and the coroner's view that Amasa was confronted and bludgeoned from…

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You get a historical bridge killing, a long blood trail, and hosts who will not let the injuries off the hook.

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