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

The Machete Murderer PT 1

·1 hr 2 min·4 clips

Kenneth Kinney Whiteacre was stabbed in the chest, with wounds to his hand, wrist, cheek, and skull.

1. Buried Bones focuses on the 1971 orchard murders in Yuba City, California, and the first body found in a peach orchard between the sixth and seventh rows. 2. Kate Winkler Dawson is the journalist host, and Paul Holes is the retired cold case investigator whose forensic perspective shapes the case discussion. 3. The episode asks how a transient man could be hidden in orchard country, and why a pre-dug grave mattered to investigators. 4. Farmer Goro Kayiho sees a large, shallow hole on May 19, 1971, returns later, and finds it filled in between peach trees. 5. Deputies dig down and recover a rubber boot, a human foot, and a grave measuring six feet long and three and a half feet deep. 6. Deputy sheriff Steve Sizelove explains that the orchard scene required careful documentation, dirt sifting, and close attention to shovel marks and trace evidence. 7. Paul Holes describes probing the ground with a metal rod and says a sudden change in resistance can indicate a grave. 8. The victim is identified as Kenneth Kinney Whiteacre, a middle-aged white man with a history of public intoxication and robbery arrests. 9. The body carries a calf-length gray overcoat, which the sheriff notes seemed out of place in Sutter County temperatures of a little over 75 degrees. 10. The autopsy details a stab wound through the left chest that pierced the lung and severed the aorta, plus injuries to the hand, wrist, cheek, and skull. 11. Paul Holes treats the hand and wrist injuries as defensive wounds, which suggests Whiteacre tried to ward off the attacker. 12. The report estimates an eight-to-ten-inch blade, and the knife damage reaches into the cranial vault. 13. Investigators also note what the deputy calls "homosexual literature" in Whiteacre's pocket, although that detail does not return later in the episode. 14. Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes discuss whether that item could have been planted or whether it reflected the victim's movements and relationships. 15. Allison's research points to an accessible orchard with multiple roads, making it possible for an offender to reach the site without much difficulty. 16. The hosts then connect Whiteacre's timeline to sightings in Tierra Buena, Yuba City, and a morning departure toward the Bay Area. 17. Paul Holes suggests the offender may have been trolling for victims and using a pre-dug grave to dispose of someone quickly. 18. The conversation stays procedural and forensic, with Kate pressing for timeline details and Paul answering with scene-processing methods and offender-behavior analysis. 19. Listeners who like historical true crime and forensic reconstruction will get the most from this case. 20. Listeners who want a quick, low-detail recap of orchard evidence may skip it.

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