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

Unusual Suspect

September 24, 2025·1 hr 6 min·6 clips

Paul Holes reveals how the cushion under Maria's head points to a killer with a personal bond.

Kate Winkler Dawson opens by sharing a $3 bill from September 1, 1857, issued by Lumberman's Bank of Iowa under the free banking system that existed before the Federal Reserve, printed on what was sometimes burlap sacking and representing a practice where individual banks could create regional currency. Paul Holes discusses his own coin collection inherited through his family, and the two bond over antiques and relics before Kate connects the lumber theme to the case. She credits writer Beth Cruz for research contributions. The setting is Groton, Massachusetts, in January 1880: a working-class farm town built around a now-closed soapstone quarry, with a diverse workforce that had arrived during the quarry's operation and stayed. By 1880 the town has become known as a sundown town, with strong anti-immigrant, anti-Black, and anti-Catholic sentiment. Joseph Crew, 35, a teamster who carts goods between logging sites and mills, leaves home after lunch on January 17 telling his wife Maria, 27, he will return late. He returns around 8pm to find the house dark, doors and windows locked, curtains drawn -- unusual signs. He enters through the cellar, lights a lamp, and finds Maria dead on the bedroom floor, shot three times in the face and once in the chest with a .22 caliber pistol at close range, evidenced by powder singeing on her eyelashes and skin. Her lower extremities are covered with a quilt and her undergarments are torn, suggesting possible sexual assault. Medical examiner Dr. Harwell performs the autopsy the next morning and extracts two bullets from her brain. Paul Holes analyzes the tight clustering of shots to her eyes as execution-style close-range shooting, likely with the offender deliberately targeting center mass of the head. The episode title Unusual Suspect refers to who was arrested for the crime -- an aspect the hosts note subverts the racial and social expectations of a sundown town in 1880.

As heard by us

A patient historical case study that favors evidence, context, and careful doubt over theatrics.

Buried Bones revisits a forgotten 1800s killing with a steady, scene-by-scene reconstruction, moving from the missing weapon to Maria's gold ring, the lack of struggle, and the shoe prints in the snow.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a murder investigation built from footprints, an alibi, and hard questions.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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