Episode 3 - The Third Episode

Charles is thrilled to announce new sponsors for the podcast, including Amanda’s company Shady Grove Pudding, now both “Proud sponsors and victims of The Murderer Killings.” The investigation of Margaret Mandragora-Jones intensifies, as does her contempt for everyone around her. Deputy Sheriff Branigan trains her sites on two other suspects: Amanda’s estranged husband and Amanda’s twin brother Teddy. We learn about their personal histories with Amanda and possible motives. Meanwhile, the Covid lockdown of 2020 begins, hampering both the investigation, and Chief Ebner’s access to hot wings. A pair of shocking developments – one happy, one tragic – rock the community and the investigation.

Transcript

Charlie Incarica 0:00

I need to start this third episode by announcing there's been big news involving the case, or at least my podcast about the case. We've picked up a couple of sponsors, both of which we're excited to be partnering with, and none more so than Shady Grove Pudding itself. So today's episode is brought to you by Shady Grove Pudding, proud sponsors and victims of the murderer killings. Now on with the podcast.

Jingle Singers 0:25

When you want a pudding that you love, open up a cup of Shady Grove.

Charlie Incarica 0:32

It's probably fair to say that Shady Grove's small police department wasn't equipped to handle a murder case like the one they were confronted with in March of 2020. And while most of the Shady Grove police declined to be interviewed, Taylor Branagin, who was Shady Grove's deputy sheriff in 2020, has not only been willing, but eager.

Taylor Branigan 0:53

I thought it was run in a really shoddy fashion. From the word go, Chief Ebner seemed out of his depths.

Charlie Incarica 1:00

How so?

Taylor Branigan 1:09

Tommy insisted on stopping to order two large buckets of fire wings as a sort of welcome to Shady Grove icebreaker. I tried explaining that it wasn't appropriate to bring food to a crime scene, but he became angry and insisted that it was rude to show up at any home empty-handed. But honestly, I think he just had a craving for hot wings. Oh, absolutely. At first. But that place does make really good wings.

Charlie Incarica 1:36

You're saying they ate the wings at the crime scene.

Taylor Branigan 1:38

Well, fortunately, the victims were murdered in a hallway just off the kitchen, so they didn't have to.

Charlie Incarica 1:44

If the wings were that good, they must have been shady hot hot wings. The hottest hot wings in all of Shady Grove. Shady hot hot wings, now offering reasonably priced napkins. So what were your first impressions of the scene?

Taylor Branigan 2:01

Well, the first thing that jumped out at me was the sheer brutality of the attacks. And of course, the amount of blood. But then Tommy stepped through that blood and tracked it into the kitchen.

Charlie Incarica 2:12

Do you think he was deliberately trying to contaminate the crime scene?

Taylor Branigan 2:16

I think he really wanted to solve the case. I do. Unfortunately, and and you know, I'm trying to be diplomatic here, so let's just say that I have socks. That could outwit that man.

Charlie Incarica 2:27

Chief Ebner zeroed in first on Margaret Mandragora Jones because she was Australian. Is that right?

Taylor Branigan 2:34

Yep.

Charlie Incarica 2:34

How did the questioning go? Um.

Chief Ebner 2:40

Alrighty, Root. So, uh interview of Margaret Mandrag. Sorry. Ma Mar Mandra Mar Margaret Mandragree Drag. Um Mar Mar Margarine Margaret.

Charlie Incarica 2:56

I'm going to skip ahead a bit here, because for the next few minutes, he mispronounces her name repeatedly, and then starts to mispronounce a lot of words. More or less all of them. Eventually, Taylor suggests they break for lunch and start over. And it's not hard to imagine the chief, all of them in fact, polished off their lunches with one or two creamy smooth helpings of smooth, creamy, shady grove pudding. Shady Grove pudding, now in packages that don't show you the calorie count.

Jingle Singers 3:24

When you are a birding that you love, open up a cup of shady grove.

Charlie Incarica 3:30

An hour later, they resumed the questioning.

Chief Ebner 3:32

Okay, interview resumed with um, you know what? Is it okay if I just call you Margaret? If you think you can manage it. Actually, let me try just one more.

Margaret Mandragora-Jones 3:41

No, let's move on. I'm keen to see if you'll stick the landing on your name.

Chief Ebner 3:45

Well, I guess that there's uh some of that dry wit you British are known for. For fuck's sake.

Taylor Branigan 3:50

She's Australian.

Chief Ebner 3:51

Jesus! You scared the crap out of me, Taylor. I forgot you were there.

Taylor Branigan 3:54

I'm saying Miss Mandragora Jones is from Australia.

Chief Ebner 3:56

Yeah, I know. Which is not in England, you're telling me. For the record, the witness is informing me Australia is not in England.

Taylor Branigan 4:05

The witness didn't tell you I did, and she's not a witness.

Charlie Incarica 4:07

At that point, they break for what Ebner calls his second lunch. Ninety minutes later, they try again.

Chief Ebner 4:14

Okay, we're just gonna film the names later. Or, you know, whateves. Um, uh, the time is uh oh well, shoot, I don't know if I watch, homie. Um let's say 2.30-ish? And you're and you're sure I can't tempt you with some wings, Margaret.

Margaret Mandragora-Jones 4:28

I'm hard pressed to think of an offer less tempting.

Chief Ebner 4:31

For the record, the wit I mean, the um anyway, she's declined the offer of hot wings.

Taylor Branigan 4:36

And an attorney.

Chief Ebner 4:38

Yes. You must think you're pretty smart if you say no to a lawyer. Certainly think you're you're smarter than I am, right? But maybe not, Miss Margaret. I mean, see this, you're so smart, you have to ask yourself how the man you're trying to match wits with got to be chief.

Margaret Mandragora-Jones 4:55

From your appearance, I guess some sort of competitive eating contest.

Chief Ebner 4:59

My competitive eating is totally separate from my job. So it seems the tables have turned.

Taylor Branigan 5:05

What? Can you account for your whereabouts late on the evening of March 8th and early the morning of March 9th, 2020?

Margaret Mandragora-Jones 5:13

I was at home. I believe she was asking me. I spent most of the evening as the guest of Amanda Putnam Hart.

Chief Ebner 5:20

Who just happens to be the murder victim?

Taylor Branigan 5:23

A murder victim. There were two other people killed as well.

Chief Ebner 5:26

Yes, I suppose I suppose that's technically true.

Taylor Branigan 5:29

And when did you leave the party?

Margaret Mandragora-Jones 5:31

I'm not exactly sure, if I'm honest. I did spend a few hours later that night in an adjacent field.

Taylor Branigan 5:38

Any witnesses who can corroborate this? Christ, I hope not.

Charlie Incarica 5:43

The interviews with Margaret didn't yield anything, but Chief Ebner informed her she couldn't leave town for the next few days. Deputy Sheriff Branagan didn't believe Margaret Mandragora Jones was involved with the triple homicide, but she did have a theory about someone else. Amanda Putnam Hart's estranged husband, William Hart.

Taylor Branigan 6:04

I think any time one of the connections to the deceased could be described as estranged, that's the first place you look. Not to mention how bizarre their relationship was to begin with.

Charlie Incarica 6:14

How do you mean?

Taylor Branigan 6:15

Well, for one thing, I you know, I kind of feel like you haven't invested a whole lot of time in researching this, have you?

Charlie Incarica 6:22

That was completely untrue for the most part. And also, I'd had lots of stuff on my plate the last few months, including a breakup that hit me hard and was not my fault. As I think this podcast will demonstrate, I am emotionally available, Amy. Anyway, I wanted to hear directly from Deputy Sheriff Brannigan, what basically I already knew.

Taylor Branigan 6:43

The fact that a Hart and a Putnam got married was really, well, surprising.

Estelle Hayes 6:48

Everyone in town freaked the fuck out.

Charlie Incarica 6:50

That's Estelle Hayes again.

Estelle Hayes 6:52

Amanda Putnam was beautiful, smart, and powerful. If she fell in love with William Hart, it was the clearest case of opposites attracting in the history of mammals.

Charlie Incarica 7:04

William Giafredo Hart is the only child of district attorney Alice Hart. William's father died in a compellingly realistic civil war reenactment when William was two, and a grief-stricken Alice threw herself into her legal work. William was often lost amid the tumult of her career. An unusually sensitive young boy, William spent his school years in various boarding schools, and his summers in intense therapy recuperating from various boarding schools. Timid by nature, he was the frequent target of bullies, who teased him for his slight frame, short stature, and his love of improv comedy. His senior yearbook lists his chief interests as weighing small items and sitting. William opted not to go to college, deeply disappointing his mother. You have to wonder if perhaps that might have been part of the motivation for his decision. After all, he had never honestly had any meaningful relationship with Alice, and his resentment must have run deep. I'm just saying, it's important to tell the people in your life you love them. And I think we'd all have to admit, that's as emotionally available as it gets. In some respects, according to Estelle Hayes, the courtship and marriage of William and Amanda was like a fairy tale.

Estelle Hayes 8:25

Not very believable and pretty damn short.

Charlie Incarica 8:28

In 2018, Amanda Putnam tweeted she and William were soulmates. Her social media was soon replete with tales of the two attending gallas, eating out, and even weighing small objects together. She told reporters that they were in each other's company all the time, because they quote, really liked doing it. She told friends that her relationship was just like Romeo and Juliet, confirming the suspicion among her inner circle she'd never read the play. As for William, he was typically mum on the topic. He would on occasion invite a reporter to sit down with him, but it soon became clear that for William, this was just a good excuse to indulge his passion for sitting. As for the idea of these two famously feuding families finally burying the hatchet, both Amanda Putnam and Alice Hart went on record as saying it was about time.

Estelle Hayes 9:20

Think of it like this. She was running for governor that year, and suddenly Putnam Pudding donates $10 million to her campaign? That's one giant fuckload of puddings. Look, Amanda Putnam was no dummy, and Alice Hart wasn't either. Her campaign needed an infusion of cash, and Amanda knew having a mother-in-law as a governor would likely be very good for business.

Charlie Incarica 9:55

The wedding took place on June 15th at the Governor's Mansion, where Alice had been living since earlier that year. Everything seemed perfect. But was it all as perfect as it seemed?

Estelle Hayes 10:07

Obviously not. She ditched him for two other people like six months later, they know that already.

Charlie Incarica 10:34

But was she basing this on more than the fact he was upset about their separation?

Taylor Branigan 10:39

I found out William Hart, despite being soft-spoken, had a violent temper. In fact, he had several altercations, but his mother was always able to get him out of any jams. He had no police record, but cops talk. What's more, he had threatened several co-workers with, you guessed it, a knife.

Charlie Incarica 10:57

This was disturbing to hear on a couple of levels. Not only was William Hart, obviously, a deeply troubled soul, but if Alice Hart was cleaning up his legal messes, this once promising advocate for the people had become corrupt too. Wow, I'm surprised to hear Alice Hart would circumvent the law like that.

Taylor Branigan 11:16

She had been an immensely powerful figure for nearly 30 years at that point. And you know what they say. Power corrupts.

Charlie Incarica 11:23

Right. Spider-Man. I'm sorry? That's a quote by Spider-Man, right?

Taylor Branigan 11:28

No, Lord Acton, I think.

Charlie Incarica 11:31

Didn't Spider-Man say something like that too?

Taylor Branigan 11:33

I really have no idea what we're talking about now.

Charlie Incarica 11:37

But I was right. He said, with great power comes great responsibility. Or someone in the movie did, which is close enough. So Taylor Branagan had a dilemma. She had good reason to investigate William, but couldn't really let anyone know that she was doing it. At least not yet. Because if she were going to go up against Alice Hart, she knew she'd only have one chance. Meanwhile, Chief Ebner continued to be ridiculed by the press and public, and, well, pretty much everyone, as someone who is in over his head.

Chief Ebner 12:11

The complete blood and DNA tests have come back, and all of them have confirmed these samples are, in fact, blood and DNA. And trace amounts of hot sauce, but I'm told that's perfectly normal in this type of situation. Uh, any questions?

Charlie Incarica 12:24

Did the test show any blood or DNA that isn't from one of the victims?

Chief Ebner 12:28

I'm very glad you asked that, because I never thought to ask that. I'll try to remember to ask and uh get back to you on that one.

Charlie Incarica 12:36

The coroner released the bodies to their respective families, and plans were made for a joint funeral service the following week.

Taylor Branigan 12:43

This was great news, as far as I was concerned. It afforded a unique opportunity to observe not only who attended the funeral, but to gauge their behavior at it. I was excited, especially because the chief let me do this without him because he said he found funerals creepy.

Charlie Incarica 12:58

But then. It was awfully convenient timing for Governor Alice Hart.

Taylor Branigan 13:06

She shut down the entire state with the most extreme restrictions in the country.

Charlie Incarica 13:11

Deputy Sheriff Branagin was crestfallen. Seeing no other option, she decided to show her hand and ask William Hart to come in for virtual questioning. I mean, come in virtually. The questions weren't virtual, obviously. She asked to Zoom with him the following day, but a family representative reached out to postpone, as his doctors had ordered strict limits on his amount of screen time. They set the date for March 17th, but on the morning of, his family reached out again, informing her as it was St. Patrick's Day, and that William had recently converted to Irishness, it would be a First Amendment violation.

Taylor Branigan 13:48

They were clearly stalling, but I felt I had to tread carefully.

Charlie Incarica 13:54

Finally, on March 20th, 2020, he answered her Zoom call. Several things from that interview left her uneasy, and a few of them were related to the murder.

Taylor Branigan 14:05

He couldn't account for his whereabouts the night of the murder, saying that he had only spent most of the night consoling himself by sitting. But later he claimed he had been up until after 1 a.m. weighing guitar picks. And yet when I asked him a few minutes later to remind me what he was weighing, he had clearly forgotten what he said. So in what I felt was a panic tone of voice, he answered that he had spent most of the night weighing monopoly pieces. His family sent over a copy of his weighing journal the next morning, and sure enough, it had both guitar picks and monopoly pieces listed. But I felt that was dubious, to say the least.

Charlie Incarica 14:38

Did you share your thoughts with Chief Ebner?

Taylor Branigan 14:41

I did. And after I was able to explain what the word dubious meant, he agreed to give me more latitude to investigate William Hart, though obviously he didn't use the word latitude.

Charlie Incarica 14:51

But Taylor Branigan wasn't content to focus solely on Amanda's husband. She also had suspicions about her brother.

Taylor Branigan 15:00

Teddy Putnam also seemed like a logical candidate.

Estelle Hayes 15:02

Teddy had almost ruined that company. And when Amanda stepped in, she saved it. They were technically both CEOs, but no one treated Teddy with much respect, and it bothered him. It would bother anyone, of course, but Teddy had a reputation for not handling things well.

Taylor Branigan 15:19

I was torn about whether Teddy was capable of actually killing his own sister. Not because she was family, but because it required a basic degree of competence and follow-through, which everyone knew weren't strengths of his.

Charlie Incarica 15:31

She isn't overstating here. In 2004, in the most infamous example of his lack of commitment, he announced a new family philanthropic initiative, Pudding Pals, a summer camp where terminally ill children would visit a specially outfitted ranch to meet some of their favorite celebrities, while continuing to receive world-class medical care. He worked diligently throughout the winter to ensure 75 children were enrolled free of charge, even going so far as to arrange and pay for their transportation from all corners of the U.S. But by April, he'd lost interest. When the shuttle bus he'd arranged to transport the children from the airport to the ranch arrived at the address of the ranch, they found that not only were there no celebrities on hand to greet them, but there was also no medical staff either. And the ranch hadn't even been converted from a shooting range. In fact, it hadn't even stopped being a shooting range.

Estelle Hayes 16:24

That was horrible. Just horrible. Those small, sick children crying and trying their best to hobble or limp back to the bus, which peeled off at the first volley of gunfire. Those little angels, just picturing them having to lie flat on the ground until nightfall breaks my fucking heart. Thank God those kids from the Christian youth group snuck out there that night to get stoned and screw, otherwise, those babies might have died.

Charlie Incarica 16:56

There was even a brief boycott of Shady Grove Pudding, though that was clearly an inappropriate way for people to channel their frustrations. Why deny these traumatized children the consoling mouth hug that only Shady Grove Pudding can provide? Hadn't the children suffered enough? Shady Grove Pudding, the best friend you'll ever have.

Jingle Singers 17:15

When you want a pudding that you love, open up a cup of shady grove.

Estelle Hayes 17:21

Teddy's dad, Robert, was a useless moron, but Teddy took that legacy and ran with it.

Charlie Incarica 17:28

So, Teddy perhaps had a motive and a history of making poor choices. On the other hand, stabbing three people to death feels like more work than Teddy would typically be willing to put in. But then there was this other point.

Taylor Branigan 17:42

After 9-11, Teddy had read that despite that tragedy, you were more likely to be killed by a vending machine than a terrorist. So Teddy started shooting vending machines.

Charlie Incarica 17:52

Between November 2001 and February 2002, Teddy gunned down more than 140 vending machines in the Greater Shady Grove area. Hospitals, schools, it didn't matter. Eventually, even the Putnam family name couldn't prevent some form of consequence.

Taylor Branigan 18:09

He didn't do any jail time. He reached an agreement with the judge where he had all guns removed from his home, but it was a close call. He almost went to jail for ten years. Bear in mind, Teddy was a terrible shot, so the occasional snack seeker or patient being wheeled for x-rays would get hit. After that, Teddy swore he would never use a gun again. And of course, what were the victims murdered with?

Charlie Incarica 18:31

A not gun.

Taylor Branigan 18:32

Right. A knife.

Charlie Incarica 18:34

Right, that's basically what I said. Okay. Taylor Branaghan had no shortage of theories, and no shortage of suspects. But while she was trying to put the pieces together, she was rocked by a stunning development. On March 26th, at approximately 8 30 that evening, Chief Tommy Ebner was murdered inside Shady Hot Hot Wings.

Taylor Branigan 18:58

It was. Well, I mean, to say that it was a shock is a tremendous understatement.

Charlie Incarica 19:05

I can imagine. Now you not only had no shortage of theories and no shortage of suspects, but you also had no shortage of corpses. What? That came out wrong. But I wasn't wrong. Shady Grove was shaken and shocked. And for the Shady Grove police, the mystery got more mysterious. Was this killing done by the same killer who'd done the killings previous to this killing? It seemed likely. And for the purpose of this podcast, yes. So, who would want to kill Amanda Putnam Hart? Her two partners, whose names I'm blanking on for the moment, and Tommy Ebner. To figure this out, perhaps we should start getting to know Amanda Putnam Hart a little better. Which we will next time on episode four of the murderer killings.

Jingle Singers 20:00

When you are the building that you love that you love a building, let you learn a building because you have shady love shady love.