Soledad O'Brien
speaker
904 appearances
45 recordings
7 series
first heard Mar 2025
last heard 28 Feb
Soledad O'Brien’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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For each one of us, it seems, the story of Mary's murder, if there's a conspiracy behind it or not, might be the perfect test case for the white Christmas effect. But like the movie where the songs performed, all the snow that made Christmas in Vermont white, it was produced on a California soundstage. It merely gave the illusion that the whole thing took place in Vermont.
But, my friends, it did not. And in the case of Mary's murder, the CIA's involvement is no more believable than all that fake snow, at least for a slew of reporters who know the story best. As questions surrounding Mary Meyer's death remain unanswered through the decades, the legacy of each woman would start to be written. Dovey Roundtree would go on to write a book about her amazing life.
Friends and family would remember her, even if public discourse didn't, for the improbable strides she made in her professional and spiritual pursuits. But Mary? There are those who, to this day, are struggling to bring her life's work and true legacy into light. But the forces they're working against remain mysterious.
Next time, on the final episode of Murder on the Towpath. From Luminary, Murder on the Towpath is a production of Film Nation Entertainment in association with Neon Hum Media. Our executive producers are me, Soledad O'Brien, Alyssa Martino, Milan Popelka, and Jonathan Hirsch. Lead producer is Shara Morris. Associate producers are Natalie Rinn and Lucy Licht. Senior editor is Catherine St. Louis.
Music and composition by Andrew Eapin. Sound design and mixing by Scott Somerville. Fact-checking by Laura Bullard. Special thanks to Allison Cohen, Sarah Vacchiano, Rose Arce, Kate Mishkin, Tanner Robbins, and Michaela Salella. Thanks also to British Pathé for providing some of the archival audio you heard in this episode.
It had been nine months since Mary Meyer was shot in broad daylight on the Georgetown towpath. Her killer hadn't been brought to justice. For Mary's family and friends, Ray's trial was their chance for some closure. Mary was a painter, a pacifist, a vital part of a Georgetown community of artists. In many ways, her life was just beginning. Her friend, Cicely Angleton, was back in the courtroom.
Ray's mother Martha was sitting in the back of the courtroom with her church friends. When we last left the trial, Dovey had just won a big victory. She'd shown that Hantman's theory was bunk. He tried to say Ray had to be Mary's killer because there were only so many official exits off of the towpath. But Dovey had dismantled that argument.
There were countless ways a phantom killer could have escaped the area. U.S. Attorney Alfred Hantman called up Henry Wiggins to the bench. Henry Wiggins was a working man, a war veteran, an upstanding citizen. He had a lot of things going for him as a witness. After all, he was the one who'd heard the murder go down. Sure, he was a black man, and it was the 1960s.
But it was his word against another black man. And, well, the scales were tipping in his direction now that Ray looked like he was a liar. The kind of man who skipped work. The kind of man whose friend would testify against him. Henry was the prosecution's backbone. Dovey thought the car mechanic looked younger in person than his photograph in the paper. And he was young, only 24 years old.
He had been in the military police corps in Korea. When he took the stand, you could tell he was a soldier. He was confident and calm. He knew how to follow orders. Henry told the prosecutor what happened. He and his colleague were affixing a stalled AMC Rambler near the Esso station on Canal Road. No one knew whose Rambler it actually was or how it was even left there in the first place.
It was around 12.25 when they heard a scream. A scream that went on for 20 seconds. Then, a gunshot. After less than a fraction of a second, Henry said he crossed the road toward the stone wall. Then he heard the second gunshot. He looked over the wall, around 120 feet or so away, and got a glance of a black man standing over a woman's body. After he saw the killer, he ducked behind the barrier.
Then he peeked back over to get a second look. That's when he saw the man put a dark object into his jacket pocket and saunter off into the woods. Henry called the police. When they arrived, he described the man he saw. He was of medium build, around 5'8 in height, weighing about 185 pounds. Around that time, Officer Warner, one of the detectives on the scene, was walking below with a man.
They were heading toward the murder scene. Henry saw them from above on Canal Road. It was the same man he saw standing over the victim's body. That's when Henry pointed to the man and said, that's him. The prosecution was playing their hand well.
According to author Ron Rosenbaum... It was good eyewitness testimony.
After hearing Henry's memory of the events, Hentman brought out several pieces of clothing, shoes, a white jacket, dark corduroy pants, and a cap Ray wore that day. The district jail confiscated Ray's pants and shoes after his arrest. Wiggins testified they were the exact clothes he had seen on the man standing over Mary Meyer. Handman had all the pieces in place.
Now he was putting it together for the jury. He pointed to Ray and asked Henry if that was the man he saw standing over Mary's crumpled body. Yes, sir, Henry said. This is Murder on the Towpath, a story of two incredible women who never met but whose lives became forever intertwined by tragedy. I'm your host, Soledad O'Brien.
This episode, we take you back into the courtroom, where we finally hear the verdict of Ray Crump's trial. Dovey approached the wooden bench. It was her turn to cross-examine the star witness. She seized on a phrase Henry just said to the courtroom, that he only got a glimpse of the killer. She asked him if he remembered saying that. Yes, he did. Dovey spotted a weakness in Henry's testimony.
Because earlier that day, Henry told Hantman he was sure the clothes the officer brought out in front of the courtroom were Ray's. Here's Bob Bennett again. You'll recall he was the clerk to the judge.
And Henry had just said he only got a glance of the killer. She brought on the questions. If Henry was looking at the murder scene, 120 feet away behind a stone wall, could he really know he was looking at the exact same clothes? She went one by one with each article of clothing. She held up the pants. Was he positive these were Ray's dark corduroy slacks? Yes, Henry answered, he was positive.
What about the cap? Was this the cap Ray wore? Yes. How about these black shoes? Yep, that's correct. Dovey zeroed in on the shoes, because lots of men wear black shoes, it's pretty hard to tell the difference unless you look closely at the details. Henry admitted he couldn't tell what kind of design the black shoe had from where he was standing. Dovey emphasized this to the jury.
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