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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Britt. And I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season. And it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now.
And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.
And I'm Britt.
You guys, there's a story out of Louisville, Kentucky, that I bet you've never heard of about a woman that you've probably never heard of. But I don't know why, because it's one of the most mysterious cases I've ever come across. A call in the middle of the night lures a woman out of her home and hours later, her body is found floating in a nearby river.
The list of suspects is a mile long and evidence keeps showing up all over town. sometimes in suspiciously planted ways. Yet, for 60 years, this case has remained unsolved. Our investigation set out to ask the question, why? And the possibilities will surprise you. Maybe it's because evidence in the case mysteriously disappeared.
It could be because some investigators on this case had ulterior motives. Or it could be because the very foundation that this story was built on might be a lie. This is the story of a woman you should know about. A passionate attorney who made strides at the height of the civil rights movement. A woman who was brutally murdered before she could break even more barriers.
This is the story of Alberta O. Jones. Alberta Jones didn't want to go out that Wednesday night on August 4th, 1965. The truth is, things had gotten dangerous for her recently. She'd taken a new job and she'd been doing civil rights work that put a target on her back. So she was being more cautious than she had ever been before.
That's why when her friend Gladys Wyckoff first called at around 11 p.m.
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Chapter 2: Who was Alberta O. Jones and what barriers did she break?
and asked her to come over, Alberta said no. But Gladys pushed. She was a hairstylist, too, and she practically begged Alberta to come over that night because the new wig that Alberta wanted was ready for her.
OK, so get it any other time.
Well. And maybe the real reason it had to be right then was that she wanted to chat about some legal trouble that she was in. Because you see, Alberta is a lawyer. That new job that she had just gotten was as a prosecutor. Oh, so good friend to have. Free legal advice. Right. So this is when Gladys laid it on really thick, like gave her a bit of a guilt trip.
She's telling Alberta like, oh, well, you've gotten snobby since getting that new job. And that must have done it because Alberta was at Gladys's house by 1130 p.m. Now, according to Gladys, they hang out at her salon that's in her house until about 1215 when they decide to go grab a bite to eat at this local seafood restaurant called Kingfish.
Chapter 3: What events led to Alberta O. Jones' mysterious death?
And then on the way back to Gladys's, they pick up the local newspaper, the Louisville Defender, because there was this article in it that like one of Gladys's employees was featured in. She was calling out racist double standards in the hairstyling industry. So once they got back, Gladys trimmed Alberta's wig, fitted it on her before Alberta left between 1.30 and 2 a.m.
And Gladys said that she watched Alberta get into her car and then Gladys herself went back inside to go to bed. Now, it wasn't until the next morning that Alberta's sister Flora and her mom Sadie realized that she hadn't made it home the night before. Like, they all lived together, and Flora and Sadie knew something was wrong pretty quickly.
Like, they knew about Alberta's fears, knew that she went out last night anyway, and if she was going to stay out, she would have called. So they phoned Gladys' house looking for Alberta, but Gladys' daughter answered and told them that Alberta wasn't there. By the way, her car wasn't out front.
And even when she looked down the street to the parking lot of Alberta's law office, she didn't see her car there either. Now, what her family didn't know was that by the time they were making these calls and by the time they were even beginning to worry, it was already too late.
That same morning, a group of boys walking along the Ohio River south of the Sherman-Mitten Bridge had found Alberta floating face down 15 feet from the shore. A coroner later found lacerations on her head and her face and scrapes on her right arm and leg. But the trauma is not what killed her.
They determined that after being beaten, Alberta was put into the river alive and she actually died of drowning. Sometime, they say, between 2.30 in the morning and 4.30 in the morning.
So pretty shortly after Gladys saw her leave.
Yes. Now, when she was found, she was still in the striped dress that she wore out that night. But her shoes and her purse were missing, along with the dentures that she regularly wore. And most glaringly of all, her car is still nowhere to be found. But over the next few days, missing items and clues begin to surface that painted a picture of Alberta's final hours. First were her shoes.
Now, the police didn't get a call about the shoes until Friday. That's the day after Alberta was pulled from the river. But it turns out they had actually been found an hour before Alberta's body was.
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Chapter 4: What were the initial findings from Alberta's autopsy?
So you see, within a week of Alberta's murder, Louisville police had set up roadblocks on both the Kentucky and Indiana on-ramps of the bridge. And they were stopping motorists asking if anyone had seen anything suspicious the night of Alberta's murder. They talked to like 222 motorists in total. And one of them, a guy named Peter Baker, said that he actually was on the bridge that morning.
He worked super early because Mr. Baker worked at a bakery. So he was in his truck on the bridge with a coworker at like 4.35 a.m. And he says that he saw a white car stopped at the center of the bridge. And his coworker, Robert Bostock, remembered it, too, though he remembered it being a little closer to the exit ramp into Kentucky.
Either way, they both remember that the white car wasn't alone out there. Pulled up behind it was a marked Louisville police car. Now, they didn't see anyone outside of the cars. And remember, it's estimated that Alberto went into the river between 2.30 and 4.30. So this was like just outside of that window. OK, by five minutes, though. I know.
But there were two other people that they found who say that they were on the bridge that morning, too, from like 4 to 4.30. And they say that they didn't see any cars. So it seems to be concluded that Alberta was already in the river at that point. And if this was her car, she wasn't in it.
Okay, well, who's that officer who was stopped on the bridge? Like, what do they have to say?
No one ever cops to it being them. If it's real, right? I mean, then they have something to hide. But what? Now, the timing is interesting to me because if she went into the river before the car was on the bridge... then why did they go into Indiana in the first place?
And why did they stop on the way back?
Right. Like, throw the shoes anywhere. Like, surely there was a more inconspicuous way to get rid of them.
Throw them in Indiana. Exactly. And, like, two cars wouldn't necessarily need to stop, like, for that, right?
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Chapter 5: What evidence was discovered in Alberta's car?
I mean, think about it. She didn't want to go out. She had been extra cautious lately. It would have been hard to get her in a vulnerable position unless she was lured out of the house, maybe by someone she trusted.
Are you saying Gladys was in on it?
I don't know for sure, but I can tell you that Alberta's family always suspected that. Her sister Flora still suspects that. Because there are some things that just don't add up. Like for one, over the years, Gladys' story of what happened the night Alberta came over kind of changed. I mean, at first she said that she watched Alberta get into her car before she went inside, right?
But in a later interview, she said that she watched Alberta actually drive away. This isn't like a huge deal. I think it could be easy to misremember some things over years. But what is a huge deal is...
is that in her original story, it was that Alberta came over, she fits the wig, they go to Kingfish, and then they come back and Alberta said that she wanted the wig like trimmed up a little bit more. She didn't like the way that like the bangs fell or something. So they went back into Gladys' house before Alberta left.
But in one of the later interviews, Gladys said that Alberta didn't come back inside her house at all after they went to Kingfish that night.
I mean, that's not like that huge. It's not saying she didn't come over at all, right?
No, but this highlights the thing that I am obsessed over. Was or wasn't there a wig? What do you mean? The whole reason Alberta supposedly goes to Gladys' that night is for this wig, right? Like, Gladys, sure, she wanted to talk legal stuff too, whatever, whatever, but she wanted Alberta to get this wig.
Mm-hmm.
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Chapter 6: Who were the primary suspects in Alberta's murder case?
You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkie.com.
And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.
We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. I think Chuck would approve.
Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that?
It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now, and I've been listening for years. I think you'll love it too. Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.
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