This podcast series revisits the life and very tragic death of a Redmond, Oregon woman whose gruesome murder has gone unsolved for 40 years. Can you help bring a killer to justice?
On October 2nd, 1978, Mary Jo was at the Pastime Tavern in Redmond, in the company of two men. On this particular Monday night, the trio attracted the ire of the establishment’s resident blackjack dealer, Harry Wall. Wall claimed that Mary Jo and her companions owed him money. After reading the report, which contained details of Harry’s threats, it seemed that his anger could be enough to implicate him as her killer...or at least make him a strong candidate. Did he have an alibi for the window in which Mary Jo was murdered? www.takenpodcast.com
At 8:12 on the morning of April 30th, 1979, Pacific Power & Light worker Bob Gilbert was performing his daily ritual of raking the grates; he did so using a 20-foot long metal rake to remove any debris from the screening in front of the dam’s turbines. Bob was accustomed to pulling up leaves and dead fish during his raking, but on this day, he found something that would set in motion one of the biggest shocks of Bend, Oregon's short history. www.takenpodcast.com
It took one month from the time the first body parts were discovered at the dam until police – through dental records, like Leo had hoped – were able to positively ID the victim as 49-year-old Mary Jo Templeton. www.takenpodcast.com
As compelling as Penny Wilcox’s story was, it just didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me from a logical standpoint. Because if I were the one who’d pulled the trigger, my first thought wouldn't have been to stay behind and dismember the body, it would’ve been to get the hell out of there. www.takenpodcast.com
Joseph Fischer told police that he would drink two quarts of whiskey a day, then find people to kill who reminded him of his mother. He despised her, of course, and once said if he could dig her up, he’d make soup out of her. While on his self-professed killing spree, Fischer stated to authorities that he had committed murders in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Washington, and Oregon. www.takenpodcast.com
There’s endless laughter, tears, and affection from Templeton’s family and friends. And then – from police reports – there are the accounts of domestic disturbances, public intoxication, and criminal mischief. www.takenpodcast.com
It takes determination, it takes passion…but it also takes a little bit of luck. A lot of these cold cases…people sit at their desk and they’ll wait for that phone call to come in to crack the case. They’ll wait for that tip instead of getting off your ass and goin’ and knocking on doors…and that’s what needs to be done. You generate the lead. You don’t wait for the lead to come to you. All cases are solvable. A forty-year-old case is no different. You just have to keep pushing and you push through until you get that breakthrough. www.takenpodcast.com
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