VOICEOVER: The Black Tapes is in part an exploration of belief and the search for truth, and in part a profile of the founder of the Gottlieb Institute, professional skeptic Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. Our story is progressing in order, week by week. So, if you’re a first-time listener, welcome to the show! Go start at episode one. Don’t worry. I’ll wait.
(Familiar theme music fades in)
From CTC Studios and the WGBH Podcast Network, welcome to the Black Tapes Podcast. I’m Newt Geiszler.
(Theme music plays: acoustic guitar, church bells, a faraway female voice.)
NEWT: Welcome to episode four. The response we’ve gotten to our first few episodes has been fabulous. Please keep the messages, emails, voicemails, and tweets coming. We love it. And so do our producers at GBH. Remember where funding comes from, kids.
Among the queries, cheers, criticism, and love letters to Dr. Gottlieb, we’ve gotten a lot about the death of Dan Penrose and his missing painting, Il Sorriso Capovolto. We’re continuing our investigation. We’ll update you as soon as we have anything.
Our other search, for the missing Vanessa Gottlieb, has a bit more traction. Among our listener messages about her, we’ve gotten a few tips. We’re looking into those. We’re even looking into hiring a PI to investigate further. In the meantime, we spoke to her parents about her disappearance, and we’ll have that interview later in this episode.
NEWT (VO): This week, we’re taking a little trip south to the town of Coventry, Rhode Island.
(sound of engine from inside a car, other cars passing on the highway.)
NEWT: So, tell me about this case. What’s in Coventry?
HERMANN: (clears throat) The Festival of Paine.
NEWT: Uh--come again?
HERMANN: Festival of Paine--that’s Paine with an e. So named for the haunted house it celebrates.
NEWT: (teasing) Allegedly haunted house.
HERMANN: Of course--pardon me. The famously, allegedly haunted Paine House. The house’s compelling mythology stems from a famous exorcism that took place there in 1935. The exorcism of Zilpha Foster.
NEWT: Hey, I’ve heard of that. That was one of the cases that The Exorcist was based on.
HERMANN: (impressed) Yes, it was.
NEWT: (cocky) I know my horror movies.
HERMANN: How unsurprising.
NEWT: (laughs) Tell me about this festival.
HERMANN: Well, every September, on the threshold of autumn, Coventry jumpstarts Halloween fever by throwing this festival. The locals set up a number of haunted houses, give haunted hay rides, and hold a large, costumed scavenger hunt. It’s quite the tourist attraction.
NEWT: Sounds like a pretty good time. I’m sure that’s not why you want to go.
HERMANN: There is something of a mystery surrounding this historical exorcism. There is a murder associated with it. Zilpha had been exhibiting troubling behaviors for some time, and when they finally called in the exorcist, he was unable to (dubiously) “get” the “demon” “out.” Apparently, it was too powerful. Shortly after the failed exorcism, a girl named Jane Cromwell Mather, who knew Miss Foster, was found dead. Quite brutally murdered. Her neck had been twisted all the way round. Zilpha was blamed for this murder, and she was institutionalized.
NEWT: Yeesh. No other suspects?
HERMANN: Apparently not. That’s one question I have for the local historian. The consequence, however, is that the Coventry Paine Festival is known for its... distinctive costume gimmick.
NEWT: (pause) ...No.
HERMANN: Yes, I’m afraid. Festival-goers wear their costumes backwards, so that their head appears twisted round 180º.
NEWT: Dude. That is dark.
HERMANN: Quite.
NEWT: What kind of town turns a murder into a festival?
HERMANN: The festival is actually a fairly recent tradition. It was started in the ‘80s. Since then, the Zilpha Foster myth has expanded from a dark chapter in smalltown history to a depersonalized, money-making ghost story. Ghost sightings are reported every year. I get calls every September. So I’m interested in the town narrative surrounding this myth.
NEWT: You want to know who’s making the money.
HERMANN: That’s right.
NEWT: Well I’m interested in these ghost sightings. You said people see... Zilpha? The murder victim?
HERMANN: The murder victim, Jane Cromwell Mather. They say they see a ghost, wearing a nightgown, with her head on backwards.
NEWT: (intrigued) Freaky.
HERMANN: (crisp) Absurd.
NEWT: (humoring him) Of course, it’s probably just other festival-goers in costume.
HERMANN: As you say. That is most likely.
NEWT: And I always say the most likely explanation is the simplest.
HERMANN: (chuckles)
NEWT: So, this isn’t a black tape, then? Just a regular case?
HERMANN: No, just a regular case. Unless we find something surprising today.
NEWT: I’ll take that as a challenge.
HERMANN: If you insist.
NEWT (VO): Dr. Gottlieb wasn’t lying about the popularity of the festival. The little town was packed. We crossed the covered bridge into town, wound through the oak and maple forest full of Audubon trails, the trees not quite starting to turn for fall. The closer to the town center we got, the more signs we saw. It seemed like every street had a haunted house on it. Bands of costumed visitors floated like ghosts up and down the streets. They were all very enthusiastic. And sure enough, their costumes were on backwards. It was like walking into a weird college costume party about which I had not gotten the memo.
(street sounds)
NEWT: Hey--excuse me?
WOMAN #1: Yes?
NEWT: Are you visiting for the festival?
WOMAN #1: No, I’m from here. But I come out every year. It’s fun.
NEWT: And what do you think of the ghost of Jane Cromwell Mather? Real?
WOMAN #1: Oh, definitely real. I’ve seen her!
NEWT: You have?
WOMAN #1: Oh, yeah. Twice. Once while I was driving. It was [expletive bleeped] terrifying.
(separate clip)
WOMAN #2: The backwards-facing ghost is totally real! I came all the way from Pennsylvania to see her. Like my costume?
(separate clip)
MAN #1: Oh, nah. The festival is just an excuse to get [expletive bleeped] up.
(separate clip)
MAN #2: No, I don’t believe in all that gar--oh my god, she’s behind you!
(separate clip)
MAN #3: I know she’s real. I saw her myself.
NEWT: Yeah?
MAN #3: Yeah. So I was asleep one night.
NEWT: Happens to the best of us.
MAN #3: And then I just, like, wake up. For no reason. No sound or anything. I must have sensed something... I got up, and looked out my window. There she was. Standing in my yard. I swear my heart stopped. Her back was to me... and then she turned... but only her head... it turned all the way around and she looked right at me. I almost [expletive bleeped] my pants dude.
NEWT (VO): I was actually surprised how widespread witness claims were. Almost half the people we spoke to said they had seen the backwards-facing ghost before.
I caught up with Dr. Gottlieb at the Coventry Library. He was getting a history lesson from the archivist there, Alanna Guth.
GUTH: (older woman, a bit cranky-sounding) You’re right about the festival distorting the story. The version you may have read online or heard (disdainfully) out there, those versions get a lot of it wrong. It’s like a game of telephone. I brought out the newspapers from ‘35 for Dr. Gottlieb here. You can take a look too.
NEWT: Thank you. Do you mind if we make some copies?
GUTH: These originals are delicate. I have copies. I’ll print them for you.
NEWT: Thanks.
HERMANN: I’d appreciate copies as well.
GUTH: Certainly.
(interlude music #2)
GUTH: As you can see here, the papers didn’t talk about much else for a while after. Nor did the townspeople.
NEWT: I can imagine. A town this small...
GUTH: It shook everyone up. I wasn’t born yet, but my mama was a young lady. She used to tell me all about it. Such a fear over the whole town.
NEWT: Did she know Zilpha Foster, or Jane Mather?
GUTH: She knew Jane from church. They weren’t friends by any stretch, but in a town so small, it was hard not to know each other.
NEWT: And Zilpha?
GUTH: I don’t think you couldn’t rightly say anyone really knew Zilpha. She kept to herself. Mama said she was always a little strange.
NEWT: How did Zilpha and Jane know each other?
GUTH: They were neighbors. Their families lived next door to each other. The way my mother told it, they didn’t know each other well. Like I said, Zilpha kept to herself. And that father of hers was a piece of work. He kept her shut in as best he could. What he didn’t do to alienate her from the rest of the town, she did herself.
Mr. Foster was a church man. I’m a Catholic myself, but he was, you know. A Catholic. No one knows what strange behavior of Zilpha’s set him off, but somehow he got the idea in his head that his daughter was possessed.
NEWT: So you don’t believe she was really possessed?
GUTH: Mr. Geiszler, it was 1935. Whatever she had, they had no way of diagnosing it, never mind treating it. My mother thought she had hysterics. I think it could have been manic depression, or something as simple as an anxious disposition. Hell, it could have been her monthlies. Any out-of-the-ordinary female behavior would have set him off.
Regardless of the trigger, next thing we know, he locked her in the attic--this we know from the Mathers next door--and calling the priest. Next thing they know she’s climbing out the bedroom window, holding a sheet like she’s about to jump.
NEWT: The neighbors saw this?
GUTH: Yes. And it was Jane who ran next door to tell Mr. Foster what his daughter was doing. He busted open the bedroom door and yanked Zilpha back in.
They say she was incoherent from that point onward. That was when he called the priest. We have several accounts of the exorcism: from the priest, his assistant, and the housemaid. They say it took all three of them plus Mr. Foster to hold her down.
Father McEwan said later that he never saw anything like it, not before then and not after. He said she was so strong she lifted the housemaid and her own father with one arm and threw them off. He said the demon possessing her was so powerful he did not have the holy words to cast it out. He called it the Griogori. They were in there all night. When the dawn broke, she was the same as ever.
NEWT: God.
GUTH: I’m afraid He had nothing to do with what happened next. Father McEwan told them he needed some air. They kept Zilpha tied to a chair in the parlor. Father McEwan went for a walk down the road, past the Mathers’ house. As he walked back, he passed the Mathers’ house again, when a terrible scream came from the back garden.
Father McEwan opened the gate and dashed around behind the house. Mrs. Mather was on her knees in the grass, screaming. Her daughter Jane, was hanging dead, with her arms all tangled in the clothesline, stretched out like she was about to fly away. Her back was to them, but her head lolling faced them--the wrong way round.
NEWT: Wow. That’s horrifying.
GUTH: Well, that wasn’t all. After all he’d just seen--the power of the devil, as I suppose he believed it was--Father McEwan rushed back to the Fosters’ house.
NEWT: Was Zilpha still there?
GUTH: She was. This account, we have from the assistant. Father McEwan came rushing in, to use their telephone. By then, it was commotion on the whole street. Father McEwan was busy, so his assistant went to check on Zilpha. He went back to the parlor to check on their prisoner, slowly opened the side door. There she was, sitting, like they’d left her. She was bent forward, and in profile, all he could see was her hair. For a moment, he was afraid she was dead.
He opened the door and started to come in. But it was then he noticed that something was wrong. She still had the rope on her wrists, but he saw that it was untied. He could see her ear, poking through her hair, but there was something strange about it.
Then she turned her head, and he saw that her face was pointing backwards. Her neck turned and turned, a quarter turn until she looked straight at him. Her body never moved. She smiled. Her mouth was full of blood and splinters. She leaned forward, and spit it all onto the carpet.
It was a clothespin.
HERMANN: Good god.
GUTH: Now, he was the only witness to this particular event. I’d bet he was just as sleep-deprived and hysterical as can be after a night of fruitless exorcising.
NEWT: I’m sure the doctor here would agree with you.
HERMANN: Was the clothespin verified by anyone else?
GUTH: The assistant swore it up and down, but when the police arrived, they couldn’t find it.
NEWT: So it was his testimony alone that incriminated Zilpha?
GUTH: His testimony reinforced the already unfavorable circumstances. A hysterically deranged girl in the middle of a fit, left alone for ten minutes, and next thing you know, the neighbor is dead? Not to mention the fact that it was the same neighbor who tipped her father off--to whatever she was doing, suicide or escape or what have you. People saw a revenge motive there. It was enough. She was never tried. They just carted her off to an institution and left her there til she died in 1969.
NEWT: ...Not exactly the basis for a family-friendly festival, if you ask me.
GUTH: Nor me, Mr. Geiszler. But by the ‘80s, most of the people who remembered the murder in 1935 were either dead or senile. No one remembered or cared about the fear and darkness that gripped this town.
HERMANN: Do you know who got the festival started? Was it municipal, an organization, a person?
GUTH: You know, I actually don’t. But the town clerk’s office would have those records. That’s over on Warren. Steve should be able to help you.
HERMANN: Is he in today?
GUTH: I can call him up for you.
HERMANN: I’d appreciate it.
(sound of drawer opening, office supplies being rifled through)
NEWT: I heard from a lot of folks that they’ve had sightings. Ghost sightings. Have you ever had one?
GUTH: Have I ever seen the ghost of Zilpha Foster? No, I haven’t.
NEWT: Zilpha? I thought the ghost was supposed to be the victim, Jane.
GUTH: (still rifling) Not the way I hear it.
NEWT: Interesting.
HERMANN: (delicately sarcastic) Very.
NEWT: (clears throat) And Ms. Guth, do these sightings always crop up around the festival?
GUTH: They started cropping up when the graves were robbed. Ah. Here it is. (Clack of something being placed on a desk. Beeps as Guth begins dialing her phone.)
NEWT: Graves?
GUTH: Yeah. I tell you, Dr. Gottlieb, I don’t know who started the festival itself. But it was around the time those punks desacrated the ceme--Hi, Steve? Yeah, it’s Alanna. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Listen I got a pair of fellas down here from Cambridge with some questions about the festival. Yeah. A professor and a... What did you say you were, Mr. Geiszler? A novelist?
NEWT: (chuffed) A journalist. Do I seem like a novelist?
GUTH:(resumes talking on phone) Mind if I send ‘em your way?
HERMANN: (aside to Newt) A graphic novelist, at best.
NEWT: (delighted) Ouch!
(clack of phone hanging up)
GUTH: He says to come on over.
(sound of chair as Hermann stands)
HERMANN: Thank you, Ms. Guth. You’ve been extremely helpful.
GUTH: Oh sure, sure. You come back round this afternoon for those copies before you take off.
HERMANN: I will. (...) Newton?
NEWT: ...I have a few more questions. You go ahead.
HERMANN: Oh. Certainly.
NEWT: Sorry. Grave robbing is a little more enticing than the town clerk.
HERMANN: Of course.
NEWT (VO): But Alanna Guth’s grave robbers weren’t the last twist in the story. Stay with us after the break.
-----------SPONSOR BREAK #1-----------
⏮ ⏯ ⏭
GUTH: Here it is. (sound of packet hitting table) May 1982.
NEWT (VO): I was looking at a newspaper headline from 1982. EXORCIST GIRLS DESECRATED. Subheading: Foster and Mather’s Graves Dug Up Overnight. No Suspects.
NEWT: What happened?
GUTH: Both girls were buried in the churchyard--Jane in ‘35, and Zilpha thirty-four years later. In ‘81 someone dug both graves up. The police found empty caskets. Not a trace of their remains left.
NEWT: How... thorough. Did they ever catch who did it?
GUTH: No sir.
NEWT: And you said it was around this time that sightings started to go up?
GUTH: Sure. But it was around this time that the festival started, too.
NEWT: So the murder was at the forefront of everyone’s minds.
GUTH: Exactly.
NEWT: But you believe all the ghost sightings are nothing more than power of suggestion.
GUTH: I’m skeptical, Mr. Geiszler. I’ve seen unholy things in my time. But I’ve seen too much of God’s power to believe He would let such a thing happen. He would never abandon such a troubled spirit to wander the earth, to go on troubling the living. No, I know He would let Zilpha Foster be at peace. There’s no such thing as ghosts.
NEWT: ... Not the line of rationalization I usually hear.
GUTH: (...)
NEWT: I’m sort of interested in speaking to someone who does believe in the ghost of Zilpha Foster. Do you know anyone with a credible story?
GUTH: ...Not exactly credible. But I do know someone who would want to talk to you.
NEWT (VO): Alanna put me in touch with a young man named Ritchie Tolman. He told me over the phone he had video proof that he was very eager to share. Well I was very eager to see it. Maybe, if we were lucky (or, depending on your perspective, unlucky), I’d have a black tape for Dr. G after all.
TOLMAN: Here is good?
NEWT: Reading you loud and clear, Ritchie.
TOLMAN: Great. (sound of shifting)
NEWT: Excited?
TOLMAN: (sniffs) Nervous. But I want to tell my story.
NEWT: Well go for it. Describe for us your encounter with the ghost of Zilpha Foster.
TOLMAN: I can show you, like, I have video--
NEWT: That’s okay, I’d rather get it in your own words first.
TOLMAN: Okay. (clears throat) So I was driving home from work. I work at the school, the uh, the high school. I work nights. I’m a custodian. So I’m driving home. It’s probably 1ish. I drive the same way every night. I’ve never seen her, before, you know, the Foster girl. I just heard stories about her. Since, like, I was a kid. Most kids have the boogeyman, you know. In Coventry, we have the Foster girl. She’ll crack your neck, spin your head right around. Lots of my friends say they see her, but I was never scared of her. I mean, I love horror movies. I love The Exorcist. Like, I’m all over that stuff.
So I’m driving home on Harland, same as I do every night. I see someone walking by the side of the road. Then I realize it’s a girl, in a dress. I slow down a little as I get close. She’s walking the same direction I am, and I’m like, gonna offer her a ride, 'cause it’s late, and it’s not safe. You know. For women. But then I see that she’s in a nightgown and she has that stringy dark hair, you know, that Grudge hair. Naturally my mind goes right to Zilpha Foster. So I slow down and pull out my phone, of course.
NEWT: Of course.
TOLMAN: Right? So I pull out my phone and slow down. I start filming. I’ll show it to you. When I’m about 20 feet behind her, my headlights hit her. That’s when I see she’s walking backwards... Or at least... her arms and legs are moving like she’s walking backwards. That’s when I knew I was right. Cause I was looking at her front but all I could see was hair. No face. I have a real fight-or-flight moment cause I’m like, do I keep slow and keep filming, or do I punch it and get the [expletive bleeped] out of there?
NEWT: Right.
TOLMAN: Right. Well, I stayed steady until I got even with her, and I could really see. See her. Her head really was on backwards. I couldn’t believe it. Or, at least, it was forwards. And her body was backwards. Or at least, it was, until I pulled up next to her, and her head jerked around to look right at me. Dude I swear my heart never jumped like that. I thought I was gonna have a heart attack. I gunned it.
I lost control of the camera for a moment, but then I got it back up and pointed it at my rearview. You still have a pretty good view of her, cause she didn’t stop there. She started chasing me. Her arms and legs were spinning backwards, flying around like they were supposed to be going the other way... But God, could she move. And her eyes... they were so wide... watching me like that... I sped down Harland and when I hit the last curve, I braked just a bit. The red light lit her right up. She was slowing down. That was the last I saw of her.
NEWT: Wow. That sounds absolutely terrifying.
TOLMAN: You bet your [expletive bleeped] [expletive bleeped] that [expletive bleeped] was.
(beat)
TOLMAN: You wanna see that video?
NEWT: Yeah dude, you bet your [expletive bleeped] I do.
(sound of truck engine, slightly distorted through laptop speaker. Muffled, Tolman’s voice is audible, keeping a nervous commentary.)
NEWT (VO): ...The video was basically as Ritchie Tolman described. I couldn’t do it any more justice. Watching it, I felt a terrible chill. It was the way the figure moved. Ritchie was right. It ran wrong.
(Muffled, sound of Tolman’s voice, more panicked; distant bleeps as his monologue turns to cursing. Sound of engine revving and tires screeching.)
But it ran fast. It kept pace with the car for at least a few hundred yards.
What I couldn’t really see on Ritchie’s laptop was any face. It certainly looked like a girl in a nightgown, with long dark hair. When she turned to face him from the passenger window, it certainly was startling. But the way it’s framed, all you can see is her shoulders and head. We can’t really see if she’s “backwards” or “forwards.”
(background audio fades out. Interlude music #3 fades in.)
It occurred to me then that Dr. Gottlieb wouldn’t have approved of me listening to Ritchie’s story before viewing the footage. Now that I had heard Ritchie’s story, I was biased. He would have said to look at the evidence first. The cold hard facts.
But I suppose I don’t really see it that way. I don’t see Ritchie’s video evidence as cold hard facts. I see it as part of his experience. I mean, any account is subjective. I’m a journalist, I know that. But that includes film and photography too. There is always a choice of what you show and how, even unconscious or unintentional. There is always something you leave out of frame.
I tried to clear my mind. I watched it again. This time, I didn’t see a backwards head. I just saw a woman, running strangely.
But I also saw something else.
(audio clip plays again, sound of truck engine, Tolman’s voice)
NEWT: Is this the rearview?
TOLMAN: No, this, this is out the back window. I turned my camera around.
NEWT: Okay--stop it, right--there. (audio stops.) What are those?
NEWT (VO): We’re looking at a frame towards the end, when Ritchie, like he described, hit the brakes. The figure is bathed in red light. It slows to a jog. But something was wrong. Not just its strange, pale limbs.
TOLMAN: Can’t you see? Those are her eyes.
(interlude music #1)
NEWT (VO): I was beyond excited to show this to Dr. G. I tried not to remember the last time I brought him “proof.”
TOLMAN: Before you go--there’s one thing you got wrong.
NEWT: What’s that?
TOLMAN: You said I saw the ghost of Zilpha Foster?
NEWT: Do you think it isn’t her? Do you believe it’s the ghost of Jane Mather?
TOLMAN: No, no. It’s not a ghost. It’s her. It’s Zilpha Foster.
NEWT: What?
TOLMAN: (voice dropping) No one dug up that grave. She got out by herself. And now she walks the streets of Coventry. It’s her. The real her. That was a real, solid woman I saw. If I’d hit her with my truck, she would have dented the hood.
NEWT: But what about Jane Mather? Why would she climb out of her grave--
TOLMAN: She was the sacrifice. Zilpha snapped her neck in a deal with the devil, and she traded Jane’s life for eternal life for herself. Eternal life on earth. All she had to do was wait it out 30 years in that asylum. That's nothing, compared with the time she has now...
NEWT (VO): That threw me a bit, I admit. It was a good story, for sure. Zombie Zilpha has guest starred in a couple of my nightmares since then. But I didn’t know how plausible it was... even for me.
HERMANN: He said Jane was a sacrifice?
NEWT: Yeah. That was where he kind of lost me.
HERMANN: I see--so satanic sacrifice is the limit of your credibility. Good to know.
NEWT: (laughs)
NEWT (VO): Dr. Gottlieb and I reunited at the clerk’s office.
HERMANN: You said this young man showed you a video?
NEWT: Yes. But I’m saving that for last, because I think I really have something this time. You totally shot me down last time, but I defy you to explain this one. I dare you to.
HERMANN: It'll be my pleasure.
NEWT: (laughs) Tell me what you found.
HERMANN: Hans Olaf Alfven.
NEWT: Who now?
HERMANN: Hans Olaf Alfven, local entrepreneur. He moved into town and bought the Coventry Hotel in 1974. For the next seven years profits dwindled, until he was at the point of bankruptcy. Then Alfven came up with a nifty idea to boost tourism. A spooky myth, turned into a festival.
NEWT: Hmm.
HERMANN: He dubbed it the Festival of Paine, after the house. He threw the inaugural party in 1981. The first party was a semi-flop. He had some takers, but not many. The next spring, his fortunes changed.
NEWT: May 1982...
HERMANN: That’s right. After the grave thefts, festival attendance spiked. It’s grown every year since then.
NEWT: So have reported sightings.
HERMANN: Naturally.
NEWT: So you think Alfven was responsible for the graves? Just to stir up interest in his weird festival?
HERMANN: It worked, didn’t it?
NEWT: Still, sort of a long con.
HERMANN: He didn’t have an alibi for the night of the grave desecration. The police interviewed him. I read the record.
NEWT: But?
HERMANN: Well, they didn’t have any other evidence. The only thing they had on him was a motive. Nothing even circumstantial, not even a footprint.
NEWT: There were no footprints at the cemetery?
HERMANN: Rainy night. They were all washed away.
NEWT: Hmm.
HERMANN: You don’t buy it?
NEWT: It’s plausible, but you have the same problem the police did. No proof.
HERMANN: Yet.
NEWT: Okay. But I, on the other hand... have the proof.
HERMANN: Of course. Your video.
NEWT: Yes. Yes. Get ready.
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NEWT (VO): I pulled up Ritchie Tolman’s video.
(recorded sounds of truck engine, Tolman yelling)
NEWT (VO): I watched Dr. Gottlieb closely. His face was impassive. As usual, totally unreadable. When the video ended, I asked him what he thought.
NEWT: Well?
HERMANN: It’s interesting. You would want to have it forensically verified, of course.
NEWT: Right. But you can get us in touch with the right people.
HERMANN: Certainly. Tell me, what is it that stands out to you about this video?
NEWT: Well... a few things.
NEWT (VO): I had an ace in my hand. I wasn’t about to give it up right away.
NEWT: The way the figure moves is disturbing. So that’s unusual.
HERMANN: Unusual, but not supernatural. She could have a physical disability.
NEWT: But the figure also runs really fast. It keeps up with the truck for a few hundred yards.
HERMANN: The truck isn’t going very fast. Probably not more than 30.
NEWT: The fastest man in the world can’t run more than 30 miles per hour.
HERMANN: Well this person isn’t. They’re falling behind, even before the truck brakes. It’s hard to say how fast they’re running. It’s fast, but certainly not an impossible speed.
NEWT: Sure, okay. But if that’s so, we have to discount the disability theory. She can’t be physically disabled and a champion sprinter.
HERMANN: So she walks strangely. You’ve skipped the most obvious possibility, which is simply that she’s faking it.
NEWT: Faking? As in walking weirdly, to freak strangers out?
HERMANN: It’s possible. Especially in a town with this mythos. It’s also possible the driver was in on it with her. This could be a well-planned hoax.
NEWT: (equable) I guess, I guess. But there’s one thing I don't think they couldn't have faked.
HERMANN: And that is?
(sound of clicking. Audio plays again, briefly, then cuts off.)
NEWT: This.
NEWT (VO): I froze it on the frame I discussed with Ritchie earlier. The one towards the end, where she’s slowing down in the middle of the road, lit up red in the brake lights.
HERMANN: What about it?
NEWT: These little lights.
HERMANN: Yes.
NEWT: In her face.
HERMANN: Yes.
NEWT: Her eyes.
HERMANN: Yes.
NEWT: But Hermann.
HERMANN: Yes?
NEWT: Humans’ eyes don’t reflect light.
HERMANN: (...)
NEWT: ...What? Nothing? No rationalization..?
HERMANN: (...)
NEWT: Hermann. Why are you looking at me like that. Tell me. I thought for sure I had you on this. Tell me. You have to tell me.
HERMANN: You got this video from a man named Richard Tolman.
NEWT: ...Oh, my god. You’ve seen this before.
HERMANN: I was wondering if you would find him. (sound of shifting in seat) Yes, Mr. Tolman sent me this video last year. I found it quite interesting.
NEWT: Did you verify it?
HERMANN: I did. It hasn’t been tampered with. Most of it is ordinary, or at least, explainable. But the eyes, as you so astutely pointed out...
NEWT: So you can’t explain that?
HERMANN: Not yet.
NEWT: (realizing) ...And that’s what you came down here to look into. So, you lied to me! This isn’t just an ordinary case. Zilpha Foster is a black tape case.
HERMANN: Yes.
NEWT: You sneaky bastard! Oh my god. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you interview Ritchie?
HERMANN: I’ve interviewed Mr. Tolman twice before. I did not find him a very credible or helpful witness. And I was curious if you would find him on your own. If you hadn’t, I would have shown you the tape when we returned to Cambridge.
NEWT: But I did.
HERMANN: And I’m very impressed. We should be going now. It’s at least a two-hour drive at this time of day.
(sound of chairs being pushed out, both standing up)
NEWT: (bemused) I can’t believe you tricked me.
HERMANN: I didn’t expect you to find Mr. Tolman in a single day. I predicted a follow-up.
NEWT: You underestimate me, Doctor.
NEWT (VO): I wasn't really sure what to make of Dr. Gottlieb's deception. He said he was planning to tell me either way. I had lied to him by omission once before, so I suppose it was fair game. It was also quite funny. So I will give him that. But it made me think, or realize, he still didn't trust me much.
And did I trust him? Was he telling me everything? I already knew the answer was no. This didn't do much to increase my confidence.
All this was on my mind when, back in Boston, I sat down for a Skype interview with his former in-laws.
NEWT: Can you hear me?
OLDER MAN: (tinny through laptop speaker) Yep.
OLDER WOMAN: Yes!
NEWT: Great. Let's get started.
NEWT (VO): Mr. and Mrs. Leland live in Vermont, outside Burlington. They retired there from New York City, which is where Vanessa grew up.
NEWT: So, as my producer explained, we’re working on a story about Hermann Gottlieb.
MRS. LELAND: Yes.
NEWT: We’d like to get your comments on him, and your daughter’s disappearance back in 2005.
MR. LELAND: He did it.
MRS. LELAND: Well, we don’t know that.
MR. LELAND: We do.
NEWT: What makes you believe that, Mr. Leland?
MR. LELAND: Do you know he’s an atheist?
NEWT: Um...
MR. LELAND: A godless man. It’s no wonder he killed her.
MRS. LELAND: Terrence!
MR. LELAND: What?
NEWT: What?
MRS. LELAND: (to Newt) We don’t believe she’s dead.
NEWT: You believe she’s still alive? After ten years?
MRS. LELAND: We got a postcard from her a couple years ago.
MR. LELAND: Not this nonsense again, Jean. (To Newt) It isn’t from her. It was mailed to us by mistake.
MRS. LELAND: (arguing) It’s her handwriting.
MR. LELAND: It’s unsigned. And it’s not her handwriting. What did the police say?
MRS. LELAND: You know who you sound like? You sound just like him.
MR. LELAND: (belligerent) Him who?
MRS. LELAND: Hermann.
NEWT (VO): Mrs. Leland emailed me a photo of the postcard. It’s a beautiful wetland scene, with birds taking off into a sunset sky. On the front it says Greetings from the Everglades. The back is postmarked Homestead, Florida. The message, printed in neat pen script, is “Thinking of you.” There is no signature.
NEWT: Thank you for sending me the postcard, Mrs. Leland.
MRS. LELAND: Of course, of course.
NEWT: So, like you said, Mr. Leland, the card is unsigned. It has your address on it, but not your names. Mrs. Leland, could you tell me what makes you think it’s from your daughter?
MR. LELAND: (grumbling) It’s not her.
MRS. LELAND: (ignoring him) Florida was her favorite place in the world. Ever since she was a kid.
MR. LELAND: No, when she was a kid, and we took her to Disney World. She was nine years old, Jean.
MRS. LELAND: It was her, Terrence.
NEWT: Mr. Leland, in 2005 you publicly stated that you thought Hermann Gottlieb was responsible for your daughter’s disappearance. You still believe that, correct?
MR. LELAND: That’s right, son.
NEWT: How can you be so sure?
MR. LELAND: The evidence points right to him. No one else. He was the only one with her at the time. She was planning on divorce.
MRS. LELAND: Well, we don’t know that for sure.
MR. LELAND: She asked me to find her a lawyer.
MRS. LELAND: No, that was for something else. She found out something about him. Some secret.
MR. LELAND: Then that's what it was. And he wanted to keep her quiet.
NEWT: What kind of information was that, Mrs. Leland?
MRS. LELAND: I don't know. She never told me.
MR. LELAND: I mean, what kind of husband vanishes for five days right after his wife goes missing?
NEWT: He--he disappeared?
MR. LELAND: For five whole days. Does that sound like the behavior of an innocent man to you, son?
NEWT: Did Gottlieb ever explain where he'd been?
MR. LELAND: You’d have to ask him yourself. By the time he came back, we had already hired a lawyer and taken an... an adversarial position.
NEWT: I see. Well, thank you for taking the time.
MRS. LELAND: I can send you more of Vanessa’s handwriting samples, if you like. To compare to the postcard.
MR. LELAND: Jane, the police already--
NEWT: That would be very kind of you, Mrs. Leland.
NEWT (VO): We did have a handwriting expert look at the samples. The results were inconclusive. We’re continuing our investigation into Vanessa Gottlieb’s disappearance, and we’ll have more on it next time. We’re left with the question: what makes a husband disappear for five days right after his wife goes missing?
Next time, I ask him that very question. We’ll have that, and a new black tape case, next time.
I’m Newton Geiszler. It’s the Black Tapes Podcast. See you next time.
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