Ep. 2: Unchained Medley

Is it possible for a person's hair color to drive someone to murder? Meet Joseph Medley, a career criminal who just couldn't help falling in love with red-haired women-- before killing them.

Chief Detective Robert J. Barrett of the Washington DC homicide squad arrived at the crime scene and observed that the door to Nancy Boyer's ninth-floor apartment had a peephole. The red-haired, 45-year-old hairdresser must've known the person she let into the apartment on 16th street on the night of Tuesday, March 6, 1945. That was the last time anyone had seen Nancy alive.

It was the manager of the building, Mrs. Ida Soelter, who entered Nancy's apartment with a pass key on the night of Thursday, March 8, to check on her tenant at the urging of friends and neighbors. She found Nancy's lifeless body slumped against the kitchen wall. Nancy had been shot twice through the head. She immediately notified the police.

Detective Barrett was the first to arrive. He found a flattened bullet on the floor, which he believed had passed through the index finger of her left hand, indicating that Nancy had tried to shield herself. The next two shots passed through her left ear into her skull. On the kitchen table was a carved roast beef and Nancy Boyer's table had been set for two, even though she lived alone. Apparently, the victim had been slicing the roast when she was attacked.

To get a better glimpse into the personal life of Nancy Boyer, detectives interviewed those who knew her best. According to friends, some of Nancy's favorite hobbies had been betting on horses and high stakes poker games. Because of this, she often carried around large amounts of cash, and sure enough, it appeared that Nancy's drawers and closets had been rummaged through. One of her emerald rings was also missing, along with an expensive fur coat.

It was learned that Nancy had held a card game in her apartment the night before her death. The night watchman told authorities that several men and women had left the apartment at around 5 in the morning. He had overheard one man tell a friend that he'd be back shortly to have breakfast-- or to be more precise, a very late dinner, with Nancy. This man returned, and left again between 8 and 9 o'clock. 

Detective Barrett thought it was crucial to find this man, and his investigation determined his name to be Larry Fischer-- a handsome, well-built man in his early 40s with graying hair and piercing gray eyes. According to friends, he and Nancy had met only a week earlier, but they had been out several times together. Authorities presented friends and neighbors of the dead woman with several photographs of men fitting Larry Fischer's physical characteristics. All of them picked out the same man from the stack of photos, and that man they picked out was Joseph Medley, a fugitive from the Michigan state prison. And, as Detective Barrett soon learned, the details of Nancy Boyer's death fit Medley's criminal record like a glove.

A native of Pittsburgh, Medley had spent several years in an Arkansas prison for obtaining money under false pretenses. Shortly after his release, he moved to Michigan, where he was convicted of similar charges and later paroled. Then, in October of 1933, Medley and his pals kidnapped Louis Brooks, the wealthy former mayor of Marshall, Michigan. Medley and his gang stole $33,000 in bonds and $12,000 in cash and jewelry from the ex-mayor. Joseph Medley was nabbed in Flint while seated in a dentist's chair getting a cavity filled. He was sentenced to 30 to 50 years. On November 24, 1944, he escaped and graduated to cold-blooded murder.

He claimed his first victim one month later on Christmas Eve. A maid had entered a room at the De Soto Hotel in New Orleans and found an attractive red-haired woman naked, and dead, in the bathtub. She had registered a few days earlier as Mrs. Stafford, and the intentional drowning was pinned on the man believed by front desk personnel to be her husband, Mr. D.J. Stafford, who had given his address as Hazel Avenue in Chicago. The woman was later identified as Laura Fischer, a 28-year-old native of Austria. When the real D.J. Stafford read about the murder in his hometown newspaper, he noticed that the description of the killer matched one of his former employees. That employee's name was Joseph Medley.

Though Chicago authorities believed Medley might have returned to his old stomping grounds, that didn't prevent the murder of 38-year-old Blanche Zimmerman, whose poisoned body was discovered by another maid, this time at the Atlantic Hotel on Clark Street in Chicago. Blanche's companion, who had registered under the name of James H. Hanan of Dallas, Texas, had robbed Blanche of two diamond rings and a fur coat. Police showed hotel staff photographs of Joseph Medley and, sure enough, they recognized the face.  Interestingly, just like his first victim, Laura Fischer, and Nancy Boyer of Washington, DC, Blanche Zimmerman also had red hair.

Was this a mere coincidence? Or was there some psychological reason why Joseph Medley targeted redheads? Until his escape from prison in 1944, his criminal activities-- even the kidnapping of the ex-mayor-- had been carried out without bodily harm. So what had caused Joseph Medley to embrace murder? Surely, there had to be a motive beyond financial gain.

Chief of Detectives Robert Barrett wasn't sure, but, with a maniac like Medley on the loose, he feared he might strike again, and quickly. Barrett was more determined than ever to catch the killer, and since Medley's murder streak had crossed multiple state lines, he enlisted the help of the FBI, whose agents were able to trace Nancy Boyer's emerald ring to a Pittsburgh pawn shop, where it had been pawned for $250. At the same pawnshop, they also found the two diamond rings belonging to Blanche Zimmerman.  

On Tuesday, March 13, 1945, Dr. James Elder, a college psychology professor on loan to the War Department in Washington, was in St. Louis on official business. That afternoon, while meeting with colleagues in the Jefferson Hotel's cocktail lounge, his attention was drawn to a tall, well-built gray-haired man laughing over cocktails with a blonde woman at a nearby table. Something about the face seemed vaguely familiar. He asked his colleagues if they knew the man, but they had never seen him before. The matter was soon forgotten, but when Dr. Elder returned to Washington on March 17, he remembered that familiar face with the striking gray eyes. He went down to his basement and rummaged through a stack of recent copies of city newspapers.

"D.C. Homicide. Detective Robert Murray speaking."

"I wish to make a report," said Dr. Elder. "I saw Joseph Medley in St. Louis, Missouri."

FBI agents and St. Louis police descended upon the Jefferson Hotel. their suspect had not yet checked out, though he wasn't in his room on the seventh floor. They decided to have a look around and found Nancy Boyer's fur coat and a loaded .38 revolver. They waited.

Medley, and his female companion, returned to the room at one o'clock in the morning. Though the suspect was armed, he offered no resistance. After a brief trial in Washington on June 27, Joseph Medley was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. The prisoner, however, had no plan to resign himself to that ignominious fate.

While playing gin rummy with guards at the district jail, Medley and another convicted killer, Earl McFarland waited for their diabolical plan to take effect. When guard Oscar Sanderlin complained of feeling suddenly drowsy, Medley suggested he go lie down on his bunk for a while. The game was resumed. And then the other guard, Hubert Davis, began to yawn. His eyelids grew heavy. The inmates waited. Suddenly, McFarland grabbed the guard's right arm while Medley covered his mouth. They gagged him with a rag and bound his hands behind his back with radio wire. Then they did the same to Oscar Sanderlin.

After putting on the guards' uniforms, Medley and McFarland cut a hole in the ventilator shaft with a can opener and made their way to freedom. McFarland headed for the train station, while Medley headed for the Anacostia River. Their freedom, however, was short-lived; McFarland was captured a week later in Tennessee-- but Joseph Medley never made it out of the city. On April 3, 1946, bloodhounds tracked him to a sewer pipe near a boathouse on the riverbank. He surrendered without incident and was returned to the District Jail.

Although Medley's attorneys valiantly attempted to save his life by claiming that he was insane, a frantic last-minute plea for a delay in his execution was denied by the Supreme Court, and on December 20, 1946, the suave 45-year-old killer went to his death in the electric chair, without ever revealing the reason for his fatal fascination with red-haired women.

Throughout history, there have been countless cases of pathological hatred towards those with red hair. In folklore and mythology, red hair has been associated with evil-- in fact, the Biblical betrayer, Judas Iscariot, has been depicted in art for centuries as having red hair. Some scholars believe that red-headed males may have been used for human sacrifice by the ancient Egyptians to appease their god, Osirus.

So, what happened that made Joseph Medley harbor such a murderous resentment? Was he abused by a red-haired woman as a child, or had his heart been broken by a red-haired lover? The truth may be even stranger.

To understand the psychology behind his actions, its necessary to understand the Medley family history.

Joseph's father, Joseph Medley, Sr., was born in France and raised in the American south. He had a brother, John, with whom he had a 40-year-long feud. After a particularly bitter quarrel in the 1870s, John went west to Kansas City, Kansas, and became quite successful as a barrel maker, while Joseph went north to Pittsburgh and became a frequent newspaper blurb for petty theft and larceny. In 1901, Joseph Medley, Jr. was born. And just three years later, his parents divorced. But Joseph's mother was not a redhead, nor was the divorce particularly traumatic. 

And then, in September 20, 1906, John passed away in Kansas City. Joseph Medley, Sr., immediately departed from Pittsburgh to claim a portion of his estranged brother's $13,000 estate-- which would be valued at nearly half a million dollars in today's money. Unfortunately for Joseph, he arrived in Kansas City only to learn his brother had bequeathed the entirely of his estate to a woman named Elizabeth Foley-- an immigrant from Ireland, who, by all accounts, was instantly recognizable by her flaming red hair. Little Joseph Jr., the future murderer, would've been about 5 years old at the time, and we can only wonder if as a child Joseph was raised to believe that his birthright and his inheritance had been "stolen" by an Irish woman from Kansas City. This could very well explain why Joseph Medley turned to a life of robbery before earning his fifteen minutes of infamy as a killer of red-haired women.