Wicked Wanderings
Delve into the enigmatic realms of the mysterious, unearth tales of haunting encounters, explore the chilling depths of true crime, and unravel the threads of the unexplained. Join us on the Wicked Wanderings Podcast for a riveting journey through the realms of the unknown and the haunting mysteries that linger in the shadows.
Wicked Wanderings
Ep. 73: Unraveling Springfield's Dark Secrets
Exploring a local murder case from 1954, the episode delves into the disturbing story of Kenneth Chapin, who killed two neighbors, one being a young babysitter. Focusing on the complexities of mental health and the questions surrounding his motive, the hosts engage listeners in a critical examination of understanding violence in our communities.
• Background on the Springfield case and listener inspiration
• Discussion of the book "A Thread of Evidence"
• Insights into Kenneth Chapin's mental health and the murders
• The tragic deaths of Lynn Ann Smith and Stephen Goldberg
• The complications of insanity and sanity in the trial
• Reflections on the emotional impact on the community
• Call for readers and listeners to engage with local stories
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Wicked Wanderings is hosted by Hannah & Courtney and it's produced by Rob Fitzpatrick. Music by Sascha Ende.
Wicked Wanderings is a Production of Studio 113
did you ever have like a booger in your nose?
Speaker 2:you just want to pick, but like it's not socially appropriate to pick it even worse when it's a hard booger yes, and you know it's in there, because you can, like, feel it on the outside of your nostril, and then you're like, could I just go to the bathroom real quick, pick this shit out and then wash my hands. I do think that a lot. Actually. I'm not gonna lie to you. Girl okay, girl Okay.
Speaker 1:Hi, I'm Hannah and I'm Courtney. Join us as we delve into true crime, paranormal encounters and all things spooky.
Speaker 2:Grab your flashlight and get ready to wander into the darkness with us. This is Wicked Wanderings.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I have an idea for an episode. Hannah, that is actually not my own episode, okay, bear with me. So we're always asking you lovely folks to text us, tell us if you want to hear about something. And so I apologize because this was December 8th, but we did get a fan mail in and I'm going to read it so everybody knows, kind of, where I got the idea for the episode. So the fan mail says hey, sorry it's taken me so long to text. Y'all have been my latest binge show and I'm so excited to find something local. I'm from Agawam. Thank you, agawam. Shout out yeah, we're in Springfield.
Speaker 2:I was wondering have you heard of the case from Springfield on Daviston off Sumner Ave, trigger warning that kids are involved, where an 18 or 19 year old young man with schizophrenia murdered two of his neighbors? It happened in 1954 and there's a book called a threat of evidence by joanne connor's wade who tells the story as someone who lived in the neighborhood at that time. This is a forewarning given in the text, so it is not our opinion, but someone who wrote in, who is anonymous, wrote in forewarning. I know you love your books and this is not the most well written. With all due respect, you'll know what I mean if you choose to read it, but it's worth the story. So can say I went on amazon, I bought the book, I read the book and I will say it seems like the author is a local author who is more independent, and or when she wrote the book at that time she was more independent so meaning like she had self-published and things like that.
Speaker 2:So it is a little bit different if you are an avid literature lover. It's not maybe the best literature review, but it does weave an interesting story and it is based off of a true story. So if you haven't read the book which probably most people have not I want to say when I was on goodreads, one of three people who shelved it on goodreads for the year was me. So it's definitely not a very well-known or popular book, but it is based off of a true story. And again, it was located in Springfield, mass. I think for myself, one of the hardest parts about the read was being so local to the area for Springfield. I knew what they were talking about, but the author chose to use names that were like just barely off, like one letter off use street names that were like one barely off.
Speaker 2:What I will say that I did find entertaining was the big e made a very, very short, notable mention. So the date of the murders was september 25th and the date of the arrest was october 8th. So we're right in biggie territory, right? So the big e, if you're familiar with springfield, did make a mention and I did think it was a little entertaining that she didn't choose to name it something different. So like everything, like even springfield was called something else in the book. So if you're native to springfield, reading the book might be just like a keep it in the back of your head like these things are gonna sound. I think she called it like springdale or something like.
Speaker 1:It's very, it's so close that you're like a springfield so do you know why the author decided to make it quote-unquote fiction and not just have it be a biography?
Speaker 2:I, I don't actually. My hunch is that because she was local, she didn't want maybe the media coverage of it. I will also say it's not my cup of tea, like if I'm gonna read something that's non-fiction, I want to read non-fiction, yeah, you know. So I was a little bit outside of my genre too, which presented its own personal challenges right right obviously not on the author.
Speaker 2:What I did think was interesting was the author who wrote the book was actually 10 years old and lived only a few blocks away at the time of of the murder. Okay, so I did feel like it was a nice connection that the author had like clearly taken that experience into adulthood and said like okay, this happened. I remember hearing about it as a kid and I think your mom actually, on one episode, was talking about uh, danny croto yeah exactly, so I think it does add a different element.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely absolutely so. The killer and I'm going to talk in their actual name. So I just used a thread of evidence as my kind of starting point, and then I did have to do a lot of my own research. So I apologize, wanderers, this episode is a.
Speaker 2:It was a little bit hard to write. I'm not gonna lie to you, just because all of the names and things were like slightly off in the book. So I had a really hard time with my own adhd brain trying to like keep straight in my head what exactly people's real name was, as opposed to their fiction based name. So the killer's name was kenneth chapin. He was 18 years old at the time of the murder and when he was arrested, chapin, is that c-h-a-p-I-N Correct?
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:And his victims were Lynn Ann Smith, who was 14 years old at the time, and then Stephen Goldberg, who sadly, was four years old at the time. Four, so I will put a trigger warning on and just say that it does involve children. If that's something that's a little bit more challenging for you to hear, or if it's a hard stop for you, then I would just a very violent crime. The book took on a role where you were getting a lot of Lynn's character, so the young female who was killed where she was like going to go babysit, and you were kind of hearing a lot more of her perspective. So from my understanding, what happened between the book and research is that Lynn was babysitting at the time. This gentleman broke into the house and he stabbed her with a bayonet 38 times.
Speaker 1:So oh, yeah at meeting a bayonet. I for some reason can't picture a bayonet in my mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's kind of like a. I know they put each other in the land of guns, I believe. Oh so, yes, okay, I want to say in this, like end wonders this is from the book it seemed like he killed the babysitter as probably his initial target or who he wanted, and then the little boy had actually come out of the room and seen what was happening so what's really interesting and not interesting in a positive way is that there were two little boys at the house that she was babysitting and he did not kill the other little boy.
Speaker 2:So this family comes home and one little boy is okay, one is dead and so is the babysitter, god. So that was in September of 1954 that all that happened, okay, so he was obviously caught and he was sentenced to death in 1955. But he actually died in prison in 1996 of a heart attack.
Speaker 1:So they kept having to put off the death sentence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they had a really hard time. From my understanding about kind of where his mental health was.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So he was pronounced sane enough for trial by several mass psychiatrists and obviously his attorney had kind of continued to keep saying like hey, like what, yeah, what can we find? And what I think is interesting is he never really provided a rationale for the murders. Obviously, his attorney had kind of continued to keep saying like hey, like what, yeah, what can we find? And what I think is interesting is he never really provided a rationale for the murders. So like he at some point, you know, came around and he didn't deny it, but he wasn't really giving you like a reason for why. And I do think again, the discrepancy between the book and reality is really hard to distinguish.
Speaker 2:Because in the book there was a lot of like for the obvious plot piece of it there. Because in the book there was a lot of like for the obvious plot piece of it. There was a lot of hypothesizing and like leading people to think things. But it really boils down to he didn't say why he did it. He really remained completely emotionless from the beginning to the end of all of the procedure. A little bit haunting seemed totally random, left me thinking like did he hurt other people or was this going to be the beginning of something?
Speaker 1:just he was only going on death row for those two murders correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what's even more messed up is and kind of like a fun fact, he was actually a pallbearer at lynn's funeral days after he killed her, because he actually knew her from school. Well shit, did they say what funeral home? I don't think so. I didn't come across that. But two weeks after the murder he confessed and he did talk to police and he had quoted and here I am quoting she screamed and I stabbed her.
Speaker 2:It was kind of like this is what happened she screamed and I stabbed her. Do you mind telling me the whole?
Speaker 1:name for Lynn again.
Speaker 2:Lynn, l-y-n-n. Ann Smith. He just kind of stuck to I have no reason for these murders. I didn't. I didn't have a rationale, which is very interesting. He was arrested on October 8th of 1954. And what year again was this? The murders were 1954. It was a pretty quick situation because September 25th was the murder and then October 8th of the same year is when he was arrested. So it was originally the sentence to death in 1955, and then they had changed it to life in prison without parole in 1956.
Speaker 1:The only reason why you want to know, because my family is very much involved with funeral homes and so okay, so her burial is at Hillcrest Park Cemetery in Springfield. Well, shit, I have pictures of her. Oh, I know. Damn. Yeah, we could literally see like where her burial site is.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, we could literally see like where her burial site is? Absolutely we could. I think what was like the most, like the biggest take home for me with this, and kind of what I found to be the most fascinating that I think is actually gonna kind of entice me to go down a different rabbit hole of research was really what constitutes insanity and in a trial and kind of, how do they decide that? Because they kind of continue to keep finding different people to try to assess him and say, hey, is he insane? Eight massachusetts psychiatrists pronounced him sane, but one person did say, I believe, that he is in the early stages of schizophrenia.
Speaker 2:They tried to prove that he was a victim of epilepsy, even though it's not necessarily related to insanity. They tried to talk about all sorts of different things that could have been the reason why I mean it comes down to for me, the two big pieces that I took away from what is a very scary case is just there's so much information that's not there. We don't have a confession from him saying why he did it. Those poor families right, those poor families are just like who is this man and why did he do this? And then the insanity part like to be to be declared sane by eight psychiatrists, I mean, and only one of them was like, yeah, maybe he had the early stages of schizophrenia this is here, it's a rabbit hole.
Speaker 2:It's certainly a rabbit hole, because now I'm going through this all this stuff on my phone.
Speaker 2:I have to say one of my biggest things and obviously you guys know that when we do an episode here, we research them and we read the book and we give you guys thorough information. I feel like I was so stuck with this one but I wanted to finish it because obviously I read the book and it was a recommendation from a wanderer and the case is certainly complex in its own way, but I felt like as much as it was super complex, there was just not a lot to find on it yeah, because I was even hoping that the republican at some point because I feel like the republicans been around for a while would be able to give us information.
Speaker 1:I'm not seeing any republican articles on it and that's obviously.
Speaker 2:I looked for that one too and I I mean I you can find things on like random places, but then I'm, then I don't trust the information.
Speaker 1:That's kind of my problem.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think we should go to hillcrest cemetery because I think we might have to at least pair respects and yeah, like we did with danny croto.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think that's really important, especially when we have these local cases.
Speaker 2:I did find this picture of him? I did find that, and he was just so young I mean, he was just he was just so young. You can buy that picture if you want what? Yeah, I guess that website you can buy it on, which seems kind of terrible. Yeah, I don't. I don't love that.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I think we need to go to hillcrest cemetery. I think we need because I mean they have it all mapped out and just I don't know.
Speaker 2:I think it's important for these local victims what I do have to say and I buried the lead on this one is that everyone, when I picked I picked up the book I was like, why, a thread of evidence? His mother actually gave him away with a thread. I want to say it was crochet, a piece of crocheted thread. That was when they were in the home. It was what was found at the scene and in his home, because his mom was a crafter.
Speaker 1:Oh God, mm-hmm, so I'm sorry. Wait, he was adopted.
Speaker 2:No, was a crafter, oh god so. So I'm sorry. Wait, he was adopted. No, you said his mom gave him away. His mom gave him away as the murderer. Oh, his mom is the reason he was caught, because her craft room. He had used some part of the thread on something that I'm sorry, I thought you meant like.
Speaker 1:I was like no, no, no.
Speaker 2:So when they were doing the neighborhood canvas and they had checked everybody out, they were like wait a second. And and I think they out, they were like wait a second and I think they would have. He would have gotten away with it, but one of the detectives from the story again, obviously, I'm kind of adding on this.
Speaker 2:It seemed like probably based off of the truth very closely. The detective was kind of like oh, wait a minute, that's a crafting room. We found this thread. Where did that come from? Because the thread didn't match anything in the victim's home and that's where they were like where did this come from? And so when they showed it to her to be like, hey, do you recognize?
Speaker 1:this thread. She was like yeah, sure, I have that and she could show like oh god this is where I have this interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they arrested him at school. He was arrested at the high school. What high school, I don't think they said. I think they left it as the high school that he attended.
Speaker 1:There has to be more to this. It's just too many missing pieces.
Speaker 2:And then every article you can find just always ends with when we asked him why he did it, he just said I don't know why I did it. I don't know why I did it, I don't know why I did it Crime of update.
Speaker 2:I feel like here at Wicked Wanderings we like to dissect the why. So it's really hard for me, like this one did linger with me because I was like, why, why, why, we want that rationale so badly and you can't always find it Right. So I mean I'm happy that our wanderer pointed it out to us. Shout wanderer, pointed it out to us. Shout out, wanderer, I'm sorry I'm calling you wanderer, but they're anonymous texts. So if you have an article or a story or a person you think you've heard about, definitely send it our way. Um, we love learning more and certainly it was shocking to me that this was right here in springfield and I didn't know about the book.
Speaker 2:But it is hard to find local books too, I find about true crime, like even if you go to barnes and noble or whatever. This book wasn't at barnes and noble, I checked yeah I'm assuming because it's a smaller read and maybe it wasn't but we appreciate the you know the recommendations we really do and if anybody has more information, uh, or if you can narrow something down further than I did. Please reach out to me if you know me privately, or or through the the texting on our podcast, because I am stumped by this one completely.
Speaker 2:But yeah, threat of evidence. I would say, if you are interested in this case reading the book as a starting point, or if you started to do your own research and then want to read it, I would have to caution you that if it is a book that you're just reading for enjoyment and just for a story, that maybe you would take a pass. But if you're looking at research for this particular case, it will definitely get you going on the right side, and no disrespect to the author.
Speaker 2:Obviously, you know just not my cup of tea. Not every book can be your own cup of tea, but it'll definitely get you started on this case, if that's what you're looking for.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, Courtney.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank. If that's what you're looking for. Well, thank you, courtney. Thank you, thank you for taking this on and again.
Speaker 2:Thank you, wanderer. This is the most short-winded I've ever been on an episode. I don't think I've ever not had this much to say. I just keep.
Speaker 1:There's just nothing there, short ones aren't bad.
Speaker 2:Short ones aren't bad.
Speaker 1:No, I mean, not everybody can be like Ted part episode.
Speaker 2:Listen, there's a lot to say. There's a lot to say about Bundy, but anyways, wanderers, until next time. I think Hannah's going to come to us with the next episode.
Speaker 1:Yes, we're going to talk about Body Farms.
Speaker 2:Body Farms. I know Rob's excited about Body Farms. He's been talking about Body Farms for like six months. I know I'm so sad that he's not going to be here to hear about it. Anyways, thank you, Hannah. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Speaker 1:Bye. Thanks for listening today. Wicked Wanderings is hosted by me, hannah, and co-hosted by me, courtney, and it's produced by Rob Fitzpatrick. Music by Sasha N. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to leave a rating and review and be sure to follow on all socials. To leave a rating and review and be sure to follow on all socials. You can find the links down in the show notes. If you're looking for some really cozy t-shirts or hoodies, head over to the merch store. Thank you for being a part of the Wicked Wanderings community. We appreciate every one of you. Stay curious, keep exploring and always remember to keep on wandering. Thank you.
