Hi, Crime Junkies, I'm Ashley Flowers.
And I'm Brit. And the story I have for you today is one that I actually found in our own backyard, like actually steps away from where we're recording right now.
I had never heard of it, but I do not know how because it's one of the weirdest, twistiest, bizarre cases that I have come across.
One with questions that still people will have, but there is no family around to ask the questions anymore.
So it's up to us Crime Junkies to ask.
Who killed Malvina Cruts?
It's a brisk Wednesday afternoon on January 29, 1958, when Charles Cruts pulls up to his home in the Meridian Kessler neighborhood in Indianapolis, right around 5 p .m.
after like a typical day of work.
And when he pulls up, he's a little taken aback because his wife's 1950s Buick isn't around.
So he walks into his house and sees his 10 -year -old son Charles sitting on the couch watching television and he says, hey, buddy.
Charles goes by buddy, by the way, he says, buddy, where's your mom?
And buddy says, well, I think she's out delivering newspapers.
I came home from school today for lunch and she told me that she was going to take care of my route.
And I don't know if that's like a normal thing for her to offer to do or even if getting to go home on your lunch is a normal thing.
Like wasn't when I was again, 58 though.
But buddy makes it sound like their lunchtime combo was routine, except there was something weird about it.
He tells his dad that the entire conversation that they had about this paper route, even his mom telling him, you know, eat the sandwich that I made you, it's sitting on the kitchen table.
All of that is through the bathroom door like he never actually laid eyes on his mom.
And then he adds, I don't like the looks of the bedroom.
What bedroom is he talking about?
He's not entirely sure, but this is like a teeny tiny house.
So he goes to where the two bedrooms are.
I've got a map of this like on the website, but it's like a bathroom in the middle of a room on each side.
And some of the stuff I'm going to mention is like in Buddy's room.
Some of it is in Charles and Malvino's room.
But I think there's like toys and stuff in Buddy's room.
I know there's a pillow or pillows and a blanket on the floor.
Again, I think in his room, maybe in the other one, but it's basically not how Buddy would typically leave his room.
But like I said, he's looking at the room.
He's probably not even in it.
And if you're standing in between the two rooms, you're looking at the bathroom.
And there's something about the shower curtain that catches Charles' eye.
It's closed and they never leave it closed.
So he grabs one end and he begins to pull back the curtain.
And right away he sees her.
His wife, Malvino, is laying on her side submerged in water.
It looks like she'd almost been twisted to fit in the tub.
Like her knees are bent.
Her head is by the faucet.
And though her top is on and she's wearing both of her shoes, her pants are missing and her underwear is rolled down to her knees.
So Charles immediately calls the police and when investigators arrive, they find 41 -year -old Malvino Cruts.
She is still warm. So is the bathwater.
It's like lukewarm.
And she doesn't appear to be in rigor mortis.
So they're thinking she couldn't have been dead for that long.
Now they can see what looked like small cuts on her forehead and her scalp.
And they think that there was probably a struggle in the bathroom because the towel holder on the wall is broken off.
So hold up, how long has Buddy been home for?
I mean, did he just come in before his dad got there?
No, so Buddy came home during lunch.
Again, he ate a sandwich, talked to his mom.
Presumably around noonish?
Then he left to go back to school sometime shortly after that.
And then he comes back home after school.
I think he got there around 3 .30.
And when he got back that second time, I think he just thought his mom wasn't home.
The car's not there.
Yeah, so he just sat down on the couch and started watching TV.
And that's where he spent the next hour and a half till his dad got home at five -ish.
And he is a 10 -year -old boy.
So he probably tried to find his mom, called out for her, didn't see her.
Maybe he popped into his room, noticed that there's weird stuff in his room, but he's also not going to clean it up because he wants to watch TV.
I don't know. You have a boy.
I don't know if it's...
I mean, it's not even a boy.
It's just like 10 -year -old kid.
Like, kind of still oblivious to the world.
They're kids. So anyways, when the police are there, according to the Indianapolis Star, detectives take a look at Buddy's room or maybe the parents' room, depending on which source you read and whether weird stuff is.
And they say that it's more than just in disarray.
Because in addition to the toys being out of place, I'd mentioned that there's also two pillows in the room.
So one is on the floor between the bed and the wall.
The other is on the floor near the foot of the bed.
And both of these pillows have blood spots and mucus stains on them.
According to the Indianapolis News, there's a chenille bedspread laid out on the floor, which looks like it was used as a palette to, like, lay down on, I'm assuming.
And then there's also a pair of wet pants that they're pretty sure belong to Malvina.
They're torn and, like, tossed on the floor.
And I can't confirm, but I don't know if Charles saw her wet pants when he was looking around the house, like Charles, her husband, or even Buddy.
Because to me, that's more than just, like, disarray.
That's, like, weird.
Yeah. But that's not all they find.
So detectives also find a yellow lead pencil that is branded White County R -E -M -C Monticello, Indiana.
And there are a few hairs on this pencil that are attached, like, near the point of it.
And it's not clear exactly where they find this other hair.
But apparently, there is another hair found on a bed in the crut's home.
There's so much muddiness between, like, what's in Buddy's room, what's in the parent's room, if anything.
It's super, super messy.
But I kind of go back to, like, I know it's even a 10 -year -old, but, like, blood on the pillows, wet pants.
But if you're, like, not expecting your mom to be home, she said she was going to be gone this afternoon, right?
She's, like, doing your paper route.
Maybe she's doing it because she's also running errands.
Like, is it also weird that, like, your kid comes home and you, like, don't go to the bathroom?
Like, I don't know.
Or maybe no? Like, he's 10.
She made a sandwich.
Everything's taken care of.
Like, she kind of killed her.
That's lunchtime! I'm talking about when he's home from school.
I don't know. Like, I just think that, like, him not noticing these things isn't wild.
He's like, okay, looks literally in the room around him.
His mom's not there.
His room's a mess. His mom's gonna take care of it.
That's also 1958. Okay.
Or his room's a mess, but his mom's not home to see it, so he doesn't have to do it until she asks him.
That's fair. That is a 10 -year -old.
And, like, I'll just do whatever I want until she forces me to clean it up, whatever.
Okay. It doesn't seem that bonkers, but, like, do we know are these hairs on the pencil Melvina?
It's, like, that feels like we can decide that, right?
I mean, they're not sure at this point.
I think, though, that this pencil becomes important because she had those tiny scratches on her scalp and her forehead, so they're thinking that maybe the pencil is what caused that, and then, like, the hair...
Because there's hair stuck to it versus it being, like, a struggle with the towel rack or whatever.
Right. So what they end up theorizing is they're like, okay, if she's attacked by someone, maybe this person had this pencil in their front pocket, and then it fell out.
So they're thinking it's her hair, but, like, again, what are you going to tell in 1958?
Now, when they remove Melvina's body from the tub, they realize that there are a couple of shag rugs underneath her that apparently belonged in Buddy's room.
Like someone maybe used the rugs to, like, drag her into the bathroom, get her into the tub.
So that's kind of what they're thinking at first.
But here's what's wild.
So her autopsy ends up showing that Melvina was alive when she was put in the tub.
What? Yeah, they don't list her cause of death, but the coroner does say that she had water in her lungs.
And it's his belief that she was hit in the face and then put in the tub while she was unconscious but still alive.
So she drowned? Theoretically.
Like, I cannot find a place that specifically says her...
That says that spells it out?
Right. But a lot of reporting does say that she apparently drowned.
I just, like, can't attribute it to...
Anyways. Now I do know that the autopsy says she had blunt force trauma above her left eye.
So to the coroner, it doesn't look like she just slipped and fell.
Like, again, you got the pencil, you got the pants in the other room.
Like, they're calling it a murder.
Yeah. I would say the rugs underneath her.
Like, why are they there if this was an accident?
I have so many questions about the rugs.
And you know, I go back to the pants.
Like, one of the big questions was the motivation here.
Like, was she sexually assaulted?
You have her underwear that's downed by her knees.
So an assault is kind of the only motive that makes sense considering the scene and considering that what I haven't told you is everything else is accounted for with the exception of her car.
Right? So like her purse is there.
Any valuables? She had, like, allegedly $260 in cash in her drawer.
That's still there, too.
But here's the problem with the theory about her being assaulted.
We can, like, really dive into this later, but it's a little hard for me to wrap my head around the order of things because, right, he comes home, she's locked in the bathroom.
We know she drowns, but her pants are wet in Buddy's room.
How do they get wet if they aren't in the bathroom with her?
Or if she was assaulted in Buddy's room, then she's assaulted after she goes in the tub, but she drowns.
But then why are the pants, like, not with her?
Right. So, again, sexual assault is the motive that they're looking at, but I think there's things that maybe point away from that because their physical exam actually ends up not conclusively showing sexual assault.
And they do some kind of chemical test, I believe, but that's going to take a while to come back.
For now, they just are still gathering things at the scene.
So they've looked at the rooms.
They've gathered what they can there.
They've looked at the bathroom.
So next they move to the kitchen dining area, which is right next to the primary bedroom.
And behind the kitchen door that goes to the basement and to the backyard, they discover a towel that has some blood on it.
Now I don't know how much.
I don't know if it's something that's, like, a lot of blood, cleaned up blood, a bloody nose, a cut that someone, like, tried to clean up.
And again, if you're getting a little mixed up on, like, where things are, we found this hand -drawn layout published in the Indianapolis Star that will help you kind of...
I told you the house is small.
You can even describe it for people probably in a better way than I did.
Well, and, like, I guess great we found this towel with blood on it, but it goes back to exactly what we were just talking about, right?
Like, when is this happening?
How is this happening?
What all is happening?
Right. Like, I... If Buddy comes home at noon, I imagine she's in the bathroom because the guy's, like, with her.
That's the only thing I can think why she wouldn't come out of the bathroom is because somebody's there with her and she's trying to, like, protect her son.
Like, do you know...
Let me go in here. I can get him away after lunch.
Right. But then she comes back out.
I don't know if he, like, sees his room.
Right. I guess maybe the pants are already there and wet.
I don't understand how the pants get wet and then get to Buddy's room.
Get out of the bathroom.
That's the part that's driving me nuts.
But anyways, they collect this towel.
They go through the house.
They're checking for fingerprints, especially in the bathroom and the bedroom, on the door, and they are actually able to grab a few promising ones that they hope they can compare to anyone who's been in and out of that house, which is their next step.
They got to find out who was coming in and out of that house.
And the best person to talk to is the last person who saw her alive.
When they bring Buddy in for questioning, he tells detectives the same story he told his dad and officers at the scene.
That when he first got home for lunch that day at noon, he didn't actually see his mom.
All of their communication was through the bathroom door and she stayed in there the whole time he was home.
Buddy says that his mom was still in there when he finished his lunch, which would have been around 1230, though he's not exactly sure on the time.
But he went back to school.
And then he says that he got back home at around 3 30 p .m.
He saw that the room looked strange and messy.
His mom isn't home.
So again, he just like plops down and watches TV till his dad gets home.
And Buddy's version of events is actually backed up by a delivery man who showed up at the house a little afternoon like he did every week on Wednesdays to deliver milk.
But he says this time instead of Malvina answering the door, Buddy answered it.
And when detectives go and talk to this delivery man, he says he knocks on the door like 1210.
Buddy answers. And since it wasn't Malvina, he's like, OK, what type of milk does your mom want?
And Buddy's like, OK, let me go check.
But Buddy doesn't walk out of sight.
Again, if you go look at the map of this house, it's like just a little rectangle.
And he walks back and it looks like Buddy is talking to his mom through the door.
And then he comes back, gives the guy his mom's order.
Delivery guy leaves.
And there's like nothing important except for the fact that when this delivery guy was leaving or when Buddy's talking to his mom, he makes note that Malvina's car is in the garage, which we know was missing by the time Charles comes home.
Right. So could the delivery driver hear Malvina like through the door?
Was it that close? I don't think he actually heard her.
I think he just hears Buddy like, hey, Mom, what do you want?
On the side of the conversation.
Right. OK. But I don't think we have to question was she, you know, even alive then because there is someone else who did hear Malvina's voice after 1230 when Buddy would have gone back to school.
So detectives find two of Malvina's friends, Mildred and Florence, who say that they came by the house after the milkman.
And they have this super weird encounter with someone.
Like it's super strange.
So here's the scoop.
Apparently, and just for context, so the Cruts house had caught fire a month before in like mid -December.
So there have been a lot of repairs going on.
And Malvina had been bugging her friends to come by and see the updates.
Well today is the day that they want to do that, except they call ahead like polite women of society would do in 1958.
And it's like 1245 when one of them rings her.
But instead of Malvina answering, it's this man on the other end of the line who she doesn't recognize.
And immediately when I first read that I was like, oh, no, like I would be all the red flags would be up.
But she just thought it was a repairman because I guess that it had happened before because there were so many people coming in and out with all the updates, which is going to make narrowing down those fingerprints even more difficult.
Oh, yeah. So Mildred says when this guy picked up, she asked to speak to Malvina, but he just kind of like stuttered a little bit.
And she says she could hear Malvina's voice in the background, asking the man to tell Mildred something.
But there is conflicting reporting on what that something was.
So one news source reports that she heard something like, tell her not to pick me up today.
And then I saw in another place that Malvina says, tell Mrs.
Warning that I have to take Buddy to school and I will pick her up at 130, which are very different statements.
Yeah. And either way, she didn't want Mildred anywhere around, but like also not helpful.
Yeah. But I feel like we're missing the even bigger piece because like there wasn't talk of picking her up.
Everything I read was about her coming just to see the renovation.
There were plans to like all of them go somewhere else.
Yeah, that part's weird to me.
And if I'm not missing anything, if we're not missing contacts, part of me wonders if she was trying to say something code.
Yeah. That was just like, what is she talking about?
That's not what was supposed to happen.
But like, should I come there?
I don't know. Anyway, I don't think either Florence or Mildred were suspicious or anything, but they are pushy because they're like, okay, well, she invited us.
I know your home. So we're just still going to come over.
I don't know if they said that out loud or just like thought that, but I know that they get in the car and they make their way over to Malvina's house and they get there an hour later.
So we're talking like one 40, one 45 ish.
And here's what's wild.
As they come up on the house, they see Malvina's car like backing out of the driveway.
I mean, they literally have to stop to let the car back out.
But when they take a closer look, it isn't Malvina driving.
It is a man. And after watching the car leave, the two women, like they pull in, they go to the back door, which was left slightly open and they just like wait inside for Malvina.
Okay. They just watched her car.
They let her car out of the driveway with someone else driving it.
They go around to the back where the door is open, already open and like waltz inside, plop down.
And they're like, okay, where is she?
I'm going to need you to be a better crime junkie friend to me if this ever happens.
Like they weren't looking for her?
No. So I don't know if they thought that maybe she was in the car.
Like they don't say anything about seeing her.
But then they know she's not at the house.
I don't know. Like I know that, but I'm saying, like, I don't know if they thought she was gonna like pop right back.
Like if she was in the car, you would think she would have seen her or maybe someone was borrowing her car.
Again, to me, it makes no sense.
I'm trying to make sense of something that does not make sense.
Yeah. But here they are sitting in the house and they wait for like 20 minutes.
Oh my god. Yeah, sitting in like the kitchen for 20 minutes.
And after 20 minutes, they finally get tired of waiting.
They write her this note.
They put a coat on a chair, this coat that they wanted to give to Buddy.
And then they left.
So okay, is a theory that she was in the car, like leaving when they pulled up or that she's already dead in the bathtub?
I don't think anyone knows, even to this day, but I think the assumption based on the timeline is that they're thinking she was likely dead in the bathtub feet away from them.
But she's not cold at five like hours later.
I don't know how hot the water was.
I mean, like if you think about the bathtub water, if they put hot water in there, it would keep her warm.
And the water is lukewarm by the time they find like a reverse ice cube.
So it'd be like three hours, right?
Like it is a decent amount of time, but we're not talking noon when Buddy is home.
I mean, we're talking 145 when they get there.
I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know. But we do have this like weird time now, right?
Where you've got Buddy leaving.
We've got this call that comes in from her friends where we know she's alive and talking in the background.
And then we've got like an hour before they actually come and they're just seeing the man leave.
So what happens in that hour specifically?
Detectives want to know that.
And they actually get a good lead the next day, which is January 30th after someone calls in that her car has been found.
Her Buick has been abandoned just a little over a mile from her house.
According to an Indianapolis star article, her keys are nowhere to be found.
But inside the car, they do find a rag that is smeared with yellow paint.
They think it was used to wipe the windshield.
I don't know why they come to that conclusion or if there's like marks or yellow paint.
It's just like I don't even know if that's relevant, but it's just something that I read and now you know.
Got it. Now, there are some early reports that claim her car had been parked in this area the day before her murder.
But that's quickly disproven based on their conversations with the milk delivery person and Malvina's friends.
I know you said the rag is like question mark, question mark, windshield wiper thing.
But the yellow paint, is there yellow paint in the house?
Great question. Initially, I couldn't find anything about yellow paint, but I was going through the source material trying to track down the importance of the rag.
I found a single article that mentioned that the crux's kitchen walls were painted gray, but that the trim was yellow.
So maybe. So I don't know if it's the same yellow.
I was going to say maybe like one tiny part of their house is yellow.
Maybe not. I don't know.
Also, maybe she could have put it there as her rag.
Like it could be nothing, right?
Possibly. Yeah, I mean, it could be hers.
It could just be like something she keeps in her car.
Or it could belong to somebody who put her car there.
I don't know. And did they test any of the stuff around the house?
Like the blood on the pillows, the mucus stains, the hairs on the pencil.
I couldn't find anything about the blood or mucus ever being tested.
The hair was using like a spectrograph test.
And the only thing I found was that the hairs are human.
They likely came from a woman, but they can't tell if they belong to Malvina.
And then to me, more important than the hairs is like the pencil itself.
Yeah. But they're never able to determine where, not where it didn't come from, but who it came from.
I mean, I assume it's the killers because Charles says it's not his.
Mildred claims that the pencil she used to write that note to Malvina was her own.
She puts it back in her purse.
I don't know if they asked Buddy or not.
But his uncle, who would have been like Charles's brother, says that Buddy could have picked one up after a trip to Winamak, which is like two hours north of Indy.
So maybe he did. I mean, like every person that they talk to when they actually narrow in on this pencil, it kind of becomes a needle in a haystack because detectives actually talk to the manager of the Monticello REMC.
That's what's written on the pencil.
And in reporting by United Press, the manager says that there were like over a thousand of these pencils handed out like last year alone.
So this isn't going to be their ace in the hole by any means.
And what is Monticello REMC?
It's just an electric company up in Monticello, Indiana.
This is like an hour and a half north of Indy.
So again, I don't, you know, we're from here, but I don't I don't know where Buddy was.
But it's like up in that direction.
So the pencil is a dead end.
The hair is a dead end.
And those chemical tests done on Malvina end up being a dead end, too.
Those come back and there is apparently no indication that Malvina was sexually assaulted.
Though what I'll say is that doesn't mean her attacker didn't try.
And the thing I don't know, I don't know specifically what tests were done and how would hot water affect that?
Yeah, I don't know.
But with no leads coming from the physical evidence, detectives are trying to hone in on the why here.
They look at several avenues.
They look into anyone who in and of themselves are suspicious, like sex offenders in the area.
Because despite no forensic evidence of it, detectives can't shake the feeling that her murder was motivated by sex in some way.
But even when they go down this route, there are no suspects that turn up.
So they also talk to neighbors.
According to the Indianapolis Star, there are a few nearby that have a good view of Malvina's house.
But the four closest neighbors that they interviewed tell detectives that they didn't hear or see a thing that day, except for one neighbor.
They said that they remember seeing two women, Mildred and Florence, they saw them stop in.
But then that's it.
So they didn't actually see anything helpful.
And then there were two dogs that live nearby that apparently would bark at people in Malvina's yard.
But on Wednesday, those dogs were silent.
But we know that the house was a lot of work done.
There were people in and out all the time.
They could be like getting used to that.
Maybe, but like, this has only been going on when you think about it since the middle of December was the fire.
So like a month they've been having renovations.
I will tell you this.
We have this same woman who walks her two dogs up and down our street every day.
I've lived in this house for four years.
Charlie loses his mind every time they walk by.
So maybe these dogs are different.
I don't know, like, well, yeah, I'm thinking of Birdie and like we have like two of you guys friends who come over like at least once a week and have every time like since we've had Birdie and like she's still like, wait, who are you?
Yeah, why are you in my home?
So to me, that's a little bit telling.
I don't know if maybe the dogs just weren't out.
I don't what I don't know is like, again, it's all contacts.
Were these dogs outside of so they're always out where people just not around to hear them bark.
Was there something else going on that they were paying attention?
Like was there a bunny?
Literally, I don't know.
It's driving me nuts.
But if there was someone that they were getting accustomed to, you would think it would maybe be one of the workers like you were saying.
But they're questioning every one of those, every guy who's been in and out of the house in especially the week of Malvina's murder.
I don't know if they're fingerprinted or not, but detectives are questioning them, even holding them sometimes, giving them lie detector tests if they agree, because those are pretty much gold back in the day.
And they say that they clear a lot of people just based on their polygraph results.
But for every past poly and little to no evidence to go off of each man is eventually released.
They have fingerprints, right?
Like they don't need to go off witness statements and polygraph.
That's what I was saying, though.
I don't know if they're testing the prints first and then the poly or if they're doing the poly if you pass that.
But they don't even think about testing.
I don't know what order this is going in.
I know that they're testing some people.
You also can't just like put it into a system, right?
Like matches aren't just popping up.
And if they're going to do manual comparisons, even if you do the poly and you collect them.
This is what I think if I had to like make a complete guess, which is all this is, is that they get someone to sit down.
They do a poly. They take their prints and then they would have to go and compare them.
But if someone passed their poly, it's like, well, just put that to the back of the line.
And those manual comparisons are going to take a lot of time, I would imagine.
But they do eventually put a face to a thumbprint, though.
Reporting by International News Service says that it's the print on the bedroom door that they matched to someone.
But that person ends up just getting cleared.
What? Detectives at the time don't specify who it was, but they do confirm that some of the prints don't belong to Malvina police or her family.
But that's like all they say, like no hits.
We have this one that we've matched to someone.
But don't worry about that.
Yeah, don't worry about that guy.
Again, I'm what I imagine is that he also like passed the poly, has an alibi, something you'll see.
We'll get there. OK, now there is an alleged hitchhiker that ends up on police's radar.
He's around 30 years old.
He had convictions back in Alabama.
Do we know for what?
I'm not sure. But here's the thing.
So this is the 1950s in Indy.
This was a black man.
So there was a lot of profiling happening.
And Malvina's friends who saw her car initially said when they were pulling out that it was a black man driving.
But later they admitted that they couldn't actually tell what the person's race was.
But it feels like maybe they're just like zeroing in on that detail.
And everyone's first instinct right now is to just point fingers at the nearest black person.
Pretty much. Got it.
And I mean, to add some extra context to the time period, this is all literally happening three years after Emmett Till.
So while a lot of finger pointing is happening, I think there is a little bit of like a trepidation.
Yeah, to like nobody wants to put themselves near like a false accusation.
So they're also, again, using the pollies, sending people on their way.
OK, so obviously we've talked a lot about like looking outside, people who would come in.
But does anyone look at Charles or maybe even Buddy, for that matter, like at all, like just to make sure everybody's versions are lining up?
So yes to Charles. OK.
No to Buddy. I think they're probably like not even humoring that idea.
He's a little kid. Yeah, in their mind, like a 10 year old kid isn't going to do that to their mom.
We might think differently about things today.
But in 58, Buddy's off the hook.
Dad, not so much. Dad actually starts looking a little fishy to investigators.
I don't know if this happens right away because I know all the other stuff was happening.
But I think it's when they like drill in on where he was, when he was, because they start getting suspicious of Charles when they realize that there was a few hours in the middle of the day, like the day his wife is murdered, that are unaccounted for at work.
So it's around midday, same time frame that we know she's attacked and murdered.
And they bring Charles in to ask him where he was.
What were you doing if you're not at work?
And he's like, oh, I was out taking care of some things.
Oh, cool, cool, cool.
Perfect. OK, you're good.
Awesome. Taking care of things.
Taking care of things.
So in an article from the Indianapolis Star, Charles claims that he left work at around noon to go grab some lunch at Mike's Bar.
Then he got a shoeshine.
But he couldn't remember exactly where he got the shoeshine.
And then he went to visit a friend a little bit before two p .m.
What friend I was going to tell you.
So 28 year old Charles Fleck.
So Charles lives over on the east side in this rooming house, which is basically like a shared home where people rent their own rooms.
But they like share a.
It's a room. It's a room.
It's a kitchen. I love how I just try to explain roommates to you.
We rented roommates.
I love it. Anyways, I found a source that claims that Charles Fleck's landlady can corroborate this.
She says that he left his friend's house just before three.
He apparently got back to work at three thirty p .m.
And then he's at work till like sometime after four when he needs to go home.
Wait, Charles just takes a three hour lunch break.
Don't you love the fifties?
Comes back for an hour.
Not even like a half hour.
Apparently. And then it's like, I think I've done enough here.
I'm going to head home.
Exhausted. Yeah. So he's like he's a manager for, I think it was called the Southern Transportation Company.
So I don't know if he's like making his own schedule.
I don't know if when you're a manager, like it doesn't matter what.
The rules don't apply.
Yeah. Like as long as the people you're managing are working, you can just like hang out for three and a half hours.
But it doesn't seem like a very productive work day to me.
Now, the thing that detectives ask next is like, OK, well, what are you doing with your buddy Charles Fleck?
In the middle of the day.
In the middle of the day.
Just hanging out at his shared room, house roommate thing.
But he doesn't elaborate.
He just says that they're hanging out for an hour.
But he gets home at around five, went in the back door, took off his watch and jewelry before then looking for his wife.
But the officer who took Charles' statement the evening that Malvina was discovered, because we're getting the statement later, says that that's not entirely truthful.
That officer says that Charles told him that he walked into the house through the front door, not the back door.
And to that officer, he said it looked like Charles had changed into fresh clothes.
Like he didn't look like his clothes were lived in all day.
Like, OK. Like I don't know if it's like the starchy 1958 or Sweatsink.
I mean, it's not Sweatsink, it's like the January.
But they didn't look lived in.
Right. Got it. And then here is where if you're not already like raising your eyebrows, you will.
They learn that Malvina had actually filed for divorce from Charles on January 13th.
What? And her reasoning for filing for divorce was that Charles was, quote, guilty of marital misconduct and gross and wanton negligence of conjugal duties for more than 10 years.
And quote, but a .k .a.
the whole time, like buddies in my life.
Yeah. And the one thing I'll say the first time I heard conjugal duties, I'm like, OK, yeah.
We're crime junkies, crime junkie prison lingo.
But apparently that actually has like a broader meeting.
I got like deep in a Reddit thread where people are like, it it does not just mean conjugal in the way that we know conjugal.
You're not getting the support you need, et cetera.
There's like a lack of connection and intimacy.
Yes, across the relationship in many facets, maybe.
Yes. OK, so like I feel like there's an elephant in the room named Charles Fleck.
I say, I mean, but there's nothing there's like this is just worth mentioning because if you go online and look it up, it's not that I'm ignoring it.
There's just nothing to prove that there's really, truly support the idea that anything he might have just going and hanging out with his buddy in the middle of the workday.
Shine and choose. I don't know.
But him and his wife, things were not good.
That's what you should know.
Yeah, big takeaway.
And it doesn't stop there.
So in a filing published in an article by the Indianapolis News, it also says that she was worried about Buddy's safety if Charles continued living in their house.
So she had a restraining order hearing that was scheduled for January 17th.
Apparently neither Charles or her showed up for that hearing.
I guess they say it was because they were in the midst of reconciling, but it wasn't the first time that this has happened.
Sometimes in the early 50s, Malvina had filed for divorce like this is the second time, but they also reconciled and she never followed through with it.
So early 50s, this happens.
It seems like, you know, Buddy's born early 50s.
This happens fast forward.
This happening again.
But this time when they missed it, it actually got rescheduled.
This hearing that they were supposed to go to, even if they were reconciling is just being dropped.
Right. They would have to go in and be like, OK, never mind.
Just kidding. It's not rescheduled again.
Yes. OK. But in this one source that I found, Malvina and Charles received an order to appear in court.
Wait for it. On January 30th, this is the day after she's murdered.
Yeah, she's murdered on the 29th.
For me, it's a little too suspicious to just glaze past the timing feel so specific and not just of this.
Like things are happening on this time.
Like when you think about it, their house caught fire in December.
I don't know how bad that was.
Obviously, they were still living in the home, but they needed renovations.
Then we have this restraining order talks of divorce, this final court date that she doesn't make because she's killed in her home.
Like a lot of turmoil.
There's a there there.
Yeah. At the very least, Charles cannot be completely ruled out.
So what they do is they turn to their trusty polygraphs.
They have Charles Kratz and Charles Fleck take a polygraph, which they both passed.
But in the midst of Charles Kratz's test, he tells detectives something interesting.
Charles says that since Malvina's death, he has gotten a handful of strange calls at night.
Apparently, this woman with a slight Southern accent has called Charles three different nights, but every call had come at around nine p .m.
And every time she said, is this Mr.
Kratz? And he says, yes, the woman would just hang up.
And while it seems like way too little to actually go off of or do anything with detectives feel like these calls are their answer to things because Charles passed his polygraph.
He must be all good, right?
He says someone's calling, maybe someone's involved.
Now, there is an interesting tidbit about this, but also it's not a secret tidbit.
I'm pretty sure Charles would have known this already, but Mildred, when she had originally called about coming over, she said that the man she spoke with also had a Southern accent.
So this leads detectives to be like, oh, well, this must be connected to people with a similar accent.
OK. Yeah. And like, listen, it's 58.
I have a hard time getting hold of phone records for like cases that happened in the 80s and 90s.
I don't know if they checked that or would have, but I would like to see some backup before I'm just like, well, Charles must have gotten these calls.
Right. And I know they try because the daily reporter says that they start a quote unquote systematic probe of the phone calls.
And then not that much time later, the Indianapolis police literally come out and say that they think Charles's mystery woman is in danger because she might know the identity of the man who answered the phone.
But that's only mentioned one time.
So I don't know if they like prove the calls happened.
I don't know why they would think she would know other than that she has a Southern accent.
Like we're either missing a lot or they're like really reaching.
Anyway, zero comes after this and they don't seem to go back to Charles.
By early February, detectives have two dueling theories and one is much more likely than the other.
So there's the murder angle and then there's a tragic accident angle.
Hold up. How did we get to accident?
I don't know, but police are saying there is a possibility that Malvina actually fell.
No, the coroner already ruled that out.
He did. But in another article by the Daily Reporter, one of Malvina's friends apparently went to detectives and told them that she had dislocated a disc in her back or neck or something that could put her out of commission at times.
And she says at one time, like in front of this woman, Malvina had it flare up and she actually fell straight back onto the floor.
So I don't know. I think it's something that they're throwing out because like, I don't know, they don't have anything on the murder angle.
So yeah. And then if you go to the murder angle, I think there are other theory there is that Malvina was attacked in her son's bedroom, became unconscious at some point, then was dragged to the bathroom, either using those rugs that were found underneath her or they were just accidentally grabbed when someone
like scooped her up and picked her up, like put her in the tub.
Which to me seems way more likely because if her back was acting up and she fell into the back, like, how do the rugs get there?
It doesn't get explained in an accident.
Yeah, like the rugs from his room specifically.
Right now like the bathroom.
There's a movie. There's like a rom com.
I can't think of it where someone like hurts their back and they're like naked and they have to like cover themselves with the rug.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
Oh, someone listening will know what I'm talking about.
But it's like what I was picturing.
But that doesn't make sense if we're talking about rugs from a bedroom unless something happened in buddy's room and then she's embarrassed and she like maneuvers herself to the bathroom so she can hide while her son comes home.
I would think she would ask her son for help.
Like it doesn't make sense.
Nothing about displaying that that's why she's in the bathroom and not coming out.
But if someone pulled her with the rug, she goes into the bathroom unconscious.
Like why is she talking to buddy through the door?
Right. I don't understand this one.
But the rugs is just a theory.
It's all a theory. And I think they really start at least getting away from the accident theory by the end of February, because that's when three witnesses come forward who say that they saw a man with Malvina.
Eight days before her murder.
They say they know this guy.
He was a 37 year old named Robert Smith who was a paper hanger.
Basically someone who did wallpaper back in the day.
Got it. And he was someone who had been working on the renovations in their home.
But didn't they clear everybody who was working at the house?
Yes. Again they say that.
But like well we don't know how or when or who those people are.
They just kind of blanket say it.
And it does change.
The unclear thing is I don't know exactly when that flips because they say it multiple times that they cleared people.
But at some point that does change because Robert turns out to be one of two guys that investigators have on their radar again.
The second being someone in Leroy Pennek.
He's a 40 year old painter also who worked at the house.
Now to go to Robert.
He was initially questioned on January 29th the day that they found her.
But he was one of the ones that they released pretty quickly.
Now he's back on the radar.
He's being held without bond.
Because now we have this witness saying that they saw Robert and Malvina in her car with Robert driving.
And then they find two other people that say they saw them at a business together likely picking out wallpaper.
But eight days before I mean that means nothing.
I agree. Like again I don't know if this is a product of the times.
I don't know if this is a product of just being so desperate.
I mean literally the only thing is like someone's like I saw them together eight days before.
You could go. Yeah.
You should look at him for her murder.
Now in more reporting for the Indianapolis star Robert denies being in Malvina's car ever.
And he says he wasn't even working at her house on the day of her murder because he was working at a different location.
But detectives say that they have quote absolute evidence that proves otherwise.
What's this absolute evidence?
They would be too easy if they told us.
That's why it's called absolute evidence.
Absolute evidence. But they never disclose it.
We're just left to have to trust them.
Got it. Now they also say his alibi is full of holes.
They don't share what kind of holes don't even ask.
I know. And they do have him take a polygraph if he hadn't already before.
That part is unclear to me.
But he passes with the exception of one question.
It's a question about him being in Malvina's car with her a few days before her murder.
He says he wasn't. And I guess his answer is inconclusive.
But he passes the overall test.
And like listen if that's what he's passing maybe he maybe he did go pick out wallpaper eight days before.
Like I'd be terrified in that position to like say I was in a white woman's car who's now murdered.
Get out of here. Like and like also inconclusive is not wrong.
Inconclusive is just I'm nervous.
And he worked at the house like right.
And at least they dropped the charges based on this.
So he ultimately passes.
The preliminary charges are dropped.
He's released from custody which is the upside of polygraphs in 50.
At least like it goes Bible both ways.
So up next is Leroy Penick.
So he is initially picked up on January 31st and questioned and then released.
But I think detectives had a better reason for picking him up at the time.
They had gotten a call from a tavern owner who said that this man walked into his business on the day of Malvina's murder and said he just quote slapped a girl around and left fingerprints all over the place.
Leroy allegedly asked the owner if he would vouch for him if the topic ever came up with police.
And he asked him to say that he had been painting the tavern that day.
Are they like friends or something.
No because immediately the owners like absolutely no like no no no no.
And he calls the police to tell them the whole story.
So detectives brought him in like that very day.
This is again early on he's looked at whatever but something must have changed because detectives leave Leroy a note at his house telling him that they want to talk to him again.
Maybe they're just circling back.
I don't know but he comes in totally voluntarily gives two polygraphs and then poof on February 22nd they bring a preliminary murder charge against him because those two polygraphs show deception.
Now he claimed that he had been drinking the night before like the night before taking those tests.
So that was what attributed to the failed polygraphs but they don't care.
Polygraphs are Bible.
So after charging him they get him on the books for a third polygraph which surprise surprise he fails as well.
And in each of the polygraphs he has what detectives call a strong emotional reaction to any question about Malvina and her house and the crime scene.
Now Leroy might have had a reaction to the questions but he wasn't too upset about failing the polygraphs because he tells detectives that he has been arrested 18 times and he knows lie detector tests don't hold up in court.
Okay ahead of his time.
And cocky about it.
So while he's waiting for his preliminary hearing he undergoes a mental evaluation because he had gotten a head injury when he was serving in World War II.
He suffered from dizzy spells but the results come back he's deemed fit for trial.
And while he's been in custody detectives also take him to his home so they can search for any additional evidence that could tie him to the scene.
I mean specifically they're looking for any yellow paint similar to what had been found on that rag in her car.
You got it. Now they don't find a can of yellow paint that could match but they do find some clothing that has yellow paint on it and they send that off for analysis pretty quickly results come back and it's inconclusive.
But there was also another result that came back that detectives have been waiting 21 days for that random hair the one that they found on one of the beds in the cruts home.
And the results claim that they can apparently tell that the hair came from a black person that seems convincing convenient.
I know and I'm like shocked it took 21 days like it happens right as they have this person in custody convenient I think is the right word but it doesn't really matter because they can't conclusively connect that hair to Leroy.
They can't connect anything to Leroy.
And according to the Indianapolis recorder in the state of Indiana a person can't be kept for longer than seven days on a pre charge so they have to end up letting him go since there isn't enough evidence to do a definitive charge I know there's a difference between a pre charge and like what apparently
there is. Okay cool again.
I don't know if that's still around or not but I learned something new today so on February 28 Leroy is free to go and so with their second promising suspect released detectives are back at square one.
Now a few months go by and honestly I don't know what they're doing behind the scenes but a break in the case comes on June 12th that's when Indianapolis police pick up a 26 year old man named James David Rogers and they pick him up on warrants for grand larceny and issuing fraudulent checks.
And while he's in custody he tells officers something unexpected James says that he is the one who killed Malvina.
He says they met in a cafe on January 29th 1958 and he ended up going home with her.
He claims that he was at the house when her son came home for lunch and basically she had left the bedroom in her robe made his lunch and then come back when the boy went back to school and then he says he stayed at the house until like 3 in the afternoon when apparently he had gotten mad at her.
He said he punched her in the side of the head she passed out.
He said he got scared tried bringing her into the bedroom but he wasn't able to so he dragged her to the bathroom put her in the tub turned on the cold water to wake her and then when she didn't wake up he left in her car so like inconsistency yeah I was like every sentence I'd be like okay he's the guy
and then you'd say something like coming out in the road to make the same from the bedroom.
Yeah nothing about the bathroom and talking through the wall.
The cold water no the water is leaving at 3 and not 140 when the women saw the car leaving like those are not small.
I know those are huge discrepancy I know so at first police were like oh my gosh this is the real deal this our guy like one step forward two steps back every time he says something yeah because the more he talks the more suspicious they become that he is just like feeding them a false story because then
he says after he left at 3 he got in the car and drove off.
And they left the car but like the place that he's saying he left the car all of that been shared publicly he wasn't providing any like only the killer new yeah and formation according to the Indianapolis star he goes on to say that before he left he wiped the steering wheel off with a paint rag and any
other places that he could have like left his prints and then he locked the car toss the rag toss the keys in a gutter down the road.
And like they want to keep talking because they're like sussing out this story and the big piece or like the pieces that they're like having a problem with is like there's no motive there's no reasoning there's nothing.
And so as I'm sure you can guess just a couple of days later he ends up recanting his entire confession he's like I didn't do it but I do know who did that's why I like came for I'll tell you tomorrow of course we can't believe a word this guy says well and that's what it ends up being so like he starts
naming other people once one is ruled out he's like oh no no no.
It's another guy and by like the fourth accusation keeps going yeah detectives are pretty much done listening to what this guy has to say and they really just kind of chalk it all up to personal struggles that he's facing and once again detectives have nothing.
The Indianapolis star puts out a $5 ,000 reward in April for anyone with information that could lead to an arrest and by doing this they start getting more tips and.
On July 15th a mysterious letter is sent to the newspaper that is seemingly spurred from the reward and the letter seems to have some merit because detectives publicly plea for the letter writer to give more information specifically about a man wearing gray coveralls.
Wait I guess I missed it what else is in this letter so I don't have details like it just says that they got this letter they make this plea for the guy but then they do actually have another letter that pops up in December of 1960 and the timing of it's so weird because I guess that when this one pops
up they've been like sitting on the second letter for the entire two and a half years like it got sent around the same time as that one letter we don't know about.
But when detectives find it now either someone who's looking the case or however it gets to them the second time they realize that this second letter was likely never looked into and they do actually publish this one so I'm gonna have you actually read this one.
Okay the letter says are you Malvina Cruts the same afternoon on the day of this murder I was in my car at 49th and Meridian heading west waiting for a light to change when a slim very dark complexion man with mustache was locking car north of Meridian on West side of street.
He ran like a speed racer south on Meridian just as light was changing while crossing street he made a movement toward his cab but seems to toss something toward the West.
Some days later making the same trip I drove slowly west on 49th as two small boys picked something out of the street on South side of 49th West of Meridian.
I heard one say someone has lost their car keys.
I remember another car was parked on West side Meridian about third house down.
So the keys in this whole thing are still missing by the way.
Okay. Like they've never been found which would make sense if some kids found them like not long after they were tossed out like.
And just like pick them up because kids pick up like random.
Yeah like kept them and put them in their playhouse and like throw them away eventually.
Yeah. And I don't get super caught up on the mustache because according to the Indianapolis star officers described Leroy as quote the Playboy type with a thin mustache.
So I don't know helpful information but like not much detectives can do with it at the moment.
And I don't know if there's like if the first letter had something to do with seeing the same person in like we were had great coveralls or someone saw someone in great like the connection between letter one and letter two.
I was like are they the same letter writer like there's so many questions are the same letter writer are they just two letters that like back each other up.
But they feel they feel weirdly connected in some way just the way they talk about them.
But anyways they put this out there.
Nothing comes of it.
And a couple more years go by but in 1962 Malvinas case heats back up because Mr.
Leroy panic is arrested for murdering his partner Carol Jean Martin in their shared apartment.
And Carol's autopsy says I actually hadn't seen this before it says she died from strangulation on blood from many cuts and bruises on the head and she had a cerebral edema.
So were these like little cuts like that's what I honed in on too.
I don't know. They never get to like if they're like tiny little cuts or it gashes.
No during their interrogation about this about his partner's murder Leroy first says that his partner was drunk falling over all over the place.
That's why her entire body was covered in bruises.
I know and then he eventually admits to hitting her with an open palm after she started cussing at him and he also said he did drop her down a flight of stairs.
Oops he is. But he just decided not to get her help and then he brought her up the stairs.
But then apparently she fell again.
And then like he went to bed or she went to bed.
It's like unclear. And then he just goes on like everything is normal until one of his friends comes over and his friend is immediately alarmed.
And I don't know who calls the police.
There's conflicting information but either him or his friend called the police.
Either way it doesn't look good for him.
And that is when he's arrested.
So at the end of April of 62 Leroy is indicted for first degree murder.
His trial starts in January of 63.
He takes the stand in his own defense where history changes like in court as it's happening.
He says like he just found Carol dying and like whoever attacked her must have left the scene before he got there.
So he's not even like trying to stick to the original story he told detectives.
No and it's not even like it's not even believable.
So the jury ends up finding him guilty of second degree murder in Carol's case which gives him an automatic life sentence.
And he is sentenced like by early February.
And that is actually the last thing I could find about Leroy in the news.
During his trial and sentencing.
It was clear that he was a prominent suspect in Malvina's case.
Like it was mentioned over and over.
But there has just never been enough evidence to actually charge him with it.
So without a confession from him detectives can't determine if he was responsible or not.
But I don't think their suspicions of him ever really go away.
This is only mentioned in one place but in an article by the Indianapolis News shortly after his sentencing.
We find out that it was Leroy's fingerprints that were found all over her house which yeah like eyes wide open.
But like he also was a painter actively working inside their house.
So like that's not even something that they could use to charge him.
Right because he had a reason to be there.
Yeah actually. So while Leroy is in prison Malvina's case goes cold and 66 years later.
That is how it remains today unsolved.
Now there was a short blip where it kind of got brought up again in 1977 when there was like this interesting connection that was made around the circumstances of.
Malvina's death and the death of a 23 year old first grade school teacher named Linda McDaniel.
She I don't know if you remember this we covered this like way back in the day because I'm obsessed with Linda's case.
And there's almost no information about it.
So like we did this like mini episode in the fan club.
But Linda was found in her own home.
She was kneeled over with half her upper body submerged in water in the tub.
No signs of a struggle except some bruising on her arms.
Nothing was taken from her apartment.
She was only in her underwear but no signs of sexual assault.
So there are like some eerie similarities especially with how far apart they happened.
But those similarities are where the connections end.
So like when Linda dies like everyone's like oh remember Malvina.
It was a lot like this but it has nothing to do with it.
Right. The Linda's case is still unsolved too.
Now many of the people in this case are no longer alive including Malvina's husband who passed away at 70 in 1980.
Her son Buddy died actually just in 2017 when he was 69.
And really for this family it felt like tragedy was just kind of stuck to them for a while.
So in September I talked about all the things that happened right.
You have the fire you have like Malvina's death and then in September of 58.
So this is eight months after she was murdered Charles Buddy and Charles mom Fanny.
They were in a pretty serious car accident.
Like Fanny was actually killed in the crash.
Charles was in critical condition for a while.
It seems like Buddy made it out with just a broken arm and leg.
But it was like it was weird.
We're like somebody like they were driving on the highway.
Someone like saw them swerve but nobody knows what happened.
I don't know. Like I can't shake the feel like there was it was like a darkness around them.
Yeah. And it's like the family just couldn't catch a break.
This is obviously an old case but if you have any information that could lead detectives down new paths or help corroborate previous theories you can reach out to Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana on their app.
Or by calling 317 -262 -TIPS.
You want to talk directly to the Indiana State Police you can call their cold case hotline at 1 -800 -453 -4756.
You can find all the source material for this episode on our website crimejunkypodcast .com.
And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.
I like how you closed your eyes for that.
We'll be back next week for another episode.
Crime Junkie is an audio check production.
So what do you think Chuck?
Do you approve?
