What was Max Ehrmann's cause of death? How hard should that be to find? Mr. Ehrmann was 72 years old when he died in 1945. Peacefully of natural causes at his home right? No, at least not at home, in a hospital, Saint Anthony's, in his home town, Terre Haute, Indiana. Usually, you know, you go to the hospital with some condition and then you die. You don't usually die and then go to the hospital. But I've run into this before. George Merrick, the racist founder of Coral Gables, Florida. Died in 1942 at age 55 in hospital. What brought him there I never found out. Cause of death just too personal for the '40's I guess.
Know when Mr. Ehrmann got married
for the first time? In 1945, a few months before his death. Ehrmann was a good-looking man, was good-looking as a young man, good-looking in middle age. Good, kind, deep man. Woulda thought the Terre Haute hotties woulda been all over that catch. Didn't find the right girl for seventyfuckingtwo years. When he did, Bertha Pratt King was 66 years young. Practically robbing the cradle! That is just fucking
weird to me
. It'd be a weird fucking life's history (or not) if we knew
anything else. Bothers me.
The other thing that bothers me tonight, and has for some days, is the Bogle-Kalitzke double murder in Montana in 1956. I posted a breathtaking panorama of Patricia Kalitzke's death scene several days ago. The case was solved in 2019 when DNA from a sperm cell on a vaginal swab taken from 16-year old Patricia's body was matched to that of surviving relatives of Kenneth Gould who died and was cremated in 2007. So it was a double murder with rape as the motive. Both victims had been shot execution style in the back of the head. Duane Bogle's hands were bound behind his back; he was found on the ground outside the driver's door to his car in a lover's lane near Great Falls. The car was still fucking running, in gear, the radio and headlights were on--after three days of sitting there!—How is that possible? What gas mileage did that car get? Christ, was it a Tesla?—The emergency break was the only thing holding it back. Patricia was found the next day about seven miles from Bogle's body. Okay so Gould ambushed them at night, sometime after 9 p.m., on January 2, 1956, ordered Bogle out of the car at gunpoint, made him lie on the dirt road, bound his hands with Bogle's own belt, executed Bogle,
took Kalitzke in his, Gould's, car, probably raped her in the car, ordered her out afterwards, executed her and rolled her body down over a cliff.
That, or something very like it, would have to be the police theory, right? In fact, at the time Gould lived just over a mile from where Kalitzke lived and, Gould was a horse trainer, "kept" horses about 600 yards from her house, and rode the horses all around the area. So Gould had opportunity. And he MOVED away (still within Montana) shortly after the murders. Why wasn't he then a suspect in 1956? Or '57 or '66 or '76 or '96 or 2006? He had to have been one of the few people who lived near Patricia Kalitzke in 1956. I don't know why Gould wasn't a suspect. They had about 35 suspects over the years according to the Great Falls gendarme, including Whitey Bulger (no lie), but Kenneth Fucking Gould wasn't one of them.
Now, this is in my blood, you see, homicide investigation is in my blood, it's what I did for almost forty years. And I know from my life's work that you have to keep cutting back to the chase when you do what I'm doing here. This is not Milman Parry, a scene confined to a closed hotel room. One possible suspect. There, I knew everything that I needed to know. This is not the Zodiac, murders so fucked up by police mishandling and evidence contaminating that you're never going to figure it out. You gotta know when to fold 'em. Here, I know hardly anything but I know that there was a fucking sperm cell found in a murdered girl's vagina at autopsy in fucking Montana in 1956. That is conclusive, or damn near. But then why were there these headlines in 1956?
"Autopsies fail to yield clues", yeah, except for the jizm of the rapist-double murderer who lived right down the pike from her.
"MOTIVE A MYSTERY", huh? And dig the statement attributed to Cascade County Sheriff D. J. Leeper,
"Sex Ruled Out", Patricia apparently had not been attacked. I read very early on in my reading about this case that cops didn't mention rape in 1956. Because you just didn't mention rape in 1956. Okay, whatever, we'll play along, omitting rape is one thing, if Leeper had said something like, "Can't comment, active investigation," okay, we underfuckingstand. But to affirmatively
lie that rape had been ruled out as a motive, that Patricia had
not been physically attacked in any way, when, in 2020 Leeper's descendant cops addressed the media and told them that Patricia had injuries
consistent with a struggle--THAT is quite another thing for the cops to do. Honest to God, Leeper's contemporaneous statements to the media made me question the chain of custody on the vaginal swab glass slide. There are close to a zillion ways to fuck up chain of custody over sixty years.
This DNA
would be conclusive as conclusive gets,
if the Cascade Cowboys didn't fuck up c-o-c. Is that DNA match to relatives as good as from the suspect? I am almost positive that it is.
The first thing that bothered me about the circumstances of these murders was Bogle's car. Look at that crime scene photo. How was Gould to get his car down that dirt road? Maybe he came at them in the opposite direction? Had to be, right, cuz you're not going to pull along side of them. Were there any other fucking tire tracks coming from the opposite direction? Dunno. Everything looks like an ambush, a lover's lane, Bogle's car still with everything on...Maybe Gould came at them from the side? It doesn't look like it but that is a tight photograph with no terrain context. Gould had to have driven Patricia out of there and there sure appears to be only two ways, in the direction Bogle's car is facing and in the opposite direction from the rear of Bogle's car. Did Gould own or have access to a car? Had to. The theory is not that he ambushed them on horseback, is it? Don't tell me that if it is.
Other things that bother me:
-Gould had never been arrested before. NEVER. This a pretty brutal, cold, calculated double, no? Helluva way for a virginian to break into the crime biz. That's why the cops focused on Whitey Bulger, and another rapist in Montana.
-Wouldn't it have been easier to rape-murder Patty alone? He lived near her. Or was he going for the gold medal in his first try in Olympic murder? "Crime of passion, man. You take your opportunity when it presents itself." No. This was no crime of passion. These victims were stalked over at least a couple of hours. This was purposeful and goal-directed. Patty may have been an afterthought, "Oh well, might as well." Was Bogle the main target? "Shit, he's with a girl. Oh well." And if so, Attorney Harris? Right. They're still both dead and it's Gould's DNA.
-Gould was married. His wife was 16 when they wed. Dum-Dum-dum-dum. Dum. Had a taste for young flesh like Max Ehrmann, eh? This is what bothered me about the marriage: Gould and his wife, "Lulubelle" Brown, had a baby girl born one fucking month before Gould committed this rape-fucking-double murder--on a girl the age of his wife when he wed her! Does the police theory include that this is the world's worst case of male postpartum homicidal psychosis?
Gould had to have stalked the kids that night. He had to have left Lulubelle alone with their newborn for a few hours at night the night after New Year’s in rural fucking Montana. “Honey, have to attend to a filly on lover’s lane. Back in a few.” Had to have seen the kids at “Pete’s Drive-in” in Great Falls at 9 p.m. Had to have left Lulubelle at…8:30’ish? Had to have followed them to the lover’s lane on Vinyard (sic) Road. You’re not just going to run into two teenagers necking in rural Montana in 1956. How long did it take them and him to get to lover’s lane? I don’t know, 15-30 mins? You whack Duane, take Patty, have your way with her seven (or eight) miles away and then kill her. The cops say they believe Patty was killed about an hour after Duane. An hour? What, did he have a cigarette after? How do they even think that? That seems like an awfully long time when Ken wouldn’t wanna linger know what I mean? But that’s what the cops say, an hour. Fine. Now we’re at about 10:30. He’a already been gone two fucking hours. How long does it take him to get back to Lulubelle, 15-30 mins? Now we’re pushing 11 o’clock. "Ken, where you been so long?"
-Finally, you're going to laugh at me, but this interview really bothered me.
Edgar Wilson. "I just plain do not believe it." Mr. Wilson is not lying. Cutting back to the chase that and fifty cents'll get you a pack of gum, but honestly, I listened to that old codger and it shook me. They've got Gould's DNA on a fucking SPERM cell inside the vagina of a dead 16-year old! That is the bottom line. But Mr. Wilson’s recollection of the Kenneth Gould he knew shook doubt from that bottom line and so the case still bothers me.
Both Max Ehrmann's life and death and this one bother me, this one much, much more. I know why, and that should remove bother. It's that I don't have enough information about either and I know from my life's work that a lack of info is not a reason for bother. I am bothered by unknowns known by others with a right to know. I have no right to know. I know from my work that you either find out the info you're missing or you move on. It's not intelligent to be bothered by a lack of information. I wasn't intelligent tonight.
Out.
