Bonus: The Memorial Day Bathtub Murder

Over a 100 year old case and to this day never solved. This iconic story of a case took place over Memorial Day weekend. Which resulted in 4 tries to convict the husband who in turn was a free man who made a name for himself and died a a rich Hollywood producer. What really happen in that bathroom? I had to do this one guys because this is is perfect for this Memorial day weekend and definitely a juicy unsolved case!

Let’s pull back the shadows that have kept these cold cases in the dark for far too long. Piece by piece, we’ll work to rebuild the truth not just for the story, but for the victims and the families still waiting for answers. The puzzle isn’t complete yet, but together, we’re getting closer.

Transcript

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On a Memorial Day morning, nineteen thirty-three, the Manicard campus of Stanford University was quiet. The California sun was burning off the morning fog. In a charming home on Salteria Street, David Lampson, the respected sales manager for the Stanford University Press, was outside tending a backyard bonfire. A neighbor stopped by and was just chatting for a moment and then left. Everything seemed entirely normal. But just wait, guys. Hey, I'm your host Sarah, and welcome to Shadows Uncovered. Today I want to take you back to a case that to this day is one of the most gruesome cases that took place on what is supposed to be a fun holiday weekend with the family. A case to this day that haunts Memorial Day. Now, but minutes later, after talking with the neighbor, David walked back inside his house. He called out to his wife, Aileen. No answer. He walked down the hallway to the bathroom. He pushed the door open and stepped into a scene of absolute horror. Aileen, the executive secretary for the campus of YWCA, was draped over the edge of the bathtub. She was dead, and the room was coated in blood. What followed would become known as the quote unquote Stanford Bathtub Murder. A case that gripped the nation, tore a prestigious university community apart, and sparked four unpresented trials. Nearly a century later, it remains one of the most fiercely debated, unsolved mysteries in American legal history. Now, guys, to solve this riddle, I had to break this up just a little bit. Because when I tell you four trials and nothing was ever resoluted. Now to solve this riddle, the courtroom of California became a battleground for a science that, quite frankly, was still in infancy. Bloodstained pattering analysis. When the police arrived, they took one look at the sheer volume of blood on the wall and arrested David Lansom on the spot. They were convinced they were looking at a brutal, passionate murder. But as investigators dug in, two completely contradictory forensic theories emerged. The entire case and David Lansome's life hinged on a single terrifying question. Can blood speak? And if so, what story was it telling? The prosecution took the stand first, and the argument was visceral, guys. They pointed to the bathroom ceiling and the upper walls, which was a highlighted distinct linear arches of dark red droplets. And to the state's investigators, this was open and shut. They called these quote unquote cast off trails. They argued that David had snapped. They claimed he raked a 10 inch pipe from his backyard bonfire, snuck into the bathroom, and beat Aileen to death. You asked their proof? As David swung the heavy iron pipe back and forth, hitting Aileen over and over again, the momentum flung blood off the weapon, painting those grim arches across the room. They showed the jury medium velocity droplets sprayed at various heights, arguing it proved Aileen was attacked while standing and beaten further after she collapsed. They pointed at David. Investigators had found tiny specks of blood on his clothes. And to the state, this was the ultimate smoking gun. The mist of a killer's spray. It was powerful, an intuitive argument. It looked like a murder, it felt like a murder, and it was enough to land David a death sentence in his first trial. But then came the appeals. And as for the defense, a man stepped into the courtroom who would completely turn this case on its head. His name was Edward Oscar Heinrich, but the press called him the American Sherlock Holmes. Heinrich was a pioneer in American criminology, and he didn't rely on gut feelings. He relied on physics. He went into that bathroom, measured the geometry of the room, and meticulously analyzed the size, shape, and directionality of every single strain. Now first, Heinrich looked at the three distinct wounds on Aileen's scalp. He didn't see any multiple blows from a pipe. Instead, he bought into the bathroom's porcelain washbin. He brought it into the court and demonstrated that its sharp edge perfectly matched all three injuries simultaneously. He argued they happened in a single devastating freak accident. That Alien had simply slipped while getting out of the tub and struck her head violently against the basin. But what about the prosecution's quote unquote cast-off trails on the ceiling? Heinrich completely dismantled them with a single forensic concept, arterial spurting. Heinrich proved that when Alien's scalp ruptured against that basin, a major artery was severed. Because she was a healthy woman after all. Her heart was still beating powerfully from the shock of the fall. And as she stumbled blindly towards the tub, her heart pumped out immense high pressure. It sprayed in perfect arches across the ceiling, driven by her own fading pulse, not a weapon. And to prove this, Heinrich analyzed the tiny quote unquote tails of the blood droplets. The physics of the stain showed that all traveled away from the wash basin and towards the tub. It was a physical map of a falling body, not of a swinging pipe. And they asked, what about those specks on David's clothes? Heinrich argued they weren't a killer's mist at all. They were entirely consistent with a panicked, innocent husband rushing into a room, cradling his dying wife, and desperately checking for a pulse. Now suddenly the jury's was caught in a terrifying crossroads. They had to choose between the prosecution's common sense story of a brutal beating and then Heinrich's complex physics-based explanation of a tragic accident. It was a forensic stalemate, and it kicked off a legal marathon never seen ever in California history. The state tried David Lampson not once, not twice, but four separate times over the course of three grueling years. And now after that 1933 conviction was thrown out by California Supreme Court, because the circumstantial evidence was simply too weak. However, the state kept pushing, but they couldn't get a definitive answer. Round two in nineteen thirty five ended in a deadlocked jury. Nine voted to convict and three acquitted. Round three ended almost immediately in a mistrial. And round four, once again, ended with a hopeless split hung jury. And by nineteen thirty six, the prosecution finally hit a wall. They admitted they had no new evidence, gave up and dismissed all charges. David Lansom walked out of prison a free man. But David's story didn't end when the prison gates opened. While sitting in the shadows of the gallows on Death Row, David had passed the time by writing. He penned a raw, gripping memoir about a prison life titled We Who Are About to Die. And when it was published in nineteen thirty five, it became an instant national bestseller. Hollywood noticed, and in nineteen thirty seven, RKO Studios turned his book into a major motion picture. David moved to Southern California, remarried, and reinvented himself as a highly successful Hollywood screenwriter and fictional author, and lived quietly until his death in 1975. But the ghosts of Salvatir Street never truly left. And because David was never technically acquitted by a jury, and because no other suspect was ever hunted down, Aileen Lampson's death remains completely unresolved. Now guys, ask this to yourself. Did a murderer successfully script his own escape and find fame in Hollywood? Or did a grieving husband survive a three-year legal nightmare for a crime that never happened? Either way, the truth died in that Stanford bathroom. Nearly 100 years ago. Well, there you have it, guys. Surprise! I know Memorial Day is this Monday, and I know I made an announcement that season two starts this Wednesday coming up, but it's a holiday, and this one I just could not pass up because this case, guys, hundred years ago, still unsolved. A Hollywood motion picture out of it, and a possible guilt factor that's not even valid. We don't even know. But all right, guys, like I said, like, subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast, and stay tuned because season two starts Wednesday. Bye, guys.