May 28, 2025 • 30 mins
A witness for the prosecution said he saw Ray after Mary's murder. But did he? Dovey's final defense hinges on one important piece of evidence: Ray Crump himself. By then, he'd spent 18 months behind bars, some of it in solitary confinement. Would he go free? And if he did, would he ever recover?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
It had been nine months since Mary Meyer was shot
in broad daylight on the Georgetown Towpath. Her killer hadn't
been brought to justice. For Mary's family and friends, Ray's
trial was their chance for some closure. Mary was a painter,
a pacifist, a vital part of a Georgetown community of artists.
(00:23):
In many ways, her life was just beginning. Her friend,
Cecily Angleton was back in the courtroom. Ray's mother, Martha
was sitting in the back of the courtroom with her
church friends. When we last left the trial, Dovey had
just won a big victory. She'd shown that Hamptman's theory
(00:43):
was bunk. He tried to say Ray had to be
Mary's killer because there were only so many official exits
off of the towpath, but Dovey had dismantled that argument.
There were countless ways a phantom killer could have escaped
the area. US attorney Alfred Hantman called up Henry Wiggins
(01:07):
to the bench. Henry Wiggins was a workingman, a war veteran,
an upstanding citizen. He had a lot of things going
for him as a witness. After all, he was the
one who'd heard the murder go down. Sure he was
a black man, and it was the nineteen sixties, but
it was his word against another black man, and well,
(01:29):
the scales were tipping in his direction now that Ray
looked like he was a liar, the kind of man
who skipped work, the kind of man whose friend would
testify against him. Henry was the prosecution's backbone. Dovey thought
the car mechanic looked younger in person than his photograph
(01:52):
in the paper, and he was young, only twenty four
years old. He had been in the military Police Corps
in Korea. When he took the stand, you could tell
he was a soldier. He was confident and calm. He
knew how to follow orders. Henry told the prosecutor what happened.
He and his colleague were affixing a stalled AMC rambler
(02:16):
near the Esso station on Canal Road. No one knew
whose rambler it actually was, or how it was even
left there in the first place. It was around twelve
twenty five when they heard a scream, a scream that
went on for twenty seconds, then a gunshot after less
(02:38):
than a fraction of a second. Henry said he crossed
the road toward the stone wall. Then he heard the
second gunshot. He looked over the wall around one hundred
and twenty feet or so away and got a glance
of a black man standing over a woman's body. After
he saw the killer, he ducked behind the barrier. He
(03:00):
peeked back over to get a second look. That's when
he saw the man put a dark object into his
jacket pocket and saunter off into the woods. Henry called
the police. When they arrived, he described the man he saw.
He was of medium built, around five foot eight in height,
weighing about one hundred and eighty five pounds. Around that time,
(03:23):
Officer Warner, one of the detectives on the scene, was
walking below with a man. They were heading toward the
murder scene. Henry saw them from above on Canal Road.
It was the same man he saw standing over the
victim's body. That's when Henry pointed to the man and said,
that's him. The prosecution was playing their hand.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Well, it wasn't merely eyewitness testimony.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
According to author Ron Rosenbaum.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
It was good eyewitness testimony. I mean there's a spectrum
of eyewitness testimony. And he did identify him shortly after
Crump was arrested, So I think those were the strongest
elements in the case.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
After hearing Henry's memory of the events, Hampman brought out
several pieces of clothing, shoes, a white jacket, dark corduroy pants,
and a cap Ray wore that day. The district jail
confiscated raised pants and shoes after his arrest. Wiggins testified
they were the exact clothes he had seen on the
(04:32):
man standing over Mary Meyer. Hantman had all the pieces
in place. Now he was putting it together for the jury.
He pointed to Ray and asked Henry if that was
the man he saw standing over Mary's crumpled body. Yes, Sir,
Henry said, this is Murder on the Towpath, a story
(04:59):
of two in women who never met, but whose lives
became forever intertwined by tragedy. I'm your host, Solidad O'Brien.
This episode, we take you back into the courtroom where
we finally hear the verdict of Ray Crump's trial. Dovey
(05:21):
approached the wooden bench. It was her turn to cross
examine the star witness. She seized on a phrase. Henry
just said to the courtroom that he only got a
glimpse of the killer She asked him if he remembered,
saying that yes he did. Dovey spotted a weakness in
(05:42):
Henry's testimony because earlier that day Henry told Hamptman he
was sure the clothes the officer brought out in front
of the courtroom were raised. Here's Bob Bennett again. You'll
recall he was the clerk to the.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Judge, and he had the fellow identify Crump's shoes. And
that seemed a little unbelievable because it was a long
distance away.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And Henry had just said he only got a glance
of the killer. She brought on the questions if Henry
was looking at the murder scene one hundred and twenty
feet away behind a stone wall, could he really know
he was looking at the exact same clothes. She went
one by one with each article of clothing. She held up.
(06:30):
The pants. Was he positive these were rays dark corduroy slacks, yes,
Henry answered he was positive. What about the cap was
this the cap ray war? Yes? How about these black shoes? Yep,
that's correct. Dovey zeroed in on the shoes because lots
(06:52):
of men wear black shoes. It's pretty hard to tell
the difference unless you look closely at the details. Henry
admitted he couldn't tell what kind of design the black
shoe had from where he was standing. Dovey emphasized this
to the jury. You can't tell the design, She said, No,
(07:12):
he knew the shoe was black, but he couldn't tell
the style. Henry was contradicting himself. He had just said
he was positive that the killer wore the same black
shoes Ray wore when arrested, but now he was saying
it's too hard to decipher shoe details from a distance.
(07:33):
His fragile argument was resembling Ray's dark, frayed corduroy pants.
Dovey merely tugged one of its loose threads, and Henry's
testimony slowly unraveled. Before the courtroom, she went in for
the kill. Dovey asked Henry if he remembered testifying earlier
that Ray was five foot eight and weighed one hundred
(07:55):
and eighty five pounds. Sure, of course he did. The
whole courtroom had just heard him testify that. To Hampman,
it was really a bit of a trap.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
He was described as this really large man who weighed
nearly two hundred pounds.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
That's historian Alexis co.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
Crump was small. He was about five five.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
I think he was about roundtree size, maybe one hundred
and thirty pounds.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Dovey pressed on. She asked Henry to look at Ray.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Now.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Ray was the thin, small man sitting at the defense table.
Henry admitted it. He wouldn't describe Ray as he had
described the killer. Here's Bob Bennett.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
It was obviously a discrepancy between how what people said
about his height and weight and what in fact it was.
So Dovey made a big deal about that.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
If it wasn't an accurate statement, did Henry lie in
the court of law? He said he tried as best
he could to remember. Devey thought he had a clear
view of the killing. She asked Henry what Ray was
wearing that day. He responded, I didn't look at him
that hard. The courtroom went still. She held the room,
(09:15):
and then she asked Henry one final question. She asked
him if he had ever looked at the murderer hard.
Just like that, the star witness flopped his certainty.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
It all sort of fell apart on the stand.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Hantman's last hope was to dispute Ray's height. He said
there was a reason that Ray appeared taller that day.
His shoes had an unusually tall heel that gave him
a good two inches more to his five foot five.
In court, Hantman brought out these quote built up shoes.
(09:51):
They're a vanity thing some short men used to bolster
their height. He waved them in front of the jury,
pointing to the heels. There there are two inches of
heel on these shoes, he declared. If Ray was five
at five and he had some help from these shoes,
that would get him to five o't seven. This is
what gave Wiggins the idea. He saw a man five
(10:13):
feet eight inches tall. This was his last chance. Hamptman
was exasperated. He asked the jury if this would really
come down to a back and forth over a half
inch or so. It was a good question. Only time
would tell whether Dovey had sown enough doubt into his
(10:34):
star witness's testimony. Dovey had her ways of decompressing. After
a stressful day in court. Each evening, she ventured outside
to her back porch. She sipped on some lemonade in
(10:55):
the hot, mugging DC air, and she took notes on
the day's proceeding. In her legal pad, Dovey still had
to present her own evidence and witnesses to the court.
That particular evening, she was wondering if she should put
Ray on the bench. If she put him on the stand,
it would become clear that he wasn't calculating enough to
(11:15):
pull off a murder in broad daylight.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
The winning card here was that she was going to
put Crump on the stand, and while she was nervous
about the cross examination, she was sure that he would
appear to everyone else, to the jury, to the witnesses
present that day, to reporters, the way that he had
appeared to her. To put it in the most basic terms, simple,
(11:39):
that he lacked the resources, the motivation, and the wherewithal
to murder this random woman.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Her colleagues disagreed. They thought the prosecution would decimate him.
Dovey believed Ray had intellectual disabilities. She worried he couldn't
go toe to toe with someone like Campman. It was
during the nights, sometime after midnight, that Dovey's phone would ring.
When she answered it, she could hear someone on the
(12:07):
other end, but they were silent. She just heard breathing.
Speaker 5 (12:11):
You see how she was threatened a little bit.
Speaker 6 (12:16):
It was dangerous.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
That's Patricia Bradford, a congregant from Dovey's church. These lingering
calls happened multiple times throughout Ray's trial. Dovey had the
sinking suspicion some people didn't want her to win this case.
The next day, Dovey took the elevator up to the
fourth floor of the courthouse. A black woman was operating
(12:41):
the elevator. As the floors ticked up, she told Dovey
something that would alter her entire defense strategy.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
The prosecution is delighted at the chance to cross examine him.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
The black elevator attendant overheard Hampman and his colleague talking
about wanting the opportunity to question Ray. The attendant told Dovey,
people say things in front of certain people, black people,
that they wouldn't say in front of others. Call it
arrogance or just a big mistake, but Hampman had clearly
(13:16):
underestimated this elevator attendant. It was the kind of break
Dovey needed.
Speaker 6 (13:22):
She entered the.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Courtroom and started her defense as she would with any
other case. Evidence. Her exhibit A was Ray Crump himself.
She told the jury, this was not the man Hamptman's
witnesses described. Just look at him here. He was all
but five foot five, a small, slender man sitting before them.
(13:47):
Then she brought on three character witnesses for Ray, a
member of Ray's family, a member of his church, and
a neighbor. They all said that Ray was known as
a peaceful man in his community. Hantman cross examined each
character witness. He tried to show the jury that they
barely knew Ray, that they couldn't attest to his character.
(14:09):
But the witnesses stood firm that they did no Ray
and had grown up with him. Even according to them,
he was no killer.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
And she has to make a game time decision.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
After hearing what went on inside the elevator, Dovey had
to decide was she going to have Ray testify?
Speaker 4 (14:28):
And instead she gets up and she tells the judge,
I rest my case.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Ray didn't testify, and she just leaves.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
It at that, so that the prosecution, who had planned
on cross examining Crump, is left totally scrambling.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
They have no idea what to do in that moment.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Hampman even admitted so he approached the bench and said
he was caught flat footed. He never anticipated in his
wildest dreams that Debby would rest her case. He was
sure that Ray would be called to testify.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
But this.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Was the worst case scenario for the prosecutors.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
They had this privilege, They sort of thought they had
it in the bag.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
And she.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Never felt that comfortable.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
There was no hubris here.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
She came prepared for sort of every situation. The fact
that they didn't was I think a big surprise to her.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
The courtroom was stunned too. The decision to not put
Ray on the stand sped things up dramatically.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
I don't think she knew how powerful it was to
make that decision that day, at that exact moment, and
so she took a huge risk for her case, for Crump,
for the future of black men who are going to
be tried in this court, and decided to rest her case.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
In his closing statements, Hampman made one final plea to
the jury. He told them Mary was to death by
Ray after a struggle in which she quote tried to
preserve her very existence. This was a crime of quote
malicious mischief. He closed by asking the jury to find
Ray guilty of first degree murder. He sat back down.
(16:18):
The court went into recess. Ray Crump's future was now
in the hands of the jury. The twelve jurors deliberated
through the evening for more than seven hours. Did Ray
Crump kill Mary Pincho Meyer, a fervent pacifist, a painter
(16:38):
coming into her own Someone had to be held responsible
for her nonsensical death. But would that person be Ray
There was a strong debate in the room. With so
much of the public's eye on this case, I can't
even imagine the pressure the jurors faced. After more than
seven hours, the foreman told Judge Corkoran they were at
(17:02):
a standstill.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
They originally sent a note to the judge saying they
were deadlocked at eight to four, but they didn't say
eight to four which way. And the judge told them
go back and get this done. And they came back
and said, we're still deadlocked. And then the judge really
gave them a lecture and said, you give me a verdict.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
It was already ten thirty at night. He told the
jury to go home. They'd continue their deliberations in the morning.
The next day, the jury resumed in a way. They
also retraced Mary's steps, though they couldn't go to the towpath.
They used photographs and maps to pore over the evidence,
(17:48):
trying to put the pieces together on how Mary was
killed and who might have done it. After eleven hours
of back and forth over two days, they reached a decision.
Everyone returned to the courtroom. The trial had lasted eleven
days and now there was a conclusion. Ray's mother, Martha,
(18:12):
had been at the trial every day, but she couldn't
be there for the actual announcement. It was too much
for her, so she waited in the courthouse corridor. Ray
sat motionless throughout the trial, but now standing waiting for
his verdict, he was swaying. Judge Corkoran commended the prosecution
(18:33):
and defense for presenting both sides of the case. Then
the foreman offered the written verdict to the judge. Corkoran
told the jury to rise. He said, members of the jury,
we have your verdict which states that you find the defendant,
Ray Crump Junior, not guilty. And this is your verdict,
(18:54):
so say you each and all the jurors nodded. Corkoran
told you are a free man. Ray's eyes were closed.
It almost looked like he was fainting. Then he and
Dovey hugged. Here was a man who'd been in jail
for nearly a year. He was in solitary confinement. He
could have faced the death penalty if found guilty, and
(19:18):
now he could finally go home. In the corridor, Ray's mother, Martha,
held back tears. She and her friends praised the Lord,
singing Hallelujah through the courtroom. She thanked the Lord for
returning her son back to her.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
You said they couldn't place him on the scene that day,
and you can't place him on the scene.
Speaker 7 (19:40):
You can't con victim. You got to be there.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
The jury didn't believe Ray was Mary's killer, and Dovey
helped everyone see it and managed to present her entire
defense in twenty minutes. No less, that's right. Her entire
defense was that quick because of her strategic decision not
to put Ray on the stand. On July thirty first,
(20:03):
nineteen sixty five, the New York Times reported the verdict.
The headline read, Washington negro freed in murder. If that's
not a sign of the times, I don't know what is.
That in itself proves how historic this win was. Here
was a black woman who could barely walk around Georgetown
without people raising their eyebrows because of her race. And
(20:25):
yet she had just won a case against a powerful
white prosecutor who had the state and all of its
resources behind him. Here's Bob Bennett again.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
And in this particular case, the defendant was acquitted largely
because of effect of lawyering on the part of Dovey
round Tree. That was a big win for her, and
it sort of solidified her already good reputation.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Soon judges began appointing her murder cases left.
Speaker 6 (20:58):
And right.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Cases.
Speaker 7 (21:00):
Murder case and I could ever, ever, ever deal with
and in fact I reached upon I wouldn't take any more.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
At last, the legal community gave her respect. Letters came
in from all over the country congratulating Debby on her
big courtroom success. A friend from Saint Louis wrote her
a note shortly after the verdict. He said, you.
Speaker 8 (21:24):
Are a great lawyer, and I'm very proud of you
because you won a very difficult case and saved the
life of an innocent man. Miss Pinchot was a woman
of the highest rank. Besides, she was white and a
distinguished artist, and crump the allet slayer was a Negro,
the judge was white. Yet you won. Congratulations, Oh wonderful girl.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
But not everyone was happy with the verdict, people like
Bob Bennett.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
And I remember feeling that a you know, guilty man
got off of a brutal murder and I was very
upset about it, and other people I'm sure felt the
same way.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Other people did feel that way, like Mary's family and friends.
Cecily Angleton sat in the back of the courtroom when
she heard the news. She was stoic, and several days
after the trial, Ben Bradley called Hamptman, asking him what
went wrong? Why did Ray get off? We couldn't find
any records of Mary's ex husband, Cord or their sons
(22:32):
being at the trial. A few sources told us Mary's
family thought the prosecution was going after the right man
all along. Maybe when the judge granted raised freedom they
felt like they were watching the murderer slip through their hands.
It had to be devastating. We reached out to the
Meyer family. A producer of ours spoke with one of
(22:55):
Mary's sons of the phone, but he and the family
declined to speak for this post podcast What If In
their eyes. The man who killed their beloved Mary went unpunished,
and now he was going home. Even if Mary's family
thought it was unfair, Ray was now a free man.
(23:16):
He had still been punished. He was locked up for
nearly a year, and we know that at least some
of it was in solitary confinement. His life would never
be the same. He was irrevocably changed by being locked away.
Speaker 7 (23:30):
Solitary confinement damages human beings.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
That's Terry Cooper's He studies prison conditions, including solitary confinement.
He's a psychiatrist at the Right Institute.
Speaker 7 (23:42):
Some of them have trouble with their anger, and they
get into explosive and they can be assault of states
of mind and get into trouble later. So it's not
the case that everybody's who's been in solitary is violent.
I want to make that very clear. However, there are
some individuals who can't control their anger when they get out.
(24:02):
And I do hear stories about people who were never
violent before they were in solitary, but had a problem
with violence after.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
This could be what happened to Ray. The trauma of
jail time hardened him. After the trial, he was a
free man, but no longer the man he had been.
Shortly after returning home, Ray and his wife, Helena split
up for good. She hadn't visited him in jail. At first.
(24:31):
Ray returned to his routine. He went back to his
construction jobs. He worked to lay the foundations for DC
buildings at Lawyers and journalists work in to this day,
But four years after his acquittal, his life would never
be the same. Ray was never a criminal before being
locked up, but after something changed. After he was acquitted
(24:56):
for Mary Meyer's death, he was arrested twenty two times.
Some were petty crimes, but others were very serious. In
nineteen seventy one, he remarried. He and his new wife
moved in together with her four children in Maryland. We
don't know much about their family life, but things got
(25:16):
bad enough that at one point Ray turned on his wife.
Speaker 8 (25:20):
Once he set fire to an apartment where she was
with the children that they had had in common.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
He was arrested again. He pled guilty to malicious burning
and went to jail for two months, followed by rehab
for alcohol. He threatened other women in his life and
was arrested multiple times for vandalism and arson setting fire
to homes and cars. For many people, these crimes were
a sign that Ray had killed Mary but just gotten
(25:50):
away with it. Here's Ron Rosenbaum.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Because a jury has reasonable doubt does not mean that
the accused is innocent, just means guilt was not proven.
I think that's the case. You know, I'm open to
the idea. It's possible that some phantom killer slipped in
(26:16):
and murdered her, some guy wearing the same kind of
clothes as Ray Krupp, etc. Etc. You know, I believe
in the jury system.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Ray pled guilty to a bunch of crimes. It was serious.
But it's hard not to think about Ray's mental state
after the spectacle of Mary's trial. Here's Terry Cooper's again.
Speaker 7 (26:39):
If you're intellectually incapacitated, the effects of solitary are going
to be even worse.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Some would say Ray made the perfect fall guy, but
it cost him dearly.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
And so when you look at someone like Ray Crump,
who finds himself in the middle of a case which
clearly the authorities to want someone to pay and they
want to close it really quickly, someone who has not
had an easy time up into that moment, and then
you see them absolutely ruined by it. As a historian,
(27:13):
it's a pattern you're familiar with, but every time it's
shocking and it's devastating because these are real people.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Their lives were ruined.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
There are some historical figures whose lives and stories are immortalized.
Dubbi wrote a memoir about her life. Mary didn't get
to tell her story on her terms, but she's been
written about extensively. But Ray, he was at the center
of this whole trial, and yet his story is mostly untold.
(27:44):
We don't know if his relatives consider him a man
who was wrongfully accused of Mary's murder, or if they
have their own doubts. His relatives never returned our invitations
to speak for this podcast. Aside from his criminal record,
we really don't know what happened to him or his family.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
He's not fleshed out for you. And you remember Ray,
this guy had a mom, He had five children, he
had a wife. All of these people suffered. There were,
you know, two victims that day. There was Mary Meyer
and there was Ray Crump Jr. You know, Crump was acquitted,
but he never stopped paying for it.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
The one thing we do have is a letter. It's
addressed to Dovey on August tenth, nineteen sixty five, ten
days after Ray was acquitted.
Speaker 6 (28:32):
Dear missus Dove Rowntree, just a few lines to say
hello and thank you very much. I hope that everyone
is fine, for I'm grateful to all of you at
the present time. I'm doing all right and so far
I had no trouble and things are looking good for
me right now. I hope they are the same with you.
I'm sending you the balance on my account. Sorry for
(28:55):
being so long, but I had to get to work,
and I say thank you, thank you, yours truly Raymond Crumb.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
And so, knowing what we know about Ray, that a
jury found him not guilty but his future involved bad behavior,
were still left wondering. If it wasn't Ray, then who
could have murdered Mary Pinchot Meyer. Her killing left so
many unanswered questions it was only a matter of time
before people filled in the gaps. Mary was a woman
(29:33):
who had the ear of some of the most powerful
people in the country, journalists, government officers, a sitting US President.
What did she know? Was it enough to cost her
her life?
Speaker 6 (29:46):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (29:46):
And did we mention the diary Mary had expressed a
desire that if anything ever happened to be that diary
be destroyed. We'll get to all of that and more
on next week's episode of Murder on the Towpath from Luminary.
(30:07):
Murder on the Towpath is a production of Film Nation
Entertainment in association with Neon Humm Media. Our executive producers
are me Solidad O'Brien, Alyssa Martino, Milan Papelka, and Jonathan Hirsch.
Lead producer is Shara Morris. Associate producers are Natalie Rinn
and Lucy Licht. Senior editor is Catherine Saint Louis. Music
(30:31):
and composition by Andrew Eapen, Sound design and mixing by
Scott Sommerville. Fact checking by Laura Bullard. Special thanks to
Alison Cohen, Sarah Vacchiano, Rose Arsea, Kate Michigan, Ronald Young Junior,
and MICHAELA Celella.
It had been nine months since Mary Meyer was shot
in broad daylight on the Georgetown Towpath. Her killer hadn't
been brought to justice. For Mary's family and friends, Ray's
trial was their chance for some closure. Mary was a painter,
a pacifist, a vital part of a Georgetown community of artists.
(00:23):
In many ways, her life was just beginning. Her friend,
Cecily Angleton was back in the courtroom. Ray's mother, Martha
was sitting in the back of the courtroom with her
church friends. When we last left the trial, Dovey had
just won a big victory. She'd shown that Hamptman's theory
(00:43):
was bunk. He tried to say Ray had to be
Mary's killer because there were only so many official exits
off of the towpath, but Dovey had dismantled that argument.
There were countless ways a phantom killer could have escaped
the area. US attorney Alfred Hantman called up Henry Wiggins
(01:07):
to the bench. Henry Wiggins was a workingman, a war veteran,
an upstanding citizen. He had a lot of things going
for him as a witness. After all, he was the
one who'd heard the murder go down. Sure he was
a black man, and it was the nineteen sixties, but
it was his word against another black man, and well,
(01:29):
the scales were tipping in his direction now that Ray
looked like he was a liar, the kind of man
who skipped work, the kind of man whose friend would
testify against him. Henry was the prosecution's backbone. Dovey thought
the car mechanic looked younger in person than his photograph
(01:52):
in the paper, and he was young, only twenty four
years old. He had been in the military Police Corps
in Korea. When he took the stand, you could tell
he was a soldier. He was confident and calm. He
knew how to follow orders. Henry told the prosecutor what happened.
He and his colleague were affixing a stalled AMC rambler
(02:16):
near the Esso station on Canal Road. No one knew
whose rambler it actually was, or how it was even
left there in the first place. It was around twelve
twenty five when they heard a scream, a scream that
went on for twenty seconds, then a gunshot after less
(02:38):
than a fraction of a second. Henry said he crossed
the road toward the stone wall. Then he heard the
second gunshot. He looked over the wall around one hundred
and twenty feet or so away and got a glance
of a black man standing over a woman's body. After
he saw the killer, he ducked behind the barrier. He
(03:00):
peeked back over to get a second look. That's when
he saw the man put a dark object into his
jacket pocket and saunter off into the woods. Henry called
the police. When they arrived, he described the man he saw.
He was of medium built, around five foot eight in height,
weighing about one hundred and eighty five pounds. Around that time,
(03:23):
Officer Warner, one of the detectives on the scene, was
walking below with a man. They were heading toward the
murder scene. Henry saw them from above on Canal Road.
It was the same man he saw standing over the
victim's body. That's when Henry pointed to the man and said,
that's him. The prosecution was playing their hand.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Well, it wasn't merely eyewitness testimony.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
According to author Ron Rosenbaum.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
It was good eyewitness testimony. I mean there's a spectrum
of eyewitness testimony. And he did identify him shortly after
Crump was arrested, So I think those were the strongest
elements in the case.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
After hearing Henry's memory of the events, Hampman brought out
several pieces of clothing, shoes, a white jacket, dark corduroy pants,
and a cap Ray wore that day. The district jail
confiscated raised pants and shoes after his arrest. Wiggins testified
they were the exact clothes he had seen on the
(04:32):
man standing over Mary Meyer. Hantman had all the pieces
in place. Now he was putting it together for the jury.
He pointed to Ray and asked Henry if that was
the man he saw standing over Mary's crumpled body. Yes, Sir,
Henry said, this is Murder on the Towpath, a story
(04:59):
of two in women who never met, but whose lives
became forever intertwined by tragedy. I'm your host, Solidad O'Brien.
This episode, we take you back into the courtroom where
we finally hear the verdict of Ray Crump's trial. Dovey
(05:21):
approached the wooden bench. It was her turn to cross
examine the star witness. She seized on a phrase. Henry
just said to the courtroom that he only got a
glimpse of the killer She asked him if he remembered,
saying that yes he did. Dovey spotted a weakness in
(05:42):
Henry's testimony because earlier that day Henry told Hamptman he
was sure the clothes the officer brought out in front
of the courtroom were raised. Here's Bob Bennett again. You'll
recall he was the clerk to the.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Judge, and he had the fellow identify Crump's shoes. And
that seemed a little unbelievable because it was a long
distance away.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And Henry had just said he only got a glance
of the killer. She brought on the questions if Henry
was looking at the murder scene one hundred and twenty
feet away behind a stone wall, could he really know
he was looking at the exact same clothes. She went
one by one with each article of clothing. She held up.
(06:30):
The pants. Was he positive these were rays dark corduroy slacks, yes,
Henry answered he was positive. What about the cap was
this the cap ray war? Yes? How about these black shoes? Yep,
that's correct. Dovey zeroed in on the shoes because lots
(06:52):
of men wear black shoes. It's pretty hard to tell
the difference unless you look closely at the details. Henry
admitted he couldn't tell what kind of design the black
shoe had from where he was standing. Dovey emphasized this
to the jury. You can't tell the design, She said, No,
(07:12):
he knew the shoe was black, but he couldn't tell
the style. Henry was contradicting himself. He had just said
he was positive that the killer wore the same black
shoes Ray wore when arrested, but now he was saying
it's too hard to decipher shoe details from a distance.
(07:33):
His fragile argument was resembling Ray's dark, frayed corduroy pants.
Dovey merely tugged one of its loose threads, and Henry's
testimony slowly unraveled. Before the courtroom, she went in for
the kill. Dovey asked Henry if he remembered testifying earlier
that Ray was five foot eight and weighed one hundred
(07:55):
and eighty five pounds. Sure, of course he did. The
whole courtroom had just heard him testify that. To Hampman,
it was really a bit of a trap.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
He was described as this really large man who weighed
nearly two hundred pounds.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
That's historian Alexis co.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
Crump was small. He was about five five.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
I think he was about roundtree size, maybe one hundred
and thirty pounds.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Dovey pressed on. She asked Henry to look at Ray.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Now.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Ray was the thin, small man sitting at the defense table.
Henry admitted it. He wouldn't describe Ray as he had
described the killer. Here's Bob Bennett.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
It was obviously a discrepancy between how what people said
about his height and weight and what in fact it was.
So Dovey made a big deal about that.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
If it wasn't an accurate statement, did Henry lie in
the court of law? He said he tried as best
he could to remember. Devey thought he had a clear
view of the killing. She asked Henry what Ray was
wearing that day. He responded, I didn't look at him
that hard. The courtroom went still. She held the room,
(09:15):
and then she asked Henry one final question. She asked
him if he had ever looked at the murderer hard.
Just like that, the star witness flopped his certainty.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
It all sort of fell apart on the stand.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Hantman's last hope was to dispute Ray's height. He said
there was a reason that Ray appeared taller that day.
His shoes had an unusually tall heel that gave him
a good two inches more to his five foot five.
In court, Hantman brought out these quote built up shoes.
(09:51):
They're a vanity thing some short men used to bolster
their height. He waved them in front of the jury,
pointing to the heels. There there are two inches of
heel on these shoes, he declared. If Ray was five
at five and he had some help from these shoes,
that would get him to five o't seven. This is
what gave Wiggins the idea. He saw a man five
(10:13):
feet eight inches tall. This was his last chance. Hamptman
was exasperated. He asked the jury if this would really
come down to a back and forth over a half
inch or so. It was a good question. Only time
would tell whether Dovey had sown enough doubt into his
(10:34):
star witness's testimony. Dovey had her ways of decompressing. After
a stressful day in court. Each evening, she ventured outside
to her back porch. She sipped on some lemonade in
(10:55):
the hot, mugging DC air, and she took notes on
the day's proceeding. In her legal pad, Dovey still had
to present her own evidence and witnesses to the court.
That particular evening, she was wondering if she should put
Ray on the bench. If she put him on the stand,
it would become clear that he wasn't calculating enough to
(11:15):
pull off a murder in broad daylight.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
The winning card here was that she was going to
put Crump on the stand, and while she was nervous
about the cross examination, she was sure that he would
appear to everyone else, to the jury, to the witnesses
present that day, to reporters, the way that he had
appeared to her. To put it in the most basic terms, simple,
(11:39):
that he lacked the resources, the motivation, and the wherewithal
to murder this random woman.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Her colleagues disagreed. They thought the prosecution would decimate him.
Dovey believed Ray had intellectual disabilities. She worried he couldn't
go toe to toe with someone like Campman. It was
during the nights, sometime after midnight, that Dovey's phone would ring.
When she answered it, she could hear someone on the
(12:07):
other end, but they were silent. She just heard breathing.
Speaker 5 (12:11):
You see how she was threatened a little bit.
Speaker 6 (12:16):
It was dangerous.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
That's Patricia Bradford, a congregant from Dovey's church. These lingering
calls happened multiple times throughout Ray's trial. Dovey had the
sinking suspicion some people didn't want her to win this case.
The next day, Dovey took the elevator up to the
fourth floor of the courthouse. A black woman was operating
(12:41):
the elevator. As the floors ticked up, she told Dovey
something that would alter her entire defense strategy.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
The prosecution is delighted at the chance to cross examine him.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
The black elevator attendant overheard Hampman and his colleague talking
about wanting the opportunity to question Ray. The attendant told Dovey,
people say things in front of certain people, black people,
that they wouldn't say in front of others. Call it
arrogance or just a big mistake, but Hampman had clearly
(13:16):
underestimated this elevator attendant. It was the kind of break
Dovey needed.
Speaker 6 (13:22):
She entered the.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Courtroom and started her defense as she would with any
other case. Evidence. Her exhibit A was Ray Crump himself.
She told the jury, this was not the man Hamptman's
witnesses described. Just look at him here. He was all
but five foot five, a small, slender man sitting before them.
(13:47):
Then she brought on three character witnesses for Ray, a
member of Ray's family, a member of his church, and
a neighbor. They all said that Ray was known as
a peaceful man in his community. Hantman cross examined each
character witness. He tried to show the jury that they
barely knew Ray, that they couldn't attest to his character.
(14:09):
But the witnesses stood firm that they did no Ray
and had grown up with him. Even according to them,
he was no killer.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
And she has to make a game time decision.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
After hearing what went on inside the elevator, Dovey had
to decide was she going to have Ray testify?
Speaker 4 (14:28):
And instead she gets up and she tells the judge,
I rest my case.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Ray didn't testify, and she just leaves.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
It at that, so that the prosecution, who had planned
on cross examining Crump, is left totally scrambling.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
They have no idea what to do in that moment.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Hampman even admitted so he approached the bench and said
he was caught flat footed. He never anticipated in his
wildest dreams that Debby would rest her case. He was
sure that Ray would be called to testify.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
But this.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Was the worst case scenario for the prosecutors.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
They had this privilege, They sort of thought they had
it in the bag.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
And she.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Never felt that comfortable.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
There was no hubris here.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
She came prepared for sort of every situation. The fact
that they didn't was I think a big surprise to her.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
The courtroom was stunned too. The decision to not put
Ray on the stand sped things up dramatically.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
I don't think she knew how powerful it was to
make that decision that day, at that exact moment, and
so she took a huge risk for her case, for Crump,
for the future of black men who are going to
be tried in this court, and decided to rest her case.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
In his closing statements, Hampman made one final plea to
the jury. He told them Mary was to death by
Ray after a struggle in which she quote tried to
preserve her very existence. This was a crime of quote
malicious mischief. He closed by asking the jury to find
Ray guilty of first degree murder. He sat back down.
(16:18):
The court went into recess. Ray Crump's future was now
in the hands of the jury. The twelve jurors deliberated
through the evening for more than seven hours. Did Ray
Crump kill Mary Pincho Meyer, a fervent pacifist, a painter
(16:38):
coming into her own Someone had to be held responsible
for her nonsensical death. But would that person be Ray
There was a strong debate in the room. With so
much of the public's eye on this case, I can't
even imagine the pressure the jurors faced. After more than
seven hours, the foreman told Judge Corkoran they were at
(17:02):
a standstill.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
They originally sent a note to the judge saying they
were deadlocked at eight to four, but they didn't say
eight to four which way. And the judge told them
go back and get this done. And they came back
and said, we're still deadlocked. And then the judge really
gave them a lecture and said, you give me a verdict.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
It was already ten thirty at night. He told the
jury to go home. They'd continue their deliberations in the morning.
The next day, the jury resumed in a way. They
also retraced Mary's steps, though they couldn't go to the towpath.
They used photographs and maps to pore over the evidence,
(17:48):
trying to put the pieces together on how Mary was
killed and who might have done it. After eleven hours
of back and forth over two days, they reached a decision.
Everyone returned to the courtroom. The trial had lasted eleven
days and now there was a conclusion. Ray's mother, Martha,
(18:12):
had been at the trial every day, but she couldn't
be there for the actual announcement. It was too much
for her, so she waited in the courthouse corridor. Ray
sat motionless throughout the trial, but now standing waiting for
his verdict, he was swaying. Judge Corkoran commended the prosecution
(18:33):
and defense for presenting both sides of the case. Then
the foreman offered the written verdict to the judge. Corkoran
told the jury to rise. He said, members of the jury,
we have your verdict which states that you find the defendant,
Ray Crump Junior, not guilty. And this is your verdict,
(18:54):
so say you each and all the jurors nodded. Corkoran
told you are a free man. Ray's eyes were closed.
It almost looked like he was fainting. Then he and
Dovey hugged. Here was a man who'd been in jail
for nearly a year. He was in solitary confinement. He
could have faced the death penalty if found guilty, and
(19:18):
now he could finally go home. In the corridor, Ray's mother, Martha,
held back tears. She and her friends praised the Lord,
singing Hallelujah through the courtroom. She thanked the Lord for
returning her son back to her.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
You said they couldn't place him on the scene that day,
and you can't place him on the scene.
Speaker 7 (19:40):
You can't con victim. You got to be there.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
The jury didn't believe Ray was Mary's killer, and Dovey
helped everyone see it and managed to present her entire
defense in twenty minutes. No less, that's right. Her entire
defense was that quick because of her strategic decision not
to put Ray on the stand. On July thirty first,
(20:03):
nineteen sixty five, the New York Times reported the verdict.
The headline read, Washington negro freed in murder. If that's
not a sign of the times, I don't know what is.
That in itself proves how historic this win was. Here
was a black woman who could barely walk around Georgetown
without people raising their eyebrows because of her race. And
(20:25):
yet she had just won a case against a powerful
white prosecutor who had the state and all of its
resources behind him. Here's Bob Bennett again.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
And in this particular case, the defendant was acquitted largely
because of effect of lawyering on the part of Dovey
round Tree. That was a big win for her, and
it sort of solidified her already good reputation.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Soon judges began appointing her murder cases left.
Speaker 6 (20:58):
And right.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Cases.
Speaker 7 (21:00):
Murder case and I could ever, ever, ever deal with
and in fact I reached upon I wouldn't take any more.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
At last, the legal community gave her respect. Letters came
in from all over the country congratulating Debby on her
big courtroom success. A friend from Saint Louis wrote her
a note shortly after the verdict. He said, you.
Speaker 8 (21:24):
Are a great lawyer, and I'm very proud of you
because you won a very difficult case and saved the
life of an innocent man. Miss Pinchot was a woman
of the highest rank. Besides, she was white and a
distinguished artist, and crump the allet slayer was a Negro,
the judge was white. Yet you won. Congratulations, Oh wonderful girl.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
But not everyone was happy with the verdict, people like
Bob Bennett.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
And I remember feeling that a you know, guilty man
got off of a brutal murder and I was very
upset about it, and other people I'm sure felt the
same way.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Other people did feel that way, like Mary's family and friends.
Cecily Angleton sat in the back of the courtroom when
she heard the news. She was stoic, and several days
after the trial, Ben Bradley called Hamptman, asking him what
went wrong? Why did Ray get off? We couldn't find
any records of Mary's ex husband, Cord or their sons
(22:32):
being at the trial. A few sources told us Mary's
family thought the prosecution was going after the right man
all along. Maybe when the judge granted raised freedom they
felt like they were watching the murderer slip through their hands.
It had to be devastating. We reached out to the
Meyer family. A producer of ours spoke with one of
(22:55):
Mary's sons of the phone, but he and the family
declined to speak for this post podcast What If In
their eyes. The man who killed their beloved Mary went unpunished,
and now he was going home. Even if Mary's family
thought it was unfair, Ray was now a free man.
(23:16):
He had still been punished. He was locked up for
nearly a year, and we know that at least some
of it was in solitary confinement. His life would never
be the same. He was irrevocably changed by being locked away.
Speaker 7 (23:30):
Solitary confinement damages human beings.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
That's Terry Cooper's He studies prison conditions, including solitary confinement.
He's a psychiatrist at the Right Institute.
Speaker 7 (23:42):
Some of them have trouble with their anger, and they
get into explosive and they can be assault of states
of mind and get into trouble later. So it's not
the case that everybody's who's been in solitary is violent.
I want to make that very clear. However, there are
some individuals who can't control their anger when they get out.
(24:02):
And I do hear stories about people who were never
violent before they were in solitary, but had a problem
with violence after.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
This could be what happened to Ray. The trauma of
jail time hardened him. After the trial, he was a
free man, but no longer the man he had been.
Shortly after returning home, Ray and his wife, Helena split
up for good. She hadn't visited him in jail. At first.
(24:31):
Ray returned to his routine. He went back to his
construction jobs. He worked to lay the foundations for DC
buildings at Lawyers and journalists work in to this day,
But four years after his acquittal, his life would never
be the same. Ray was never a criminal before being
locked up, but after something changed. After he was acquitted
(24:56):
for Mary Meyer's death, he was arrested twenty two times.
Some were petty crimes, but others were very serious. In
nineteen seventy one, he remarried. He and his new wife
moved in together with her four children in Maryland. We
don't know much about their family life, but things got
(25:16):
bad enough that at one point Ray turned on his wife.
Speaker 8 (25:20):
Once he set fire to an apartment where she was
with the children that they had had in common.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
He was arrested again. He pled guilty to malicious burning
and went to jail for two months, followed by rehab
for alcohol. He threatened other women in his life and
was arrested multiple times for vandalism and arson setting fire
to homes and cars. For many people, these crimes were
a sign that Ray had killed Mary but just gotten
(25:50):
away with it. Here's Ron Rosenbaum.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Because a jury has reasonable doubt does not mean that
the accused is innocent, just means guilt was not proven.
I think that's the case. You know, I'm open to
the idea. It's possible that some phantom killer slipped in
(26:16):
and murdered her, some guy wearing the same kind of
clothes as Ray Krupp, etc. Etc. You know, I believe
in the jury system.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Ray pled guilty to a bunch of crimes. It was serious.
But it's hard not to think about Ray's mental state
after the spectacle of Mary's trial. Here's Terry Cooper's again.
Speaker 7 (26:39):
If you're intellectually incapacitated, the effects of solitary are going
to be even worse.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Some would say Ray made the perfect fall guy, but
it cost him dearly.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
And so when you look at someone like Ray Crump,
who finds himself in the middle of a case which
clearly the authorities to want someone to pay and they
want to close it really quickly, someone who has not
had an easy time up into that moment, and then
you see them absolutely ruined by it. As a historian,
(27:13):
it's a pattern you're familiar with, but every time it's
shocking and it's devastating because these are real people.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Their lives were ruined.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
There are some historical figures whose lives and stories are immortalized.
Dubbi wrote a memoir about her life. Mary didn't get
to tell her story on her terms, but she's been
written about extensively. But Ray, he was at the center
of this whole trial, and yet his story is mostly untold.
(27:44):
We don't know if his relatives consider him a man
who was wrongfully accused of Mary's murder, or if they
have their own doubts. His relatives never returned our invitations
to speak for this podcast. Aside from his criminal record,
we really don't know what happened to him or his family.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
He's not fleshed out for you. And you remember Ray,
this guy had a mom, He had five children, he
had a wife. All of these people suffered. There were,
you know, two victims that day. There was Mary Meyer
and there was Ray Crump Jr. You know, Crump was acquitted,
but he never stopped paying for it.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
The one thing we do have is a letter. It's
addressed to Dovey on August tenth, nineteen sixty five, ten
days after Ray was acquitted.
Speaker 6 (28:32):
Dear missus Dove Rowntree, just a few lines to say
hello and thank you very much. I hope that everyone
is fine, for I'm grateful to all of you at
the present time. I'm doing all right and so far
I had no trouble and things are looking good for
me right now. I hope they are the same with you.
I'm sending you the balance on my account. Sorry for
(28:55):
being so long, but I had to get to work,
and I say thank you, thank you, yours truly Raymond Crumb.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
And so, knowing what we know about Ray, that a
jury found him not guilty but his future involved bad behavior,
were still left wondering. If it wasn't Ray, then who
could have murdered Mary Pinchot Meyer. Her killing left so
many unanswered questions it was only a matter of time
before people filled in the gaps. Mary was a woman
(29:33):
who had the ear of some of the most powerful
people in the country, journalists, government officers, a sitting US President.
What did she know? Was it enough to cost her
her life?
Speaker 6 (29:46):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (29:46):
And did we mention the diary Mary had expressed a
desire that if anything ever happened to be that diary
be destroyed. We'll get to all of that and more
on next week's episode of Murder on the Towpath from Luminary.
(30:07):
Murder on the Towpath is a production of Film Nation
Entertainment in association with Neon Humm Media. Our executive producers
are me Solidad O'Brien, Alyssa Martino, Milan Papelka, and Jonathan Hirsch.
Lead producer is Shara Morris. Associate producers are Natalie Rinn
and Lucy Licht. Senior editor is Catherine Saint Louis. Music
(30:31):
and composition by Andrew Eapen, Sound design and mixing by
Scott Sommerville. Fact checking by Laura Bullard. Special thanks to
Alison Cohen, Sarah Vacchiano, Rose Arsea, Kate Michigan, Ronald Young Junior,
and MICHAELA Celella.
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