Lance Morrow
Appearances
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
You'll notice that about me. I don't lurk. I'm out there. I'm an action kind of girl.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
That's how Lance, all of 25 years old, ended up having a moment alone with her.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Lance is now almost 80, but he has never forgotten that day. Trust me, it's not every day a reporter comes across a dead body. I've only ever seen them at natural disasters, but a murder in a city park? Never. Never.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
You'll notice that about me. I don't lurk. I'm out there. I'm an action kind of girl.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Washington, D.C. has always been a very segregated city. Crimes in the city only got the attention of the cops and the media if you had the right address. If you lived in a black neighborhood, chances were the police weren't rushing to the crime scene. Same thing with journalists.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Sounds about right. I've spent a lot of time in D.C., and I can tell you Georgetown is a very swanky place. The towpath is filled with joggers, couples holding hands. It's one of the wealthiest zip codes in the country. The Clintons have a house there. Nancy Pelosi has a condo. And you might spot Jill Biden running. But it wasn't always like this.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Historically, Georgetown had always been a black neighborhood. In the early 20th century, white federal employees trickled into the area. And by the 50s, Washington's white elites moved in. Less than 10% of the area was black. Here's Nina, the biographer, again.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Mary's actual home was near her studio. It was a little blue townhouse right in the center of Georgetown.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Once the white people moved in, the police and reporters took the neighborhood more seriously, which doesn't surprise me. But the towpath was still a paradoxical place. You'd find sleeping drunks next to a beautiful view of the canal with lily pads on it. After Mary waved goodbye to Polly, she passed the entryway to Key Bridge, the large concrete bridge connecting D.C. to Virginia.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Her daily route was straightforward. She walked west, all the way to Fletcher's Boathouse, a fishing spot since the 19th century. Then Mary would turn around and make her way back east to her studio. Now, the actual details after Mary enters the towpath are a bit fuzzy. We don't know exactly how it all went down. Sources disagree on the order of events.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
But here's what we've gathered from court documents, eyewitness accounts, and a bunch of books that have pieced together Mary's final moments. We know she walked along the wooden footbridge to get down to the towpath. Once she was on the path itself, Mary should have been able to hear the cars humming above her. The road was above the canal.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
If you go there, you can hear the occasional traffic sounds or see the car roofs floating above the gray stone wall. Around 20 minutes or so into her walk, Mary was attacked from behind. A man held back her arms, preventing her from getting away. Mary squirmed, desperately trying to break free. She was strong. Maybe she thought she could topple her assailant. But the man was too much for her.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
She yelled, She hoped someone, anyone, over the stone wall on Canal Road could hear her. The mechanics heard her, but it was too late. Then, a gunshot. A mechanic named Henry Wiggins slowly made his way to a stone wall on Canal Road, which overlooked the towpath in the canal. He didn't see the murder, but he heard all of it.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Lance Morrow said he didn't see any blood when he arrived on the scene, but there's good reason to think Henry saw blood, quite a lot of it.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
That's Ron Rosenbaum, who wrote about Mary in his book, The Secret Parts of Fortune.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
She was on her knees, clinging to a tree, literally holding on for dear life. Mary tried to push the killer away while protecting her head and leaning on the tree. The murderer was trying to drag her out of view. Then Mary used every ounce of life she had left in her. She got up and ran toward the canal and the wall where Henry was. But with a shot to the head, she couldn't make it any further.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
She fell to the ground. That's when the killer ensured Mary's fate. He shot her once more, this time in her back. The bullet hit her shoulder blade and punctured her aorta. Her heart stopped. Henry Wiggins, the mechanic, heard it all.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
He heard the two shots. By the time Henry got to the stone wall, he peered over and saw a black man standing over a woman's body. The man wore a light tan jacket with a dark cap. Henry and the killer locked eyes. Henry quickly hid behind the barrier. He didn't want to be the next victim. When he peered over the wall again, he saw the man putting a dark object into the pocket of his zipped jacket.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Henry and the killer looked at each other again. The killer wasn't afraid. He didn't rush to leave the scene. That's pretty strange. Instead, he walked away, slowly, into the dense greenery next to the Potomac. He was gone. Now it was up to the police to find the phantom killer. Henry didn't waste any time. He immediately drove his car back to the Esso station and called the police.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
A black man had killed a white woman in broad daylight in Georgetown. Within four minutes, the manhunt began. Our reporter, Lance Morrow, was at the crime scene by then. A policeman gruffly told him to step aside.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
The police took over, securing the crime scene. There's a striking image that later made the rounds. It shows a crowd of men around this dead woman. There are maybe eight of them standing there. And Mary is lying lifeless on the ground.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
The police sent a dragnet of cars to the area. There were very few marked exits to the towpath, and police were sent to cover each one of them. They figured if they could cover their bases quickly, the killer would be trapped. That's part of the reason why it all happened within minutes. Time was running out. Anyone who's visited the towpath knows it's outside, sure, yeah.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
But there are only so many places to get in and to get out. I've been there. If you're standing in the spot where Mary died, you either need to dive into the Potomac and swim away, climb a wall and cross Canal Road, hide in a tunnel, or use the few official exits. Mary's body lay near a small tunnel that carried water near the canal. It's called Foundry Branch Tunnel.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Now, if you're looking at a map, this area is where the murder happened. There were only a few exits. According to the police, the murderer could not escape. Officer John Warner was on the ground that day, searching for the killer. He spotted a culvert, which eventually dropped 50 feet into the Potomac, and then he emerged into a clearing. he found a man standing in front of him.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
His name, Raymond Crump Jr. The police asked Ray for his I.D., When he fetched it, water spilled from his wallet. He was a short, young, skinny man. Leaves and twigs clung to his body. And he was black. Officer Warner asked him the obvious question. Why was he wet? Ray said he was fishing but fell asleep at the bank of the river. He woke up after he had rolled into the water.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Warner asked Ray to show him the exact spot where he was fishing. The two were walking together when they heard a shout. That's him. It was Henry Wiggins from above, pointing down at Ray Crump. He was telling Officer Warner they found their man. Warner handcuffed Ray and brought him to his colleague, Officer Bernard Crook. Yeah, that's really his name. They passed Mary's body.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
You think I did that? Ray asked. Crook brought a soaking wet Ray to the station house for an interrogation. Things only got worse for Ray. One of Crook's men came to the station. He found a light jacket similar to the one Henry saw on Mary's killer. Crook asked Ray to try it on. It fit perfectly. Then Ray's story began falling apart.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Crook told Ray he had a stacked deck against him. Ray began sobbing. Several days later, the United States charged Ray Crump Jr. with first-degree murder. He was arraigned before the U.S. Commissioner and sent to the D.C. jail. That meant Ray Crump was immediately locked up. The Washington Post snapped a photo of his arrest. He's wearing a white shirt with black pants.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
A white, bald officer with glasses trails right behind him. His hands are holding Ray from behind, pushing him towards his fate. The 45 minutes it would take to find Mary's killer? They were up. Did it happen quickly because she was white? Because it was a slow day? because it was Georgetown and things like this weren't supposed to happen here. I don't really know.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
It was October 12th, 1964. Lance Morrow was listening to the Metro Police scanner. He was fresh out of Harvard, working as a cub reporter for a D.C. newspaper. He happened to be at police headquarters that day, just filling in for a co-worker. I know that feeling, when you're just sitting there waiting for something newsworthy to happen. He didn't wait long.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Whatever it was, a black man had just been taken in for the murder of a white woman. And in 1964, and I think even today, that was bound to capture everyone's attention.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
You'll notice that about me. I don't lurk. I'm out there. I'm an action kind of girl.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
news of a murder in Georgetown trickled out to the public slowly. Cicely Angleton was an old friend of Mary's. She happened to hear about a murder on the towpath and called her husband James Angleton. Here's author Ron Rosenbaum again.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
In other words, James Angleton was a spook and not just any spy.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Mary's ex-husband, Cord, was in a meeting in New York when he got a phone call from his friend, Wister Janney. He told him that Mary was dead. Cord immediately flew down to D.C. to get all the details on the ground. He knew he had to tell his sons before they heard it on the news. Since Quentin was already 18, Cord told him on the phone.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
In his memoir, Facing Reality, Cord writes that Quentin handled the death with stoic resignation. But Mark was still so young, only 14. Cord called Milton Academy. He would fly to break the news to Mark in person the next morning. The school assured him Mark wouldn't see any newspapers. That night, Ben Bradley, Mary's brother-in-law, went down to the morgue to identify the body. It was her.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
The cruisers racing to the scene weren't just any police cars.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
He saw Mary for the last time. The next morning, Cord met with Mark at Milton. In his memoir, Cord writes his son was so excited to see him, he saw it as a pleasant surprise. And then Cord gave him the terrible news. He wrapped his arm around Mark, consoling him as his son cried so deeply from such a profound loss. It was good the school took pains to hide the news from Mark.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Multiple papers wrote that Mary Pinchot Meyer was dead. The Washington Post said Mary was a Georgetown artist with 100,000 friends. Friends described her as fearless and elegant, one of the most beautiful people they had ever known. At first, reporters described the murder as a robbery gone wrong, but Mary wasn't carrying a purse. She left it at home that day.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Others suggested sexual violence had occurred, but there was no physical evidence of rape. The New York Times headline read, Woman Painter Shot and Killed on Canal Towpath in Capital. They ran a photo of her next to the article, one of the few that exist of Mary in the public domain. She has short blonde hair, less Doris Day Bob and more Princess Diana.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
She's staring to the right of her, into the distance, almost looking horrified at the headline of her own death. In the week after Mary's murder, someone scrawled a phrase on the key bridge in white paint. It said, The phrase is a French idiom. It roughly translates to bad luck, Mary. But the phrase can also mean foul play. Foul play. So maybe it wasn't bad luck at all.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Next time on Murder on the Towpath... Ray Crump needed a lawyer, and there was only one woman who dared defend him. I could make things right, I thought. And some things I had made right. She was Black herself. Her name was Dovie Roundtree.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Next episode, I'm going to dig into her remarkable life and introduce you to a woman whose legal mind would forever change the course of Mary's case, a case which only gets more shocking and more complicated with time. That's because what Dovey couldn't have known, what most people didn't know, was that Mary had had an affair with a very powerful man.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
That man was John F. Kennedy. I'll unravel the whole story starting next week. Murder on the Towpath is a production of Film Nation Entertainment and Luminary Media in association with Neon Hum Media. Our executive producers are me, Soledad O'Brien, Alyssa Martino, Milan Popelka, and Jonathan Hirsch. Lead producer is Shara Morris. Associate producers are Natalie Rinn and Lucy Licht.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Senior editor is Catherine St. Louis. Music and composition by Andrew Epin. Sound design and mixing by Scott Somerville. Special thanks to Allison Cohen, Sarah Vacchiano, Rose Arce, Kate Mishkin, and Michaela Salella.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Lance grew up in Georgetown. He knew the streets like a local cab driver, and he knew the people just as well.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
You'll notice that about me. I don't lurk. I'm out there. I'm an action kind of girl.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
He was used to living in the background of history. Rarely had he been caught in the crossfires of it. But a murder? In Georgetown? At midday? Now that was unheard of.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Lance parked his car on Canal Road. Just below it, there was the canal itself, and running beside that canal was a dirt road called a towpath. He spotted two African-American men fixing a stalled car on the road in front of him. The guys were mechanics from the local ESSO station. They'd called the police. And they told Lance they heard the whole thing go down.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
This is Murder on the Towpath, and I'm your host, Soledad O'Brien. I've been a journalist for over three decades. I've covered politics. I've reported on crime, justice, and race in America. And I'm really interested in the way they can all intersect. That's one of the things that drew me to this story. It weaves together all those things around a single event. A murder.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
A murder that would become emblematic of the 1960s. A time of political and cultural upheaval. A story that ruffled feathers even back then. A legendary newspaper man, a CIA director, and even JFK himself play a part. What's fascinating is that this tale has never really gone away. Decades later, people argue about what happened. Relatives of the victim hesitate to speak about her publicly.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Relatives of the alleged killer do too. It's a story so complex and mysterious that conspiracy theorists have come out of the woodwork. Even to this day, people still ask, who killed this woman in broad daylight? Over the next eight episodes, I'll introduce you to the two women at the heart of the story.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Mary Pinchot Meyer was a painter, a pacifist, and a woman who grew up rich but didn't like to follow rules. Dovey Johnson Roundtree became a civil rights lawyer at a time when Black people were systematically stripped of their rights. She was a minister, too, and determined to use the law to defend all God's children.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
The lives of these two women ran parallel to one another until one horrible day in 1964. Both were smart and confident. They had brilliant minds. In another world, I wonder if they might have even met. But they had never crossed paths in the district, except after one of them was killed. At that moment, in 1964, their lives suddenly intersected. And now, their legacies are forever intertwined.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Let's start at the moment that would bring them together. The day one of them was murdered. Her name was Mary Pinchot Meyer, and her final day started like any other. It was two days before her 44th birthday, one of those crisp days that actually makes you happy summer is over. Cool enough for a sweater, but still bright and sunny, with a blue sky streaming above. Mary was painting.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
She loved to paint. It was somewhere between a hobby and a job for her. She had spent 13 years married to a CIA man named Cord Meyer, holding down the fort while he traveled and spoke around the country. By this time, Mary resented her then-husband and what he represented. After their divorce, their two sons went away to boarding school.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Mary suddenly had a lot of time alone and could devote it to her craft. On most days, she'd hole herself up in her studio and just paint and paint and paint. Her studio was how you would imagine an artist's haven would be. It was a converted garage with two skylights littered with notebooks.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
That's Ben Bradley. I remember him from when I was a kid. He was a newspaper legend. You might remember him, too, from Watergate. He was editor-in-chief of the Washington Post when they broke the story. He also happened to be Mary's sister's husband. Mary was exploring a new artistic style. She was painting these concentric, colorful circles on round canvases, known in the art world as tondos.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
They gave you a window into Mary's art and the way her mind worked. Her routine was the same every day. Mary went into her studio, turned up the electric space heater, poured coffee from her thermos, lit up a cigarette. And then she would paint. For hours on end. Until that time of the day when concentration becomes difficult and the mind grows hazy.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Like clockwork, around noon, Mary would go for a walk on the towpath, just when she was losing focus. Mary savored walking on the towpath. In the winter, she'd even ice skate along the ice that blanketed the canals. Her daily walks gave her the time and space to think, get inspired. And that was what Mary was doing on October 12, 1964.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Before heading out, Mary had put on her gloves and pedal pushers. She layered herself with a cable-knit blue Angora sweater. The inside of her gloves had a cleaner's mark that said Meyer. That would later help police identify the body. She slipped her red tube of lipstick in her pocket and put on her white paint-splattered PF flyers. That day, she had a chore to do, a fun one.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
She had a cat that had laid some kittens. That's Nina Burley. She wrote a biography of Mary called A Very Private Woman.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Mary's converted studio looked like all the other garages on the alleyway. Some of her closest friends and family lived nearby. Mary's sister, Toni, lived in the townhouse on one end. She was the sister married to Ben Bradley. And before they moved to the White House, the Kennedys lived nearby. In fact, Mary and Jackie Kennedy would sometimes take their walks on the towpath together.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Mary was of that ilk. She could ask Jackie to walk with her. We know she crossed M Street because that day a long black car with official plates slowed and a rear window rolled down. It was her friend, Polly Wisner. Polly's husband was the head of the CIA's covert operations for many years. He worked with Mary's ex-husband, Cord, at the CIA.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Polly had one of those mid-Atlantic accents that old movie stars like Katharine Hepburn had. She waved and said, goodbye, Mary, with one of those long A's. Polly was the last friend to see Mary alive. From the moment Mary was shot on the towpath, it would take just 45 minutes for them to arrest a suspect. 45 minutes.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
That's Lance Morrow again, the cub reporter who had gotten to the scene quickly. He had stopped to talk to the car mechanics, then raced down to the towpath. He knew a secret way.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
The woman had been shot twice, a bullet to the brain and a bullet to the heart. This is not what reporters like us expect to see, the actual body of the murder victim.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Lance could tell the victim was a woman of means and beauty. But at that point, no one knew who she was. After seeing her on the ground, one officer said, I've seen a lot of dead women, but none who looked beautiful when dead. She even looked beautiful with a bullet in her head. When I read that line, I was kind of horrified.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
I mean, there's something twisted about a woman being judged on her looks, even in her death. But the truth is, Mary was striking. She was always the prettiest woman in the room. She had that it quality that drew people to her, especially men. Mary sported short blonde hair and had piercing blue eyes. She was thin, athletic, had an air of Grace Kelly about her.
Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien
Bad Luck, Mary
Mary was born into high society, but it was more than that. She was inherently regal. Even though Lance had arrived quickly to the crime scene, the police had already come and gone. If they were going to catch the killer, they needed to block off the exits to the towpath as soon as possible. Time was running out. They left Mary out in the open as they searched.