“I know,” I replied.
I limped to the passenger seat and got in. I handed Michael the crutches as I swung my bad leg into the SUV. Then I took a breath and closed the door, ready to go home.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Five Months Later
April 2018
From the popular podcast Listening to True Crime, episode 109, released April 13, 2018:
PAULA WATTS （LTC host）： I’ve done a deep dive into this. The Lady Killer case has been an obsession of mine for years—I know I’m not the only one. There are a million details, a million theories. And I mean, Beth Greer! You just look at her, and it’s like, “Could she have done it? Maybe she could. Maybe she shot two random men just because she was rich and bored and crazy.” You can see it, in a way. And then you wonder, am I thinking that because that’s what society has programmed me to think? That any woman who doesn’t fit inside a neat little box, any woman who has sexuality as blatant and unapologetic as Beth Greer’s, maybe that woman is dangerous. Maybe she should be shunned and put in a jail cell. For us as women, I think, we look at that case and it brings up so many questions.
SHEA COLLINS: I know. I agree. I’ve been obsessed with the case myself for a long time, which you can see from the articles on my site.
PAULA: But this is crazy, isn’t it? This is nuts. I read that they reopened the Julian Greer case. Jesus, they reopened it! Because now we know that Beth Greer’s mother had a baby out of wedlock, and Lily Knowles existed, and she, at the very least— We don’t know much, but we know she was a foster child in the system and that as an adult she was a psychiatric patient. And I’m not saying anything about people with mental illness, because they can’t help that, but this was the seventies, and the treatment Lily probably got was to get thrown in a room somewhere with some screwed-up antipsychotic drugs, and that’s it. She was a mess.
SHEA: They’ve found some of her psychiatric records and released them, though not all of them. They’ve also reopened the Lawrence Gage case in Arizona. Did you know they lost the bullet in that case? It’s just gone. Apparently there was a fire in one of their evidence storage spaces and some evidence was lost, including that bullet. So we’ll never know if the ballistics match the other murders. But I’ve heard they’re pursuing the case with DNA.
PAULA: There was DNA left at that crime scene?
SHEA: They found a couple of hairs, I think. And if they can get the DNA from the hairs, they can match it to—
PAULA: They might match it to Beth Greer, right? Because Lily was Beth’s sister.
SHEA: Yeah, I think that could happen. Or they can match it to the DNA from the body they found, which we think is Lily’s body.
PAULA: So have they matched the DNA from that body to Beth’s?
SHEA: I don’t know. No one will tell me.
PAULA: Come on! You’re the expert on this case. You know everything!
SHEA: There are lots of things the cops won’t tell me, though believe me, I ask. I’m a big pain in their asses. They pretty much hate me, but that’s fine.
PAULA: You’re so freaking brave it blows me away. Beth Greer must hate you, too. And maybe she isn’t the Lady Killer, but she’s a pretty intimidating person, even now.
SHEA: I don’t think she hates me. She agreed to have me interview her in the first place, and she told me about Lily. No one knew about Lily until she pointed me in the right direction.
PAULA: But because of you, she could be looking at new murder charges. Aren’t you a bit scared of her?
SHEA: I’ve been researching this case. I’ve seen some things. I had an accident it took months to recover from. Honestly, not much scares me anymore. I want the truth to come out.
PAULA: Does Beth Greer ever call you? Do you guys, like, hang out? Be honest. What’s she like?