Throwback Thursday: The Lipstick Killer, William Heirens Pt. 2

0:00Hi listeners, it's Vanessa. Are you the type to fall down an internet rabbit hole and not come up for hours? You'll love crimes of Reddit. A new crime house original with Sabrina, Diana, Roge, and Alexis Linklenter. Every week, one host brings real true crime stories from Reddit, while the other reacts completely blind. No prep, no spoilers, then they swab. It's the feeling of sending your group chat a Reddit 2am that starts with, you have to see this. Sabrina and Alexis are in the chat with you. Follow crimes of Reddit on Apple podcasts and Spotify, or subscribe at crimes of Reddit pod on YouTube. This is Crime House. William Hirons is in custody, but the case against him is shakier than the headline suggests. The fingerprint match falls short of FBI standards.

1:00Lawyers are nowhere in sight, and investigators are running out of time and evidence. What happens next will define the case for decades. Welcome to Crime House 24-7. I'm Vanessa Richardson. Twice a day every day we bring you the best most timely and gripping cases from across the entire Crime House network. All in one place, right here. But every Thursday is throwback Thursdays, where we reopen a chilling case from before the age of DNA, a crime that's haunted us for generations. This week we're opening the file on William Hirons, the lipstick killer. And this case never really closed. Hirons died in prison in 2012, still maintaining his innocence. And the controversies around his coerced confession and the disputed fingerprint evidence have fueled ongoing debate among legal scholars and true crime researchers, with advocates continuing to argue his conviction deserves fresh scrutiny.

2:00Our community exists because of listeners like you. Want even more? Join Crime House Plus for every episode of Crime House 24-7, Add Free. Not only that, but you'll get complete access to an exclusive limited series every month. And early, Add Free access to all crime house shows and bonus episodes. Also to CrimeHousePlus.com or on Apple Podcasts, tap Try Free at the top of the Crime House 24-7 page. Now, Dr. Tristan Engles is back with me as we follow the interrogation, the confession, and the questions that have never been fully answered. If you've spent years trying every diet out there, only to end up feeling totally stuck. Listen up. Some of them can actually be different. You deserve to feel amazing in your own skin, and weight loss by hers is here to help you finally shake things up. They now offer access to an affordable range of FDA-approved GLP-1 medications, including

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4:03Get your home ready and save up to 50% off custom window treatments during the Labor Day mega sale at Blinds.com. From room darkening to light filtering shades, finding the perfect fit is easy. Get free samples, expert design help, and professional measure and install services, or DIY with confidence and support every step of the way. Shop up to 50% off site-wide plus huge savings on door busters, right now during the Labor Day mega sale at Blinds.com. In June 26, 1946, Bill Hirons was on the prowl. So far, the 17-year-old had avoided being identified as the notorious lipstick killer, who was suspected of killing three people in Chicago. 43-year-old Josephine Ross, 33-year-old Francis Brown, and six-year-old Suzanne Degnan. Despite getting caught breaking and entering on multiple occasions, and even being detained after walking down the street with a loaded rifle, nobody considered him a suspect.

5:05So now, a few weeks after finishing his first year at the University of Chicago, Bill decided to break into another apartment building. Serial killers are compelled to kill because of the need for power, gratification, and thrill. And that drive is so strong that it overrides their reasoning and their judgment, and they already tend to lack a conscience which allows them to continue without fear of the consequences. If they were deterred by consequences, they wouldn't be doing this to begin with. For Bill, burglarizing appears to have become a compulsion, and given his age, he still has a developing prefrontal cortex. So his impulse control is at a greater deficit that it otherwise would be. But only does burglarizing, according to Bill, alleviate headaches, intention, but it also provides him with that sense of power and, of course, that sexual gratification. He is getting reinforcement in two ways when he does this. He's getting immediate relief for the tension in the headaches and immediate sexual gratification.

6:10Well, whatever was motivating Bill that day, he wasn't being very careful. A custodian caught him breaking into the building, and when Bill made a run for it, the man alerted the police. And this is an example of how his compulsion has overridden his reasoning and his judgment. He wasn't being careful. That need for thrill and gratification was stronger than the fear of being caught. And despite Bill's best efforts to escape the police, the authorities had him surrounded. After a brief chase, he was knocked unconscious by a pursuing officer and taken into custody. When Bill woke up hours later, he was reportedly strapped to a hospital bed in Cook County jail, surrounded by men in suits and police uniforms. He was fingerprinted and informed that he was a suspect in the murder of Suzanne Degnan, the six-year-old girl who'd been killed six months earlier, after she was abducted from her bedroom. For three days, Bill allegedly remained in custody without access to a lawyer while

7:12being endlessly grilled about Suzanne's death. He repeatedly denied any involvement in it, but then word came back that his fingerprints matched those on the ransom note found in Suzanne Degnan's bedroom. State attorney William Toey took that confirmation and ran with it. He announced to reporters who'd been obsessively covering the recent murders that the lipstick killer was in custody. Behind closed doors, however, Toey wasn't so confident. Bill's print had been analyzed using the so-called Galton system, which identifies about 150 types of patterns or points in the human fingerprint. To make a positive identification, the FBI required a match on at least 12 of those points. However, Bill's fingerprint only matched nine of those points on the ransom note. It didn't mean it wasn't Bill's print, but there was room for reasonable doubt. The State Attorney couldn't accept that, because he didn't just need to link Bill to Suzanne

8:14Degnan's murder, he had to prove that Bill had also killed the lipstick killer's other two victims, Josephine Ross and Francis Brown. Unfortunately for Toey and the victim's families, there wasn't much for him to go on. In fact, there wasn't any forensic evidence linking Bill to the Josephine Ross murder, and only a partial fingerprint connecting him to Francis Brown's. Witnesses were also scarce, and the ones they could find couldn't provide much detail. One said he'd seen a nervous-looking man leaving Francis Brown's apartment the night of her murder. Another said he'd spotted a suspicious figure with a shopping bag in Suzanne Degnan's neighborhood the night she was killed. But when the men were shown Bill's photo in a lineup, neither was able to identify him. As frustrations mounted on the investigative side, so did public pressure for the authorities to deliver. In a misguided effort to ensure they got a conviction, police used even more coercive

9:15tactics to get Bill's confession. They reportedly beat the 17-year-old suspect repeatedly, punching him in the stomach and in the testicles in an effort to make him confess. They also allegedly had a nurse pour ether over his genitals, which could have caused a painful chemical burn. These acts would have been far beyond legal interrogation tactics. They were in the realm of torture. Someone undergoing torture is experiencing the deliberate inflection of immense pain or suffering for a specific reason, and that's not just physical pain, it's also psychological pain. We as humans are biologically wired for survival. The survival part of our brain will impulsively react to protect itself. That means we will fight or we will run, and are more likely to say whatever it takes to get relief for that survival. Miners like Bill was at this time, are particularly susceptible to coercive techniques in torture.

10:17Their brain, in particular, the prefrontal cortex where judgment and reasoning are controlled is still developing, so they are particularly susceptible to coercion. Their ability to do a fully informed cost-benefit analysis of the situation or any situation is at a deficit as it is, and when they're experiencing torture or coercion in those moments they are put in a loose-loose choice. Falsely confessing it relief or don't falsely confess and continue to be subjected to immense pain and coercion. They aren't able to see the choices beyond that, and that is by design, on the part of law enforcement, in this case. Well despite what police were putting him through, or perhaps because of it, Bill insisted he was innocent. Some might have been inclined to believe him, but many found Bill's attitude toward the victim's suspicious. He didn't seem to care about them as an innocent person probably would. For instance, when asked how he felt reading about Francis Brown's murder in the paper,

11:20Bill said it was just like anything else. This could be an indication of sociopathy, but objectively speaking, he's also 17, and we can't diagnose an anti-social personality disorder, let alone consider sociopathy until he's at least 18. So he might just not have the ability to fully conceptualize the gravity of this, especially having just lived through World War II and his glamorizing of Nazism that he had been engaging in. Suspicion wasn't the same as proof, so presumably Bill knew that. If the authorities had more than his partial fingerprint, they wouldn't have gone to such extreme lengths to force a confession, and maybe that's why, despite being tortured, he remained confident he would escape serious punishment. But Bill had a rude awakening coming. A late attorney toey was hyper-aware that three murders had been committed in a single Chicago neighborhood by a man who was sexually aroused by breaking and entering.

12:22He was convinced that Bill Hirens was that man, and he was willing to go even further to make the teen burglar admit it. On June 30, 1946, four days after Bill was arrested, the police reportedly brought in two psychiatrists to administer a drug called sodium pentathol, better known as truth serum, without getting legal permission for it. As the 17-year-old lay restrained on a hospital bed, the doctors allegedly placed two vials above his head and stuck a needle into his arm. They told him to count back from a hundred. He got to 94 before slipping into a state of semi-consciousness. I know very little about sodium pentathol, as it's not something that I come across in practice, it's not something regularly used by psychiatrists. But what I do know is that it is a barbituit medication commonly used as an anesthetic agent for brief procedures, and is also one of the drugs used incidentally for lethal injections

13:25in executions. Barbituits are a central nervous system to present, meaning that they can cause sedation and overall relaxation. But why is it truth serum? It was believed that because it suppresses certain functions in the brain, it would make it difficult for someone to lie and much easier for them to speak the truth, at least that's my very rudimentary understanding of it. But more importantly, this was not only illegal, it's grossly an ethical. And if this was done today, those psychiatrists would likely lose their license to practice and be jailed. Based on what we now know about the drug, a confession made on sodium pentathol would be considered unreliable today. But in 1946, investigators still believed it was a viable way to get information, though in Bill's case they allegedly didn't do it legally. However, the so-called truth serum did lead to some shocking revelations. While Bill was drugged, psychiatrists asked him a series of questions, some were casual

14:27just to get a sense of who he was. For instance, they asked if he had any favorite movies. Bill said he especially liked Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the story of a good man with a violent alter ego. He said he identified with the story and that it seemed to reflect his life. Yeah, I can see why he self identifies with this, because he himself has an alter ego named George, whom he places the blame on for the actions that he has been engaging in. That's right, I want to mention too, this is kind of interesting that George is his middle name and George was also his father's name. Oh wow, I didn't know that. That is very telling. The doctors were intrigued by this admission and encouraged Bill to say more. In response, Bill told them about his own criminal alter ego, George. He explained how George would appear to him when he wanted to get out. That is when he wanted to escape from tension in his parents' home. The evil being would then entice him to commit crimes. And once the drug had worn off, the teen confirmed it.

15:30He told State Attorney Tui that the things he'd said under the influence were true. George was real and he may have been responsible for committing all three murders. At last, investigators had the confession they'd been fighting for, or so it seemed. But for Tui, it still wasn't enough. He believed that Bill had killed the victims in cold blood and was making George up to appear mentally unwell. If Bill succeeded in convincing a jury he was living with a mental illness, he'd be sent to a hospital rather than federal prison. So it sounds like he's worried about him doing an insanity plea. And I don't know how the legal standard might have been back in the 1940s. Hey, being Bill would have to prove that he did not know right from wrong. And from what we know so far, that would be a very uphill battle for him to prove that. Tui didn't want to let that happen. He needed to prove Bill wasn't living with a mental illness before proceeding with the

16:34case. So he decided to take the interrogation tactics to an even greater extreme. A lot has changed since Bob's discount furniture opened its first store in 1991. But not the way they do business. AKA the Bob's Way. 35 years later, Bob's still carries today's latest trends at 90's era prices, like the Aspen sofa for just $399, with over 2,000 five star reviews. Plus it comes in two sizes and is the same price no matter which you choose. So everyone gets a seat no matter how big your 90's Grunge band is. So stop and encelebrate 35 years of top rated styles only at Bob's discount furniture. Four universities, four deaths, and four times the truth got buried under the institution that was supposed to protect it. I'm Vanessa Richardson and this is Campus Crimes, a four-part bonus series on Crime House 24-7. It starts in 1905 when Stanford's own co-founder is fatally poisoned.

17:38In the school, quietly recast it as natural causes. A biology professor denied tenure opens fire in a faculty meeting. A graduate student stabbed to death in a crowded library and a killer who simply vanishes. And a college basketball player murdered by his own teammate while his coach schemes to smear the victim to save himself. Every case asks the same question. What happens when an institution has more to protect than the truth? Listen every Sunday in August on the Crime House 24-7 feed or join Crime House Plus to get all four episodes right now, add free. Join on Apple Podcasts or at CrimeHousePlus.com On July 1, 1946, five days after

19:05the death of the victim, the victim was arrested. But in order to make sure Bill was of sound mind, he asked doctors to administer a spinal tap which involved drawing cerebro spinal fluid out of Bill's spinal column with a very large needle. Distensively, the purpose of this procedure was to find out if Bill had any markers that would indicate brain damage, but they didn't exactly do it gently. Allegedly, Bill was ordered to lie in a fetal position as a nurse and doctor inserted the needle between his vertebrae without anesthesia. Wow, okay, I know it's the 1940s, but they're certainly not helping their case when they continue to use unethical and what I would assume are illegal practices. And as the 17-year-old, grown in agony, police reportedly pulled him out of his bed, strapped him into a chair and pushed him into a patrol wagon.

20:08They drove to the police detective bureau about 15 minutes away and took Bill inside to administer a polygraph test. However, Bill was in such excruciating pain that it had to be rescheduled for a few days later. And perhaps investigators felt they'd gone a step too far because the next day, July 2, 1946, Bill was finally allowed to see his lawyers. Despite the fact that Bill had been illegally detained, not to mention possibly tortured, there wasn't much they could do to turn his case around. While he'd been in custody, police had searched Bill's dorm room and his parents' home, and among various stolen items, they recovered a collection of Nazi memorabilia. Ironically, the fascist mementos themselves weren't the problem. It was the fact that Bill had stolen them the same night Suzanne Degnan was murdered from a home close to where she lived. Police had also found another stolen item that made Bill look guilty, a medical kit containing

21:11surgical knives and scalpils. None of the instruments contained traces of blood, but at the very least they suggested that Bill had an interest in dissection. And even though these tools were too small to do any major damage, it was hard to ignore the fact that Suzanne's body had been dismembered. Initially when you introduced Suzanne's case, it did not seem to fully fit his method. His first two alleged victims were stabbed repeatedly and left in their homes to be found with clothing wrapped around their heads. They were also adults. Suzanne was six and she was taken from the home and dismembered with a ransom note left behind. At first I didn't seem to really fit for him, but now, in knowing this, it could make sense. If he was in fact interested in dissection, then he would need to kidnap the victim. He wouldn't carry that out in a child's home, the actual process of dissection, and he would likely choose a more vulnerable target, one that he could overpower.

22:12Since his first two victims were repeatedly stabbed, which appeared to have been done impulsively, at least the first one because he happened upon the maxidentally and was afraid that they would expose him by calling for help, then this murder would have been planned and carefully executed. And the ransom note written was a red herring, like I had talked about in episode one. When there is a big change in patterns like this with serial killers, we have to consider unexpected events or variables that could explain the changes. But Bill is particularly perplexing because he's still so young to be engaging in this depravity. That's not to say it's not possible, just that statistically, serial killers become active in their early to mid-20s, and he's only 17. While the police were convinced that Bill had murdered Suzanne Degman, Josephine Ross, and Francis Brown, and when they conducted another search of Francis' apartment, they discovered a partial fingerprint that matched Bill's.

23:13Despite the mounting evidence against him, Bill still refused to officially confess to the murders. After his so-called truth serum questioning, he'd only said it was possible he had something to do with him. But that didn't matter to the press. In mid-July 1946, the media started running stories about him in newspapers and on the radio. They made it seem like he'd fully admitted his guilt and described the murders in detail. Once Bill learned what the press was saying about him, he was convinced he'd been found guilty in the court of public opinion. And if he were convicted in a court of law, he was sure he'd get the death penalty. The prospect of that terrified Bill, and as he was mulling it over, state attorney Tui offered him a deal. Tui wanted Bill to confess to just one murder, Suzanne Degman's, in exchange he would receive a single life sentence which meant he could be eligible for parole in about 20 years.

24:14To a 17-year-old boy who's gotten away with a lot in his young life, this sentence would have seemed like an eternity. But to Bill, the thought of the electric chair was way worse. So after a few more days of discussion with his lawyers and his parents, Bill agreed to take the deal. On July 30, 1946, a little over a month after his capture, Bill was escorted to the state attorney's office. The room was packed with reporters who believed they were about to get a direct confession. Instead, they got a stunning surprise. In the moment when Bill was supposed to reveal all, he announced that he knew nothing about the murder. Okay, so far, Bill has been subjected to coercion and torture. And now, you know, the adversarial nature of the criminal proceedings itself. Part of the success of coercion and torture is taking away a sense of agency or a sense of power and replacing it with a feeling of learned helplessness.

25:18Now he's being created in front of reporters so the prosecutor can showboat to the public that he was able to get the confession. So this also feels very political. But Bill likely saw this as a moment to regain some of that agency back in some of that power. To Bill, the prosecutor was controlling his life at this point in what would happen next. But in this moment, he was able to take some of that control back. The prosecutor can't control what he says, only Bill can. And since he is in the loose, loose conflict, most find themselves in within our legal system, as in choosing this little lesser of two evils, life or death, in his case, he likely did not feel he had mortal loose by doing what he did. Or of course, there's always the possibility that he was innocent of this particular crime. Well, defying to he might have satisfied Bill's ego in that moment, but if he wanted to escape punishment, it was the wrong move. The state attorney was furious, and he soon made it clear that there would be consequences

26:18for Bill's actions. Following the botched confession, Toe informed Bill's attorneys that the deal was off. The teen would now be prosecuted for 23 counts of burglary, three counts of murder, and attempting to kill a police officer by pointing a gun at him during his arrest. Toe also promised he would seek the death penalty. However, there was still a chance for Bill to save himself. Toe said if he confessed to all three murders, he would receive three consecutive life sentences as punishment. This meant that the 17-year-old would spend his remaining years behind bars, but at least he would avoid the chair. In retrospect, the defense would have had ample reasons to take this case to court. Allegedly, Bill had been illegally detained without access to counsel, and he also claimed he'd been physically tortured in custody. Most of the evidence against him was inconclusive, and the stolen items retrieved from his dorm

27:18and his parents' home had been seized without a warrant. Even so, Bill's lawyers pressured him to take the deal. They knew that from the moment the media had dubbed Bill the lipstick killer, his fate was most likely sealed. Nonetheless, Bill continued to maintain his innocence. But in the wake of the press conference, a new piece of evidence emerged that cast overwhelming doubt on his claim. After the fake confession was published on July 15, 1946, reporters had been looking for a knife that Bill supposedly used to dismember Suzanne Degnan's body. There was a rumor going around that after killing her, Bill had thrown the knife under the subway tracks near her home. The police didn't seriously look into it, but a few reporters asked workers at the station near Suzanne's apartment if anyone had found a discarded knife. Incredibly, someone had.

28:19Not realizing its significance, the knife had been placed in storage. The journalists turned the knife over to the police, who then made another shocking discovery. The knife had been stolen from a man named Guy Rodrick, a month before Suzanne Degnan's murder. During that same burglary, Guy had also been robbed of a gun, which turned out to be the firearm Bill had in his possession the day of his arrest. Now, through this roundabout series of events, the prosecution knew that Bill had stolen a gun and a knife on December 3, 1945. There weren't any fingerprints on them, though. And as we said before, DNA testing didn't exist yet, so investigators couldn't scientifically prove these were the murder weapons, but the implications were certainly damning. Investigators argued that a little over a week after stealing the weapons, on December 11, Bill broke into Frances Brown's apartment and shot her, possibly with the gun he'd stolen.

29:22Three weeks later, he kidnapped Suzanne Degnan and dismembered her with the stolen knife. For Bill, who had managed to get out of trouble so many times before, must have felt like the walls were closing in. It's interesting that Bill, at least as how you explained it, has been more concerned about averting the death penalty than he was about the prospect of life in prison when both of those are a terrifying reality in themselves. Especially for someone who needed to constantly escape his environment at home, in order to get some relief, alleviate tension, alleviate headaches, the idea that he would lose that option entirely, or that he cannot escape this problem, could be very triggering. I think he's going to be searching for ways in which he can regain control. But that being said, Bill has been detained before. He's gone to reform school, and during both of those experiences, he seemingly thrived. He does well when he has structure and he has routine and he has a purpose.

30:26What he does appear to struggle with is shame and a need for control. While as Bill's 18th birthday approached, he began to realize there was no way out. He agreed to give the authorities what they wanted, but the lipstick killer's story was far from finished. I've always dreamed of being able to order my coffee in Italian like a local, instead of just pointing at the menu and hoping for the best. There's something about speaking another language with real confidence that opens up a whole new world of experiences. That's why I'm so excited about Rosetta Stone's Sapphire. It's their biggest launch in over a decade. It takes that research-backed method we all know in trust and adds fresh, cutting-edge features that make it easier than ever to go from knowing a few phrases to speaking naturally about the topics you actually care about. What I love is that you aren't just memorizing vocabulary lists. You learn entirely in your new language through visuals and audio, just like you did as a kid.

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33:33I first started to steal when I was about 10 years of age. The mere act of stealing carried with it a certain sex satisfaction. From there, Bill went on to explain how burglary had become an addiction he felt compelled to feed. He described how that compulsion led him to commit murder when he broke into Josephine Ross' apartment and had killed her to stop her from screaming. Bill also said he killed Francis Brown and Suzanne Degnan for the same reason to keep them quiet. And yet, the brutality of the murders proved otherwise, and state attorney Tui was determined to leave reporters with that fact. So after Bill finished reading his confession, the prosecutor loaded him onto a sheriff's department vehicle. Together with a caravan of law enforcement, journalists and lawyers from both sides, Bill was taken to the scenes of the crimes, at each site he was prompted to reenact the murder he had just confessed to committing.

34:34At Suzanne Degnan's house, a throng of onlookers gathered to watch as a ladder was propped against the building, leading to Suzanne's window. Bill showed the crowd how he had gagged the six-year-old girl, carried her down the ladder and taken her to the basement of a nearby building to kill her. Bill's account shocked his audience. Many who had doubted his guilt were so unnerved by the level of detail that they changed their minds. Yet after his confession was published, there were a few who remained convinced that Bill Hirons was not the lipstick killer. One of his defenders was Josephine Ross's adult daughter, Mary Jane Blanchard. Mary told at least one reporter that she thought Bill had been framed. Her belief was partly based on intuition. As Mary put it, quote, Hirons just does not fit into the picture of my mother's death. Mary also found it odd that none of her mother's things had been found in Bill's burglary stash. A lot of law enforcement and detectives will encourage people to look at their belongings,

35:40including in more specifically, if nothing obvious is taken, to look at your underwear drawer. I'm wondering if Mary was able to actually know if any of her underwear had been taken or not. Well, Bill himself had privately admitted that the theft was not the primary motive for his burglaries. While he was in jail, Bill wrote a series of letters to his parents explaining his delinquent behavior. He confessed that he broke into houses not from material gain, but because it gave him sexual pleasure. He also said he tried to alleviate those urges by dating girls, but it hadn't worked. So Bill had gone on breaking and entering, sometimes only to masturbate and leave. This behavior directly paralleled what had happened in Josephine Ross's apartment. The killer had broken in, masturbated multiple times, and left, but had also committed murder. So it was Mary Jane mistaken in her assessment of the 17-year-old suspect? Or was she correct in

36:42believing that Bill Hirons was framed? Either way, he officially became a murderer in the eyes of the law on September 4, 1946, when he officially pleaded guilty to killing Josephine Ross, Francis Brown, and Suzanne Degnan. Many Chicago residents breathe the sigh of relief that night, knowing the lipstick killer had confessed in a court of law, but the teenager wasn't content to let things rest. That night, he attempted one last escape by tying his sheets to the bars of his cell and hanging himself. Ultimately, Bill's suicide attempt failed, some guards caught him in the act of hanging himself and saved his life. Whenever we're assessing individuals who make suicide attempts, especially if it's a genuine attempt, one that they planned so that they couldn't have an intervention, we're looking at what level of hopelessness are they experiencing. That's usually

37:42what's behind it, a feeling of despair. When somebody is feeling negative about themselves, the world, and the future, that is the recipe for hopelessness. And right now, Bill is probably feeling shame about himself. He's probably feeling like the world is against him and that it's not going to get any better. And those are the things that could lead to him trying to take his life. But also, it is another form of control. It could be viewed as his way of gaining control over his life, even if that control meant how his life ended. The morning after his failed suicide attempt, Bill was forced to return to court this time for sentencing. As agreed, the judge gave him three consecutive life terms. This virtually ensured that Bill would spend decades in federal custody without the possibility of parole. On September 6, 1946, one year after gaining early admission to the University of Chicago, Bill was chained to a dozen other prisoners and loaded onto a bus.

38:44Before he boarded, reporters asked him to say farewell to his mother. They wanted to capture the moment on camera. Bill complied. His mother kissed him goodbye and told him to be a good boy. Bill told her he would. Then he got on the bus. On board, Bill was reportedly approached by a sheriff who was friends with Suzanne Degnan's father. The officer asked Bill if Suzanne had suffered prior to her death. The 17-year-old convicted murderer replied, quote, I can't tell you if she suffered sheriff. I didn't kill her. Tell Mr. Degnan to please look after his other daughter because whoever killed Suzanne is still out there. I've already outlined quite a bit about Bill's pathology from his parapheralia disorders, sexual burglary, the risk of his sexual burglary leading to future sexual violence, to why he created his alter ego. We discussed how each of these

39:45murders fit his pathology as well as the ways where they seemingly might not have fit his pathology but what stands out most to me is his alter ego, George. He developed his alter ego so he had escaped goat. Someone or something to blame has depraved Axod to distance himself from the shame. If he had to create George to begin with in order to separate himself from the dark aspects of his personality, then it would also fit his pathology that he would continue to insist he was innocent. It will be easy for him to assert that he, Bill, didn't do it and believe it because George, his alter ego did, therefore he is innocent and he can say that with certainty. Of course, there is also the possibility that he was actually innocent in the manner in which they forced his confession certainly doesn't make the prosecution stand on this appear credible anymore than Bill does. Officially, Bill was considered a murderer of a day he confessed in a court of law on September 5th,

40:461946, but the day after he was sentenced, he went back to claiming his total innocence. And some believe he might have been. For instance, an independent forensic examiner said the fingerprint on the ransom note appeared to have been planted. Handwriting experts also showed that Bill's writing didn't match the ransom note or the lipstick message in Francis Brown's apartment. Multiple Chicago journalists have claimed it was written after the fact by a reporter who wanted to make the story even more sensational. But despite multiple appeals, Bill's conviction remained in place. He became the longest serving inmate in America before dying of complications due to diabetes on March 7th, 2012, at the age of 83. Although Bill passed away, his legacy as the lipstick killer remains. In fact, it's actually one of the reasons we're here now doing this show. Back in the mid-1940s, his case inspired a boy named Robert Ressler to pursue a career in law

41:52enforcement. Eventually, Robert went to work for the FBI, where he and his partner became the first officials in America to study multiple murderers, which ultimately led them to coin the term serial killer. Did Bill Hirens deserve that title? Decades later, Robert was asked that very question. He replied that Bill Hirens was definitely not innocent. But as to whether the teen was guilty of all three murders, he didn't have an answer. Thanks for listening to this episode of Crime House 24-7. Be sure to come back tomorrow for Justice Served, where I follow a case all the way to the verdict that finally delivered justice. And to enhance your listening experience, join Crime House Plus and get every episode of Crime House 24-7 completely ad-free, along with early ad-free access to all Crime House shows plus monthly bonus

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