0:00

This podcast details true crime

0:02

cases. It contains adult themes

0:04

and may contain descriptions of violence. It

0:07

is not intended for children. Listener

0:09

discretion is advised. Thank

0:19

you for joining me for this special bonus

0:21

episode of Once Upon a Crime. All

0:24

of you who follow true crime

0:26

cases probably have a handful, or at

0:28

least a couple, that stay in

0:31

your mind long after you learn about them. One

0:34

true crime story I never forgot took

0:36

place in Boston, Massachusetts in 1989. On

0:40

October 23rd of that year, 29-year-old

0:43

Charles Stewart placed a 911

0:46

call to report that he and his wife, Carol,

0:48

had been carjacked, driven to a secluded

0:51

section of the city, robbed

0:53

and shot. A

0:55

citywide manhunt for the assailant began, but

0:58

from the start, police were suspicious

1:00

about Charles Stewart's story. Stewart

1:03

was gravely wounded, but his

1:05

wife, seven months pregnant with their

1:07

first child, died, as did

1:09

their unborn baby. The

1:12

series of events that unfolded afterward would

1:15

captivate the city of Boston and the

1:17

nation. A new

1:19

podcast produced by the Boston Globe

1:21

and presented an association with

1:23

HBO Max titled, Murder in

1:25

Boston. He visits this true

1:28

crime case and provides never-before-heard

1:30

details of the crime, the perpetrator,

1:33

and the havoc it wreaked on the city of

1:35

Boston. Adrian Walker was a

1:37

new reporter working for the Boston Globe at

1:40

the time Charles Stewart's 911 call

1:42

shook the city. It's

1:44

a story that has resonated with him personally as

1:47

a journalist and a citizen

1:49

of Boston. He hosts

1:51

the new podcasts, Murder in Boston, and

1:54

along with a team of Pulitzer Prize-winning

1:56

investigative reporters, unveils explosive

1:58

new findings the

2:00

narrative of a story long

2:02

cemented in the city's war. So

3:00

I am pleased now to welcome the host of Murder in

3:02

Boston, Adrian Walker to the show. Welcome

3:22

Adrian. Thanks for having me. This

3:24

is one of those true crime stories from

3:26

history that if you live during that time,

3:28

you probably remember it pretty vividly. I remembered

3:30

it. As a matter of fact, when I

3:32

got the invitation to

3:35

interview you, I read like the

3:37

first sentence or two and

3:39

I know exactly what this one is. I know exactly

3:41

what the story is. I didn't remember the details, but

3:43

you know, it's one of those ones that stay with

3:46

you. And this happened, like I said, in the

3:48

intro in 1989. So

3:52

I did give a brief summary of the intro.

3:54

I wasn't sure if I should give any spoilers.

3:56

So I'm going to leave that up to you.

3:58

But if you can, will you tell listeners? about

4:00

the podcast Murder in Boston. There's

4:02

quite a lot about this

4:05

case and there's also a lot of twists

4:07

and turns in this story. Well

4:09

Murder in Boston tells the story of the

4:11

murder of a woman in Carol Damatie Stewart.

4:14

She was murdered in Boston in October

4:16

of 1989. She was

4:18

coming from a birthing class at a big Boston

4:20

hospital called Brigham and Women's and

4:22

the story that was told was that a

4:24

black assailant had jumped in. She was with

4:26

her husband, shocked they were a white suburban

4:28

couple. The story that was told was that

4:30

a black assailant had jumped into their car

4:32

and shot them both. She died, he survived

4:35

and that turned out to not be what happened at all.

4:38

It turned out that her husband was the assailant,

4:41

he murdered her and shot himself. And

4:43

Murder in Boston tells the story of how

4:46

that happened, the search for

4:49

this black assailant, how black neighborhoods

4:51

in Boston were turned upside down

4:54

over the next couple of months leading

4:56

to a pretty dramatic ending. If

4:58

I can get a little bit

5:00

of background about you, how you got involved

5:03

in this story, number one, how did

5:05

it come to your attention? And then I

5:07

guess the second part of that question would be, why

5:10

did you decide to focus this podcast

5:12

on this story like so many years

5:14

later? So

5:16

in October of 1989, I was a new reporter at

5:18

the Boston Globe. I had been at the Globe for

5:21

five months when this story

5:24

broke. And you know, it

5:26

was a such an explosive story in Boston

5:28

at the time, you know, because of the

5:30

way it tapped into so many things, fears

5:32

about crime and fears about, you know, and

5:35

racial tensions and all kinds of things like that.

5:37

That it was a story that really

5:39

stayed with people. It stayed with the people who

5:41

lived it on the ground and it stayed with

5:43

the people who covered it as well, me included.

5:46

Over the years I went from being a reporter, I

5:48

became a columnist, but it was a story I would

5:50

revisit at every opportunity,

5:52

as say when key members of people

5:55

who figured in the story died or

5:57

what other things happened or on anniversaries.

6:00

And it was just a story that I stayed obsessed

6:02

with. And, you know,

6:04

in the early days, relatively early in the pandemic in

6:06

2021, we had

6:08

a team that was doing stories about

6:11

police misconduct and so on in Boston.

6:13

And we started thinking about the fact that there

6:15

was a long history of this misconduct and you

6:17

could trace it in a way back to the

6:19

Stewart case. And that was sort of

6:22

the genesis of the podcast. That

6:24

was where the idea for this project came from.

6:27

There's so much to talk about in this case. Of

6:29

course, you have the crime story, which is already

6:31

pretty shocking. And then you have the details of it

6:33

and how it unfolds, which I think was

6:35

surprising to a lot of people at the time, exactly

6:38

how, like you said, how it ended up.

6:41

But some of the elements in the story

6:43

that I felt were really well detailed

6:46

in the podcast were about

6:48

the types of crimes and

6:50

the elements of a crime story that

6:53

received the most attention. I

6:55

feel like every decade they have a crime of

6:57

the century, right? Depending on where you're at, right?

6:59

So, there's lots of things

7:01

that go into that, like what

7:03

the media picks up on number one, right?

7:05

Because that's where people are going to get

7:07

their information, but also the public. What does

7:09

the public kind of grasp onto? Like what

7:11

is it they pay attention to? And

7:14

also what kind of crimes do law

7:16

enforcement put the most time and resources

7:19

to, right? So how did all of

7:21

that, it's kind of in a snapshot,

7:23

inform this story and how it was,

7:26

I guess initially when it first happened, how it

7:28

was covered. You know

7:30

what all of us remember from covering it was

7:33

that from the very beginning, it felt different from

7:35

the very beginning. It felt huge. And remember this

7:37

is at a time when there was a lot

7:39

of crime in Boston. Boston was

7:41

having record numbers of homicides. You know, it

7:44

wasn't unusual, sad to say for

7:46

people to get murdered, but this one tapped a

7:48

nerve right away. You could feel it. And it

7:50

was because, you know, it

7:52

was the whole aspect that she was seven months

7:55

pregnant. You know, they were coming from

7:57

this birthing class at a place where a lot

7:59

of people. had gotten their

8:01

maternity care. There was the

8:03

whole racial aspect of it, you know,

8:05

black assailant, white couple and all of

8:07

that. There was the mayor of Boston

8:09

the night of the shooting, before Carol

8:11

Stewart had died saying, we're going to

8:13

put every available detective on this case.

8:16

It was just like this outsized, huge

8:18

explosion right from the beginning. I

8:21

mean, that makes sense. If you think about it, it's

8:23

like, let me say, it's always the husband kind of

8:25

thing, you know, but it's always to me, it's like,

8:28

if the woman is pregnant, and

8:30

the whole scenario of this where

8:33

the couple both get shot, and

8:36

yet she's the one that dies and

8:38

the husband lives. Now that's already a

8:40

big clue. Yeah, but what I would say about

8:42

that though, is that I think that in 1989, this

8:45

idea that the husband always did

8:47

it was less ingrained, you know,

8:49

this is pre-Nazi grace, this is

8:51

pre-crime TV, you know,

8:54

I don't think people thought about

8:56

it. This is pre-OJ, and

8:59

you know, I don't think people thought about it quite the

9:01

same way. I mean, and to be sure, there are people,

9:03

you know, I talk to people who say, oh, my wife

9:05

said right away the husband did it, but

9:08

it wasn't the obvious assumption that

9:10

it would be now. Yeah,

9:13

because I did pick up on that too

9:15

in the podcast, that he was looked at

9:17

pretty sympathetically, also because he was pretty badly

9:20

injured, right? He was. Well, that was a

9:22

big piece of it. Yes. I mean, when

9:24

you talk to police and law enforcement people

9:26

about why he wasn't pursued as a suspect

9:28

more aggressively, the thing they'll always say is

9:30

look how badly wounded he was. You

9:33

wouldn't think that if you were going to shoot yourself, you would

9:35

almost kill it. I mean, he almost killed himself. But

9:38

to me, that just means being, you know, didn't know what he

9:40

was doing. Right, exactly. That was

9:42

a question I was going to ask because of

9:44

course, we can't know because of the way that,

9:46

you know, that things end up, but we don't

9:48

know a whole lot about him. So when

9:51

you were, you know, reporting on this story, I'd

9:53

seen like there might have been like two sides

9:55

because on the one hand, like

9:57

on paper, he looked great, right? He looked like just this.

10:00

you know, successful guy who's married and gonna

10:02

have a baby and you know all of

10:04

this. But there

10:06

was also this kind of undercurrent to this

10:09

shady side of him. So did that

10:11

not come out until everything kind of

10:14

was figured out? Or was that something that you

10:16

guys were picking up on as you were investigating

10:18

this? When we were investigating it, you know,

10:21

back in 89 and early 90, there

10:23

was no hint of that. There was no

10:25

hint of any tension between them. Nobody

10:27

who knew them claimed to have any

10:30

clue of why things

10:32

would have happened the way they did. And

10:34

there wasn't really much sense that he was shady. I

10:36

mean, it came out very late, you

10:39

know, post everything unraveling that

10:41

you know, he had been, you know, chasing

10:43

other women and thinking about getting separated and

10:45

all of that. But nobody knew that at

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12:00

elements of the story that you thought were the most important

12:02

to present to listeners as

12:05

they were going to be learning about this story maybe for

12:07

the first time. You

12:09

know, the thing that really struck me was that

12:11

it would, it had been such a huge story

12:13

in its time, but that even among people in

12:15

Boston, it had been, you know,

12:17

almost forgotten, you know, three quarters of

12:20

the people in Boston didn't live here then didn't live

12:22

through it. And it, you know,

12:24

it was a chance to kind of unearth this

12:26

history. And, and that was important. The fact that

12:28

it still reverberates in the lives of the people

12:30

who live through it. You know, there are thousands

12:32

of people you talk to who

12:34

really, you know, still carry this with them.

12:36

And that was important too. I

12:38

mean, to me, in a way the true crime

12:41

element of it was the least interesting part of

12:43

it. Well, what I was more interested in was

12:45

the way, what the ripple effect it's had in

12:48

the city over 30 years. Yeah,

12:50

because that's what I was going to bring

12:52

up next was I thought the podcast really

12:54

highlighted in part the history and

12:56

the politics of the city and what was going on

12:59

in the city at the time and all of those

13:01

things and how that played a part

13:03

in this story. So can you talk a little bit

13:05

about that? Boston is

13:07

a city that is notorious for having

13:09

a long history of serious racial strife.

13:12

And this crime really really

13:14

tapped into that. I mean, you know, we go

13:16

back to a quarter of the busing in 1974, which

13:18

had, which

13:20

became this huge confrontation between black

13:22

and white neighborhoods, between places like

13:24

South Boston, which are white and

13:27

Roxbury. There were kids on school

13:29

buses, you know, getting rocks

13:31

thrown at them. There were horrible things that

13:33

happened. You know, black

13:35

families moved out of predominantly white neighborhoods

13:38

and all of that tension, you know, it led to

13:40

10 years of racial violence. And all of that was

13:42

still in the air. And I believe

13:44

it's part of the reason Chuck Stewart was

13:47

so able to sell this story. You know, there

13:49

were a lot of white people in the city

13:51

who were really willing to believe the worst that,

13:53

you know, a black person would jump into the

13:55

car and do all of this stuff. And, you

13:57

know, and there is, you know, sort of this

13:59

whole. backflop to him. If

14:02

you think about the way that he

14:04

said it occurred, it really didn't make any sense. I

14:07

mean, yes, there was a lot of crimes or anything like that, but I mean,

14:10

to jump in a car and have them drive

14:12

you away and all those kinds of things. Of

14:14

course, again, we're looking at the lens now, people

14:16

that are very immersed into true crime cases and

14:18

saying, that doesn't make any sense. But

14:20

of course, you know, this was something that was, like

14:23

you said, so many years ago. Because

14:25

of the tension that was going on and everything

14:27

that had happened may have just people just ran

14:29

with that story. What's interesting is that

14:31

the first detectives who interviewed him, the first detectives on

14:33

the case, immediately suspected him.

14:36

They interviewed him in the hospital, in his hospital

14:39

bed. They didn't think his story made any sense.

14:41

They drove the route he'd gone. They didn't

14:44

understand why he kept saying he didn't see

14:46

anybody and couldn't get any help. There

14:48

were just a lot of holes in the story. And

14:51

I think law enforcement just ignored it and

14:53

fixated on this narrative he'd sold. So

14:56

there were quite a few twists and turns in

14:58

this case, the way it unfolded. Do

15:00

you remember how you reacted as because you

15:02

were reporting on this, as it happened in

15:05

real time? Do you remember? Was it shocking?

15:07

I mean, do you remember how you reacted

15:09

to learning the truth about this, this case?

15:13

Well, I think we may as well say what happened,

15:15

which is that on January 4th, 1990, after he

15:18

had been exposed as the murderer, Chuck

15:20

Stewart jumped off the Tobin Bridge here in Boston.

15:23

You know, I remember walking into the

15:25

newsroom that morning in absolute

15:27

shock. I mean, his brother had gone

15:29

to the police the night before to kind

15:31

of finger him as the murderer. And

15:34

no, I mean, I didn't see that coming

15:36

at all. I mean, it was

15:39

a very odd investigation because, you

15:41

know, the murder happens in late October.

15:43

There are two black men over time

15:45

who get identified as prime suspects,

15:48

but they never charged. It never seems

15:50

like there's any real evidence against them.

15:53

And so there were a lot of questions

15:55

about what was going on. But gosh,

15:58

the ending, you certainly took me best friend. I

16:00

think it took most people about surprise. What

16:03

was the name of the gentleman who was

16:05

the second person? Willie Bennett. Willie

16:08

Bennett, yes. I knew that,

16:10

you know, they had this suspect and I

16:12

knew that, I think I recalled that he

16:15

had somehow identified him as

16:18

the shooter. But in

16:20

the podcast this morning, I listened to this part

16:22

where they have the audio

16:25

of him talking about

16:27

his identification of Willie Bennett.

16:30

And I was just, I mean, my

16:32

mouth just hung open. Like this guy knows

16:35

that this guy is completely innocent of this

16:37

crime. Right. And yet he's so definitive

16:39

about it. Like, oh, I remember his

16:41

jawline and, you know, and I'm like,

16:45

what a piece of crap. I mean, like, you know.

16:47

Yeah, right. He picked him out of a lineup

16:49

knowing that he did it. Yeah.

16:52

It's stunning. Exactly. It's

16:54

stunning. I mean, he had to have information that this

16:56

was who that they were zeroing in. I had to

16:59

have some, I mean, he had to have. You

17:01

would think so. We just don't know definitively. So

17:04

many, you know, there's almost nobody who was in the

17:06

room who's still alive and we

17:08

just, we don't know, but I, I assumed

17:10

he was coached. I

17:12

thought I was going to hear like him say,

17:14

well, you know, I'm not really sure it could

17:16

have been, you know, I mean, if you have

17:18

any shred of decency. Yeah, but no, he was

17:20

like, it was number three. There's

17:24

the guy number, number three.

17:27

I mean, not only did, you know, he shoot

17:29

his pregnant wife, but to

17:31

pin somebody else, you know, and just knowing that this

17:33

guy is going to be, I mean, this is terrible.

17:35

This guy could get the, I mean, who knows what

17:38

could happen. You know, he didn't have definitely enough shoes

17:40

at that time. Did they? I don't

17:42

think. No, but talking about it. Yeah. You

17:45

know, you're a true psychopath. You really will. Yeah.

17:47

That was shocking. I was like, wait a

17:49

minute. I mean, listen to that again. What did he say? I

17:53

don't know as much as I knew about the story

17:55

to hear that tape, which of course we couldn't get

17:57

back to like 1990, but to hear that tape when

17:59

we got it. that was just jock-ropping. Oh,

18:02

God, yes, exactly. It was a thing that you know that.

18:05

Yeah, very much so. There

18:08

was a lot of details I didn't know

18:10

or didn't remember about this case. I even got

18:12

surprised a couple of times thinking, oh, yeah, I

18:14

forgot about that part. Did

18:16

anything catch you by surprise? Because you were

18:18

involved in it at the time that you

18:21

had forgotten about or that had

18:23

like- Yeah, it wasn't something I'd forgotten

18:25

about. I was very

18:27

surprised to find out

18:29

that 33 people knew that he'd

18:31

done it. That was just staggering to me.

18:34

I never would have guessed it was anywhere near that many. I

18:37

know that this is also tied to the documentary

18:40

on HBO, that

18:42

there's video as well, because there

18:44

was a television series or something

18:46

that was video at the time

18:48

that this happened, which is also

18:50

another thing that you don't expect,

18:53

correct? Well, there was a show

18:55

there, I remember a while called Rescue 911, and

18:57

they used to go around the country and follow

19:00

first responders around for a night. So

19:02

that night, they happened

19:04

to be in an ambulance, and

19:06

then traveling with a Boston EMS unit, and

19:08

they're with them when they get the call

19:10

for the Stewart shooting, and they're right there

19:13

at the scene, and they shot

19:15

everything. There's video of

19:17

them in the car. It's just, yeah, it's

19:19

very chilling to see all of that. But

19:23

I didn't remember that. I really didn't remember that

19:25

part for some reason. Maybe I

19:27

blocked it, it's a little bit

19:29

disturbing, but wow. I

19:31

mean, this guy pretty

19:34

much did everything wrong, if you think, I

19:36

really did everything wrong, and even

19:38

the stuff that you would never expect.

19:41

And it's always surprising to me how they

19:43

don't think that it's gonna, I don't think

19:45

that they believe or even fathom that it's

19:47

gonna become such a big story, that it's

19:49

gonna be reported so widely. You know, like

19:51

it'll be, oh gosh, another terrible murderer, duh,

19:54

duh, duh, we had the funeral, the end, right?

19:57

And it didn't turn out that way at all for him. This

19:59

is the phone. The criminals are smart.

20:01

They aren't necessarily and the

20:03

other thing about them is they can't keep their

20:05

mouth shut They all tell somebody who tells

20:07

somebody who tells somebody oh this

20:10

guy How many people would he kind

20:12

of trying to get him to help him? He

20:15

has at least a couple of people to help him before

20:17

the fact and And

20:20

then after it happened, you know His

20:22

brother knows and his brother takes his girlfriend to

20:24

breakfast and tells her and she tells you know

20:27

people so Wow,

20:29

it's a really compelling story It's very a

20:32

bingeable as the kids say these days But

20:34

it's been but I highly recommend listeners to check

20:37

it out because believe me you will if

20:39

you haven't heard this story before I haven't

20:41

heard about this case. You'll definitely be like what

20:43

how come I didn't hear about this case?

20:46

But even if you did I feel like you have done

20:48

such a great detailed And

20:51

all the nuances of it as well like

20:53

just what was going on in the city

20:55

at that time and pre to that time

20:58

And how it all kind of unfolded and why it

21:01

is an important story I understand why

21:03

it stayed with you, you know, even

21:05

when other things were happening over the

21:07

years Because I feel like

21:09

it's a really important story for people to

21:11

not even just know but to understand and

21:14

I think that's what this Podcast does very

21:16

well as it really explains All

21:19

of that from different perspectives that I think help

21:21

us to kind of grasp what a

21:23

big story it was Thanks, I don't

21:25

know whose idea this was to

21:28

interview the hairdresser the guy that was

21:30

his hairdresser So

21:33

genius because think about it hairdressers

21:35

know everything right You

21:39

know, I'm just a gossip But I really feel

21:41

like they have insight into human nature because they

21:43

deal with so many people and

21:45

this guy really had a peg on On

21:47

Charles Stewart and said yeah, this guy was

21:49

I was I got pissed off Like what

21:51

the hell like dude, like I was trying

21:53

to get the headache. You're just over here.

21:55

Like can you cover my gray, you know? and

21:59

and he was He was a great interview. So whose

22:01

idea was that or how did you even know to

22:04

interview the hairdresser? I'm

22:07

not sure how we found the hairdresser. I believe

22:09

he had spoken to the grand jury I think

22:11

he was called in front of the grand jury

22:13

for some reason and that's how

22:15

we got to will zacko But he is

22:17

definitely one of the most colorful characters in

22:19

the podcast Glad we talked

22:21

to him Very well spoken. He

22:23

really had insight into yes And that

22:26

was one of the things I was kind of looking for in

22:28

the podcast because I didn't think we couldn't get a lot about

22:32

trial and all of this kind of stuff where we

22:34

could see what is he going to say? What is

22:36

his you know his story or his motivation

22:38

or his defense or whatever? We didn't get any of that.

22:40

So I always want to try to find

22:42

out a little bit more about the perpetrator What could

22:44

we know? So this was one way, you know the

22:46

people around him, of course And

22:49

and this guy is being like a a

22:51

neutral observer, but now i'm like now, you know I think

22:53

i'm gonna start talking to hairdressers They

22:55

have Hairdressers

22:59

know everything Yeah,

23:02

shout out to all the hairdressers out there man, yeah,

23:04

you definitely have you have any juicy stuff let

23:06

us know recap so So

23:10

tell us where people can find murder in

23:12

boston where they can listen Um,

23:14

and I will also put up any links that you want

23:16

to share in the show notes as well Yeah,

23:19

you can find it anywhere you get podcasts.

23:21

It's a murder in boston. It's on apple

23:23

podcast. It's on spotify. It's everywhere Great.

23:25

Thank you so much. Adrian. It's so nice talking to

23:28

you This is definitely, you know, one of the one

23:30

of the podcasts I think people really should make sure

23:32

they that they listen to this year for sure and

23:34

good luck with everything going forward Thanks

23:37

so much. It's been a pleasure Once

23:40

again, i'd like to thank my guest

23:42

adrian walker for being on today's show You

23:45

can listen to the murder in boston pod park

23:48

on apple podcast Spotify

23:50

youtube and everywhere you get your

23:52

podcast You can also watch the

23:55

documentary series on hbl max

23:58

i've included links in the show notes Once

24:01

Upon a Crime is written and produced by me, Esther

24:03

Sanchez Ludlow. My executive

24:06

producer is Lorena Garcia. CrimeCon

24:08

24 in Marysville, Tennessee is coming

24:11

up soon. Make sure

24:13

to secure your tickets and stop by

24:15

Podcast Row to meet me from May 31st

24:17

to June 6th. Go to

24:20

crimecon.com to register and use my

24:22

discount code 1 to get 10% off

24:25

your registration. And I'll see

24:27

you in Nashville. Until next

24:29

time, be good to one another.