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Trace Evidence

140 - NYC Hotel Axe Murders

Trace Evidence

Steven Pacheco

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.74.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2020

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Over the course of one week in New York City in 1985, a violent and brutal killer wielding an axe took the lives of two women: 85 year old Janet Scott and 58 year old Ruth Potdevin. Both women were killed in hotels within days of each other, less than a half mile apart.

While the crimes themselves were grisly enough, the killer went further by leaving a gruesome puzzle behind at each scene. While the NYPD believed they would capture the assailant, his wrath disappeared just as mysteriously as it had originally materialized.

Did he finish what he aimed to do or did he simply move on to kill again, evading police once more?

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Music Courtesy of: "Lost Time" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Sources: https://www.trace-evidence.com/nyc

Transcript

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0:00.0

Now on Times Radio.

0:02.8

Welcome everybody.

0:03.8

We are going to talk about the most Googled stories of the year.

0:06.2

What would your last Google search for?

0:07.8

Actually, I was just saying.

0:08.8

Dangerous question.

0:09.8

No, it was incredibly anodyne.

0:11.4

You do the romance, I'll do meaty.

0:13.2

That sums us up.

0:14.2

This is what you signed up to when you decided to listen to us.

0:16.8

Jane Garvey and Fee Glover live on Times Radio Monday to Thursday, 3 to 5 pm.

0:21.8

Listen on DAB Radio online on your smart speaker and the Times Radio app.

0:26.4

And download their podcast of Air anytime.

0:31.0

In the mid 1980s, the NYPD found themselves in the middle of an intense and frustrating

0:45.0

manhunt.

0:46.6

On May 25, 1985, Janet Scott was discovered brutally murdered in her hotel apartment.

0:53.8

Her killer, striking with a horrifying fury and wielding an axe-like weapon, committed

0:59.1

such a heinous crime, it gripped the city in fear.

1:03.5

While police hoped it would be an isolated incident, only five days would pass before

1:08.3

it happened again.

1:10.6

58-year-old Ruth Popdev and walked into her fifth-blow room at the glamorous Dorset

1:15.6

Hotel and never walked out.

...

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