Introducing: Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien

Stuff They Don't Want You To Know

iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture

4.3 • 10.7K Ratings

🗓️ 26 April 2025

⏱️ 3 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Hello, Stuff They Don't Want You To Know listeners! We want to share a new podcast that we think you'll love - Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien

About the show: One of America’s greatest unsolved mysteries, and the two women at its core; One black, one white. One poor, one rich. They never actually met. But their lives came to intersect through one tragic day when Mary Pinchot Meyer was mysteriously murdered on her daily walk in broad daylight in 1964. A black man stood accused, and a barrier-breaking civil rights lawyer, Dovey Roundtree, rose to his defense. Award-winning journalist Soledad O'Brien weaves a tale of crime and culture that still resonates with our socio-political climate today.

Listen here and subscribe to Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O’Brien on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts!

They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're familiar with Georgetown, right?
0:05.7	That posh neighborhood in Washington, D.C. with stately homes and cobblestone streets.
0:12.3	Well, just steps away from all of that, there's a dirt road, a towpath where you might find locals jogging.
0:20.1	Over 50 years ago, it was the place where two women's stories collided.
0:26.0	It started with a murder.
0:28.7	October 12, 1964.
0:31.5	She had been shot twice in the head and in the back behind the heart.
0:37.3	Mary Pinchot-Myer was found dead on that very same towpath.
0:42.7	She was an artist, a woman on the verge of coming into her own.
0:46.5	She had everything at her disposal of the elite of the elite,
0:52.2	and she rejected it to become an artist in a garage.
0:56.5	And then her life was cut short. But what happened next? That's why we're here. Just 45
1:03.7	minutes after Mary's death, her killer had been arrested, or so the police claimed.
1:10.4	If a black man is in the vicinity of a crime against a white woman, he is considered
1:15.5	guilty before, you know, even formally charged.
1:19.1	Only one woman, Dovey Johnson Roundtree, would defend him.
1:23.6	I could make things right, I thought.
1:26.2	And some things I had made right.
1:28.3	Dovey was a lawyer during Jim Crow.
1:31.1	She wasn't allowed to drink from the same water fountains as white people.
1:35.5	Yet in court, she was the only thing standing between a man and his execution.
1:45.5	This is murder on the towpath, and I'm your host, Soledad O'Brien.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 25 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.