I'm Kristen Seavy. This is Murder, she told. This is Murder, she told. This episode discusses topics of domestic violence.

Please listen with care.

After a stubbornly long summer,

fall had finally come to Norton, Massachusetts in October of 1981.

Dead leaves stirred in the wake of the car's tires as it swept down West Main Street.

The dark stretch of two-lane highway grew gradually darker as it led out of town.

The businesses becoming more sparse and the sidewalks giving way to gravel and scrub brush. It wasn't the type of road where one expected to see

pedestrians so late at night, so when high beams illuminated the woman at the side of

the road, the driver must have done a double take. She could barely stand, a

thin figure staggering across the tall grass just past the local YMCA camp. The motorist didn't stop. It was late and the road was

dark and isolated and they had no idea if the woman in the headlights had been

attacked by someone or something still lurking nearby.

So they pulled over down the road, found a phone, and called the police.

That was how shortly before 1030 p.m. on the night of October 10th, 1981, two first responders were sent to check on the woman.

Fred Russell, a Norton firefighter, wasn't working that night, but he heard the call and responded anyway.

A local boy, Fred had been raised in the small southern Massachusetts town.

He joined its local fire department just three years

before in 1978 during a senior year of high school. He knew these roads well and had no trouble locating the grassy patch of land just across from the downtown cafe.

Fred pulled up his car behind the ambulance and got out.

He recognized his co-workers, Lawrence Lamey, and Reese Rounds. The

veteran firefighters were slightly older than Fred and, like him, also served as

EMTs. He saw that his colleagues were already stabilizing their

...