Fall River Nurse Found In Tiverton Ditch

True Crime Historian

Richard O Jones

True Crime, Performing Arts, Documentary, Arts, Society & Culture

4.5 • 720 Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2025

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Interstate Strangulation Of Verna Russell

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Episode 409 is the story of a spoiled young man who wouldn’t take no for an answer and let his rage get the better of him. The best evidence against him will come from the very source he turned to in order to hide his deed.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The weather. Tomorrow, expect a... Biting cold front. Mmm, how naughty. I wonder what I'll be wearing or taking off. The night will be wild and untamed. Expect heavy, lashing rain that'll soak you to the skin. By Monday, temperatures will rise, slowly but surely, reaching their peak in the afternoon.
0:23.0	Not in the mood for miserable weather?
0:25.8	Fly cheaply to Turkey with Sun Express.
0:28.6	Sun Express, non-stop sunshine.
0:33.7	Popular.com Fall River, Massachusetts, March 24, 1931.
0:43.3	The police first learned of the murder from Vernon Galvin of Belmont Street, who phoned the police station at 5.15 a.m. and notified them that there was a body lying in a
0:57.1	ditch about two miles beyond the eastern extremity of Fall River in the town of Tiverton.
1:03.9	The story Galvin told the police was substantially as follows, that Elliot Hathaway came to his
1:10.3	house in the early hours of the
1:11.9	morning and told him he had been out riding with Miss Verna Russell, pretty 20-year-old nurse
1:18.0	of Fall River. That about midnight, they had been held up by two armed men, one of whom
1:24.3	fired a shot, ordered him out of the car, and struck the young woman in the face.
1:30.4	That the gunman then rested the girl from him, ordered him back into his car, and told him to clear out.
1:38.0	After some further conversation, Hathaway said he was going back to the scene of the alleged holdup and see what had happened.
1:46.1	He asked Galvin to go with him. They found the girl's body lying in a ditch off Windward's lane,
1:53.3	so called because it leads from Stafford Road, not far from the state highway to the Windward's estate.
2:00.5	Hathaway, according to Galvin's story, said he
2:03.9	guessed the girl was dead and that he was going to beat it. Galvin claims that Hathaway then drove away.
2:12.2	At the Hathaway home, 32 June Street, police found no trace of the young man, so they broadcast an alarm to the police of
2:21.6	Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut to watch for a motor car, believed to be that of
2:27.8	Hathaway's brother, in which the young man is supposed to be driving. They wish to question him. Inquiry at the Trusdale
2:38.0	Hospital disclosed that Miss Russell left the institution at seven last evening after completing
	...

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