Killer Cat Woman
True Crime Historian
Richard O Jones
4.4 • 729 Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2026
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Episode 52 is a feature report from the St. Louis Post Dispatch reporter Frederick H. Brennan on a visit to the Little Rock, Arkansas, jail to visit with accused double murderess Winona Green. I am particularly taken by Brennan’s description of Mrs. Green’s hold on the local law enforcement and press. In 1928, Brennan would be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in another murder case. In the prologue, you hear about her final murder conviction as Winnie Ola Freeman, and after the Brennan piece you’ll hear about two other accusations of murder, which would bring her count up to five and the nagging feeling that there might have been more.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Salinas, California, December 5, 1953. |
| 0:10.0 | Music Monteray County Sheriff's Officers today charged Winnie Ola Freeman 53 of Salinas, with first-degree murder after the paroled murderous, led them to the underbrush-covered body of a wealthy retired rancher. |
| 0:42.3 | Called the Catwoman because she kept 28 felines in her home, |
| 0:47.3 | she is accused of shooting Harold Johnison an elderly retired farmer in the back |
| 0:53.3 | while they were hunting rabbits near her shanty |
| 0:55.9 | in Prongdale, California. Mrs. Freeman and Jonathan had been friendly for more than a year. |
| 1:03.9 | Jonathan lived in the Salinas apartment house formerly managed by Mrs. Freeman. She and her husband, |
| 1:12.7 | who was not present at the time of the shooting, lived in the Prunedale area north of Salinas. The Salinas police said Mrs. Freeman was |
| 1:19.3 | suspected when a number of forged checks, totaling $900, were passed in Salinas the last three days. |
| 1:27.3 | Jonathan's name was forged to all of them, with the first two turning up the morning he disappeared. |
| 1:34.3 | Mrs. Freeman, who had undergone two lie detector tests and intensive questioning, broke |
| 1:39.6 | and admitted she shot the aged rancher. However, she insisted the shooting was accidental. She told |
| 1:46.9 | police that Jonathan was shot and killed accidentally while they were target shooting with a borrowed |
| 1:52.3 | 22 rifle. We were walking along and he stumbled and fell, she told Sheriff's Captain Phil Crocker, |
| 1:59.7 | and I reached down to grab him by his shirt, |
| 2:02.6 | and the gun went off. She admitted, forging the checks. She led police to an isolated area near her home. |
| 2:11.7 | There, the old man's body was found. He had been shot through the back of the head with a 22 rifle. Mrs. Noble Ramey, |
| 2:21.0 | owner of the house in which Mrs. Freeman lived, testified the defendant borrowed a 22 caliber |
| 2:26.8 | rifle to go on a turkey shoot. The rifle was returned the day after Jonathan's death. |
| 2:34.0 | Ramey supported his wife's testimony and said later he received a card purportedly from |
| 2:39.3 | Jonathan at Fresno. Peter Ewell, a friend of Jonathan, testified Mrs. Freeman told him |
| 2:45.9 | several times after the shooting that Jonathan had gone on a trip. At a brief sanity hearing on January 25th, Dr. Frida Heisler, a psychiatrist, testified |
... |
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