New England's Most Wanted: John William McGrath

Murder, She Told

Kristen Seavey

True Crime, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.9 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2022

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

1962 - Newport, New Hampshire. John William McGrath was a brilliant teenager. He was accepted to Dartmouth University and was starring in the school play. He came from a loving home and had a good future... but on a chilly night in March of 1962, just shy of his 18th birthday, John took his father's beloved rifle, killed his little brothers, and waited in the dark for his parents to return home to give them the same fate. How could such a bright young man murder his family in cold blood? John was found unfit to stand trial, and was committed indefinitely to the New Hampshire State Hospital where for the next decade, he was a star patient... until an ordinary Tuesday night in August 1974 when he simply walked away, and never returned. This is the story of Francis, Willena, Peter, and Charles McGrath, whose lives were tragically cut short by somebody they loved, and the search New Hampshire's longest fugitive who took their lives, John William McGrath. If you have any information about the whereabouts of John William McGrath, I encourage you to contact the New Hampshire Joint Fugitive Task Force at (603) 225-1646. Detailed sources can be found on murdershetold.com. Connect on Instagram @murdershetoldpodcast Support the show here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is Murder She Told, true crime stories from Maine, New England and small town USA.
0:19.2	I'm Kristen Zeevy.
0:21.4	You can connect with me at murdershetold.com or on Instagram at murdershetoldpodcast.
0:31.0	This episode contains descriptions that are violent in nature. Please listen with care.
0:39.0	Though he was just a child, Francis felt the drumbeat of war echoing all around him.
0:45.0	Serious talks with his three brothers, hushed conversations among his parents and teachers,
0:51.0	and the family radio in the living room from the president himself.
0:55.0	FDR broadcast his fireside chats nationwide to the homes of tens of millions of Americans. The McGraths included.
1:03.0	Francis was in the first semester of his sophomore year at Brighton High School when on December 7, 1941,
1:10.0	America got the shock of a lifetime.
1:13.0	2,403 men, women and children were killed in Hawaii in a surprise aerial bombing by Japan.
1:21.0	164 planes were destroyed and 12 ships in the largest attack to this day, made by a foreign nation on American soil.
1:30.0	World War II had begun. When Francis graduated in 1943 from his high school in a suburb just west of Boston,
1:39.0	the US was already two years into the war. He joined the armed services and enlisted in the Air Force.
1:45.0	For his training, he was shipped up to Maine where he took courses at Bowdoin College in Brunswick.
1:50.0	During his studies, he met Wilena, a woman four years his senior who was a telegraph operator.
1:56.0	He was 18 and she was 22. Former high school classmates of Wilena's remembered her as one of the most beautiful from their graduating class.
2:05.0	Francis was smitten with his blonde paramour. They got hitched before he was deployed to the other side of the world where he fought in China.
2:13.0	Japan's imperial conquest had begun back in 1937, four years before the US entered the war.
2:20.0	By the time that Francis got there in 1943, the war had been raging for six years.
2:26.0	And the US was providing aerial support to Chinese forces to fight the Japanese.
2:31.0	It was a temporary alliance against Japan and Germany that would later dissolve in 1949,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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

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