S18 Ep109: The Combat Zone: Murder, Sex, and Racial Strife in 1970's Boston w/ Jan Brogan
Darkness Radio
Darkness Radio
4.7 • 3.2K Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2023
⏱️ 163 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Combat Zone is a true account of a brutal murder, two flawed trials and the not so delicate balance between justice and revenge. It tells the story of an annual Harvard ritual that sent forty football players into Boston’s crime-plagued red light district for a “last drink, together,” and the death of a heroic 21-year old cornerback who tries to save a friend.
Three Black men are charged with first degree murder in a racially divided city at the peak of busing violence. The book tells story of a victim’s family trying to cope with a devastating loss, while verdicts seesaw, and the Italian mob offers to step in.
The 1976 murder and the city’s two trials will forever change the way juries are chosen in Massachusetts and the nation, and end the once common practice of excluding jurors based on the color of their skin. But it comes at a high price for Andy Puopolo and all those who grieve. Jan Brogan joins TCT today to talk about the case, how it affected the players, the city, and how Boston is run today!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome in to the Best in True Crime Podcasting. |
| 0:25.6 | This is True Crime Tuesday. |
| 0:26.6 | I'm your host Tim Dennis. |
| 0:28.7 | We have a very interesting show for you today, a show that centers around a murder. |
| 0:34.2 | A murder that had to happen in a very controversial area of Boston. |
| 0:40.0 | It involves some racial tension, it involves some societal tension. |
| 0:48.0 | It involves a time in our history where everything just kind of comes together in one big explosive |
| 0:55.6 | pot in Boston, Massachusetts. |
| 0:58.8 | It's intriguing. |
| 0:59.8 | This book is very intriguing, folks. |
| 1:01.9 | It's a book that I'd like you to check out because it brings us back to a time in our |
| 1:05.4 | history where we can feel a certain amount of shame as to how we reacted to one another. |
| 1:11.7 | Murder, race, and Boston struggle for justice. |
| 1:14.8 | The combat zone is the name of the book and our guest today is Jan Brogan. |
| 1:21.6 | Jan is a journalist and has been a journalist for more than 30 years, working as a correspondent |
| 1:27.6 | for the Boston Globe, a staff writer for the Worcester Telegram and the Providence Journal, |
| 1:33.2 | where she won the Gerald Globe Award for Distinguished Business Writing. |
| 1:37.5 | She's the award-winning author for a four mysteries, final copy, confidential source, |
| 1:41.9 | yesterday's fatal and teaser transactional pictures, purchased the rights to a confidential |
| 1:48.6 | source, which is currently under development for a television series. |
| 1:51.6 | She grew up in Clifton, New Jersey and moved to New England to study journalism at Boston |
| 1:55.6 | University. She holds a master's degree in English from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. |
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