3.8 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 31 August 2021
⏱️ 43 minutes
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Late on a May night in 1930, someone crept into the Golden Pheasant Inn.
The local restaurant was popular for its chicken dish, and for being a haven where Wisconsinites could blow off steam with slot machines, booze, and sex workers. But the intruder wasn't there for any of that. He was after owner John Van Veghel and waitress Lucille Birdsall, a couple sound asleep in their bed.
The subsequent murders shook the small town of Preble, Wisconsin, situated on the outskirts of Green Bay. Rumors began to fly. But over ninety years later, we still don't know who killed John and Lucille.
This week, the Murder Sheet interviews Sergeant Mike Knetzger of the Green Bay Police Department.
Check out Mike's book on the Golden Pheasant murders, and other local cases here (shorturl.at/akFK5). If you have information on this case, send tips to [email protected].
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0:00.0 | Content warning. This episode contains descriptions of brutal violence and murder. |
0:08.0 | In the black and white photograph, the man and woman lie massacred on the bed. |
0:15.0 | There's blood spatter all over the walls, blood on their bodies, blood on the white pillows. |
0:22.0 | John's head tilts up toward the metal bed frame, leaving his pale neck exposed. |
0:29.0 | Blood streaks his mouth and cheeks, and completely coats his face above his nose. |
0:36.0 | The place where his eyes should be are just dark holes. |
0:41.0 | Lucille's body is twisted into an L shape, with her bloody head angled toward the window. |
0:48.0 | Her visible arm bears bruises and gouges, signs of a struggle with a depraved killer. |
0:56.0 | I don't know if it's a trick of the light, but her face looks like it's been crushed. |
1:02.0 | In life, John ran the golden-feasant inn on the outskirts of Green Bay, Wisconsin. |
1:08.0 | Lucille worked there as a waitress. They were a couple, not married, but thoroughly committed to one another. |
1:17.0 | John had a reputation for patience and diplomacy, valuable traits for the proprietor of a roadhouse business that could sometimes attract rowdies. |
1:26.0 | Lucille was a devoted mother, who was gracious enough to stay friendly with her ex-husband. |
1:32.0 | They were people. They were more than the slaughtered corpses their killer left on that bed. |
1:39.0 | But all these years later, we don't know who committed this evil act of carnage. |
1:45.0 | On May 19, 1930, someone slipped into the golden-feasant inn, murdered these two, and disappeared into the night. |
2:03.0 | My name is Anya Cain, and I'm Kevin Greenley. |
2:07.0 | And this is the murder sheet, a weekly true crime podcast. |
2:12.0 | Anya and I connected over the Bergerchev murders, a 1978 unsolved case involving the killings of four young restaurant employees. |
2:21.0 | Now we're looking to track restaurant homicides. |
2:24.0 | To help us understand the patterns of these crimes, we created a spreadsheet of nearly 1,000 eatery-related killings, the murder sheet. |
2:33.0 | We'll be drawing on that data throughout season one to give you a deep dive into undercovered crimes. |
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