Dead End · In The Dark
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The crime
In 2014, John and Joyce Sheridan were stabbed to death in their home in suburban New Jersey; the room was then doused with gasoline and set ablaze. Despite the absence of a murder weapon, local police declared it to be a murder-suicide, but John Sheridan’s work for a notorious New Jersey political boss, and a similar crime with a political connection, has raised questions about that conclusion.
The story
Nancy Solomon, a longtime reporter for New York’s NPR station, WNYC, tells us up front that Dead End: A New Jersey Political Murder Mystery is not going to solve the murders of John and Joyce Sheridan, but that’s not really what she’s trying to do. We talk a lot about the purposes and value of true-crime media, but in this short-run show, Solomon isn’t trying to center the victims, or give an insight into the criminal mind. Rather, she’s using what certainly looks like a double murder as a Trojan horse to educate the audience on New Jersey politics, and advocate for a more thorough investigation. On both counts, she’s been successful.
Dead End — the title refers to the cul-de-sac on which the victims lived — is only expected to run eight episodes, seven of which have been released, but Solomon is trying to juggle three different stories. The first is about the crime itself. John and Joyce Sheridan were married for 47 years, and according to the police version of events, John Sheridan snapped for unknown reasons, stabbed his wife to death, went to the garage, got a jerry can of gasoline, spread it, lit the room on fire, and stabbed himself to death with the same weapon. They cite the fact that furniture was blocking the door to the bedroom as evidence that no one could have gotten in or out.
The Sheridans’ family and friends find this story preposterous. While the police assured them that some motive — an affair, money problems, something — would be uncovered, none ever was. Moreover, Sheridan had recently started working for George Norcross, a developer widely recognized as the most powerful political boss on the Southern side of the Taylor Ham/Pork Roll line in New Jersey, and was having serious conflicts with him. Sheridan had even taken to documenting all his contacts and conversations on the matter, something that was out of character for him. Perhaps most damning, no murder weapon matching the wounds was found on the scene.
Further calling into question the version promulgated by the police is the recent guilty plea of Sean Caddle, a New Jersey political operator with nebulous ties to New Jersey political bosses. According to his plea, in May 2014, five months before the death of the Sheridans, Caddle hired two men to kill Michael Galdieri, who had deep ties to Hudson County politics (i.e., on the “Taylor Ham” side of the state). Galdieri was stabbed to death, and his apartment set on fire. A knife which seems to match the description of the weapon used in the Sheridan case was found in the car of one of the hitmen, and is currently part of a federal investigation.
The second story Solomon is trying to tell is about the apparent incompetence of the local police investigating the matter. New Jersey has 564 municipalities, almost all with their own tiny police departments, so it’s no great surprise that the local police in Skillman, New Jersey (population 476), or even the Somerset County Sheriff's Office wouldn’t be well equipped to deal with the matter. Even so, the documented lapses are shocking: no fingerprints were taken, the police apparently didn’t notice a second entrance to the bedroom, evidence was left to molder in a police garage. The state attorney general’s office was repeatedly asked to take over the investigation, but declined to do so.
It seems like the third story is the one Solomon is most invested in: she wants to use this case to talk about George Norcross, and the perfectly legal way he’s able to control government and elected officials in South Jersey without holding any elected office himself. In later episodes of the podcast, Solomon details the deal that apparently led to the conflict between Sheridan and Norcross, and while there doesn’t seem to have been anything explicitly illegal going on, it certainly sounds sketchy.
Early on, Norcross’s lawyers call Solomon to make sure that she is not going to say that Norcross had anything to do with the killing. Solomon says that she has no evidence that Norcross was involved, but the implication is certainly there, in much the same way that wearing a t-shirt that says, “I had nothing to do with that murder,” might raise a lot of questions theoretically being answered by the shirt.
Norcross seems to be paying attention to the coverage of the case — he recently penned an op-ed in the state’s largest newspaper talking about how it’s important to ignore lies spread on the internet — and Solomon is a professional, unwilling to speculate beyond her evidence, so everything is done by implication. It seems likely that Caddle had some link with this crime as well, and unlikely that he was acting on his own initiative. Even if the local police were just incompetent, it seems likely too that there was some reason that the state didn’t want to investigate the crime. It seems likely that Norcross wanted John Sheridan to back off his opposition to a deal on the Camden waterfront. Solomon doesn’t make these connections explicit, but listeners are likely to fill in the gaps.
As a satisfying resolution to the deaths of John and Joyce Sheridan, Dead End is going to fall short, as Solomon tells us early on. But it seems as though Solomon is perhaps more interested in using the true-crime angle to talk about George Norcross and the New Jersey boss system, and on that point, she’s been successful. This podcast is also a vehicle for advocacy: Solomon knows that she won’t be able to solve the murders, but by raising enough questions, she can get the state to finally investigate it. On this point, too, she’s made progress: the final episode of the podcast was preempted by breaking news, as the State Attorney General’s Office has opened an investigation into the crimes. The podcast is due to end with eight episodes, but follow-ups seem like a strong possibility as the investigation moves forward. — Dan Cassino
But wait, there’s more from our valued contributors — play What To Read If’s Summer Reading Bingo and you could win (true crime) prizes! Exhibit B. Books contributed a gift card to the prizing, so you could nab yourself $50 of genre books/ephemera (and not for nothing, but shipping is free on orders $50 and higher).
And an interest in true crime will help you complete at least two rows that I can see, so get after it! — SDB
The Depp/Heard defamation verdict is in. The short version: Depp won, as did poisonous misogyny. Vanity Fair’s Kenzie Bryant broke it down yesterday, but while the subhed asks/purports to answer the question “What does it mean?”, I don’t feel any closer to understanding 1) whether the jury “got it right” in terms of Heard’s statements qualifying as defamatory, or 2) what the legal standard is vis-a-vis a defamatory statement’s falseness (i.e., if the assertion is provable, or not dis-provable, can it still be defamatory).
Monica Lewinsky also commented on the case for VF — or, really, the social-media para-trial that to my un-legally-trained eye looks just as defamatory as anything under discussion in the actual proceedings. I think Lewinsky has a great deal to offer conversations about the spiritual flensing of The Women In The Case, in theory; in practice, this piece felt a little “internet, I tsk thee!” and stump-speechy, but I paused on this bit:
I’m certainly not here to tell you not to watch the verdict or not to have an opinion. But what is too much? What is defined as “too far”? As we have watched this story unfold, what does our opinion entitle us to? Does it entitle us to say whom we “believe”? To restate the cherry-picked facts we’ve glommed on to that have led us, as virtual jurors, to “just feel it in our bones”?
That Lewinsky uses the word “entitle” is interesting. Often, the objection to a big case becoming a preoccupation is that it turns tragedy into entertainment, robs people and shortened lives of dimension and nuance, but here, the phrasing is tweaked to contemplate what a big case turns us into.
Nobody needs another think piece on the meta implications of the meme-ing of Depp v. Heard, and Lord knows I’m not qualified to write it in the second place, but it’s worth considering how we think about the cases we “know best,” and what tone we might get about those cases. By which I of course mean “the tone I get when it is suggested that Helena Stoeckley might in fact have had something to do with the murders of the MacDonald family.” I have historically felt I had “the right” to rip on Malcolm Morris LLC for their “takes” on that case…but does publishing this here newsletter “entitle” me to that? Or am I just a less/differently hateful iteration of the TikTokerati calling Heard “Turd” in hashtags? I don’t know the answer; it’s worth asking the question. — SDB
“Hey, I’ve got a question — where’s the May bonus review?” It’s on the way! In the meantime, here’s the slate of possibles for June 2022. Pick me a good one; you usually do!
Minnesota Public Radio has decided to shut down APM Reports. It’s not just the decision that’s weird to me — as noted in the Star Tribune’s story,
Its signature podcast, "In the Dark," won a pair of Peabody Awards — one for its in-depth look at the kidnapping and murder of 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling and the other for the investigation of the case of Curtis Flowers, a Mississippi man who was tried six times for the same crime.
— but there’s also the fact that
Minnesota Public Radio executives informed employees of the decision Thursday [May 26] through e-mail and a Zoom call.
leaving the Star Tribune and other outlets to report a fairly high-profile shuttering on the Friday before a long weekend. Not that they had much to report, as official statements featured the expected platitudes about reassigning resources and “valuing” the APM team, with various figures at MPR unable to be reached for comment. And, look, I’m not a child, I understand the fiscal concerns in play here, but when a journalistic enterprise this well-regarded gets cashiered with what Nick Quah called a “cookie-cutter corporate announcement,” it’s not great! — SDB
Catching A Killer’s first season hits Topic next week. I’ll have coverage and a rec then, but for now, here’s what you need to know from the “hit” British docuseries’s press email:
With unprecedented 360-degree access, this innovative and ratings-winning series, deemed the ‘Real life Inspector Morse’, follows major crime investigations from start to finish. Each documentary film is self-contained and follows the work of one major investigation – covering some of the most serious and challenging crimes facing this tri-county force. Beyond the blue flashing lights, how does a major crime investigation work? How do partner agencies come together to support a major investigation? And how much work really goes on behind the scenes to gain a successful outcome in court?
Two episodes drop Thursday June 9, then weekly thereafter; the trailer’s below. — SDB
Friday on Best Evidence: Cannes, Cos, and a constitutional dead zone.
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