Henry Bedard

Warning This episode contains graphic crime scene detail. Please listen with discretion. Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now and true crime, and then together we are going to work on warming up some cold cases. Let's go. Hey, guys, welcome to this week's episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. I am feel in some type of way recording this on Wednesday. If you know, you know, If you don't, you're about to because we have two very important things to talk about. I am going to try not to get too wordy. I am still pissed off about both of them. So I am going to just try to be professional and not get too mauvie because I just don't even have words for anything that has transpired this week. So first things first, Monday, it was announced that there might be a potential plea deal with Brian Coburger, meaning that he was going to lead guilty and death would be taken off the table. And also with the guilty plea, there would be no trial, nothing other than him being sentenced and that was it. So there was a few stipulations put down to the plea, and it was that he would serve life in prison, no possibility of parole, and there would be no chance for him to appeal. And today Wednesday, they had the hearing where he officially entered his plea and pled guilty to killing four people inside of their own home. Kaylee Gonzalez, Ethan Chapin, Xanna Kernodle, and Madison Mogan, the four people in this whole thing that matter. I don't even want to say his name anymore because he is not even worth my time, but I am going to say he strung these families alone for almost three years, since twenty twenty two, when these four kids had their lives stolen from them. This guy went into their home, murdered four people and left two living witnesses, living victims that now have to do for the rest of their lives, live with this poor choice of a human and what he did that night in Idaho. He had multiple opportunities to plead guilty and turned them all down. Now, I know it's not out of the ordinary, especially in a case as high profile as this one, that there is going to be different plea agreements that are offered throughout. But the way that the trial was set to start very soon, they were going to be starting jury selection in just a couple of weeks, with the trial starting shortly thereafter. I could not believe when I heard that a plea deal was accepted. Actually, I was so shocked, and immediately I thought, I wonder what Kaylee's family thinks about it, because they are very very vocal about everything and the way that the justice system works and different things that they've come across in this horrific journey that they've been forced to be on that just aren't ideal. And they are very vocal and have been very vocal about how they do not agree with this plea agreement and the state of Idaho has failed them, and so on and so forth, and they have every single right to feel the way that they feel. I wholeheartedly agree with them. I think that there has been a huge injustice here because he just gets to go away to prison for the rest of his life, which I'm not saying prison is a walk in the park, but he gets to go be locked away for the rest of his life. He doesn't ever have to fess up and give anybody an explanation for why he did what he did, or his thought process or his reasoning. He doesn't have to face a jury, he doesn't have to listen to all of the testimony of the horrific things he did. He is going to be sentenced in July. Later in July July twenty third, the victims' families will get to read their impact statements, and I cannot wait to hear the impact statements. He is not just a horrible human, but with this whole thing, he has solidified that he is also a coward. And that is all I'm going to say about him. And I am never going to speak his name ever, ever, ever again, but I will be talking about sentencing. But I truly hate this guy and I think that he is the actual worst human to ever walk the planet. And I just am at a loss for all of this. Speaking of being at a loss, we are now going to go in too diddy, because there is a verdict as of today. Today is Wednesday when I'm recording this. And let me tell you. When the jury came back yesterday on Tuesday and said they had a verdict for all but one of the counts, which was the racketeering conspiracy, I thought, surely they found him guilty of all of the others, and this is the one that they're having trouble with and hopefully they're going to be able to come to an agreement, and the right agreement, like finding him guilty, and I was wrong because they found him guilty of two of his five charges. So on count one the racketeering conspiracy not guilty. Count two sex trafficking by force or cororusion for victim one who was Cassie, not guilty. Count three guilty transportation to engage in prostitution of Cassie. So riddle me this, how do you find someone guilty of transportation to engage in prostitution but not guilty of sex trafficking? What? I'm confused? Count four not guilty sex trafficking by force or coercion for victim two who is Jane? Count five guilty transportation to engage in prostitution victim two who is Jane. I'm so confused. So those two counts he can face up to, I believe, twenty years in prison, ten years for each of those. That is the maximum that he will get is twenty years. There is no minimum sentence, so the judge could say time served. I'm going to go ahead and let you go. And then this guy who is a predator, demon child man is going to be back out on our streets doing whatever the hell he wants because he got away with it. He's gotten away with so much stuff his entire career, and this is just another shining example of money talks. Now, the judge did deny his bail, so he is going to main where he is until his sentencing, which it looks like as of right now, it's set for October third, but of course his team has asked for that date to be moved up because I'm sure Diddy is itching to get out and get back to his lifestyle. I can't even fathom what went on in that jury room, what they talked about. How anyone listening to the evidence of this trial and came up with random guilty verdicts for prostitution but not guilty verdicts for trafficking. It pisses me off. It enrages me, and it's really unfortunate because it took so much for Cassie and Jane and I'm sure all of the other victims of Ditty to come out and come forward with everything that happened to them and come forward with their trauma, and this is how they're treated. This is why women don't come forward when they are sexually assault or there's some type of encounter with a man that makes them feel uncomfortable. This is why they don't come forward, because they are treated like they're nothing, like their thoughts and emotions and feelings don't matter. And I think you really have to understand how abusive relationships work to kind of understand the whole dynamic of Ditty and these women and everything that transpired. They were terrified of him. We saw a video of him beating the shit out of Cassie, a video out in the open, in the hallway of a hotel. What do you think happens behind closed doors? What are we even doing? He went and moved mountains to get that video destroyed. What else is he hiding? I'm so frustrated with the whole thing. There's a lot of people who are frustrated. But then there's also people that back up Ditty and are on his side. And I say to those people, I hope your mom, wife, daughter, sister, aunt, niece ever have to go through an experience where they are treated poorly like this by a mail and they get away with it. I hope and pray that never happens. But that is all I'm going to say, because I am heated up and I've discovered this week this is why I can never be a reporter, because I would be the most uncouth, canceled reporter known to man, because I just can't withhold my emotions. But I am who I am. I'm a passionate person. What can I say? But thank you guys for letting me vent and get it off my chest, because I actually do feel a lot better now that I have verbalized my frustrations. I guess that's one of the good things about having a podcast is I can verbalize these frustrations and then upload it and it just makes me feel better that people are hearing my frustrations. So thank you for listening, Thank you for being here for me during this time and when it was a week of just insane things happening. And I don't even know what else to say other than that. So we are going to go ahead and get into today's episode already, guys. On today's episode, I am going to be telling you about the unsolved homicide of a fifteen year old kid named Henry Bodard Junior that occurred in Swampscott, Massachusetts in nineteen seventy four. This story is sad. It's tragic, as are all of the cases I cover, but the ones that have to do with children can be extra triggering, so please listen with caution. But of course, the reason I'm sharing this is because I do feel like Henry's story is a very important story to tell, as it's been unsolved for so long, and there is significant clues that I do believe could lead to finding his killer. Somebody knows exactly what happened to Henry, whether it's the person who killed him that's been holding in a secret since that horrible day in nineteen seventy four, or if somebody learned something about his murder over the years and has loyalty to the suspect. Either way, somebody knows something. The tragic part of the story is that Henry was just going through his normal day to day, doing his normal everyday routine when evil found him and unfortunately took his life. We are going to go ahead and get into Henry's story now. Henry Edward Badar Junior was born on June twenty fifth of nineteen fifty eight in Salem, Massachusetts, to his father, Henry Badard Senior, and his mother, Gloria Badard. He was their third child. Henry had an older brother and an older sister, followed by two younger brothers. Henry and his family would spend his early years in Lynn, Massachusetts. He lived with his parents and his three brothers, John, Steven, and Scott, and his one sister named Cheryl. He had a normal childhood and was your normal average kid. He loved playing with trucks, and he was a huge sports fan, especially baseball and football. He played Little league and once he ended up going to junior high he would end up playing football, ran track, and played hockey as well. Despite keeping busy with all of the sports activities, Henry was also very popular amongst his peers. His family described him as having a smile that would melt anyone's heart. Henry and his family would live in Land until Henry was around eleven. The family would then move to a neighboring town called Swampscott, a town that Henry Senior and Gloria were familiar with as they had both attended high school there. It was a small town with an average of thirteen thousand, five hundred and seventy eight living there in the nineteen seventies, and it's still a relatively smaller town today. In comparison, Swampscott is a fairly affluent community and includes the village of Beach Bluff. Henry soon grew into a teenager and was thriving in school. By nineteen seventy four, he was a sophomore at Swampscott High School and played on the varsity football team. He lived a very normal middle American life in Swampscott with his family. He had good friends. He got along very well with his siblings and was close with his parents, especially his father. The family lived at twenty one MacArthur's Circle, a cute, little, typical small town American house situated on a cul de sac in Swampscott. Henry also was a hard worker and would work at his family's Sunoco station on the weekends to help save some money to Vya's first car. When he turned sixteen, he had already saved up about nine hundred dollars to put towards his new car and was very excited for this. He also volunteered to open the station on the weekend so his dad could sleep in a be So Henry was very much just all around a good kid. He didn't bother anybody. He had his responsibilities that he had taken on and he enjoyed them. So he was your average high school kid just trying to find his way. So our story starts on Monday, December sixteenth of nineteen seventy four. It was a normal, average day in the Badard home. Henry got up as usual and he proceeded to walk his younger brother to Swampscott Junior High School and then he continued onto his high school where he attended all of his regular daily classes. School got out around two fifteen, and he did have his usual routine of walking home with a particular group of friends. But this day was different. Henry had some errands to run, so he took a bus to downtown and went to Vinin Square shopping center, and I believe this was kind of like a strip mall shopping center. The first thing that Henry did was dropped off a roll of eight millimeter film. And the whole reason this film came to be is his dad had found the film that had been undeveloped, and Henry was looking forward to seeing what was on the film. So he dropped it off so it could get developed and also very interesting. He dropped it off at a CVS. Now, back in those days, CVS was local to Swampscott at that time, so this was before CVS was like is now where it's everywhere. I didn't even know that CBS existed back then, but CVS started in Lowell, Massachusetts in nineteen sixty three. The more you know, I had no idea. So after dropping off the film, Henry went to do some quick Christmas shopping. This was like a couple weeks before Christmas, and he picked up some perfume for his sister Cheryl that was going to be one of her Christmas gifts. Henry ended up leaving the mall around three pm and he was seen by a local police lieutenant named Peter Cassidy. He knew Henry. He ended up stopping so Henry could cross the street. He crossed Paradise Road and they waved at each other as he passed by. Peter said that Henry seemed to be in a hurry, but other than that, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Henry was then spotted again at three forty pm about a mile from the mall, and he was spotted by a group of city workers and they noted that he was taking a shortcut through the Department of Public Works a lot, and he ended up making small talk with one of the workers and said that he was on his way home to wreck Christmas gifts. He had the CBS bag in his hand, and he walked down a former rail line path and then climbed into a wooded area that was not far from the Badard home. So Henry was basically taking what they assumed was a short cut home, and this was the last group of people that would see Henry alive. He faded out of their sight and went into the woods. Now, this area where Henry went was called Swampscott View, and it was a common area for teens to go and hang out. But also keep in mind it's the middle of December in Massachusetts, so it's obviously pretty chilly outside, so I'm sure at this time there were not a bunch of kids hanging out in this area, but it was obviously somewhere that, as a teenager, Henry was familiar with. So we do have to ask did Henry go there to meet somebody specifically, or was he just cutting through on his way home and came across somebody unsavory. We're going to talk more about that later and theories and what possibly could have happened. But it is now five point thirty at the Beadard home and it's starting to get dark and Henry has not shown up yet for dinner. Now, Henry was always very, very prompted. Henry would always be home on time, and that is when the family would sit down and have dinner together. And there was hardly ever a time that Henry missed, unless, of course, he told his family in advance that he would not be there by seven pm. Henry's family were in a total panic. They gathered a people from the community to join the rest of the family, and they went out and started searching for Henry. Their plan was to try to go to all of the areas they thought Henry might have gone on his way home. But unfortunately, this was really difficult because there had been kind of a crazy storm that had rolled into town and it was dark. Oh, it was really difficult, but as a community they refuse to give up on trying to find Henry. They thought that maybe something had happened to him on the way home and he was injured and unable to get help for himself. Henry Senior and Gloria eventually realized that they needed more hands on deck, so around nine to fifteen pm, they called the local police department to report that Henry was missing. Now, you want to look at this with nineteen seventy four eyes, because back then everybody was told constantly, somebody has to be missing for twenty four hours before you can report the missing. So them taking the initiative to go out and try to find him on their own is not out of the ordinary in my mind, because you don't automatically go to the worst case scenario. You think, maybe he's injured, maybe he got held up somewhere. You rationalize what's going on. So it makes sense to me that they did wait and call play. But they did call at nine to fifteen pm. The next day, they had more searchers out there, and they brought out dogs to kind of help scour the area. They went into different neighborhoods in Swampscott, and they even brought in a helicopter to try and assist with the search, but there was no sign of Henry. At this point. Swampscott was a very low crime town in the year of nineteen seventy four. When Henry's life, unfortunately was taken, there had been only two other offenses, which were robbery. So I assume everyone's thought process behind what had happened to Henry. Their minds didn't automatically go to the worst case scenario like I said earlier. So around two thirty pm the next day, a local mother of a young boy called the police and said that her son and a friend had found Henry's body. So this is what happened. The day that Henry went missing. There were two boys who were on their way to a friend's birthday party around four pm, and they ended up cutting through the woods to go to this birthday party. They stumbled upon an empty brown wallet and a CBS bag that had perfume in it. They looked at the items but decided to leave them there, but did place them on a ledge. They ended up going to the birthday party. And they went to this birthday party. It was for a kid named Cliff Goodman and he was turning ten, so it's fair to say that these kids were probably around ten, nine, ten eleven years old. So these two kids had mentioned to Cliff that they found the CBS bag and they found an empty wallet in the woods, and you know, naturally ten year old boys are going to be curious. So the next day, Cliff and one of the other kids went back to the site to see if they could find anything else, and what they found was horrific. They found a baseball bat, and when they got closer to the bat, they found Henry's body hidden beneath a pile of leaves. The scene was gruesome and horrific, and initial reports were that Henry was likely shot due to the nature of the way that his head looked. And I can't even imagine these poor kids that found this horrific scene, how traumatizing that must have been for them. They were so young. One of them had just had a birthday, only ten years old. To come across something like this is just horrific. And they were going out there just to kind of investigate and see what kind of other treasures they could find. Because there was a swallet, there was a spottle of perfume. I can't even imagine trying to navigate something like that as an adult, much less as a ten year old child. So three days after Henry's death. The visitation for Henry was held on December nineteenth of nineteen seventy four. Twenty five hundred people came by to show their love and support for the Badared family, and the following day they had a funeral where another fifteen hundred people attended. I can't even imagine how sad and tragic that day was for the Badared family and for Henry's close friends. So with all of the different sightings of Henry, we have a pretty good timeline of when he was killed because the kids came through between three p forty and four PM and that's when they found the bag of perfume and the wallets. So it's likely that shortly after Henry cut through the DPW lot to enter the woods is when he was attacked and killed. Now, when I told you initially that it was thought that Henry was shot, and the whole reason for that was because of the condition of his head and face. It was pretty bad and brutal. Of course, law enforcement immediately was brought in and they were working to try and investigate the case. But also remember there had been a downpour, there was a massively crazy storm, so any type of footprints or tracks or anything like that had unfortunately been washed away by the time Henry's body was found, so investigators brought in different floodlights to try and extend the search into the nighttime. They brought in a metal detector to see if maybe they could find evidence that weren't necessarily visible to the naked eye. But one thing they did have. They had the wallet, they had the CBS bag. Those were still at the scene. But they also found a baseball bat. It was a Louisville Slugger baseball bat, and it was just a few feet away from where Henry's body was and there was blood all over it, and interestingly enough, the bat also had distinctive markings that were carved into the butt of the bat. So this led investigators to believe that Henry wasn't shot and that he could have been beaten to death with the baseball bat. So not only do they have Henry's body, they also have a potential murder weapon. So an autopsy was completed and it indicated that Henry did die from brain lacerations and fractures. They believed that he was hit at least five times in the head with this baseball bat. The initial blow likely rendered him to the point where he was on the ground, and then the other blows came subsequently while he was on the ground. So this poor kid lost his life at the hands of somebody else in a very, very horrific way. So the area where Henry was found, although like I said, it was popular amongst local kids, it was only really popular in the warmer months. It was December, it was cold, there was rain, It wasn't really an area where a lot of kids would necessarily hang out in the winter months. And investigators very much thought that Henry had gone there specifically to meet somebody versus just using this as a shortcut home and ran into someone unsavory. So I think that's a really interesting little bit of information, because could it have been that Henry was asked to meet somebody there, went there and was taken by a surprise by this person. But who would want to do this? He was a very well liked kid, He was very popular, He didn't have any enemies, and honestly, he was minding his own business, So what would prompt somebody to do something so horrific. So, unfortunately, the medical examiner that did the autopsy on Henry's body did not take his fingerprints, which I think is a huge reason that this case isn't solved today because they were able to lift a partial blood soaked fingerprint from the baseball bat, but it is unclear to this day if those prints belong to the perpetrator or to Henry. But my guess would be that they likely belong to the perpetrator, but again that is just my opinion. To this day, they have never been matched to anybody. So let's go back to the baseball bat. It was a model of bat that was often used by Little League teams or elementary schools, and it was a Hank Henry Aaron one twenty five LL model bat. The LL stands for Little League. Now, earlier I talked about the distinctive markings that were etched into the handle of the bat, and it very much depends on the angle that you look at this bat as to what these markings are. From one angle, it looks like there is a K etched into the bat along with some other weird lines, and if you turn it at a certain angle, it like the Roman numeral six so v I is etched into the bat. It really depends on how you look at it. Investigators did hundreds of interviews and polygraph many people. They interviewed all of the different eyewitnesses that saw Henry that day, and they talked in depth to the Department of Public Works employees because they were in such close proximity to where Henry was found, and they thought that maybe they had heard something, but they said they heard nothing after they had their encounter with Henry. They just went back to work. Investigators asked people in the area if they had seen anyone walking carrying a baseball bat, but no leads turned up. And I think it is so wild that they have a pretty accurate timeframe of when Henry did everything that day, literally moment by moment. They are pretty much able to trace him the entire day. And still despite this, the case remains unsolved and nobody has really been able to put the pieces together. Authorities have never identified any lead, suspects, or even a motive for Henry's murder. It is unclear if Henry Knew was killer, or in fact, if it was just a random person passing through town and decided they wanted to kill somebody. I think personally, it's probably somebody Henry knew that is just my opinion. Authorities did say that there was DNA and evidence taken in two thousand and four, they had sent off Henry's clothing and the baseball bat for further analysis, But as of current day, twenty twenty five, I don't know anything else that has been done with the DNA evidence. I don't know if there's still DNA evidence left to send off for testing, but I eight thousand percent believe that if there is DNA left and it was tested with twenty twenty five eyes and technology, something might possibly come back that would lead us to Henry's killer. So, coming up this December, it'll be fifty one years since Henry's life was taken. Henry's mother, Gloria, passed away in twenty fourteen, without ever knowing what happened to her beloved son. John, Henry's oldest brother, passed away in twenty twenty two following a long battle with Parkinson's disease, again not knowing whatever happened to his brother. As far as I know, Henry Senior is still living. And it must be so awful to live for fifty one years of your life without knowing who took your son's life. Especially because they were extremely close. In twenty eleven, Cheryl, Henry's sister, published a blog in memory of Henry, and I am going to link it below so you guys can check it out. She shares a lot of family memories, family photos, and at the end of the day, she's sharing Henry's story and hopes that it will reach the right set of eyes and ears. I am now going to read an excerpt from the blog that Cheryl wrote about her brother's death. Quote, it has been forty one years now, and that one day remained so vivid in my memory. And to this day, that deep rooted pain has surfaced time and time again, and I once again find myself having to bury some of the thoughts, feelings for fear of losing my mind. Henry's death changed many lives. It has changed the course of all of our lives forever. The circumstances surrounding his death tore our family apart, each of us retreating into our own cocoon, never discussing his death as a family. As a result, I never really knew how my parents and brothers felt, or how they dealt with their feelings. I can only observe how it has affected their lives. There is nothing more devastating than the loss of a loved one. It truly changes you as a person and your perspective on life. All hardship tends to send us in word searching for the truth answers to life questions. Sometimes tragedy brings us together, sometimes it tears us apart. Henry's death was the beginning of a journey I never wanted to take. I may never understand the circumstances, nor do I try anymore. I often wonder what life would be like if he were still here with us. So now forty one years later, a very different person. My faith in life, its beauty, magic, and mystery has slowly been restored through the love of God and my beautiful daughter. However, the core of my being has never fully recovered from the loss of such a magnificent brother as Henry end quote. And I think that very much sums it up. All of these years later, his family still yearns for the resolution and direction as to what happened to him. It tore them apart as a family. It really affected them all individually and as a unit. And she said they never talked about it, so she doesn't really know how her siblings navigated the loss, how her parents navigated the loss, and it's just really sad that this all happened the way it did. Henry didn't deserve to lose his life in such a horrific way, and the family doesn't deserve to have to live with this on a day to day basis. Still, after all of this time, with it being unsolved, it's so sad. I truly don't think that his family is ever going to give up hope that his killer is found. I do believe this is solvable. I hope that there is still DNA and they're able to get the right funding to test the DNA that they have. There is evidence in this case they have a murder weapon, they have these distinct markings, they have DNA run the DNA. So if you do have any information on the murder of Henry Bodard, please contact the Swampscott Police Department at seven eight one five nine five one one one one. Also, if you were in the area of Swampscott in nineteen seventy four and you think you saw something, it's not too late to come forward to police and let them know what you saw that day fifty one years is too long to hold in information if you have it. I will be sharing some pictures on my social media of Henry as well of some of the pictures of the baseball bat and the scene where Henry was found. This is one case that I would very much love to see solved, because they all are important at the end of the day, right but this one fifty one year, it'll be fifty one years. This year is such a long time for a family to not have answers as to what happened, and for him to be killed in such a brutal way. It just strikes me as a targeted type of attack. Was he asked to meet somebody there? Was it somebody his own age that did this? Was it somebody older? I really don't know. When I really try to circle back and try to figure out who would do something so horrific, there's just truly no explanation for who would do this and why would they do it? It just doesn't make any sense to me. So that is the story of Henry Bedard. Please share this episode, especially if you have people local to Massachusetts that might have been in Swampscott in nineteen seventy four and might have saw something, even if it's something simple as seeing somebody walking down the street with a baseball bat and they didn't even think about it. You just never know if those are the pieces that are going to end up being put together and solving this case once and for all. So I'm going to be sharing, like I said, photos of Henry on my social media, on my Instagram and Facebook pages. If you aren't following me there, please go follow, and, like I said, share this episode with somebody that you know, especially if you have connections to Massachusetts, especially Swapscott, because you never truly know. These stories are so important to be told. They're not being told on a great scale like they need to be, and that is exactly why we're here. We're here to bring attention to these cases that have been cold for decades and decades and decades. So thank you guys so much for listening to Henry's story. As always, I appreciate each and every one of you for listening every week and supporting my little baby podcast. I will see you guys next week for a brand new unsolved case. Have a great weekend and I'll see you then. Bye.