Public Radio America
Episode 435
"Lakeside Mystery"
{PRA Intro}
{Producer’s Note: “Metamorphosis II by Phillip Glass” begins}
Producer Anna. Oh, wow. It’s so pretty.
Rocket Olsen. Yeah, wow look at the house. It’s like a mansion. Like… it’s so hard to believe something so ugly could happen here.
Producer Anna: Yeah.
Olsen. Yeah.
Olsen (In Studio) Last year on a family vacation my husband and I stopped at this cute antique mall … just you know, just looking. The locals, one local in particular, told me this story. It’s a tragic, beautiful and haunting tale. Like that day I walked out with a kick-ass rocking chair (We call it the rocket chair at home) and a story that would consume my life for the next year, a story I’ve thought about every day since I started this.
The place is Chautauqua Country, New York. And the center of this mystery is what the locals call the The Ol’ Fierro Farm.
I’m Rocket Olsen
Stay tuned
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{Producer’s Note: “Dry Air by Podginton Bear” begins}
Rocket Olsen (In Studio) If you’ve never heard of Chautauqua New York . . . I hate to break it you . . . it’s probably because you are poor. Chautauqua County is a small Upstate New York town right up against (You guessed it) The Chautauqua Lake. All along the lakeside you’ll see amazing five and six story lake houses and supersized Yachts. It’s gorgeous
But it wasn’t always like this. Not even close
{Producer’s Note : Insert rewinding sound effect}
Chautauqua County was settled by the Swedes in the 17th century. If you can’t guess by the name then yes, they stole it from Senecas. America.
Anyway the county thrives in the 19th century and became a hot spot for academic study and enlightenment. Then at the turn of the 20th century . . . things changed.
People start migrating toward the cities, railroads carried people off to distant lands… and they don’t come back. Boston and New York City become hotspots for academia and Chautauqua is forgotten about.
The rural town picks itself up though. It becomes a farm town and wayward farmers come to take up the cheap land. A general store opens and after a few years the town get its first library. The working class town holds its own during WWI and flourishes in the 1920s.
It’s at the tail end of 1920’s when The Great Depression grips America that Adaline and Harlon Fierro came to town.
Ellie Caldwell. They were quiet people. Godly people. Holy Hannahs they’d call them now.
Rocket Olsen (In studio) that’s Eleanor “Ellie” Caldwell, She’s in her 80s and she grew up in Chautauqua and visited Adaline Fierro often in the early 90’s.
The Fierros were not a married couple, they were brother and sister. Police records from the time said that the Fierros were poor, cagey, independent and very religious. You hear this a lot. Religion was everything to them.
Ellie Caldwell. Adaline always had a bible, she wore a bonnet and a prairie dress every day of her life. She never went anywhere alone and Harlon had this long beard and hair. They never spoke in those early days, just kept to themselves.
Rocket Olsen (In studio) Not much is known is about the Fierros before they came to Chautauqua after buying the farm. They were maybe from a fringe group of religious extremist or fundamentalist. Some people said Adaline had been battered by her husband and escaped with her brother. Some have it on good authority that Harlon had kidnapped her from a church compound and brought her to the English world against her will
But still what made them leave and come to New York? Well…no one knows.
(Producer’s Note. Cut to Anna and Rocket on location)
Rocket. Wait this is it, pull over
Rocket Olsen (In Studio) Anna and I went to visit the Ol’ Fierro Farm. The original farmhouse has been long gone but the land is exactly the same? The first thing that struck us was how inland the property was.
Anna. Gosh, we’re so far away from the main road and town.
Rocket. I mean Harlon and Adaline were really really isolated back here.
Anna. Yeah, it’s like anything could happen here and no one would know
Rocket. Yeah
Rocket Olsen (In studio) And something did happen here. Well a lot of somethings but in 1938 the Fierro’s made a rare trip out of town. When they came back the next day. They weren’t alone. They had a boy
(Producer’s Note. Cut toRocket on location at Rochester CPS)
Marisol Ramirez. Um, it says ward of the state. So that means orphan. They had a lot back then.
Rocket. That’s Marisol Ramirez
Marisol Ramirez. Deputy Case Manager, New York State Child Protective Services.
Rocket. Ramirez’s office is in the Rochester Public Welfare building, the same location where the Fierros would have gone to pick up their ward in 1938.
Rocket. So how common is it for two unmarried people to just . . . get a kid. Like did they apply?
Ramierz. Well, it. . . it was The Great Depression, right. So there were a lot of orphans. Um, it says the mother died on the streets of Brooklyn….um…malnutrition in 1933. New immigrant. No family. We just didn’t have good records back then…
Rocket (in Studio). Sorry, but this made me think of the movie Brooklyn. Gorgeous movie. Great clothes
Ramirez. So, I don’t think it was uncommon. I mean if they had a farm, people back then thought . . . well... I mean that is work for the child. Right?
Rocket (In studio). Right. I mean give two strange religious people who live along on a secluded farm in rural New York an eight-year-old orphan to work the land. I mean what’s the worst that could happen?
So let’s fast forward to
Ellie Caldwell. 1942. My best friend and I are going to the get penny candy from the general store and the milk trucks comes down the road and I can hear Mr. Tordell whistling and we chase the truck to see if there is any extra cream and there he is riding on the back.
Rocket (In studio). Okay. Pause. "He" is the now twelve year old orphan the Fierros bought home. Orphaned at the age of three with no known name this boy is officially known as Addison Fierro by the Fierro siblings. The name translate to Son of Adam. You know . . . like from the bible
Let me tell you this really bothered me because this boy had a mother… a family maybe. He had a real name and no one bothered to figure it out …even after what happened next.
We went through court documents and CPS records. Anna even went to the Ellis Island museum to look to see if there were any records of Irish immigrants who were single moms with one child in the early 1930’s but by then most immigrants came through other ports. No dice. So. . . . We’ll just call him Addison.
Okay. So it’s 1942.
Ellie Caldwell. He went into the library that day and we told all the other kids in town that we saw him because . . . well he was such a mystery. His Aunt never let him leave the farm. Um… the boys were… boys. They weren’t very nice and I. . .and I… I always regretted not saying anything when they picked on him that first day. {Producer’s Note. Hold on clip as she holds back, her voice shakes and then takes in a deep breath}
But it didn’t stop him, every Saturday he’d ride into town on the milk truck and go right into the library. He’d ignore the taunts and Mrs. Honeywell kept the boys out if they were too loud.
Rocket Olsen (In Studio) Mrs. Honeywell, the town librarian would later say he was smart, really smart. She introduced him to books about science and history. She said he was her very best patron. She also said one thing that almost every document, court transcript and interviews said… he was never allowed off the farm.
Let’s talk about what life was like on the farm
{Producer’s Note “Lag Fyrir Ommu by Olafur” begins}
Rocket Olsen (In studio)
Adaline and Harlon were terrible farmers.
There were multiple complaints put in about foul smells coming from the farm from; there were dead animals, rotted crops, there was no running water and the outhouse flooded whenever it rained. It would later be discovered that Adaline was a hoarder, collecting anything that happened upon the property forever…dead or alive.
Mrs. Honeywell would say that Adaline would wake Addison up every morning at 5am for morning prayers. They’d have breakfast… something hearty but Godly like, I-D-K, Quaker oats.
Then Addison worked the dilapidated farm... by himself without proper tools of equipment. Harlon, it was said, could be found in a drunk stupor or making time with sex worker’s and women in town.
Breakfast, farming, prayers, dinner, bibles school was the life for the Fierros. The same schedule day after day after day
So, it was no wonder these trips to the library were worth all the taunting and tormenting. The books were his only way out. Throughout the forties he was a mainstay at the library, even while all his peers were lying about their age and enlisting.
Mrs. Honeywelll, the librarian, later said she helped him write several college applications but the day he was set to mail the letters out his Aunt and Uncle put an end to it. She said Harlon threatened her and Adaline was quoting scripture at the boy and doused him with holy water right in the library reading room.
He returned his attention to keeping the farm and caring for his caretakers.
Ellie Cadwell. He became a. . . handsome man. Can I say that? I mean just piercing blue eyes and just that skin and I guess they call them cheekbones now.
Rocket Olsen (In Studio) Oh, right I should probably mention this. Addison Fierro was had albino characteristics and though no one will say it… it’s probably the reason he was given away to the first people who came looking for work
So, he becomes a man. A handsome young man according to Ellie.
One whom, according to Ellie, Adaline tried to have excised after catching him kissing a girl while unmarried. Whatever fervor Adaline and Harlon were under …it got worse the older they became.
Ellie Caldwell . {Producer’s note. Keep in deep breath} My father was the town doctor and Adaline and Harlon. . They didn’t believe in modern medicine. I guess Addison must of snuck off the farm and he came to our house . . . he was shivering and feverish. Father said he had pneumonia. He said Adaline had gone into one of her fits and she’d tried to purify his soul with holy water all night while praying in tongues.
Rocket. Wow
Ellie Caldwell: My father . . . he thought he was over exaggerating. Addison was just nineteen at the time and father called Harlon to get him. I think . . .I think he lost faith in the town after that. (Ellie holds back tears )He didn’t leave the farm much after that except to work the night shift at the DeLune factory that opened up outside town.
Rocket Olsen (In Studio) It was a hard tough life. The kind of life you expect from the greatest generation. He could have been your great-uncle or your grandfather who tells stories at family reunions.
But he never had a chance.
Because in 1955 Addison Fierro disappears.
Ellie Caldwell. Just . . . gone.
Rocket Olsen (In Studio) And it takes the town a whole year to realize it.
The Fierros never put in a missing person report and it’s actually Mrs. Honeywell… the town librarian who tells the police she hasn’t seen him in over a year. She said he always returned this books on time. Always.
(Commercial Break)
Detective Olive Rainer. Dad always said the Fierros were strange.
Rocket Olsen (In Studio) That’s Olive Rainer---her dad was the Sherriff in the 1950’s…Sherriff Rainer died in 2000 and Detective Rainer took up her dad’s position. Nowadays Rainer is a detective with the NYPD. She grew up hearing her Dad’s stories about the town.
Detective Rainer. The first time Dad tried to talk to them the Fierros said maybe he’d run off. But that’s the thing. He had never left the town before, he didn’t have money and he would have needed a car to make it . . . anywhere.
Rocket Olsen (In Studio) After he disappeared the Fierro Farm fell into disarray. The animals ran off or were stolen. The grounds were overgrown. The Fierros became shut-ins, some said you could occasionally hear the sound of prayers coming from an open window. For the most part Adaline and Harlon lived on the welfare of others and the cash their ward left behind.
Here is the thing one year later Addison Fierro did come home.
He didn’t runaway
He didn’t leave for college
He didn’t join the military
He was murdered
Or was he?
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{Producer’s Note “Midnight Stone” begins}
Rocket Olsen (In studio) Ida Coal thought her mother’s fear of water was the funnies thing ever. She’d freak out around beaches and she even decided not attend her mother’s lakeside funeral. It was always a family joke
Kind of cruel one considering Ida Coal’s mother was four years old when she ran home to tell her parents that a monster in the lake was coming for her.
Except it wasn’t a monster and guys I won’t get to graphic but two months after his disappearance the body of Addison Fierro washed up 100 miles away in Creighton, NY right behind Ida Coal’s mother’s house.
It would be a year before the two small town police forces would put together the two stories and Addison Fierro’s body would be identified from a sketch.
Okay, here was the thing. He had to be identified via sketch because no one knows what happened to the body of Addison Fierro. All we have is the notes jotted down in that slim file folder from Sheriff Rainer and a single unfinished page from the coroner’s report. The remains and full report were lost in transport. Even though he was found … in a way he’s still missing
The notes show that Addison was strangled, then probably thrown into the river. He died after bleeding out on sharp rock or piece of debris in the water. His death is ruled a murder. It doesn’t take long for Adaline and Harlon become prime suspects
Rocket Olsen. But like . . .okay why would the Fierro’s kill their own ward ? I mean he was the only one brining in income, their lives were completely destroyed with him gone.
Producer Anna. Yeah, but I’m not saying they did it on purpose. I mean what about what Eleanor said about the night of the pneumonia incident. What was that …an exorcism they said? Adaline performed…WHOA! Wait a second . . . omg. Oh.My.God.
Rocket Olsen. What?
Rocket Olsen (In Studio) Okay, so that got Anna thinking and we started digging around the records we had. The county had shut off the water and electricity to the Fierro farm months before the disappearance due to non-payment.
Producer Anna. Okay so Adaline and Halloran had a record of performing baptisms as a type of punishment. It was how he got the pneumonia? And let’s say they tried to punish him again. I mean maybe they would use a tub or sink or something…but if the water was shut off maybe they went to the lake by the woods.
Rocket Olsen. You think he may have accidentally drowned? Then what about the strangulation? A cover up?
Producer Anna. I mean it could have been an accident. Maybe he struggled and Harlon overreacted and stabbed him with something. They could have gotten scared and just let his body go, the lake would have carried his boy downstream. Ugggh. I wish we could talk to Harlon or Adaline.
But we can’t. Harlon Fierro died in 1965 He got drunk and fell down dead in the middle of town. At the time he was found with a knife and bags of stolen jewelry. Turns out Harlon had been supporting him and his sister by stealing. Many though the knife he was found with was the one he used to murder his ward…other say there was no knife…that was just a rumor.
Adaline passed away in 1990. She lived to be 91 years old and never once left her home.
Detective Rainer. My father helped her get on welfare and sent deputies to look in on her over the years. She was subdued... It was just her and her big screen TV. She never mentioned religion…it was like she let that go when Harlon died. My father thought on her death bed she’d reveal something but she went quietly and contently.
Rocket Olsen (In
Studio). That should be it right ?
The last people to know anything about Addison’s last moments pass, each getting several more years than he did. Mrs. Honeywell passes in 2004. Mr. Tordell, the milk delivery driver passes in 2000. Sheriff Rainer died shortly after retiring in 2005.
The Fierro estate and land goes into a trust set up by Addison’s boss. Adaline lived off of the trust until her death. The real estate boom in the 80’s turned the small town into a weekend getaway for old money. Two large lake houses are built over the old farm, the trees are cleared for a premium lakeside view. By 2000 the land and the new mini mansions built on it are worth 6.5 million dollars all held in a trust.
A winery picks up steam a few miles from town. The other farmlands are bought up and million dollar lake houses now dot the lake’s edge. The library is now a golf course. The main strip of town has a gorgeous antique shops and restaurants that serve dinner at 4pm
The recession quieted things down in Chautauqua. The Ol’ Fierro Farm was quiet for nearly ten years even as the property value of the new lake house and the land grew to a startling 30 Million dollars.
Then in 2007 The Locke, Broffery and McCoy Law Firm signed the entire estate over because the Fierro Heir had come home.
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{Producer’s Note “Wash by Bon Iver” begins}
Attorney Client privilege is a pain to reporters but associates at the firm can confirm that the man who came to claim the estate was in fact a Fierro heir. These are not privileged actions but the associate who assisted us asked to remain anonymous.
Associate: The estate and land was set up to be run by our firm until an heir of the Fierro family came forward. When the descendants contacted us we did a DNA test and when it came back positive we signed over the trust
Rocket Olsen. But when you say the Fierros… do you men Adaline and Harlon? Or the missing ward?
Associate: I don’t have that information. I just know we wouldn’t have release the estate unless we had proof.
But this is the weird part because it’s like . . . what does
that mean?
Was he a relative of the mysterious Fierro family? Did Harlon Fierro’s
philandering ways produce an heir? Could the battered Adaline Fierro had
children from a previous marriage?
Or before he died did Addison Fierro become a father?
Could that have been what lead to his death?
The sad answer is…I don’t know. And I tried guys. I like really tried. We know because of Adaline’s hoarding that DNA for the two men was made available to the lawyers. Though back then all they could determine was if they were Antigen Secretors
The locals never met the man who inherited the lake house. They say all the vacationers look the same. A local pub owner says he saw a man who . . . get this . . . could have been an albino come by but he was young and didn’t stay long.
I was at a dead end guys, then Rainer told me I should speak to DeLune Family. Armand DeLune was the compassionate boss that set up the trust for Adaline and Harlon after Addison died. Armand died in 1982 but I tried reaching out to his descendants.
In a bizarre twist, if you follow the local Upstate New York news you may know why this family is so private.
So.
Here we are.
I really want to believe that Addison Fierro ran away. That maybe he found a better more open-minded town. Maybe he met a girl and started a family. I want to believe he came back to the Fierro farm…maybe to confront his guardians…no...His abusers. Maybe a fight broke out and he just never made it off that farm that day…
But somehow…somehow…a part of him…made it home
“Turn it off”, Fierro said
I struggled to find the controls to shut off the Bluetooth in the rental car and settled for turning the volume down.
“I tried to talk her out of it”, Emile said from the back seat, “Rocket was on old student of mine and she asked for my advice and I tried to mislead her but she is one curious person. This is just a draft .I tried to mislead her but--”
“It’s okay, Emile”, I said turning down the narrow roads towards the docks.
“Stop the car”, Fierro ordered and I slammed the breaks and the Maserati came to a smooth stop.
“Fierro, it’s okay.” I said “No one is going to listen to that. We can—“
He was already out of the passenger seat and ran around to the backseat. I looked in the rear view mirror in time to see him pull Rose out of the car. Her face was red and she was having a fit, tears streaming down her face, she was bawling and chocking over her words. I unbuckled my seatbelt.
“Rose”, I said as she held on to her father, “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry Papa”, she said, “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“It’s was a long time ago, Rose”, he said, “A very long time ago.”
“It’s my fault.” she said and I was worried what showing this much emotion might do to Rose.
“I’m sorry Rose”, Emile said and people were staring at us now, “I thought you were asleep, darling.”
“Come on Rose”, I said, “We are on vacation. We are going to have fun. Look. Look out there. Look at that view. Look at all that pretty blue water.”
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Author's Note
Hey…hey…remember when Liapri was code named Blue Water ?
Back in 2017 when I did this I was going to link the text Blue Water to Liapri. But that never worked out.
You : and now….
Lils : LOL, still writing it.
So this is the story and context that I used when I wrote my High School!Litany Lane story. I had all these insights on Fierro’s childhood and wanted to USE IT. Now in PLT: Monet Drive it’s revealed that in the 70’s Lucie tells Eleanor what she and Rodger did, but Eleanor NEVER told anyone. She thought she was making it up. Also Eleanor omits her knowledge of Lucie and Fierro’s romance because she knows Lucie would have wanted her too. Also that girl he got in trouble for kissing (and actually sleeping with) was Eleanor, but she only did it because Lucie didn’t want to be with anyone inexperienced.
Armand DeLune is Clara’s Great-Grandfather who she never met. I feel like Roger DeLune did tell his dad that he killed Fierro and Armand set up the trust out of guilt because he thought maybe Lucie was pregnant with Fierro’s child and to ease suspicion he set up the trust to give Harlon and Adaline money to live off of and he maybe had something to do with the reports and evidence going missing ? Maybe ?
I also feel like in JNRR I hint that Sheriff Rainer (Olive’s Dad ) had some idea that Roger was responsible.
You know Fierro really should just be getting revenge on the whole town….
You : But how did they do the DNA test and not realize Fierro was the exact same person ?
Lils : IDK, they only ran partial DNA and even back then they would have just looked for Antigen Secretors ???