[00:00:09] Speaker A: Deep in the bowels of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, located in downtown Little Rock, is a room affectionately known as the Morgue. The room is filled with cabinets packed to the brim with old newspaper clips cut from what used to be the Arkansas Democrat and the Arkansas Gazette before they became one newspaper in the early 90s. On the top of one cabinet are multiple drawers devoted to the stories from Bill Clinton's tenure as governor. Another drawer located across from them tells a much different story. The front of it has a label on which is written in faded red marker, Murder MacArthur, Alice. Contained inside are the stories, at least the ones the public knew about at the time of a crime saga that spanned three years and gripped Arkansas unlike any the state had seen before or since. Two cities, two murders, multiple trials and grand juries. A sideshow put on by the Pulaski county sheriff. Whispers of organized crime and drugs that turned out just to be more creations in a non stop smokescreen of lies. And all of it was part of a web woven by one suburban housewife. That web was untangled in multiple places, including just a few blocks away from the Democrat Gazette, in the office of the Pulaski County Prosecutor and across the Arkansas river at the North Little Rock Police Department. Like the Democrat Gazette, each agency has their own version of the morgue. In them are boxes full of transcripts, police reports and crime scene photos. They also have an ancient technology known as cassette tapes that haven't been heard in 40 years and were never made public until now. Tapes have recorded police interviews.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: I'm going to ask you point blank, did you murder your husband?
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Grand jury testimony.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: The woman is a sociopath, plain and simple. She does not know what the truth really is and doesn't care.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: And police communications. Is there any truth to this I.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Hear about my father's wife?
[00:01:49] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Did she die?
[00:01:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
Dam new and vintage interviews with the people who lived through and covered this saga's central figure.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: We were living in the midst of.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: A soap opera presented by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. This is the Orsini tapes.
You could start this story in any number of places. There's October 1980, when payment on a $30,000 home loan taken by Ron and Mary Lee Orsini of North Little Rock from the Metropolitan national bank came due and wasn't paid. Then again three months later. Or there's January 15, 1981. That's when Ron Orsini, the 38 year old CO owner of a local heating and air company, filed a report with the North Little Rock Police Department sometime The day before, an unknown person had broken into his Ford truck while it sat in the driveway of his home located in the Indian Hills neighborhood at 7412 Pontiac Avenue. Only one thing was taken, his.38 caliber pistol.
Two months later, on the night of March 11, a new episode of the late night talk show Tomorrow with Tom Snyder was airing on NBC. Among the viewers of the nationally broadcast show were Mr. And Mrs. Daniels. The husband and wife sat in the den of their home located at 1704 Osceola Drive, watching the program that started at 11:30pm At 11:36pm Snyder began interviewing family members of Steven Judy, a convicted murderer in Ohio who had been executed two days before. The segment lasted seven minutes, ending at 11:43pm during this seven minute window, Ms. Daniels heard a very loud noise. Later, one investigator who went to church with her said Ms. Daniels would never commit to saying it was a gunshot. If she had, he said, it would have helped a lot. Whatever it was, the sound concerned her enough to have her husband check the doors of the den, which was located on the far east end of their home. The den itself, according to a police document, was located easily 100ft from 7412 Pontiac Avenue and specifically near the second floor bedroom window of Ron and Marilee Orsini, according to Widow's Web, the 1993 book by Jean Lyons examining the events of March 11, 1981 and everything that arose from them. It was about 9:40am the following morning when the 911 dispatcher received the call. A panicked female voice told the dispatcher she had just found her husband covered in blood. The dispatcher asked if he had had a fall. I don't know. I found him. I don't know. The woman yelled before starting to cry. The dispatcher got the woman's name and address. The call went out to police at 9:42am within five minutes, Bill Mallett, an 11 year veteran of the North Little Rock Police Department, pulled up to 7,412 Pontiac in his patrol car. The location, a short drive from the busy JFK Boulevard, was a two story brick home with a three car garage on its right side and a second story located above the garage. A white Ford service truck belonging to Ron Orsini sat in the driveway. What Mallett found didn't quite match what he'd anticipated based on the dispatcher's description. Instead of chaos, Mallett found Mary Lorcini sitting on the front porch, hand on her chin, staring blankly toward the street. The 33 year old woman wore a brown checked flannel shirt, blue jeans and tennis shoes. Mallett later said all she lacked was a cup of coffee and everything would have looked just normal. She didn't project any sense of urgency at all, he would write in his incident report that day. Orsini seemed visibly shaken. She was unresponsive to most of his questioning, including whether she had called the police and if she needed any help. At one point, Mallet asked if the bedroom was upstairs. Marsini nodded. The officer went inside to investigate.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: Many people believe that the next big thing in Arkansas is lithium. Hi, I'm Ainslie Platt, an environment reporter at the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. For months, I've been covering efforts to bring lithium extraction to Arkansas and the roadblocks that have popped up along the way. The lithium held in the brines underneath south Arkansas could help the US Meet.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Its goal of developing a domestic supp.
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[email protected] ADGNow.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: Upstairs, it was empty and quiet aside from a radio softly playing in the hallway bathroom. Standing in the hallway, Mallet noticed that the master bedroom was very dark. He could barely make out the side of a man's body lying in the bed. Mallet found Ron Orsini's body cold and lying in a pool of blood, which appeared to be coming from his nose and mouth and was soaking into the mattress. He found no obvious weapon in the bedroom. Another officer, Patrolman Randy Huddleston, arrived next, and the two discussed the possibility of suicide or even an aneurysm. Mallett returned to the front porch just as an EMT was pulling into the residence. Mallett asked Mary Lee Orsini if her husband had been complaining of anything serious, like a headache. Mallet later told Lyons that the newly widowed woman turned to look at him with a look of wonder and amazement and began to speak, then stopped and said nothing. Huddlesome called him back upstairs. The EMTs had produced a flashlight and shaved a section of hair from the back of Ron's head. Based on what they saw, it definitely appeared as though the man of the house had been shot.
Just over 12 hours after the Daniels heard the alarming noise from inside their home, Six people crammed into a training room at the headquarters of the North Little Rock Police Department. In the thin room, which resembled a cell with one barred window, a wood table and metal folding chairs, were three police officers, a deputy prosecutor and a court reporter. The remaining individual was the center of attention. It was 1:12pm when Sgt. Buddy Miles pressed a button on tape recorder and spoke.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: 1, 2, 3.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: The next to speak was Miles partner Sergeant TJ Farley who addressed the court reporter.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Linda this is a voluntary statement. Repeated voluntary Statement the of Ms. Mary Orosini, white female, age 17 of 47 that lives at 7412 Pontiac. Date is 312 of 81 Time is 1:12pm Present in the room are Sgt. W.J. miles, Deputy Prosecuting in Attorney Judy K. Mason, Ms. Orsini, Officer Mallet and Sgt. Farley.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: After being put under oath the first few times Marilee Orsini speaks, you can barely hear her soft spoken answers on the 44 year old tape. A microphone clearly wasn't placed in front of her. The last time Orsini saw her husband alive when he went to bed after watching the 10 o'clock news on channel 11. Where had she slept that night? In her daughter Tiffany's room. The woman's first clear answer came after Farley asked what room she slept in the previous night. But she quickly devolved into tears.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: Which room did you sleep in? I slept my daughter first room.
Okay, which daughter was that then? That's Tiffany. Tiffany, you have more than half.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: That other woman's voice on the tape belongs to Mason sitting across from Orsini. She wasn't buying it. Speaking years later to Lyons, Mason shared her gut reaction to the interview as it unfolded. As soon as she raised her head up and her mascara wasn't running all over the place, we just looked at each other, my court reporter and I, and we immediately thought oh. Mason said. And I thought she killed him right there. Buddy Miles agreed.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Yeah, her crying was that good.
Solving her crying just wasn't that convincing.
I don't think Blake had even more stuff.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: The questioning continued. Rossini then answered questions about her stepdaughter, Ron's biological daughter who lived in Louisiana. How long had she been married to Ron? Five years was her answer. And the whereabouts of her own ex husband, though at the time the officers weren't aware that there was more than one. Then Farley asked why she hadn't been sleeping with her husband. Orsini gave her first lengthy answer, thereby introducing her 13 year old daughter Tiffany into the narrative.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: Was there what was the reason why you two didn't sleep together?
Tiffany? I had taken the doctor turning and she was handing me blackout spells. And Dr. Gosser had her stay home yesterday for me to watch it because he can't locate the reason. And she's like falling downstairs. She's in the school nurse told me I need to go to the doctor because I thought her delivery was messed up.
So he suggested that I just monitor.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: You know.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: All of her know this. She was wagging free one handed. Just monitor and see if I could give any pattern or indication of what was causing this.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Farley then attempted to probe into Orsini's marriage, but was met with resistance.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: Have you and your husband have been having any problems at all? There was some problems. It wasn't anything to do with like husband wanting.
What kind of a problem would it be?
I don't want to go into it. Well, we're investigating the murder here and we get into it, ma'am.
That's it.
What do you want to know? What is the problem?
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Despite that initial reluctance, words eventually began spilling out of Mary Lee Rossini. She told Farlane Miles that Ron began exhibiting, quote, very unusual behavior about four months prior when Ron, who she said took care of our savings account while she was responsible for household type things, suddenly began bringing large sums of money home and started receiving strange phone calls. Orini said it got so bad that in January she enlisted the Fred Meyers Detective Agency to look into it. She claimed the only people close to her who knew anything about all of this were her sister in law, Linda House, and her neighbor friend, Mary Jane Murphy. Then came the one question Farley and Miles likely wanted to ask the most. Up to that point in the interview.
[00:11:55] Speaker B: You don't hear any noises last night after you went to bed.
So it was your husband in that bedroom, you and your daughter Tiffany in the other bedroom? Yes, sir. Okay, when you got up this morning, what was your routine? What did you do this morning? Okay, I got up and I go to the room door. I tried to open and it locked and I didn't think anything about it.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: And 24 hours later, they'd asked Mary Lee's daughter similar questions. Tiffany confirmed her mother was a heavy sleeper, but she was quick to get around in the morning. The teenager also said she herself wasn't the heavy sleeper, but she was used to her cats making noise in the night.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: Would you say that you are a light sleeper or a heavy sleeper? Do you think something happening in the house would wake you up or not?
[00:12:48] Speaker A: No.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: Are you a Heavy sleeper. I'm not a heavy sleeper, but I don't. I just. We're used to the cats making so many sounds. I mean, they jump and they run and they all over the bed and I just, you know, you know, we're used to the cat. We're used to sounds. So I wouldn't, you know, really, unless it's something that I hadn't heard before.
Okay. Of course, you know at this time that your father was shot and presumably shot in the house, do you feel that if a shot was fired in, you would wake up?
Oh, yes, I know I would because I have trouble. I have. I have ear trouble. And when my mom and I were out shooting the gun, I just, I couldn't stand the sign. Couldn't stand the sound of it. Just hurts my ears and I put my hands over my ears when she was shooting. But Wednesday night, when this was supposed to have happened, sometime in the early morning hours, Thursday, nothing woke you up like this.
When I'm sick, I'm a real heavy sleeper because I usually know ahead of time whether or not I'm going to stay home the next day.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: How had Mary Lee and Tiffany both not heard the concussive blast of a.38 caliber revolver mere feet away from them?
The two men now questioning Mary Lee Orsini and later her daughter had arrived at 7412 Pontiac just 15 minutes after. Mallet Farley was a New Jersey native. He'd put down stakes in North Little Rock after a tour in Vietnam with the Air Force and had been with the city's police department since getting out. Miles was a North Little Rock native and had been on the force for 23 years. The duo weren't technically partners, according to Miles.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Not necessarily partners. We just happened to both be in the homicide division and he sat next to me when we got this call on the morning of discovery of the body. Well, we decided to go in my car. So we weren't partners. We went out in my car is because we knew we needed camera equipment. He grabbed one camera, I think he grabbed the 35 millimeter and I grabbed the instant when we got up there.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: This mess Miles mentioned had nothing to do with Ron Arini's body. Miles was referring to all the attention a murder in a middle class area like Indian Hills would receive. Brace yourself for a view of murder, law enforcement and race that may not be dated at all.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: I guess that's one thing that made us decide we better take all equipment we could because of the affluence, you know, today. Not to say we do. Yes, we would do it a little different than a black man, but I hate to say that around a low contact, low income tax, but it's just facts of life. You know you're going to get more heat off of an apple in an area than you are poor area. I don't mind telling you Black on black crimes are treated as misdemeanors in all cities. If a black kills a black, we.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: Call it a misdemeanor when the detectives arrived at the Orsini home on Pontiac, Farley had his personal camera at his side. By hobby, he was a nature photographer but had been asked by his captain him to take photos at the scene because the department staff photographer was enjoying a day off. Mallett shared with them the details of a brief statement he had collected from Mary Lee, who now sat around the corner in the car of her friend Mary Jane, details the detectives would soon hear from the source. Reports filed over the next month and interviews by Gene Lyons years later detailed what the detectives found after entering the premises. Inside was a home, Miles said was, quote, pretty nicely done up. The living room bore expensive new drapes and the den had a fancy oak and glass gun cabinet. Miles remembered seeing a canopy bed in Tiffany's bedroom, which was the first room on the right after going up the stairs to the right. A roll top desk stood against the wall opposite the bed. Above it was a framed photo of the Orsini family. On the nightstand next to the bed was a Timex alarm clock. It had been set to go off at 4:30am but the button was in the off position.
Decisions made in Washington affect folks in Arkansas I'm Alex Thomas, the Washington correspondent for the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. I'm keeping a close eye on what happens in the nation's capital and how decisions and decision makers impact our state. Take, for instance, the next farm bill. We're connecting you with the policymakers drafting this legislation, as well as the Arkansas farmers vital to the state's economy.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: I know how much these decisions matter.
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[email protected] ADGNow Miles and Farley's investigation began with a mistake. As Farley entered the room, he failed to notice an object sticking out of the door. His camera bag promptly hit and knocked the object to the floor. It was a shish kebab skewer, which had been poking out of A small hole in the door's push button. Quick set monolock meant for unlocking the door from the hallway, noted in an intelligence report they would file more than a month later. The detective stated that after the lock was open, the natural thing to do would be to keep the skewer in your normal hand and open the door with your opposite hand instead. The skewer had been left in such a way that the slightest touch of the door would cause it to fall out. After entering the bedroom, Farley and Miles took stock of the person lying in front of them. Ron arsini had been 38 years old at the time of his death on March 11, 1981. A Navy veteran, he was co owner of a heating and air conditioning company located in Little Rock. The son of a banker, Ron had grown up in an area of north Little Rock called Park Hill, roughly 3 miles south from 7412 Pontiac Drive, location where his body had been found by Detective Mallett. Ron met Mary Lee two weeks after he divorced his first wife, Linda Diapo, who he'd had one child with. In what can only be described as a strange coincidence, Mary Lee had just ended a relationship with the man Ron's ex wife would wind up marrying. Linda Diapo said Ron was sensitive and a perfectionist. The type who would send her to the store so that he could clean their kitchen and organize their cabinets. He was also extremely passive, someone who'd hid his intelligence from others. Officers at the scene noticed that Ron was facing toward the left side of the bed where Merrilee usually slept. The blanket on that side had been pulled back as if someone had slipped, slipped out from underneath it the night before. Also, there was a definite indention in the pillow from where a head had been resting.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: She gave us a story that she had laid in there around 7 o'clock after she had taken a shower that evening, so. And that's why that indentation's on there.
She's also made other stories to the sheriff's department changing that. It wasn't her. It was Tiffany.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: After the covers were pulled back, the officers found a red, white and blue woman's sock right next to Ron's legs.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: He had his feet crossed usually, I don't know which way he.
His right arm was up. Something like this.
Back of the head. Back of the head. And it exited out one of the nostrils. Right. He was laying something like this. And the blood splatter on the arms indicated those arms were there. Whenever the hydraulics or the impact of the bullet came out, he was asleep when he was shot through the back of the head. He really never knew what hit him.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: Although officers were not able to locate the gun that had ended Ron Orsini's life, the bullet was found on a pool blood. Even before the bullet was sent to the state crime lab, the detectives were confident that a soft lead slug like the one they used in their own.38 caliber guns had been used to end Ron's life. They were also confident ballistics would show it had been fired from a revolver, a type of gun that didn't allow for the addition of a silencer. Dr. L. Gordon Holt, the Pulaski county coroner, declared Ron dead and dead for many hours at 10:15am One month later. The detectives would note that an electric blanket had been on the bed and left in the on position. They wondered if this had been done to slow down the rigor mortis process and confuse the estimated time of death. According to a report, Holt advised that there was no doubt in his mind that it was a homicide.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: The man actually drowned in his own blood. He aspirated the bullet didn't kill him. He was alive for about 30 more minutes after that.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: Dr. Fannie Malik, the Arkansas state medical examiner, later confirmed the cause of death as a homicide. However, at first, Miles said Malik wasn't completely convinced it was a homicide.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: When I first went over there, gave him what they had, he tried to say suicide. I said, doc, there's no way you're gonna make it to suicide out.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: So Malik made a bet with miles.
[00:20:44] Speaker B: That you $5 against $10, it's a suicide. I said, I'll take that bet. You'll have to make a suicide. I did. He won't pay me $10 to my homicide. I won't pay $5. If it were, I mean, if it was a homicide, I'd get 10. Or suicide, he'd get five. But since he was the one, that's what I told him. Yeah. I said, doc, I know you're the one making a decision, but I know you do right, you will do right because you will not make a suicide out of it. So later on, I come back with a letter or more, some information. He said, had you told me this, I wouldn't have made that. I said, well, it was your bet, Doc, if you want to back out at night. No, I will stay with my bet. But eventually told me something that official.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: Determination wouldn't come for a few days until after the Detective showed Malick 8x10 photos of the crime scene. A trace metal test used to Find out if Ron had held a gun the night before. Came back negative.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: I got these pictures processed as soon as possible. We went over, I threw it down in front of them. Was spending about an hour with them. And the strange part about it, the one with the skewer in the door, is the one that convinced them that it was definitely a homicide.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: Mary Lee's story about how the skewer came to be placed in the door's lock. Again with her telling detectives how her morning had started. Farley and Miles also heard Tiffany's perspective of that morning's events. Out of it came contradicting stories.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: Okay, when you got up this morning, what. What was your routine? What did you do this morning? Okay, I got up and I go to the bedroom door and try to open, and it's locked. And I didn't bring him in it. And the reason I didn't, because Ron has to have a habit of closing the bedroom door, too, a lot of times. But he gets up so early. He made the comment to Tiffany this weekend he was gonna take the lock off the door because it locks so easy. Like he'd take a bath if he didn't want Tiffany walking on. Because the way the door is positioned in the bathtub, you know, I just thought he'd pull the door, too.
[00:22:38] Speaker A: In Mary Lee's version, she had said she didn't know the door had a key. She then went downstairs to the laundry room, grabbed some dirty clothes and put them on. Mary Lee then called Ron's business and talked to partner P. Meet Zen. When told Ron wasn't in yet, she asked to have him call her when he returned to the office. This was later verified by Zen. Detectives then asked merely why she didn't try opening the door to her room right then.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: How come you didn't try and open the door when you first got on up with caught up? Because I'm slow when I get up, and I just didn't, you know, I knew I was going to come back to the house. I just wouldn't. I just didn't think about trying to.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: By now, Orsini said it was a quarter to seven.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: What did you do then? I went upstairs and I got my daughter up.
She got ready to go to school, and we did not have anything that she wanted, particularly in the house, to eat. So I told her that we would come down to McDonald's to get something to eat, and we didn't get what. She didn't want to go to McDonald's. She wanted to go to Andy's because of the blueberry muffin case that he had.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: It was now 8am According to Orsini. However, this didn't quite mesh with Tiffany's recollections of both the morning and her knowledge of the door lock.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: What did you do after you got it? Well, I went in there and she told me that she had made my lunch and everything.
So I went in there and she said all I had to do was just, you know, curl my hair and.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: Do what I had to do.
[00:23:55] Speaker B: And I got dressed and curled my hair. She was putting her shoes on. Everything. She said, you know, she promised me we'd go out to breakfast. So she always keeps her shoes down by the back door thing going out to the garage. And she put her shoes on and we left. I got my lunch and my purse and we left. Did you ever make an attempt to go into the room before you left the house? I said, well, I can get an ice pick or something, get it open, because I'm pretty good at that, you know. And she said. She said no, because if we messed up the lock, those things are scratched up the door because we got real high Glock doors. And she said, daddy would have a fit. She said, I'll just let him come home and do it.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Where Mary Lee had claimed their breakfast date that morning was an impromptu decision. Tiffany said, otherwise.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: When did she promise to take you out to eat breakfast? Well, we had been. We had been wanting to do it for such a long time, you know, sixth grade, and we just. We would have done it once or twice in sixth grade, and we don't want to do it. We do it when I was in Tessa's instead. Wednesday night. She said, we'll probably go out to breakfast, you know, in the morning. I said, oh, okay, you know, because I knew I was going to go back to school.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: Before taking Tiffany to school at North Little Rock Central Junior High, the two stopped at Roy Stewart's pharmacy so Tiffany could look at dresses for a party that weekend.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: Then we left and went to school and I had to take the doctor's notice and explain to the school that if she had the Black House bill, I had to be notified.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: While at Central Junior High, Mary Lee and Tiffany encountered attendance clerk Jan Agee. In an interview with Farley and Miles on March 25, Agee recounted her interactions with Mary Lee had leaned against AG's desk with both arms while presenting her with a doctor's note that said Tiffany was to stay out of PE for five days. She told Agee she had never seen Tiffany experience dizzy spells. She only knew what her daughter had told her. Ag remembered Tiffany being very quiet, timid and subdued, which was very unlike Tiffany. She sat on the stool with her hands in her lap. I would call it a daze. She was very preoccupied, Ag said. Asked if she noticed anything off about Tiffany's speech, walking pattern or her pupils, Ag said no. Eventually, Tiffany appeared in the office of Nurse Francis Jones to pick up absentee slips. Like Agee, Nurse Jones thought Tiffany seemed unlike herself. She told detectives the girl seemed frightened over something, though she assumed it was her dizzy spells. Jones also said that in her professional opinion, I don't feel that any drugs have been administered other than being extremely, extremely quiet. She could be perfectly normal. Why would the detectives ask if Tiffany was acting as though she was on drugs? Potentially sleeping through a gun blast can raise that question. Merrilee told Farley and Miles Tiffany was on medication but hadn't taken anything the night before. While North Little Rock PD conducted their investigation of the murder in March, Mary Lee would rehire the Fred Meyers Agency to briefly look into it. According to Widow's web page 31 of the private detective's report said a family doctor had examined Tiffany on March 10, the day before the murder, and found no physical cause for dizziness and hadn't written her a prescription. However, a prescription for the sleeping pill Dalmane was taken out by Marilee months earlier at a pharmacy and had been filled by her on March 3. Among the side effects of Dalmane dizziness and nausea.
After dropping Tiffany off at school, Orsini said she stopped at an Exxon gas station at the intersection of McCain and North Hills because her car had started making an unusual sound. She said it was about 9:30am when she got back to 74012 Pontiac and parked her black Caprice in the garage. By now, Deputy Prosecutor Judy K. Mason sat in disbelief in the interrogation room. Mary Lee's story was too good. Explaining why she stopped here, there and everywhere, Mason told Lyons. She's leaving all these tracks when nobody's after her. It's in the Bible, the guilty flee when no man pursueth. Orsini's story continued to unfold, according to a transcript, Mayor Lee said, I started realizing that I was ready to get in the room and that Ron probably wouldn't call me back. Farley's ears perked up at this after being gone from her home for two and a half hours. How did she know Ron wouldn't call? Merrily told the investigators she retrieved a skewer From a grill outside and went to open the bedroom door, suddenly knowing how to do it.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: When I saw the lock, I didn't think about it at the time. It was in the unlocked position. Had she been telling the truth about getting into that room, the lock would have remained behind in the locked position. I pushed the doorknob and turn it. So a lot. Well, had she used the skewer like she said, that should have still been in the locked position. It would have been more believable had we found it on the floor, the hunters there, or in a panic grabbed it, used it as a key, brought it back out and then ran downstairs. So she's saying she never went into the room. It would have been more believable had I found the skewer downstairs.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: After discovering her husband's bloody body, Marilee said she ran downstairs, called the police and her friend Mary Jane Murphy. She then went to the front porch where Officer Mallet found her. At one point, the detectives backtracked in their questioning to when Mary Lee first arrived back at the house. Farley asked Mary Lee if she saw anything disturbed after she parked her car in the garage and went into the house.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: In the house, nobody. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't looking for anything.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: There was of course, a reason for this question. Once Ron Arsene's body had been removed from the house, the detectives, along with Officer Mallett conducted a two hour search of the home. Miles searched the attic, which was covered in blown insulation and showed no signs of disturbance, as if someone had tried to hide a weapon or had been hiding themselves there at some point. Eventually, the search took Farley and Miles to the three car garage where things got really interesting. None of the garage's three doors, two secured in place with a steel pole and the third opened via remote, had been broken into. Merrily's black 1978 Chevrolet Caprice sat in the northernmost stall. In the middle of the garage was various equipment. On the south side was a tool shop and a custom made boat Ron had bought on March 6. Leading into the home from the garage was a red storm door and a wood door with a lock that required a key. Miles took his turn asking Mary Lee questions about the garage doors.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: And whenever you open the screen door on the door that goes into the hall there next to the laundry room, I assume that door was not locked. The screen door? No, the door. The wooden door there. After you open that screen door, that wooden door you never lock yet. Yeah, it was.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: The officers had located obvious gouge marks around the Wood door's handle enough that there should have been considerable amounts of sawdust and wood shavings between the two doors.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: And you'd been in burglary for. Oh yeah, a number of years. See we even took some of the marks that they tried to save as break in with mine because after we saw this we went down and I said well hell, let's just try. I said then I told you nothing. I'm going to move up here certain level. I want to insert the screwdriver and I want to pop this door. And I don't remember whether I popped it or not. Man had to read my reports but I beared down on that. About a 14 inch screwdriver, real nice craftsman. I was there, brand new. I show now I'm doing this. I was trying to break out. I couldn't. I don't believe I could find a way to do it from the outside. I was trying to break out. You see what force it would take to move the jamb and move the door to where the locking mechanism would pass without having been unlocked.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Based on crime scene photos, the detectives noted it would be very difficult to miss this damage around the door lock, especially if someone had to use the key to unlock it, which Mary Lee claimed to have done. Experts at the state crime lab later determined not enough force had been exerted on the aluminum strip to allow entry to the house. The Orsini's maid later told the detectives the gouges had not been there. On March 9, Farley and Miles would ask Tiffany which door she had used to leave the house that morning. She eventually said she had exited through the front door after being told to do so by Mary Lee. The detectives believed this had been done so Tiffany wouldn't see the damaged door. Farley and Miles had also located a flat wood chisel used for wood carving stuck below a glass ashtray next to a sewing machine in the garage. It was the only tool that was left out of place on Ron's meticulously kept area.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: That screwdriver I mentioned was the only tool I placed in the whole shop. The rest of them hung up there. Just didn't even have just them online. Graduated in size. This one will be on and the box they were in there. Same way this was the only one that was found.
[00:32:13] Speaker A: It was quite evident, read one of the reports, that this was left out. So we would assume that it was the tool used to gain entry into the home. Neat was one way. Ron's brother in law, Buddy House, who had known him since 1961 described Ron.
[00:32:26] Speaker B: He was a real easygoing guy, had good manners, neatest person, hair went out place. Everything about him was neat. His car was just to. I mean he just needs person, perfect guy. I just, you know, it's just very few like him.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: Months later, this chisel would come back to haunt the detectives, with Farley saying they fell victim to not seeing the forest from the trees. Moreover, a metal substance test had been conducted on Marilee's hand, but it came back negative as to whether she had held a gun. Later, an expert was brought in to give a second opinion.
[00:33:00] Speaker B: Overlooked the possibility. You know, we wanted to put that gun in our hand so bad. And then when you look at it, he makes a. It's a palm print on a piece of paper and he puts in the coloring of what he finds and he describes it orange bluish, stuff like that. And they asked him, could this test result be the chisel? And he took one look at it and even dawned on him, oh my God. He runs back to the lab, does the proper test, comes back and gets the chisel.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: Back in the interrogation room, Miles pressed Mary Lee for more about her activities. On the morning of March 12th.
[00:33:34] Speaker B: Before you got your daughter up, before you left the house, did you do any housework, Clean up the kitchen or anything like that?
[00:33:41] Speaker A: She didn't answer for five seconds. Miles asked if she did any normal lady of the house chores. Marilee said she didn't remember. You don't recall doing any laundry? Miles asked. Oh, well, I did. I turned some towels on. I had a whole big load of towels. The door was open, so I just grabbed them and threw some stuff in the laundry.
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[email protected] ADGNow in addition to the garage, Farley and Miles had checked the laundry room. Miles asked Farley if he noticed anything out of place about the washing machine. The duo found the fresh load of towels merrily mentioned and more clues.
[00:34:38] Speaker B: She has it set for coal, and it was an enzyme detergent. Enzymes in cold water will break down blood and gunpowder residue just like that centrifugal force. You got a load of towels. When you're looking at it, you should have them all stuck to the side, right? There was three or four towels pulled loose right around the drum. That's what got our attention.
[00:34:57] Speaker A: Dr. Holt, who was with them during their investigation of the Orsini home, noted that someone washing with cold water instead of hot may have been trying to get rid of blood stains. Marilee said she sometimes washed with cold water to conserve energy. Miles didn't find any obvious burn marks or gun residue on the towels, but each one had holes in it. They noted it was possible the towels had already been removed. Also of note in the washer were two pairs of women's underwear. In one, the crotches were torn out. The other showed signs of heavy wear. Mary Lee claimed the maid used them as dusting rags. The detectives made another misstep when they left the laundry room. They had both noticed the red, white and blue sock sitting on a woman's nightgown and a hamper in the room. It was a match for the sock that had been found next to Ron Ortini's body. Neither had thought to retrieve it as evidence.
In the interrogation room, Judy K. Mason asked Merilee how she got a bruise on her hand. She said she'd burned her hand while making pies during Christmas. Then Sergeant Farley decided to get down to brass tacks. He did so by asking a question that may have planted a seed for Mary Lee to use in the distant future.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: Has there ever been any problems between your husband and your daughter? No more than just telling a 13 year old she can't do something and her pouting but think they were good and we like teacher.
[00:36:13] Speaker A: Then the interview came to a head. Who would you say would have murdered your husband? Farley asked. I think my brother did. What's your brother's name? Ron Hatcher. Why would you think that he murdered him? Because that's the only enemy Ron had. The only enemy?
[00:36:26] Speaker B: I'm going to ask you point blank. Did you murder your husband?
[00:36:33] Speaker A: Farley and Miles would later interview both Thatcher and his wife. They both had spent the previous night watching a movie together before going to bed. The interview with Marilee would last for another 29 minutes. Farley and Miles pressed her for details about her brother. Whether she thought Tiffany could have killed Ron Orsini if and when she ever laid down on her own bed the previous night, why she had placed her makeup bag in Tiffany's bathroom the night before, and the mysterious money she claimed Ron had been bringing. Home. The amount of that money fluctuated throughout the interview, going from 3,000 to 6,000, then 20 and 40,000 before settling on 80,000. Just after 2pm the interview came to an end. Miles asked Merilee if there was anything she wanted to add.
[00:37:11] Speaker B: I just hope that y'all can fun of whatever happened, but I want to know who didn't wrong and I want to do anything I can do to help you. I mean, I know my mind is ruling and I'm having a hard time just keeping thinking, but anything I can do to help you. Please, Please.
[00:37:31] Speaker A: This would not be the last time Mary Lee Orsini would be questioned by Farley and Miles. But a lot would happen in the week before their next interview could occur.
On March 20, the state's chief medical examiner officially made his ruling. Ron Orsini had been murdered and died sometime before midnight on March 11. It was one of just two murders North Little Rock would experience in 1981. Four days later, almost two weeks after his death, Ron Orsini's sister Linda House arrived at North Little Rock PD headquarters for an interview. Over the course of 30 minutes, Farley and Miles probed House for information about Mary Lee's marriage to Ron. They also began chiseling away at the foundation of House's own perception of Mary Lee based on what they had learned up to that point. House said that she would see Ron and Mary Lee roughly once every two weeks over the course of their five year marriage. She thought Mary Lee was, quote, an outstanding lady who, quote, made my brother happy. It didn't take long for the detectives to start indicating what point the case had brought them to. Okay.
[00:38:39] Speaker B: Do you see any reason why that she would want to do your brother any harm?
No. She ever made any mention to you the severe financial position that they were in?
[00:38:52] Speaker A: The detectives asked House if Marilee had told her about, quote, mysterious actions at their house before Ron's death. House said that Marilee had told her Ron had been acting strange, including receiving strange phone calls, that Marilee had once followed him to Park Hill where he met two men, one dressed casually and the other in a suit. But she had been too far away to recognize them.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: Okay, all these things that you just told us about of the strange actions, the telephone call and her following him, do you have any personal knowledge of this other than what Lee Orsini has told you? No, but I feel like that her asking me at one point in time if I would talk with him.
We're very close. She felt like that maybe he would confide in me. Okay. Feel like that. That is proof enough, you know, for me because she definitely wanted me to talk to her.
[00:39:42] Speaker A: House confirmed that Mary Lee had told her about large sums of money that had been in the house and then disappeared. But she didn't know what to think of it. House also told the detectives about a family friend, Bill Simpson, who had shared concerns over a double payment on a Hot Springs construction project Ron's company had been involved in. Aware of the so called Chicago connection, they told her, we've been over this thoroughly and we're convinced Ron's death had nothing to do with it. It had actually been connected to two airline pilots in Arizona and had been resolved a few years earlier. After another lengthy response by House in which she expressed her disbelief that Lee would never have done anything to Ron, Miles dove into questions about the Orsini's finances once again.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: Have you ever known of your brother writing an insufficient check or a hot check? No, I find that hard to believe too, but I realized that that happened too. Would you. Have you been told any explanation for it or would you know any explanation for it? The lady told me that she had found out that the boat. Ron had gone down and purchased a boat and motor. And she said the only thing that she could think of was that she.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: Was going to give the money to.
[00:40:53] Speaker B: Ron and that he was going to deposit it in the bank. But she had not gone in to get her draw or get her money from the company yet and it just wasn't deposited.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: Miles asked her if Mary Lee had mentioned whether she had written checks that caused Rons to bounce. After a brief pause, House replied no. Farley and Miles continued to deconstruct Orsini's web for House.
[00:41:18] Speaker B: Has Leo Orsini ever told you how. Who the suspect is in her mind that killed your brother? Because she doesn't know. She never made any mention. Well, I take that back. At the very first she was afraid that was her brother Ron. Ron.
But that's, that's the only one. But that was right at the very beginning and I don't know, she might still suspect him. I don't know. Okay. Would you consider Lee Orsini a truthful person?
To my knowledge you've never caught her in a half truth or a lot outright lie before. Not tomorrow, now, I'm sure. May, but no.
[00:42:01] Speaker A: When asked whether Orsini had told her she was the chief suspect in the case because she didn't hear the gunshot that killed her brother, House said yes. Asked once again if she had Any suspicions about her sister in law? House replied, no, I don't believe she would have done it. Farley and Miles introduced another finding of the two week investigation. They asked her if Merilee had ever told her or anyone else that Ron had been dying of terminal cancer. To which House responded no. Asked if it would surprise her that they had a list of five people Merrily had told this to, House said it would. Eventually, Farley and Miles prepared to end the interview.
[00:42:33] Speaker B: Okay, ma'am, do you have anything else you'd like to ask before we turn this off? Yes, sir. Okay, who do you suspect? Linda Arcing. I mean Lee Orsini, that's who we suspect. I know it shocks you, but everything we have points to her, man. Everything.
Sorry, bad. Ma'am, you haven't been with us these two weeks. That's the reason you don't understand. All you're hearing is what Lee Orsini wants you to hear, ma'am. Okay. You know, I mean to me, if you think it's Loe Orsini, she would have to be the best actress in the whole wide world. And she would have to be a psycho.
[00:43:09] Speaker A: The tape was eventually turned off, but the meeting wasn't over. Farley and Miles proceeded to lay out their case to House. She later told Gene Lyons that among the lies she learned Mary Lee had told her was that Ron's body had been found, quote, bloated with decay. A credit life policy that Mary Lee had told her the night before. One that Mary Lee claimed she had just learned Ron had taken out on the mortgage of their house had in fact been taken out by Mary Lee. When Linda left the North Little Rock Police Department headquarters, her head was spinning. She picked up her 10 year old daughter Kelly from school on the way home to Cabot, a small town about 28 miles north of North Little Rock. Kelly asked if the police knew who killed her Uncle Ron. They think it was Aunt Lee, House said. Without thinking, Kelly asked if she did too. Yes baby, I do. When House walked through the door of her home, the phone was already ringing off the hook. It was Mary Lee demanding to know what she had talked about with Farley and Miles. The next day at work, House learned her sister in law had called her there five minutes after she had left the police department and kept doing so every 10 minutes the rest of the day.
The home addresses of North Little Rock police officers were not public record. Not that that would have stopped someone from finding out that information. According to Gene Lyons, it's not a.
[00:44:18] Speaker B: Big town North Little Rock, you know, it's not a big city. It's not anonymous. He was mad that she could find out where he lived. But you know, I wouldn't have any trouble finding out where anybody in North Little Rock lived.
[00:44:31] Speaker A: But Sergeant Farley didn't know. Never found out how the main suspect in Ron Orsini's murder learned where he lived. On a Saturday in early April, Farley was doing yard work, tending to a rose bush in front of his home. At some point, he had a feeling he was being watched. When Farley turned around, there she was. Marilee Orsini sat behind the wheel of her car, which was perched on the edge of his lawn. Her blue eyes stared daggers of pure hatred. Farley told Lyons. Farley rose to his feet and began to march toward her. He didn't make it far. With a mocking smile, Merrilee put the car in gear and drove away. Not taking any chances, Farley stalked into his home, found the biggest gun he owned, a.3 57 Magnum pistol with a 6 inch barrel, and strapped it on. Two years later, while sitting before a Pulaski county grand jury, Farley shared his assessment of the one he first encountered in an interrogation room on March 12, 1981. What Linda House had once voiced as a hypothetical, Farley declared as a fact.
[00:45:26] Speaker B: The woman is a sociopath, plain and simple. She does not know what the truth really is and doesn't care.
[00:45:38] Speaker A: Next week on the Orsini tapes, she had a scare.
[00:45:42] Speaker B: I mean, we had to live in fear for a year and a half. I mean, just fear every day. You think it's all about the west side Tennis Club and the long lunches and shopping, but you don't have any idea what goes on in this town. I felt this moment was totally innocent of the charge. That's unusual for me. Are you part of any conspiracy to kill your husband?
Were you not? Any conspiracy to kill your husband? Yes. No.
The Orsini Tapes is a production of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
[00:46:20] Speaker A: The show is written and hosted by.
[00:46:22] Speaker B: Daniel McFadden and Tony Holt and is produced by Kyle McDaniel.
