“I’m not sure it works like that. We might be able to move on, but I don’t think we can ever start over.”
She swallowed and tentatively shifted her hand so that her fourth finger was hooked around mine. “But you think we can move on?”
I looked down at our hands, joined together in that long-ago sign. So much had changed since we had invented it, so much death, betrayal, and estrangement. I didn’t know if it was possible for us to find our way back to being the kind of sisters who had a private handshake, the kind who whispered secrets to each other in the dark.
But I didn’t know that it wasn’t.
“Well,” I said, entwining our fingers more firmly, “we can try.”
Excerpt from transcript of Reconsidered: The Chuck Buhrman Murder, Episode 6: “The Finale,” October 5, 2015
Welcome to the final installment of Reconsidered: The Chuck Buhrman Murder. I want to take a moment to thank everyone who made this project possible. From the good folks at Werner Entertainment Company to my assistant, I’m grateful for the support. Most importantly, though, I want to thank you, my audience. During this program’s short life span, I’ve been repeatedly humbled by the insightful responses received from listeners like you. I appreciated every tweet, email, and phone call sent my way, and trust me when I say that this program could not have happened without you.
When I began looking into the circumstances surrounding Chuck Buhrman’s death, I didn’t know what to expect. I couldn’t begin to guess whether there was any truth to Melanie Cave’s claim that her son had been convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, or whether she was just a heartsick mother who refused to accept an ugly truth about her child. I wasn’t sure what—if anything—I could contribute. The wildest I allowed myself to dream was that I might uncover evidence that would force a new trial.
Instead, we now know exactly what happened to Chuck Buhrman—and that Warren had nothing to do with it.
Here with me is Stephen Goldberg, who currently owns the former Buhrman home on Cyan Court. Stephen, can you please tell my listeners what happened on Wednesday morning?
STEPHEN:
Around 5:30 a.m., I was leaving my house for my usual run when I heard strange noises coming from the playhouse.
POPPY:
Let me interrupt you here and describe the playhouse. It’s a single room about one hundred square feet, but the exterior is crafted to look like a miniature version of the family home. The small interior includes a play kitchen, with a fake refrigerator, stove, and sink. I understand that it was built for Chuck Buhrman’s daughters by his father-in-law.
STEPHEN:
Our daughters love that playhouse. Anyway, I heard these noises, and thought it must be an animal or a homeless person. But it turned out to be those Buhrman girls. One of them had ripped the sink away completely from the wall. It had always been a little loose, so I’d caulked it up when we moved in. I’d done it in a hurry, and I hadn’t really taken the time to do the job right . . . If I had, maybe I would’ve found that gun sooner.
That’s right. Chuck’s missing weapon was found in the wall of the backyard playhouse, along with a bloodstained plastic poncho.
Even more shockingly, after the discovery of the gun, Lanie recanted her testimony against Warren Cave. She now says that she did not see Warren shoot her father.
Incredibly, there’s more: Lanie told the police that it was actually her mother, Erin Buhrman, who pulled the trigger. Chuck Buhrman was killed by his wife.
“But Poppy,” you say, “you’ve just spent four weeks arguing that we shouldn’t believe a word that Lanie says. And now you want us to believe that Erin killed her husband on Lanie’s word alone?”
No, of course not. I know that you’re all smarter than that. But here are the reasons that I’m convinced Erin Buhrman is the culprit: Ballistics proved that Chuck’s gun was the murder weapon, and police found exactly two sets of fingerprints on that gun—one belonging to Chuck, the other to Erin. Erin claimed she’d never handled, or even seen, that gun—so what were her fingerprints doing on it?
Most importantly, however, a shocking suicide note was found written in the margins of one of Erin’s books. One of my sources inside the LFC sent the book to me, completely unaware of its importance, and I discovered the note . . . in which Erin confesses to killing her husband. Officially, the Elm Park Police Department is still awaiting authentication of the note, but I have some experience in handwriting analysis, and I am convinced the note is bona fide.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t answer all the questions we might have. It hints that Erin killed her husband because she was jealous of his affair with Melanie, but it doesn’t say it outright. Was that the true motive? Was the murder premeditated? Did she join the Life Force Collective to repent for what she’d done, or to hide from the law? With Erin Buhrman dead, we may never know the answers to some of these questions.
I had hoped Lanie would grant me an interview to discuss this surprising turn of events. No such luck. I was, however, able to get my hands on a copy of her official statement to the police. According to her new statement, on that fateful night in October 2002, she went downstairs to get a drink of water. As she approached the kitchen, a dark-haired, black-clad figure entered through the back door and shot her father. She claims to have believed this figure to be Warren Cave.
Could Lanie have legitimately mistaken Erin for Warren? Or did she purposefully lie to protect her mother?
I sat down with a psychologist, Dr. Eileen Whitehall-Lynch, to discuss what might be at work here. Please note Dr. Whitehall-Lynch has not spoken directly to Lanie Ives; she is merely postulating about what a likely scenario might be.
POPPY:
Thanks for your time, Dr. Whitehall-Lynch. In your opinion, could Lanie have mistaken her mother—her own mother—for the seventeen-year-old neighbor boy?
DR. WHITEHALL-LYNCH:
The human brain is a funny thing. It does what it can to protect us. Lanie had just witnessed her father’s brutal murder at the hands of her mother. It’s almost too horrible to imagine. Her traumatized brain was struggling to process what she had just seen. Skinny, black-haired perpetrator who looks like your mother, but logically cannot be your mother? Must be the skinny, black-haired neighbor. Once Lanie’s brain made that connection, I suspect she used existing information to validate her belief. Statements Lanie made to the police in 2002 indicate that she had been uneasy around Warren since his family had moved in next door. Her brain was simply unable to process the truth, and so it substituted an image that made more sense.