The Trail Went Cold - Episode 22 - Doreen Picard and Susan Laferte

February 19, 1982. Woonsocket, Rhode Island. 27-year old Susan Laferte and 22-year old Doreen Picard are both attacked in the basement of their apartment house by an assailant who bludgeons them with a pipe. Doreen is killed and Susan remains in a coma for a month, but when she wakes up, she has no memory of the attack. Ten years later, a suspect named Raymond “Beaver” Tempest is convicted of Doreen’s murder and sentenced to 85 years in prison. However, since the prosecution’s case was fraught with problems, Tempest’s conviction is vacated in 2015 and the state is currently deciding whether or not to retry him. Is Beaver Tempest innocent of this horrific crime, or did they have the right guy all along? In this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we examine a very controversial case which has still not reached its final resolution.

Additional Reading:

https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Doreen_Picard

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/07/13/man-murder-conviction-vacated-after-years/fbbdnVyj0rVKmI1N0WLdUJ/story.html

https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20160714/ri-high-court-rules-beaver-tempest-is-entitled-to-new-murder-trial

https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1935215/state-v-tempest/

http://caught.net/2018/beaver1.htm

http://caught.net/pdf/tempestruling.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20141001230150/http://caught.net/cases/beaver1.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20150208032655/http://caught.net/cases/beaver2.htm

The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.