It’s 1963, winter, and snowing lightly, and my mom is in a parking lot in her car. It’s an industrial parking lot where her husband’s uncle’s trucking company is located. It was once the largest trucking company in New England and my dad worked there as a mechanic and eventually a truck driver.

My mom’s mom works at a dental supply company in that same industrial area right off a major highway in Manchester, New Hampshire. The airport is nearby. It’s a hub of industry, buzzing with the thrill of the early 1960s. My mom hasn’t been married long, hasn’t been out of high school long, and though she has two babies, my much older brother and sister, she feels hopeful still. She’s smart. She hasn’t gone to college yet, but she would have . . . maybe . . . if babies and love hadn’t gotten in the way.

But she’s smart enough to know that when the man knocks on her car window, she needs to think fast. Really fast.

That day my mom met a murderer and almost became embroiled in case law that would dictate how officers throughout the U.S. dealt with search and seizure laws.

Join us as we talk about a New Hampshire murderer who now walks free.

RESOURCES

• Coolidge v. New Hampshire on Wikipedia
• The Coolidge Case
• Pamela Mason Murder
• Manchester Girl Brutally Murdered 
• Snow Yields Pamela Clues 
• Search Buildings for Clue to Pamela’s Slayer 
• Another Mystery Death Confronts Manchester, N.H. Authorities 
• Woman’s Death May Have Been Murder
• Pamela Mason, Unsolved Mysteries
• The Snow
• Young Father Held in Girl’s Slaying 
• Pamela Probe Pressed 
• Coolidge Trial To Be Postponed 
• Coolidge On Trial Today For Murder Of Manchester Girl 
• Coolidge Murder Trial May Prove Sensational 
• Wife Says Coolidge Rifle Was Home 
• Killer Escapes Death Penalty 
• State v. Coolidge 
• Edward H. Coolidge Petitioner
• Supreme Court Split Ruling Reverses Coolidge Conviction 
• Edward Coolidge v. New Hampshire 
• New Hampshire Parole Board grants conditional parole to convicted murderer 
• Residents Protest Parole Of Murderer of Child 
• So Coolidge Gets Parole 
• The Red Snow Murders 
• Sentence completed 20 years ago, killer hints at innocence 
• The Crucial Coolidge Case 
• Coolidge v. New Hampshire – The Investigation Of A “particularly Brutal Murder” And The Trial That Followed
• Our Little Secret: https://amzn.to/3I38GzA