Roy Freeman Reopens the Case

This thread follows Roy Freeman from a late confession through a second investigation that exposes Derek Simmons’s concealed past and finally brings the decades-old case to an arrest.

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The Confession Reaches Freeman

The Confession Reaches Freeman A New Claim Roy Freeman learns that Frank Spoel has confessed to killing Joseph Wieder shortly before his scheduled execution. Because Spoel was in New Jersey after leaving a mental hospital around the time of the murder, his confession gives Freeman a reason to revisit a case he believes he mishandled. A Troubling Match John Keller brings Freeman the documents from his own inquiry, including Derek Simmons’s accusation against Richard Flynn. Freeman sees that Spoel’s account does not fit Simmons’s testimony and decides to question the condemned man directly.

Spoel’s Account

Spoel’s Account An Attack for Revenge At Potosi Correctional Center, Frank Spoel says Joseph Wieder kept him in a psychiatric hospital for years through experimental treatment. He claims that he went to Wieder’s house intending only to hurt him, struck him with a towel-wrapped baseball bat, and fled when someone entered. A Second Visitor Spoel insists that Joseph Wieder was alive when he left and that another person entered afterward. His account makes the murder a sequence of two separate attacks, but it also conflicts with Derek Simmons’s claim that he watched Richard Flynn and Laura Baines inside the house.

The Old Statement Revisited

The Old Statement Revisited A Witness Under Pressure Freeman confronts Derek Simmons with the discrepancies between his old account and Spoel’s confession. Simmons insists that he saw Richard Flynn, Laura Baines, and Joseph Wieder together, but his answers do not resolve how both men could have been hiding near the same house. A Phrase Remembered Derek ends the meeting with a peculiar baseball reference. The phrase catches in Freeman’s mind and prompts him to review the earlier case involving Derek’s wife, whose murder had led to Derek’s hospitalization and his supposed amnesia.

The Call Log Connection

The Call Log Connection Two Cases Intersect Freeman examines the telephone records from the investigation into Anne’s death and recognizes a number linked to Joseph Wieder’s former residence. The records show that Derek Simmons called the professor soon after finding his wife’s body. Memory as Evidence Freeman recalls Derek’s claim about a 1979 baseball event and sees that it depends on a memory he could not have learned after losing his identity. That inconsistency, combined with the call log, undermines the story of amnesia and points toward a deliberate arrangement between Derek and Wieder.

The Final Confession and Arrest

The Final Confession and Arrest The Second Killing Derek tells Freeman that he found Joseph Wieder already gravely injured after Frank Spoel’s attack, then struck the professor with a leather sap. He says he did so after recovering memories of his wife’s affair with Wieder and of the professor’s role in his earlier life. A New Case Opens Freeman also challenges Derek’s account of Anne’s death, arguing that the supposed affair and violent past may have been inventions used to explain away a crime. After Freeman leaves, police sirens approach Derek’s house, and the confession leads to Derek’s arrest, resolving who delivered the fatal blow without making every detail of the past certain.

Several months after Keller sets aside his investigation

During Freeman’s visit to Potosi Correctional Center

After Freeman returns from Missouri and questions Derek Simmons

The morning after Freeman’s meeting with Laura Westlake

After Freeman confronts Derek at his house, near the investigation’s conclusion