The Locked Door That Has No Answer - Episode 89

The Fishing Pole That Was Sold for Two Dollars: The Murder of Matthew Margolis

A thirteen-year-old boy went fishing on a summer Friday and never came home. His body was found five days later in a shallow pit off Pemberwick Road, covered with leaves and a heavy rock — and the fishing pole his grandfather had given him was gone. One of the Valley Boys later turned up with it, claiming Matthew sold it to him for two dollars. His mother said that was impossible.

In this episode, we explore a thirty-second window of screaming heard from a nearby apartment that went unreported for two weeks, a boning knife found hidden beneath the body whose fingerprint results were never made public, and a former police officer convicted of sexual assault in Texas whose DNA was collected in 2004 — yet a grand jury rejected his indictment three years later. Who got into that red pickup truck with Matthew between five-thirty and six o'clock, and why has no one been charged in over forty years?

Case Details

Victim: Matthew Margolis, 13, student and avid fisherman.

Date: August 31, 1984 (disappearance); body discovered September 5, 1984.

Location: Pemberwick section of Greenwich, Connecticut, USA.

Case Status: The case is officially open and active. No arrests have ever been made. The Connecticut Cold Case Squad continues to list it as an active investigation more than forty years after Matthew's death.

Episode Key Points

- A boning knife with a six-inch carbon steel blade was found hidden beneath Matthew's body, sent for fingerprint analysis — and the results have never been made public.

- A witness told investigators that former Port Chester police officer Roger Kenneth Bates had taken him and Matthew fishing the summer of the murder, and that Bates told him and his father to refuse cooperation if questioned — in 1984, before any investigation began.

- The assistant medical examiner noted a scar on suspect Douglas's right shoulder consistent with a fingernail scratch, estimated to be between two months and one year old — placing it within the window of Matthew's death and his documented defensive wounds.

- A woman in an apartment on River West heard screaming coming from the direction of Pemberwick Road for approximately thirty seconds on the evening of August 31st — and did not report it until two full weeks later.

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