Murder in Massachusetts

No Money, No Funeral

Officer Jim Rathbun was down the road when he took Bashara's call. Arriving at the Olsen house by approximately 8:45 a.m., Rathbun and Bashara "secured" what they were now viewing as a crime scene. Whether a horse had committed the act or not, Neil Olsen was dead, that much was certain, and the barn was the scene of a homicide. Detectives would have to investigate. The integrity of the scene needed to be protected immediately.

There was a solid, well-packed coating of snow on the ground around the Olsen property. It was overcast, thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit. The wind was blowing in from the southwest at about ten miles per hour. A recent snowstorm had pummeled the region and buried Lanesborough. But on this morning, Bashara, if he had wanted to, could have looked out on eight miles of visibility, despite ripening conditions for another major Nor'easter.

Rathbun closed the gate inside the barn to seal off Neil's body from Hannah. That way the horse couldn't taint the crime scene anymore than she had already.

But as Rathbun began to shut the gate, the horse became nervous, maybe even restless, and Rathbun had to hurriedly go about his business, "afraid," he later said in court, "of the horse."

After that, Rathbun walked into the kitchen of the main house, where Patricia was sitting at the kitchen table, crying, shaking her head.

"She appeared very upset, very distraught," Rathbun recalled.

"I cannot believe this is happening," Patricia lashed out to no one in particular. Her husband, her confidant, as she later put it, the one man she had loved more than any other, was gone.

What the hell happened?

"Please, somebody wake me up!" Patricia said at one point.

Rathbun asked Patricia what she and Neil had done the previous night. He was making idle chit-chat, perhaps, waiting for Massachusetts State Police detectives to show up and assess the situation. The woman obviously needed someone to sit with and talk—or, rather, listen.

Patricia suffered from chronic Crohn's disease, same as three of her four sisters. Crohn's is a debilitating intestinal tract disorder that can knock a person down and keep them bedridden for days, maybe even weeks. Some even die from long-term complications.

"Three [of Patricia's sisters] ended up with Crohn's disease," a family member later told me. "One of Pat's sisters died in 2000 of complications from cancer so widespread, when they found it, there was nothing doctors could do. She had just turned forty-three the week she died," that same family member added.

Tylenol, like the type Mrs. Olsen took for sleeping

"I took some Tylenol," Patricia told Rathbun. "I went to bed after playing video games with Neil."

"She often took the Tylenol," a family member later told me, "routinely, because of her Crohn's disease."

"What about this morning?" asked Rathbun.

"I woke up and found the television was still on. I assumed Neil was already in the shop working."

Neil was a workaholic, according to some. Having his shop connected to his home only further contributed to his obsessive work ethic.

Rathbun said later that he asked Patricia about Hannah—and that's when she became annoyed, angry.

"The horse would sometimes kick us" if poked in the way that wasn't to its liking, Patricia explained to Rathbun. Temperamental, that damn horse. Spoiled rotten. "I want that horse gone," Patricia raged to Rathbun, "or I'll kill it myself!"

Patricia made it clear that she couldn't bear to look at the horse again, knowing what it had done to her husband. Then her anger turned to despair about funeral costs and not having enough insurance to cover Neil's subsequent burial.