Mystery solved? Irish podcast uncovers fate of Rochester man accused in 1967 wife murder

The Irish podcast that sought to solve the whereabouts of a Rochester man accused of fatally poisoning his wife nearly 60 years ago may have the answer: "Runaway Joe" Maloney is dead.

In the final episode of the "Runaway Joe" podcast, released today (March 9) on Ireland's RTÉ radio network, the investigative reporters revealed that Joseph Maloney likely died in 2005 at the age of 70.

The podcasters learned "in the final days of recording ... that Joseph Maloney’s third wife Sheila Chandler informed her family in Dublin around 2005 that Joseph Maloney had in fact died — before Sheila then returned home to Ireland, where she died in 2010," according to an RTÉ news release.

Chandler did not reveal where Maloney was buried.

The investigative team traveled extensively on the hunt for Maloney, going to Cyprus, his apparent last home and a location he chose because there was no extradition treaty with the United States. Before that, according to RTÉ, he was in East Berlin, Germany, before the fall of the Wall and German unification, also because of the lack of an extradition pact.

Maloney was accused of murdering his estranged wife, June Fisk Maloney, by poisoning here at their son's fifth birthday. While readying for trial, he was able to convince a judge of the need for a psychiatric evaluation and he managed to escape from the Rochester State Hospital, where he was being held.

He then fled to Ireland, where he lived under the name Michael O'Shea. His identity was discovered in the mid-1980s, but an extradition was temporarily blocked and he disappeared again.

According to RTÉ, the reporters, with the help of DNA technology, learned that Maloney had fathered at least six children at the time he was accused of poisoning his wife. He had two children with June.

"And with the help of DNA, the series has also discovered that Joseph Maloney fathered six children; two daughters to his first wife Joan Howland, a son and daughter to his second wife June Fisk and two more boys with two women he had affairs with while married to June," according to RTÉ. "Almost none of these children knew about each other and are only now beginning to reunite."

The series producer, Liam O'Brien, said in a statement, “Whilst we may have thought at one stage there was a chance we could find Joe alive, and help bring him to justice, what we’ve found over the last 18 months has amounted to overwhelming indications, from numerous sources, that Joe Maloney is dead — we’ve not found a single indicator that he’s alive – so for us, the case is now closed”.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Mystery Solved? 'Runaway Joe' Maloney's fate revealed by Irish podcast