Transcript of Follow-Up Interview with Glenn Martin
Transcript of Follow-Up Interview
with Glenn Martin
(Lillian Martin’s brother)
[Note: Second phone interview with Lillian’s older brother to discuss Lillian’s autopsy, as he’s the last surviving person with legal access to it outside of OCME.]
Madeline: Thanks again for speaking with me, Glenn. I realize this may be a bit of a painful subject to discuss, but I was hoping you could tell me about the aftermath of Lillian’s death from your perspective. Were you in touch with the police throughout?
Glenn Martin: We were. I mean, it was Sam who first called up and let us know she was missing.
From that point, we were connected to the folks over at the NYPD, sporadically, but Sam still kept in touch, which I thought was nice.
You know, the Midnight Show folks had their own memorial service for her in New York after she’d been missing a year and the writing was on the wall.
In Central Park, so fans could come. I think it was Gina Ross who put the whole thing together.
We didn’t opt to go ourselves. It was gonna be too raw and uncomfortable for us.
There were bound to be reporters and Hollywood types there, and we just didn’t want any part of that.
So we stayed home, watched the clips on Entertainment Tonight.
But it was after that that Mom and Dad had a gravestone made for Lillian in our local churchyard, right next to their plots, so I guess there was a kind of closure.
They’re buried there now, beside where Lillian would have gone.
Madeline: Did the police alert you as soon as her body was recovered?
Glenn Martin: I mean, they let us know there was a Jane Doe they’d found who fit her description. Same height, build, hair color, that kind of thing. At that time, there wasn’t DNA testing to identify her, but they offered that later. I want to say…in 1986? Might have been ’87.
Madeline: So she was already buried in Woodlawn Cemetery at that point. You didn’t want to ask to have her moved?
Glenn Martin: Sorry, I wasn’t clear. We opted…
well, I suppose I opted not to exhume the body and do those tests.
You’ve got to understand, my folks were barely hanging on.
I could barely say Lillian’s name around them, let alone bring up the idea of digging up her durn body.
It was our choice, as the family. So I declined on behalf of all of us.
Sometimes you’ve got to make those tough decisions and let the dead lie.
Madeline: So…I’m sorry. To be clear, you’re saying that the body under the Lillian Martin gravestone at Woodlawn Cemetery was never formally identified as Lillian Martin?
Glenn Martin: I’m not saying it isn’t her, I’m just saying nobody knows for absolute sure…and I really wasn’t comfortable pulling her out. It wasn’t gonna change anything. Either way, she was gone.
Madeline: Have you ever told anyone about this?
Glenn Martin: This isn’t the kind of thing that comes up in everyday conversation!
You know, I’ve had plenty of interview requests over the years, but I always declined.
I wasn’t ready to talk about her. Now I’m retired, my kids are grown, and I’m looking back on my life a little bit.
But there was a long stretch there where I was very focused on moving on, first for my folks and their well-being, and then for my family.
And I suppose for my sister, too. That grave you’re talking about…
I think it was fans who pulled together the money to buy it, which just shows you how much love there is out there for Lillian.
And I think that’s worth maintaining. Don’t you?