Unsolved Mysteries

“Everybody knows who did it!” In the aftermath of a horrific murder of a mother in front of her four-year-old son, the entire close-knit community knew the murderer could only be one man. Several witnesses—including Eric, the boy left for dead—placed the murderer at the crime scene. But in Muncie, Indiana—also known as Little Chicago for its corruption, gambling, and attraction for criminal enterprise—during the late 1970s, nothing in the criminal justice system was that simple. After the county prosecutor declared the case “open and shut,” some very important people in town became nervous that if the murderer was convicted, he would start naming names and telling stories about the criminal activities in the area. After the prosecutor received a visit from the head of the local Teamsters union, suddenly there wasn’t enough evidence to proceed, and the suspect was set free, never to be prosecuted or held accountable. Forty years have passed, and Paula Garrett’s family, friends, and community have had to live every day knowing that a murderer is walking among them. To this day, the murderer is still being protected. Eric Garrett no longer expects justice. This murder is not unsolved, it is unprosecuted, and probably never will be. But the time has come to stop accepting the status quo. Unprosecuted: My Mother’s Murder and the Search for Accountability is the story of corruption, cover-ups, and a son’s frustration at knowing that the man who brutally murdered his mother and left him for dead may never be made to account for his crimes. "Mr. Garrett's tragic story is yet another reminder why we must demand criminal justice reform." --Tristin Engels, PsyD, Forensic Psychologist

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Untitled</title> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"/> <style> /* ePub CSS */ h1 {padding-top: 15%;} .indent {text-indent: 5%;} .center {text-align: center;} .right {text-align: right;} .margin {margin: 0 5%;} .margin-indent {margin: 0 5%; text-indent: 5%;} .bigmargin {margin: 0 5% 0 10%;} .bigmargin-indent {margin: 0 5% 0 10%; text-indent: 5%;} .hugemargin {margin: 0 5% 0 15%;} .hugemargin-indent {margin: 0 5% 0 15%; text-indent: 5%;} img {max-width: 94%;} body {margin: 0 3%; text-align: justify;} .spacer {padding-bottom: 1em;} .letter {font-family: monospace;} li {padding-bottom: 1em;} </style> </head> <body> <h1 class="center" id="c3">Chapter One—THE DISCOVERY</h1> <div class="spacer"></div> <div>On January 13, 1995, the world, consumed by the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, eagerly awaited the results of a hearing that would determine if evidence challenging Detective Mark Fuhrman’s credibility would be admitted in the O.J. Simpson trial.</div> <div class="indent">As I made my way along the winding roads leading to Fort Smith, Arkansas, I listened as the local radio station announced how prosecutors believed that O.J. dropped a glove as he attempted to sneak back to his mansion the night of the Simpson and Goldman murders. Judge Lance Ito was also expected to rule whether O.J. Simpson’s former wife would be required to appear in court.</div> <div class="indent">The unspeakable events surrounding the murders proved to be sensational, dark, and shocking. It was the perfect storm for a true crime addict. And I was hooked. At 21-years-old, I was already deep into my obsession. My fascination with murder mysteries gave me an adrenaline rush. The fix of the “who,” “what,” “when,” and “where” kept me reading every true crime novel I could get my hands on.</div> <div class="indent">On this particular day, as my obsession kept me tuned in to the radio for the O.J. Simpson case, another announcement caught my attention. A body had been found in the Ozark National Forest and authorities were on the scene. They suspected the body could be that of 19-year-old Melissa Witt.</div> <div class="indent">As my Nissan Altima crept along the two-lane highway of U.S. 71 that was at the time the main route between Fayetteville and Fort Smith, Arkansas, I gazed into the Boston Mountains and watched dark clouds roll in.</div> <div class="indent">At the same time, a chill settled in across the Ozarks. The clouds opened up and unleashed torrents of furious rain on a remote and lonely crime scene. As it turns out, roughly 56 miles away in the Ozark National Forest, a beautiful landscape of trees and mountains had been hiding a terrible secret.</div> <div class="indent">On January 13, 1995 at 9:40am, about 15 miles north of Ozark, two animal trappers stumbled upon what they believed could be a mannequin lying face down in the woods about 30 feet off the main road. The two men, avid outdoorsmen, had walked this very path the day before. There had been nothing there.</div> <div class="indent">As they approached the strange figure lying in the woods, it became clear that what they found was something much more sinister. After 45 long days, the remote Forest Service Road 1551 in the Ozark National Forest had finally unearthed the unthinkable: the decomposing nude body of a young, white female.</div> <div class="indent">Frantic, the pair immediately called the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department. Upon receiving the news, Sheriff Kenneth Ross contacted Detective Sergeant Chris Boyd with the Fort Smith Police Department Major Crimes Unit.</div> <div class="indent">Over 20 years later, as I sat down to interview the now former Detective Boyd for a documentary I was producing on the Melissa Witt case, he could still vividly recall that cold and rainy morning.</div> <div class="indent">“At the time, the police department was in the Sebastian County Courthouse and I distinctly recall walking through the basement to get to my office in the Detective Division. That’s when I received a phone call from Sheriff Ross.”</div> <div class="indent">As the retired detective described the phone call, his expression turned serious and somber. I’d seen this look before. It was the expression of a man haunted by the unsolved murder of an innocent young woman.</div> <div class="indent">“Sheriff Ross told me on that call that he thought he had found the body of Melissa Witt. And knowing him as I did at the time, I figured he was probably right. I had him describe to me what he was seeing and what the body looked like. Once he gave me the description… well, I knew I had to rally the troops at that point. We needed crime scene techs and detectives at that scene immediately.”</div> <div class="indent">As the former detective described the events that unfolded the morning of Friday, January 13, 1995, my own memories flooded back. When I close my eyes, I can still feel the icy chill in the air. I remember arriving in Fort Smith that morning, and as I stepped out of my car, the rain came down in heavy thuds, hard and fast, soaking my clothes as I ran across the parking lot. Another memory of me complaining to my coworkers about the miserable weather conditions on that day also replayed in my mind: “Why did this beautiful day take a drastic turn for the worst?” My words unknowingly foreshadowed events that would haunt me almost two decades later.</div> <div class="indent">As the former lead detective on the Melissa Witt murder investigation, Jay C. Rider entered the room, I nervously stood to greet him. As we shook hands, Rider asked if Melissa and I had been friends, an assumption others often make to describe my passion for finding justice for a girl I never knew.</div> <div class="indent">“No sir. I never knew her. We had mutual friends, but we never met.” Rider eyed me skeptically, nodded, and said, “I guess that makes two of us.”</div> <div class="indent">“Tell me about January 13, 1995,” I said. “The day you found Melissa Witt’s body.”</div> <div class="indent">Rider described the day as normal, even for a Friday the 13th. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a superstitious guy. It was a normal day. It started off sunny—a perfect day. I decided to get some work done around the office. When the phone call came in from Sheriff Ross, as you can imagine, all hell broke loose. We all headed out to that crime scene. We feared the worst… that this body was Melissa Witt.”</div> <div class="indent">News reports of the crime scene describe a lonely, remote logging road near Turner Bend just north of Ozark. I knew the location of Melissa’s body would reveal details about her killer.</div> <div class="indent">“Can you tell me more about the location?” I asked.</div> <div class="indent">“It was a logging road. More or less a single lane road, rough terrain, off the main gravel area. The road was mainly accessed by loggers clearing and cutting the national forest,” Rider explained. “Trappers, hunters, campers and sometimes local kids looking to party used that road. Believe it or not, the logging road ended—like a cul de sac—so it was a dead end. A remote, hopeless dead end.”</div> <div class="indent">“What else do you remember about that day?” I asked.</div> <div class="indent">“I will never forget that day,” Rider said. “We started working the crime scene and the temperature dropped drastically. It started to rain—hard rain—rain that was actually coming in sideways. The wind was blowing hard and it was miserable. None of us had jackets or anything else because it had started off as such a perfect day. I remember finding a raincoat in my car and trying to find a warmer shirt or something to change into so I could stay warm.”</div> <div class="indent">Rider’s description of that fateful morning closely paralleled my own memories. But now it seemed that what we had witnessed was so much more than just a rainstorm. Instead, maybe we experienced the heavens releasing an unrelenting stream of tears for a girl we never knew.</div> <div class="indent">The medical examiner’s report revealed that the official cause of death was “asphyxiation by strangulation.” Leaves and soil found in Melissa’s airway indicated she had been strangled face down and she had inhaled debris from the forest floor as she fought for her life.</div> <div class="indent">Laboratory testing on the debris found in Melissa’s airway gave investigators an important clue: the debris was native to the Ozark National Forest. This told investigators that she had been killed at or near the location where her body was discovered. The medical examiner’s report also yielded another important clue: Melissa had non-fatal trauma on the side of her head that was believed to have been caused by a blow or a fall.</div> <div class="indent">Armed with this information, investigators began to put together a profile of Melissa Witt’s killer. Two scenarios emerged: The killer was either a local or someone who frequented the area from out of state to hunt, hike, camp, or fish. Melissa’s body could have been disposed of in many places but her killer chose this remote location. An area so isolated that if you had never been there before, it would be almost impossible to find.</div> <div class="indent">A more detailed examination of the crime scene shocked investigators. Indentations behind a large headstone-like rock positioned between two small trees revealed that her body had initially been hidden there.</div> <div class="indent">According to police records, Melissa had visible marks where someone, presumably the killer, had grabbed hold of her in order to drag her decomposing body closer to the road.</div> <div class="indent">“It would have been a gruesome task,” Jay C. Rider said flatly. “Think about it. Melissa’s body had been out in the elements for 45 days and was in advanced stages of decomposition. There was small animal activity on the body and the scene was… it was brutal. Whoever moved that body did it so it could be found more easily. Maybe so her mama could give her a proper burial. Regardless, the task was gruesome and we are still trying to figure out who moved her body and why.”</div> <div class="indent">A strange phone call made to police a day or two prior to the discovery of Melissa’s body may have provided a different clue. The caller left a voice message at the Fort Smith Major Crimes unit one evening. On the recording, a lady with a thick Southern accent could be heard saying, “Go ahead and tell them what you found.” Then there was a younger male voice, also with a thick Southern accent who was reported saying, “No, I can’t,” and then the phone disconnected. Did the young man who was part of the mysterious phone call discover Melissa’s body in the woods and move it from behind the rock so she could be found? Was he scared he could be blamed for the murder? Sadly, we may never know. Despite extensive efforts to identify the people responsible for that phone call, their identities remain a mystery.</div> <div class="indent">Determined to learn more about the psychology of this type of killer and crime, I obsessively began to research homicidal strangulation. I discovered that in a high percentage of cases, the offender and the victim are related or in a romantic relationship. Seventy-five percent of strangulation victims are females, with the most frequent motives being rape, sexual jealousy, or personal rivalry. Research also suggests that females are predominantly the victims in homicidal strangulation because they are more likely to be the targets of sexual assaults.</div> <div class="indent">Could this be why her body was found nude? Was she sexually assaulted? Unfortunately, we may never know for certain. According to the medical examiner’s report, it was impossible to determine if she had been raped.</div> <div class="indent">I kept researching. I found that a high percentage of female victims in homicidal strangulation are murdered due to a quarrel in their relationship and/or due to unrehearsed violence applied by bare hands to put the victim at a physical disadvantage and render the victim incapable of resisting. In 86% of the strangulation cases the victim was found at the scene of the killing. In 22% of these cases, the victim was found outdoors. In 17% of these cases, the offender stole something from the victim. In 14% of these cases, the victim was first hit with a blunt instrument.</div> <div class="indent">A cold chill went down my spine. Did Melissa know her killer?</div> <div class="indent">I compared these facts to what I had learned about her gruesome murder:</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <ol><li>According to the autopsy report, Melissa was hit in the head with a blunt instrument.</li> <li>She was found strangled, outdoors, and naked—her clothing and personal belongings had been taken from her.</li> <li>The remote location was familiar to her killer. Authorities believe he had been there before.</li> </ol> <div class="spacer"></div> <div class="indent">I began to look even closer at events that had unfolded on the day Melissa disappeared. From all reports, the day started off routinely. She spent the first part of the morning with her mother, Mary Ann Witt. The honor student headed to Westark Community College next. After that, she went to lunch with a friend and then off to her job as a dental assistant.</div> <div class="indent">Before she left that morning, Melissa had a minor disagreement with her mother. She had asked to borrow money, and Mary Ann, in an effort to teach her daughter money management, had told her no.</div> <div class="indent">Before Mary Ann left for work that morning, she left a note for Melissa reminding her she would be bowling with her league that evening and offering to buy her a hamburger. She signed the note, “Love, Mom.”</div> <div class="indent">At five o’clock that night, after clocking out at her dental assistant job, Melissa discovered that her 1995 Mitsubishi Mirage wouldn’t start. After a few tries, she gave up and waited with a coworker until a local businessman, later dubbed the Good Samaritan, gave her car a jump.</div> <div class="indent">Police reports detail how Melissa’s dome light was left on by mistake, draining the car battery. Investigators tracked down the Good Samaritan and interviewed him multiple times before ultimately clearing him in the teenager’s disappearance and murder.</div> <div class="indent">“People ask about the Good Samaritan all the time because those events leading up to Melissa’s abduction seem suspicious,” Rider said. “The Good Samaritan does seem suspicious, until you realize how many times he was questioned. He was cleared of any suspicion in Melissa’s murder.”</div> <div class="indent">We know that, once Melissa’s car started, she went home to change out of her uniform. Those clothes were found crumpled on her bedroom floor. Mary Ann was able to determine that her daughter had then donned a white V-neck sweater and blue jeans.</div> <div class="indent">Melissa must have seen her mom’s note, because authorities believe she headed to Bowling World, arriving between 6:30pm and 7:00pm. She parked in the northwest corner of the lot, but never made it inside. There were no cameras to record the events that unfolded in the parking lot that night. Witnesses would later tell police they heard a woman screaming, “Help me!”</div> <div class="indent">Two decades later, as I pored over police files and news footage, my heart broke to learn that Mary Ann was haunted by the note she left for Melissa that fateful Thursday. In one interview she is quoted as saying, “I try not to think about how our lives would be different if I had not invited Melissa to Bowling World that night. There is no use thinking about it. I know she is gone. But my heart…. You know, as a mom… I sometimes wonder what if I had done something differently.”</div> <div class="indent">At approximately 7:45pm, Melissa’s car keys were found in the parking lot and were turned in to the front desk of Bowling World. No one noticed the splatters of blood that were slowly drying on the metal keys.</div> <div class="indent">Since Melissa never entered the bowling alley that night, her mother simply thought she had decided to go out with friends instead. Mary Ann went home expecting to see her daughter later that evening. Hours passed and Thursday slowly turned into Friday.</div> <div class="indent">At nine o’clock on Friday morning, Mary Ann reported Melissa as a missing person. By Saturday, Melissa’s friends and family were passing out flyers, blanketing the River Valley with over 6,000 pleas for help in finding the missing teenager.</div> <div class="indent">I lived in Northwest Arkansas at the time, and remember seeing the story of Melissa’s disappearance light up news channels. Her picture seemed to be everywhere. Curious, I reached out to my friends in the River Valley. It turns out they knew her. Their voices trembled as they shared their worst fears with me:</div> <div class="indent">“Melissa would not just disappear like this.”</div> <div class="indent">“Where could she be? This is not like Melissa at all.”</div> <div class="indent">“I hope she’s okay. I am scared she’s been hurt.”</div> <div class="indent">Christmas passed and the new year rang in but there was still no Melissa Witt.</div> <div class="indent">For more than a month, I, like the rest of the community, sat on the edge of my seat questioning what had happened to the beautiful All American Girl. None of us expected the story to turn into what it did.</div> <div class="indent">A quote by the late Michelle McNamara, in her book <i>I’ll be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer</i>, resonates with me. She wrote, “He loses his power when we know his face.” These words sum up the rationale behind the countless hours I’ve spent investigating the Melissa Witt case. I want to see his face.</div> <div class="indent">For over two decades the identity of Melissa’s killer has been hidden among the dense trees and thorny undergrowth rooted deeply in the uneven ground of a remote mountaintop in the Ozark National Forest. I envision him, a shadow-like figure, dark and dreadful, his confidence anchored in the predictability of a murder case slowly growing cold.</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div class="spacer"></div> </body> </html>

LaDonna Humphrey

The Girl I Never Knew - Who Killed Melissa Witt by LaDonna Humphrey $15.50 $17.95

Justice for Melissa Witt For over two decades the identity of Melissa Witt’s killer has been hidden among the dense trees and thorny undergrowth rooted deeply in the uneven ground of a remote mountaintop in the Ozark National Forest. Determined to find answers, LaDonna Humphrey has spent the past seven years hunting for Melissa’s killer. Her investigation, both thrilling and unpredictable, has led her on a journey like no other. The Girl I Never Knew is an edge-of-your-seat account of LaDonna Humphrey's passionate fight for justice in the decades-old murder case of a girl she never knew. Her unstoppable quest for the truth has gained the attention of some incredibly dangerous people, some of whom would like to keep Melissa’s murder a mystery forever.

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Things Aren't Right: The Disappearance of the Yuba County Five

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Untitled</title> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"/> <style> /* ePub CSS */ h1 {padding-top: 15%;} .indent {text-indent: 5%;} .center {text-align: center;} .right {text-align: right;} .margin {margin: 0 5%;} .margin-indent {margin: 0 5%; text-indent: 5%;} .bigmargin {margin: 0 5% 0 10%;} .bigmargin-indent {margin: 0 5% 0 10%; text-indent: 5%;} .hugemargin {margin: 0 5% 0 15%;} .hugemargin-indent {margin: 0 5% 0 15%; text-indent: 5%;} img {max-width: 94%;} body {margin: 0 3%; text-align: justify;} .spacer {padding-bottom: 1em;} </style> </head> <body> <h1 id="c5">CHAPTER ONE: THEIR WORLD</h1> <div class="spacer"></div> <div>Working on this book required a great deal of research about the five men and the case itself. I also needed to gain a better understanding of intellectual disabilities and mental illness. Countless hours were spent watching videos and documentaries about people living with schizophrenia or an intellectual disability. A majority of what I watched was created by people diagnosed with a mental illness or an intellectual disability. What I learned is that there are challenges, but people live productive lives. Some have careers and families. People might count them out, but they have proved their critics wrong.</div> <div class="indent">While Gary Mathias was diagnosed with schizophrenia, there was not a clear diagnosis for Weiher, Madruga, Sterling, or Huett. All four were rubber-stamped as “disabled.” Some information was provided about Madruga and Sterling. It is difficult to understand a disability if you have limited resources. Family members clarified the disabilities of the four to the best of their abilities, but they wish they had an actual diagnosis at the time.</div> <div class="indent">Weiher, Madruga, Sterling, Huett, and Mathias grew up in a time when intellectual disabilities and mental illness were swept under the rug or treated with complete disdain. Special education classes were available to some but not everyone with a disability. Some were sent away to institutions that ranged from acceptable to downright inhuman.</div> <div class="indent">The 1970s were a time of deinstitutionalization for psychiatric hospitals due to legal and economic factors. Another change was the 1973 Rehabilitation Act passed by Congress. Section 504 of the act stated that employers and organizations that received federal funds had to provide equal opportunity benefits and services to people with disabilities. It was in the books, but it did not mean life changed instantly for those with disabilities. For the five, they had dealt with years of obstacles and other personal difficulties long before that law was signed.</div> <div class="indent">In 1975, Congress passed the Education for all Handicapped Children Act. At the time, it was estimated that there were eight million children with disabilities in the United States, and one million of those children were excluded from the public school system. The act would provide a free “appropriate” public education to these children. The five were out of high school when that was passed. Their families do not recall if the men faced major obstacles with their education.</div> <div class="indent">During the interview process, I didn’t press the families too hard about intellectual disabilities or mental illness. Some discussed the topic without me bringing up the issue, and for others I knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to press my luck. From what I gathered, the men’s families dealt with their intellectual disabilities to the best of their abilities. The men were not treated differently from their siblings. I spoke with someone about this, and they wondered if it was the parents treating their children as equals or some sort of unconscious denial that there was something wrong.</div> <div class="indent">Discussing mental illness was harder since Gary Mathias’s schizophrenia was viewed by many as the reason behind the men’s disappearance. His family was on the defensive, and rightly so. It’s hard to know if the person interviewing you is using the information to shed light on mental illness or to use the information as data to prove Mathias was the villain.</div> <div class="indent">Without a doubt, the families of Weiher, Madruga, Sterling, Huett, and Mathias did their best to raise their children. During the 1960s and 1970s, Yuba County and neighboring Sutter County provided certain services for the five, and they were part of programs including the Gateway Projects.</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div class="center">***</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div>I grew up in Ohio, which is basically a Midwestern state where people drive through or fly over to get to somewhere more interesting or exciting. My hometown of Springfield, Ohio, was once a city with the potential to be something bigger, but it never happened due to a variety of circumstances. In 1983, the 50th anniversary edition of <i>Newsweek</i> featured a story about some families in Springfield. “The American Dream” was the title of the article, and some 30 years after that <i>Newsweek </i>story ran, Springfield was in the press again, but this time, it was being examined as the American city with the biggest decline of middle-class residents from 2000-2014.</div> <div class="indent">As I began studying the history of Yuba County for this book, I noticed some curious similarities. Marysville, the county seat for Yuba County, and my hometown were visioned at one time as becoming major cities, but it was not their destiny. Both are very blue-collar and pretty much filled with conservative, God-fearing folk. Perhaps Springfield and Marysville had already experienced the best of times, but both towns have citizens who believe that the best is yet to come.</div> <div class="indent">My research also focused on the histories of neighboring communities like Olivehurst and Yuba City in Sutter County. As I studied the Yuba County area, I realized that my understanding of California was just Southern California and the Bay Area. Sure, I was familiar with Napa Valley, the mountains, and the giant sequoias in Northern California, but I knew nothing of the communities north of Sacramento. I began to expand my knowledge of a region of California that’s not always depicted in movies or television.</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div class="center">***</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div>At the time they went missing, Weiher, Madruga, Huett, and Mathias resided in Linda and Olivehurst, communities in Yuba County east of the confluence of the Yuba and Feather Rivers. Sterling lived west of the Feather River in Yuba City. Located some forty-five minutes north of Sacramento, life in the Yuba County region was vastly different from the faster-paced lifestyles of Southern California with its glitz, glamour, sun, surf, and beaches.</div> <div class="indent">“I grew up in Marysville when it was a vibrant and diverse regional ‘hub’ of an agriculturally rich three-county region,” said Mike Geniella, a former employee of the <i>Appeal-Democrat</i>, the local newspaper for Marysville and Yuba City. “Marysville had a vibrant business center, great restaurants, a bar on practically every corner, and a rich history dating to the gold rush era. It was a mercantile center for the northern gold mines.”</div> <div class="indent">Agriculture was a way of life for many, and some residents were descendants of the old gold rush while newer residents left places in the Central Plains or South, with a few considered true “Okies” from the Dust Bowl. The five may have had a small-town upbringing, but they lived over an hour’s drive away from the Plumas National Forest, while Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, and Reno were anywhere from two to three hours away by car.</div> <div class="indent">Marysville and Yuba City have been part of an area of great agricultural importance known as the Central Valley. From Redding down past Bakersfield, the Central Valley covers some twenty-thousand square miles and is bounded by the Cascade Range to the north, the Tehachapi Mountains to the south, the Sierra Nevada mountains to the east, and the Coast Ranges to the west. Two major rivers, the Sacramento and San Joaquin, run through the Central Valley.</div> <div class="indent">To the west of Yuba City, the Sutter Buttes are visible to those in the region. Remnants of an ancient volcano, they are two thousand feet in height and run roughly eleven miles going north to south while measuring roughly ten miles from east to west. The Sutter Buttes are not classified as a mountain range, although they are referred to in the area as “the world’s smallest mountain range.”</div> <div class="indent">Marysville was named in honor of Mary Murphy, a survivor of the infamous Donner Party. A group of settlers, led in part by the Donner family, left Independence, Missouri, during the spring of 1846 to claim fertile land in California. By the time they reached Fort Laramie (in modern-day Wyoming), they had learned of a shortcut to California, which turned out to be a lie that cost numerous lives and allegedly resulted in some of the survivors choosing cannibalism to survive. One of the factors that brought them to that last resort was the same unforgiving winter conditions of the Sierra Nevada that sadly also took the lives of the Yuba County Five.</div> <div class="indent">Gold put Marysville on the map during the 1850s, and some believed the town had the potential to be the state capital of California. Marysville was along the Feather River that flowed to Sacramento, and it became a popular shipping route for miners. A lust for gold led to the practice of hydraulic mining, which caused an environmental disaster that raised river levels. Flooding became an issue. A levee system was built in Marysville for protection, but it boxed in the city, limiting its growth. Hydraulic mining also made the rivers less navigable, leading to Marysville, which ended the fairytale for the town that some envisioned as “the New York of the Pacific.”</div> <div class="indent">When the gold boom came to an end, the area would turn to a new business. Agriculture flourished in the region and is still a major business today. Rice, almonds, walnuts, plums, and peaches are a few examples of the hundreds of crops that are grown in the Central Valley. Orchards are visible in the region to this day, along with the rice fields that make up most of the rice produced in the state. Yuba City is home to Sunsweet Growers, Inc., a major producer of dried tree fruits.</div> <div class="indent">Marysville’s neighbor to the west is Yuba City, the county seat of Sutter County. Located along the banks of the Feather River, Yuba City had similar beginnings to Marysville. It was an area of interest during the California Gold Rush. By 1856, it would become the seat of Sutter County, which was one of the original twenty-seven counties in California.</div> <div class="indent">To the Southeast of Marysville is a census-designated area known as Olivehurst. It was settled mostly by people looking for work in California to escape the Great Depression. Some of those people were true Okies, and there are streets in Olivehurst named after communities in Oklahoma. This is where some of the Yuba County Five resided.</div> <div class="indent">“Social tensions existed for a long time between the townsfolk and the new arrivals, the ‘Okies,’” said Geniella, who added, “Even though we were blue-collar, my parents, their families, and neighbors scorned anyone from Olivehurst.”</div> <div class="indent">Agriculture would drive the economy of both Sutter and Yuba Counties. Commercial agriculture would be successful in California during the late 1800s, and the state would lead the way in exporting grain. Technology and innovation allowed California to thrive, but it was also at this time that many farmers saw the potential in growing other crops like fruits and vegetables. Refrigerated cars and an impressive irrigation system were contributing factors to their success.</div> <div class="indent">It was mid-December of 1955 when a historic rainfall hit Northern California. Beginning on December 18th, the Sierra Nevada had areas that measured over thirty inches of rain, while the valley and coastal regions would record twenty inches of rain in areas. Runoff from the Sierra Nevada flooded the region, and the result was roads being washed away, farmland destroyed, and towns flooded.</div> <div class="indent">The floods did a great deal of damage from Christmas Eve into the new year, where some eighty people were killed, over four thousand injured, some fifteen hundred homes were destroyed, while an additional estimated four thousand were badly damaged beyond repair, resulting in an estimated $225 million in property damages. Marysville and Yuba City would be the worst hit cities during this flood.</div> <div class="center">***</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div>For ten years, I taught modern American history classes part time at a community college. It covered our nation’s history from 1865 to the present, and students learned about topics such as the migration West during the late 1800s, the Great Depression, and the post-World War II era. After doing some genealogical research on all five families, I learned that the Yuba County Five were born to families that hoped to find a better life in California. Some of the five’s grandparents and parents came from places like Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, and Virginia. A few were Okies leaving areas of the United States known as “the Dust Bowl” during the Great Depression, while others were just dirt-poor individuals sold on the dream of success in California. The families knew how to work the land, and their skills were a definite advantage in living in the Central Valley. It was a place where the families could escape poverty and live an idyllic American dream type of life. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, there were some disturbing incidents in the Yuba City-Marysville area that shattered the quiet, all-American appearance of those communities.</div> <div class="indent">It was May 20, 1971 when a shallow grave was discovered in an orchard north of Yuba City. The victim was believed to be a transient worker in their mid-thirties, and they died a horrible death by a hatchet or machete. A freshly dug hole was found by the property owner on May 19th, and the next day, they noticed the hole had been filled with dirt. The police were contacted immediately.</div> <div class="indent">As investigators searched the area days after the discovery, they found more graves. One body became a dozen, and it was just the beginning. A grand total of twenty-five victims were discovered, and clues found during the investigation were linked to a man named Juan Corona. Married and the father of four children, Corona was a farm labor contractor who had been committed in 1956 to the DeWitt General Hospital in Auburn, California, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Apparently, the horrors of the 1955 flood had disturbed him greatly. He later found work recruiting farmhands, which was the way he met his victims. On January 18, 1973, Corona was convicted of the deaths of twenty-five men, and he would later be sentenced to life in prison. At that time, Corona was considered one of the worst serial killers in the history of the United States.</div> <div class="indent">Less than ten months after Corona was sentenced, the Yuba City-Marysville area was shocked by the murders of two young girls named Doris Derryberry and Valerie Lane. Both were thirteen and were close friends who attended the Yuba Gardens Intermediate School. Derryberry and Lane had left their homes sometime on Sunday, January 11th, and were reported missing the next day. Their bodies were discovered in a wooded area southeast of Marysville, and both had been shot at point-blank range and were assaulted. Very little was found in the way of clues, suspects were nowhere to be found, and the case would remain cold for decades.</div> <div class="indent">Somehow, the area could not release itself from the grasp of tragedy. On May 21, 1976, a school bus carrying some fifty-seven Yuba City High School students and adults crashed through a guardrail on an on-ramp and plunged some thirty feet, landing upside down. The crash occurred in Martinez, California, and twenty-nine people on the bus died. It would end up being one of the worst bus accidents in United States history.</div> <div class="indent">Murders and tragedies should not be the legacy of a community or region, but Yuba City and Marysville had their fair share of heartbreaking incidents. Although the area had a rich agricultural history and was seen as a quiet getaway from bigger cities, Yuba City and Marysville also faced issues with unemployment, illegal drug activities, and crime during the 1970s. Ted Weiher, Jack Madruga, Bill Sterling, Jackie Huett, and Gary Mathias lived in the area, were educated in the area, worked in the area, and enjoyed many sports-related activities in the area. They were loved and respected by family, friends, and coworkers. Their families were hardworking people proud to be blue-collar and, in some cases, proud to be devoted to their faith and God. Somehow, through some cruel twist of fate, an incident on February 24, 1978, added their names to yet another tragedy linked to the area. They would forever be known as the Yuba County Five.</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div class="spacer"></div> </body> </html>

Tony Wright

Things Aren't Right: The Disappearance of the Yuba County Five $17.95 $22.95

Things Aren’t Right: The Disappearance of the Yuba County Five explores the bizarre and tragic 1978 disappearance of Ted Weiher, Jack Madruga, Bill Sterling, Jackie Huett, and Gary Mathias in the Plumas National Forest in Northern California. Four of these men had intellectual disabilities while one was diagnosed with schizophrenia. On Friday, February 24, 1978, they left the Yuba County, California area in Madruga’s 1969 Mercury Montego to attend a basketball game in Chico, California. Four days later the car they were traveling in was found abandoned on a snow-covered road in the mountains of the Plumas National Forest, some 75 miles in the wrong direction from home. Four jurisdictions of law enforcement would investigate and search for the missing men. Psychics were brought in, and there were strange reports of sightings of the five from numerous people. One witness came forward with an incredible story of seeing the men disappear into the forest that night. Yet every lead came to a dead end. About four months after they vanished, four of the five men’s remains were found some 12 miles from the car, with one discovered in a US Forest Service trailer with plenty of food and fuel to keep them alive for months. Once described as “bizarre as hell,” the case of the Yuba County Five has baffled law enforcement and the families of the missing men for over 45 years. Tony Wright has meticulously researched this case, earning himself the reputation of being one of the foremost authorities on the subject, and his conclusions are likely as close as anyone will come to making sense of this tragedy.

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Randy Hubbard

The Laney Gwinner Effect $17.95 $19.95

The Laney Gwinner Effect: How One Cold Case Mobilized a High School to Make a Difference explores the unsolved murder of 23-year-old Alana “Laney” Gwinner and the ripple effect it had on a small community. When Laney disappeared in 1997, her case became a haunting mystery, with her body discovered weeks later in the Ohio River. Though her killer remains at large, her story continues to inspire. This book chronicles the journey of high school teacher Randy Hubbard and his students as they delved into Laney’s cold case, sparking a classroom movement that brought forensic science to life in ways no one could have predicted. Through their dedication, Laney’s case took on new meaning, giving birth to a phenomenon that challenged minds and ignited passions. More than just a true crime story, The Laney Gwinner Effect highlights how one life, tragically cut short, can still have a profound impact, creating waves of change and inspiring future generations.

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Alyson Camus

A Question Mark $14.36 $17.95

“A Question Mark” tells the story of the alleged suicide of Elliot Smith, and dives into the circumstances of the case to reveal the truth. Back in the early 2000s, Elliott Smith was a rising star in the Indie music scene. He was a talented musician, but he carried a heavy burden—a drug addiction and a bleak view of life. His music expressed both his pain and his hopes. Then, in 2003, tragedy struck. Elliott Smith was found dead, and it looked like suicide. The media and his fans were quick to accept this explanation. However, as more details emerged, things got murkier. His girlfriend claimed they had a heated argument, and while she was locked in the bathroom, Elliott allegedly stabbed himself twice in the chest, ending his life. Hours later, he passed away in the hospital from his injuries. The Los Angeles County Coroner, after examining the evidence, couldn't definitively say it was suicide. Fast forward eighteen years, and the case is still unresolved. Alyson Camus, a dedicated Elliott Smith fan, couldn't let it rest. She wanted to uncover the truth. "A Question Mark" chronicles her relentless investigation into the alleged suicide of this Oscar-nominated singer. What she discovered reveals that the truth about his death might be an even bigger mystery than anyone could have imagined. This is a story that will keep you guessing until the very end.

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Dead End: Inside the Hunt for the I-70 Serial Killer

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Untitled</title> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"/> <style> /* ePub CSS */ h1 {padding-top: 15%;} .indent {text-indent: 5%;} .center {text-align: center;} .right {text-align: right;} .margin {margin: 0 5%;} .margin-indent {margin: 0 5%; text-indent: 5%;} .bigmargin {margin: 0 5% 0 10%;} .bigmargin-indent {margin: 0 5% 0 10%; text-indent: 5%;} .hugemargin {margin: 0 5% 0 15%;} .hugemargin-indent {margin: 0 5% 0 15%; text-indent: 5%;} img {max-width: 94%;} body {margin: 0 3%; text-align: justify;} .spacer {padding-bottom: 1em;} </style> </head> <body> <h1 id="c6">CHAPTER 1</h1> <div><b>“And then I started wondering, was Robin really the first? Could there have been others before her?”</b></div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div class="indent">The phone rings every April 8 in Susan Fuldauer’s Indianapolis home. She will pause what she is doing, look at the incoming number, glance quickly at the calendar, and smile. Mike Crooke never, ever forgets.</div> <div class="indent">“I just pick up the phone every April 8 and I call her,” Crooke says. “And I say to her ‘Hey Susan, I am not calling you because I have some good news to report about.’ It is more like ‘Hey Susan, I have not forgotten about you, your family or your sister Robin, and I never will. I am still out here plugging away. I am still out here trying to do my best.’ I always call her on the anniversary of that day and just remind her that she and her family are still in my thoughts, and they always will be.”</div> <div class="indent">Crooke, the longtime sergeant of the Indianapolis Police Department, has remembered since April 8, 1992, the day the Robin Fuldauer nightmare began. He is long since retired, but he has never, ever forgotten.</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div class="center">***</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div class="indent">November 2021. Our crew left St. Louis in the early morning and headed east, photographer Chuck Delaney driving, producer JJ Bailey riding shotgun, and me in the backseat taking notes of the scenery along Interstate 70. As we drive along the highway I picture in my mind what the killer saw 30 years ago. Pick an exit to get off, quickly find a small store in a strip mall, make sure a woman is working alone, get in and get out without being seen, and leave a body behind. Surely it is not that easy. It simply can’t be.</div> <div class="indent">Our first stop, like the killer’s, was Indianapolis. Interstate 70 east through Indy to the 465 loop, then a quick jaunt north. The killer wasn’t patient, he took the first possible exit, Pendleton Pike. He could have headed east or west. He could have picked any woman, anywhere, to kill. He chose to turn left at the light and go west. And then he immediately had options to kill on both his right and left. He picked the Payless shoe store.</div> <div class="indent">The Indianapolis police detectives still working the Robin Fuldauer case were waiting for us when we arrived. Like other major cities, Indianapolis had seen a huge spike in homicide cases recently. Their staff was spread thin trying to solve not only murders that seemed to be happening daily, but cold cases that had piled up over the years. Clearance rates, or rates of solving homicides, ranged around 50 percent. That meant hundreds of unsolved cases piled up each year. After 30 years, an unsolved homicide is often a file, in a box, in a closet, never to be opened again.</div> <div class="indent">“We have thousands of unsolved cases over the years,” said Captain Roger Spurgeon of the Indianapolis Police Department. “And more are coming every week. It is overwhelming. You do the best you can do, and then another case lands on your desk.”</div> <div class="indent">Spurgeon and I looked around the busy Pendleton Pike area and I knew we were reading each other’s minds: The killer could have stopped anywhere.</div> <div class="indent">“Why here, do you think?” I voiced to the detectives. “He could have stopped anywhere. Why do you think he stopped here?”</div> <div class="indent">The men looked at each other and shook their heads. A question that has never been answered here, or at any of the other crime scenes.</div> <div class="indent">“This would be one of the last places you would think he would strike,” said Columbus Ricks, one of the Indianapolis detectives. “Look at how busy this area is.”</div> <div class="indent">But Spurgeon guessed there was a method in the killer’s madness. “I think there would have been a variety of stores for him to choose from in the area,” Spurgeon said. “It was just a matter of whatever our suspect was looking for at the time. You have all of this busy traffic around this area, all of this movement, all of these people coming and going so quickly. Unless somebody really stood out to someone as behaving oddly or looking oddly, you could really go about your business with relative anonymity and nobody would ever really pay you any attention.”</div> <div class="indent">I pointed to the busy Speedway gas station that was literally steps from the Payless shoe store. Customers were filling their tanks, and numerous people were coming and going inside the store by the minute.</div> <div class="indent">“Was the gas station there in 1992?” I asked Spurgeon.</div> <div class="indent">He nodded yes.</div> <div class="indent">“That does not make any sense,” I said. “You would have to be a fool to kill somebody with this many potential witnesses around.”</div> <div class="indent">Ricks and fellow detective David Ellison both laughed.</div> <div class="indent">Spurgeon nodded again. “Welcome to the world of the I-70 serial killer where nothing makes any sense.”</div> <div class="indent">I walked up to the front door of the gas station, and then took a few steps to the Payless store. It took me less than 20 seconds. Ellison and Ricks stood alongside Spurgeon and watched me make the walk.</div> <div class="indent">“Twenty seconds,” I hollered at them. “No way somebody is killing somebody with all of these people just 20 seconds away.”</div> <div class="indent">I looked at Spurgeon again. He nodded and I shook my head. “No way,” I muttered to myself.</div> <div class="indent">I kept walking between the gas station and shoe store, and then returned to the detectives.</div> <div class="indent">“Let me make sure I have this right,” I said. “He somehow chooses this busy location in the middle of the day. Then he kills Robin with all these people around. And then what, he just disappears?”</div> <div class="indent">“Pretty much,” said Ellison. “Pretty much.”</div> <div class="indent">Robin Fuldauer was not sure where life was taking her yet, but she was moving very quickly. She was the salutatorian of her Lawrence Central High School class, located just down the street from the Payless shoe store. She graduated a few years later from Indiana University. And now she had already risen to become a manager for Payless.</div> <div class="indent">Sometime around 1pm on that April day, a serial killer was about to embark on a month-long journey, one that would take him to five cities, leaving six body bags behind. He was patrolling Pendleton Pike Road, looking for his first victim.</div> <div class="indent">Receipts from the store show the last purchase was made at 1:12pm. Police believe the killer was likely in the store at the time, saw the only other customer leave, and then made his move. He forced Fuldauer into a storage room in the back of the store, made her kneel, then shot her twice in the back of the head, execution style, with a .22 caliber handgun. There was no sign of any struggle inside the store. The killer then rummaged through the cash register, taking less than $100. Police believe he left through a back door by 1:30pm, leaving Fuldauer lying dead behind a closed door. For the next hour, Payless customers would have their run of the store, with nobody in sight.</div> <div class="indent">“I don’t believe there was an opportunity for anybody to go inside the store and observe that there was a body there,” Spurgeon said.</div> <div class="indent">The Payless store had little in the way of store security. Just a bell that would ring when a new customer arrived.</div> <div class="indent">Police records showed a woman named Lucretia Gullett was working at the Speedway gas station the day Fuldauer was killed. It was Gullett who discovered Robin’s body and called police.</div> <div class="indent">Before arriving in Indianapolis, I began the task of searching for Lucretia Gullet.</div> <div class="indent">“Is this Lucretia Gullet?” I asked the woman on the other end of the phone.</div> <div class="indent">“It is,” she said.</div> <div class="indent">“Ma’am,” I said, “I am a reporter working on a serial killer from 1992. And I believe you found the body of his first victim. A woman named Robin Fuldauer in the Payless shoe store.”</div> <div class="indent">Gullett paused on the other end. “I did not really find her body. But yes, I was there, and I called the police. But what did you say about a serial killer?”</div> <div class="indent">I told Gullett her Payless killer went on to kill numerous other women across the country.</div> <div class="indent">“What?!” she screamed into the phone.</div> <div class="indent">And I realized she was unaware. “Do you still live around Indy?” I asked her.</div> <div class="indent">“I do,” she said.</div> <div class="indent">“I am coming to town,” I told her. “Would you meet with me?”</div> <div class="indent">“I will,” she said. “And did you say serial killer?” Apparently, she was still coming to grips with this.</div> <div class="indent">I stood by the Speedway gas station with my crew and the police detectives, and watched as a woman parked her car and walked toward us.</div> <div class="indent">“I am looking for Bob,” she said.</div> <div class="indent">“Hi Lucretia,” I said, and we shook hands.</div> <div class="indent">We began walking around the area. “This brings back a lot of memories,” she said.</div> <div class="indent">“Have you been back here since…?” I asked.</div> <div class="indent">“No,” she said as she looked around. “Thirty years is a long time. I just avoided coming around here.”</div> <div class="indent">I asked Gullett to take me back to that day, as best she could.</div> <div class="indent">“My shift at the Speedway gas station was ending at 3pm. I was almost getting off work to go home when I received a phone call from a man who said he was the district manager of the Payless store. It was probably around 2pm,” Gullett remembered. “He told me that he had been calling the shoe store for quite a while, but that no one was answering the phone there. He was really concerned, so I told him I would go next door to Payless and see what was going on over there.”</div> <div class="indent">Gullett and I made the 20 second walk from one store to the other. “What happened when you walked in?” I asked.</div> <div class="indent">Gullett paused at the door. “This is hard,” she said. “I walked up to the front door, opened it up and looked around. I did not see anybody. No manager, no customers. I looked over to the left and noticed that the cash register was open and then I went through the aisles, but nobody was around. I really was not sure what was going on, but I knew it was not right. Then I heard someone talking in the back of the store, so I went back there and I saw a woman who had a child with her. They were looking at some shoes. I asked her to please leave, and told her something was wrong. I did not know what was happening, but I knew something was wrong. So I just immediately stopped looking around and called the police. I was probably only in the store for about 10 minutes. And then I just waited for the police to arrive.”</div> <div class="indent">Police records show they arrived at the scene around 3pm. When they did, Gullett said she then stood watch over the front door while detectives made their way inside. She watched them search the store before heading towards the back. And then she saw them open a closed door and look inside.</div> <div class="indent">“One officer looked down to the right,” Gullett said, “and I could tell he was shocked at what he saw.”</div> <div class="indent">Incredibly, some 30 years after Robin Fuldauer was murdered, Gullett says she was not aware the homicide scene she walked into three decades ago became linked to a serial killer, or that it was not solved all these years earlier. “I just became aware of that when you called me,” she said.</div> <div class="indent">“You did not follow the case over the years as it exploded?” I asked.</div> <div class="indent">“No,” she said. “I was shocked when you told me it was a serial killer. I was like, whoa! That is when I put two and two together, and like, wow!”</div> <div class="indent">Brought back to the scene, and meeting new detectives for the first time. Gullett is now spending time detailing the case to police again.</div> <div class="indent">“They wanted to know if there was anything else I ever came up with or thought about.” And then she winked and smiled. “Maybe. Maybe. It might just be a coincidence. But yes, I hope I can help.”</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div class="center">***</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div class="indent">Roger Spurgeon was an Indianapolis police officer at the time of Robin Fuldauer’s murder, not yet working in homicide. Now, he has been with the police department more than 25 years, most of them in the homicide unit. He would inherit the Fuldauer case, and says that in spite of the busy area, and in spite of the busy time of the day, early leads in the case quickly fizzled. “At first, because there was a small amount of cash taken, detectives thought it was likely a robbery that somehow turned into a homicide. They had a variety of potential suspects they were looking at in the very beginning. But If you describe a suspect as somebody you really have a keen interest in because of some sort of an evidentiary link or eyewitnesses, no, there was nothing there which stood out to the investigators at that time.”</div> <div class="indent">Detectives immediately began canvassing the area on Pendleton Pike. The first witness they found was the store manager at MAB paint, across the street from the Payless, He told police he saw a strange looking man carrying a long bag. The witness said he watched the man repeatedly circling the Payless store, and then watched as the man sat down at a curb nearby for nearly 30 minutes. And then around 2pm, he suddenly disappeared from sight. The witness told police the man appeared to either be on drugs or had a mental problem.</div> <div class="indent">Police would only locate less than a half dozen potential witnesses. One of them said they saw a man who matched what the earlier witness said calmly trying to hitch a ride along the highway. Police found a couple of other witnesses in the area who thought they saw something, but none of those leads panned out.</div> <div class="indent">Detective Columbus Ricks is part of the Indianapolis Unsolved Homicide Unit. Like Spurgeon, he was also an Indianapolis police officer at the time of the Fuldauer murder. “The homicide investigators tracked down almost everybody that was said to have seen something in the area or had been seen by someone. They all had enough of an alibi to eliminate them. The descriptions of the suspect were all black males…” Ricks said, shaking his head. “And within days, after Wichita, the detectives knew the killer was a white male.”</div> <div class="indent">I looked at Ricks and laughed. “How stupid,” I said.</div> <div class="indent">“Not as easy as it seems on TV,” Ricks laughed again.</div> <div class="indent">And then came the question: How did the killer get away? How did he simply walk out of the store in the middle of the day, with people all around, and disappear into thin air?</div> <div class="indent">“I think he could have easily parked a vehicle on one of these residential side streets and casually walked to it,” Spurgeon said. “And nobody would have paid any attention to him unless he was acting strangely. Obviously, he had to have some sort of wheels to get from point A to point B. But we still do not have a good handle on that. Detectives had a lot of different theories at the time.”</div> <div class="indent">Our crew walked around the area near the store. Busy streets in front, a side street on the side, and an older residential section behind it. Spurgeon appeared to be on target. The most likely answer was the killer parked a car on one of the residential streets, walked calmly to the Payless store, murdered Robin Fuldauer, and then walked back to his car.</div> <div class="indent">Time moves forward. Today, a Batteries Plus store sits where the Payless Shoe store stood in 1992. But what has not changed is that police departments in five cities are still digging, talking to each other, and hoping for a DNA match.</div> <div class="indent">“Science was not as developed then as it is now,” said Ricks. “We are going to see if DNA and new technology can assist us in solving this case.” Ricks added that another new witness may have recently emerged. Until then, we wait. The police. The families. Everyone. And they all understand that they are waiting for an answer that may never come.</div> <div class="indent">Robin’s sister Susan will never forget that day. You can still hear the sadness in her voice. “My husband found out about Robin first. He came home and told me. It was just so incredibly hard to process. It was something completely out of the realm of expectations. I immediately went to pick up my daughter and then we went to the Payless store. There was so much activity at the scene it was hard to believe. It is just a nightmare that you live through and cannot possibly process. It is just very hard to describe.”</div> <div class="indent">And then just a few days later, the bombshell of Wichita came, where 700 miles away and just three days after Robin Fuldauer was murdered, Patricia Magers and Patricia Smith were killed in the same fashion. And almost immediately, police were hit with a stunning reality: The same gun used in Indianapolis was used in Wichita. It seemed impossible with the time frame. But, suddenly, Indianapolis and Wichita had a serial killer on their hands.</div> <div class="indent">“Then it all became just surreal,” Susan said. “Wichita was connected to my Robin? And again, look at the pattern. So cold blooded. Another busy, noisy store. And then the others soon came rolling in. And then I started wondering, was Robin really the first? Could there have been others before her? This was now totally beyond belief. And then our family began grieving not just for Robin, but for all of these other families going through the same exact nightmare that we were going through.”</div> <div class="indent">There is another heartbreaking twist of fate to Robin’s story. She was not supposed to work that day, but another employee called in sick. The Payless store was short-staffed, so Robin came in to cover the shift, as she had so many times before.</div> <div class="indent">After all these years, one thought keeps sticking in Susan’s mind. “I know you cannot turn the clock back. But I usually went by Robin’s store on most days after I got off of work, just to make sure she was okay. For some reason, I did not go by that day. And I always ask myself, ‘Could I have possibly done something? Could I have possibly stopped something?’”</div> <div class="indent">Susan Fuldauer is realistic about the chances of finding the killer after all these years. But she says she will always remain hopeful. “We have always maintained hope that Robin’s murder will someday be solved. Maybe the killer is in jail somewhere. Maybe he is no longer alive. But, like the detectives tell us, we have new technology now. We have new DNA techniques. We have hope. It does not bring Robin or the other victims back. But to know that he might be stopped, and he can never do anything like this again, that would be a major victory for our family.”</div> <div class="indent">Mike Crooke, who has seen everything in his 52 years in law enforcement, insists the case can someday be solved. “I am still hopeful we will resolve this. We did not have the advances in science 30 years ago that we have now.”</div> <div class="indent">Robin Fuldauer was 26 years old. She was the first known victim of the I-70 serial killer. And while it all began in Indy, sadly, it did not end there. And on April 8, pick a year, any year, Mike Crooke will pick up the phone and call Susan Fuldauer. She will smile. They will talk. And they will cry. “It is so kind and considerate of Mike to reach out to my family,” Susan said. “He reminds us that Robin will never ever be forgotten. I appreciate that so very much. We do not talk about the what ifs, because this was such a heinous crime. It is just very comforting to know that Mike remembers us each year. That amount of kindness is really wonderful and will never be forgotten.”</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div class="spacer"></div> </body> </html>

Bob Cyphers

Dead End: Inside the Hunt for the I-70 Serial Killer $15.50

In 1992, a store clerk was found shot to death in broad daylight at the Boot Village in St. Charles, Missouri. Nothing was stolen and there was no sexual assault. This bizarre and seemingly isolated murder was quickly connected with others in Indianapolis, Wichita, Terre Haute, and Raytown. The media dubbed the suspect “The I-70 Serial Killer.” He has never been captured, and the story quickly fell out of the media’s attention. But the cases never went cold for the officers in those cities. In 2021, with the advancements in DNA, St. Charles Police Captain Raymond Floyd launched a task force, bringing all jurisdictions together along with federal agencies to take one final crack at solving the crimes. The task force selected Bob Cyphers of KMOV-TV to follow them along, city by city, in the hunt for the killer. Cyphers and his KMOV crew produced a seven-part award winning series called “Chasing the I-70 Serial Killer.” Their work led to national exposure of the case in People magazine and on the Discovery Channel, winning an Edward R. Murrow Award and being nominated for an Emmy. Dead End: Inside the Hunt for the I-70 Serial Killer follows on the work done by the task force with the important goal of keeping the story alive in the public eye. New evidence, never before available to the public, is revealed here, with the hopes of triggering a memory or revealing a new lead. The task force may be closed, but the drive to find this killer is alive and well. Anyone who may have information about the case should contact the I-70 hotline at 1-800-800-3510.

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Untitled</title> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"/> <style> /* ePub CSS */ h1, .h1 {padding-top: 15%;} .indent {text-indent: 5%;} .center {text-align: center;} .right {text-align: right;} .margin {margin: 0 5%;} .margin-indent {margin: 0 5%; text-indent: 5%;} .bigmargin {margin: 0 5% 0 10%;} .bigmargin-indent {margin: 0 5% 0 10%; text-indent: 5%;} .hugemargin {margin: 0 5% 0 15%;} .hugemargin-indent {margin: 0 5% 0 15%; text-indent: 5%;} img {max-width: 94%;} body {margin: 0 3%; text-align: justify;} .spacer {padding-bottom: 1em;} </style> </head> <body> <h1 id="c2">Chapter 1: Back to December</h1> <div class="spacer"></div> <div>A sense of dread tugged at my heart as I pulled into the narrow parking space of the Bowling World parking lot. I turned off the ignition as retired detectives Jay C. Rider and Chris Boyd looked up, acknowledging my arrival with a wave. “Well, here I am,” I said out loud as my shoes hit the pavement with a loud thud. I slammed my Suburban door shut and slowly made my way toward them. Even from across the parking lot their somber expressions told a story: The two men were standing in the very spot where Melissa Witt had parked her white Mitsubishi on that fateful December night in 1994.</div> <div class="indent">“Let’s get started,” Rider directed. He pointed at the stained and worn asphalt as we made eye contact. “This is it. This is where Melissa parked that night.”</div> <div class="indent">I scanned the pavement, almost expecting to see the bloodstains left behind from the blitz attack that had left Melissa Witt critically injured. I let out a gasp at the thought, and then immediately turned away from the detectives. I yanked at the oversized sunglasses that were perched on top of my head and quickly put them on in an attempt to hide the tears that were forming. “I’m…” my voice trailed off as I rapidly surveyed the expansive parking lot. “I’m stunned.”</div> <div class="indent">Boyd nodded. “It’s hard to believe that the son of a bitch attacked her in such close proximity to the building, isn’t it?” he barked.</div> <div class="indent">“He was bold,” I offered back.</div> <div class="indent">“That he was,” Rider added.</div> <div class="indent">As Rider and Boyd dove into a serious discussion about the details surrounding Melissa’s abduction and murder, I slipped away quietly. There was something I needed to do. With my head down, I slowly made my way to the entrance of Bowling World. “Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen…” I counted. How many steps had separated Melissa Witt from safety on the night she was attacked? “Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two.” I needed to know. At “forty-five” I stopped abruptly in front of the glass doors of Bowling World. “Forty-five steps away from safety.” My thoughts shifted into overdrive. Forty-five was also the number of days between the date of Melissa’s abduction—December 1, 1994—and the date her body was recovered in the Ozark National Forest—January 13, 1995.</div> <div class="indent">Unsettled by the strange coincidence, I bypassed the retired detectives and hurried back to my Suburban. Inside the safety of my SUV, I slumped down in the driver’s seat and reached for a notebook resting on the dashboard. Months earlier, I had carefully written the title “Witt Case” across its cover. I flipped through the pages before landing on what I was looking for—a crude outline of events from December 1, 1994:</div> <div class="indent">6:30-6:40pm—Witness hears a woman shouting “Help me” in the Bowling World parking lot. A young boy, Jeremy, was with his mother at the bowling alley that night. Jeremy reported leaving Bowling World to retrieve a book from his mother’s car. He heard a woman scream “Help! Help me!” Underneath the words “Help me” I had written: MELISSA WITT CALLS FOR HELP WHILE SHE IS ATTACKED in bold, red ink.</div> <div class="indent">Directly under those words I had also jotted down this note: Melissa Witt’s car keys were located in the parking lot of Bowling World at approximately 7:45pm. The keys were immediately turned in to the front desk inside the building. In the column to the left of these notes I had written: NOBODY noticed the blood spatter on Melissa’s keys.</div> <div class="indent">I stared at the words, willing an answer to suddenly appear among my copious notes. “Back to the beginning,” I whispered to myself. “If we want answers to this case, we need to go back to the beginning.”</div> <div class="indent">A knock on my window interrupted my train of thought. I rolled down the window when I saw Rider standing there. As usual, the exceptionally dressed retired detective was all business. “You coming?” Rider asked. “I want to walk through the timeline of events once again,” he said.</div> <div class="indent">I leaned across the console to place the notebook back in its original place on the dashboard.</div> <div class="indent">“I’m coming,” I assured him.</div> <div class="indent">“Good. I want to go back to the beginning.” My head snapped quickly back in Rider’s direction at the sound of his words.</div> <div class="indent">Astounded by the second strange coincidence of the morning, I responded by slowly repeating Rider’s own words back to him as I nodded: “Back to the beginning.”</div> <div class="center">?</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div>As I drove home, Rider’s words continued to echo in my head. When I arrived at my office, I decided to once again take a closer look at the events that unfolded on the day Melissa disappeared. From all reports, the day started off routinely. She spent the first part of the morning with her mother, Mary Ann. The honor student would head to Westark Community College next. After that, she went to lunch at the Chick-fil-a in Central Mall with her friend, John, then off to her job as a dental assistant.</div> <div class="indent">Before she left that morning in 1994, Melissa had a minor disagreement with her mother. She had asked to borrow money, and Mary Ann, in an effort to teach her daughter money management, had told her no. Melissa and her mother were especially close. They shared the same beautiful smile, kind heart, and innocent outlook on life. So this argument, while minor, was unusual for them.</div> <div class="indent">Panged with guilt, before Mary Ann left for work that morning, she left a note for Melissa reminding her she would be bowling with her league that evening and offered to buy her a hamburger. She signed the note, “<i>Love, Mom.</i>”</div> <div class="indent">At five o’clock that evening, after clocking out of her job as a dental assistant, Melissa discovered that her 1995 Mitsubishi Mirage wouldn’t start. After trying to start the car a few times, Melissa gave up and waited with a co-worker until a local businessman, later dubbed the Good Samaritan, gave her car a jump.</div> <div class="indent">Police reports explain how Melissa’s dome light was left on by mistake, draining the car battery. Investigators tracked down the Good Samaritan and interviewed him multiple times before ultimately clearing him in the teenager’s disappearance and murder.</div> <div class="indent">“<i>People ask about the Good Samaritan all the time because those events leading up to Melissa’s abduction seem suspicious</i>,” Rider once explained.<i> “I mean, the Good Samaritan seems suspicious until you realize how many times he was questioned</i>. <i>He was cleared of any suspicion in Melissa’s murder</i>.”</div> <div class="indent">We know that, once Melissa’s car started, she went home to change out of her uniform. Those clothes were found crumpled on her bedroom floor. Mary Ann Witt was able to determine that her daughter had then donned a white V-neck sweater and jeans.</div> <div class="indent">Melissa must have seen her mom’s note, because authorities believe she headed to Bowling World, arriving between 6:30 and 7:00pm. She parked in the northwest corner of the lot, but she never made it inside. There were no cameras to record the events that unfolded in that parking lot that night. Witnesses would later tell police they heard a woman screaming “<i>Help me!</i>”</div> <div class="indent">Since Melissa never entered the bowling alley that night, her mother simply thought she had decided to go out with friends instead. Mary Ann went home expecting to see her daughter later that evening. Hours passed and Thursday slowly turned into Friday.</div> <div class="indent">At nine o’clock on Friday morning, Mary Ann reported Melissa as a missing person. When the patrolman took the report that December morning, one of the very first things he asked Melissa’s mother was if she and Melissa had argued. Mary Ann told him there had been a small dispute over money. Once he knew about the argument, according to Jay C. Rider, the officer chalked it up to a routine missing person situation. After all, Melissa was considered an adult and it wasn’t illegal for her to decide not to come home.</div> <div class="indent">However, Melissa’s friends and family knew that it was not like Melissa to take off without telling her mom where she would be. So by Saturday, Melissa’s friends and family were frantically passing out flyers, blanketing the River Valley with over 6,000 pleas for help in finding the missing teenager.</div> <div class="indent">Once news stations picked up the story on the search for Melissa Witt, the Fort Smith Police Major Crimes Unit, led by Jay C. Rider, asked to see the missing person report that had been filed. The report had little information. The patrolman knew little more than a 19-year-old girl didn’t come home after an argument with her mother. There was no evidence to suggest that Melissa had been abducted. The officer had seen this type of scenario play out hundreds of times before. He was certain Melissa would return home soon. Three days after the initial report of the teenage girl affectionately called “Missy” by her friends and family was marked as a “runaway case,” the tide shifted and the Fort Smith Major Crimes Unit had boots on the ground actively searching for the missing teen.</div> <div class="indent">Almost immediately, investigators received a shocking phone call from a bowling alley employee. This call would turn the Witt case upside down. The employee described how at approximately 7:45pm, a set of car keys were found in the parking lot and were turned in to the front desk of Bowling World. The keys held an important clue. The name spelled out on the keychain was “Missy.” Even more shocking, no one had noticed the spatters of blood that were slowly drying on the metal keys.</div> <div class="indent">Immediately, investigators began a search to find the person who turned in Melissa’s keys on December 1, 1994. After making repeated pleas in partnership with area news stations, after nearly two months, the construction worker who found the car keys came forward. Curtis McCormick had been working at a Tennessee construction site since he had turned in the keys and he had no idea about Melissa’s abduction until he returned home to Arkansas.</div> <div class="indent">After his arrival, McCormick’s brother was discussing the Witt case with him and that’s when the two realized that Curtis was the person police were looking for. When interviewed by investigators, McCormick described how he had spotted the keys when he was distracted by a car with its headlights left on when he arrived at the bowling alley sometime between 7:30 and 8:00 p.m. with his wife and teenage son. According to McCormick, he found the keys laying on the pavement where police later found Witt’s car abandoned.</div> <div class="indent">As I reviewed the details of Melissa’s disappearance over two decades later, I sat on the floor of my living room, poring over the news footage that captured Melissa’s friends and family distributing flyers with her smiling photo and identifying information. I could feel their sorrow. <i>Where is Melissa? </i>That question loomed with each news piece. I watched what started out as hopeful interviews with friends and family slowly turned into desperation, despair, and sadness. The answer to their most pressing question “Where is Melissa Witt” had an answer. Her friends and family just didn’t know it yet. December would slip quietly into January before the Ozark National Forest would give up the secret that was hidden amongst its dense trees and thorny undergrowth. Melissa Witt was dead. But the smiling faces of her friends and family in this early December news footage had no idea of the horrors that awaited.</div> <div class="indent">I closed my laptop and wondered aloud if Melissa’s killer had watched this same footage in the days after her disappearance. I envision him huddled on his mother’s expensive couch that cold December weekend, glued to the television, wondering if his terrible secret was safe. When I close my eyes, I can see his smug face, reliving every gruesome detail of Melissa’s murder. I imagine him running his murderous fingertips along the steel of her Mickey Mouse watch. I opened my eyes and reached for my iPhone. I opened the Facebook app and scrolled briefly until I found the profile of the man I believe is responsible for killing Melissa Witt. “There you are,” I say out loud as I enlarge his profile photo on my phone. I stare at his smiling face and steely eyes. <i>Did you do it?</i> I think to myself. <i>Did you kill Melissa Witt?</i></div> <div class="indent">I close the Facebook app as Jay C. Rider’s words from our meeting in the bowling alley parking lot flood my mind. “<i>Back to the Beginning</i>,” he had said. Instinctively, I grabbed one of my notebooks. This one, titled “December 2016,” stored a wrinkled copy of an email I had received on December 28, 2016. The one sentence email packed a punch: “<i>Probably not relevant, but my old college roommate told me he was meeting Melissa the night she disappeared.” </i>He had no way of knowing it at the time, but this email was beyond relevant. It turns out, his college roommate knew Melissa Witt. Stranger still, his college roommate had actively been contacting me about the Melissa Witt case.</div> <div class="indent">I sank back into the worn and cracked leather of my black office chair and thought back to a description of the Bowling World parking lot given by law enforcement regarding that cold December night. Despite the fact that the dark bowling alley was teeming with cars, there was very little activity happening outside. Inside, however, Bowling World was bustling with bowlers, friends sharing a beer after work, and kids playing video games or pool. The empty parking lot provided the perfect opportunity for a 19-year-old girl to be spirited away under the cloak of darkness.</div> <div class="indent">Like a predator carefully stalking his prey, he watched and waited. His eyes intensely focused on her every move as an unsuspecting Melissa parked her 1995 Mitsubishi Mirage, turned off the engine, and stepped out into the shadows of the Bowling World parking lot. Suddenly, Melissa is caught off guard. She looks up in a mix of fear and surprise. But it’s too late. His sharp eyes are locked on the target. He is ready to strike. And then, it happens. The hunter makes his move.</div> <div class="spacer"></div> <div class="spacer"></div> </body> </html>

LaDonna Humphrey

Connected by Fate $15.50 $17.95

Connected by Fate unfolds against the haunting backdrop of the Ozark National Forest, where the unresolved murder of Melissa Witt has cast a long shadow over the dense woodlands for almost three decades. The mystery, woven into the fabric of the remote mountaintop, has become a part of the lore of the land, with the true identity of the murderer eluding capture, concealed by the forest's imposing presence. Enter LaDonna Humphrey, driven by a profound sense of justice and a personal commitment to uncovering the truth, despite never having met Melissa Witt. LaDonna's connection to the case transcends the ordinary, fueling her with a relentless determination that has defined her life for almost a decade.LaDonna's investigation is a riveting narrative of courage, resilience, and an unwavering pursuit of truth in the face of overwhelming odds. Each breakthrough and setback, each clue unearthed and lead followed, draws her deeper into a web of intrigue that extends far beyond the initial crime.Connected by Fate is more than a true crime story; it's a testament to the power of human spirit and determination fueled by the knowledge that solving Melissa's murder is not just about bringing a killer to justice—it's about restoring dignity to a life cut tragically short, and offering closure to a community haunted by the specter of an unsolved crime.

Mark G. Hewitt DBA

Exposed: The Zodiac Revealed $18.95

The solution to the Zodiac serial killer case is both clear and controversial. There's one man who fits the puzzle: a letter writer, bomb maker, and code creator who lived in the area during the Zodiac murders. He had easy access to the crime scenes and had a psychotic break around the time the Zodiac's terrible killing spree began. This man was not only a genius-level mathematician but also skilled at disguising his handwriting, leaving no fingerprints, and crafting incredibly difficult ciphers to tease the police and the public with his hidden identity. His name is Theodore J. Kaczynski. Kaczynski was shaped by the MK Ultra project at Harvard University and became one of UC Berkeley's youngest math professors, a job he detested. He committed his first Zodiac murder during the winter break of 1968 and struck again just after resigning from his teaching position in July 1969. His criminal signature, which included writing letters and creating codes, continued in both his criminal careers as the Zodiac and Unabomber. "EXPOSED" takes you through all the evidence presented in the first two books, "HUNTED" and "PROFILED," and methodically links the Zodiac and Unabomber cases using handwriting, codes, locations, literature, cultural references, and other unexpected details. It makes a compelling case that Kaczynski cannot be dismissed as the Zodiac, one of the most notorious serial killers in history. If you're a fan of crime thriller books, this is a gripping exploration of a controversial theory about the Zodiac killer's identity.

Mark G. Hewitt DBA

Hunted: The Zodiac Murders $22.95

The Zodiac serial killer claimed the lives of at least five young victims between 1966 and 1974, and mocked the police with telephone calls, taunting letters, and encrypted messages. Thousands of men have been accused; nearly 2,500 have been investigated. Yet the Zodiac has never been identified. This painstakingly researched and meticulously detailed compendium to the Zodiac serial killer case by True Crime author Mark Hewitt presents the crimes and their effect on a community, including the various sides of the many disputed issues within the case. HUNTED: The Zodiac Murders is the true story of America's greatest criminal mystery. This indispensable companion book is accessible to anyone interested in joining the pursuit, exploring a mystery, or witnessing the police response to an appalling crime spree.

Mark G. Hewitt DBA

Profiled: The Zodiac Examined $18.95

The Search Continues.... Following up on the meticulously-detailed research of HUNTED: The Zodiac Murders (Book 1), PROFILED: The Zodiac Examined (Book 2) goes beyond the case files to develop a comprehensive criminal profile that examines the personality, psychology, physical characteristics, and motives of the Zodiac. Based in the same detailed research of HUNTED, PROFILED sticks to the facts and articulates at every step how the conclusions of the profile were reached. At the time the Zodiac was committing his crimes, the term “serial killer” had not yet been coined, and psychological profiles were practically unknown. Now, using 21st century crime analytics and a sophisticated understanding of serial killers, it is possible to create a comprehensive profile that may help identify the kind of man who could commit these terrible crimes and get away with it for decades, despite an overabundance of evidence that should have pointed directly to him. Join the search for the killer as the evidence is compiled and analyzed in PROFILED: The Zodiac Examined.

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