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The Lost Girls of Arkansas (Paperback)
5.0from 1 reader
$19.95
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Chapter One — The Name in the File: Dana Stidham
The first time I encountered Dana Stidham’s name, it did not come to me through a headline, a memorial post, or a grieving family’s plea for renewed attention, but through the quiet interior of a homicide file, where names are often reduced to investigative reference points and human lives are compressed into typed lines and procedural summaries. I had been seated for hours with the Melissa Witt investigative materials spread across the table in front of me, moving slowly through reports, timelines, lab findings, and comparative analyses, when I turned a page and noticed another victim listed as part of a prior cross-case review. The notation was brief and clinical, indicating that investigators had once examined whether a connection existed between Melissa’s murder and the disappearance and homicide of a young woman from Northwest Arkansas, and the conclusion beside the notation stated that no evidentiary link had been established and that the comparison had been closed. (More on Melissa Witt in Chapter Eight)
Even so, experience has taught me that names discovered in the margins of major case files are rarely insignificant, because investigators do not make cross-case comparisons casually, and when two murdered young women appear within the same analytical frame, even temporarily, it reveals the kinds of patterns and offender possibilities detectives were weighing at the time. Comparative elimination does not erase tragedy; it simply clarifies that there are multiple unresolved harms instead of one, and it leaves you with the uneasy awareness that while the cases may not connect to each other, the violence still connects to the same landscape. I wrote Dana’s name down in my notebook before I finished reading the page, not because I believed the cases were linked — the file was clear that they were not — but because I have learned that closed leads do not cancel open grief, and separate cases still deserve to be held with the same seriousness, the same refusal to let them dissolve into the background.
At that moment, Dana Stidham was simply another unsolved Arkansas victim whose story required careful, factual reconstruction, but advocacy work has a way of narrowing distance between research and reality, and what begins as a name on paper can become something far more personal without warning. In the months that followed, through nonprofit and service circles where advocacy, recovery work, and community leadership often overlap, I developed a friendship with Sammy Laney, a woman whose compassion and steady commitment to helping others was evident long before I knew anything about her family history. Our connection formed through shared mission rather than shared tragedy, which made what I later learned feel less like coincidence and more like convergence, because when I discovered that Sammy is Dana Stidham’s first cousin, the emotional distance between file notation and human loss collapsed in an instant. The case I had first encountered as an investigative cross-reference became something closer and heavier, and the realization did not feel incidental; it felt directional, as though the work itself had circled back and placed Dana’s name in front of me again, not as a footnote, but as a responsibility.
Dana Lanell Stidham was eighteen years old in the summer of 1989, newly graduated from Gravette High School and standing at that hopeful threshold where young adulthood begins to take shape through plans, applications, and practical next steps. She had been accepted to Northwest Arkansas Community College and was moving forward with the steady, grounded energy that those close to her described as characteristic of her nature. At the time, she was living in Centerton with her brother Larry and her cousin Kristy Smith, while still maintaining close and frequent visits with her parents, Lawrence and Georgia, in Hiwasse, reflecting the kind of tightly woven family structure where independence grows without severing connection.
On July 25, 1989, she spent part of the day at her parents’ home, helping with ordinary responsibilities and moving through the familiar rhythm of a summer afternoon. Her father was feeling ill, and she agreed to run a short grocery errand for him — a small act of care, a routine favor, the kind of trip no one remembers twice under normal circumstances. She left the house at approximately 2:45 in the afternoon for what should have been a quick four-mile drive to the Phillips grocery store in Bella Vista, and store register records later confirmed that she completed her purchase at 3:17 p.m., creating a timestamp that stands as the final verified marker of her movements while alive. A receipt found later inside her vehicle preserved that moment with indifferent precision, ink on paper marking the end of the known timeline.
Witnesses reported that she spoke briefly with an older man near the store entrance area, an interaction that did not raise alarm at the time and appeared ordinary to those who observed it. There was no recorded sign of distress, no visible struggle, nothing to distinguish that moment from thousands of other brief public exchanges that occur every day in grocery store doorways and parking lots, and that ordinariness is part of what makes it so unsettling to revisit. Somewhere between that completed purchase and the expected return home, her day — and her life — was violently interrupted.
Concern grew quickly when she failed to return within a reasonable timeframe, because Dana was known for her reliability and for communicating even small delays, and her unexplained absence did not fit her character. By that evening, her brother reached out for help, and a family friend who was also a sergeant with the Benton County Sheriff’s Office began the early response process, gathering descriptions and initiating a countywide alert so that patrol officers would be watching for her vehicle. Those first hours in a missing person case can be decisive, but they are also frequently marked by uncertainty, and Dana’s case began with urgency but very little actionable information, which is one of the cruelest combinations a family can endure.
The following morning brought the first major development when her gray 1984 Dodge Omni was located along Highway 71 near Wellington Road in Bella Vista, positioned on the shoulder in the southbound lane with a flat left rear tire, unlocked, with the keys still in the ignition. Inside, investigators found the grocery receipt confirming the previous afternoon’s purchase time. Detectives surveying the scene were immediately troubled by directional inconsistency, because both Dana and her parents lived in the opposite direction from where the car had been left, suggesting that something — or someone — had altered her route after she exited the store parking lot, and the totality of the scene suggested interruption rather than a voluntary stop.
A Bella Vista officer later reported that during the previous night, before the vehicle had been linked to a missing young woman, he had observed a pickup truck stopped behind the Omni with a man positioned near the rear tire, appearing to examine something mechanical. At the time, the observation did not trigger alarm, but in hindsight it became one of the most haunting near-intersections in the timeline, representing a moment when proximity to the offender may have occurred without recognition, a moment that reads like a warning nobody knew how to hear.
As investigators retraced Dana’s likely route, some of her personal belongings were discovered scattered along nearby roads, findings that suggested deliberate disposal rather than accidental loss, and shifted the working theory firmly toward abduction. Search efforts expanded to include law enforcement personnel, volunteers, friends, and community members who combed surrounding areas hoping to locate either Dana herself or additional trace evidence. Detectives conducted interviews across her known social and relational circles, including former romantic partners, verifying alibis and reconstructing movements, following standard elimination protocols while pursuing every viable lead, because in the early stage of an investigation the goal is not to confirm a single theory but to remove every false one until only the truth remains.
Nearly two months later, in mid-September, a hunter discovered skeletal remains in a wooded area of Bella Vista near a dry creek bed, but the discovery was not immediately reported, adding delay to an already devastating development. Investigators responded to the scene and began careful recovery procedures, and the remains were sent to the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Little Rock, where dental comparison confirmed Dana’s identity. The case was formally ruled a homicide, and because of the condition of the remains and the passage of time, officials did not publicly release the specific physiological cause of death, preserving forensic details for investigative integrity. Evidence at the scene included materials indicating restraint, including duct tape and lengths of tied twine, reinforcing the conclusion of criminal violence.
Dana was born in March 1971 and would now be in her fifties, a reality that forces the mind to imagine the decades she never experienced — the career she might have built, the relationships she might have formed, the ordinary milestones that were stolen before they could occur. Her disappearance and murder shocked her community, and the grief that followed settled deeply into the lives of those who loved her. Over the decades since, many central figures connected to the early investigation and family circle have passed away, including her parents and several original investigators, yet the case itself has not been closed. Cold case units continue to review the file, reassess evidence, and seek new leads through modern methods, maintaining its status as open and active.
What remains most striking is how memory has endured even where answers have not, because classmates, relatives, and family friends still speak of Dana not as a case but as a person — kind, dependable, warm-hearted — and they continue efforts to keep her name visible so that time does not succeed where violence failed in erasing her. Community advocates and relatives maintain awareness efforts so that population growth and generational turnover do not bury the story under unfamiliarity, and the passage of thirty-five years has changed the landscape but not the obligation.
When I think back to the moment I first saw Dana Stidham’s name in the Witt case file — a brief comparative entry concluding no connection — I understand now that while the crimes are not linked by offender, they are linked by duty, because every unsolved murder of a young woman (or of anyone) creates the same unfinished demand for truth. Discovering that my friend Sammy Laney is Dana Stidham’s first cousin did not alter the investigative facts, but it removed any remaining emotional distance, and with that nearness came certainty that telling Dana’s story fully, factually, and without dilution is not optional work. It is necessary .
Some stories disappear long before they are ever solved.
A missing woman becomes a faded headline. A murdered girl becomes a file stored in a box somewhere inside a courthouse basement. Families learn to live between hope and grief while communities slowly stop asking questions. Over time, silence settles in where outrage once existed.
The Lost Girls of Arkansas confronts that silence head-on.
In this powerful investigative work, award-winning author, journalist, and victims’ advocate LaDonna Humphrey examines missing persons cases and unsolved murders that continue to haunt Arkansas decades later. Through deeply researched storytelling, firsthand investigative work, and a victim-centered approach, Humphrey explores the lives behind the cases — not as statistics or sensational headlines, but as daughters, sisters, mothers, and human beings whose stories deserve far more attention than they received.
Set against the backdrop of rural highways, isolated communities, river towns, and dense Arkansas forests, the book traces the lingering impact of unresolved violence across generations. It examines how poverty, addiction, indifference, institutional failure, media disparities, and social stigma often shaped which victims received urgency and which were quietly forgotten. In many cases, the investigations stalled long before the pain did.
Rather than glorifying violence, The Lost Girls of Arkansas focuses on the emotional and societal aftermath when justice never comes. Families fracture beneath unanswered questions. Witnesses carry secrets for decades. Entire communities adapt to fear, rumor, and uncertainty while predators sometimes remain hidden in plain sight.
Humphrey brings both investigative rigor and emotional depth to these cases, challenging readers to look beyond the surface of true crime and confront the broader realities surrounding unsolved violence in overlooked places. The result is a haunting and deeply human examination of memory, loss, justice, and the enduring fight to make sure victims are not erased by time.
LaDonna Humphrey is an award-winning author, investigative journalist, filmmaker, and nationally recognized advocate for victims of crime. She is the co-founder of All the Lost Girls and host of investigative podcasts focused on missing persons, cold cases, and justice reform. Her work has earned recognition for its ethical approach, relentless research, and commitment to giving voice to victims and families too often ignored.
Every name matters. Every story counts. Some cases should never be forgotten. LaDonna Humphrey is currently working on additional investigative volumes including The Lost Girls of Alaska, The Lost Girls of Oklahoma, and The Lost Girls of Washington. To suggest a case, share information, or learn more about her investigative work, visit LaDonnaHumphrey.com.
A true crime investigation driven by advocacy, restraint, and an unwavering refusal to let a young woman be reduced to a headline.
The Girl I Never Knew (Paperback)
4.7from 61 readers
$19.95
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Chapter One
THE DISCOVERY
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
On January 13, 1995 at 9:40am, two animal trappers, about 15 miles north of Ozark, stumbled upon what they believed could be a mannequin lying face down in the woods about 30 feet off of the main road. The two men, avid outdoorsmen, had walked this very path the day before. There had been nothing there.
As they approached the strange mannequin 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.
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.
Over 20 years later, as I sat 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.
“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.”
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.
“Sheriff Ross told me on that call that he thought he had found the body of Melissa Witt. And knowing him like 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.”
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 the rain came down in heavy thuds, hard and fast, soaking my clothes as I ran. Another memory of me complaining to my coworkers about the miserable weather conditions on that day also replayed in my mind: “Why did what started as a beautiful day drastically turn out to be so tragic?” My words unknowingly foreshadowed events that would haunt me almost two decades later.
As 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 explain my passion for finding justice for a girl I never knew.
“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.” Rider’s tough demeanor fueled my anxiety.
“Tell me about January 13, 1995. The day you found Melissa Witt’s body.”
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.”
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.
“Can you tell me more about the location?” I asked.
“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.”
“What else do you remember about that day?” I asked.
“I will never forget that day,” Rider explained. “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 shirt or something to change into so I could stay warm.”
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.
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.
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.
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. A—n area so isolated that if you had never been there before, it would be almost impossible to find. 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.
According to police records, Melissa’s decomposing body had visible marks where someone, presumably the killer, had grabbed hold of her in order to move her closer to the road.
“It would have been a gruesome task,” Jay C. Rider explained. “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.”
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 voice message recording, a lady called and with a thick Southern accent could be heard saying, “Go ahead and tell them what you found.” There also 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 identity remains a mystery.
Now, decades after this heinous crime, as I sat with retired investigators decades after this heinous crime, they described additional clues found near Melissa’s body, such as cigarette butts and papers. What was even more puzzling were the items that were missing from the crime scene: Her clothing, purse, wallet, remaining gold hoop earring, and her beloved Mickey Mouse Watch. (Gold hoop earrings and Mickey Mouse watches were very common for teenagers in the ‘90s. I certainly had them, too.) Both retired Detectives Boyd and Rider seem to think that the killer kept Melissa’s watch for a very specific reason.
“A sociopath maybe wanted to keep it as a memento to represent the relationship they once had with Melissa,” explains Rider, “As a trophy of some sort.”
The discovery of Melissa’s body fueled an obsession in Rider to find justice for her at all costs.
I quickly began to recount the facts of the case for myself: Melissa was found nude near a headstone-like rock. She had been strangled and her clothes, shoes, and Mickey Mouse watch and jewelry were removed and have never been located.
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 have a family or 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.
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.
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% percent of these cases, the victim was found outdoors. In 17% of these cases, the offender stole something from the victim. In 14% of all of these cases, the victim was first hit with a blunt instrument.
A cold chill went down my spine. Did Melissa know her killer?
I compared these facts to what I had learned about the gruesome murder:
1) According to the autopsy report, Melissa was hit in the head with a blunt instrument.
2) She was found strangled, outdoors, and she was naked—her clothing and personal belongings had been taken from her.
3) The remote location was familiar to her killer. Authorities believe he had been there before.
I began to look even closer at 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 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.
However, 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. Melissa and her mother were especially close. They shared the same beautiful smile, kind heart, and innocent outlook on life.
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, “Love, Mom”
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 co-worker until a local businessman, later dubbed the Good Samaritan, gave her car a jump.
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.
“People ask about the Good Samaritan all the time because those events leading up to Melissa’s abduction seem suspicious,” Rider explained. “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.”
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.
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 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, “Help me!”
Two decades later, as I poured 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.”
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.
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.
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.
I lived in Northwest Arkansas 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:
“Melissa would not just disappear like this.”
“Where could she be? This is not like Melissa at all.”
“I hope she’s okay. I am scared she’s been hurt.”
Christmas passed and the new year rang in but there was still no Melissa Witt.
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 out the way it did.
A quote by the late Michelle McNamara, in her book I’ll be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, 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.
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 mountain top 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.
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.
The Laney Gwinner Effect (Paperback)
4.8from 11 readers
$17.95
$19.95
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Chapter 1 - “I’m on my way”
“The Last Words Spoken Echo in the Dark Forever”
~ Randy Hubbard
The calm rain I was watching from my patio when I started this book is nothing compared to what hit us in 1997. The greater Cincinnati area was hammered by torrential rainstorms that spring. I remember this because my childhood home, which my parents still live in, is less than one hundred feet from the Great Miami River. They had lived in that home for more than forty years, and it had never reached the house before. That March we spent about twenty-four to forty-eight hours moving furniture and watching the water rush through the basement as if the river had decided to take anything in its path. The Ohio River had risen to a record 64.7 feet and had taken over the streets of downtown Cincinnati. Many small towns along the river from Manchester, Ohio, to Louisville, Kentucky, were destroyed like the mythical city of Atlantis.
Maybe the raging river was foreshadowing the cold secrets it would carry later that year.
I had moved away from my hometown of Fairfield, Ohio, about five years earlier to build a life with my wonderful new bride in Kansas City, Kansas. We loved our time in Kansas, but we knew after our first daughter was born in 1996 it was time to return home to be with family. We found a perfect house for us in Burlington, Kentucky. We were back. Back to see the Cincinnati Reds flounder to a 76–86 third-place finish. Back to watch the Bengals miss the playoffs for the seventh year in a row. It was home, and we were so happy to be back.
That year, I started a new teaching position at Harrison High School. I was always proud of being innovative in my classroom. Doing something different to make the classroom more enjoyable for my students was always something I strived to accomplish. Heck, I even talked my principal into letting me take over an old industrial arts room and make a zoo. I guess you could call me the Tiger King of small rodents, reptiles, and birds. As I taught my biology class about the circulatory system and blood, using the relatively new idea of weaving in forensic science, I did not realize an event that would occur on December 10, 1997, would rejuvenate my passion for teaching and helping others after twenty years. It would be the catalyst to open my mind to the intrigue of true crime, new friendships, and professional connections, and, most of all, introduce me to a young woman I would never get to meet in person.
As Forrest Gump said, the 1990s “was like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.” It was the era of boy bands and the Harry Potter series. Y2K signified the world’s end in the year 2000, and music icon Prince wanted us all to “party like it was 1999.” On the world stage, the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh, got his well-deserved sentence of death from the courts, while in that same month, the world lost a true princess with the awful death of Princess Diana. Here in the Cincinnati area, towns were starting to put the pieces back together from the damage caused by the rising rivers earlier that year. The city was actively trying to improve its highways. The city council even talked about building a light rail to move people along the I-71 corridor to improve business ventures. Now we know how government projects work. It is twenty-five years later, there is no light rail, and the I-71/I-75 roadwork seems to never end.
Despite the endless construction zone of doom, Cincinnati and the surrounding areas were really progressing back then to make this part of Ohio a place that would attract more people. Things seemed to be going well, but like all cities, big and small, there are always underlying stories of tragedy. On December 5, 1997, the Cincinnati Police Department was rocked by the sudden loss of Officers Ronald Jeter and Daniel Pope. An individual they were serving a warrant to ambushed the two highly decorated officers, killing them both with gunshot wounds to the head. This story hit hard on the emotions of this town that seemed to be changing its reputation as a rough place to be.
These were the stories crowding the front page of the newspapers, but what about those stories that were hidden in the small box on page one or in section B of the paper? The ones that didn’t seem to draw the same attention. One of those was that of a twenty-three-year-old young woman who had gone missing. On the front page of the Cincinnati Post on December 19, 1997, a small story found on the right side of the page showed a small picture of Alana “Laney” Gwinner with her beautiful smile. At the time, Laney had been missing for nine days with no leads or ideas about where she or her car could be. Her friends and family had been searching every place they could possibly think Laney might go. Hundreds of phone calls to anyone that may have a connection with her had been made. There was still no sign of her.
I noticed that the article wasn’t only about Laney. The article discussed other missing women, whom I later learned were considered deceased because of the time that had gone by since their disappearances. I felt a bit upset that the attention had been taken off Laney. I know that the author of that article was in no way trying to minimize Laney’s story, and I’m not sure why it upset me like it did, other than the fact that her story had now seemed to become personal for Evan and me. Don’t get me wrong, those other stories were extremely tragic in their own right and definitely deserved to have attention drawn to them. At the time, though, Laney was still out there, and finding her was at the top of the list for her family, friends, coworkers, and those who may have seen her that night.
December 9, 1997, was a normal day for Laney: get up early, prepare for work, and start the day like any other. According to her boss, she was a very conscientious, hard-working employee. Laney was always on time and ready to work. He said she would call before leaving home if she thought she was going to be late, even by one minute. This gained her great respect from her boss. These types of characteristics are often rewarded with a promotion, which is exactly what happened for Laney. Things were going well. Her life wasn’t always easy, but for the moment, it appeared as if the stars were aligning for her, at least in her professional life.
Like most of us, distractions occur during the workday. Laney was no different. The morning of December 8th started out with a simple email to a friend, Angie, saying, “What’s up?”
The work day continued, and Laney and Angie corresponded back and forth. Laney ended with telling Angie about having a confrontation with a female at her current boyfriend’s house over the weekend. Angie responded about her day and asked more about the weekend events. Laney expressed her need to study for her accounting exam coming up the next day. She ended the conversation with, “Give me a call later and I will fill you in on his reaction to the whole situation and try to get your input on it. I think Shad, Joy, and I are going to BW3’s tomorrow after my exam, wanna go? Call me.”
It should be noted that in 1997, cell phones were not the extra appendage most people have today. If you had a cell phone, it was considered to be a luxury or it was specifically used for work.
That being said, the conversation ended at the end of the workday, and both went on with their separate lives that evening. Tuesday morning, December 9th, began with a continuation of the conversation from the day before.
Laney wrote, “Nothing is up with Shad… He was out with Eric in Chicago all weekend. Eric said they had a blast, it was just like old times. We are just going to BW3’s to chow down on some wings!!! Maybe shoot a little pool. Sound Good? I have my exam tonight so I don’t know what time we are going.”
Unfortunately, Angie’s son was sick, and she did not want to leave him with anyone, so she had to explain to Laney that she most likely would not make it that evening. That would be the last exchange Angie would have with her beloved friend.
Laney’s day continued like normal. She knew that, at the end of the day, she would have to go take her exam. Like almost all students, she wasn’t that excited to take that test. Did she study enough? Was she prepared, or was this going to turn out badly? Her boss remembered that she left a little early that day to put in a last few minutes studying before the exam.
Laney had made plans with friends to meet at BW3’s near Forest Fair Mall later that evening to celebrate the end of classes. The idea was to meet there to have some dinner and then venture somewhere to play some pool. Laney was an avid pool player. Some might even say she was a bit of a sandbagger. She would act like she didn’t know how to play to lure someone, particularly a man, into a false sense of security, then proceed to kick their ass and take their money. This could be a good thing or it could be a bad thing, depending on who she was playing and how much she had taken from them. From stories I have heard about Laney, she wouldn’t back down from anyone. She may have been small, but she was tough. Playing pool against her could start a ruckus.
During the day leading up to dinner, unfortunately, some of her friends contacted her to let her know that they would not be able to attend the get together. That left only Laney and her friend Shad to go out that evening. They arrived at Bdub’s, as they called it, between eight and eight thirty p.m. They had a few drinks and downed those wings she liked so much. Between nine and nine thirty p.m., they arrived at the Gilmore Bowling Lanes in Fairfield, Ohio. It is not clear who decided to go there, because according to most people who knew her, she had never been to Gilmore Lanes until that night. How did they know that they could play pool there? Was it well known that Gilmore had pool tables? I guess we will never know the answer to that question, but that is where they ended up that night.
Gilmore Bowling Lanes has been in Fairfield for quite a long time. It actually used to go by the name of Coleman Lanes when I was a kid, but more than forty years later, it still looks almost exactly the same with only the name change. It’s kind of funny how some places seem to get trapped in time. Like almost all bowling alleys, there are lanes in the back of the building, and out front there is a bar. Most of the bars I’ve seen in these alleys are not places you would take a date to dinner, but they do have alcohol, which draws all kinds of people. Most of those bars draw the bowlers in there in between frames, and then a few may stop in after bowling to have a nightcap before heading home.
This night seemed different for some reason.
The bar that night was a hopping place with a combination of bowlers, local car salesmen, pool players, and a group of friends partaking in a weeknight drinking party, just for the hell of it. This tiny bar was kind of crowded, especially for a Tuesday night. According to some of the workers, who still work there today, the bar usually closed around eleven thirty p.m. on a weeknight, but that night they stayed open because there were many people still having a good time and, well, that meant they were making a little extra cash. The question is why did everyone stay late that evening? Could it have been that beautiful, twenty-three-year-old woman with the jeans that fit just right and the brilliant smile that lit up a room? Laney was only one of two or possibly three women in that bar that night. There may have been an older woman who was a bit of a regular and an eighteen-year-old who was hiding in the corner drinking beer with her friends hoping that the cops didn’t come in and catch her. The men were from different backgrounds and ages, and having a good time, but all must have noticed that beautiful girl playing pool. One person took a serious interest in the “hot girl” in the room.
As the night began to wind down, Laney had to go to the restroom, considering she’d had quite a few drinks while celebrating with Shad. Someone had stated they saw her stop by the payphone by the front door to make a call. It was later established that she did make a call to her current boyfriend to let him know, “I’m on my way.” There may have been a few other calls made before she made it to the restroom, but she eventually made it there and returned to the bar to quickly say her goodbyes.
She slipped out the door without most people, including Shad, seeing her leave.
Somewhere between twelve thirty a.m. and one a.m., Alana “Laney” Gwinner, now trapped in time, slipped out into the dark, cold December night.
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.
Things Aren't Right: The Disappearance of the Yuba County Five
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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.
Through The Shadows (Paperback)
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Chapter 1
Hello, My Name is Lauren
Picture this: It's early 2018, and I'm just minding my own business, maybe binging on too much Netflix. And, suddenly, a metaphorical door swings open—like in those cheesy motivational videos your aunt keeps sharing on Facebook. Except, spoiler alert: Instead of leading to self-discovery or a career in motivational speaking, it invites me into the chaotic world of true crime podcasting. Yes, me. A total amateur.
At first, I thought, “Wow, what a fun little distraction!” Who doesn’t want to delve into the dark corners of human nature? So there I am, diving headfirst into this domain without any training, degrees, or even a clue about audio editing. Just a burning curiosity and a fierce desire to share tales that are equal parts fascinating and disturbing.
Before I dive too far into this story, I need to introduce you to Ken—my knight in shining armor, though his armor is more paint-chipped than polished and his bravery was rooted in the sturdy reliability of a 1998 GMC Sierra pickup truck. Ken has been my unwavering co-host and partner in both my podcasting adventures and the rollercoaster of everyday life.
A chance encounter facilitated by a mutual friend cemented our friendship through shared laughter, effortless conversations, and buffalo chicken wings. At first glance, he was not what I deemed "my type"—he was older, composed, and inherently good-natured. As I reflected on my past romantic entanglements, a pattern emerged, one painted with the hues of heartbreak and mistreatment. Ken stood in stark contrast to the men of my past.
It took a couple of months, but eventually, I made the first move. Believe it or not, Ken is shy, despite what you may think after listening to our podcast! I got tired of waiting for him, so I just went for it, and I am glad I did! He’s stuck with me now.
Enough of the mushy stuff. I convinced Ken to start this true crime podcast with me. We named it Paradise After Dark. You’ll understand the name better as you keep reading. But seriously, how hard could it be? We would research a case and record ourselves talking about it. Pretty simple, right? I bought cheap gaming headphones on Amazon, downloaded a free audio mixer on my laptop, and we got started.
And, oh boy, did I quickly learn that my lack of podcasting credentials raised quite a few eyebrows. Friends probably wondered if I’d lost a bet or if I was experiencing some midlife crisis too soon. Meanwhile, I’m over here thriving on chaos, experimenting with sound bites, and learning about audio editing. What I thought was a podcast could often pass for a crime scene investigation—or at least that’s how my early recordings sounded.
But you know what? Every awkward moment and every editing mishap became a stepping stone. My passion for sharing these stories became my best guide. And while I couldn’t tell you a single thing about “proper” podcasting, I could tell stories that kept listeners on the edge of their seats (or at least awake during their daily commutes).
So here I am, an accidental podcaster, navigating this uncharted territory with way more enthusiasm than technical skill. And honestly? Who needs a textbook when you’ve got a unique fascination with the human psyche and an endless supply of riveting tales to share? Welcome to my world!
But let’s peel back the layers, because it turns out that behind every chilling episode is a world of research that would make a detective proud. Forget just sitting in front of the mic and rolling with it. This job is more like being on a never-ending treasure hunt, where the treasure is buried under mountains of police reports, witness statements, and, oh, let’s not forget, the charming array of YouTube videos and the dreaded Reddit threads discussing the very crimes that haunt my sleep.
Don’t get me wrong; I love diving into the twisted tales of true crime, but have you ever tried sifting through grim details for hours while trying not to lose your mind? Let’s say my laptop and my sanity are in a constant tug-of-war. I’d love to tell you that I was doing it for the love of storytelling, but, eventually, it felt more like a weird form of self-punishment.
But here’s the kicker: Through all the research, the sleepless nights, and the risk of permanent damage to my eyes and wrists, I carved out my niche in this chaotic world of podcasting. And I’ve got to admit it’s empowering. Even with all the hiccups and plot twists along the way, the belief in the stories and the connection with my audience fuels the fire.
I’m getting ahead of myself here. Allow me to introduce myself. Hi, my name is Lauren. I was born and raised in Naples, Florida. First, let's talk about Florida in general. It's the land of sunshine, shrieking cicadas, and the most bizarre news headlines known to humankind. Honestly, if there were a contest for the weirdest stories, I’m sure our little corner of paradise would win first place. "Florida Man" has practically turned into a cultural icon—who needs superheroes when you have someone wrestling an alligator while wearing nothing but flip-flops?
Growing up here, you learn to embrace the eccentricity. Who wouldn’t want to be a proud embodiment of the quirks and oddities that come with the territory? It's as if the state handed me a quirky edge and my driver's license, almost like some rite of passage. You know, “Congratulations! You can legally drive, and here’s a whole bucket of weirdness to go with it!”
And Naples. A little slice of paradise where the beaches are pristine, the sun shines bright, and the darkest secrets lurk just beneath the surface. You know, the kind of place where joggers wave cheerily at each other while sipping overpriced lattes, blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding behind the facades of those luxurious mansions.
I became obsessed with uncovering the secrets beneath the surface of this seemingly perfect town. Here I was, revealing stories that would make your jaw drop. You’d think a place like Naples would be all beach days and high tea, but nope! There’s crime, scandal, and a healthy dose of drama lurking around every corner. It’s as if the town dared me to explore its underbelly, like some ironic treasure hunt.
Let’s talk about Port Royal, shall we? The neighborhood practically screams, “Look how fancy I am!” Beneath those elegant roofs and manicured lawns, there are some crazy stories. We’re talking about bombings, suspicious disappearances, and lives shattered by addiction—all swept neatly under the plush Persian rugs, of course. After all, we wouldn’t want to ruin anyone's brunch with the grisly details.
The cases of Terrance Williams and Felipe Santos highlight troubling failures within law enforcement. Both men disappeared in the early 2000s in North Naples after having encounters with Stephen Calkins, a Collier County Sheriff's Deputy.
Santos, involved in a minor car accident in 2003, was cited by Calkins. He was last seen being driven away in the officer's patrol car under dubious circumstances. Calkins claimed he dropped Santos off at a gas station, but no formal booking occurred, and Santos has not been heard from since.
Just months later, Terrance Williams faced a similar fate. After being illuminated by Calkins and pulling into the local cemetery parking lot, cemetery staff observed the officer patting Williams down and placing him in his vehicle. Like Santos, Williams was reportedly dropped off at a gas station; however, again no incident report was filed, and Williams has not been seen since. Calkins was later fired for providing conflicting information regarding both disappearances.
Despite national attention, a wrongful death lawsuit against Calkins lagged in meaningful results, culminating in a judge dismissing the appeal and making Williams' mother pay Calkins’ legal fees.
The question remains painfully obvious: Where are Terrance Williams and Felipe Santos, and how many more cases like theirs are buried beneath bureaucracy and indifference?
And then there’s the unforgettable tale of Stephen Benson, tobacco heir extraordinaire. Who could forget that delightful little family outing on July 9, 1985? A surprise pipe bomb in the family car adds a touch of drama to the typical butterflies and sunshine narrative. Just a little inheritance squabble gone awry—who hasn’t been there?
And speaking of mysterious circumstances, let’s discuss Robert Ludlum, the author who brought us Jason Bourne. Now that’s a plot twist! Did he spontaneously combust while sitting in his recliner in his high-rise apartment? Or was it a case of mixing too much drama with your cocktail, darling? His wife was in the kitchen preparing a fresh drink while the firemen doused her poor husband?
So, here I am—a proud product of Florida. Call me unconventional, call me ironic, call me whatever you want. I’ve learned that, sometimes, the things we can’t have, like a perfectly normal life, are exactly what we need to uncover the fascinating messiness of reality.
As a 12-year-old, I was captivated by shows like Forensic Files and books like Mind Hunter, written by the renowned John Douglas, which sparked my interest in criminal psychology. This has shaped my worldview, as I now see potential profiles and motives in every news story and crime scene. I see it as a puzzle waiting to be solved.
I’ve always loved reading books, so it’s no surprise that I’m now writing one. I started with R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series—nothing quite screams “I’m a budding horror aficionado” like a green book with a giant eyeball on the cover. We thought that was high literature back in fifth grade, didn’t we? From there, I graduated to the Fear Street series by R.L. Stine, which was essentially the same as Goosebumps but featured teenagers instead of children. I loved it.
And then, in my teen years, I jumped headfirst into the dark, twisting world of Stephen King. The "Master of Horror," they call him. But honestly, it's like calling an entire buffet “just food”—the man does so much more than scare you; he dives deep into the messy, delicious bits of human life with a sprinkle of supernatural chaos. Who knew you could get existential dread while battling a giant spider named "It," right? Sorry, spoiler alert!
But the scariest Stephen King book I have read to date is Mr. Mercedes. It isn’t about the supernatural; it's about a real person—an evil person. Evil exists in our world, and I have definitely discovered that.
Fast forward to today. My interests as a child didn’t just teach me about crime; it instilled confidence in my ability to analyze, empathize, and understand the complexities of human nature. And isn’t that a skill worth having? Whether you end up in law, criminology, or another field, your passion will always set you apart. That drive for more profound understanding makes you a potential profiler and a keen observer of life.
I honestly have no idea when or where Stephen King made this statement, but it’s always stuck with me: “Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” I relate to this in so many ways. I think you will understand once you have read this book.
True crime isn’t merely a hobby for me; it’s woven into the very fabric of my identity. It became my lens, my intrigue, and, ultimately, my calling. Reflecting on my journey, the pivotal four years I spent as a military police officer in the Navy stand out vividly—each memory is a thread intricately tied to my understanding of humanity and morality.
As I donned my uniform each day, I witnessed things that tested every moral fiber within me. From tense military incidents to civilian disputes, each scenario left an indelible mark. The psychological depth I encountered taught me that crime is not simply an act; it’s a complex interplay of choices, circumstances, and the often-overlooked stories behind each individual involved.
Upon transitioning out of the service, I didn’t just hang up my badge; I took my experiences and channeled them into academia. I pursued a degree in paralegal studies, eager to bolster my understanding of the law—an extension of my experiences as a military police officer. This degree didn’t merely add a layer of sophistication to my narrative; it was integral in shaping my worldview.
Having worked closely with prosecutors and defense attorneys, I was granted a front-row seat to the great justice division. The prosecutors painted a world of black and white, where the rules were clear and often unforgiving. In contrast, the defense attorneys navigated the murky waters of “innocent until proven guilty,” prompting me to redefine my perception of right and wrong. This duality became more than just knowledge; it morphed into an intricate dance—a ballet of justice and humanity that I found utterly captivating.
Through these experiences, I understood that law is not a rigid script; it is a living, breathing entity. It reflects our society’s values, fears, and its myriad hypocrisies. I find this dance fascinating, a kaleidoscope of human experiences unfolding right before my eyes.
So here I am, armed with a wealth of knowledge and a passion that ignites my storytelling. As I recount chilling tales, I don’t just narrate, I dissect and analyze. I reveal the layers, exposing how the pieces fit together in a greater narrative. I am not just another voice amidst the clutter of true crime podcasts; I am a storyteller who has lived, seen, and dissected the very essence of this genre.
Ken and I knew we wanted to focus our podcast on Florida. Initially, we covered cases close to home, which inspired the show's name, Paradise After Dark. In the beginning, we didn’t limit ourselves to true crime; we also explored themes like ghosts, urban legends, and unsolved mysteries in the area. As I mentioned earlier, Florida has its quirks, ensuring we will never run out of content in these categories. We decided to kick off our first episode by discussing an urban legend from our own backyard—the legend of the squallies.
Let’s dive into this local legend from Golden Gate Estates, a rural neighborhood located in Naples, Florida. This area is known for its tight-knit working-class and middle-class families, but there’s a side that is definitely a bit more... mysterious.
Legend has it that deep in the woods surrounding this community, there’s a colony of peculiar little creatures called squallies. Imagine short, humanoid beings that sport pig-like snouts—it’s like something straight out of a storybook, right? These little guys have become part of the local folklore, and it’s said that around 40 to 50 of them still roam the woods to this day. But here’s the kicker: If they catch you, you might just end up as their dinner!
There are a couple of spine-chilling theories about how these squallies came to be. One story suggests they are the aftermath of a government experiment that went awry—think mad scientists and top-secret projects gone wrong, much like the premise of the popular Netflix series Stranger Things. The other theory is even wilder, claiming a nutty scientist created them all by himself and still protects them like some mad guardian out in the woods. Both stories agree on one thing: There is an old man who is just as crazy as they come, sitting like a guard dog over the territory where the squallies hang out. If you’re thinking about snooping around, be warned: He’s said to shoot on sight.
The area where these creatures are believed to be lurking is what folks around here call Naithlorendum Sanctuary. It’s a place that sounds enchanted but might hold chilling secrets instead. So, if you’re in Golden Gate Estates and feeling adventurous, think twice before stepping off the beaten path. The squallies might just be keeping a close eye on you!
Reflecting on the evolution of our podcast, I realize that each twist has not only shaped our narrative but also my worldview. As mentioned, initially, we focused on sensational true crime stories featuring notorious figures, ghosts, urban legends, and unsolved mysteries. However, as I delved deeper, I felt a growing responsibility to amplify the voices of those who had been silenced—families yearning for answers and friends holding on to hope amid despair.
This realization spurred a significant transition. We eventually shifted our focus exclusively to missing persons and unsolved crimes, shedding light on often-overlooked tragedies. This was more than a change in content; it was a commitment to fostering awareness and compassion. Our rebranding as Paradise After Dark: Missing & Unsolved encapsulated our mission to invoke action and support.
The overwhelming audience response validated our path. Listeners connected with stories of love and loss, and I found renewed passion—an urge to champion the marginalized. Each episode became a tribute to resilience, a reminder that hope for answers always exists.
The journey transformed me. It morphed from simple storytelling into a deep exploration of humanity and truth. Behind every statistic is a life, a family, a story begging to be heard.
This is one of the concepts that pushed Ken and I to create The Florida Themis Project. Themis, as we call it, is a non-profit organization. Themis, the Greek goddess of wisdom, good counsel, and the interpreter of the other gods' will, is widely recognized as the goddess of justice. We support loved ones and victims of unsolved crimes by providing financial assistance for investigative tools, including DNA testing, carried out by law enforcement professionals and private entities to help resolve these cases. We also assist victims' families by facilitating awareness campaigns, which may include billboards, printed media, flyers, and podcast episodes.
Fun fact: Ken is the reason this book exists. It was the spring of 2023 when I was having an identity crisis of some sort. Who am I, and what am I even doing here? I found myself navigating the complexities of life, character, and purpose—a maze I now recognize as both a blessing and a curse. I am an empath, the type of person who feels deeply and constantly, a bleeding heart that pulses with the hopes and sadness of others. This duality has been my compass, guiding me toward a destiny I have yet to grasp fully.
For so long, I believed that success was synonymous with profit. My ambitions were fueled by the need to amass wealth, to conform to a narrative that equated financial gain with personal worth. Then I stumbled into the world of true crime, and everything shifted.
As Ken and I embarked on our podcasting journey with Paradise After Dark: Missing & Unsolved, it offered us modest financial gains, but it also introduced us to an exhilarating, complex realm of storytelling that resonated with my soul. Although the financial rewards have been modest compared to what we had hoped for, what we have gained is far more immeasurable. We have forged friendships with talented individuals, traveled the world, and gathered an array of experiences that have brought color to our lives.
We had just gotten home after attending a live show featuring a couple of our podcast friends who have soared to great heights in this business. As I watched them bask in their success—crowds eagerly hanging on their every word—I felt not a trace of jealousy, only overwhelming pride. I have thrived in the warmth of their achievements, recognizing the common thread that connects us all: a passion for storytelling and the pursuit of truth.
But even amidst joy, a nagging insecurity found a foothold in my heart. What are we doing wrong? Why haven’t we sold out a live show? Will we truly make it in this industry? These concerns lingered, casting shadows on our journey, but I chose to reflect instead on what we had accomplished up to this point.
Ken provided a much-needed perspective: “You can’t confuse success with money,” he told me. It rang true. Ken reminded me that my path has been filled with incredible endeavors: multiple podcasts, extensive research, and hundreds of episodes that resonate with the voices of lives touched. I’ve fostered meaningful collaborations, traveled to conventions, and even taken the stage in Las Vegas to deliver a presentation. Those moments felt significant, far surpassing any dollar amount.
“I bet you could write a book about the Sims case,” Ken said. Ah, the Sims case. My great white whale. The murders of Robert, Helen, and Joy Sims in Tallahassee, Florida, on October 22, 1966. It was one of those unthinkable incidents that have stuck with me over the years. I will share the entire story later in this book.
After meticulously reporting on the tragic murders of Robert, Helen, and Joy Sims, I found myself ensnared by the intricate mystery surrounding their untimely deaths. Perhaps my involvement was personal—a close friend happens to share a birthday with one of the victims—adding an emotional layer to the case. Furthermore, the unsettling fact that I had engaged in multiple conversations with a primary suspect left me with an eerie feeling, making the whole situation even more consuming. Whatever the underlying reason may be, this perplexing case burrowed deep into my mind, persistently refusing to let go, compelling me to seek answers amidst the shadows.
I never considered writing a book about the infamous Sims case, despite my years of dedicated research into its captivating and perplexing details. During my exploration of the case, I found myself drawn to a different medium: storytelling through a serialized podcast titled Massacre on Muriel Court. In this podcast, I meticulously unraveled the intricate layers of the case, guiding listeners through each episode with gripping narratives and insightful analysis. Although the podcast allowed for a deep dive into the events and characters involved, the concept of transforming my extensive research and rich storytelling into a book format continued to remain an elusive aspiration, just out of reach.
I strongly believe that this case has the potential to be solved; however, I harbor a deep fear that it may never truly achieve the closure it so rightfully deserves. A former prosecutor who worked closely on that case cautioned me, saying, “The only court this case will ever see at this point is the court of public opinion.” His words resonate deeply in my mind, compelling me to reflect on the situation. Yet, despite this weighty realization, I find myself repeatedly asking: What steps can I take to make a difference?
I considered writing a book on the Sims case and capturing the many stories I've encountered. Each case we’ve explored carries significance, painting a portrait of humanity filled with heartache, resilience, and hope. I’ve met individuals whose time with me extended beyond traditional storytelling; their words are engraved in my heart.
So why not take the time to write it all down? Document the invaluable lessons learned throughout the years, account for the shadows that have been tallied, the laughter that has been shared, and the tears that have been shed along the way? I envision a book that encompasses my entire journey—one that not only reflects my personal struggles and growth but also articulates my ultimate purpose. This book would stand as a heartfelt tribute to the countless cases I have encountered, capturing the essence of what it truly means to connect with people. It would delve into the depths of their pain, celebrate their victories, and convey the profound impact that these shared experiences have had on my life and the lives of others.
This book is my roadmap to exploring my quest for value and purpose in a world that often confuses worth with wealth. Ultimately, my true success lies not in financial outcomes but in the stories that endure—that I feel compelled to share with the friends, family, and loved ones I support. The world deserves to hear these stories, and I am ready to share them. Here begins my next chapter.
Some stories won’t let go.
Lauren Samples never planned to become a true crime investigator. But when a podcast she co-hosted led her deep into the world of unsolved cases, she found herself drawn to the voices often overlooked—the families still searching for answers, the victims whose stories had faded from the headlines.
In this compelling blend of memoir and investigative journalism, Samples shares the cases that changed her, from missing persons and cold cases to the complex realities of grief, justice, and advocacy. With a background in law enforcement, a degree in paralegal studies, and a deep commitment to uncovering the truth, she brings a thoughtful and compassionate perspective to the mysteries she explores.
More than a collection of crime stories, this book is about the impact of loss, the resilience of those left behind, and the power of storytelling in the fight for justice.
For readers who seek true crime with heart, Through the Shadows: Unsolved Crimes and the Search for Truth offers an inside look at the pursuit of answers—and the people who refuse to stop searching.
A Question Mark (Paperback)
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“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.
Dead End: Inside the Hunt for the I-70 Serial Killer (Paperback)
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CHAPTER 1
“And then I started wondering, was Robin really the first? Could there have been others before her?”
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.
“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.”
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.
***
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
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.
“Why here, do you think?” I voiced to the detectives. “He could have stopped anywhere. Why do you think he stopped here?”
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.
“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.”
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.”
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.
“Was the gas station there in 1992?” I asked Spurgeon.
He nodded yes.
“That does not make any sense,” I said. “You would have to be a fool to kill somebody with this many potential witnesses around.”
Ricks and fellow detective David Ellison both laughed.
Spurgeon nodded again. “Welcome to the world of the I-70 serial killer where nothing makes any sense.”
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.
“Twenty seconds,” I hollered at them. “No way somebody is killing somebody with all of these people just 20 seconds away.”
I looked at Spurgeon again. He nodded and I shook my head. “No way,” I muttered to myself.
I kept walking between the gas station and shoe store, and then returned to the detectives.
“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?”
“Pretty much,” said Ellison. “Pretty much.”
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.
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.
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.
“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.
The Payless store had little in the way of store security. Just a bell that would ring when a new customer arrived.
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.
Before arriving in Indianapolis, I began the task of searching for Lucretia Gullet.
“Is this Lucretia Gullet?” I asked the woman on the other end of the phone.
“It is,” she said.
“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.”
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?”
I told Gullett her Payless killer went on to kill numerous other women across the country.
“What?!” she screamed into the phone.
And I realized she was unaware. “Do you still live around Indy?” I asked her.
“I do,” she said.
“I am coming to town,” I told her. “Would you meet with me?”
“I will,” she said. “And did you say serial killer?” Apparently, she was still coming to grips with this.
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.
“I am looking for Bob,” she said.
“Hi Lucretia,” I said, and we shook hands.
We began walking around the area. “This brings back a lot of memories,” she said.
“Have you been back here since…?” I asked.
“No,” she said as she looked around. “Thirty years is a long time. I just avoided coming around here.”
I asked Gullett to take me back to that day, as best she could.
“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.”
Gullett and I made the 20 second walk from one store to the other. “What happened when you walked in?” I asked.
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.”
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.
“One officer looked down to the right,” Gullett said, “and I could tell he was shocked at what he saw.”
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.
“You did not follow the case over the years as it exploded?” I asked.
“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!”
Brought back to the scene, and meeting new detectives for the first time. Gullett is now spending time detailing the case to police again.
“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.”
***
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.”
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.
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.
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.”
I looked at Ricks and laughed. “How stupid,” I said.
“Not as easy as it seems on TV,” Ricks laughed again.
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?
“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.”
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.
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.
“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.
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.”
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.
“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.”
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.
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?’”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.
Connected by Fate (Paperback)
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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.
Exposed: The Zodiac Revealed (Paperback)
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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.
Hunted: The Zodiac Murders (Paperback)
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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.
Profiled: The Zodiac Examined (Paperback)
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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.
Reckless Speculation about Murder (Paperback)
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The Murder of Teresa Halbach
Before we go on, I should warn you that I am going to spend some portion of this book ridiculing criminal attorneys. I can’t help it. They are a ridiculous group of people. They are among the most educated and intelligent people we have in this country and have devoted their lives to civil service. They should be revered like doctors or astronauts, but instead they are derided like old-timey carnival barkers. The burden of proof is entirely on their shoulders, yet prosecutors are mocked as buffoons if they lose a case. Prosecutors who are too successful are portrayed as heartless henchmen for an oppressive government machine. Defense attorneys are villainized for protecting criminals even though we all understand it is their exact job to protect the rights of their clients, who are mostly criminals, and they would be disbarred for giving anything less than an honest effort.
But that’s the job they chose and most of the absurdities of the criminal justice system were created by their hands. They stacked one absurd brief or motion on top of another for two centuries until our courts were trapped in a slog of arcane case laws and nonsensical gibberish that only lawyers and sovereign citizens pretend to understand. I’ll give you a couple of observations from a decade I have spent as an occasional guest of the court: The judge is God in the courtroom, but God’s will can always be appealed to a council of higher deities; logic is suspended for the sake of ritual; and at least three jurors haven’t paid attention to a word the last witness just said.
Since I know that I am a weak man who will take numerous unprovoked shots at the attorneys involved in these cases, I do feel compelled to admit a couple of important things that I have noticed about attorneys. In their own little way, they always seem to tell the truth. I’ve seen doctors lie. I’ve seen clergy lie. I’ve seen my mother lie. I can’t recall seeing an attorney lie in court. Despite their reputation to the contrary, as a whole, attorneys seem to have a real commitment to their own narrow concept of truth. That’s not to say that they won’t mislead the shit out of you with an argument, because they will absolutely do that. But you can be sure that the argument is based on some truthful fact. Listening to attorneys is a lot like negotiating with the devil. They aren’t going to lie to you, but pay very close attention to the words they choose. Second, they tend to be much better mannered than you expect a professional arguer to be. I’ve heard horror stories about attorneys being jerks to witnesses on the stand but I’ve never actually seen it. I’ve always been treated with respect and decency when I testified. I’ve had my work criticized by defense attorneys while I was on the stand and that stung. But they were never jerks about it and the criticisms were always reasonably valid (probably why they stung).
So there you are, that’s a quick guide to attorneys from Barney Doyle. They virtually always tell the truth, even if only in a very literal and lawyerly sense of the word “truth,” and they aren’t nearly as bad as all of the jokes would have you believe.
I say all of that because we are going to talk about the tragic murder of Teresa Halbach and we can’t do that without reviewing the trial of Steven Avery. The defense attorneys who represented Avery, Dean Strang and Jerome Buting, became a pair of modern day Atticus Finches to a throng of worshipers on the internet after a flattering portrayal in the Netflix documentary Making A Murderer. The prosecutor, Ken Kratz, resigned in disgrace over allegations that he made unwanted sexual advances towards several victims in domestic violence cases that he was prosecuting.
In Avery’s trial, each side presented a theory on this case and the two theories were mutually exclusive. Lots of times in a murder trial the defense won’t present a theory, they will just poke holes in the prosecutor’s theory. Other times the defense will accept the bulk of the prosecutor’s theory without argument and try to insert doubt through insanity, self-defense, accident or some other gray area in the law. The Steven Avery trial was the rare case where the prosecution and the defense offered specific theories that directly contradicted each other. One of them, at a minimum, has to be wrong. What we think happened to Teresa Halbach depends largely on who we are going to believe, the modern day Misters Finch or an alleged sexual predator. I know whose side you want to take on this one. Hell, I know whose side I want to take on this one. But as I mentioned before, attorneys virtually always tell the truth in court. So let’s wade through all of this contradictory truth and see if we can’t figure out what actually happened.
Also, before we go any further, I want you to take a moment and consider your own interest in these cases. I love true crime stories. You love true crime stories. Lots of people love true crime stories. There is nothing wrong with loving true crime stories. The subject matter is macabre, but that doesn’t make it off limits for decent people like us to discuss. We don’t love murder and we certainly don’t want to celebrate murderers. If anything, our love of true crime is mostly borne of an obsession with finding the truth and holding murderers accountable. The crimes we are going to look at, like the murder of Teresa Halbach, were devastating events to a lot of innocent people who cared about the victims. And that is before you even account for the horrors that the poor victims themselves suffered. We recognize the tragedy, hate the suffering, and love the story still. We are searching for the truth among muddied details in most of these cases, but we are never confused about where our sympathies lie. The victim is the most important person in every one of these stories. Even though we enjoy studying these crimes, we still wish they had not happened in the first place.
And I know a lot of you developed your interest in these things in relation to some personal tragedy in your own life. Studying horrific crimes is, for some people, a coping mechanism for dealing with trauma. I’ve seen more death and violence in my life than I ever imagined I could handle. These murder stories should stir up a lot of terrible memories for me. But they don’t. They allow me to dissect the horrors of this world from a comfortable arm’s length away, secure in the knowledge that I can always just close the book or the laptop at any time. It’s a weird way of distracting yourself from the boogieman under your bed by reading about the boogieman three states over. It shouldn’t work, but it does.
That said, we all have those true crime cases that hit too close to home. If any of these cases are like that for you, or if, God forbid, you personally knew one of the victims, please just skip that chapter. You won’t miss anything important, I promise, and you’ll catch up on the next case.
Also, now is an appropriate time to offer my sincere thanks to Skip Topp and his friends over at stevenaverycase.org for compiling the trial transcripts and all of the supporting exhibits from the Steven Avery trial. Trial transcripts are public records but are usually prohibitively expensive, so I am very grateful that they acquired and shared them. The facts below come from those transcripts, several other motions filed by attorney Kathleen Zelner and, to a much lesser extent, the Making A Murderer documentary.
Teresa Halbach was a 25-year-old photographer living in semi-rural Wisconsin. She was relatively new to the business so she shared studio space with another photographer and supplemented her income by doing freelance photography for an Auto Trader magazine. If you aren’t familiar with Auto Trader, picture Craigslist car ads compiled in a free newspaper that was available in a filthy display box outside of every gas station. If you aren’t familiar with newspapers, imagine printing a collection of articles from the internet onto awkwardly large and absurdly thin paper that you could take with you to the bathroom. If you don’t remember articles, they were like memes but with 800 to 1,000 words and sometimes no picture.
On Halloween day of 2005, Teresa Halbach was taking photos of vehicles for three different customers in and around Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. One of those customers was a man named Steven Avery who lived in a trailer at the Avery Salvage Yard. Everybody agrees that Teresa visited the Avery Salvage Yard that day. And everybody agrees that Teresa’s burned remains were found in a burn pit behind Steven Avery’s home several days later. But what happened between those moments is fiercely debated.
The prosecution’s version of events:
Teresa Halbach had taken photos at the Avery Salvage Yard on several occasions before. She complained to a coworker about Steven Avery’s peculiar behavior. She said that Avery once met her at the door wearing nothing but a towel.
On October 31, 2005, Avery called Auto Trader magazine and specifically requested that Teresa come take photos. Avery gave the Avery Salvage Yard address, but gave the name B. Janda instead of his own. Avery’s sister’s name was Barb Janda and the vehicle that Teresa was supposed to photograph belonged to her. Avery had Teresa’s cell phone number and called her twice before she came out to the salvage yard. Both times he used *67 to block his name and number on her caller ID. She didn’t answer either call. He called again later in the day, presumably after her visit, but did not use *67 on the third call.
Bobby Dassey lived in a trailer at the Avery Salvage Yard with his mother (Barb Janda) and brothers. He saw Teresa taking photos of his mother’s van that afternoon, then saw Teresa walking toward Avery’s trailer. Bobby took a shower and left to go hunting. He saw Teresa’s green Toyota Rav4 parked out at the property but did not see Teresa anywhere when he left.
Multiple witnesses reported seeing a bonfire and/or a fire in a burn barrel at Steven Avery’s residence on the afternoon and/or evening of October 31. The statements conflict as to the exact time of the fires, but consensus seems to place them at around dusk into dark.
Friends and loved ones did not see or hear from Teresa after October 31, and her mother reported her as a missing person on November 3 in Calumet County Wisconsin, where Teresa lived. Police accounted for her whereabouts up to where she visited the Avery Salvage Yard, then the trail went cold.
A large search party of citizen volunteers, organized by Teresa’s ex-boyfriend and her roommate, combed the countryside looking for Teresa and her missing Toyota Rav4. Teresa’s second-cousin located the Rav4 semi-concealed among the junk vehicles in the Avery Salvage Yard. The car was locked and partially covered with debris.
Police were notified and responded immediately. The Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office was on scene first, but the investigation was turned over to the Calumet County Sheriff’s Office because of a conflict of interest. Standby for details on the conflict of interest because it makes up the bulk of the defense’s theory.
The Rav4 was hauled off on a wrecker to the Wisconsin crime lab. Lab technicians found Avery’s blood on the back of the gear shift and on the passenger side of the center console. His DNA, from a non-blood source, was also found under the hood on the latching mechanism. A small amount of Teresa’s blood and hair was also found in the rear cargo area of the Rav4.
Through a series of searches over the course of several weeks, investigators found Teresa’s bone fragments in a burn pit outside of Steven Avery’s trailer and in a burn barrel outside of the Janda home. They also found charred remnants of Teresa’s camera and cell phone in a burn barrel outside of Steven Avery’s trailer. Inside the trailer, investigators found a key to Teresa’s Rav4 in Avery’s bedroom and a fired bullet with Teresa’s DNA on it in the garage. The key also had Avery’s DNA on it.
Investigators interviewed Avery’s nephew, Brendan Dassey, several times over the course of a few months. He initially denied knowledge of what happened to Teresa, but eventually confessed to helping Avery rape and kill Teresa then burn her corpse.
The defense’s version of events:
An adult female (not Teresa) was brutally raped on a beach in Manitowoc County on July 29, 1985. DNA eventually showed that the rape was almost certainly committed by a man named Gregory Allen. But a poor investigation and a mistaken eyewitness identification led to the wrongful conviction of Steven Avery.
Avery was freed in September of 2003 and rightfully sued the bejeezus out of the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office. Either by winning the lawsuit or by agreeing to an out-of-court settlement, Avery was going to receive a huge settlement from the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office after 20 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit. Circumstances changed when Teresa Halbach went missing the same day she visited the Avery Salvage Yard.
Among the officers deposed in Avery’s lawsuit against Manitowoc County were Lieutenant James Lenk and Sergeant James Colborn. Even though the investigation was turned over to the Calumet County Sheriff’s Office, Lenk and Colborn each participated in searches in which crucial evidence was discovered.
As is custom, investigators kept a log of everybody who came in and out of the crime scene at the salvage yard. There was one day when Lenk signed out of the scene log, but there was no entry for him signing in.
The Rav4 was found parked with the battery disconnected. There was a car crusher at the salvage yard not far from where it was located. The car crusher did not belong to the Averys, but they were known to use it on occasion.
One day prior to the actual discovery of the Rav4, Sergeant Colborn ran a license plate check of the vehicle through his dispatch. The majority of license plate checks are conducted by radio, but Sergeant Colborn ran this particular license plate check by cell phone.
Steven Avery’s trailer was searched three separate times before the key was discovered in his bedroom. It was discovered by Lenk and Colborn, who were searching under the supervision of a Calumet County detective. Lenk spotted the key on some slippers beside Colborn, who theorized that the key had fallen out of a small bookshelf while he was moving it. The key was also by itself, with no accompanying house keys or office keys.
The bullet with Teresa’s DNA was not discovered until months after the first search, and was discovered by Lenk. The garage had been searched multiple times before that, including a search that yielded fired .22 cartridge cases (or shell casings, as the cool kids call them).
The lab technician who identified Teresa’s DNA on the bullet deviated from her usual protocol on the test. Whenever technicians test for DNA, they also run a simultaneous “control” test to show that there was no contamination. On that particular control test, the sample was contaminated with the technician’s DNA. That usually isn’t a big deal. They throw out the test and try again. But the DNA test on the bullet consumed the entire sample, so she was unable to run another test. In all probability, the test shouldn’t have been considered valid for court purposes.
There was already a vial of Steven Avery’s blood in a box of evidence at the Manitowoc County Clerk of Court’s office. The Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office had keys to the Clerk’s office, and Lenk was aware that evidence in Steven Avery’s original rape case was held there. Lenk had previously ordered one of his deputies to send some evidence from that box to the crime lab for testing. The vial appeared to have been opened at some point.
The vial of Avery’s blood had an anticoagulant called EDTA in it that is used to preserve blood samples in liquid form. The FBI tested Avery’s blood from the SUV and determined that it did not have EDTA in it, which would seem to refute the notion that the blood in the SUV was planted by law enforcement. The FBI only tested three of the six samples from the SUV, however. And the defense introduced an expert who suggested that there were problems with the test that the FBI used.
Teresa’s bones were discovered in both the burn pit in Avery’s backyard and a burn barrel near the Janda residence. There was also a third site near the Avery property where burned bones were discovered, but the crime lab was unable to determine if they were also bones from Teresa. At a minimum, either Teresa was dismembered and burned at two sites, or her burned bones were moved at least once before they were discovered.
The Avery Salvage Yard also had a commercial incinerator on site. It was not used to dispose of Teresa’s body.
Before we continue, I want to tell you a little story. I am not particularly handy but I am very cheap. Consequently, I do a lot of projects around the house that should be hired out to the professionals. I built a laundry room one time that didn’t have a straight edge or 90-degree angle in it. It wasn’t obvious to the naked eye, so I didn’t really care. Until I tried to buy a door. Door manufacturers make a lot of different sizes, but they are virtually all perfect rectangles. My opening was not. I shimmed and jimmied it every which way I could, but you can only be so precise when you don’t have straight edge to orient off of. It’s in the wall now, but I don’t trust that door to hold out a stiff draft.
The prosecution and the defense both have timelines for when they say Teresa was at the Avery Salvage yard, but they are built on imprecise and contradictory witness recollections. I don’t have any more faith in their timelines than I do in my laundry room door.
So now that we’ve laid that groundwork, let’s do a little reckless speculation about what happened to Teresa Halbach.
I love the care and craft that went into Dean Strang and Jerome Buting’s defense. A man wrongfully convicted of a rape he didn’t commit is released from prison only to be framed for murder. Lieutenant Lenk is lurking in the shadows of every search with another piece of fraudulent evidence. His henchman, Sergeant Colborn, covers for every misdeed in a zeal to preserve the reputation of his beloved department. Scientists at the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation cast aside their sacred oaths to jump into the conspiracy. Maybe the police are protecting the real killers. Maybe the police are the real killers. I love everything about this story. As fiction, it’s a winner. As an actual explanation for what happened to Teresa Halbach, it just doesn’t work for me.
It sucks that the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office participated in the investigation. They wouldn’t have asked Calumet County to take over the investigation if they didn’t believe there was a conflict of interest. Ideally they shouldn’t have even participated in the search. But practically speaking, they had to. It was a ridiculously large crime scene. The Avery Salvage Yard is 5 acres with over 4,000 vehicles and a dozen buildings. The Calumet County Sheriff’s Office was a 30-officer department trying to run a massive investigation in somebody else’s county. You could search that salvage yard around the clock for a week with a hundred trained investigators and not cover everything. Conflict of interest or not, Manitowoc County was going to have to lend a hand in that search.
James Lenk and Andrew Colborn did not have any reason to frame Steven Avery. They weren’t being sued. They had nothing to do with the investigation that led to Avery’s wrongful conviction. Neither man even worked for the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office at that time. They were deposed in Avery’s lawsuit because a phone call from a neighboring agency about Avery was misdirected to Colborn while Colborn was working in the jail. He properly directed the caller to the Sheriff’s Office detectives and had no further involvement in the matter. Lenk was deposed because Colborn told Lenk about the phone call. Neither man was at the slightest risk of being held personally liable in a lawsuit from Avery.
You could argue that loyalty to the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office might motivate Lenk and Colborn to frame an innocent man. You could argue that, if you enjoy losing arguments. Police don’t give a shit about their departments. It’s just an employer. The job is dangerous. It doesn’t pay that well. And police jobs are a dime a dozen. No police officer in the world is going to commit a felony to protect the reputation of their department or save the department from a lawsuit. Certain unscrupulous police officers might be willing to commit a felony to protect their own reputation or save themselves from a lawsuit, but not the department. Especially in a sheriff’s office, where the top guy is some politician that half the department didn’t even vote for and who could be gone at the next election.
But since we are recklessly speculating here, let’s follow this thread a little ways. If Steven Avery didn’t kill Teresa Halbach then who did? She didn’t have a boyfriend that we know of. Her ex-boyfriend, Ryan Hillegas, was still in her life in some capacity and would make for an obvious suspect. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me in reviewing the trial transcripts, the investigating officers ruled Hillegas out as a suspect fairly early in the investigation. I found a lot written about him on the internet, but nothing from any source that I would consider credible.
Avery hired attorney Kathleen Zellner to represent him on his appeal, which took place after his Making A Murderer fame. She has been very bold in proclaiming Hillegas as the actual killer. I wish I could afford to hire this woman to write the forward for this book. She is a marvel. You and I do a decent job of recklessly speculating about murders; Zellner is a master at it. Where we are bound by logic and decency, Zellner transcends reason and scoffs at decorum. We trust experts who have studied science while she directs doctors who invent science to conform to her theories. We are skeptical of witness statements that can’t be corroborated. She tells you exactly who is lying, why they are lying, and why anything that contradicts her theory is also a lie. We restrict logical inferences to only those things which can be logically inferred, and then we dampen those inferences with an acknowledgment of their uncertainty. Zellner can draw you a straight line from Teresa Halbach’s murder to Ryan Hillegas’ guilt using any small witness statement or piece of evidence and her own unique brand of deductive reasoning.
At the risk of infuriating Avery’s supporters by shortchanging the “newly discovered evidence,” I am going to abridge Zellner’s theory for you here:
Ryan Hillegas was a jealous and abusive boyfriend. None of Teresa Halbach’s friends or family ever mentioned anything about Hillegas being abusive, but the guy she shared a photography studio with did. He told detectives that, years ago, Teresa mentioned having an abusive ex-boyfriend. Therefore, Hillegas is a murdering woman-beater.
Teresa Halbach had a secret life where she was taking nude photographs, sleeping with her roommate and sleeping with a married man. Hillegas killed her because he was jealous. (I couldn’t find the affidavits that Zellner used to support the claims about Halbach’s personal life. For what it’s worth, true or not, it was shitty the way she used those “facts” to degrade the victim. And if I had to bet based on the rest of her arguments, I’ll take “or not” over “true” in a landslide.)
Hillegas told investigators that damage to the brake light and bumper on Halbach’s car was months old. No insurance claim was ever filed, so obviously Hillegas was lying to cover up the fact that he is a murdering liar.
Hillegas was an unemployed nurse at the time of the murder. He had the time to commit the murder (unemployed) and the advanced medical training (nurse) that would be required to plant Steven Avery’s blood in Halbach’s car.
The door to Avery’s trailer was unlocked. We can be certain of this because Avery said so himself in an affidavit and had absolutely no reason to lie. Obviously, since the door was unlocked, Hillegas snuck into the house and used his advanced nursing training to sneak Avery’s blood from the bathroom sink to Halbach’s car to frame Avery.
There were no phone calls made from Hillegas’ phone during the time of the murder (as calculated by Zellner). This was because his hands were occupied strangling Halbach to death. There were also no phone calls made at various points over the following few days because his hands were occupied with burning Halbach’s body and framing Steven Avery.
Investigators took photographs of Hillegas’ hands during the initial investigation. Those photographs showed scratches on the back of his left hand. Other photographs taken of Halbach during her lifetime showed that she had fingernails. Forensic pathologist Larry Blum prepared an affidavit saying that he was certain, “to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty,” that the scratches were caused by fingernails. Furthermore, he believed that they were caused by Halbach’s fingernails while Hillegas was strangling her. He deduced all of that from photos of Hillegas’ hands and reenactments he conducted with female staff members in his office. Presumably, Zellner didn’t require the doctor to carry the reenactment all the way through cremation.
Another doctor, Lawrence Farwell, has invented a technique he named “brain fingerprinting.” He is a Harvard-educated neuroscientist whereas I am but a humble state-educated police officer, so I will defer to Dr. Farwell as to the matter of whether or not the brain has fingers. But through brain-fingerprinting, Dr. Farwell can measure scientifically whether or not a person has knowledge of something. He measured with 99.9 percent certainty that Steven Avery didn’t know how Teresa Halbach was killed. Other neuroscientists have pointed out that Dr. Farwell’s claims seem farfetched and that his research doesn’t really adhere to the standards of what we consider “science.” But they are probably just bitter that they didn’t discover all of those fingers on the brain before he did.
I can’t recommend reading Zellner’s motion for a retrial highly enough. She torched every single person involved with the case, including Dean Strang and Jerome Buting. My favorite passage is when she asserts matter-of-factly that Sergeant Colborn conducted a clandestine illegal search of the Avery salvage yard with Hillegas’ help.
“The headlights were from Sgt. Colborn's personal vehicle and he had a friend of Ms. Halbach with him to search the Avery property without a search warrant because he did not have probable cause to be on the Avery property at that point in time.”
She just flat out says that a sworn police officer committed multiple felonies as if she were pointing out that the sky was blue. Her proof? Colborn called in for a license plate check on Halbach’s vehicle and he used a cell phone instead of his radio. And she could hear a voice in the background say “it’s her.” Colborn obviously made the call while trespassing at the Avery Salvage yard and the voice in the background couldn’t have been anybody but the lying, murdering, evidence-planting Hillegas.
As you might have imagined, the judge was unpersuaded and denied Zellner’s motion for a new trial.
Perhaps by the sequel you and I will be audacious enough to propose Zellner’s type of fantastically imaginative speculation, but we aren’t there yet. For now, let’s bound our recklessness in at least the realm of plausibility.
I think that Steven Avery killed Teresa Halbach. His blood was in her vehicle. His DNA was on her hood latch. Her car key was found in Steven Avery’s bedroom with Steven Avery’s DNA on it. A bullet with Teresa’s DNA was found in his garage and it was fired from a .22 caliber rifle that was found hanging in Steven Avery’s bedroom. Her bones were found in a burn pit outside of his house. Her cell phone and camera were found in a burn barrel beside his house. Each and every piece of that evidence is pretty damning.
I know you have concerns about the integrity of some of that evidence. Rightfully so. The bullet wasn’t found on the first search and it probably should have been. The story of how the key was found is a bit perplexing. It’s really weird that her bones were found at multiple locations on the Avery property. I will grant you all of those things. But murder isn’t a perfectly logical act and you will drive yourself mad trying to understand the how and why of every little thing the killer did. The kind of person who would brutally murder an innocent person is the kind of person who would do a lot of other peculiar stuff as well. Moving bones? It obviously made sense to the killer at the time because bones were moved. Maybe somebody moved the bones in an attempt to frame Steven Avery for the murder. But that person would have had to stage all of the other evidence as well, and the logistics just don’t seem possible to me (unless the police killed her, which is absurd). The most logical explanation I see is that Steven Avery moved the bones for reasons that probably made sense to him at the time. Steven Avery’s blood was in the car because Steven Avery bled in the car. Steven Avery’s DNA was on the hood latch because Steven Avery touched the hood latch when he disconnected the battery. The key was eventually found in Steven Avery’s room because Steven Avery hid the key in his room. The bullet was found in the garage with Teresa’s DNA on it because that’s where the bullet was fired. I admit that it lacks the imagination and flair of Zellner’s and Strang’s theories, but it fits the facts a lot easier.
So if we accept that Steven Avery was the killer, then why did he do it? They weren’t romantically involved so it wasn’t a case of domestic violence. Teresa was early into her photography career while Avery was in line for a huge settlement from Manitowoc County, so robbery doesn’t make any sense. Neither of them was involved in a street gang nor were they distributing narcotics. There is no reason to suspect self-defense, murder-for-hire, silencing a witness or any of the other oddball murder motives that occur in rare instances. I’m going to step out on a pretty sturdy limb and guess that it was sexually motivated. You knew that already, didn’t you? One step ahead of me as usual. But just for the sake of being thorough, let’s analyze it a little bit.
Making A Murderer would have you believe that Steven Avery was wrongfully convicted of rape because he looked a lot like the actual rapist and the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office bungled the investigation. In truth, Steven Avery was wrongfully convicted of rape because he looked a lot like the actual rapist, the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office bungled the investigation and Steven Avery’s behavior made it really easy to believe that he would rape somebody.
According to a report by Kurt Chandler in Milwaukee Magazine, Avery was convicted of burglarizing a bar when he was 18 and burning a cat alive several months later. I haven’t seen the court records or police reports from either of those charges, but they fit into the general pattern of Avery’s life. In September of 1984, a neighbor reported that Avery had been harassing her for months. When she drove past his house on the road to her own home, Avery would run and stand on the side of the road naked or stand at the front of his car and masturbate in plain view.
In his report, the investigating detective noted, “He has field glasses on the house and he knows just when she will be driving past the residence. At this point he will then run out to the road and do his tricks.”
In January of 1985, Avery was arrested for running a woman’s vehicle off the road and pointing a rifle at her. In April of 1985 he was accused of repeatedly driving by another woman’s house and shouting obscenities. In May of 1985 an 11 year old girl in a neighboring community was kidnapped and raped. Avery was never charged with the crime, but officers noted that he fit the physical description of the suspect and was identified by a witness as fishing in the area at the time. In June of 1987, Avery’s wife accused him of sending threatening letters from prison. In September of 2004, one year after being released from prison, Avery’s girlfriend accused him of domestic assault.
It’s a tragedy that a rapist was left on the streets because of Manitowoc County’s shoddy investigation. Gregory Allen, the actual rapist, was free for another ten years and committed atrocities that we likely won’t ever even know about before he was eventually caught for another rape. It’s infuriating. But let’s be honest, there were going to be concrete and bars in Avery’s future eventually anyway.
If the earlier reports of Avery’s roadside self-gratification were true then it’s not a stretch to think that he later developed a fixation on Teresa. The 1984 police report accuses Avery of targeting a specific female with his roadside shenanigans, going so far as to watch her house with binoculars so that he wouldn’t miss her. I’ve never known prison to do a really good job of curing perverts of their impulses. Sometimes it does teach them to conceal those impulses better. A man waving his weiner at a woman from the side of the road could just be a few years in prison away from learning to cover himself with a towel when he attempts to shock his future victims.
You and I may disagree on this one because I seem to think it’s a bigger deal than everybody else does, but I believe it is very relevant that Avery made two phone calls to Teresa using the *67 feature before she arrived at his house and one call afterward without using it. What legitimate reason would he have for blocking his number? This was in the early 2000s. I’m suspicious that a man Steven Avery’s age even knew about *67. A middle-aged guy in Wisconsin in 2003 who dismantled junk vehicles for a living was not aware of *67 unless he was using it for nefarious reasons. I didn’t know about *67 until 2006, and that was only because I became a police officer and saw it used for nefarious reasons. I am also nearly two decades younger than Steven Avery.
The phone call afterwards without *67 shows he had a plan. When she was reported missing and they checked her phone records, he could point to that call as proof that he hadn’t made the two blocked calls earlier. Obviously that fell apart when they checked his phone records, but those things happen when simple people attempt complex crimes. I said he had a plan, but I never said it was a good one.
It is also relevant that this happened while Steven Avery’s live-in girlfriend was in jail. I won’t go so far as to say that it is necessarily evidence, but it is an interesting fact nonetheless. If Steven were truly innocent, how unfortunate for him that Teresa was murdered while his alibi wasn’t available. But if he’s guilty, of course he would plan it for a time when his girlfriend was away.
OK, I’m satisfied that Steven Avery probably killed Teresa Halbach and that it was a sexually motivated crime. Now let’s get a little reckless with the speculation. Let’s theorize how it happened.
The autopsy revealed two bullet defects in Teresa’s skull and the .22 caliber bullet fragment located in the garage with Teresa’s DNA on it was fired from a .22 rifle found in Steven Avery’s bedroom. It’s fair to say she was shot. But where did it happen and what led up to it?
Bobby Dassey testified that he last saw Teresa walking toward Steven Avery’s trailer. Assuming she made it inside, what happened next? None of Teresa’s blood was found in the trailer, so I think it’s fair to say that she was not shot in the trailer. A gunshot wound to the head is bloody, even with a smaller round like a .22 caliber. I just can’t envision a scenario where Steven Avery would be able to clean up all of that blood without leaving a trace. If she was on carpet when she was shot, the blood would have soaked into the carpet pad and the subfloor. Even if she were on linoleum or tile, the blood would have spread over such a large area that it would almost certainly have made it into cracks and crevices that Avery wouldn’t have been able to clean. And that isn’t even factoring in the spatter that would have hit the walls. It is really hard and requires time and effort to make an indoor bloody murder scene disappear, and Avery would have been in a big hurry.
The bullet with Teresa’s DNA was found in the garage so it makes sense that she was shot in there. In Zellner’s appeal she made a very big deal out of the fact that the bullet did not have any bone fragments embedded in it. For reasons that confound me even on multiple readings, Zellner was convinced the lack of bone material on the bullet somehow proved that Avery didn’t shoot Halbach. There seem to be two pretty obvious explanations. The first being that her expert might be full of crap. The second is that the bullet found in the garage might have passed through Teresa without striking a bone. A .22 is a small and fast-moving bullet, so I doubt the round found in the garage was one of the rounds that hit Teresa in the head. Forensic pathologists have explained to me in the past that .22 caliber bullets are notorious for ricocheting off bones around the inside of a person’s body without ever exiting. I have a tough time believing that a .22 caliber bullet that penetrated the skull in one spot would still have enough momentum to make it out the other side and onto the garage floor still intact. But there are a lot of places where a round could pass in and out of a human body without striking bone, and we have no idea how many times Teresa was actually shot.
So if she was shot in the garage, then that raises the question of why none of Teresa’s blood was found in there. If you were to get upset with old Barney Doyle for some undoubtedly legitimate reason and punch me in the nose, I’d bleed all over the bare concrete floor in my garage where I am typing this. So as not to upset my wife and risk another punch in the nose, I’d wipe that blood puddle up with a shop rag before it stained the floor. If you came back a month later and sprayed a crime scene product called Luminol on the floor, the spot where that puddle had been would light up, especially under an alternative light source. Then you wouldn’t have to hit me again, you could just point to the floor and remind me to watch my manners.
Crime scene technicians used Luminol in Steven Avery’s garage and saw a stain come out that was about the right size to be from a gunshot wound to the head.
So with the same scenario as above, what if old Barney Doyle didn’t feel comfortable leaving puddles of DNA everywhere and decided to clean up that blood puddle with bleach instead of just wiping it up with a shop rag? What happens if you come back a month later with a bottle of Luminol this time? The spot still lights up, but because of the bleach not the blood. Bleach kills everything in the blood that reacts with the Luminol, but the bleach itself causes a reaction.
The evidence technicians in Steven Avery’s garage used a presumptive blood test on the stain and determined that it was not blood.
So what if we discussed our problems like adults and you never punched old Barney Doyle in the first place? I’m clumsy and it is a garage, so I have at various times spilled brake fluid, antifreeze, medicated shampoo and Heinz 57 sauce on the floor. You bring the Luminol over and what happens then? First, I ask where you are getting all of this Luminol. After that, I have no idea. There are a lot of things that react with Luminol. Maybe the floor lights up, maybe it doesn’t.
So maybe the Luminol lit up in Steven Avery’s garage because he used bleach to clean up blood on the floor or maybe it picked up on something else. Either way, I don’t understand how he managed to shoot Teresa in the garage multiple times without making a giant bloody mess. It was a cluttered garage and clutter has a way of catching blood spatter. If she were standing when she was shot in the head, the blood spatter would have originated five-and-a-half feet off the ground and high-velocity spatter should have traveled all over the clutter. So I don’t think she was standing up when she was shot. And I’m not entirely convinced she was conscious at the time, if alive at all.
Back to Teresa in Steven Avery’s trailer. If she was shot in the garage, then what happened between the trailer and the garage? Obviously Avery could have been waiting with the rifle and walked her into the garage at gunpoint. That would explain why there was no sign of a big bloody struggle in the trailer. But we agreed earlier that this was a sexually motivated crime. What would he get out of it by walking her out to the garage and shooting her?
They found a set of shackles in Avery’s house when they searched it. They were kinky shackles and he claimed that he purchased them to spice things up with his girlfriend. I would have thought that sex with a portly middle-aged felon would have been all of the spice a woman could ask for, but I guess I’m a prude. At any rate, Avery could have met Teresa at the door with the rifle and ordered her into the shackles. Teresa’s DNA wasn’t found on the shackles, but maybe Avery was the type of gentleman to clean his sex toys between uses.
The theory that I keep coming back to, even if I can’t fully articulate why, is that Avery strangled her. I hate the theory because it would have been a painful and terrifying way for Teresa to die. I’d feel better knowing that Avery lured her out to the garage with some clever ruse and that she died instantly and painlessly from a gunshot to the head that she never saw coming. But I have this gut feeling that the sick son of a bitch strangled her to death. Let me outline it for you and see what you think.
During his interview with police, Steven Avery was adamant that Teresa never came in to his house. That is a bold claim to make if it wasn’t true. Police recognized the opportunity to catch him in a lie and tried to scare him off that story. There is so much trace evidence that could be left behind when a person is in a house. Police laid out how hairs, fibers, fingerprints and DNA evidence works and Avery had to have recognized what it would mean if they found anything linking Halbach to his trailer. It would have been so easy for Avery to just say that she stepped in the trailer for a minute to collect his money or leave a receipt. Then he would have had an excuse if they found any traces of her in the trailer. But he didn’t waiver. He insisted she was never in there. Maybe he was bluffing because he was that confident in how well he cleaned the place. But I think he was telling the truth. I don’t think Teresa was in there.
Avery said he followed Teresa out to her car to give her the money for the photo shoot. He described talking with her at the driver’s side door. This would have been in plain view of anybody who was passing by on the roadway or looking out the window of his sister’s house. It would have been too risky for him to walk out there holding a rifle. He could have knocked her unconscious by smashing her over the head with something, then thrown her in the back of her own car. But that would have also made a bloody mess. There was a small amount of Teresa’s blood and hair in the rear of her car, but not consistent with having her head split open from a crushing blow.
I think Avery strangled Teresa at the door of her car, either with his hands or with some sort of makeshift ligature. He could have done it quickly and would have been mostly concealed from view by the vehicle. When he was done, he could have thrown her into the rear of her car and moved the car into his garage. If she nicked her head on something during the struggle or while he was moving her, it could have opened up a minor cut that would have left a small amount of blood and hair in the back of the car.
Once in the garage, Steven Avery could have acted on his sexual intentions while Teresa was bound, unconscious or already dead. I don’t care to speculate on what Steven Avery did here. I’m going to think happy thoughts about what prison is like for murderers and skip to the end.
Like a million other guys in the midwest, Avery was a deer hunter. As such, he had undoubtedly used his garage to dress a dead deer before. From experience, he surely knew that he could make cleanup easier and prevent a bloody mess by strategically placing plastic or newspaper and putting Teresa in a convenient spot before shooting her. And if she was already dead from the initial strangulation (which is the theory I choose to believe because there is less torture and suffering involved), then the gunshots would have produced minimal blood loss anyway.
“Why would he shoot her if she was already dead?” you ask. I refer you back to my earlier analysis: Weird people do weird stuff sometimes and we won’t always know why. Or you can go with the alternate theory that she didn’t die until he shot her, but I’m writing this so I am going with the lesser of two horrors.
From that point, it’s pretty straightforward. Over the next two days he hid her vehicle in the salvage yard, hoping it wouldn’t be found before he had a chance to do something more permanent, and burned her body and all of the evidence in the burn pit and burn barrels around his house. He didn’t use the car crusher or the incinerator because he rarely used either of those things in the course of his job and didn’t want his brother and father asking questions like “What car are you crushing?” or “What the hell are you burning in that incinerator?” while he was at the center of a missing person investigation. Eventually the plot was discovered, and Dean Strang became an unlikely heartthrob through Netflix.
OK, OK, stop screaming at me. We’ll talk about Brendan Dassey. This was a terrible story to begin with, and it isn’t going to get any better if we bring Brendan Dassey into it. But since you insist, here it is.
Brendan Dassey confessed to assisting his uncle Steven Avery with the rape, murder and disposal of Teresa Halbach. He was convicted. That conviction was overturned. Then it was upheld. Then depending on the day of the week, he is either free pending an appeal or back in jail.
Dassey told a story that was, according to the prosecutor, so rich in detail that it could not possibly have been made up. Dassey only could have gotten those details from being involved. In the professional opinion of old Barney Doyle, the confession is absolutely made up and the details Brendan Dassey gave don’t match the crime scene at all. But what do I know? I wasn’t there for the investigation and, even if I was, we have already established that I am a moron. Maybe he did do it after all.
Brendan was 16 years old at the time of the murder and lived with his mother and brothers next door to Steven Avery. Like everybody else in his family, Brendan was interviewed by police several days after the murder. He gave a story that was complete and utter horseshit, which put him on the police radar. His initial story was that he didn’t see Teresa at the Avery Salvage Yard, but then he might have seen her, but then he definitely saw her leaving and driving away. Police rightfully suspected that Steven Avery had coached Brendan on what to tell them, and the details of his story crumbled under the slightest bit of scrutiny.
Several months later, police did a follow up interview with Brendan at his school. This time Brendan said that he saw Teresa’s body in the burn pit behind Steven Avery’s house on Halloween night while Avery was having a bonfire. He said that he was scared of Steven and didn’t want to get him in trouble, so he didn’t say anything.
The police came back and interviewed Brendan two more times. In those interviews, Brendan claimed that he actually first saw Teresa tied to Steven Avery’s bed. Avery told Brendan to rape Teresa, which he did, then Steven slit Teresa’s throat. They loaded her body into her car, for some unknown reason, and then burned her in the burn pit.
This was the story that got him convicted and I don’t understand how. I will grant the prosecutor that it was rich in detail, but the details seem like nonsense to me. If Steven Avery slit Teresa’s throat on his bed then there would have been blood all over that room. Blood would have absolutely soaked into the mattress. The prosecutor argued that Avery burned the sheets, and that was apparently good enough. Also, while Teresa’s car was supposedly in the garage, why in the hell would they put her body in it? It’s not like they drove her fifteen feet to the burn pit. And there was only a small amount of blood in the back of her car. If she had her throat slit there would have been a lot of blood leading all the way from the bedroom to the car, and there is no way Avery could have cleaned that up well enough to hide it from the crime scene technicians.
I was working on a cold case homicide a few years ago where two men were wrongly convicted in the 1990s. A key piece of evidence was the testimony of a supposed co-conspirator, who was mentally challenged. While I was reviewing the transcripts of his police interview, I was struck by how completely off the guy’s story was. He didn’t get a single detail right that the investigators didn’t tell him first. I met the investigators and knew them to be good men. I also knew that they firmly believed they had the right guys, right up until DNA proved otherwise. It’s a really bad feeling when you aren’t making progress in a murder case. It gets downright desperate if the case is high profile. Put enough pressure on an investigator and they will start to see things that aren’t there and find meaning in things where there is none. I know why they believed what that guy was telling them, but with the benefit of time and distance it was clearly garbage.
I say that because I got a very similar sense reading the transcripts of Brendan Dassey’s interviews. While I don’t believe Dassey was as slow as his defense attorneys alleged, he was a sixteen year old kid and not a particularly smart one. He was a textbook candidate for a false confession. As I read his confession, I was troubled by how much of his story was either wrong or common knowledge. It seemed like the only time he got things “right” was when he was agreeing with statements that the investigators made.
Police were right to make him a suspect because he was clearly lying on the initial interview. I actually believed most of the second interview, when he described seeing the body in the fire. It was logical, it didn’t contradict the known facts in any meaningful way, and it seemed like he was providing the information not agreeing to it. But I don’t believe the rest of his confession and I certainly don’t think it was believable enough to sustain a criminal conviction.
Plus, his confession contradicts our strangling theory and we have entirely too much invested in that to give up now.
That’s not a bad start huh? We believe Steven Avery killed Teresa Halbach, acting alone. We have concerns about the integrity of some of the evidence, but ultimately not enough to come to a different conclusion. We think he attacked her in the driveway near her car and shot her in the garage, without ever taking her into his home. I think she was strangled and shot, but you aren’t certain if you agree with that or not. We think Brendan Dassey learned about the crime after the fact, possibly seeing Teresa’s body in Avery’s burn pit, but that he loved and/or feared his uncle too much to say anything initially. We would hire Dean Strang and Jerome Buting if we were ever accused of murder. And this book would be a thousand times better if it were written by Kathleen Zellner.
I hope all of our cases go this smoothly.
IT’S TIME TO PUT YOUR CRIME SOLVING SKILLS TO WORK
Just between us, we know you like true crime investigations. You’ve seen every episode, heard every podcast, and now you can name the killer in the first five minutes of that cable show you’re watching… again. But how many times have you yelled at the screen, “YOU GOT IT ALL WRONG!” Well, Barney Doyle is here to tell you that they probably did.
Reckless Speculation about Murder takes on some of the most infamous unsolved cases in recent American history. From the murders of JonBenét Ramsey and Kathleen Peterson to the shootings of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, your host Barney Doyle will lead you through the evidence, give you all the facts (even the inconvenient ones), and let you decide for yourself who committed these infamous atrocities.
Disregard what you thought you knew about these crimes. Fill up your coffee cup (or wine glass), turn down Forensic Files, and take a fresh look at these notorious murders.
This is the Second Edition with an additional chapter on the Jeffery MacDonald case.
The Man at Hilltop Lanes (Paperback)
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As a little girl, LaDonna Humphrey trusted the wrong man.
He smiled. He knew exactly what to say. And he nearly led her into the darkness beyond the doors of a crowded Oklahoma bowling alley.
Forty years later, LaDonna returns to the place where it happened, determined to confront a memory she has spent a lifetime trying to understand. What begins as a search for one man becomes a chilling journey into trauma, fear, and the disturbing realization that some stories are never truly over.
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The Man at Hilltop Lanes is a haunting true story about the predator who was never forgotten—and the secrets that linger long after the danger has passed.
The Man at Hilltop Lanes releases on July 17, 2026. Order yours today!
True Crime in Real Time
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Why All the Misdirection?
It is a cold December morning, and you roll up on the address, a house in an affluent suburb. The large custom homes in the neighborhood are decorated for the holidays. The patrol units are already there. The call is a kidnapping.
You have been partnered with Theodore “Ted” Miller for many months now and Ted has always taken the lead on your cases. Ted is short and stocky, balding on top and greying on the sides. He has always been a no-nonsense by-the-book detective and has been an effective mentor, providing you with a great deal of investigative knowledge.
You and Ted are still in the unmarked unit when Ted says, “Okay, we are going to put all that experience, education, and knowledge you have to work. I am going to test you. I am going to ask you your opinion throughout the case. I am going to assess your observation skills, your critical thinking, and your assessment of human behavior. I am going to let you take the lead on this case. You ready?”
“Yes, I am ready,” you say.
“Let’s go.” You and Ted open your doors and get out of the vehicle. Ducking under the crime scene tape, you walk up the front driveway.
You pause for a moment to look at the front yard. You both stand there and carefully observe the scene. noting that there are no foot tracks on the lawn or in the snow. The snow is sparse in some areas and does not completely cover the front lawn. Standing next to you, Ted asks what you think. You say, “Uh, if someone was traversing this area, leaving or coming into the residence, they should have made some impressions in the snow or in the wet grass.” You then inspect a window low to the ground. The window is slightly open, perhaps broken as it does not close completely, and when you look inside it appears to lead to a basement.
Ted asks your impressions. “What do you think so far about the outside of the residence?”
You say, “Erm, well, uh… I don't think anyone really came this way as there are no tracks in the snow, and even if the snow is scattered a little it doesn’t seem like anyone came in or left this way or went into or out of that window.”
Ted smiles and you proceed to the front door and walk up a couple of steps. The front door is ajar, and you carefully step inside. Just inside the front door is a small foyer, a living room is to your left with a fireplace in the corner, and the staircase leading to the upper floors is straight ahead.
You are introduced by a patrol officer to the lady of the house, the mother of the kidnapped child. Her name is Sylvie Garnier. She corrects the pronunciation, “Gar-nee-yay.”
Mrs. Garnier is, of course, very distraught and her face shows anguish. She is wearing a red, black, and grey fleece jacket and black velvet pants, an evening outfit. You ask to see the basement. She is cooperative and takes you past the stairs leading upstairs and around a corner to a set of stairs leading down to the basement.
You walk down the steps to the basement, and you ask to see the window that you inspected earlier. The woman leads you straight ahead into a room that has some toy train sets. You proceed into the next part of the room where there are storage racks along the walls, and shelves with art supplies.
She points to your right, and you see there is a piece of luggage below the open window. Sylvie mentions that the suitcase came from another area in this room where the luggage is normally stored. You move close to the window and inspect it further. The window is high on the wall towards the ceiling of the basement, and you see that it has a small portion of glass that is broken. You also see that the dust is not disturbed and there is a spiderweb that is still intact. Sylvie leaves you and goes upstairs, and you stand and survey the rest of the basement storage room.
“What do you think?” Ted asks you.
“Uh, well… there's no way, in my opinion, that anyone took a young child or would even think they could take a young child out through that window, especially by using that unstable piece of luggage. It also does not look disturbed other than being moved to that spot. My impression of that piece of luggage is that it is staging. It was put there to throw us off the track by the kidnapper. It was not used to enter or leave through the window.” You further state, “The point is not to say that the window was used by the kidnapper. It could have been. The point is everything in visual evidence says that it wasn’t.
“By the way,” you add, “I noticed that she has on makeup, and it looks like she is wearing what she wore last night to a party. And her hair is still together.”
“Interesting. That’s good. I might not have noticed that,” Ted says.
You go back upstairs and turn right into the kitchen off the main living room to find Sylvia there leaning against the kitchen counter. The first thing that strikes you is the black and white checkered floor. There is a lot of clutter on the counters of the kitchen, perhaps from recent meals. It is a small narrow kitchen with doors on either side and another door to a breakfast room.
You stand in the kitchen with Sylvie, who is looking very cooperative and expectant, as if waiting for your questions. You look over at Ted inquisitively. Ted says, “This is all yours, go ahead.”
Out of curiosity, thinking perhaps it was used in the search for her child, you ask about a flashlight sitting on a counter on the other side of the kitchen. “Uh, was that flashlight used last night or recently?”
The flashlight is large, heavy, black, and cylinder-like, like a policeman’s, typically known as a Maglite. From where you are standing it looks like an ordinary flashlight—no damage, nothing unusual about it.
Sylvie says, “I don’t really know where the flashlight came from. I believe it was given to us by a neighbor, erm, or someone. I am not sure why it is out and in the kitchen.”
You have an instinct that leads you to ask about a bowl with a spoon in it on the kitchen counter. “Is that bowl from yesterday?” you ask, initially as a matter of mere conversation, because there are a lot of various plates and dishes there.
“My son, before going to bed, often has a dish of milk and pineapples.”
“Did he have a bowl of pineapples last night?” you ask.
“No, he fell asleep on the way home last night. And we put him right into bed. Both of them fell asleep on the way home and we put them right into bed.”
You stand there in the kitchen looking at your feet for a second. Then you look at Sylvie and say, “Okay, now, where was the ransom note left?”
She guides you and Ted out of the kitchen through the door on the other side. Straight ahead, you notice what appears to be a home office. You follow her as she turns to your right and leads you down a short hall to the bottom of a spiral staircase. “This is where I found the note as I came down this morning.” These seem to be the back stairs, not the main stairs that are near the front door.
“Not the front stairs?”
“This staircase leads up to our bedroom and this is the way I come down every morning.”
“Was the ransom note found right at the bottom of these stairs?”
“Yes, right there,” she says, pointing.
You look around and see that there is a desk to your right, and to your left, there is a door that goes to a mudroom and eventually out to the garage.
You ask her, “Where did they get the writing pad and pen?” and she points out a drawer in the small desk to the right of the stairs. There are pens in a cup on the top of the desk.
You open a drawer in the desk and see some writing tablets. You take out a tablet, carefully handling the edges, thumb through it, then put it down on the desk. You do the same for the next tablet below it. You pick up the third tablet down in the drawer and stop after opening the cover. You inspect the first page, then pick up a pen and use it to turn to the second page. You inspect that page. After continuing to handle the tablet carefully, you put it down on the hall desk.
Ted sees the change in the look on your face and says, “Let’s step in there for a second,” pointing to the door that leads into the mudroom.
You walk into the mudroom so you and Ted can have a little conference. Ted asks you, “What do you think?”
As you begin answering Ted you draw a sketch of the first floor.
“I think…. First, back to the kitchen. It’s interesting about the bowl of pineapples. It was there but she said that her son did not have it the night before. And then there’s the big flashlight that she said she didn’t know how it got there in her kitchen. Also, it seems strange that the ransom note was on the back stairs. How did the kidnappers know she, or anyone, would come down those stairs to find it, and not the main staircase?”
When you retreat back to the hallway near the stairs, Sylvie is no longer there. You proceed down the hallway past the office, through the kitchen and a couple of rooms, to a police officer standing alone in a dining room.
“The note?” Ted says to the officer and looks over at you.
“Right, yes, can we see the ransom note, officer?” you say.
The officer hands you the note and you both view it together, quickly reading the long, rambling, three-page ransom note within plastic covers.
“What do you see?” Ted asks.
“Um, I think this would have taken a long time to write. It looks like a tablet was used and then placed back into the drawer underneath two others. One page shows indented writing as practice and the next page shows the indented writing of the full note. That writing looks like one of those pens on the desk, and they apparently put the pen back in the cup. The wording in the note is just weird. The requested amount is strange. Not a hundred thousand dollars but one hundred eighteen thousand dollars. Why is that?”
“What’s the deal with an ‘attaché’ and ‘exhausting delivery’?” Ted adds.
“Yeah, I don’t know. It says they will call between eight and ten this morning, so I guess we wait.”
You and Ted move over to the other door, and you can see from the dining room into the living room where the victim’s father, Jean-Claude Garnier, is there talking with another man. The officer followed you there.
“Who is with Jean-Claude?” you ask the officer. He tells you that is a friend of Jean-Claude’s, Mr. Rivers, who has come over to help. “That’s… that’s not supposed to…”
“Has anyone talked to the young boy?” you ask.
The officer responds by saying, “No. Jean-Claude prohibited it. No one wanted to go against that.”
Just then you see Jean-Claude and his friend leave the room, walking out the other door toward the stairs.
A minute later, Jean-Claude rushes back into the room carrying a bundle and places it on the living room floor. It is their daughter. The mother races into the room, along with Mrs. Rivers, Sylvie’s friend who has just arrived, as well as Mr. Rivers, and they all crowd around. You hurry over to them and observe what you can in the chaos.
You raise your voice. “Wait! Everyone move back! Do not touch anything! Don’t touch anything.”
Sylvie is kneeling down next to her daughter’s body. Sylvie’s friend, Mrs. Rivers, is trying to hold her back, but she is also kneeling, touching the child’s face with the back of her palm, and crying out.
You move in close and kneel down on the other side of the little girl. She is obviously dead, her body pale and stiff. She is wearing a long-sleeved shirt made of white sweatshirt-like material with an embroidered star on her chest. She is also wearing a pair of white long-john-type bottoms.
Her hands are out over her head with a white nylon cord lightly bound around her right wrist and flowing away from it. There is a similar cord around her neck that has a small, broken paintbrush twisted into it like it was used to tighten the cord.
“Please everyone,” you declare, “I know this is going to be difficult, but we need to preserve the evidence.” Everyone is frozen in place staring at the child on the floor. A white blanket that had been wrapped around her is now laying on the floor next to her.
“Officer,” you say, “please try to keep everyone from touching anything… get CSU on the way and make all the necessary calls.” You don’t want to seem callous by asking for the coroner in front of the family. You turn to the people there and ask, “Where was she?”
“In a room in the basement,” Mr. Rivers says.
“Show me,” you say, holding onto his elbow. “Please, everyone, don’t disturb anything while we’re gone.”
Mr. Rivers takes you and Ted back to the front entryway and down the stairs that lead to the basement. You follow Mr. Rivers down the stairs. This time, instead of going straight ahead into the train room, you walk through another door to the left that leads down a small passageway within the boiler room where there are several pipes and a water heater. It is relatively dark down here, the only light coming from a small window high on the wall above a chest freezer.
Mr. Rivers reaches up above the door, releases a latch, opens the door to a room straight ahead of you, and says, “In here.”
“Nobody checked in here before?” you ask.
“I did. Sort of. I looked in and it was very dark. This whole passage was very dark, and it is difficult to walk around down here. See,” he says, pointing, “the light switch is way over there. It is hard to find.”
You look around the room and see some racks with wine bottles. “That blanket?” you ask about a white blanket on the floor.
“She was wrapped in it.”
“And the nightclothes?” you ask, referring to a small pink nightgown lying spread out on the floor next to the blanket.
“That was just there.”
“What is that piece of black tape on the floor?”
“Oh yes, Jean-Claude pulled that off her mouth just before he picked her up.”
You move toward the back corner of the wine cellar and spot a red pocketknife on the floor. Ted’s eyes widen.
“Mr. Rivers, this pocketknife, did Jean-Claude bring that down to cut the cords?”
“No, that was already laying there.”
“Hmm,” Ted says.
“Have you seen it before?” you ask.
“I think I have seen young Bobby with it a few times.”
“Thank you. Okay, so you two just came down here and found her?”
“Yeah, it was kind of weird. Jean-Claude said, ‘I’m going to search again,’ but he came straight down here, opened the door, turned on the light, and saw her. And, ah…”
“What is it, Mr. Rivers?”
“Well, I swear he gasped before he turned on the light.”
“Thank you, Mr. Rivers.” He slips away down the passage.
“Good job,” Ted says. “You got a lot out of him. Let’s go back upstairs.”
You leave the wine cellar, go down the passage, and, stopping near the stairs, you draw a sketch of the basement.
After finishing your rough sketch you walk up the stairs to the first floor.
Jean-Claude, Mr. Rivers, Sylvie, and Mrs. Rivers are all standing in the living room. Mr. Rivers has his hand on Jean-Claude’s shoulder and Mrs. Rivers is hugging Sylvie.
You approach Sylvie and Mrs. Rivers. “I’m so sorry. May I talk to you for a bit?”
“Do you really have to?” says Mrs. Rivers.
You say, “Yes, I’m sorry, I must.”
You move past the fireplace and into the front room. Ted is standing next to you now, facing Sylvie and Mrs. Rivers.
Sylvie says, “All right.”
“Could we go over last night again, please?”
“Yes, we came home, she was asleep, and we put her to bed. I put a brand new pair of underwear and a sleep top on her, covered her up, and she went to sleep in her bed.... Then I got up this morning and found the note. And…” Sylvie puts her face into Mrs. Rivers’ shoulder.
“I’m sorry. But I have to ask,” you say, “Where was the blanket kept?”
“Oh, that was in the dryer.”
“Where is the laundry room?”
Mrs. Rivers answers for Sylvie. “The laundry room is down in the basement. To the left of the stairs.”
“The laundry room is near the craft room?”
“Yes. It is near the train room and storage area down there.”
Just then there is some noise at the front entryway. You look through the living room and see more officers arriving.
You meet them at the door. You look at Ted and then bark orders. “Alright, it looks like this is a murder. CSU, photograph everything, tag, and bag. Officers, scour this house for anything that might be evidence and protect it for CSU. Make sure the perimeter of the house is taped off. Officer Jackson, wait for the coroner and protect the evidence on the victim. Try to keep the family away. All right now. Everyone, let’s get to work.”
You look over at Ted and see him smile. “That was impressive,” he says.
***
You and Ted are sitting in your cubicle at the office, reviewing the case reports.
“The family has refused any interviews,” Ted says. “They got a lawyer as soon as we started the second search of the home.”
“Here is the 911 call. Listen.” You play the tape. “911 what is your emergency?”
“[Garbled] – Police.”
“What’s going on ma’am?”
“644 14th Street.”
“What’s going on there ma’am?”
“We have a kidnapping. Hurry please.”
“Explain to me what’s going on. Okay?”
“There. We have a… there’s a note left, and our daughter’s gone.”
“How old is your daughter?”
“She’s… she’s six years old. She’s blonde, six years old.”
“How long ago was this?”
“I don’t know; I just got the note, and my daughter’s gone.”
“Does it say who took her?”
“No, I don’t know. There’s a… there’s a ransom note here. It says SBTC Victory.”
“Do you know how long she’s been gone?”
“No, I don’t. Please, we just got up and she’s not here. Oh my god. Please.”
You stop the tape and add, “Dispatcher says she thought she heard voices, a young person’s voice, at the end there but couldn’t make out what was said. It is hard to tell anything.”
“Ah, the ‘ransom’ note. Quite bizarre if you ask me,” Ted says.
You have it in front of you and say, “It reads:
Mr. Garnier, Listen carefully! We are a group of individuals that represent (spelled wrong) a small foreign faction. We respect your business (misspelled) but not the country that it serves. At this time, we have your daughter in our possession (misspelled). She is safe and unharmed; if you want to see her again, you must follow our instructions to the letter.
You will withdraw $118,000. Make sure you bring an adequate size attache to the bank. I will call you between 8 and 10 am tomorrow to instruct you on delivery. The delivery will be exhausting so I advise you to be rested. If we monitor you getting the money early, we might call you early to arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence an earlier pickup of your daughter.
Any deviation of my instructions will result in the immediate execution of your daughter. You will also be denier her remains for burial. The two gentlemen watching over your daughter do not particularly like you, so I advise you not to provoke them. Speaking to anyone about your situation, such as Police, F.B. I. , etc., will result in your daughter being beheaded. If we catch you talking to a stray dog, she dies. If you alert bank authorities, she dies. If the money is marked or tampered with, she dies. You will be scanned for electronic devices and if any are found, she dies. You can try to deceive us but be warned we are familiar with Law enforcement countermeasures and tactics. You stand a 99% chance of killing your daughter if you try to outsmart us. Follow our instructions and you stand a 100% chance of getting her back. You and your family are under constant scrutiny (again misspelled) as well as the authorities. Don't try to grow a brain Jean-Claude. Don't underestimate us, Jean-Claude. Use that good, southern common sense of yours. It's up to you now Jean-Claude! Victory! S.B.T.C.
“There are just so many things that are weird about this note,” you state, then continue, “First, it seems like it was written by someone that lived through the time of Patty Hearst and the SLA, the Chicago Seven, and all that. Like what is SBTC?”
“And what is ‘respects the victim’s business’ and ‘get some sleep’? Or ‘be rested’? What kidnapper says that? It is the middle of the night. They would already be asleep.” Ted sighs.
“It also seems like the misspellings are easy words but then they correctly spelled words like ‘adequate,’ ‘attaché,” and ‘hence.’ Hence!” you say, laughing.
“And,” you continue, “the talking to a stray dog, she dies, alert the bank, she dies. Along with don’t grow a brain. Doesn’t that sound like it is straight from the movies?”
“Yeah, it does. And the note implies ‘they’ are a group by saying ‘we’ but then the writer forgets the ruse and writes an ‘I’ and ‘my.’”
Then Ted adds, “The $118,000 is strange. Not one million, not 100,000. I checked and the $118,000 is exactly Jean-Claude’s recent bonus.”
Turning the pages, you say, “The whole ransom note is three pages. I checked with a friend at the FBI, and they think this is the longest ransom note on a kidnapping case in history.”
“What does Documents say?” Ted asks.
“Ah, yes. Documents. They say the note would take about 20 minutes to write. But they also say, unfortunately, that the broad fiber-tip pen distorts the minute details. And that they can eliminate everyone else in this case but not Mrs. Garnier.”
“Yeah,” Ted says, “but can you imagine the pressure a document guy would be under to ID someone in this type of case? I know I wouldn’t want to do it. He is wise to just report that it is very similar, and they can’t eliminate her.”
“Here is the postmortem report,” you say. “It’s nine pages long.” Flipping through the various pages, you continue, “A lot of doctor speak, but it comes down to strangulation as the cause of death. There was that ‘garrote’ around her neck. There is a large hemorrhage on the scalp, a blow that caused a brain injury to the head that most likely occurred before strangulation or death.
Ted says, “Here on page seven, it says, ‘small intestine contains fragmented pieces of fruit material which may represent fragments of pineapple.’
“There is one strange line on page nine that I am not sure what it means,” you say. “It says, ‘focal interstitial chronic inflammation.’”
“Looking at the evidence reports,” Ted says, doodling on them with a pencil, “I see that they found the other part to the broken paintbrush used for the garrote in a plastic craft tote box near the wine cellar.
“And they found some fibers similar to Sylvie’s clothes on the tape that was supposedly over her mouth. It says the fibers on the tape are consistent with her fleece jacket.”
“I also see here in the report that upon examining the tape, they got the impression that it was put on the victim after death. They are not sure, but it looks like it.” You say, “I’ve got a report here. I don’t know how much credence to put into these neighbor interviews, but one neighbor remembers seeing lights on during the night and a light off in the front room that is usually on all night.”
“Another neighbor remembers hearing a scream at about two a.m.”
“You know,” Ted says, “according to dispatch, only four minutes elapsed from the 911 call to police arrival, and yet the parents were both dressed.”
You add, “Yeah, they were fully dressed in what looks like something they wore the night before, at that. Why lie about getting dressed in the morning?”
Ted adds, “Then there is the blanket that was in the dryer. Who knew where that was? And wrapped around her just like a mother would do.”
You respond, “And why lie about the pineapple thing? Why lie about what she was wearing when she went to bed?”
“The staging here is quite weird. It is like staging within staging,” Ted says.
“Listen,” you continue, “if you are in the middle of a kidnapping, you don’t write a three-page 20-minute ransom note while you are in the house. You don’t leave the note by the back stairs. You don’t kill the victim in the house. And you don’t fake or stage an elaborate kidnapping to disguise a murder.”
“That’s the way I see it,” Ted agrees. “If you accept that there has been a lot of staging, staging always means misdirection, and you have to accept there has been lying, like lying about putting her right to bed. Lying is always done by the guilty, so it must be someone in the family who committed the murder. No intruder would stage the suitcase, the garotte, the tape, the long ransom note, et cetera.”
“That’s right. It’s not only staging, but also evidence fabrication. It is unlikely the craft-made garotte is what caused the strangulation. It was fabricated to account for it. The note, the tape, the luggage, the cord—all fabricated.”
After a long pause, Ted says, “Well, we have hashed out the evidence. Overall, what do you think?”
“Here is what I think,” you say. “This is speculation, but I think the children didn’t go right to bed and were not asleep when they got home. Bobby was given some pineapple and milk. For some reason, the little girl took the bowl from him and ate some of his pineapple. He got angry and hit her, perhaps with the flashlight, or maybe she was pushed against the sink. She didn’t die right then but maybe went into convulsions caused by the brain injury. In order to get her to be quiet and stop squirming, he strangled her, and she died. He probably did not intend to go that far. Then the parents came in and saw the situation. Like I say, speculation.”
“But to blame it on an intruder they used the rest of the night to create this ruse. They were in a state of panic knowing that they had just lost their daughter and did not want to also lose their son. They put the suitcase under the window, made the garotte from Sylvie’s craft supplies to account for the strangulation, placed her in that semi-hidden wine cellar, and lightly tied her hands. They got the blanket out of the dryer, and for some reason placed a nightgown next to her. Then they sat down and used the notepad and pen at the desk to write the long ransom note. Including the exact amount of the bonus.
“Then, after everything was prepared, things were put back in their places like the pad and pen, except they forgot about Bobby’s Swiss Army knife and the flashlight. After perhaps even disposing of a couple of items like the tape and the cord, Sylvie called 911. Because they never undressed, they were fully dressed when the first officer arrived four minutes later.
“They would not let anyone talk to Bobby, for good reason. When no one found the victim after a few hours, Jean-Claude couldn’t stand it any longer. So, he went down into the basement and brought the victim upstairs.”
“I’ve got one for you,” Ted says. “What about the DNA they found on the underwear?”
“Sylvie said it was a brand-new package. It’s not in fluid so it is most likely touch DNA. I’m betting it would match a packager in a factory somewhere. If they never get into the system, we may never know whose DNA it is.”
“Yeah, but it’s DNA. People are going to pay a lot of attention to that,” Ted reminds you.
“I get it,” you say. “You got to look at this from a total perspective. If we have a case where you have a murder, a gun is at the scene, a bullet matches the gun, a casing matches the gun, a suspect owns that gun, he is seen that day with the gun, the suspect hated the dead guy. So, all the evidence we have points to that guy. And let’s say they discover foreign DNA on the gun, Should you throw out all your evidence and not prosecute the guy because of the foreign DNA? No. Here, once you recognize the staging and all the things meant to misdirect us actually came from right there in the house—the flashlight, the garrote, the blanket, the note, the pens and pads, even the luggage are all from within. Nothing really points to the outside. Except the DNA.”
“You can’t let one thing overrule everything else.”
“Right you are. But I know this is going to be hard for the DA to come to grips with,” you say. “We’ve got this prominent family who just lost their daughter, and perhaps their son committed the crime. To what end will charging the young boy accomplish? He’s a minor, so we know how that goes. If you charge the parents for their part, that would look really bad politically because they just lost their daughter. To what end would that bring justice for the murder?”
“I sure wouldn’t want to be in the DA’s shoes,” Ted adds with a finality.
“Welcome to the Incident Room. This is your Case Briefing.”
Congratulations on your first day as a police detective. You have been partnered with an experienced detective who will walk you through some of the toughest and most infamous crimes in American history. You will visit the crime scene, review the evidence, search for clues, interview witnesses, read the news reports, and decide with your partner who’s the most likely culprit and send the case off to the DA’s office. This is true crime in real time.
As you gain experience, you will be given more autonomy in investigating the cases. Your partner will be there to guide and observe you, but it will be up to you to not only decide who to prosecute, but also name the famous case based on the facts and circumstances. Your investigative skills will be challenged, and so will your knowledge of historical cases throughout the decades, from the late 19th century to the present.
Follow the evidence wherever it takes you, don’t jump to conclusions, and use the experience you gain through these investigations to make your case. Even if you recognize the case and think you know the answers, think again. These cases were selected to challenge and surprise you.
Now get to work.
Obsessed: My Relentless Pursuit of the Zodiac Killer (Paperback)
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In Obsessed: My Relentless Pursuit of the Zodiac Killer, Dr. Mark Hewitt invites readers into his gripping journey of unraveling one of America's most enduring mysteries. Dr. Hewitt, an expert on the Zodiac case, shares his transformation from a pastor to a dedicated true crime investigator.
This memoir details Dr. Hewitt's meticulous research, personal encounters, and the profound impact of the Zodiac case on his life. Moving to California reignited his passion, leading him to explore crime scenes and connect with other enthusiasts. His relentless pursuit is not only about the Zodiac but also about understanding the complexities of human nature and the quest for truth.
Obsessed: My Relentless Pursuit of the Zodiac Killer provides a unique blend of personal narrative and investigative insight, offering readers a compelling look at the determination and challenges faced by those who seek to solve cold cases. Join Dr. Hewitt as he navigates the twists and turns of this enigmatic case, shedding light on his life's work and his unwavering commitment to uncovering the truth.
25 Frozen, 1 Thawed tells the true stories of unsolved murders across the Midwest and the long, painful search for answers that families and investigators continue to face.
25 Frozen 1 Thawed (Paperback)
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25 Frozen, 1 Thawed (Murder and Mayhem in the Midwest) takes readers deep into the heart of unsolved and unforgettable crimes from America’s Midwest—cases as haunting as the winter nights they were born from. Through meticulous research and vivid storytelling, veteran journalist Bob Cyphers unravels the chilling details behind murders, disappearances, and mysteries that refused to fade with time.
From the quiet streets of St. Louis to small towns where everyone knows everyone—and no one will talk—these true accounts lay bare the human stories behind the headlines. A young mother gunned down steps from her home, her life cut short by a killer who may have been closer than anyone guessed. A teenager snatched from a bike ride and never seen again, her absence still echoing through her community decades later. A journalist-in-training whose promising future ended in a shallow creek, leaving two suspects and questions that still divide a town. And a sorority sister found beaten on her own front lawn just before Christmas break, in a case that still unsettles a college campus.
Blending compassion for the victims with a reporter’s drive for facts, Frozen doesn’t just revisit the evidence—it brings readers into the emotional center of each story. These are not distant, cold cases; they are stories of lives interrupted, families searching for truth, and communities forever changed.
California: Surf, Sand & Murder
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California: Surf, Sand & Murder traces the darker side of the Golden State through a series of real cold cases, each rooted in a different town and each carrying the weight of lives cut short. From the still-unsolved Black Dahlia case in Los Angeles to the haunting disappear-ance and death of Elaine Davis near Santa Cruz, the book follows stories that are grim, hu-man, and hard to forget. It also revisits the murder of Dorothy Scott in Anaheim, a case made even more chilling by the phone calls that came after she vanished, and the heart-breaking death of young Kathy Harlan in North Highlands.
What gives this book its force is not shock alone, but sorrow. Again and again, the stories return to families left waiting, searching, and grieving for answers that never fully came. Some cases are famous, while others belong to people who were nearly lost to time. To-gether, they form a portrait of fear, loss, and the long shadow violence casts over ordinary lives. Rather than turning these crimes into spectacle, the book keeps its focus on the vic-tims and the quiet hope that memory, evidence, or time might still bring justice.
