September 28, 2023 • 42 mins
Clea Hall disappeared in 1994 when she was just 18 years old. The night she disappeared, she was only a few blocks away from home at her after-school job. What happened to Clea in those few short blocks between work and home? Did she get into a car with a stranger? Did someone unknown to her family pick her up? Or could something have happened at her job - something that meant that she never left that house alive?
If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
School of Humans. Back in twenty nineteen, I got a
Facebook message from Laurel Hall, whose daughter Kleashnder Hall disappeared
in nineteen ninety four when she was just eighteen years old.
It read, quote, Hi, Catherine, my daughter disappeared from her
after school job on May night, nineteen ninety four without
(00:28):
a trace. One of my Facebook friends listens to your
podcasts and thought you could help me. Will you? Thanks?
Laurel end quote. In nineteen ninety four, Kleshender Hall, known
to everyone as Clea, was living in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Actually,
Clia grew up very near where I grew up. We
(00:49):
lived just a couple of miles from each other. Clia
was a senior at Watson Chapel High School. She had
big dreams and she was making them happen. May of
nineteen ninety four was a super busy month for Clea.
She was getting ready for a big speech at graduation.
She was valedictorian of her class. After graduation, Clia was
(01:10):
leaving town. She was supposed to start a summer internship
that she had all lined up at a doctor's office
in Boston, and then in the fall she would start
college at Tennessee State University, where she had been accepted
to the pre med program. Clia dreamed of a career
in medicine. She wanted to be a pediatrician. But on
May ninth, just a few weeks before leaving town to
(01:32):
start her new life, the one she had worked so
hard for, Clia Hall disappeared without a trace. Over the
past five years making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone,
I've learned that there is no such thing as a
small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds
of messages from people all around the country asking for
(01:55):
help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families,
and their communities. And now they have a new way
to reach out. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone
Murder Line. If you have a case you'd like me
and my team to look into, you can reach out
to us at six seven eight seven four four six
(02:17):
one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four
six one four five. Kleschendra Denise Hall was born on
(03:12):
March thirtieth, nineteen seventy six, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Her dad,
Willie and her mom, Laurel Hall, had four children. They
had three sons and Clia with their only daughter. They
were a very close family and Clia was a serious student.
And although she went out just like all teens do
and enjoyed social activities, she was extremely responsible. She even
(03:36):
had an after school job to help pay for college.
She worked for doctor Larry Amos, PhD. And not a
medical doctor. What he did was that he ran a
nonprofit organization out of his home office at fifty three
oh nine Fawcett Road, just a few blocks from Clia's house.
Larry owned two houses that were right next to each other.
Over the years, he did a lot of construction work
(03:58):
on that property. The house where Clia worked was a
big English tutor home and had a separate area that
was a home office with its own dedicated landline. Clia's
job was to help with bookkeeping. She got Larry to
sign checks and help keep things organized. Now, it's been
reported that Larry wrote grants where he would allocate resources
(04:21):
for childcare facilities, But I've discovered that, like in so
many cold cases, there are a lot of basic facts
about this case, even though it has been reported on
many times over the years, that are just flat out wrong.
Because the truth was that Larry Amos was involved in
some very shady financial dealings, which we will come back to,
(04:42):
but first let's go back to Clia and that day
in nineteen ninety four. I don't really like phrases like
troubled team, because to me, everyone deserves justice and to
have their case investigated. But just for clarity, because we
are looking at someone's pattern of life. Clia came from
a loving home. She had no issues with mental health.
(05:04):
She had a steady job. She was very organized. She
was planning for her future. She had no disputes with
her parents or anyone else, and she was not known
to party or to disappear for days. Clia's schedule had
been set for several weeks. She had just gone to
her senior prom. Then on Saturday night, she went to
a sorority ball. Sunday was Mother's Day, which Clia celebrated
(05:28):
with her family. On Monday, May night, nineteen ninety four,
Clia woke up, had breakfast with her brothers and her mom, Laurel,
and then went to school. Laurel picked her up at
around two thirty that afternoon. Clea was allowed to leave
school a little early because of her after school job.
They went straight to Larry's house, but there was no
(05:49):
one home. Later, Larry's wife, Patricia, apologized to Laurel for this. Apparently, Patricia,
Larry's wife, had a job. She worked for the school,
and when Clia arrived for work that day, she hadn't
gotten home yet. After realizing no one was home, Laurel
and Clea drove back to their house. Cla was tired,
so she kind of crashed out on the couch they
(06:11):
waited to hear from Larry Amos or his wife. Laurel
said that Larry called their house at four forty five pm.
He said he was home and he was ready for
Clea to come into work. So Clia basically jumped up
off the couch and got into the car and Laurel
drove her back to Larry Amos's house. Laurel watched as
Clia walked up to that house. She was wearing a
(06:33):
blue and white Polkadot printed shirt and short set white
tennis shoes and white socks. Clea had short hair, but
she had gotten hair extensions for the prom, so she
had her hair up in a ponytail with a pink ribbon.
Laurel watched her daughter walk across the lawn and into
that house. That was the last time she ever saw
Clia alive. Of course, as we know with all these cases,
(06:57):
everything becomes much more clear only in hindsight, and that's
when these tiny details become so crucial. Laurel, when she
was recalling what happened that afternoon, told reporters that Cleia
had been a little bit dazed after she got the
call from Larry Amos because she was asleep on the couch.
They jumped straight into the car and drove over to
the Amos house. And because of that, because they were
(07:20):
kind of rushed, Clia forgot to grab her purse, which
had her ID in it. So Cleah went to work
that day with no purse and no ID. Now normally
this would not have been a big deal since she
was only supposed to be gone for a couple of hours,
but later this would become very significant. Just to clarify,
Clia did have a driver's license, but she didn't have
(07:41):
her own car. And remember this was the pre cell
phone era. There were cell phones out there. We had
gone from the big brick cell phones you see in
eighties movies to the plastic flip phones. But they were
super expensive, and back then teens did not really have
cell phones, so Clia and her mom had a routine.
Clea would always call her mother from Larry Amos's landline
(08:02):
when she was ready to be picked up from work.
They did this every day. Normally, Clea would finish work
at around eight thirty. Clia would look out the window
and wait for her mom. Laurel would pull the car up,
but generally would not honk the horn because she didn't
want to wake people up. So then to get out
of the garage, Clia would push the button. The automatic
door would open, and then Clia would push it again.
(08:24):
She knew exactly how to duck under that closing garage
door without causing it to open back up. That night,
the phone rang at the Hall house at eight pm.
Laurel picked up the phone and it was Clea. Clia's
brother also picked up the phone in the other room.
Clia asked if anyone had called for her at home.
Laurel said no, there were no messages. Clia said she
(08:46):
wasn't quite finished at work, but she would be done soon.
She said she would call back in around thirty minutes
to get picked up. Laurel was reading on the couch.
She drifted off to sleep with her book resting on
her chest. Laurel was right next to the phone, but
that phone never rang. Later police confirmed that because Clia's
brothers were home too, no one heard the phone ring,
(09:08):
so it's not like Laurella just slept through it. There
were no other calls that night. Just before one am,
Clia's dad, Willie, came into the house. He found his
wife on the sofa and he woke her up. He
asked where Clia was, and that's when Laurel realized she'd
never gotten that call from Clia, she would later tell reporters.
Immediately she felt sick. Laurel called Larry Amos's house and
(09:32):
he picked up on the first ring. She told him
Clelia hadn't come home that night and asked what time
she left. Larry told Laurel he thought Clia left the
house at around eight thirty, just like she normally did.
He told her, hang on, I'll go check the time sheet.
Then he said he had checked it and confirmed that yes,
Clia had signed out at eight thirty. He said that
(09:53):
he assumed Clia had gotten into a car, but that
he had not actually seen Clia leave the house. Larry
said he heard the garage door open and close and
just assumed that Clia left as usual, Lolarel had picked
her up. Larry told Laurel that Clia didn't tell him
or his wife that she was leaving that night, which
he did say was unlike her. Laurel Hall did not
(10:16):
sleep that night. One part of her brain was probably
trying to tell herself. Maybe Clia did meet a friend,
maybe she made a plan and didn't want to tell
her mom about it. But in her heart, she knew
something was very wrong, and because Clia was eighteen years
old back then, police told her she had to wait
twenty four hours to report her daughter missing. The next morning,
(10:39):
Laurel told Clia's little brother to look for her at
the high school they had band together, and her brother
didn't see her there, but he told his mom later
that the seniors had gone to the elementary school that
day for some kind of school trip, so he held
out hope that maybe she was there. But by that afternoon,
Clia's brother realized she was not in school, and he
(11:00):
called his mother and told her she had never shown up.
At that point, Laurel knew something bad had happened again.
This was totally out of character for Clia. She and
her husband Willie reported Clia missing that afternoon at the
Pine Bluff Police Department. As we have seen in so
many of these cases, at first, it seemed like the
(11:23):
police were just not taking Clea's disappearance very seriously. According
to the Hall family, the police seemed to treat Clea
as a runaway. In fact, Laurel later told reporters that
police suggested Clia could have run away, possibly due to
her hiding a secret from her parents. Maybe even they
suggested the fact that Clia was pregnant. Laurel told police
(11:44):
bluntly that Clea was on birth control. She actually was
on an implanable contraceptive that was in her arm, and
this kind of birth control has a very low failure rate. Plus,
Cleia didn't have a boyfriend, and even if she was dating,
Clea was a young woman who was looking to the future.
This girl was not trying to get tied down in
(12:04):
her hometown. Literally everything in her life suggested the opposite.
She had everything to look forward to, graduation, her summer job,
her full scholarship in Tennessee. Clea was happy. She was
in a great mood in the days before her disappearance.
If we're looking at victimology, there was literally nothing in
her background or her profile that would suggest that she
(12:25):
would run away for any reason. And finally, there were
the circumstances surrounding her disappearance. Let's say that she was
inexplicably going to run away from home. Why would she
choose that day? Why would she leave the one day
she forgot her purse that had her money and her
ID in it. Detectives looked through Clea's diary. They saw
(12:46):
nothing about boyfriends, or problems, or plans to leave town suddenly.
In fact, the main thing Cleia had in that diary
was her work schedule. It was filled out months in advance.
They were finally understanding Clia was not the type of
person to skip worker school, and they began to believe
that there had been foul play. Even early on in
(13:11):
the investigation, Laurel and Willie started to feel suspicious about
Clia's boss, Larry Amos. First of all, it struck Laurel
as odd that on that first night when Clea was missing,
when Laurel called the Amos house, she thought it was
weird that Larry Amos answered on the first ring. Now,
he later told her that he was up in the
(13:32):
next room watching TV. But if that was true, Number one,
why would he be up that late? And number two,
why would he immediately pick up the phone on the
work line? Why would he be sitting right next to
the phone like that? And later she started to pick
up what she believed were discrepancies in Larry Amos's description
of what happened when Clea left the house. She thought
(13:54):
it was a little off the fact that Larry said
that he hadn't seen Clea leave, because she said Larry
Amos always knew exactly who was coming and going at
that property. Larry Amos was the last person to see
Cleo live, but he wasn't being super cooperative with police.
Police asked Larry if they could drop by so they
could get a statement, but he said he was going
(14:15):
out of town on a business trip to Dallas. He
said he would be gone for three days so police
would have to take his statement when he got back
in town. He emphasized that he wanted to be there
in person when police came to his house. Larry claimed
he was buying tanning beds for a business idea he had,
but it was later reported that he never bought those
beds and he never opened any kind of tanning bed business,
(14:39):
so a lot of people wondered did he have a
different reason for going to Texas Police asked Larry Amos
to take a lot of detector test, Laurel said, Larry
claimed he was busy, and then later said police would
have to talk to his attorneys if they wanted him
to take a lot of detector test. By the way,
I completely get this after what I've experienced with cases
(14:59):
in Arkansas and elsewhere. I know that light detectors are
completely dependent on the skill of the person giving the examination,
And to be honest, I've seen several cases where people
have taken light detector tests and the results have come
back inconclusive or that they failed it, and later that
person was proven to be completely innocent. So I get
(15:20):
Larry Amos's reluctance to take a light detector test. What
I don't get is that Larry Amos seemed totally unconcerned
about Clia being missing and about being one of the
last people to see her, and there were some other
odd things that were happening that Larel said did not
seem to add up. For example, before Larry Amos left town,
police did very briefly stop by his house, and when
(15:44):
they did, apparently detectives went into that home office. They
picked up the phone and hit redial on the phone.
They wrote down the last number dialed on a scrap
of paper and said it was someone named Smith. The
police asked Larry Amos about that phone number if he
recognized it, because they were thinking maybe Clia had made
a call from that home office landline and that might
(16:06):
help explain who saw her last. Larry said he had
no idea who that person was, but later it turned
out that Smith this phone number was the phone number
for Larry Amos's kids babysitter. So then Laurel started wondering
why would he claim not to know the phone number
of someone that he and or his wife presumably called often.
(16:26):
And also, if the babysitter was the last person called
and he was sitting up late in that office, why
would Larry or anyone else need to call up a
babysitter after midnight. Laurel and Willie did not wait for
the detectives to start searching for their daughter. They called
Clia's friends and posted flowers everywhere around town, which they
printed up themselves. Across the street from the Amos house,
(16:50):
there are some woods. The volunteers searched there and also
in the wooded area behind the house, and they did
what police should have done in the first place. They
knocked on doors and pounded pavement. Finally, several days after
Clia went missing, detectives started so too very quickly. It
seemed like there were a few possibilities being talked about here.
(17:12):
The first possibility was that Clia left with someone in
a car. This seemed extremely unlikely because Cleah had a
plan for her mom to pick her up, and she
had a regular routine. This was a Monday night, it
was a school night, and even if she was going
to leave with someone else, she would have called her mom.
She knew her mom would be waiting for her. Remember,
Clia had already called her mom to tell her she
(17:33):
would be done at work soon, so it would make
no sense that she wouldn't call back and let her
know that she was going to do something else. The
second possibility was that Cleah walked home alone. In a
documentary that later aired about the case on Oxygen, the
journalist interviewed a friend of Clia's, another young woman who
used to work for Larry Amos. The friend said that
(17:53):
she was there the night when Clia went missing. She
said she had offered Cla a ride home, and Clia said, no,
don't worry about it, that she was going to walk home. Now,
this was a strange piece of information. I would love
to find this young woman, this second person who said
that they were there that night, because Laurel claims that
she later clarified this girl was not in the house
(18:14):
that night, that in fact, that young woman had not
been working in the office for several months by the
time Cleo went missing, and she thinks that after this
many years, the young woman just got confused in her memory.
She thinks she was thinking about a different night. Laurel
insists that the only people that she knows of who
were in the house that night were doctor Larry Amos,
his wife, and their small children. I just want to
(18:38):
talk for a minute about the theory that Clea would
have walked home alone. This would have been shortly after
eight thirty at night, so it would have been dusk,
not full dark, but getting dark. And I just want
to explain a little about Pine Bluff. As someone who
grew up there, I can tell you it has a
history of violent crime and it continues to be a
dangerous place to live. Back in the nineties, it's really
(18:58):
not an exaggeration to say that parts of Pine Bluff
and other parts of South Arkansas were like war zones.
There was an even a series back in the nineties
called Banging in Little Rock about the crips and the
Bloods and other gangs that were active in Little Rock
in South Arkansas. In the nineties, the population of Pine
Bluff was around sixty thousand, but per capita, it regularly
ranks in the five most dangerous small towns in the
(19:20):
United States. Everyone knows, and everyone knew back then, you
do not go out walking in Pine Bluff, Arkansas after dark,
and Laurel was very protective of Clia. She insisted her
daughter would never walk home alone. She said she had
only walked home alone once from Larry Amos's house, and
on that instance, Clia's brother walked home with her, So
(19:43):
Clia randomly deciding to walk home alone near dark is
a remote possibility at best. Later from Laurel's interviews, it's
clear that Laurel becomes more suspicious of Larry Amos as
a person. She talks about discussing Larry Amos with Clia
and Clea would talk about Larry Amos's business. Laurel said
(20:06):
Clia had made comments to her about the fact that
when she would get Larry Amos to sign the checks,
a lot of them did not seem to be related
to the nonprofit, and Clia sort of remarked that was
a little weird, maybe a little shady, And she would
talk about how Larry Amos was cheap, but never said
anything about him being dangerous or violent in any way.
(20:28):
Laurel started to become more suspicious as time went on,
because when Larry Amos did talk to police after he
got back from his Texas trip and gave them a
formal statement, she said certain details of the story he
told started to change from what he told her originally.
In his third statement, he said that when Clia left,
she had a can of peach pop meaning peach soda
(20:49):
in her hand that his wife had given her. He
said he saw Clea looking out the garage window. Yet
when he talked to Laurel that first time, Larry Amos
said he was nowhere near the garage. He had said
specifically that he'd just heard the door open and close.
Now again, these details seemed to be tiny, but they
could be hugely important. Two weeks after Clea disappeared, police
(21:12):
finally went in to search the Amos house, and they
made a major mistake here in my opinion, because they
didn't get a search warrant. So when Larry Amos told
them after a little while they had to stop the search,
they had no legal right to stay there. They had
to leave the house. So afterwards, when police said they
found no signs of foul play, Laurel remained suspicious because
(21:33):
it was obvious to her that even if something was
in the house, the police didn't stay long enough to
do a thorough enough search to find it. And also,
Larry Amos had had a lot of time. He had
a couple weeks at that point. He could have cleaned
up anything with two whole weeks to do it. And
then another bizarre thing started to happen. Several people, including
(21:55):
Laurel's husband Willie, saw Larry Amos tearing down Clia's missing posters.
Laurel and Willie did a little bit of their own
detective work on Larry Ry Amos. They reached out to
his ex wife, Christine, and this is a strange story.
They arranged to meet up with Christine in person. They
(22:16):
noticed that Christine seemed to be very nervous, and there
was a man across the street who was taking pictures
of them while they're talking to her. Now, Christine told
Laurel and Willie she knew she seemed kind of paranoid,
but she said she was afraid of Larry Amos. She
said he'd been physically and emotionally abusive to her in
the marriage. She said they were in the middle of
an ugly court battle. She said she was suing him
(22:37):
for child support. Things between them had gotten really bad,
she said. When she left him, they got into a
physical fight that ended when she threw boiling water over him.
When Laurel and Willie reached out to her, Christine said
she was actually worried this could have been orchestrated by Larry.
He might have been planning to do something to her.
So now Laurel and Willie are alarmed, and they told
(23:00):
the police about this violent streak that Larry Amos reportedly had.
But they say the Pine Bluff Police Department basically blew
them off. They said Christine was just basically a bitter
ex wife. Then Laurel and Willie tried to reach out
to Larry Amos's second wife, Patricia, the one who was
home the night Clea disappeared, but they were never really
able to talk to her or to Larry Amos again.
(23:24):
In fact, Laurel has told people that Larry Amos has
not been in contact with her family since the first
week after Clia disappeared. The only thing on the record
that I can find from Larry Amos's wife, Patricia came
from a transcript of an interview that was quoted in
a Fox News report online. In that report, she said,
(23:46):
quote it was odd that she left without telling either
of us end quote, So in essence, she seemed to
back up her husband's story. Now I should say now
that Larry Amos has always completely denied any knowledge of
or involvement with Clia's disappearance, and later Larry Amos kind
of seen to turn the attention back onto Klia's family. Obviously,
(24:09):
when a teenager goes missing, police have to look at
the family. Larry Amos said that he was being unfairly
targeted by police in fact, he filed a complaint against
one of the detectives who is investigating him. He is
not really commented on this case at all over the years.
When the Arkansas Democrat, because that newspaper, reached out to them,
he said, quote Strangely, those that have been calling have
(24:33):
not wanted to read the report. Not only was a
report filed, a complaint was filed against one of the detectives.
There are very detailed questions that should have been answered
about the family and other things. It's amazing that people
who really want to find out wouldn't begin to read
the report. End quote. Now, I will say I would
be very happy to read that report. And normally, in
(24:53):
my understanding of Arkansas freedom of information law, complaints filed
against officers are public information. I have made a freedom
of information request for that report. But if an investigation
is still technically open, normally any part of the case file,
including a complaint, that would normally be public record, will
be sealed. Larry Amos's statement was bizarre because in this case,
(25:17):
there's absolutely zero suggestion that Clia had any problems at home. Now,
some people have suggested maybe Larry Amos just was tearing
down these posters and behaving a little bit strangely because
he didn't want people linking him with a young woman's disappearance.
But in my opinion, Larry should have been way more
concerned about Cleia in the fact she was missing, than
(25:39):
about his reputation at that point. The fact that he
seemed to try to impede the investigation and be uncooperative,
that to me is a huge red flag. Over the years,
Like I said, the Halls have reached out to Larry
Amos once they brought a canine dogged with the property,
but Laurel said Larry refused to let them search there.
According to Laurel, when Larry Amos came to the door,
(26:02):
he made a strange statement when she asked to come
on his about not trusting psychics. Laurel later told a
reporter that one of the women she was with had
the letters ESP as part of her license plate number,
and Larry's comment seemed to be a bizarre reference to that.
Whether he genuinely thought he saw some kind of pattern
there or whether he was just making up a reason
(26:24):
to not let them search. Either way, the Hall started
to get more and more suspicious that there was something
not right about doctor Larry Amos. After Clia had been
missing for a few days, detectives talked to other potential
people of interest. Of course, they had asked her family
and her friends about potential boyfriends, and again Laurel told
(26:45):
police Clia didn't have a steady boyfriend. But Laurel said
Clia did have a male friend, a slightly older guy
who she liked. This person was a twenty three year
old Army reservist and he went to Clia's church. This
guy was cooperative. He talked to police and agreed to
take a polygraph test, but the results were inconclusive. And again,
(27:06):
I don't put a lot of faith in polygraph tests
in my opinion. There's a reason why they aren't admissible
in court, and there are a lot of reasons why
tests can be ruled in conclusive. I'm mentioning this because
this guy was completely cooperative. He gave police permission to
search his vehicle. They didn't find anything connecting him to
Clia's disappearance. But when they talked to this guy, he
(27:28):
did tell investigators he had had a strange encounter with
Larry Amos himself. He said that he had given Clia
a ride to work a couple of weeks before she disappeared.
He said that when he dropped her off at Larry
Amos's house, Larry said he needed to leave because courting
was not allowed on his property, which is a strange
comment to make to a high school girl. Clea explained
(27:49):
to Larry, this guy was nothing more than a friend,
but two of them were not going out, which again,
why would that matter? That was none of Larry's business.
Laurel said that Clia's friend remained cooperative with law enforcement
over the years. Eventually he left the area, married and
a family of his own. Over the years, other theories
have come up. Some people have mentioned that Clea could
(28:12):
have been kidnapped by a serial killer. A very infamous
serial killer, Samuel Little, confess to killing a twenty six
year old woman named Jelanda Jones and Pine Bluff just
a few months before Clea disappeared. In my opinion, this
does not seem to be a credible theory because, first
of all, Jolanda's murder was considered to have been related
to drugs. Clia's disappearance did not fit Samuel Little's mo MO
(28:35):
at all. Secondly, I have a hard time buying the
idea that before dark someone would grab her off the
street and have no one see a thing for me.
In Clia's case, all roads lead back to the Amos house.
I think something happened there that night, and a lot
of online commenters seem to feel that way. I've talked
(28:56):
to a lot of people in Pine Bluff and they
all look at that house with a lot of suspicion.
One of the comments I read online reads quote growing up,
it was common for to nonchalantly say that doctor Amos
killed Leschendra and hid her in his concrete walls. His
neighbors say they didn't see anyone come and pick her up.
He was also seen sneaking around removing her missing flyers.
(29:18):
The man is a creep, the kind of person you
just feel uncomfortable being around. Laurel stopped relying on the
Pine Bluff Police Department and over the years the case
went cold. Her family kept going to the media and
every year they would do an awareness event on Clea's birthday.
(29:38):
Over the years, they went through even more heartache because
a DJ raised money for Clea's reward fund and then
kept the money in left town and sadly the whole
family was victimized again, their funds were gone, and the
DJ eventually passed away. I just want to say, as
a side note here, I've seen this happen so often
in cold cases. People will give money, they have good hearts,
(30:02):
they want to help a family, and it will turn
out that this money that was supposed to be for
a scholarship or an event will get stolen. So please,
when you are giving money to a victim or a family,
please make sure you know exactly where it's going. Do
not allow these families to be victimized again buscammers. In
(30:22):
twenty twelve, after years of nothing happening, there seemed to
be a potentially huge break in this case. Oxygen had
a TV series called Find Our Missing, and they ran
Clia's story. Two witnesses came forward and they talked to
the TV program. One was a construction worker and he
said he'd worked on Larry Ames's house during the late
nineteen nineties. After Clia went missing. This worker said he
(30:46):
went to the police and he told them that he
had been installing a fireplace in Larry Ames's house. He
was taking out sheet rock and he saw what he
believed was blood splattered on some drywall. Another worker had
a similar story. He said he was working in the
backyard and he was filling a hole with some cement.
The worker said he smelled something horrible. The documentary said, quote,
(31:10):
when the wind would blow, he could smell an odor
unlike anything he's ever smelled before. End quote. The worker
also said there were flies buzzing all around that backyard.
So in twenty twelve, after the series aired, police finally
got a search warrant. They went back to Larry Amos's
English tutor house, the last place where Cleia was seen alive.
(31:31):
The search warrant affidavit red quote. Sworn statements indicate the
observance of a false wall inside the residence containing blood
on the insulation. Also, statements indicate the body was buried
on the property at fifty three oh nine Fawcet Road,
in a hole where bricks and rocks and powdered concrete
was used to cover up something. End quote. They went
back to Larry Amos's oversized English tutor house, the last
(31:55):
place where Clia was seen alive. This aired on the news.
You could see crime scene tape up everywhere. Police spent
hours there. Larry was wearing a green work shirt and
a tie, and he was on a cell phone outside
watching these detectives go in and out of his house.
Police used sniffer dogs and ground radar penetrating devices, but
(32:15):
they did not dig up anything in the backyard. They
did go inside and police took out little pieces of
that drywall insulation. In all, they filled several huge bags
full of evidence. So Laurel and Willie waited. A month later,
they talked to police and were told that the Arkansas
(32:37):
State Crime Lab had not sent back the evidence yet.
But they were horrified to learn that this wasn't true,
that actually the evidence was still sitting at the police station.
It had not even been forwarded to the crime lab.
After the delay, the evidence was sent to the crime lab,
and several weeks after that the results came back. There
(32:57):
were no traces of blood on any of the evidence
they had tested. This was just another devastating blow for
Clia's family, outraged first of all at the delay, and
they really believed that the police department was hindering the investigation.
Even after all this time, they still had waited so
long to send that evidence to the crime lab. A
(33:18):
spokesperson for the pam Bluff Police Department eventually said that
the state crime lab bound no blood evidence and said
that delay did not affect the evidence, but the Halls
were not buying it. They still have questions about whether
that evidence was tested accurately. In fact, later Laurel said,
the whole thing was so strange and there were so
(33:38):
many things that they believed were in competent mistakes. They
started to suspect it could be a cover up, and
it was about to get much worse because later Laurel
Hall learned that when that evidence was taken out of
the amo's house, one of the detectives put the bags
of evidence into the trunk of his car and then
(33:59):
drove it home and let it sit there all night
before giving it to the crime scene text Later, the
officer said they did that because there was a lot
of media there. They didn't want to have to drag
all these bags of evidence past the cameras. But that
made no sense because the media had been there all day.
You could see this whole thing unfolding. Even if that
were true, they just wanted to get the evidence out
(34:20):
of there quickly. They still could have taken it straight
to the crime lab but they didn't. This person went
home and let that evidence sit there all night in
the trunk of that car. So the truth is, from
my understanding, even if the evidence revealed anything crucial, the
evidence could have been challenged in court, and that officer
potentially ruined the chain of custody. A good defense attorney
(34:43):
could tear that apart at trial. It was later reported
that as a result of all this, a crime scene
lab technician ended up being suspended. No further action was
taken by the Palm Bluff Police Department, and to this day,
I am still trying to find out if after they
supposedly tested evidence and found no blood, any additional DNA
(35:03):
testing was or could be done. A few people have
reached out to Larry Amos over the years. Record show
he still lives in that same neighborhood, in that same
English tutor house. It's still owned by him and his family.
And again I should say, obviously Larry Amos has always
completely denied any involvement in Klea's disappearance. He said that
(35:27):
the business trip was pre planned. He said people claiming
that he was skipping town or running away were just
spreading wild rumors. So what happened to Clea Hall. Again,
for reasons we've discussed before, I don't think it's likely
at all she got into a car with someone else.
Police have never been able to find any evidence that
(35:49):
there was another car at the Amos residence that night.
No neighbors saw her leave, no one saw her along
the route, either walking or another vehicle they didn't recognize,
And for this reason, I also think it's unlikely a
stranger grabbed her in the very short distance between Larry
Amos's house and hers, with no one seeing her. So
I keep coming back to that third possibility, a theory
(36:10):
that I believe is far more likely that Clia never
left the Amos house that night, and that something happened
inside that house, some kind of altercation that we still
don't know about. Obviously, the case file is still sealed,
so there is very limited information out there available to
the public. But I did do a deep dive into
the blueprints and construction history of the Amos house. Over
(36:34):
the past eighteen years, that house has had nine major renovations.
I'm always looking for patterns in these cases, and I
do see quite a few similarities, at least on the surface,
between Clia's case and the case of Kristen Smarts. Kristen's
case was finally solved after over twenty years. Kristin was
nineteen years old when she vanished in nineteen ninety six,
(36:56):
and over the years there was a person of interest,
a guy named Paul Flores. A lot of people believe
that he had assaulted Kristin and killed her, and that
her remains may be in his father's house, but no
one could prove it. But over the years a lot
of people looked at that house as a place of interest,
and like in Clia's case, police did go in in
(37:19):
the year two thousand. They executed a search warrant, and
just like in Clia's case, they used ground penetrating radar,
but they didn't dig up the backyard and they didn't
find anything. Then years later, in twenty twenty one, detectives
went back to the house again and this time they
did dig up the backyard. They found evidence linked to
Kristen Smart buried under the deck. I only mention this
(37:43):
because a lot of people over the years have said, well,
they've searched there, They've used ground penetrating radar, they didn't
find anything. So we can't rule out the possibility that
there could be secrets buried in that backyard or somewhere
else in that house. So if something did happen to
Cleia in the house that night, why would Larry Amos
(38:04):
or someone in his family want a heart her. Well,
one potential motive could be something related to money, because,
as some of you may know, in my other podcast,
Red Collar, I talk a lot about financial fraud and
how financial fraud can lead to murder, and there are
a lot of red flags in Larry Amos's background related
to fraud. He has filed for multiple bankruptcies and in
(38:26):
two thousand and eight, he was running another organization called
Progressive Southeast Arkansas. It was supposed to be a housing
development corporation where he would build houses with this federal
grant money he got, but actually what he did was
just scam the government because the only houses that he
sold he ended up selling a house to his own
(38:49):
daughter at a huge discount, And according to these court papers,
a lot of the other homes that he built were
badly constructed or never built at all. And these court
papers alleged that he took the money and just kind
of ran and left people without homes. So if Clea
was a person handling the books, could she have seen
something she wasn't supposed to see? Could she have seen
(39:10):
some shady stuff she didn't like. Could they have gotten
into an argument, or could Cliah have gotten into conflict
with someone else inside the house that night, someone who
was never mentioned in the original police documents, because remember
we don't have access to the case fall, we don't
have a confirmed list of who was there, and Larry
Amos over the years has not been forthcoming. One person
(39:34):
who has been mentioned over the years, though he was
never officially a person of interest, was Larry Amos's older son, Omar.
Omar Amos was in his twenties at the time when
Clea went missing. He didn't live with Larry and his
wife Patricia, but he did live in a house close by,
so he was over there a lot. Omar has his
own dark past. He later was arrested for assaulting a
(39:56):
female victim. So I do wonder could Larry Amos or
his son, or someone else, maybe someone hanging out with
his son or with another family member, have made some
kind of a move on Clia and she refused their
sexual advances, or did one of Larry's relatives do something
to Clia, something that their father may have helped them
clean up. Sadly, we can't ask Omar. In July of
(40:20):
twenty twenty, Omar was beaten to death in his own
home in Pine Bluff, just five miles away from his
dad's house on Fawcett Road. Over the years, Laurel has
told people that she has a recurring dream about Clia.
In that dream, Clia is sitting in Larry Amos's bathtub,
(40:41):
her hands are tied. She's screaming for her mom to
help her. Laurel knows it's just a dream, but it
seems like her subconscious is screaming that there is something
bothering her about Larry Amos and about that house. Laurel
has confessed that she feels guilty. She of course asked
herself why that night, Why did she fall asleep, even
(41:02):
though there was no way she could have known what
was going on? And to me, the fact that Clia
did not call her mother back means that whatever happened
to her probably happened between eight and around eight thirty pm.
So we have to answer the question what happened inside
that house? I believe this case is solvable. I believe
someone knows something. Every year, Laurel, Willie and the rest
(41:26):
of the family released balloons in pink, Clia's favorite color
on her birthday, March thirtieth. They do the same thing
on May ninth, the day she went missing. Laurel said, quote,
she was just somebody that had a light that meant something.
She had goals, and she had dreams just like everybody else.
And our family had dreams and goals for her too,
(41:48):
And so somewhere we're missing out on seeing what our
life could have been. End quote. I'm Catherine Townsend. This
is Helen Gone. Murder line. Hell and Gone is a
production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written
(42:11):
and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts.
Music is by Ben so Lee, and this episode was
scored by Miranda Hawkins. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
and Elsie Crowley. If you have a case you'd like
(42:32):
me and my team to look into, you can reach
out to us at six seven eight seven four four
six one four five. That's six seven eight seven four
four sixty one four five. School of humans,
School of Humans. Back in twenty nineteen, I got a
Facebook message from Laurel Hall, whose daughter Kleashnder Hall disappeared
in nineteen ninety four when she was just eighteen years old.
It read, quote, Hi, Catherine, my daughter disappeared from her
after school job on May night, nineteen ninety four without
(00:28):
a trace. One of my Facebook friends listens to your
podcasts and thought you could help me. Will you? Thanks?
Laurel end quote. In nineteen ninety four, Kleshender Hall, known
to everyone as Clea, was living in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Actually,
Clia grew up very near where I grew up. We
(00:49):
lived just a couple of miles from each other. Clia
was a senior at Watson Chapel High School. She had
big dreams and she was making them happen. May of
nineteen ninety four was a super busy month for Clea.
She was getting ready for a big speech at graduation.
She was valedictorian of her class. After graduation, Clia was
(01:10):
leaving town. She was supposed to start a summer internship
that she had all lined up at a doctor's office
in Boston, and then in the fall she would start
college at Tennessee State University, where she had been accepted
to the pre med program. Clia dreamed of a career
in medicine. She wanted to be a pediatrician. But on
May ninth, just a few weeks before leaving town to
(01:32):
start her new life, the one she had worked so
hard for, Clia Hall disappeared without a trace. Over the
past five years making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone,
I've learned that there is no such thing as a
small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds
of messages from people all around the country asking for
(01:55):
help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families,
and their communities. And now they have a new way
to reach out. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone
Murder Line. If you have a case you'd like me
and my team to look into, you can reach out
to us at six seven eight seven four four six
(02:17):
one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four
six one four five. Kleschendra Denise Hall was born on
(03:12):
March thirtieth, nineteen seventy six, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Her dad,
Willie and her mom, Laurel Hall, had four children. They
had three sons and Clia with their only daughter. They
were a very close family and Clia was a serious student.
And although she went out just like all teens do
and enjoyed social activities, she was extremely responsible. She even
(03:36):
had an after school job to help pay for college.
She worked for doctor Larry Amos, PhD. And not a
medical doctor. What he did was that he ran a
nonprofit organization out of his home office at fifty three
oh nine Fawcett Road, just a few blocks from Clia's house.
Larry owned two houses that were right next to each other.
Over the years, he did a lot of construction work
(03:58):
on that property. The house where Clia worked was a
big English tutor home and had a separate area that
was a home office with its own dedicated landline. Clia's
job was to help with bookkeeping. She got Larry to
sign checks and help keep things organized. Now, it's been
reported that Larry wrote grants where he would allocate resources
(04:21):
for childcare facilities, But I've discovered that, like in so
many cold cases, there are a lot of basic facts
about this case, even though it has been reported on
many times over the years, that are just flat out wrong.
Because the truth was that Larry Amos was involved in
some very shady financial dealings, which we will come back to,
(04:42):
but first let's go back to Clia and that day
in nineteen ninety four. I don't really like phrases like
troubled team, because to me, everyone deserves justice and to
have their case investigated. But just for clarity, because we
are looking at someone's pattern of life. Clia came from
a loving home. She had no issues with mental health.
(05:04):
She had a steady job. She was very organized. She
was planning for her future. She had no disputes with
her parents or anyone else, and she was not known
to party or to disappear for days. Clia's schedule had
been set for several weeks. She had just gone to
her senior prom. Then on Saturday night, she went to
a sorority ball. Sunday was Mother's Day, which Clia celebrated
(05:28):
with her family. On Monday, May night, nineteen ninety four,
Clia woke up, had breakfast with her brothers and her mom, Laurel,
and then went to school. Laurel picked her up at
around two thirty that afternoon. Clea was allowed to leave
school a little early because of her after school job.
They went straight to Larry's house, but there was no
(05:49):
one home. Later, Larry's wife, Patricia, apologized to Laurel for this. Apparently, Patricia,
Larry's wife, had a job. She worked for the school,
and when Clia arrived for work that day, she hadn't
gotten home yet. After realizing no one was home, Laurel
and Clea drove back to their house. Cla was tired,
so she kind of crashed out on the couch they
(06:11):
waited to hear from Larry Amos or his wife. Laurel
said that Larry called their house at four forty five pm.
He said he was home and he was ready for
Clea to come into work. So Clia basically jumped up
off the couch and got into the car and Laurel
drove her back to Larry Amos's house. Laurel watched as
Clia walked up to that house. She was wearing a
(06:33):
blue and white Polkadot printed shirt and short set white
tennis shoes and white socks. Clea had short hair, but
she had gotten hair extensions for the prom, so she
had her hair up in a ponytail with a pink ribbon.
Laurel watched her daughter walk across the lawn and into
that house. That was the last time she ever saw
Clia alive. Of course, as we know with all these cases,
(06:57):
everything becomes much more clear only in hindsight, and that's
when these tiny details become so crucial. Laurel, when she
was recalling what happened that afternoon, told reporters that Cleia
had been a little bit dazed after she got the
call from Larry Amos because she was asleep on the couch.
They jumped straight into the car and drove over to
the Amos house. And because of that, because they were
(07:20):
kind of rushed, Clia forgot to grab her purse, which
had her ID in it. So Cleah went to work
that day with no purse and no ID. Now normally
this would not have been a big deal since she
was only supposed to be gone for a couple of hours,
but later this would become very significant. Just to clarify,
Clia did have a driver's license, but she didn't have
(07:41):
her own car. And remember this was the pre cell
phone era. There were cell phones out there. We had
gone from the big brick cell phones you see in
eighties movies to the plastic flip phones. But they were
super expensive, and back then teens did not really have
cell phones, so Clia and her mom had a routine.
Clea would always call her mother from Larry Amos's landline
(08:02):
when she was ready to be picked up from work.
They did this every day. Normally, Clea would finish work
at around eight thirty. Clia would look out the window
and wait for her mom. Laurel would pull the car up,
but generally would not honk the horn because she didn't
want to wake people up. So then to get out
of the garage, Clia would push the button. The automatic
door would open, and then Clia would push it again.
(08:24):
She knew exactly how to duck under that closing garage
door without causing it to open back up. That night,
the phone rang at the Hall house at eight pm.
Laurel picked up the phone and it was Clea. Clia's
brother also picked up the phone in the other room.
Clia asked if anyone had called for her at home.
Laurel said no, there were no messages. Clia said she
(08:46):
wasn't quite finished at work, but she would be done soon.
She said she would call back in around thirty minutes
to get picked up. Laurel was reading on the couch.
She drifted off to sleep with her book resting on
her chest. Laurel was right next to the phone, but
that phone never rang. Later police confirmed that because Clia's
brothers were home too, no one heard the phone ring,
(09:08):
so it's not like Laurella just slept through it. There
were no other calls that night. Just before one am,
Clia's dad, Willie, came into the house. He found his
wife on the sofa and he woke her up. He
asked where Clia was, and that's when Laurel realized she'd
never gotten that call from Clia, she would later tell reporters.
Immediately she felt sick. Laurel called Larry Amos's house and
(09:32):
he picked up on the first ring. She told him
Clelia hadn't come home that night and asked what time
she left. Larry told Laurel he thought Clia left the
house at around eight thirty, just like she normally did.
He told her, hang on, I'll go check the time sheet.
Then he said he had checked it and confirmed that yes,
Clia had signed out at eight thirty. He said that
(09:53):
he assumed Clia had gotten into a car, but that
he had not actually seen Clia leave the house. Larry
said he heard the garage door open and close and
just assumed that Clia left as usual, Lolarel had picked
her up. Larry told Laurel that Clia didn't tell him
or his wife that she was leaving that night, which
he did say was unlike her. Laurel Hall did not
(10:16):
sleep that night. One part of her brain was probably
trying to tell herself. Maybe Clia did meet a friend,
maybe she made a plan and didn't want to tell
her mom about it. But in her heart, she knew
something was very wrong, and because Clia was eighteen years
old back then, police told her she had to wait
twenty four hours to report her daughter missing. The next morning,
(10:39):
Laurel told Clia's little brother to look for her at
the high school they had band together, and her brother
didn't see her there, but he told his mom later
that the seniors had gone to the elementary school that
day for some kind of school trip, so he held
out hope that maybe she was there. But by that afternoon,
Clia's brother realized she was not in school, and he
(11:00):
called his mother and told her she had never shown up.
At that point, Laurel knew something bad had happened again.
This was totally out of character for Clia. She and
her husband Willie reported Clia missing that afternoon at the
Pine Bluff Police Department. As we have seen in so
many of these cases, at first, it seemed like the
(11:23):
police were just not taking Clea's disappearance very seriously. According
to the Hall family, the police seemed to treat Clea
as a runaway. In fact, Laurel later told reporters that
police suggested Clia could have run away, possibly due to
her hiding a secret from her parents. Maybe even they
suggested the fact that Clia was pregnant. Laurel told police
(11:44):
bluntly that Clea was on birth control. She actually was
on an implanable contraceptive that was in her arm, and
this kind of birth control has a very low failure rate. Plus,
Cleia didn't have a boyfriend, and even if she was dating,
Clea was a young woman who was looking to the future.
This girl was not trying to get tied down in
(12:04):
her hometown. Literally everything in her life suggested the opposite.
She had everything to look forward to, graduation, her summer job,
her full scholarship in Tennessee. Clea was happy. She was
in a great mood in the days before her disappearance.
If we're looking at victimology, there was literally nothing in
her background or her profile that would suggest that she
(12:25):
would run away for any reason. And finally, there were
the circumstances surrounding her disappearance. Let's say that she was
inexplicably going to run away from home. Why would she
choose that day? Why would she leave the one day
she forgot her purse that had her money and her
ID in it. Detectives looked through Clea's diary. They saw
(12:46):
nothing about boyfriends, or problems, or plans to leave town suddenly.
In fact, the main thing Cleia had in that diary
was her work schedule. It was filled out months in advance.
They were finally understanding Clia was not the type of
person to skip worker school, and they began to believe
that there had been foul play. Even early on in
(13:11):
the investigation, Laurel and Willie started to feel suspicious about
Clia's boss, Larry Amos. First of all, it struck Laurel
as odd that on that first night when Clea was missing,
when Laurel called the Amos house, she thought it was
weird that Larry Amos answered on the first ring. Now,
he later told her that he was up in the
(13:32):
next room watching TV. But if that was true, Number one,
why would he be up that late? And number two,
why would he immediately pick up the phone on the
work line? Why would he be sitting right next to
the phone like that? And later she started to pick
up what she believed were discrepancies in Larry Amos's description
of what happened when Clea left the house. She thought
(13:54):
it was a little off the fact that Larry said
that he hadn't seen Clea leave, because she said Larry
Amos always knew exactly who was coming and going at
that property. Larry Amos was the last person to see
Cleo live, but he wasn't being super cooperative with police.
Police asked Larry if they could drop by so they
could get a statement, but he said he was going
(14:15):
out of town on a business trip to Dallas. He
said he would be gone for three days so police
would have to take his statement when he got back
in town. He emphasized that he wanted to be there
in person when police came to his house. Larry claimed
he was buying tanning beds for a business idea he had,
but it was later reported that he never bought those
beds and he never opened any kind of tanning bed business,
(14:39):
so a lot of people wondered did he have a
different reason for going to Texas Police asked Larry Amos
to take a lot of detector test, Laurel said, Larry
claimed he was busy, and then later said police would
have to talk to his attorneys if they wanted him
to take a lot of detector test. By the way,
I completely get this after what I've experienced with cases
(14:59):
in Arkansas and elsewhere. I know that light detectors are
completely dependent on the skill of the person giving the examination,
And to be honest, I've seen several cases where people
have taken light detector tests and the results have come
back inconclusive or that they failed it, and later that
person was proven to be completely innocent. So I get
(15:20):
Larry Amos's reluctance to take a light detector test. What
I don't get is that Larry Amos seemed totally unconcerned
about Clia being missing and about being one of the
last people to see her, and there were some other
odd things that were happening that Larel said did not
seem to add up. For example, before Larry Amos left town,
police did very briefly stop by his house, and when
(15:44):
they did, apparently detectives went into that home office. They
picked up the phone and hit redial on the phone.
They wrote down the last number dialed on a scrap
of paper and said it was someone named Smith. The
police asked Larry Amos about that phone number if he
recognized it, because they were thinking maybe Clia had made
a call from that home office landline and that might
(16:06):
help explain who saw her last. Larry said he had
no idea who that person was, but later it turned
out that Smith this phone number was the phone number
for Larry Amos's kids babysitter. So then Laurel started wondering
why would he claim not to know the phone number
of someone that he and or his wife presumably called often.
(16:26):
And also, if the babysitter was the last person called
and he was sitting up late in that office, why
would Larry or anyone else need to call up a
babysitter after midnight. Laurel and Willie did not wait for
the detectives to start searching for their daughter. They called
Clia's friends and posted flowers everywhere around town, which they
printed up themselves. Across the street from the Amos house,
(16:50):
there are some woods. The volunteers searched there and also
in the wooded area behind the house, and they did
what police should have done in the first place. They
knocked on doors and pounded pavement. Finally, several days after
Clia went missing, detectives started so too very quickly. It
seemed like there were a few possibilities being talked about here.
(17:12):
The first possibility was that Clia left with someone in
a car. This seemed extremely unlikely because Cleah had a
plan for her mom to pick her up, and she
had a regular routine. This was a Monday night, it
was a school night, and even if she was going
to leave with someone else, she would have called her mom.
She knew her mom would be waiting for her. Remember,
Clia had already called her mom to tell her she
(17:33):
would be done at work soon, so it would make
no sense that she wouldn't call back and let her
know that she was going to do something else. The
second possibility was that Cleah walked home alone. In a
documentary that later aired about the case on Oxygen, the
journalist interviewed a friend of Clia's, another young woman who
used to work for Larry Amos. The friend said that
(17:53):
she was there the night when Clia went missing. She
said she had offered Cla a ride home, and Clia said, no,
don't worry about it, that she was going to walk home. Now,
this was a strange piece of information. I would love
to find this young woman, this second person who said
that they were there that night, because Laurel claims that
she later clarified this girl was not in the house
(18:14):
that night, that in fact, that young woman had not
been working in the office for several months by the
time Cleo went missing, and she thinks that after this
many years, the young woman just got confused in her memory.
She thinks she was thinking about a different night. Laurel
insists that the only people that she knows of who
were in the house that night were doctor Larry Amos,
his wife, and their small children. I just want to
(18:38):
talk for a minute about the theory that Clea would
have walked home alone. This would have been shortly after
eight thirty at night, so it would have been dusk,
not full dark, but getting dark. And I just want
to explain a little about Pine Bluff. As someone who
grew up there, I can tell you it has a
history of violent crime and it continues to be a
dangerous place to live. Back in the nineties, it's really
(18:58):
not an exaggeration to say that parts of Pine Bluff
and other parts of South Arkansas were like war zones.
There was an even a series back in the nineties
called Banging in Little Rock about the crips and the
Bloods and other gangs that were active in Little Rock
in South Arkansas. In the nineties, the population of Pine
Bluff was around sixty thousand, but per capita, it regularly
ranks in the five most dangerous small towns in the
(19:20):
United States. Everyone knows, and everyone knew back then, you
do not go out walking in Pine Bluff, Arkansas after dark,
and Laurel was very protective of Clia. She insisted her
daughter would never walk home alone. She said she had
only walked home alone once from Larry Amos's house, and
on that instance, Clia's brother walked home with her, So
(19:43):
Clia randomly deciding to walk home alone near dark is
a remote possibility at best. Later from Laurel's interviews, it's
clear that Laurel becomes more suspicious of Larry Amos as
a person. She talks about discussing Larry Amos with Clia
and Clea would talk about Larry Amos's business. Laurel said
(20:06):
Clia had made comments to her about the fact that
when she would get Larry Amos to sign the checks,
a lot of them did not seem to be related
to the nonprofit, and Clia sort of remarked that was
a little weird, maybe a little shady, And she would
talk about how Larry Amos was cheap, but never said
anything about him being dangerous or violent in any way.
(20:28):
Laurel started to become more suspicious as time went on,
because when Larry Amos did talk to police after he
got back from his Texas trip and gave them a
formal statement, she said certain details of the story he
told started to change from what he told her originally.
In his third statement, he said that when Clia left,
she had a can of peach pop meaning peach soda
(20:49):
in her hand that his wife had given her. He
said he saw Clea looking out the garage window. Yet
when he talked to Laurel that first time, Larry Amos
said he was nowhere near the garage. He had said
specifically that he'd just heard the door open and close.
Now again, these details seemed to be tiny, but they
could be hugely important. Two weeks after Clea disappeared, police
(21:12):
finally went in to search the Amos house, and they
made a major mistake here in my opinion, because they
didn't get a search warrant. So when Larry Amos told
them after a little while they had to stop the search,
they had no legal right to stay there. They had
to leave the house. So afterwards, when police said they
found no signs of foul play, Laurel remained suspicious because
(21:33):
it was obvious to her that even if something was
in the house, the police didn't stay long enough to
do a thorough enough search to find it. And also,
Larry Amos had had a lot of time. He had
a couple weeks at that point. He could have cleaned
up anything with two whole weeks to do it. And
then another bizarre thing started to happen. Several people, including
(21:55):
Laurel's husband Willie, saw Larry Amos tearing down Clia's missing posters.
Laurel and Willie did a little bit of their own
detective work on Larry Ry Amos. They reached out to
his ex wife, Christine, and this is a strange story.
They arranged to meet up with Christine in person. They
(22:16):
noticed that Christine seemed to be very nervous, and there
was a man across the street who was taking pictures
of them while they're talking to her. Now, Christine told
Laurel and Willie she knew she seemed kind of paranoid,
but she said she was afraid of Larry Amos. She
said he'd been physically and emotionally abusive to her in
the marriage. She said they were in the middle of
an ugly court battle. She said she was suing him
(22:37):
for child support. Things between them had gotten really bad,
she said. When she left him, they got into a
physical fight that ended when she threw boiling water over him.
When Laurel and Willie reached out to her, Christine said
she was actually worried this could have been orchestrated by Larry.
He might have been planning to do something to her.
So now Laurel and Willie are alarmed, and they told
(23:00):
the police about this violent streak that Larry Amos reportedly had.
But they say the Pine Bluff Police Department basically blew
them off. They said Christine was just basically a bitter
ex wife. Then Laurel and Willie tried to reach out
to Larry Amos's second wife, Patricia, the one who was
home the night Clea disappeared, but they were never really
able to talk to her or to Larry Amos again.
(23:24):
In fact, Laurel has told people that Larry Amos has
not been in contact with her family since the first
week after Clia disappeared. The only thing on the record
that I can find from Larry Amos's wife, Patricia came
from a transcript of an interview that was quoted in
a Fox News report online. In that report, she said,
(23:46):
quote it was odd that she left without telling either
of us end quote, So in essence, she seemed to
back up her husband's story. Now I should say now
that Larry Amos has always completely denied any knowledge of
or involvement with Clia's disappearance, and later Larry Amos kind
of seen to turn the attention back onto Klia's family. Obviously,
(24:09):
when a teenager goes missing, police have to look at
the family. Larry Amos said that he was being unfairly
targeted by police in fact, he filed a complaint against
one of the detectives who is investigating him. He is
not really commented on this case at all over the years.
When the Arkansas Democrat, because that newspaper, reached out to them,
he said, quote Strangely, those that have been calling have
(24:33):
not wanted to read the report. Not only was a
report filed, a complaint was filed against one of the detectives.
There are very detailed questions that should have been answered
about the family and other things. It's amazing that people
who really want to find out wouldn't begin to read
the report. End quote. Now, I will say I would
be very happy to read that report. And normally, in
(24:53):
my understanding of Arkansas freedom of information law, complaints filed
against officers are public information. I have made a freedom
of information request for that report. But if an investigation
is still technically open, normally any part of the case file,
including a complaint, that would normally be public record, will
be sealed. Larry Amos's statement was bizarre because in this case,
(25:17):
there's absolutely zero suggestion that Clia had any problems at home. Now,
some people have suggested maybe Larry Amos just was tearing
down these posters and behaving a little bit strangely because
he didn't want people linking him with a young woman's disappearance.
But in my opinion, Larry should have been way more
concerned about Cleia in the fact she was missing, than
(25:39):
about his reputation at that point. The fact that he
seemed to try to impede the investigation and be uncooperative,
that to me is a huge red flag. Over the years,
Like I said, the Halls have reached out to Larry
Amos once they brought a canine dogged with the property,
but Laurel said Larry refused to let them search there.
According to Laurel, when Larry Amos came to the door,
(26:02):
he made a strange statement when she asked to come
on his about not trusting psychics. Laurel later told a
reporter that one of the women she was with had
the letters ESP as part of her license plate number,
and Larry's comment seemed to be a bizarre reference to that.
Whether he genuinely thought he saw some kind of pattern
there or whether he was just making up a reason
(26:24):
to not let them search. Either way, the Hall started
to get more and more suspicious that there was something
not right about doctor Larry Amos. After Clia had been
missing for a few days, detectives talked to other potential
people of interest. Of course, they had asked her family
and her friends about potential boyfriends, and again Laurel told
(26:45):
police Clia didn't have a steady boyfriend. But Laurel said
Clia did have a male friend, a slightly older guy
who she liked. This person was a twenty three year
old Army reservist and he went to Clia's church. This
guy was cooperative. He talked to police and agreed to
take a polygraph test, but the results were inconclusive. And again,
(27:06):
I don't put a lot of faith in polygraph tests
in my opinion. There's a reason why they aren't admissible
in court, and there are a lot of reasons why
tests can be ruled in conclusive. I'm mentioning this because
this guy was completely cooperative. He gave police permission to
search his vehicle. They didn't find anything connecting him to
Clia's disappearance. But when they talked to this guy, he
(27:28):
did tell investigators he had had a strange encounter with
Larry Amos himself. He said that he had given Clia
a ride to work a couple of weeks before she disappeared.
He said that when he dropped her off at Larry
Amos's house, Larry said he needed to leave because courting
was not allowed on his property, which is a strange
comment to make to a high school girl. Clea explained
(27:49):
to Larry, this guy was nothing more than a friend,
but two of them were not going out, which again,
why would that matter? That was none of Larry's business.
Laurel said that Clia's friend remained cooperative with law enforcement
over the years. Eventually he left the area, married and
a family of his own. Over the years, other theories
have come up. Some people have mentioned that Clea could
(28:12):
have been kidnapped by a serial killer. A very infamous
serial killer, Samuel Little, confess to killing a twenty six
year old woman named Jelanda Jones and Pine Bluff just
a few months before Clea disappeared. In my opinion, this
does not seem to be a credible theory because, first
of all, Jolanda's murder was considered to have been related
to drugs. Clia's disappearance did not fit Samuel Little's mo MO
(28:35):
at all. Secondly, I have a hard time buying the
idea that before dark someone would grab her off the
street and have no one see a thing for me.
In Clia's case, all roads lead back to the Amos house.
I think something happened there that night, and a lot
of online commenters seem to feel that way. I've talked
(28:56):
to a lot of people in Pine Bluff and they
all look at that house with a lot of suspicion.
One of the comments I read online reads quote growing up,
it was common for to nonchalantly say that doctor Amos
killed Leschendra and hid her in his concrete walls. His
neighbors say they didn't see anyone come and pick her up.
He was also seen sneaking around removing her missing flyers.
(29:18):
The man is a creep, the kind of person you
just feel uncomfortable being around. Laurel stopped relying on the
Pine Bluff Police Department and over the years the case
went cold. Her family kept going to the media and
every year they would do an awareness event on Clea's birthday.
(29:38):
Over the years, they went through even more heartache because
a DJ raised money for Clea's reward fund and then
kept the money in left town and sadly the whole
family was victimized again, their funds were gone, and the
DJ eventually passed away. I just want to say, as
a side note here, I've seen this happen so often
in cold cases. People will give money, they have good hearts,
(30:02):
they want to help a family, and it will turn
out that this money that was supposed to be for
a scholarship or an event will get stolen. So please,
when you are giving money to a victim or a family,
please make sure you know exactly where it's going. Do
not allow these families to be victimized again buscammers. In
(30:22):
twenty twelve, after years of nothing happening, there seemed to
be a potentially huge break in this case. Oxygen had
a TV series called Find Our Missing, and they ran
Clia's story. Two witnesses came forward and they talked to
the TV program. One was a construction worker and he
said he'd worked on Larry Ames's house during the late
nineteen nineties. After Clia went missing. This worker said he
(30:46):
went to the police and he told them that he
had been installing a fireplace in Larry Ames's house. He
was taking out sheet rock and he saw what he
believed was blood splattered on some drywall. Another worker had
a similar story. He said he was working in the
backyard and he was filling a hole with some cement.
The worker said he smelled something horrible. The documentary said, quote,
(31:10):
when the wind would blow, he could smell an odor
unlike anything he's ever smelled before. End quote. The worker
also said there were flies buzzing all around that backyard.
So in twenty twelve, after the series aired, police finally
got a search warrant. They went back to Larry Amos's
English tutor house, the last place where Cleia was seen alive.
(31:31):
The search warrant affidavit red quote. Sworn statements indicate the
observance of a false wall inside the residence containing blood
on the insulation. Also, statements indicate the body was buried
on the property at fifty three oh nine Fawcet Road,
in a hole where bricks and rocks and powdered concrete
was used to cover up something. End quote. They went
back to Larry Amos's oversized English tutor house, the last
(31:55):
place where Clia was seen alive. This aired on the news.
You could see crime scene tape up everywhere. Police spent
hours there. Larry was wearing a green work shirt and
a tie, and he was on a cell phone outside
watching these detectives go in and out of his house.
Police used sniffer dogs and ground radar penetrating devices, but
(32:15):
they did not dig up anything in the backyard. They
did go inside and police took out little pieces of
that drywall insulation. In all, they filled several huge bags
full of evidence. So Laurel and Willie waited. A month later,
they talked to police and were told that the Arkansas
(32:37):
State Crime Lab had not sent back the evidence yet.
But they were horrified to learn that this wasn't true,
that actually the evidence was still sitting at the police station.
It had not even been forwarded to the crime lab.
After the delay, the evidence was sent to the crime lab,
and several weeks after that the results came back. There
(32:57):
were no traces of blood on any of the evidence
they had tested. This was just another devastating blow for
Clia's family, outraged first of all at the delay, and
they really believed that the police department was hindering the investigation.
Even after all this time, they still had waited so
long to send that evidence to the crime lab. A
(33:18):
spokesperson for the pam Bluff Police Department eventually said that
the state crime lab bound no blood evidence and said
that delay did not affect the evidence, but the Halls
were not buying it. They still have questions about whether
that evidence was tested accurately. In fact, later Laurel said,
the whole thing was so strange and there were so
(33:38):
many things that they believed were in competent mistakes. They
started to suspect it could be a cover up, and
it was about to get much worse because later Laurel
Hall learned that when that evidence was taken out of
the amo's house, one of the detectives put the bags
of evidence into the trunk of his car and then
(33:59):
drove it home and let it sit there all night
before giving it to the crime scene text Later, the
officer said they did that because there was a lot
of media there. They didn't want to have to drag
all these bags of evidence past the cameras. But that
made no sense because the media had been there all day.
You could see this whole thing unfolding. Even if that
were true, they just wanted to get the evidence out
(34:20):
of there quickly. They still could have taken it straight
to the crime lab but they didn't. This person went
home and let that evidence sit there all night in
the trunk of that car. So the truth is, from
my understanding, even if the evidence revealed anything crucial, the
evidence could have been challenged in court, and that officer
potentially ruined the chain of custody. A good defense attorney
(34:43):
could tear that apart at trial. It was later reported
that as a result of all this, a crime scene
lab technician ended up being suspended. No further action was
taken by the Palm Bluff Police Department, and to this day,
I am still trying to find out if after they
supposedly tested evidence and found no blood, any additional DNA
(35:03):
testing was or could be done. A few people have
reached out to Larry Amos over the years. Record show
he still lives in that same neighborhood, in that same
English tutor house. It's still owned by him and his family.
And again I should say, obviously Larry Amos has always
completely denied any involvement in Klea's disappearance. He said that
(35:27):
the business trip was pre planned. He said people claiming
that he was skipping town or running away were just
spreading wild rumors. So what happened to Clea Hall. Again,
for reasons we've discussed before, I don't think it's likely
at all she got into a car with someone else.
Police have never been able to find any evidence that
(35:49):
there was another car at the Amos residence that night.
No neighbors saw her leave, no one saw her along
the route, either walking or another vehicle they didn't recognize,
And for this reason, I also think it's unlikely a
stranger grabbed her in the very short distance between Larry
Amos's house and hers, with no one seeing her. So
I keep coming back to that third possibility, a theory
(36:10):
that I believe is far more likely that Clia never
left the Amos house that night, and that something happened
inside that house, some kind of altercation that we still
don't know about. Obviously, the case file is still sealed,
so there is very limited information out there available to
the public. But I did do a deep dive into
the blueprints and construction history of the Amos house. Over
(36:34):
the past eighteen years, that house has had nine major renovations.
I'm always looking for patterns in these cases, and I
do see quite a few similarities, at least on the surface,
between Clia's case and the case of Kristen Smarts. Kristen's
case was finally solved after over twenty years. Kristin was
nineteen years old when she vanished in nineteen ninety six,
(36:56):
and over the years there was a person of interest,
a guy named Paul Flores. A lot of people believe
that he had assaulted Kristin and killed her, and that
her remains may be in his father's house, but no
one could prove it. But over the years a lot
of people looked at that house as a place of interest,
and like in Clia's case, police did go in in
(37:19):
the year two thousand. They executed a search warrant, and
just like in Clia's case, they used ground penetrating radar,
but they didn't dig up the backyard and they didn't
find anything. Then years later, in twenty twenty one, detectives
went back to the house again and this time they
did dig up the backyard. They found evidence linked to
Kristen Smart buried under the deck. I only mention this
(37:43):
because a lot of people over the years have said, well,
they've searched there, They've used ground penetrating radar, they didn't
find anything. So we can't rule out the possibility that
there could be secrets buried in that backyard or somewhere
else in that house. So if something did happen to
Cleia in the house that night, why would Larry Amos
(38:04):
or someone in his family want a heart her. Well,
one potential motive could be something related to money, because,
as some of you may know, in my other podcast,
Red Collar, I talk a lot about financial fraud and
how financial fraud can lead to murder, and there are
a lot of red flags in Larry Amos's background related
to fraud. He has filed for multiple bankruptcies and in
(38:26):
two thousand and eight, he was running another organization called
Progressive Southeast Arkansas. It was supposed to be a housing
development corporation where he would build houses with this federal
grant money he got, but actually what he did was
just scam the government because the only houses that he
sold he ended up selling a house to his own
(38:49):
daughter at a huge discount, And according to these court papers,
a lot of the other homes that he built were
badly constructed or never built at all. And these court
papers alleged that he took the money and just kind
of ran and left people without homes. So if Clea
was a person handling the books, could she have seen
something she wasn't supposed to see? Could she have seen
(39:10):
some shady stuff she didn't like. Could they have gotten
into an argument, or could Cliah have gotten into conflict
with someone else inside the house that night, someone who
was never mentioned in the original police documents, because remember
we don't have access to the case fall, we don't
have a confirmed list of who was there, and Larry
Amos over the years has not been forthcoming. One person
(39:34):
who has been mentioned over the years, though he was
never officially a person of interest, was Larry Amos's older son, Omar.
Omar Amos was in his twenties at the time when
Clea went missing. He didn't live with Larry and his
wife Patricia, but he did live in a house close by,
so he was over there a lot. Omar has his
own dark past. He later was arrested for assaulting a
(39:56):
female victim. So I do wonder could Larry Amos or
his son, or someone else, maybe someone hanging out with
his son or with another family member, have made some
kind of a move on Clia and she refused their
sexual advances, or did one of Larry's relatives do something
to Clia, something that their father may have helped them
clean up. Sadly, we can't ask Omar. In July of
(40:20):
twenty twenty, Omar was beaten to death in his own
home in Pine Bluff, just five miles away from his
dad's house on Fawcett Road. Over the years, Laurel has
told people that she has a recurring dream about Clia.
In that dream, Clia is sitting in Larry Amos's bathtub,
(40:41):
her hands are tied. She's screaming for her mom to
help her. Laurel knows it's just a dream, but it
seems like her subconscious is screaming that there is something
bothering her about Larry Amos and about that house. Laurel
has confessed that she feels guilty. She of course asked
herself why that night, Why did she fall asleep, even
(41:02):
though there was no way she could have known what
was going on? And to me, the fact that Clia
did not call her mother back means that whatever happened
to her probably happened between eight and around eight thirty pm.
So we have to answer the question what happened inside
that house? I believe this case is solvable. I believe
someone knows something. Every year, Laurel, Willie and the rest
(41:26):
of the family released balloons in pink, Clia's favorite color
on her birthday, March thirtieth. They do the same thing
on May ninth, the day she went missing. Laurel said, quote,
she was just somebody that had a light that meant something.
She had goals, and she had dreams just like everybody else.
And our family had dreams and goals for her too,
(41:48):
And so somewhere we're missing out on seeing what our
life could have been. End quote. I'm Catherine Townsend. This
is Helen Gone. Murder line. Hell and Gone is a
production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written
(42:11):
and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts.
Music is by Ben so Lee, and this episode was
scored by Miranda Hawkins. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
and Elsie Crowley. If you have a case you'd like
(42:32):
me and my team to look into, you can reach
out to us at six seven eight seven four four
six one four five. That's six seven eight seven four
four sixty one four five. School of humans,
Hell and Gone News
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