March 12, 2024 • 30 mins
Franklin Floyd had been a wanted man since 1962 when he left town to avoid a kidnapping conviction Bringing him to justice was the work of many investigators. In this episode, we meet FBI Agent Scott Lobb who did what no investigator had done before: he got the wily Floyd to tell the truth. What the FBI Agents discovered would lead him to Sandi’s doorstep. He'd be the one to tell her what happened to her little girl.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, their listeners, I want to give you a heads
up that this episode will discuss sexualists out. Please take
care while listening. Previously on Hello John Doe, she had.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
A full ride to Georgia Tech. That was all she
ever wanted.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yeah, it was after that night, which is never slid. Third,
she just disappeared.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
We didn't know at the time. The FBI didn't that
with any evidence that Franklin Floyd had kidnapped her, Sharon Marshall.
She was found the victim of a hit and run
accident in Oklahoma City and died five days later in
a hospital.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Usually the FBI doesn't investigate hit and runs, but this
one was like a tree with gnarled and braided branches.
According to the police report, a woman was walking at
night toward a convenience store. She was listening to music
on stereo headphones. She was hit by a car turning
(01:01):
onto the highway. It was April of nineteen ninety in
Oklahoma City. The woman was taken to the hospital where
she died. As I've told you, Franklin Employed's crime spree
lasted decades and took authorities a right smart bit of
time to unravel. From the get go, this hit and
run didn't seem like one. First doctor said her injuries
(01:24):
that she had been beaten within an inch of her life,
not struck by a car. She died before anyone could
ask her what really happened to her. Her husband quickly
became a suspect because after her death, he tried to
collect on a life insurance policy for eighty thousand dollars.
(01:47):
When I started looking for the two missing boys in
two thousand and four, I feared I'd either find them
dead or alive, and that would be it. I didn't
realize their story had so many layers, or that their
family had suffered so much heartacheuse I didn't know then
that Steve, one of the missing boys, had a sister.
She was Susie savakas the little girl Floyd kidnapp while
(02:08):
her mama, Sandy, was in jail. You all know that
because we've already figured that part out together in this podcast.
But for the better part of twenty five years, no
one knew the real name of the woman killed in
that hit and run. Her death become a case as
cold as an early morning frost. That is until FBI
(02:30):
agent Scott lob got on the case. That was in
the mid twenty tens. Other investigators had pieced together that
the dead woman, Tanya Tadlot, Floyd's supposed wife, was in
fact Sharon Marshall, who graduated from Forest Park High School.
By then, Agent Law also had a hunch that Sharon
Marshall wasn't this victim's real name, So he started pulling
(02:51):
on some thread.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
But I also wanted that answer to who was Sharon Marshall.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
He didn't know it then, but finding Sharon's real identity
would take him all over the country, from Oklahoma and
Florida to Michigan, finally to Virginia. He'd have to cut
through all this young woman's alienses to figure out the
name on her birth certificate. This investigation would lead him
(03:20):
to Sandy's doorstep. He'd be the man to tell Sandy
what happened to her little girl decades after she went missing.
The first he needed to talk to the man who
last saw Sandy's daughter alive, Franklin Floyd. My name is
Todd Matthews and this is hello John Doe. A sleuth,
(03:43):
a family, and a serial killer. The story of a
family torn apart by tragedy and my quest to bring
them back Together, Chapter six, The Investigation. Scott Lobb's not
the kind of guy who loves sitting behind a desk.
Today he's retired, and even in his post career life,
(04:06):
he's like a worm and hot ashes. The guy can't
sit still.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I am a pilot for a charter company here in
the Oklahoma City area.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So it's no surprise that during his time at the
FBI in Oklahoma City he loved getting out into the
field and getting answers digging. Agent Lob is affable and
he cares a lot about his work. He talks about
the cases he's tackled like each one's kept him up
at night. I know that feeling. There's something really gentle
about his demeanor. But he's also a zero bullshit kind
(04:35):
of guy. He ended up fighting for children who were
victims of violent crimes, even if it ripped his guts
out time after time.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
It's part of my job, and a lot of people
in the FBI don't want to work crimes against children.
I can understand why children can't fight for themselves, and
I was more than more than willing to be that
person when they were lady in any way, shape or
form to work those investigations and see them to a conclusion.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
This is where he was when he inherited the Sharon
Marshall case.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
The actual folders for the case, I would say would
stack about six feet high. It's one of the most
unique cases I was ever involved with.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
About twenty thirteen, Floyd wasn't hard to find. He was
sitting on Florida's death row serving time for the first
degree murder of a different young woman in Florida before
he met Floyd. Agent Lob needed to know the Sharon
Marshall case inside and out, know it better than Floyd did,
so he could spot where he might be telling the truth.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And so I spent the better part of a year
preparing for that interview by pouring through the case file,
reading every report of interview, listening to every jail call,
watching every videotape that I could find of him talking
to the press.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
He also knew that at the FBI Oklahoma sent a
request to Florida every year to see if Floyd might
want to talk. Scott read up on those reports too.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
They were one paragraph reports because Floyd just wasn't interested
in talking.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Agent lab was convinced that he could get Floyd to
agree to a meeting, but that still didn't mean he'd
tell him anything useful.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I knew from everything that I'd studied that he liked
to misdirect, He liked to take you down what we
call rabbit holes, and so that preparation to approach that
interview was huge. It was key to conducting that successful
interview with Franklin Floyd. And I also knew that this
wasn't going to be a one day thing where we
show up, so I had requested to be there for
(06:42):
the entire week.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Plus. He tapped a colleague, Nate for He was a
skilled interviewer, so skilled the FBI shipped him all over
the country to teach interrogation classes, and he was exactly
who Agent lab want him by his side on a
high stakes assignment like this one. So in the spring
of twenty fourteen, the FBI agents flew to Florida. Agent
Lobb had a lot of questions for Franklin Floyd, but
(07:08):
he knew he had to focus on that central mystery,
who was Sharon Marshall. Figuring out Sharon's name could unlike
other answers down the line, this is about getting to
the truth, not trying to get a US attorney to
find more charges against Floyd.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Further prosecution for a guy on death row would be
a to me, a waste of resources, a waste of money.
There might have been some perhaps some sense of justice
was delivered for victims of Franklin Floyd, but I just wanted.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
The answers not to mention. At this point, Agent Lobb
didn't know Susie Sabakas aka Sharon Marshall aka and Tanya
Tadlock had been kidnapped when she was six years old.
He didn't know she was taken across state lines, which
would have made it a federal crime. But decades later,
Agent law going to find out who she really was
(07:58):
and then figure out if Floyd could have been the
one to kill her, and.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
If so, we want to know why did Floyd kill her.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
That's what was on Agent Lob in first minds when
they showed up at the Union Correctional Institution in Florida
in May of twenty fourteen. The trip ittself is pretty straightforward.
They showed up, go through security, surrendered their phones, walked
down Death Row and went through security a second time,
and then walked into a conference room.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Nate Knight had game planned this before, and it was
decided that we walked into this room. We instantly knew
we were going to rearrange it well. In order to
conduct a really good interview, you don't want to have
a barrier between you and the person you're talking to,
such as a table or a desk, so we pushed
the table up against a wall.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
When Floyd walked through the door, his appearance surprised Agent lob.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Honestly, he looked feeble, really, and he's not an imposing
man physically, but he started talking and he didn't stop.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
He also seemed fairly can confused. For about a decade
he had remained on death roat, but wasn't put today
because his lawyer argued that he wasn't mentally confident.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
He thought we were his attorneys. Once we got him
call him down a little bit and started talking to him,
we spent really that first morning with him up up
to lunch. We spent really just trying to build some
rapport with him.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Agents lobbin for watch Floyd carefully taking it all in.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
His chair at a forty five degree angle, and I'm
sitting at forty you know, at an angle that I'm
need a need with him face to face, so I
could sit there close to him and conduct that interview.
To make him feel a little bit uncomfortable with that proximity,
he would try to lean one way or the other.
I would lean the same way as he did. I
(09:52):
would mirror his behavior. I'm intently listening to every word
he says, trying to stay a step or two ahead
of him to formulate my next question.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
So that's what they did, playing this real life game
of chess, trying to anticipate Floyd's next move. Even with
all this preparation, the agents weren't getting much out of Floyd.
For so long, Floyd had kept up appearances that Susie
was his daughter named Sharon. Then he told people she
was his wife, Tanya. He had taken down these lengthy
(10:23):
rabbit holes, losing the plot, and Floyd brushed off any
questions about his so called wife.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
It was more, what do you care about her? She's dead,
she didn't mean anything to me. Things like that.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
He had woven so many tales over the years, but
now in prison, he stopped pretending he had ever cared.
He was callous and combative.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So we go back that first afternoon and Floyd is
much the same in his attitude. But things started to
change a little bit.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Something was different about this day. Agents asked again about
the woman they knew as Sharon Marshall.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
He had leaned back, he closed his eyes, kind of
lifted his head a little bit, and he was talking
about how he had Oh what did he say?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
It was some story about Ben in Florida and then
going up to New York to visit an old prison
buddy and taking this big trip up the coast. It
seemed random.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
He ends up in the Charlotte area of North Carolina
and got a job as a bus driver. I thought
he was taking me down another rabbit hole. I'm about
to put my hand up to cut him off, and
that's when he leaned back, closed his eyes, lifted his
head a little bit, and I realized at that point
he was recalling facts. And he starts telling us how
(11:52):
he was in a truck stop diner wearing his bus
driver uniform. He was in training at the time, and
a waitress had approached him and told him that this
girl over here wants to meet you, and how he
met this girl and that turned out to be Sandy
Brandenburg and got married A few days later, Floyd had
(12:14):
taken pity on her story that she was about to
lose her kids to the state and she couldn't provide
for him, and Floyd decides to marry Sandy.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
This was the first time Floyd talked about Sandy. He
was remembering the past instead of making it up. Floyd
talked about Sandy's three daughters and how she had given
him up. But Wind, I'm back.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I said, well, tell me about the oldest girl. And
he goes, well, that's the one you want to know about.
I said, okay, well tell me about her. And he goes, well,
I've seen her birth certificate, and I said, okay, where
was she born? And he told me she was born
in Lavonia, Michigan. And he said her name was Susanne Sevacas.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
This is a breakthrough. The agent's had something they could
work with. Floyd was finally making sense. Maybe now he
has started answering Agent Lobb's other questions.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
And we got a knock on the door and our
time had ended.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
The FBI agents took what they'd learned and went right
to work trying to confirm Floyd's story about the oldest girl.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
There was a marriage certificate issued for Sandy Brandenburg and
a guy named Brandon Cleo Williams, which he had told
us in that interview that afternoon that that was the
name he was using in Charlotte, and so like, okay,
well that's okay, he's telling the truth.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
The next day they found the birth certificate. Bloyd alluded
to Susann Marie Sebakis born September nineteen sixty nine, the dad,
Cliff Sebakas, the mother Sandy.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
If we could find the parents, we could get DNA
samples and run them against the DNA that Sharon or
Suzanne Sevakas had on file from that hit and run accident.
And so I think the trooper also told us that
the father was still alive and lived in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
They needed to get to Detroit. If you think it
was hard to get a serial killer to tell the truth,
imagine going to tell the divorce parents of a missing
child that she was now dead.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
I can't think of a good way to approach this
interview as far as the introduction and how I'm going
to relate the information to him that we have and
then ask for a DNA sample.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Once Agent slobin Fer got to the Detroit Metro Airport,
the met a trooper and went to the home of
Susie's dad, and.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
I still didn't have a plan. As we were walking
in the house, he was a little bit curious because
we cold called and there's two FBI agents and state
trooper there.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
As it turns out, Cliff and Sandy had not taught
much since her breakup, so he didn't even realize his
daughter and go missing. He certainly didn't know she'd been kidnapped.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
And his wife is there with them. They're very nice people.
And I started telling him a story about this girl
who was known as Sharon Marshall was killed in Oklahoma
City and a hit and run accident.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
It wasn't ringing any bills.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
He had never heard the name before. I go back
through her timeline, working in reverse, and he's starting to
kind of figure this out at this point, and I said,
we believe that Sharon Marshall is your daughter, Suzanne. It
was thunderstruck.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
And it was something I never did and no parent
ever wants to hear their child go through the existence
that she had to live for twenty years.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
That, of course, his Cliffs of Vegas, Susie's biological father.
He'd barely known her, and now it was too late.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
It hit him like a ton of bricks, as you
can expect.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
And of course nothing to be done about it, just
kind of the heartbroken. That's about all you can do.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
After Sanny and Cliff got divorced, he had seen Susie
one time, but that's it.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
I think his last contact maybe seventy four, somewhere in
the mid seventies, early to mid seventies.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
It's like kid hit on the head with a pillow
pace full of rocks.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Clip and his second while I've had kids with their own,
a boy and a girl. He had built a career
in radio and then advertising. This news drop kicked him
out of his present life, into the past and into
a dark place.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
It was very tough.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I lived with it every minute of the day for
a good year, and I put it to bed and
it comes back up again.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
It's Tommy Humilidy.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
I wish Clip had known Susie, wished he'd help raise her,
been a father to her before she was kidnapped. Cliff
wasn't part of Susie's life, but he would forever be
a part of her story after her death. Next the
fat agents left to track down Susie's mother, the one
who'd last seen her, Sandy. On a hot, humid day
(17:14):
in July twenty fourteen, agents Lob and fer landed in Norfolk, Virginia.
There they rented a car and drove across the bridge
tunnel to Newport News, where then knew Sandy was living.
At the time. They knocked on the door. Dorothy, Sandy's youngest,
answered and they.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Were like, I'm looking for Sandra Chipman or Sandra Willett.
I said, that's my mom.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
This time, Agents Lob and for had a plan. They
had a photo of Susie sitting on Floyd's lap, and.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
It's commonly believed to be a church directory photo, which
turned out it was. And I had our photographer in
Oklahoma City separate those two, and so I had a
picture of just Suzanne and a picture of just Floyd.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
It shown it cleft, but got no reaction.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
This time was different, and I did say, there's this
girl in Oklahoma City and started walking it back and
her daughter starts crying. Her daughter immediately realizes where I'm
going with this.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
I immediately got up and I pulled the picture of
my mom and her sister down from the shelf in
my bedroom and showed them.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
I was like, that's identical.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
I cried.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Sandy came into the room and talked to the ay
agents orself.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
They said, do you know this man?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
She says, without any hesitation.
Speaker 5 (18:37):
Yeah, and that's Brandon Williams.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
And he stole my daughter, Susie. And I thought to myself, well,
we got the right place, that's for sure.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
And they said, do you know this girl? And I said,
that's my daughter. Where's my daughter? And he said she's dead.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
I showed her the pictures, Suzanne, and she's crying at
this point, and she told her story, and she did
say that they were in Dallas, that she had been
arrested for writing a hot check at a seven to eleven.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
It's the same story she telled me.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
And that sounded a little harsh to me for a
hot check for I think it was a dollar seven
for some diapers, one dollar seven cents. But that's her story.
So I'm just taking the notes. And she gets out
of jail. This would have been November. I think she
went in in October, got out in November of nineteen
(19:37):
seventy five, and went back to the apartment that they
all shared, and the girls were gone, Floyd was going.
She tried to go to the Dallas Police Department. They
didn't want anything to do with her. She said. She
tried to go to the FBI. They didn't want anything
to do with her.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
It was a lifetime. She saw Susie and the last
time she saw Floyd, the FBI was telling her that
her daughter was dead.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
I just completely broke down, completely broke down.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
After she collected Durslail, she had another question about her
other missing child.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
I said, well, did you find Steve? And they said,
who's Steve? I said, Steve's my little boy. Did you
find him too? They didn't know anything about Steve.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
The timeline didn't make a lot of sense to me
of when she was in North Carolina and when that
boy was born, and she didn't really have as I remember,
a good explanation of what Floyd did with that boy,
other than she said he gave him to somebody else
living in the same trailer park. I just didn't believe
(20:47):
that boy was born at all. So we did some
due diligence. We contacted North Carolina, asked about adoption records
and so forth, and they didn't have anything. They didn't
there's nothing on file.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
God damn it to hell. This explains why I had
such a hard time tracking Steve down later on. The
FBI didn't think you existed period. Agent Lobb explained this
to us that he felt he had done the best
he could define Steve.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I don't mean to sound callous about that, but I'm
happy that we were able to close that loop.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Agent Lobb even offered to speak to Steve if you
wanted to hear the story from him.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
You can give him my contact information if he's willing
to do it, or if he even wants to do it.
I know it's tough what he's gone through. I'm willing
to try to answer any questions he might have.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
I told Steve about Agent Lob in the File of
twenty twenty three. Steve never called him. Scott Lob's exhaustive
investigation resolved the big mystery of Sharon Marshall's real name.
Now he could figure out what really happened to her
and how Floyd got away with it for so long.
(22:00):
Before he left, Agent Lob gave Sandy a suggestion, they say,
read Matt's book. He was talking about a book called
a Beautiful Child, written by Matt Burkbank. It came out
in two thousand and four, so a full decade before
Agent lob meant Sandy. The book told the story of
a woman many you as Sharon Marshall, how she was
kidnapped and raised by Floyd. The author didn't know that
(22:21):
Sharon was actually Susie. He hadn't connected those dots yet,
but the details of her life on the room with
Floyd were inside that book, including the abuse.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
The reason I did that and told her to read
that book was because Matt Birkbeck had put in a
lot of effort into writing that book and really knew
the history of how she bounced around the country of
Franklin Floyd. I read the book too, but I'm I
told her. I said, I'm going to warn you it's
not pleasant.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Once the agents left town, Sandy was left alone with
their emotions and this new book she was told to read.
Speaker 6 (22:58):
After they left, I locked myself in the room, didn't
come out for a couple of days. But that's either
here nor there. But I was just in total shocks
the whole time he was sitting there and telling me
that Susie was dead.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
She couldn't believe it. She figured Susie was alive and
didn't want anything to do with her.
Speaker 6 (23:17):
Up until the day the FBI agent showed up at
my house. I finally believed Susie was still alive. I
mean sometimes I threw the book against the wall. Sometimes
I screamed, sometimes I cried. It was like reading a
horror story that you're a part of, but not a
part of.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
No.
Speaker 6 (23:39):
I went all the way through it within a couple
of days. Then I put it a science for about
a month, and then I started going through a piece
by t After I read the book, I considered killing myself. No,
it wouldn't have helped my other kids, and that's what
stopped me.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
I can't imagine how hard this must have been for Sandy.
For years, she was hoping one day her daughter would
come back. Instead, she had a unique kind of heartbreak.
People had read Burt Bett's book, had found out what
happened to Susie before she had. Sandy felt helpless.
Speaker 6 (24:17):
I looked back, and I was in Tulsa and he
was in Tulsa with her, and I could what could
I have done to find yours that I didn't do
when I was in Tulsa.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
There were, of course good parts in the book, like
how Susie was on her way to Georgia tech.
Speaker 6 (24:34):
I did find out she could have done so much
more if you weren't involved with her life. When she
was five and six and they said what do you
want to be when you grow up, she used to say,
I want to go to the moon.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
In this period of total despair, Sandy found something that
helped her.
Speaker 6 (24:51):
I wrote journals. I wrote the journal after journal after
journal every day. In fact, I'd just gotten rid of
a bunch of them because there were things in as
Jordaline didn't want my kids to read.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Sandy's husband of thirty years died in August of twenty ten,
but she started writing to him anyway.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
I would write, I call my husband Sonny, but I
would write to Sonny every day, like, you know, all
this has happened, and you're not here to help me,
and you really know what to do, and I don't
know what to do.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
It's hard to really say it, but I've told you
I'm friends with a lot of dead people. There's something
about this work that's made me a little bit spiritual.
There's a part of me that believes they're not as
far away as we might think. I know what it
sounds like, but it's often helped me in these really
dark times. I don't know. I guess I just thought
(25:47):
maybe Sandy wasn't as far away from her daughter as
she thought. If you could say something to Susanne, what
would you.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Say to her?
Speaker 1 (25:56):
I love you, I miss her. Amy Winkles had the
grievous sister she never really knew. She's been thinking about
what she would have said to her too.
Speaker 7 (26:08):
Sorry I couldn't help her. I wish we wouldn't known
each other, but I feel like I should have helped her.
But I couldn't help her. I think we would have
(26:30):
been good friends. We could have died in trouble together.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
With Sandy's DNA in hand, the FBI agents flew back
to Oklamba City and sent the samples to a.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Lamb The DNA matter both the father and the mother,
and it came back as a confirmation that the girl
who was killed in Oklahoma City was Suzanne Sevakas.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Getting her name was the crucial part of figuring out
what her story was.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
She was unknown, and you know, through Nate and I's work,
we were able to give her her name back. Even
though she's.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Gone for a while. Agent's Lob and for continue to
visit Floyd in prison. They were pretty sure he kills Susie,
but still didn't know his motive.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
That was one thing he just would not talk about
on all three visits was why he killed Suzanne. Floyd
raised that girl. Floyd had a long long standing tie
to that girl, from the time he took her to
the time she died in Oklahoma City, and I thought
that question would have been the most painful for him.
(27:46):
That's why I saved it for last.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
The Floyd stayed mom. Agent Lob had his own theories.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Well, there's speculation that she was leaving him, she was running,
and that Floyd found her somehow in Oklahoma City. That
could be true. I don't think we'll ever know the
answer to that question.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
When I think of what Floyd got away with, I'm
spitting man pissed. He stole Susie from her family, he
abused Susie for most of her life and was never
held responsible for a murder. It's kind of hard to
make peace with that, especially considering Floyd. I also came
for Susie's son, the school age boy named Michael, the
(28:29):
boy who had gone missing in nineteen ninety four, one
of the two I've become obsessed with about twenty years ago.
Kidnapping him was the federal crime that put Floyd behind bars.
Next time on Hello John.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Doe, Michael Anthony Hughes had been taken to a safe place,
Floyd would say.
Speaker 6 (28:46):
Floyd would also say the boy was his son.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
My nephew.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
He was just innocent. It took yeah, thirty to forty
five minutes before I finally said, we're not your attorneys,
We're FBI agents. We're here to talk to you about Michael.
He I said, I've reopened the investigation, and he looked
at me and says, what, I appreciate it if you
close it.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Hello John Doe is an original productions by Revelations Entertainment
in association with First and Last Productions from Revelations. Our
executive producers are Morgan Freeman and James Younger From First
to Last. Lindsay Moreno is the executive producer. Our producing
partner is Neo on Hume Media. It was written and
produced by Kate Michigan. Our editor is Katherine Saint Louis.
(29:34):
She is also nio on Home Media's executive editor. Our
executive producer is Sharah Morris. Our development producer is Ian Lindsay.
Our associate producer is Grufaro Faith Masarua. Sound design and
mixing by Scott Summerville. Theme and original music composed by
Jesse Pearlsteiner. Additional music came from Epidemic Sound and Blue
Dot Sessions. Ndall Faulton is our fact checker. Our production
(29:58):
manager is Samantha Allison from my Heart Media. Dylan Fagan
is our executive producer. Special thanks to Adelia Ruben at
Nion Hum and Carrie Lieberman and Will Pearson at iHeartMedia.
I'm Todd Matthews. You can learn more about name this
at NamUs dot com. The number for the National Center
for Missing Exploited Children's Call Center is one eight hundred
the loss That's one eight hundred eight four three five
(30:21):
six seven eight. The National Sexual Assault Hotline from the
Rate Abuse and Incest National Network is one eight hundred
six five six four six seven three. Okay, guys, this
is the end of the show. If you didn't like it,
don't do anything. But if you did like it, you
make sure that you rate and review the show. It
helps more people to find it and hear this wonderful story.
(30:42):
Thanks again for listening.
Hey, their listeners, I want to give you a heads
up that this episode will discuss sexualists out. Please take
care while listening. Previously on Hello John Doe, she had.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
A full ride to Georgia Tech. That was all she
ever wanted.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yeah, it was after that night, which is never slid. Third,
she just disappeared.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
We didn't know at the time. The FBI didn't that
with any evidence that Franklin Floyd had kidnapped her, Sharon Marshall.
She was found the victim of a hit and run
accident in Oklahoma City and died five days later in
a hospital.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Usually the FBI doesn't investigate hit and runs, but this
one was like a tree with gnarled and braided branches.
According to the police report, a woman was walking at
night toward a convenience store. She was listening to music
on stereo headphones. She was hit by a car turning
(01:01):
onto the highway. It was April of nineteen ninety in
Oklahoma City. The woman was taken to the hospital where
she died. As I've told you, Franklin Employed's crime spree
lasted decades and took authorities a right smart bit of
time to unravel. From the get go, this hit and
run didn't seem like one. First doctor said her injuries
(01:24):
that she had been beaten within an inch of her life,
not struck by a car. She died before anyone could
ask her what really happened to her. Her husband quickly
became a suspect because after her death, he tried to
collect on a life insurance policy for eighty thousand dollars.
(01:47):
When I started looking for the two missing boys in
two thousand and four, I feared I'd either find them
dead or alive, and that would be it. I didn't
realize their story had so many layers, or that their
family had suffered so much heartacheuse I didn't know then
that Steve, one of the missing boys, had a sister.
She was Susie savakas the little girl Floyd kidnapp while
(02:08):
her mama, Sandy, was in jail. You all know that
because we've already figured that part out together in this podcast.
But for the better part of twenty five years, no
one knew the real name of the woman killed in
that hit and run. Her death become a case as
cold as an early morning frost. That is until FBI
(02:30):
agent Scott lob got on the case. That was in
the mid twenty tens. Other investigators had pieced together that
the dead woman, Tanya Tadlot, Floyd's supposed wife, was in
fact Sharon Marshall, who graduated from Forest Park High School.
By then, Agent Law also had a hunch that Sharon
Marshall wasn't this victim's real name, So he started pulling
(02:51):
on some thread.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
But I also wanted that answer to who was Sharon Marshall.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
He didn't know it then, but finding Sharon's real identity
would take him all over the country, from Oklahoma and
Florida to Michigan, finally to Virginia. He'd have to cut
through all this young woman's alienses to figure out the
name on her birth certificate. This investigation would lead him
(03:20):
to Sandy's doorstep. He'd be the man to tell Sandy
what happened to her little girl decades after she went missing.
The first he needed to talk to the man who
last saw Sandy's daughter alive, Franklin Floyd. My name is
Todd Matthews and this is hello John Doe. A sleuth,
(03:43):
a family, and a serial killer. The story of a
family torn apart by tragedy and my quest to bring
them back Together, Chapter six, The Investigation. Scott Lobb's not
the kind of guy who loves sitting behind a desk.
Today he's retired, and even in his post career life,
(04:06):
he's like a worm and hot ashes. The guy can't
sit still.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I am a pilot for a charter company here in
the Oklahoma City area.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So it's no surprise that during his time at the
FBI in Oklahoma City he loved getting out into the
field and getting answers digging. Agent Lob is affable and
he cares a lot about his work. He talks about
the cases he's tackled like each one's kept him up
at night. I know that feeling. There's something really gentle
about his demeanor. But he's also a zero bullshit kind
(04:35):
of guy. He ended up fighting for children who were
victims of violent crimes, even if it ripped his guts
out time after time.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
It's part of my job, and a lot of people
in the FBI don't want to work crimes against children.
I can understand why children can't fight for themselves, and
I was more than more than willing to be that
person when they were lady in any way, shape or
form to work those investigations and see them to a conclusion.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
This is where he was when he inherited the Sharon
Marshall case.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
The actual folders for the case, I would say would
stack about six feet high. It's one of the most
unique cases I was ever involved with.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
About twenty thirteen, Floyd wasn't hard to find. He was
sitting on Florida's death row serving time for the first
degree murder of a different young woman in Florida before
he met Floyd. Agent Lob needed to know the Sharon
Marshall case inside and out, know it better than Floyd did,
so he could spot where he might be telling the truth.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And so I spent the better part of a year
preparing for that interview by pouring through the case file,
reading every report of interview, listening to every jail call,
watching every videotape that I could find of him talking
to the press.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
He also knew that at the FBI Oklahoma sent a
request to Florida every year to see if Floyd might
want to talk. Scott read up on those reports too.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
They were one paragraph reports because Floyd just wasn't interested
in talking.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Agent lab was convinced that he could get Floyd to
agree to a meeting, but that still didn't mean he'd
tell him anything useful.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I knew from everything that I'd studied that he liked
to misdirect, He liked to take you down what we
call rabbit holes, and so that preparation to approach that
interview was huge. It was key to conducting that successful
interview with Franklin Floyd. And I also knew that this
wasn't going to be a one day thing where we
show up, so I had requested to be there for
(06:42):
the entire week.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Plus. He tapped a colleague, Nate for He was a
skilled interviewer, so skilled the FBI shipped him all over
the country to teach interrogation classes, and he was exactly
who Agent lab want him by his side on a
high stakes assignment like this one. So in the spring
of twenty fourteen, the FBI agents flew to Florida. Agent
Lobb had a lot of questions for Franklin Floyd, but
(07:08):
he knew he had to focus on that central mystery,
who was Sharon Marshall. Figuring out Sharon's name could unlike
other answers down the line, this is about getting to
the truth, not trying to get a US attorney to
find more charges against Floyd.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Further prosecution for a guy on death row would be
a to me, a waste of resources, a waste of money.
There might have been some perhaps some sense of justice
was delivered for victims of Franklin Floyd, but I just wanted.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
The answers not to mention. At this point, Agent Lobb
didn't know Susie Sabakas aka Sharon Marshall aka and Tanya
Tadlock had been kidnapped when she was six years old.
He didn't know she was taken across state lines, which
would have made it a federal crime. But decades later,
Agent law going to find out who she really was
(07:58):
and then figure out if Floyd could have been the
one to kill her, and.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
If so, we want to know why did Floyd kill her.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
That's what was on Agent Lob in first minds when
they showed up at the Union Correctional Institution in Florida
in May of twenty fourteen. The trip ittself is pretty straightforward.
They showed up, go through security, surrendered their phones, walked
down Death Row and went through security a second time,
and then walked into a conference room.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Nate Knight had game planned this before, and it was
decided that we walked into this room. We instantly knew
we were going to rearrange it well. In order to
conduct a really good interview, you don't want to have
a barrier between you and the person you're talking to,
such as a table or a desk, so we pushed
the table up against a wall.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
When Floyd walked through the door, his appearance surprised Agent lob.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Honestly, he looked feeble, really, and he's not an imposing
man physically, but he started talking and he didn't stop.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
He also seemed fairly can confused. For about a decade
he had remained on death roat, but wasn't put today
because his lawyer argued that he wasn't mentally confident.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
He thought we were his attorneys. Once we got him
call him down a little bit and started talking to him,
we spent really that first morning with him up up
to lunch. We spent really just trying to build some
rapport with him.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Agents lobbin for watch Floyd carefully taking it all in.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
His chair at a forty five degree angle, and I'm
sitting at forty you know, at an angle that I'm
need a need with him face to face, so I
could sit there close to him and conduct that interview.
To make him feel a little bit uncomfortable with that proximity,
he would try to lean one way or the other.
I would lean the same way as he did. I
(09:52):
would mirror his behavior. I'm intently listening to every word
he says, trying to stay a step or two ahead
of him to formulate my next question.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
So that's what they did, playing this real life game
of chess, trying to anticipate Floyd's next move. Even with
all this preparation, the agents weren't getting much out of Floyd.
For so long, Floyd had kept up appearances that Susie
was his daughter named Sharon. Then he told people she
was his wife, Tanya. He had taken down these lengthy
(10:23):
rabbit holes, losing the plot, and Floyd brushed off any
questions about his so called wife.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
It was more, what do you care about her? She's dead,
she didn't mean anything to me. Things like that.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
He had woven so many tales over the years, but
now in prison, he stopped pretending he had ever cared.
He was callous and combative.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So we go back that first afternoon and Floyd is
much the same in his attitude. But things started to
change a little bit.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Something was different about this day. Agents asked again about
the woman they knew as Sharon Marshall.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
He had leaned back, he closed his eyes, kind of
lifted his head a little bit, and he was talking
about how he had Oh what did he say?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
It was some story about Ben in Florida and then
going up to New York to visit an old prison
buddy and taking this big trip up the coast. It
seemed random.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
He ends up in the Charlotte area of North Carolina
and got a job as a bus driver. I thought
he was taking me down another rabbit hole. I'm about
to put my hand up to cut him off, and
that's when he leaned back, closed his eyes, lifted his
head a little bit, and I realized at that point
he was recalling facts. And he starts telling us how
(11:52):
he was in a truck stop diner wearing his bus
driver uniform. He was in training at the time, and
a waitress had approached him and told him that this
girl over here wants to meet you, and how he
met this girl and that turned out to be Sandy
Brandenburg and got married A few days later, Floyd had
(12:14):
taken pity on her story that she was about to
lose her kids to the state and she couldn't provide
for him, and Floyd decides to marry Sandy.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
This was the first time Floyd talked about Sandy. He
was remembering the past instead of making it up. Floyd
talked about Sandy's three daughters and how she had given
him up. But Wind, I'm back.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I said, well, tell me about the oldest girl. And
he goes, well, that's the one you want to know about.
I said, okay, well tell me about her. And he goes, well,
I've seen her birth certificate, and I said, okay, where
was she born? And he told me she was born
in Lavonia, Michigan. And he said her name was Susanne Sevacas.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
This is a breakthrough. The agent's had something they could
work with. Floyd was finally making sense. Maybe now he
has started answering Agent Lobb's other questions.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
And we got a knock on the door and our
time had ended.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
The FBI agents took what they'd learned and went right
to work trying to confirm Floyd's story about the oldest girl.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
There was a marriage certificate issued for Sandy Brandenburg and
a guy named Brandon Cleo Williams, which he had told
us in that interview that afternoon that that was the
name he was using in Charlotte, and so like, okay,
well that's okay, he's telling the truth.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
The next day they found the birth certificate. Bloyd alluded
to Susann Marie Sebakis born September nineteen sixty nine, the dad,
Cliff Sebakas, the mother Sandy.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
If we could find the parents, we could get DNA
samples and run them against the DNA that Sharon or
Suzanne Sevakas had on file from that hit and run accident.
And so I think the trooper also told us that
the father was still alive and lived in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
They needed to get to Detroit. If you think it
was hard to get a serial killer to tell the truth,
imagine going to tell the divorce parents of a missing
child that she was now dead.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
I can't think of a good way to approach this
interview as far as the introduction and how I'm going
to relate the information to him that we have and
then ask for a DNA sample.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Once Agent slobin Fer got to the Detroit Metro Airport,
the met a trooper and went to the home of
Susie's dad, and.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
I still didn't have a plan. As we were walking
in the house, he was a little bit curious because
we cold called and there's two FBI agents and state
trooper there.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
As it turns out, Cliff and Sandy had not taught
much since her breakup, so he didn't even realize his
daughter and go missing. He certainly didn't know she'd been kidnapped.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
And his wife is there with them. They're very nice people.
And I started telling him a story about this girl
who was known as Sharon Marshall was killed in Oklahoma
City and a hit and run accident.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
It wasn't ringing any bills.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
He had never heard the name before. I go back
through her timeline, working in reverse, and he's starting to
kind of figure this out at this point, and I said,
we believe that Sharon Marshall is your daughter, Suzanne. It
was thunderstruck.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
And it was something I never did and no parent
ever wants to hear their child go through the existence
that she had to live for twenty years.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
That, of course, his Cliffs of Vegas, Susie's biological father.
He'd barely known her, and now it was too late.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
It hit him like a ton of bricks, as you
can expect.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
And of course nothing to be done about it, just
kind of the heartbroken. That's about all you can do.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
After Sanny and Cliff got divorced, he had seen Susie
one time, but that's it.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
I think his last contact maybe seventy four, somewhere in
the mid seventies, early to mid seventies.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
It's like kid hit on the head with a pillow
pace full of rocks.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Clip and his second while I've had kids with their own,
a boy and a girl. He had built a career
in radio and then advertising. This news drop kicked him
out of his present life, into the past and into
a dark place.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
It was very tough.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I lived with it every minute of the day for
a good year, and I put it to bed and
it comes back up again.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
It's Tommy Humilidy.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
I wish Clip had known Susie, wished he'd help raise her,
been a father to her before she was kidnapped. Cliff
wasn't part of Susie's life, but he would forever be
a part of her story after her death. Next the
fat agents left to track down Susie's mother, the one
who'd last seen her, Sandy. On a hot, humid day
(17:14):
in July twenty fourteen, agents Lob and fer landed in Norfolk, Virginia.
There they rented a car and drove across the bridge
tunnel to Newport News, where then knew Sandy was living.
At the time. They knocked on the door. Dorothy, Sandy's youngest,
answered and they.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Were like, I'm looking for Sandra Chipman or Sandra Willett.
I said, that's my mom.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
This time, Agents Lob and for had a plan. They
had a photo of Susie sitting on Floyd's lap, and.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
It's commonly believed to be a church directory photo, which
turned out it was. And I had our photographer in
Oklahoma City separate those two, and so I had a
picture of just Suzanne and a picture of just Floyd.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
It shown it cleft, but got no reaction.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
This time was different, and I did say, there's this
girl in Oklahoma City and started walking it back and
her daughter starts crying. Her daughter immediately realizes where I'm
going with this.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
I immediately got up and I pulled the picture of
my mom and her sister down from the shelf in
my bedroom and showed them.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
I was like, that's identical.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
I cried.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Sandy came into the room and talked to the ay
agents orself.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
They said, do you know this man?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
She says, without any hesitation.
Speaker 5 (18:37):
Yeah, and that's Brandon Williams.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
And he stole my daughter, Susie. And I thought to myself, well,
we got the right place, that's for sure.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
And they said, do you know this girl? And I said,
that's my daughter. Where's my daughter? And he said she's dead.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
I showed her the pictures, Suzanne, and she's crying at
this point, and she told her story, and she did
say that they were in Dallas, that she had been
arrested for writing a hot check at a seven to eleven.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
It's the same story she telled me.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
And that sounded a little harsh to me for a
hot check for I think it was a dollar seven
for some diapers, one dollar seven cents. But that's her story.
So I'm just taking the notes. And she gets out
of jail. This would have been November. I think she
went in in October, got out in November of nineteen
(19:37):
seventy five, and went back to the apartment that they
all shared, and the girls were gone, Floyd was going.
She tried to go to the Dallas Police Department. They
didn't want anything to do with her. She said. She
tried to go to the FBI. They didn't want anything
to do with her.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
It was a lifetime. She saw Susie and the last
time she saw Floyd, the FBI was telling her that
her daughter was dead.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
I just completely broke down, completely broke down.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
After she collected Durslail, she had another question about her
other missing child.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
I said, well, did you find Steve? And they said,
who's Steve? I said, Steve's my little boy. Did you
find him too? They didn't know anything about Steve.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
The timeline didn't make a lot of sense to me
of when she was in North Carolina and when that
boy was born, and she didn't really have as I remember,
a good explanation of what Floyd did with that boy,
other than she said he gave him to somebody else
living in the same trailer park. I just didn't believe
(20:47):
that boy was born at all. So we did some
due diligence. We contacted North Carolina, asked about adoption records
and so forth, and they didn't have anything. They didn't
there's nothing on file.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
God damn it to hell. This explains why I had
such a hard time tracking Steve down later on. The
FBI didn't think you existed period. Agent Lobb explained this
to us that he felt he had done the best
he could define Steve.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I don't mean to sound callous about that, but I'm
happy that we were able to close that loop.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Agent Lobb even offered to speak to Steve if you
wanted to hear the story from him.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
You can give him my contact information if he's willing
to do it, or if he even wants to do it.
I know it's tough what he's gone through. I'm willing
to try to answer any questions he might have.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
I told Steve about Agent Lob in the File of
twenty twenty three. Steve never called him. Scott Lob's exhaustive
investigation resolved the big mystery of Sharon Marshall's real name.
Now he could figure out what really happened to her
and how Floyd got away with it for so long.
(22:00):
Before he left, Agent Lob gave Sandy a suggestion, they say,
read Matt's book. He was talking about a book called
a Beautiful Child, written by Matt Burkbank. It came out
in two thousand and four, so a full decade before
Agent lob meant Sandy. The book told the story of
a woman many you as Sharon Marshall, how she was
kidnapped and raised by Floyd. The author didn't know that
(22:21):
Sharon was actually Susie. He hadn't connected those dots yet,
but the details of her life on the room with
Floyd were inside that book, including the abuse.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
The reason I did that and told her to read
that book was because Matt Birkbeck had put in a
lot of effort into writing that book and really knew
the history of how she bounced around the country of
Franklin Floyd. I read the book too, but I'm I
told her. I said, I'm going to warn you it's
not pleasant.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Once the agents left town, Sandy was left alone with
their emotions and this new book she was told to read.
Speaker 6 (22:58):
After they left, I locked myself in the room, didn't
come out for a couple of days. But that's either
here nor there. But I was just in total shocks
the whole time he was sitting there and telling me
that Susie was dead.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
She couldn't believe it. She figured Susie was alive and
didn't want anything to do with her.
Speaker 6 (23:17):
Up until the day the FBI agent showed up at
my house. I finally believed Susie was still alive. I
mean sometimes I threw the book against the wall. Sometimes
I screamed, sometimes I cried. It was like reading a
horror story that you're a part of, but not a
part of.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
No.
Speaker 6 (23:39):
I went all the way through it within a couple
of days. Then I put it a science for about
a month, and then I started going through a piece
by t After I read the book, I considered killing myself. No,
it wouldn't have helped my other kids, and that's what
stopped me.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
I can't imagine how hard this must have been for Sandy.
For years, she was hoping one day her daughter would
come back. Instead, she had a unique kind of heartbreak.
People had read Burt Bett's book, had found out what
happened to Susie before she had. Sandy felt helpless.
Speaker 6 (24:17):
I looked back, and I was in Tulsa and he
was in Tulsa with her, and I could what could
I have done to find yours that I didn't do
when I was in Tulsa.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
There were, of course good parts in the book, like
how Susie was on her way to Georgia tech.
Speaker 6 (24:34):
I did find out she could have done so much
more if you weren't involved with her life. When she
was five and six and they said what do you
want to be when you grow up, she used to say,
I want to go to the moon.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
In this period of total despair, Sandy found something that
helped her.
Speaker 6 (24:51):
I wrote journals. I wrote the journal after journal after
journal every day. In fact, I'd just gotten rid of
a bunch of them because there were things in as
Jordaline didn't want my kids to read.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Sandy's husband of thirty years died in August of twenty ten,
but she started writing to him anyway.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
I would write, I call my husband Sonny, but I
would write to Sonny every day, like, you know, all
this has happened, and you're not here to help me,
and you really know what to do, and I don't
know what to do.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
It's hard to really say it, but I've told you
I'm friends with a lot of dead people. There's something
about this work that's made me a little bit spiritual.
There's a part of me that believes they're not as
far away as we might think. I know what it
sounds like, but it's often helped me in these really
dark times. I don't know. I guess I just thought
(25:47):
maybe Sandy wasn't as far away from her daughter as
she thought. If you could say something to Susanne, what
would you.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Say to her?
Speaker 1 (25:56):
I love you, I miss her. Amy Winkles had the
grievous sister she never really knew. She's been thinking about
what she would have said to her too.
Speaker 7 (26:08):
Sorry I couldn't help her. I wish we wouldn't known
each other, but I feel like I should have helped her.
But I couldn't help her. I think we would have
(26:30):
been good friends. We could have died in trouble together.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
With Sandy's DNA in hand, the FBI agents flew back
to Oklamba City and sent the samples to a.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Lamb The DNA matter both the father and the mother,
and it came back as a confirmation that the girl
who was killed in Oklahoma City was Suzanne Sevakas.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Getting her name was the crucial part of figuring out
what her story was.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
She was unknown, and you know, through Nate and I's work,
we were able to give her her name back. Even
though she's.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Gone for a while. Agent's Lob and for continue to
visit Floyd in prison. They were pretty sure he kills Susie,
but still didn't know his motive.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
That was one thing he just would not talk about
on all three visits was why he killed Suzanne. Floyd
raised that girl. Floyd had a long long standing tie
to that girl, from the time he took her to
the time she died in Oklahoma City, and I thought
that question would have been the most painful for him.
(27:46):
That's why I saved it for last.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
The Floyd stayed mom. Agent Lob had his own theories.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Well, there's speculation that she was leaving him, she was running,
and that Floyd found her somehow in Oklahoma City. That
could be true. I don't think we'll ever know the
answer to that question.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
When I think of what Floyd got away with, I'm
spitting man pissed. He stole Susie from her family, he
abused Susie for most of her life and was never
held responsible for a murder. It's kind of hard to
make peace with that, especially considering Floyd. I also came
for Susie's son, the school age boy named Michael, the
(28:29):
boy who had gone missing in nineteen ninety four, one
of the two I've become obsessed with about twenty years ago.
Kidnapping him was the federal crime that put Floyd behind bars.
Next time on Hello John.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Doe, Michael Anthony Hughes had been taken to a safe place,
Floyd would say.
Speaker 6 (28:46):
Floyd would also say the boy was his son.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
My nephew.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
He was just innocent. It took yeah, thirty to forty
five minutes before I finally said, we're not your attorneys,
We're FBI agents. We're here to talk to you about Michael.
He I said, I've reopened the investigation, and he looked
at me and says, what, I appreciate it if you
close it.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Hello John Doe is an original productions by Revelations Entertainment
in association with First and Last Productions from Revelations. Our
executive producers are Morgan Freeman and James Younger From First
to Last. Lindsay Moreno is the executive producer. Our producing
partner is Neo on Hume Media. It was written and
produced by Kate Michigan. Our editor is Katherine Saint Louis.
(29:34):
She is also nio on Home Media's executive editor. Our
executive producer is Sharah Morris. Our development producer is Ian Lindsay.
Our associate producer is Grufaro Faith Masarua. Sound design and
mixing by Scott Summerville. Theme and original music composed by
Jesse Pearlsteiner. Additional music came from Epidemic Sound and Blue
Dot Sessions. Ndall Faulton is our fact checker. Our production
(29:58):
manager is Samantha Allison from my Heart Media. Dylan Fagan
is our executive producer. Special thanks to Adelia Ruben at
Nion Hum and Carrie Lieberman and Will Pearson at iHeartMedia.
I'm Todd Matthews. You can learn more about name this
at NamUs dot com. The number for the National Center
for Missing Exploited Children's Call Center is one eight hundred
the loss That's one eight hundred eight four three five
(30:21):
six seven eight. The National Sexual Assault Hotline from the
Rate Abuse and Incest National Network is one eight hundred
six five six four six seven three. Okay, guys, this
is the end of the show. If you didn't like it,
don't do anything. But if you did like it, you
make sure that you rate and review the show. It
helps more people to find it and hear this wonderful story.
(30:42):
Thanks again for listening.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com