The Case That Never Left Her: The Disappearance of Denise Pflum

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hi, and welcome to the Alisha Coosac Podcast. Thank you
so much for being here and for listening. I'm Alicia Kozak,
and when I was thirteen, I was lord from my home,
kidnapped and held in a basement by a man I
met online. Now I was rescued. I was miraculously rescued
because he livestream what he was doing, an unlikely viewer

(00:32):
made the choice to report it. Even though that person
was not entirely innocent in what was happening, they still
did the right thing in that moment, and that call
led to my recovery. It is why I am sitting
here today, and that is a huge part why I
believe so strongly that every single one of us can

(00:52):
choose to act, to speak up and to help. That
experience has shaped everything I've done since. It's why I've
spent more than two decades fighting for kids and passing
laws and giving presentations and training law enforcement and using
my platforms the way that I do today. If you
follow me in social media, you know that I regularly,

(01:12):
almost every single day, share stories about missing people. I
do it because putting real faces in front of real
people it works. It could turn a passive scroll where
you're a doom scrolling or looking at animal videos or
whatever it is we're looking at. It can turn that
passive scroll into a search party. You can bring someone

(01:36):
home or finally hope to bring a family answers, and
recently that happened with seventeen year old Samantha Missic.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Kelly Andrew Well. Alicia Kozak posted a TikTok on Tuesday
about then missing Westmoreland County teenager Samantha Missic, But like
you mentioned, it was a comment underneath that post that
ultimately was instrumental in bringing Samantha home.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Stop scrolling, we need your help.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Alicia Kozak is a kidnapping survivor who dedicates her time
to internet safety and advocacy work. Part of that work
includes making these videos to spread awareness about missing people.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
And I do go through the comments on my videos
and I saw a comment that absolutely stood out. One
of my viewers said that they saw her out of
sheets and that they were going to call the police
right away. It's like, Oh my gosh, it's this real.
And I've had a number of successes from the videos

(02:37):
I put out. There's been people who have been recovered.
There's been there's been answers, but it's certainly not every
single one. I wish it were, but it's putting it
out there consistently and just hoping. And here was this
chance that this girl, this little girl who's missing could
be found. And so I looked at this comment, and

(03:00):
it turns out that she saw my video and then
realized remembered this that the day before she saw Samantha
to sheets, Wow, how incredible. This person is just scrolling

(03:21):
through their TikTok and they see a missing person's story
and say, I think I saw her yesterday. And then
most importantly, she called in that sighting. She didn't second
guess it, she didn't say what if it's not true,
She just went for it. And then she left a

(03:42):
comment on my video, which is what I saw. Now
of all the things, Samantha's cousin was also scrolling through.
So the girl who was missing, her cousin was also
scrolling through TikTok and came across my video. Now she's
saw that comment that I saw, and then she got

(04:04):
the exact location to that sheets. She pulled it up
and she contacted her cousin, who was in law enforcement,
and then together they shared that information with shelters and
local agencies and got the story out there. The next
day I saw that Samantha was recovered. I was out
at dinner with my boyfriend and I was like, Oh,

(04:27):
my gosh, I wonder if she'd been missing for I
believe it was on the two weeks or more at
that point, she'd been missing for a while, and then
she's recovered the next day, Well what if? And it
turns out, yes, Samantha was found safe in Harrisburg that
very next day because of that video, because somebody did something,

(04:53):
because they called, because they were aware. And that is
the power of ordinary people seeing shit, sharing and acting
instead of treating cases like their content. But when you're scrolling,
you can actually help save somebody's life, and you could
possibly bring a missing child home. And that same hope
is why I wanted to have today's conversation. So today

(05:16):
we're going to talk about a case, and it is
the case of Denise lem Denise she was only eighteen
years old when she disappeared from a small safe town
in Indiana, and her disappearance shocked the entire community. Now,
more than forty years later, there's still so many questions,
and that case has basically gone cold. Denise has been

(05:38):
declared deceased and her family is still waiting for those answers.
We have to remember that the people behind these stories,
they're real, Their families are real, the unanswered questions are real,
and so is that pain. And my guest today she
is personally connected to Denise's story. Detective Sergeants Dacey Reese
has worked in law enforcement Indiana for twenty one years,

(06:00):
and she has carried Denise's case with her through that
entire career. This is the case, it never leaves her.
Stacy has poured herself into finding answers for Denise and
her family and giving a voice to victims who could
no longer speak for themselves. She's here to talk about
the world she works in every single day, the reality
is behind these investigations and why she refuses to stop

(06:24):
fighting for Denise. My hope in sharing this conversation with
you is the same hope I bring to every missing
or murdered person's story. My hope in sharing this conversation
with you is the same hope that I bring to
every single story that I cover, that we move information,
that it sparks memories that it helps fine answers for
a family that has waited for far too long, and

(06:46):
keep insisting that these lives matter. We can talk honestly
about the horrible things that happen without turning them into
just entertainment her content. We can use these stories to
actually change the world and to save people. And if
this conversation matters to you, please follow me on social
media Adalisia kozak pad on YouTube, Instagram and on all

(07:07):
the platforms tap follow, hit the bell, leave a five
star rating and review, and share this episode with somebody
that you know. Every share, every follow, every rating helps
put these stories in front of people who can help
make a difference. Advocacy it only works when it moves
and it takes action. So let's take that action together.

(07:28):
And now, please welcome Detective Sergeant Stacy Reese. Stacy, thank
you so much for being here today. I am really
looking forward to our conversation. I know how passionate you
are about this work and just really looking forward to
going deeper into it with you. So I gave your

(07:50):
official title, but in your own words, what is it
that you do?

Speaker 3 (07:55):
I try to give a voice to the people that
were voiceless. That's been my goal in law enforcement is
to help people that didn't have a voice before.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
That pulls on my heart strengths so much. That's beautiful
And what does that actually mean to you though? Like
what do you do day to day that helps give
people that voice after it's been taken from them.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
So, as a detective in a small town department in Indiana,
were more what you would call general, but my primary
focus has been on helping victims of sex crimes. Primarily
that could be anything from child molestation victims, people that
were exploited online, adult victims of sexual assault, but also
missing people, people that maybe years ago weren't heard. The

(08:48):
goal was always to be able to be in a
profession where I could help them maybe define their voice
and try to get some sense of justice for them.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
You said years ago, is this what you always dreamed
of doing? Did you want to do this.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
As a kid?

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Is this what if somebody asked you what do you
want to be when you grow up? Is this with Stacy,
Let's say I want to go into law enforcement. I
want to give people a voice, Like how did you?
How did you get into this?

Speaker 3 (09:16):
So I come from a family of first responders, mostly firemen,
so they were a little disappointed when I went this
direction instead of the fire service. But at a young age,
at three, almost four years old, a girl in our
hometown went missing and her name was Denise Flum, and
Denise was only eighteen. My mom had babyset for her

(09:39):
when she was a little kid. My dad participated in
the search parties for her. So it was something that
growing up I was aware of something so traumatic happening
in such a small town, and Denise never got any justice.
Denise was never found, and that always seems so profoundly
unfair to me. That I wanted Denise to have a voice,

(10:01):
which man, I wanted everyone to have a voice, And
so at the age of four, I decided I wanted
to get into law enforcement. I originally wanted to be Batman,
but realized normally have the body to be Batman, not
as wealthy as Batman, so I settled for law enforcement.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
Do you feel like Batman?

Speaker 3 (10:21):
I feel more like old Batman when he's old and
you know, just living day to day. Yeah, old Batman maybe.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
But you said I feel like old Batman. But did
I hear you right? Did you say that you wanted
to do this when you were four years old, when
this tragic story of Denise, that you grew up in
what you felt at the time was a safe neighborhood
and this tragedy happens that it seems like you're really

(10:54):
close to that. This is personal in many ways, but
that inspired you at at four years old.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
Yeah, so I think that growing up in the eighties
in a small town in Indiana, things like that just
didn't happen. And you have to keep in mind growing
us into I mean as a lesbian and as someone
who was later diagnosed with autism. Growing up to that time,
I didn't really have things to focus on or that

(11:28):
I could fixate on, I guess would be the word,
And so I started fixating on a sense of justice
and what's right and what's wrong. And Denise just hit
me as this is just wrong, and that people just
forgot about her or people didn't care and they just
moved on with their life. But here was this eighteen
year old girl who didn't do anything wrong. She was

(11:52):
a straight A student, she was almost top of her class,
she was going to go to college in the fall.
She was just at spring break in this all town
of Cornorsville, not doing anything but living her life, and
for her to just disappear, it just felt very wrong
to me. So I just kind of gravitated towards that
and have maintained a pool towards Denise because it's been

(12:15):
she disappeared in nineteen eighty six, so it's been forty
years without justice for her family, and I may not
be able to help her, but I wanted to make
sure we didn't have any more Denise Fluves. So Denise
has been a big part of my journey, and.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
I definitely want to go more into Denise's story and
to give you a chance in this podcast to give
her that voice and talk about it and hopefully potentially
lead to some answers from a new audience. Right, every chance,

(12:52):
every conversation is a chance for somebody who needs to
hear it to lead to the answer. To hear it.
You just need that one person because somebody somewhere does
have that answer. But gosh, at four years old, do
you have this sense of justice? How does a four
year old though hear about a story like this? It

(13:13):
makes me think of when I was little and the
whole world was happening around me, and my parents didn't
necessarily tell me everything. How did you learn about this
in the first place.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
So I think that what people don't understand if you
don't come from an emergency services background or have family
in it, it's a very different type of family dynamic.
Having come from a family of firemen who were all
friends with the police officers, who were all friends with
the ms and all the different emergency providers, they just
talked about their day and it's not like they would

(13:49):
tell you necessarily the graphic details. At four years old,
they didn't tell me, hey, she's probably been harmed. It
was just she was missing. But they talked about the
runs that they would go on, and so at that
young of an age, we spent My sister and I
pretty much grew up at the fire department, so we

(14:10):
would be there. We would be in the backseat of
the car when dad would go on a run. If
he went on a run, he would just tell us, Hey,
stay in the car, don't get out. So for me,
it was normal to hear about the things going on
in the community. And it's a small town. So when
you think about Denise her case, particularly, everyone talked about it.

(14:33):
Everyone to an extent still talks about it, but they
don't talk about her. They talk about, oh, it's so tragic.
So that was what was nice about having my family
coming from the community, as we actually came from the
smaller town of Everton, which is next to Carnersville. Knowing
the Flums, we knew her, So for me, she was

(14:56):
a family member almost like she was a friend. She
was somebody that I maybe never physically talk to her,
but she felt like a family member. So she was
very important and she got talked about.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
So she was a part of your world growing up
that she was. She was somebody that you were a
family member, like you said, like somebody who was just
around in the conversation, but who was missing. And she
was real to you. And that's something I want to
go into later because I say that word a lot

(15:28):
on this podcast, and I'm realizing, like that is the
word is real, right, real crime, realness, real stories, real that,
and that people are real. They're not just a missing poster.
It's not just a cold case that doesn't matter to
people that Denise and what happened to her and getting
those answers still absolutely matters. And we're going to come

(15:53):
back to Denise because I really want people to know
who she is and to know her story and to
give her give her that voice. But I do want
to jump forward a bit because I keep thinking about
this four year old who has this story that is
happening in the back of the car. Is your dad

(16:17):
is going on these runs and it sounds kind of
exciting and scary and everything all at once. But it
was your normal. It was how you grew up. So
there's this four year old Stacy who is growing up
and is like, I'm going to get justice for people.
I'm going to fight, I'm going to do this, and

(16:39):
you get that uniform on, you start your job, you
get that opportunity to start giving people that voice and
to live that four year old's dream. I'm wondering, what
was your first win that you felt like maybe that
you were doing justice for that four year old version
of you. What was that moment when you realize that

(17:01):
this is why I do this.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
I think there's a multitude of moments that come for
that anytime as a patrol officer. I started in law
enforcement in two thousand and five, and so just the
first few calls even as a patrolman, when you would
go out on, say like a domestic dispute, or you
would go out on a child neglect case where a
child had been malnourished or had been physically assaulted by

(17:27):
their parent, to be able to go into that home
and take the person that was creating the harm out,
even if it was for just a brief bit, because
statistically speaking, they do typically come back into the home.
It takes multiple times before someone is ready to leave.
But to be able to get them out of the
situation and to provide that, I don't want to use

(17:49):
the word victim. I typically use the word survivor to
give the survivor of that abuse some sense of someone tears,
We're trying to help, here's some services and getting those
people out of that. And I've had several people over
the years that were able not because of me, but

(18:09):
just because we gave them that one little bit of help.
They then took those reins and they succeeded in life,
they got away from that. That's always been a satisfying
part of my job, and that started very early on
in my career seeing those people be able to do that.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
So really making that difference in somebody's life.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
And I think everyone can make that difference in someone's life.
I think that's where we as a society maybe have
started to get a little too cynical or a little
too consumed with just being on our phones or not
having that human connection. A human connection is a powerful thing.

(18:51):
We were talking earlier about how everybody just kind of
sees the stories or they follow the true crime or
what happened to you. They look at that part of
the story, but not at you. And I think if
we can get people to maybe see more of that
human side, you can see the change in your community,
and you can help people, even if it's just something
that's small.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
And You're so right that we are losing that connection
that we scroll and we just see so many faces.
I mean, I saw I don't even know how many
faces today of people that I don't want to say
I don't care about them, but I don't know them.
I wish them well, but I don't care about them
in the way of I'm not going to reach out

(19:33):
to them later and say, you know, hey, how you doing.
They're not connected to me. And we've started to connect
with people who are distant and far away and on
our screens and have stopped connecting with our communities, and
it's something that we definitely need to start focusing. That's

(19:55):
one thing I say, and it ties into sort of
a philosophy of mine as people are Okay, let's change
the world. I want to end human trafficking, I want
to end child section abuse, I want to do all
these things that I want to make this huge world
impact when if we all focused on our community and

(20:16):
our part, we can really if everybody just did that,
it does impact the world. If we could all just
work on our part instead of trying to to take
over the whole thing all at once, and just beautifying
the community and supporting those who need it. And like

(20:37):
you said, even in the small ways, that's that's special.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
I would agree with that. Everyone is capable of helping.
Everyone is capable of being supportive of someone. I think
that when you generalize people so much, we generalize and
we don't like see the person, then that's when we
have that disconnect. So I think we're all capable of
having that connection and of being able to support someone.

(21:05):
And that's what was so good about law enforcement and
getting into law enforcement was, yeah, you deal with some
people that if we're honest, they're not the greatest to
deal with. Yeah, they're not very happy to see us, right.
That's been the biggest goal in the last few years
is making sure people know that we are here to help.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
I feel like that's really a comforting thing to hear
that there is somewhere to go because so many people
are struggling in so many different ways and they are
afraid to go to law enforcement. So just for so
many reasons, and that you are there to help. And

(21:43):
you say, not everybody is happy to see you, and
that's very true. A lot of people would like for
you to definitely not show up and expose what they're doing.
Not everybody is so excited to see Batman, right, Yeah,
but you want to know that Batman is there and
that that that signal is in the sky, and yeah,

(22:06):
to offer that support to the community. So I love
that you're saying I've had so many wins, that I've
had so many opportunities to do this, and I've heard
that a lot nobody's like, Okay, well I had this
one win and it was really great, but everything else failure.
It's like I don't even know which win to choose,
because I really am seeing this difference that is being

(22:29):
made and lives are being changed and people are being saved. Now,
the work you do on all fronts you said, you
just you sometimes and often work with people who aren't
the best of people. But it's dark and it's icky,
and I think a lot of people, if they knew

(22:51):
every bit of the truth, it is not what you
would hear necessarily in a true crime documentary or on
a podcast. And that's one of the reasons I want
to talk about those things because I wanted to give
that real side. But when you have those really awful moments,
those dark cases that I didn't even think about, how

(23:16):
this could happen, How could somebody be so low, How
could somebody hurt somebody in this way? How do you
cope with what you see in your work? What are
some coping mechanisms that you have?

Speaker 3 (23:31):
So I highly recommend for first responders to seek out therapy,
to have someone that they can go and talk to.
It's very frowned upon a lot of people don't want
to admit that, Hey, maybe I need to talk to someone.
I see a therapist and I have for the past.
I'm trying to think how old I am now? For

(23:51):
the past six years and just to have someone to
talk to. For the most part, though, when it comes
to when you're talking about the dark things and the
terrible things, people can be very good, but people are
also horrendously evil. We have free will, so we're able

(24:13):
to make decisions, and people do horrific things to other people.
What I've always done in my brain, and I don't
know if it comes from being autistic and not neurotypical,
is I've always just kind of shut it off that
it didn't happen to me. It happened to this person.
And if I become emotional or if it if I

(24:37):
let it affect me, that I'm not really helping the
person that it happened to, And so I just kind
of shut that down and try to be there to
help them in any way that I can. There is
still good people in the world, but I think that
the most thing that people aren't taking away is there's
some pretty bad people out there too, And so if

(24:58):
we can try to help people, and we can try
to keep those really bad people where they need to be,
that's all I can hope to do in this life.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
When you said that you turn it off, I don't
know if you've ever seen or listen to a book
of Mormon, but there's that song turn it off like
a light switch, just go click. And honestly, sometimes I
will sing that in my head and be like yeah,
and use that as a method to try to separate

(25:30):
myself from things that are going on too. So I
really understand that. And it's not like you are turning
it off and you're turning off the care and the empathy.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
I think that therapist would use the word dissociation. Yeah,
dissociate from it. I don't think it's something most people do.
I think it does. This job does negatively affect mental health,
especially if you're someone that is overly empathetic. You can't
shut that off. You start taking that in. There's a

(26:03):
lot of people that are very good police officers that
it slowly destroys them. There's a lot of police officers
that are excellent police officers when it comes to working
drug cases, are going after and working domestics or just
doing the day to day patrol, but they cannot handle

(26:24):
sexual abuse. And that's okay. I think everybody just kind
of has to know what they're able to handle, what
they're not able to handle. But yes, dissociation is kind
of the way. I guess the best way to say
is I just kind of shut that part of my
brain off and just focus and compartmentalize.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, And I talked to so many law enforcement officers
and I'm sure you do too, who Yes, they have
that that's so much empathy that they can't separate from it.
And they continue and continue and continue and continue to
fight through it because they feel like they need to
help this person, and they they stop taking care of

(27:08):
themselves and their own well being. And I like that
you had said, like it is okay, and I say
this all the time, it is okay to step away
because this is such a hard job and you're looking
at and viewing and hearing and experiencing things that most
people can't even begin to imagine. That it's so much worse.

(27:32):
One of my guests that had come on is like,
think of the worst thing and then times it by
by like a thousand. They compartmentalize to the point where
they are looking for maladaptive coping mechanisms. But one of
my favorite cooping mechanisms I find it to be just

(27:53):
entertaining as I'll get out and I always have is
dark humor. And it's tricky because there's this line between
humor that helps investigators in law enforcement cope and then
there's humor that can hurt and dehumanize the victims. But
I would love to hear some of those stories from

(28:15):
you that fall into that dark humor humor category that
you can share and don't worry about censoring. I know,
before you we started having this conversation, you're like, you're
going to have to bleep this out and be very careful.
And I want it to be real. I don't want
it to necessarily be the thing that you would say
on the nightly news or at the press conference. I

(28:38):
want to hear and I want my listeners and viewers
to hear that truth from you.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
I would say, the biggest truth is not necessarily a
dark humor thing. It would be for the love of God,
keep your penis in your pants. No woman wants that picture,
and unless she specifically asks for it, please don't send it.
As a lesbian. I never expected to have to see
so many penises, but there is every day, every day,

(29:10):
and it's the same thing every time. If you're gonna
do it, one, make sure that the person asks for
the picture, and two do something original with it, like
dress it up, put some googly eyes on it, a
little top hat on it. Stop taking pictures in your
dirty bathroom or with a remote, unless it's a really

(29:30):
impressive remote, like like a really big remote, not the
tiny remote that's not doing the any favors.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
Wait a remote? Why is it that they're just chilling
and watching TV? Like how does how does a remote
play into it?

Speaker 3 (29:42):
I would say, ladies don't pick up remotes in random
people's houses unless you've cleaned the remote first.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
Oh, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
I don't know if it's a size thing. Again, as
someone that is not obviously not heterosexual, I don't understand
why the desire is there to show straight ladies that
their penis is the size of a Roku remote.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
But it's not very bit like, that's not an impressive
it's not an impressive remote.

Speaker 3 (30:15):
It's not so I think more getting away from like
the dark humor, because we do have dark humor obviously,
is just a little psa of keep it in your pants,
don't take pictures of it. And if you do, take
pictures of it. And it's a case that I work
when I interview you. I'm going to have that picture

(30:35):
printed and I'm going to ask you if that's your penis.
And unless you want to tell a middle aged lesbian
that that's your penis, you probably shouldn't do it. So PSA.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
And if you do it, make it thinly eyes say
like a little hat yeh, make it.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
Top hat on it, put it on a little tripod.
Clip your nails. If your feet are going to be
in it, for the love of God, fase first, don't
have gangly feet.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
So this is just good dating advice.

Speaker 3 (31:12):
Don't.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
Yeah, that's like, don't you just don't? Women? Yeah, I
don't know how many women be interesting to see a
pole not pun intended, but a pool of how many
women are like, Yes, this is what I've always I've
always dreamed of seeing. This is this is it?

Speaker 3 (31:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
I've had men send me dick picks, uh quite a
few actually, And then I've also had them where they
will call me on like fakes on a like a
Facebook messenger, one of these and they are very clearly
touching themselves. It is disgusting. And the fact that you

(31:57):
can hear a story like mine or the work that
I do and go, oh, I bet she would love
to see them. I bet this would make her a
day better. Let me grace her with my my penis.
No thank you. Yeah, women, it's just not our it's
just yeah, it's not like all that exciting.

Speaker 3 (32:20):
So that that's a PSA. My other PSA would be consent.
It's really important. Just someone's passed out, they probably don't
want to have sex with you. If they're really drunk
and they don't seem like they know what they're doing,
they probably don't want to have sex with you. Like
watch the tea consent video. If no one has ever

(32:40):
heard of that. If you go online tea like the drink.
Watch the tea consent video. It really explains consent in
a way that I think most people would understand. Of
someone that comes to your house and then passes out,
they probably don't want to wake up to you having
sex with them, So consent. That's why.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
I like these PSA's. These are very just generally important information.
The t video is great. I do think about that
a lot. And how if somebody comes over you don't
but they say no thank you to the tea, You're
not like, well, you're gonna have tea anyway, or oh,
you fell asleep, let me pour tea in your mouth. No,
you you accept that they don't want the t I

(33:23):
do agree that that is a really good way to
say it without getting into into all the other stuff.
Consent is is really important in that it can be
revoked at any time, and that it doesn't matter if
somebody was like, yay, let's do this and then they
fell asleep. It's not an invitation to be like, Okay,

(33:45):
let's just keep going. Consent has to be ongoing and
without a doubt, very clear.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah, so I love them.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Dark humor is tricky because there are times where I
will hear these stories and I get why it's funny
in some ways because it's just so so absurd. But
to most people they would oh, yeah, that's not funny.
I'm actually disturbed by you telling me that. But it

(34:23):
really does help get through what is happening, So giving
people nicknames or just giggling at the things that happen,
because you're seeing people and all the things that they
are trying to hide from the world. You're going through

(34:43):
their devices, you're seeing the porn that they're interested in,
and they're fascinating kinks and all of these things, so
you're seeing all the bits of them that they're trying
to hide.

Speaker 3 (34:57):
In this line of work, with all of the things
that we collect, primarily working sex crimes, we typically will
get electronic data, so social media, your computers, your phones,
when we go and we execute search words and the
homes and the stuff we're looking for. And I can't

(35:19):
tell you the amount of times that you go into
these homes and it's filthy, they're just they're kind of
dirty homes, and you might have a cockroach paratrooping down
off of the ceiling to land on you. But you
also the things that you find, the amount of just

(35:43):
pornography on the phones. And you have men and women
that present themselves as this upstanding citizen and this wonderful person,
and the stuff that you would end up finding on
their phones could be you know, they may portray themselves
as straight, but they'll be a video of three arms
in their rear end. And there's still things that shock you.

(36:08):
I mean, I've had some recently where I expected the
video to be there were very sexual videos, and I
expected them to be a certain way, and then that
they surprised me with I mean, people just defecating and
sending that to people.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
I'm wondering too. I'm sitting here and I'm just thinking
these people are often one dimensional too, that you're investigating,
perhaps that you see a picture of them, you are
surveilling them, whatever it might be, but they're not necessarily individuals.

(36:48):
And then I was thinking, it doesn't dehumanize them to
have that dark humor, But I don't think so. I
actually think it might humanize them to give them facets.
Disturbing and interesting and silly and strange as they might be,
but facets beyond the abuse in the crime that they've committed.

(37:10):
Would you say it humanizes them a little bit? And
we like to use the term monster, and it's hard
to fight a monster, right, Monsters are big and scary
and magical and in a different kind of thing. But
a puny, little human. So if we take that perpetrator,
that predator, that bad actor, and we turn them into
this human who is strange and confusing, but flawed in

(37:37):
a human way, not just in a predatory way, do
you think that humanizes them and makes them a little
easier to I don't know if I want to say,
fight missus batman, but to talk to to understand to
communicate with.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
So I don't think of in terms of I know
I've used the word bad guy. It's just kind of
easier when you're generalizing for public survivor victim, bad guy.
I've never went through and thought of people as just monsters.
People are complex. You don't know everyone's full story. Do

(38:18):
people do horrific things? Yeah, and should those people when
they do such horrific things probably be removed from our
society so that they can't continue to do those horrific things. Yes,
But you do have to understand when you're going into
this work and you are talking to these people, if
you want to be successful at this career, if you

(38:38):
want to try to make a difference, if you want
to try to get these bad guys to talk to you,
you can't go in treating them as if they're monsters.
There's been plenty of times in interviews where I've shown sympathy.
I've cried with them, I've talked to them to get
them to understand, like, I don't see you for just

(39:01):
your crime. I see you for all the things that
you are, but we still do have to talk about
this bad thing that happened you're not just the one
bad thing, but you have to take responsibility for that
bad thing. Do I think that they should be out
in the general public. No. I have a very strong
belief that if you have committed a rape or a

(39:24):
child molest or you have kidnapped someone, that you should
not be back in society, and that you shouldn't be
given these sentences of probation or two years or three years.
Let's give you another chance, because statistically speaking, that doesn't change.
Those behaviors don't change. They don't go away. They may

(39:46):
pretend that they do. They may get better at hiding it,
and maybe they don't reasfend right away, but it's always there.
That desire to control and harm people is still there,
and we have to decide is this is society. We
can humanize them, we can understand that maybe things have happened,
but we do need to kind of keep them separate.

(40:07):
I think you just can't think in such black and
white I would say black and white perspective of things,
which as someone that's autistic, I get accused of black
and white thinking a lot of times. But people are
very gray. No one's one hundred percent evil, No one
is one hundred percent good. People make mistakes, people make
bad choices. We can still empathize and have our humanity

(40:31):
about us and understand that, hey, this person needs to
not be in society. Probably, So I hope that made sense.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Yeah, it does. People aren't necessarily I mean, there may
be people who are one hundred percent evil, but it's
most people will hold the door open or help the
old lady across the street, but what they did is

(41:02):
one hundred percent evil, and that's what needs to be
judged and looked at and determined if they could be
safe within society.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
You look at the justice system and people will have
all kinds of comments about the justice system. Oh it's broken,
Oh it's focuses too much on this. People are punished
for having a little bit of pot or or this
or that. We do have a system in place that's
not perfect, but we try. What I would say to
people is, if you don't like how things are and
you think things aren't going right, get into law enforcement,

(41:34):
get into corrections, get into therapy, get into being a hospital,
and be something that is a service oriented job so
that you can help make those changes and help create
what you think needs to happen to make things stop.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
Yeah, like mister Rogers said, right, look at the helpers
and help and to be one of those helpers, not
even just look for them. But how can we going
back to our original conversation about helping the community, how
can how can we be the helpers? That's beautiful. I

(42:10):
love I love your your outlook, and I wouldn't say
anywhere it is black and white. I would not accuse
you of that at all. You are very varying and
great opinions and see humans is many faceted while still

(42:33):
fighting for that justice. But but looking at the whole picture.
One of your co workers is Karen O'Connor, who was
on I think she is the second episode, well the
second guest, and you work with her quite frequently. Do

(42:54):
you have any fun stories about working with Karen? What
can we what can we say about Karen? So let's
see this week she sent me something from her board
of kink that to what's on hers, but that would
be weird. I have this this is mine no the
offices where that is like her dark Humor thing and

(43:14):
their dark Humor thing that they list out the insane
things that they see in these videos and the first
one she told me, I was like, yeah, that's not funny,
and I can't share that, but I think people could
kind of find the humor at least the the WTF.
The one that she had set me recently was that

(43:35):
there was a video of a man with apparently three
arms in his behind, and I just I had to
stop and think, like, is it somebody who My brain
is like, okay, how does that work? Like let me
not visualize it, please, but let me just think about
because it was like up to the forearm, Okay, well

(43:56):
that's that's a lot as just one arm is enough?
Two arms, that's a lot out.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
A little forearm or it's like a double four arm.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
Like like, what's going on?

Speaker 3 (44:08):
Well?

Speaker 1 (44:09):
I don't want to know, but also I do because
I'm wondering, Like I was just how does this work? Okay?
Is it somebody with like the there's one person that
has two arms in and then what if their nose
itches because now like that would totally happen. What are
they going to do? Uh? And then is it that
there's like one person who then has one arm? Is

(44:29):
it three people who have one arm? Is it a
three armed person? What? What is that video, But it
was definitely a moment of like, Oh, this, this is
what's going on in that office, and these are the
things that you're you're seeing on a daily basis, and
how I'm talking about those videos like they're silly, but

(44:50):
in the grand scheme of things, they're they're awful and
they're they're traumatizing. But I know Karen very well. I've
worked with her on a number of things, and you
get to see her in a different light than I do.
So I'm just what stories do you have together? And

(45:10):
do you also see this board of kink that I.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
Can proudly say that I have contributed many a device
that has caused them to put kings on the board.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
So Karen when she took over Cybercrimes was probably the
best thing that happened for an Ox County. Karen's very passionate,
She's very good at what she does. She definitely knows technology.
She likes to come in and save me a lot,
because I probably couldn't even turn on my phone if

(45:44):
Karen wasn't there to help me with that. She won't
let me bring her in. I keep threatening to bring
in the smart refrigerators and stuff and she keeps telling
me now, so she does prevent me from doing certain things.
But Karen, Karen's greats come out on some search warrants.
One of my favorite search warrants stories with Karen was

(46:04):
that the homeowner had told us this was not a
very cleanly house, but they had cats, lots of cats,
and they had cats that had had cats, so we
had little baby kittens and they said, hey, when you
go in that bedroom, there might be some kittens in
that drawer. So just ignore that. I had our crime

(46:24):
scene lady with us when we were executing the search
wart and I let her know, but I failed to
let Karen know for my own.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
You didn't tell her. I did not wait. So Karen
goes in not expecting this, and the last place I
would expect a kitten is in a.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
Yeah, okay, we purposely we made sure that Karen checked
that drawer. We do tend to do that. The crime
scene girl and I whenever we go out on search warrants,
if we've seen something that is just wildly appropriate, like
a giant dildo or something, we tend to make sure

(47:06):
that other people find them as well.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
So, but you don't tell me where's gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
Yeah, Oh, we get the reaction. It's it's a good time.
So Karen opens a drawer and I think her soul
left her body when she screamed. So that was that
was good times. She might have lost five years of
her life, but it was well worth it.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
So oh, you're okay with sacrificing her life for that
moment for five years. That's that's nice of you. Oh,
that's I'll have to ask about that.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
That's true friendship.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
That is that is that is true friendship. I love
that camaraderie too. I've seen some search words that I've
seen like it's very serious, but there's also light and
play and silliness and it breaks up the horror of
what is going on so much. But that's hysterical. Okay.

(47:55):
You said that you've contributed to that board of kink,
not in terms of you yourself, not my person, not
your personal not your personal selection or collection of pornography,
but what you have found. Is there anything that you
could add to that that you could share. I'm curious.

Speaker 3 (48:17):
There are things that definitely aren't necessarily funny that we've
added to that, but there are funny things. The amount
of people that have diaper fetishes, a lot of a
lot of fecal manner, a lot of a lot of pooping,
a lot of pooping. It's quite disturbing the amount of

(48:37):
people that want that. So yeah, yeah, just just a
lot a lot of poop. Just we'll eave it at poops.
There's just a lot of poop.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
We talked about that in the last episode. So that
ties in a little a little too well that this
is an ongoing thing and I'm not kink shaming, but
also that's just died It's just Dicky Hill.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
But I should talk to someone if like that's your
primary focus, Like that might be something that you should
talk to someone about as to why that is something
that is of interest that much.

Speaker 1 (49:19):
Are there videos and things that you see repeatedly like
I said, like, oh it's that one again.

Speaker 3 (49:27):
Yeah, when you have sex offenses, especially if they involve children,
you typically do find the same if it was got
from the internet, you typically find the same pornographic videos.
And that can range from very very small children, including babies,

(49:49):
up to teens. I think a trend that been seen
a lot more lately is convincing thirteen fourteen, fifteen year
old kids like this is normal, It's okay. You know,
show us your breast, show us this, touch yourself, and
they don't realize that it's actually just kind of getting
out and it's getting to everybody.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yeah, I'm manipulating a child into thinking that something like
that is as normal. That's one of those evil, evil acts,
very evil.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
We need to do better jobs as parent. I have
a teenage son myself, and we are constantly having talks
of don't do this, this isn't okay. And that's all
you can really do as a parent is you've got
to keep having those conversations with your kids that you
don't necessarily want to have. But if you don't have,
then someone else will.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
Right and typically not somebody that you would choose to
have that conversation, because kids are curious. You talked about
there being a lot of wins. Is there a case
that you wish had gone differently or one that ties
is something that you now carry into every case? Is
there a case that you really learned from that you

(51:05):
could talk about and share with me.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
I don't think there's a specific case that taught me.
Every case has taught me something, So I've taken something
from when I first started, or five years in, Hey,
I did this this way, but this way seems better.
I've always tried to learn from it. I've had some
cases that we didn't win in court and I didn't

(51:30):
maybe interview someone I should have interviewed, or maybe I
didn't do this, and I always just I don't necessarily
taken as losses. I try to take it as just
a learning experience so that I can do better the
next time. Because at the end of the day, when
you go to court and you present that and you
have a loss, I get to go home like I

(51:50):
just have to learn from it. The person that really
impacts is the person that had to go through that
and then they didn't get their day in court to
go the way they wanted. So I say, over the years,
anything that I haven't had a success in, I try
to use it as I can do better next time.
I'm going to do better next time, and just use
it as a tool to learn.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
Especially from those cases that are lost. That's one thing
that a lot of people don't see law enforcement doing
or think that they do. They think that they investigate,
then they get the bad guy, and then the bad
person goes away and that part of your job is
to gather that evidence and make it a solid case,

(52:32):
which is scary. That's really scary that that you could
miss something, that you could explain it incorrectly. I know
when it comes to the child sexual abuse material that
the judges can't majority often can't look at that, So
it is up to you to explain that in as

(52:53):
much detail as possible. That's a really big responsibility that
you're supposed to not only investigate this I'm this person
and get them and put handcuffs on them and do
all that, but also build a case that's strong enough
to stand up in court. That's a lot.

Speaker 3 (53:10):
Yeah. Well, and we're humans and we do make mistakes,
and all we can do is try to be better.
So I can't say I have a perfect trial record.
We've lost cases, and sometimes it comes down to, well,
if we had done this, or maybe if we had

(53:31):
explained it better, And sometimes it just comes down to
you are judged by a judge or a jury of
your peers, and sometimes a jury of your peers their
own biases do come into it, and if they don't
like the victim, they don't always go the way you
think they would. I think that's the thing that people
have to understand. I think everyone expects a victim to

(53:53):
be you, this sweet girl had this thing happen. They
don't expect the girl that maybe came from a rough
upbringing and she's had a multitude of arrest and she
has a drug problem, and they don't like that kind
of victim. And so I think we have to kind
of remember everybody's human things can happen to anybody and

(54:17):
maybe try to work on our biases a little bit.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
Well, Stacy, that's a really good point, because the offender,
when we talked about this, is often upstanding in their
community and that they're involved and people know them and
they're the trusted person. They are the one that people
look to for the helper and the guidance often and
then you have the victim who often is very flawed

(54:45):
and has made mistakes, and that really complicates things, and
especially in a small town where this person holds power
in the community that they are friends with people in
the community. And then you have this the survivor, who

(55:08):
who looks to be more flawed than they are, and
that it's hard to accept the truth about this person
that you trust, Like that's a really hard thing to do.
Is this person I know, this person I've trusted with
my kids, my family, that I've allowed into my life,
that I've stood by, that I have photos with, has

(55:29):
harmed a child in such a terrible way. It really
makes people likely think like, what what did I miss?
That can't be real. I trust this person, I know
this person. They could never do that. We see that
all the time in interviews, like, Oh, they're so quiet,
I don't know how this could ever happen. That's one
thing that neighbors always say. But when it comes to

(55:51):
people who are really close to them, it's that same
thing of oh they light up a room. That all
those beautiful, colorful, wonderful things are said about these people,
but often because part of the goal is to build
up this fake identity so that nobody looks behind the curtain.

(56:12):
I had a law enforcement officers say to me once
that you can't trust ever, you can never trust a pedophile.
And you know, we can go to epiphile and the book,
but the idea of the pedophile somebody who is attracted
to children, right, making it simple because everything that they
do is to build up the lie and to make

(56:36):
you believe them that they groom the community as well.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
Yeah. I mean if they look like what you see
in the movies and they have like one eye and
they have scars, and they walk like they have a limp,
and they offer kids candy, then they're never going to
get a kid because everybody's gonna be like hey. But
if they volunteer and they have their own kids, and
they're always supportive, and they they're the business owner in

(57:03):
the town that make sure all the kids at people
have their t shirts, and they're very good at manipulation,
it's a tricky bag. I don't think that you can
go through life being so cynical that you don't trust anybody.
But I do think people can be naively too trusting.
So trust your gut more than anything. If something seems off,

(57:25):
something seems off, and believe your kids, for the love
of God. If your kid tells you that somebody makes
them uncomfortable, or they don't want to go to Uncle
Bob's house, or you know, I don't want to give
this person a kiss, or listen to your damn kid
like your kid is giving you the clues that something
is going on. Listen to your kid and don't be

(57:46):
surprised that your kid didn't just come up to you
and say, uncle, Tommy made me stuck as peepe Like,
they're not going to do that typically because they're trying
to protect you. So maybe don't be so naive, but
also don't be so shut up to people that you
don't that you lose your compassion.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
That's a difficult balance, and I think that's why people
that really is not black and white, and why people
make mistakes in that area over and over again. And Sacy,
you made me think about how people like dogs. Right,
there's this idea of like, oh, you can't trust that
person because your dog doesn't trust them. That's a red flag,

(58:25):
but we kind of ignore when kids behave that way.
Oh well no, just go give them a hug. Oh
it's fine. Oh, don't be so shy when you need
to listen, and not even just listen because like you said,
your child may not say something, but to pay attention
and to think that there there might be something going

(58:48):
on and to be open to that. Don't you can't
believe everything at face value, especially when so much of
it is designed to be alive. When you arrest people,
We've talked about how they're so manipulative, right, They're manipulating society,
They're manipulating they're victims. Does that manipulation continue? Do they

(59:09):
continue to try? Of course not black and white, but overall,
if you can say it, does that manipulation continue and
that they try to hold up this lie and that
they're this great person in their community, or does it
sort of crumble and now you're pulling out their penis
photo and showing it to them and you're like, this

(59:30):
is who you are. Let's talk about that. And they
kind of crumble and they become the person that they
have been trying to hide from their real world.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
They are very good at manipulation. And I will say
when you interview these type of people, unless you have
something that you can use against them. You have a photo,
you have a video, you have a really good statement
from your victim, it is very difficult to get them
to admit anything. No one is going to come into

(01:00:01):
that and say I fucked five kids yesterday. No one's
ever going to do that because they know child molesters,
know that they're hated rapists, know that they're like the
lowest of the low, and so to admit that they've
done that. Not only do they face losing their freedom,

(01:00:22):
they lose everything. They lose their family and their friends.
So you can't just get them to come in and
they're going to come into that interview and they think
you're dumb. They always think they're smarter, and that's fine,
and sometimes maybe they are. I'm not the smartest, but
they will come in and they will try to manipulate you,
and they will try to say things. There's a little

(01:00:46):
bit of a running joke because of a tactic that
I use interviewing that I don't want to necessarily give
up my tactics, but a tactic I use in interviewing
and everybody always brings it up to me trying to
put them at ease, and so I will come up
with the worst case scenario like, oh, you like, you're
not the guy that's done this, You've just done this,

(01:01:10):
And sometimes that can get them to start talking. But
I think you have to make sure that you understand, like,
I'm not there. I'm not there to judge them. That's
not what I'm there for. We're just there to talk
about what happened. And they are some of the hardest
people to interview because they just they don't want to
admit it. They don't want to admit it to themselves,
they don't want admit it to their loved ones, they

(01:01:30):
don't want to admit it to their community. They don't
want to get in trouble. They don't want to have
that label because that label follows them forever. You do
sometimes rarely get the man or woman that has committed
offense that they feel such shame for what they've done
that they do just come in and say I've done this.

(01:01:51):
I've had a gentleman that has had a lengthy history
of substance abuse that came in and he just wanted
to talk and he said, I think when I was younger,
I did this and it's weighed on me and he
just wanted to talk about it. He just wanted to
get it out. That's really rare, but it does happen.
I think what you have to keep in mind with
these type of people is images everything, and they're very manipulative.

(01:02:15):
People have seen the documentaries, the Ted Bundy's, the John
Wayne gacyes, the people that actually killed their victims instead
of just sexually assault. They're very manipulative. When people are
talking about them, they're like they were great. They're friendly.
I mean Ted Bundy got all kinds of women to
come to his car because he was insane, and he
seems charming, so likable. They're very likable. They're not unlikable people.

(01:02:41):
They're not what you see. They're not Freddy Krueger. I
mean they're not. They're not just sitting there looking terrible
and they're just not. They they appear to be a
normal person, they appear to be a friend, and so
they try to bring that persona into an interview as well.
And as a detective or as a law enforcement whatever

(01:03:03):
your area is, your job is to see through that
bullshit and to get them to understand, like, hey, we're
going to have to talk about what happened, like this
isn't just going to go away, and try to do
what you can to help the victim get some sort
of justice.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
That has to be tough, because you have this person
who you know is lying, but you don't know they're lying,
and that they can manipulate you. And every case is
different and every story is different, and like you just said,
really you can can just do your best and when

(01:03:44):
things go wrong, carry that forward and figure out how
how to do better, and there's tragic stories where things
go wrong. And we talked about like the system failing,
and it's not necessarily all. I mean, yes, sometimes the
system absolutely fails, but it's not so much always that

(01:04:04):
the system is failing. It's that there's humans involved, and
everybody is out there as a human and really nobody knows.
The older I get, the more I realize nobody knows
that anything. We are all just toddlers or running around
trying to figure out what to eat for dinner, and
like that's it. Like we're just little babies trying to
figure it out, and we make mistakes and we're just

(01:04:28):
we have responsibilities all of a sudden, but it's not
like we have all the answers. And the people who
think they have the answers who are often I won't
even say often, but sometimes, uh, those offenders that those
are the ones that are really dangerous.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
Anyone that seems like they have life figured out, you
should probably be worried because no one has life figured out.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
No gosh, no, my goodness. Yeah. I want to go
back to you as a person, as a human and
you getting into this work and a big part of
that being inspired by Denise Plum story. And I really

(01:05:16):
want people to understand that Denise Plum was not simply
a name. She's not simply a name who's attached to
a cold case in a file in a drawer that
there's cobwebs around it and nobody is looking and nobody cares,
and it's not impacting anybody. Let's talk a bit about Denise.

(01:05:39):
Your passion, you said, is to give people a voice,
and so sadly Denise does not have a voice. That
it appears that somebody has taken that voice from her
a very long time ago. Could you talk about who
Denise was?

Speaker 3 (01:05:59):
Yeah, so Denise, everybody, whenever something happens, they're like, oh,
that was somebody's daughter, that was somebody's sister. She was
a daughter, she was a sister, She was a friend,
but she was a person. She loved science. She was
also an athlete. She was a softball player, she played basketball.

(01:06:20):
She was playing she was doing track. She had actually
not went away for spring break because she was practicing.
And Judy, her mom, would be the one that would
tell you what she was practicing. There was an event
for tracks she was trying to get better at and
so she had not went away on spring break because
she wanted to continue to get better at this. She
had broke up with a boyfriend that after Denise died.

(01:06:46):
More than likely, we'll just say disappeared. After Denise disappeared,
he had a very lengthy criminal history afterwards of domestic violence, stalking,
all kinds of things. But she she was a teenage girl.
She hung out with her friends. She liked to get pretty,
she liked to go do things, you know. She had
attended a party the night before she disappeared, which in Cornersville,

(01:07:10):
and I people always say, I'll put an R in it,
But in Connorsville there's not much to do, and especially
in the eighties, kids would go to farms and they
would have big bonfire parties. So she had attended a
big bonfire party the night before she disappeared, and she
had left her purse at that party. So the next
day she had went back. She called a bunch of

(01:07:32):
friends trying to get people to go with her. Nobody
could go with her. She goes back to try to
find the purse and she's gone. She's just gone. Her
cars on the side of the road. It spotted within
an hour of her leaving. Her home and she's never
seen again. And so for people that don't know her,

(01:07:55):
and for all the true crime lovers that love the thing,
they're just ah the mystery of what happened to Denise,
But they take away from the fact that she was
She was eighteen years old. She disappeared when I was
three because I didn't turned forward till May. She disappeared
in March of eighty six. But I'm now older than

(01:08:17):
she ever got to be. Her sister had a child
who is now older then she ever got to be.
Her friends have had kids that are older than she
ever got to be. She never got to do any
of these things. And to just be a statistic, to

(01:08:38):
just be a poster, to just be some file seems wrong.
We'd actually brought attention to the case, got a kind
of some momentum going again. It gave incentive, I guess
would be the word to local law enforcement. They were

(01:09:00):
still looking at it. They will tell you it was
never cold, but it gave them some maybe incentive. And
now it gave it to the state police, which is
what the family had always wanted, is the state police
to have it. So the Indiana State Police actually has
that caste now and they are looking into it actively,
so it's being looked at. But Denise is more than
that she was. She was an eighteen year old kid, So.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
Yeah, it's right people. I don't think it's uncommon for
people to kind of feel that these stories of these
people that they just popped into existence that day, that
there was no before that I'm thinking about this young

(01:09:46):
girl going to a party and planning at her future
and having all these friends, and she's She's real and
the pain that people areiencing today is real. You yourself,
I can hear that this is something that you carry

(01:10:07):
with you and you are fighting so hard to get
those answers for her. I know when we had first
started talking, there was a potential lead and you and
Karen had gone out and were searching, and I remember
that day thinking, oh my gosh, this is this it No,
I'm involved? Is this the day in thinking yes, yes,

(01:10:31):
yes it could be, and that You've shared this with me,
and I've watched documentaries and I've tried to learn a
little bit about Denise too, and that oh my gosh,
we're good. It's going to happen. The answer is going
to be here, and there's all this hope. And then
I texted Karen and she was like, nope, nothing.

Speaker 3 (01:10:52):
And yeah, that's the story of Denise. Forty years of
hope and forty years of letdowns. For her parents, Judy
and David are they're getting a lot older. I mean
they're late seventies, so they've not had her, you know,

(01:11:15):
for forty years. They only had her for eighteen and
she was she was a special baby, like they had
had issues and then they had her and she was
everything to them. And then they were blessed with the
second daughter afterwards, but she was their baby and then

(01:11:36):
she's just now, she's just some case. She's not a
person to people, and I think that's where the real
tragedy lies, because she is the person to all those
that loved her. She's the person to all those friends.
They just had their fortieth class reunion and she was
still what they talked about at their fortieth class reunion
because she's still gone.

Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
So it's almost like it's not even that she's gone
or she died, but that she never existed in some
ways to so many people and to everybody who loves her,
she's just as real as the last day that they
saw her, and there's there's always hope, and there's always somebody,

(01:12:21):
I mean, there's somebody who knows something. And has it
been declared that she is deceased at this point, is
she's still labeled a missing person? Where's the investigations schedule?

Speaker 3 (01:12:35):
Chair? She's still label as a the see person and
it's active with Indiana State Police. Detective Andy Wandersey is
the detective that has it. He actively works it as
far as the flum say that he stays in contact
with him and he seems like he's doing everything he can.
She was legally declared dead. I think it was seven

(01:12:57):
to eight years after she disappeared that they did have
her legally declared dead. But she's still not home and
I think I think that's the biggest thing for them now.
It's not so much a sense of we want someone
to be punished, we want to see somebody go to jail.
It's where is she? And there are people that know

(01:13:17):
they know where she is and they just aren't saying.
So hopefully at some point they do.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
Let's just hope they do. Like listeners who are out there,
send that out into silly as that is, send that
out into the universe, because maybe they will just have
their heart strings pulled at some point and it'll just
it'll become it'll become too much, because like you said,

(01:13:45):
she needs to come home, and it's not likely that
she may.

Speaker 3 (01:13:49):
Come home.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
Safe, but that her loved ones and her friends are
family and everybody can can truly put her to rest
and have that answer. People say closure a lot, and
I don't like that term because closure is almost like
the wound healed, and it's not that the wound heals,
but that answer is so important because from the families

(01:14:12):
I've worked with, there's still that question what if she
is out there? And you can't ever stop searching and
looking and hoping and having that moment that answer can
bring a sort of peace. And that's what you have
been fighting for your entire almost your entire life since

(01:14:33):
you were four years old, but your entire career, that
you've been carrying this case, and I just I'm so
moved by that that Denise to you is a real person,
but a person that you are continuing to fight for,

(01:14:56):
that you haven't put that case in a drawer and
closed it, that it is it is open, and that
you are active it's like actively in your mind on
probably every day. Would you say, do you think about
her every day?

Speaker 3 (01:15:14):
Yeah, Denise is always there. Denise's Denise has impacted how
I have treated cases, how I've responded as law enforcement.
So something I've talked to her mom about frequently is
Denise hasn't made an impact because I'm who I am

(01:15:40):
because of her, and any impact that I've made, any
help that I've done, if it's small, it's because of Denise.
And so there are countless people out there that have
been the victim of a crime that maybe I wouldn't
have been a cop if it wasn't for her, Or
maybe I wouldn't be as I have been called a

(01:16:04):
dog with a bone before. Maybe I wouldn't be so
bullheaded or strong willed that that would be a better term.
Maybe I wouldn't be so strong willed if it wasn't
for her. Maybe I would just be like, Eh, it's whatever,
here's the report, and let it go. So Denise has
impacted many lives even though she didn't get to be

(01:16:26):
here to physically do it herself. And that's not just
through me, through anybody that was affected by her, her friends,
her family, the lives they've led, the people they've impacted.
Denise left a lasting legacy. She was important, and I
think that's the thing that if the people that were involved,
because anytime her name gets mentioned, it's a small town.

(01:16:47):
I'm sure that I'm sure that they watch closely. At
some point, you're gonna face a consequence for what you did.
I think that as you're getting older and you're getting
closer to that hereafter, I don't know that I would
want that on my conscience, So I would just maybe

(01:17:11):
just say where she's at at least and gives the
family that it would be nice to be able to
go somewhere and know she's here. Give her that dignity.
I mean, for God's sakes, it's been forty years. Give
her the dignity of at least being properly buried.

Speaker 1 (01:17:30):
So dignity is the perfect Oh that that hit my
gut and my stomach and my heart and everything that
has feelings. Dignity, Yes, and addressing that whoever that person
is or those people who know, yes, please please come forward,

(01:17:52):
Please please give those answers. Please let this young woman
rest and stead of this being this question mark for forever,
this person who matters so much. We said she was
important and she mattered, But she is important and she

(01:18:14):
does matter. But she is important, she does matter, and
forty years later, she still matters and she's still making
a difference. And give this girl and her family that
dignity and that grace, and just be better than what
you did. As somebody who works with families who have

(01:18:36):
children who have been missing for so long, it's heartbreaking
because they're child to them, they're gone, but they're frozen
in time.

Speaker 3 (01:18:48):
And there's always hope even with time gone. If you
look at the Jacob weddleing case from Minnesota, Patty and
her course for years wanted to know, like where he was,
and they finally they finally got that answer of here
he is, and so they were able to at least

(01:19:10):
have him home, not in the way they wanted, not
the ending that anyone would want, but at least they
knew where he was. I've went to a class that
Patti Wedderlein had talked at and just I think that
class was probably thirty years ago, or not years, thirty

(01:19:30):
years after Jacob had disappeared. I got to think in
my time frame here maybe twenty years after he disappeared
and you could still just hear the pain and her
voice was talked about it, but she didn't know where
her baby was.

Speaker 1 (01:19:42):
So it's so true. I know, Patty, and I've known
a lot of these families since i was a little girl.
I've known them since I was rescued, since i was thirteen,
and I've grown up whire their children didn't get the
chance to and a lot of times they they will

(01:20:02):
grow her buttons and pins, and like I said before,
these children are kind of frozen in time. And I'm
so lucky to have that chance to grow up in
that miracle that I received. And you can't fix what happened.
Nobody can bring Denise back as an eighteen year old

(01:20:25):
and give her her life that she lost in whatever
way she lost it. But we can give her. You
can give her, whoever you are out there, rest and
peace and her family to have that because that pain,
it doesn't go away. Like you just said, you can hear, Patty,

(01:20:45):
and I've been there. I've held a lot of these
families while while they've cried, and they've pleaded, and they've begged,
and they've held those posters up at an event or
a march or a bike ride or whatever, and god
damn it, they're not freaking given up. But they can't
do it on their own. They are hoping and just
praying and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting, and

(01:21:07):
you know what, forty years it's far too long to wait.
Like this is done. Come forward.

Speaker 3 (01:21:12):
We need to do better as a society. We need
to do better for these families, but we need to
be doing better for these kids or for these grown adults.
There's thousands upon thousands of people that are missing. If
you go on the Dough Network, Doe Do Network, public
can go on it and you can search by year.
There's people that are still missing from the nineteen thirties

(01:21:35):
and they're a person. How does a person just disappear
and people cease to care? So we need to do better.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
Absolutely. One thing that I do is I share a
missing person stories on my social media and I've had
some really positive outcomes. Sometimes these videos are seen by
a million people within an hour, which is wild. And
just recently one of my tiktoks helped to bring a
missing girl home safely. In Denise's situation, it's very different,

(01:22:06):
but both do remind me that sharing someone's story can
lead to answers. And I'm so grateful that you're out
there being her voice and fighting for justice. And here
we are still talking about her story with You're with
so much passion and care, and thank you for not

(01:22:28):
giving up on her, not giving up on her, on
her family, on all of it. Just thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:22:36):
It's just it's just human decency. Likes it's not anything spectacular.
Just be a decent human being and care about people
like so, if everybody would just care a little bit,
I'm not the only person that cares about her. I
just luckily have a voice that I'm able to come

(01:22:56):
on your show or come somewhere else and I can
talk to her and bring some light to it. So
let's hope that it helps.

Speaker 1 (01:23:03):
After everything you've seen, even when you were a little
girl and you saw and heard of all these cases
and these things happening, and now you're an adult and
you see the worst of the worst. Do you think
evil is winning? Do you think that the bad people,

(01:23:24):
the bad actors, the bad guy, whatever we want to
call them, Do you think that that evil is winning
over the good.

Speaker 3 (01:23:33):
That's kind of an opening question, because yes, and no,
I do think it is, but only because we're allowing
it to. There are a lot of good people. There's
a lot of good in the world. But if we
are too afraid to speak up and to do the
right thing and to allow things to continue, then yeah,
I mean, I think there's fewer evil people than there

(01:23:56):
are good people. But I think those evil people are
more They're more out with it, They're more willing to
do what they want to do to get their way.
And I think we have a lot of really good
people that maybe just don't want the confrontation or well,
it doesn't affect me. It just affects my neighbor down
the street. So if it doesn't affect me, I'm not

(01:24:19):
going to worry about it. I remember in college studying,
I did a semester studying the Holocaust and there was
a quote about the guy that said something like, you know,
when they came for the Catholic side, didn't care because
it wasn't Catholic. When they came for this person, I
didn't care because I wasn't that by the time they
came for me, there was no one left to speak up.
So I think if we're not willing to speak up

(01:24:41):
and fight the evil. Then yes, it's winning. We need
to start standing up. We need to do things as communities.
We can't just rely on law enforcement, and we can't
just rely on well, that's their problem, they'll take care
of it. Step up and help and do the right thing.
The right thing's not easy thing to do. If it was,
everybody would do it. But it doesn't mean that you

(01:25:04):
can't do the right thing.

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
One thing that I say is that because I've learned this,
you know this, that there really is a lot of
evil in the world. But I do believe that there
is more good and far more good people than there
are evil people. But evil is louder, and we have
to speak up. We have to not be afraid. I
think a lot of times good is like, well, what

(01:25:26):
if I what if I'm wrong? What if I hurt somebody?
What if it's not true? What if this? What if that?
What if I get in the way instead of just
doing the thing and finding reasons not to And like
with this TikTok video that was out there, what happened
was that video I shared of this girl who was missing.

(01:25:50):
Was she was seen the day before by one of
my viewers and she realized after seeing the video, Oh
my gosh, I saw her yesterday and she left a
comment and I reached out to her immediately and I said,
to you call and she was like, yeah, that's what good.
That's what good people do. Basically what she said like,
we all need to do our part. And I thought
that was beautiful, but that she actually made the call

(01:26:12):
and that can be a tough thing to do, but
please don't be afraid to do that. But what really
led to her recovery, the girl being found is that
the one who had seen her the day before I
left a comment like this is such an like I
did not expect that this, this is so much more
complicated as life is, but that she had left a
comment saying I saw her, I'm going to call the police.

(01:26:33):
And then that girl's cousin saw it, and that cousin
was able to reach out and rally the troops, if
you will, and help find her her her cousin who
was missing. So everybody doing their part. I think that's
such a big thing. Is that I don't know if
any of us have all the answers. I'd like to

(01:26:54):
know that person. I'd love to have them on my podcast.
Just give me what is the meaning of life? How
do we solve this? What is all of it? Whoever
that is, please reach out. That would be an interesting interview.
It would be the person who was not to trust,
probably because they were the adult that says, I got it,
I've got this figured out. We talked about that, but
I don't know if anybody has all the answers. But

(01:27:15):
back to the fact that we can all play our part,
and we don't have to play it perfectly. There's no script,
there's no lines, there's nothing. It's just doing do the
next right thing. I've always really liked that if you
don't know what to do, just do the next right thing.
And the next right thing is to call make a report,

(01:27:36):
because you could miss that opportunity or that chance to
really help that person, and that was left in front
of you, that was your chance to do something.

Speaker 3 (01:27:47):
Tell of then if that's all you do is just
make a phone call, make a phone call, do your part.

Speaker 1 (01:27:53):
Right, do your part, make your community better, and take
the chance to do something good. But definitely don't do
the bad thing. Do the good thing. Something my mom
would always say, right, do you have to do good?
You can't just be good. It's not as much just
like I think a lot of people are like, well,
I'm not doing the bad thing. I'm not I'm not
downloading the child sex abuse material, I'm not abusing kids.

(01:28:15):
I'm not an arsonist, I'm not an abuser. I'm not
at this. So I'm you are making the word a
better place by not doing those things, of course, but
you also have to do the good thing. It's not
just enough to not do the bad thing. It's the
good that can fight those those those bad things and
those bad people. So that's you. You're out there doing

(01:28:37):
the good and have been doing it for a very
long time. And I'm just I'm so grateful for you.
I love that. One of that's what I get to
do in this podcast too, is to make law enforcement real.
But that you are a person who is carrying passions
into this and stories and a story that is like

(01:29:04):
one story that is pushing you forward and has pushed
you forward for a very long time, and that is
getting an answer about what happened to Denise Plum so
we can help bring her home and to rest. Stacey,
thank you so much for all the work that you do.
Thank you for this passion that you've been carrying for

(01:29:24):
all these years, basically since you were really a little girl,
and holding this story so close of Denise Flum. And
it is by speaking about these cases, by keeping those
stories out there, that hopefully we will get those answers

(01:29:46):
that it's not a secret that she has loved and
she has cared for, and that she has and continuous
impact so many people, including you. So just thank you
for fighting for that justice and for being the boy
for so many who don't have one.

Speaker 3 (01:30:02):
Yeah, you don't like praise, it's not my thing. You're welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:30:10):
Thank you so much for tuning in. We really appreciate it.
We'll be releasing new episodes every Thursday. Make sure you
check out our YouTube channel and hit us up on
our social media on at Alicia coosacpod for extra content
around each episode, and please remember to subscribe on Apple, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts.

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The Case That Never Left Her: The Disappearance of Denise Pflum

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