Heather Dawn Church Part 3: The Fingerprint in the Silence

When Heather Dawn Church disappeared from her Black Forest, Colorado home in 1991, the trail went cold—until legendary detective Lou Smit stepped in. In The Fingerprint in the Silence, John and Angela take you inside Smit’s methodical, victim-first approach that transformed an overlooked piece of evidence into a game-changing arrest.

From his early days solving some of Colorado’s toughest murders—including the infamous Karen Grammer case—to his faith-driven commitment to justice, Lou Smit brought a rare blend of skill, patience, and empathy to every investigation. In this episode, you’ll hear how a single latent fingerprint—ignored for years—finally identified Robert Charles Browne, one of Colorado’s most dangerous killers.

This isn’t just the story of a solved case—it’s a study in what happens when the right detective refuses to stop listening. You’ll follow the pivotal moments, the overlooked clues, and the relentless pursuit that ended a family’s nightmare and restored a stolen truth.

🎧 What you’ll hear in this episode:

• Lou Smit’s career and investigative philosophy

• How Sheriff John Anderson’s decision to bring Smit out of retirement changed everything

• The forensic re-examination that turned a cold case hot

• The arrest and confession of Robert Charles Browne

• A moving tribute to Heather Dawn Church

If you believe in shining a light on the cases that matter, follow, rate, and share this episode. Every listen keeps Heather’s name alive and fuels the fight for justice in other unsolved cases.

Episode Transcript

John (3) (00:00):
Hello, listeners, before we jump into today's episode, I
just wanted to say a huge thankyou for being patient with us.
The past week has been, well,a little less than ideal.
I had a family emergency that has mespending way too damn much time at
the hospital on the concrete couchestrying to get 15 minutes of sleep.

(00:22):
And so because of that, I haven'tbeen able to post new episodes,
you know, on our normal schedule.
And while I am back at the mictoday, things are still definitely
a little bit up in the air.
So the regular posting schedulemight be a little bit unpredictable
for a while, but we promise we arestill here, still working on content,

(00:46):
still researching stories, and stillextremely grateful for every single
one of you who keeps tuning in.
So.
Thank you for stickingwith us through the chaos.
It means more than youcould possibly know.
Now, let's get into what you'reactually here to listen to.

(01:07):
Here we go with this one.
Some detectives chased thejob, others chased the truth.
Lou Smit was the kind of man whodidn't care about the lights,
the press, or the politics.
He cared about gettingit right every time.
No shortcuts, no noise, just answers.

(01:29):
When John Anderson was sworn in a sheriffof El Paso County in 1995, he knew that
he was inheriting a department full ofproblems in a cold case that had haunted
him for years, the Heather Don Churchhad been missing for over two years.
Her remains had been found,but whoever had taken her.

(01:49):
Had vanished back into the shadows.
Anderson needed someonewho could see in the dark.
Lou Smit had already built a namefor himself first as a detective in
Colorado Springs, and as the man whocracked some of the state's biggest and
toughest homicides, including the brutalmurder of Karen Grammar, the sister

(02:11):
of actor Kelsey Grammar back in 1975.
That case was vicious personal, andit was Lou Smit who unraveled it.
He had a reputation for lettingevidence do the talking.
He didn't interrogate his suspects.
He studied them.
He paid attention to the victims.
He treated crime scenes likeconversations, details, whispered

(02:36):
and Smit knew how to listen.
So when Anderson needed someoneto lead the church case forward,
he didn't look for a fresh face.
He brought Lou Smit on andmade him chief of Detectives.
It was a gamble.
Smit wasn't flashy.
He wasn't one for bending the commandstructure, but he had a gift, and

(02:59):
what he did next would crack open thecase that had been frozen in silence.
In this episode, will trace Lou Smith'scareer from his early days to his legend,
status cold in the cold case world.
In this episode, will trace Lou Smith'scareer from his early days to his
legend status in the cold case world.

(03:21):
Will walk through his forensicmethodology, his relentless
focus on the victim, and themoment that changed everything.
The identification of a latent fingerprintthat had been overlooked for years.
A single smudge of truth left behindby a man named Robert Charles Brown.
Robert Charles Brown, because sometimesjustice doesn't shout it whispers.

(03:48):
And Lou Smit knew how to listen.
So, Angela, how's it going tonight?

Angela (03:54):
It's going well.
How are you?
Good.

John (4) (03:57):
How's your week going so far?
It's just Tuesday, right?
It's just

Angela (03:59):
Tuesday.
And it's been a long week already.

John (4) (04:02):
Already a long week.
Damn.
But

Angela (04:03):
it's good.
It's all right.

John (4) (04:05):
It's supposed to cool down.
Something this week made meget a little bit of rain.

Angela (04:08):
I, I wasn't with you last week when you wanted it, but I'm with you now.
Yeah,

John (4) (04:13):
Yeah.
I think we need it.
There's been a couple firespopping up around here.

Angela (04:17):
Yeah.

John (4) (04:17):
Yeah.
We need some moisture, but

Angela (04:20):
we just don't need the lightning.
We creates more fires.

John (4) (04:23):
No, we need rain.
Not lightning, rain.

Angela (04:27):
Yeah.
Can we put in a request?
Like a menu request?
Yeah.
I

John (4) (04:31):
already put my request in.
Okay.
I think it's being ignored, however.
So anyway, by the time that LouSmit stepped into the Heather
Don Church case, most people hadalready stopped talking about it.
Two years missing, one year since theremains were found and still nothing.
But that's what made Smit different.
He didn't need noise,he just needed evidence.

Angela (04:54):
And we need it too.

John (4) (04:56):
Yes, I agree.

Angela (04:58):
But he needed it so much that he came out of retirement for it.
So that's important.
That's really important.

John (4) (05:06):
Yep.
So listeners, welcome back to DarkDialogue, the podcast where we unravel
the shadows of the human mind and divedeep into the mysteries that haunt
small towns and big cities alike.
I'm your host John.

Angela (05:20):
And I'm Angela.
And together we shine a light onthe stories that keep us up at
night, unresolved disappearanceslive stolen too soon, and the
questions that refuse to be buried.

John (4) (05:30):
In today's episode, we're stepping into the
mind and method of Lou Smit.
The detective who turned whispers intoconvictions will explore his early career,
his methodical approach to cold cases,and how one partial fingerprint led to
one of Colorado's most dangerous killers.
Robert, Charles Brown.

Angela (05:50):
And if you're here for the long haul like we are, if these cases matter
to you like they matter to us, take asecond right now to follow, subscribe,
rate the show or give us a thumbs up.
Every little action helps push thesestories forward and keeps the pressure on.

John (4) (06:07):
Because in cases like this, sometimes the break comes years
later and when someone finally paysattention, this is dark dialogue and
this is the fingerprint in the silence.
So, you know, we talked about Lou Smida little bit last week and we're, we'll

(06:30):
kind of go through his life and earlycareer a little bit today, and then
we jump into the whole investigationof the Heather Don Church case, or
at least his investigation of it.
So he was born in 1935 and hewas raised in Colorado Springs.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
Oh.

John (4) (06:46):
And.
He like I said last, on the last episode,he was a very faithful Christian and
he married his grade school sweetheart.

Angela (06:56):
Oh no.
Barbara

John (4) (06:58):
in 1958.
So that doesn't

Angela (07:01):
tug at the heart grade

John (4) (07:03):
school.
Yeah.
You hear a lot of high school sweethearts,but they were grade school sweethearts.

Angela (07:09):
Wow.

John (4) (07:09):
So pretty much in love their entire lives.
No

Angela (07:13):
doubt.

John (4) (07:14):
You know,

Angela (07:14):
that's kind of the definition of soulmate, isn't

John (4) (07:16):
it?
It kind of is.
Yeah.
I thought that was really freaking cool.
That's pretty sweet.
And so they had four children,mark, Cindy, Lori and Don.
And through the sixties they ran acouple of failed business businesses,
bottled gas and tree cutting.
In the early 1960s, bottle

Angela (07:38):
gas

John (4) (07:39):
and, okay.
So Lou prayed for guidance on whathe was supposed to do within his life
and he saw a, he saw that the policewere hiring and he took that as a
divine answer and joined the ColoradoSprings Police Department in 66.
And like I said, last week, it hewasn't allowed to join because of his

Angela (08:04):
height.
Yes.
He was not tall enough to ride the ride.

John (4) (08:07):
He was too little.
But somehow creatively him or thedepartment figured a way around that.
I'm not entirely sure.

Angela (08:15):
I can imagine that was probably also a divine answer to him too,
that they were able to figure it out.
To

John (4) (08:20):
figure that out.
Yep.
He's like,

Angela (08:21):
that's just even more says to me, I'm supposed to be here.

John (4) (08:24):
I know.
And you know, it's kind of funny because.
For, you know, Lou Smit wasn't tallenough to be a cop, and now you got these
cops that are like little bitty girls.
Like I know, I see some of these copsthat are just tiny little things, and so
apparently they don't, and they're pretty

Angela (08:45):
badass, most of them.

John (4) (08:47):
Well, I probably kicked shit outta me.
They're gonna lie.

Angela (08:49):
Yeah.

John (4) (08:51):
But yeah, it's just, it's interesting how much,
you know, it had changed.

Speaker 4 (08:55):
Yeah.

John (4) (08:55):
But so Lew, you know, like pretty much all of them
started as a patrol officer andthen he moved relatively quickly
into being a homicide detective.
And so his career progression at theColorado Springs Police Department
went from 66 to 95, so over 30 yearsinvestigating over 200 homicides.

(09:22):
And with the Colorado Springs PoliceDepartment, he had over a 90% solve rate.
He had over 200 convictions and he neverlost a case in court over 30 years.
Never lost a case in court.

Angela (09:35):
He sounds like Liam Neeson's character, who has
a special set of skills,

John (4) (09:40):
right?
He, when it comes to investigatinghomicides, this dude had a special
set of skills, no doubt about that.
So, you know, like I said, last timehe partnered with John Anderson.
So they were partners kind ofthrough the seventies and eighties.
I think Anderson started in like72 or something like that with the

(10:03):
Colorado Springs Police Department.
So, and Lou definitely kind of tookhim under his wing and everything.
And then he advanced to detectivesergeant and then captain and
developed forensic expertise.
And obviously, you know, thatwould be pretty significant.

(10:24):
The changes in forensic investigationthat you would see as a detective
from 1966 until 1995, you

Speaker 3 (10:32):
know?
Yeah.

John (4) (10:33):
Because that, there was a lot that happened during that time period.
You know, it's a large gap.
Yeah.
I mean, you're talking, if you go from, ifyou go from 1930 something to 1966, there
wasn't any huge changes forensically.
There was some true,

Angela (10:53):
yeah, but

John (4) (10:53):
not tons.
You know, you had photography, life

Angela (10:56):
shattering and whatnot.

John (4) (10:57):
Yeah.
You had, you know, photography.
So like back in the thirties iswhen they like drew the chalk
lines around the body and then I

Angela (11:06):
miss that kind of,

John (4) (11:07):
I never Is that weird.
Experienced it.
I wasn't alive in the thirties.

Angela (11:10):
No, I'm,
there you go.
Taking me literal again,
there's just something about it.
I know it's like.
Movie drama stuff, but like, I kindof think they should do it still.

John (4) (11:30):
It's kind of funny because I don't know

Angela (11:32):
why

John (4) (11:33):
on one of Joe Ken's homicide hunters he had a newbie
patrol officer get on a murder scenefirst and did the chalk out line.
Yes.
And Joe Ken was like,

Angela (11:45):
we don't do that anymore.
Who the hell

John (4) (11:46):
did this?
He's like, oh, it was, I don't know,Phillips or whatever the guy's name was.
And so Kenda was like, yeah, we don't dothis maybe in the movies, but not here.
Don't don't ever do thisagain, but, you know, bring

Angela (12:02):
it back.
Bring it back in like

John (4) (12:04):
the thirties.
That was the thing.

Angela (12:06):
Yeah.

John (4) (12:07):
Because they didn't really have photography so.
They needed to know wherethe body was lying and stuff.
And so then how big

Angela (12:13):
it was, what direction it was facing.
Yeah.
Yep.

John (4) (12:16):
And then, you know, photography became a thing, and so
that kind of became a thing of thepast, but not huge differences.
You know, fingerprints existed inthe thirties, they that was still the
major means of identification in 66.
But then from 66 to 95, you haveunbelievable changes in forensics

(12:36):
up to and including DNA evidence.
Yeah.
Which wouldn't have evenbeen thought about in 66.
No.
So I can't imagine seeingthe changes occur Yeah.
To the investigative processover this guy's career.
So, like I said Lou Smit wasdeeply religious and his faith

(12:58):
was integrated into his work.
He.
Like I said, you know, he prayedbefore every crime scene for guidance.
He thanked God every time.
Every time he won a case incourt, he thanked God for it.
He prayed with suspects,he prayed with families.

(13:19):
I mean, that was just who he was.
He was, how do I say thiswithout offending people?
I don't know.
I mean, you see a lot of Christiansthat talk a big game, and that's
about as far as it ever goes.
And then you got a guy like this wholives and breathes his faith every day.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah.

John (4) (13:39):
It's commendable.
It's commendable.
Whether you're a Christian or whetheryou're not a Christian, you know?
Anybody that lives their faith theway that this guy did, and it's
ingrained in everything they do,it's pretty freaking incredible.
But his investigative methods and stylewere, he was very evidence driven.

(14:00):
He was kind of the one that let theevidence tell him what happened as
opposed to coming up with an idea andtrying to make the evidence fit it.
He really tried to go in with a clearmind and no preconceived notions and look
at what the evidence was telling him.
And he emphasized forensics.

(14:20):
He used it as much as possible.
His diagrams in like the JonBenetRamsey case are incredible.
John Anderson reprinted 'em in the bookthat he wrote, Lou and JonBenet, and
I mean, he just, he was so detailed.
And then like I said in the lastepisode, he made all those videotapes
meticulously walking throughevery corner of the Ramsey house.

(14:45):
I mean, he would just.
Really thorough.

Angela (14:50):
Did you watch those all in one go or did you break it up a little bit?

John (4) (14:53):
I watched them all in one go.

Angela (14:54):
Wow.

John (4) (14:55):
Yep.
He reexamined overlooked details.
He created timelines, cross references.
Like I said, he did that spreadsheetfor the JonBenet case with like over
a thousand freaking names on it.
He did all those drugs and that'show he handled every crime scene,

Angela (15:12):
goodness sake.

John (4) (15:15):
He used the media, he pursued tips aggressively, and he
never assumed guilt without proof.
He challenged biases andhe maintained his fitness.
He played golf, racquetball.
He worked long hours and hisphilosophy was, do the best for

(15:35):
the victims and their families.
That's really how heapproached his entire career.
And I think that goes a long way intowhy he had such a high solve rate.
You know, over the course of time atthe Colorado Springs, I mean obviously
I told you that he left El Paso CountySheriff's with over a hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (15:56):
Yeah, but that was

John (4) (15:56):
just like a year or just a little over a year that he was there.
But over his entire career withthe Colorado Springs Police
Department, it was over 90% still.
So That is amazing.
Yeah.
And then he worked, like I said, in theopening on the Karen Grammar murder case,

(16:18):
which, are you familiar with that at all?
You know,

Angela (16:20):
I had forgotten all about.
I didn't know her name, butI had forgotten all about.
There was something to do withKelsey Grammar until you said that.
And like, I don't know if yousaw the light bulb go off, but I
was like, oh yeah, that existed.
So,

John (4) (16:36):
yeah.
So for those of you that don'tknow who Kelsey Grammar is, first
of all, crawl out from under therock you've been living in because

Angela (16:44):
he's Frazier.

John (4) (16:45):
Yeah, he was pretty big.
I mean, for the younger crowd,I guess I could understand if
they don't know where he is.
It's true because I haven'tseen him in anything for years.

Angela (16:54):
It's been a long time.
It's been a long

John (4) (16:55):
time.
But he really got his biggreat, his big break in Cheers.
Yep.
In the show.
Cheers.
And then from that, that led tothe spinoff, which was Frazier.
And he's been in several moviesand stuff throughout the years, but
he was a pretty big actor in thelate eighties, early nineties, and

Angela (17:15):
I have to know now.

John (4) (17:17):
And so his sister, Karen.
Was 18 years old and was rapedand murdered in Colorado Springs.
She was abducted right after her shiftwhere she worked at a Red Lobster and was
found raped and stabbed multiple times.
And it turns out that it was by agang, which included Freddie Glen

(17:38):
and Michael Corbett, along withthe others, they dumped the body
and Smith led the investigation,gathered the evidence, secured the
confessions, got the convictions.
Glenn was then sentenced to death,which was later commuted to life.
And then the others weresentenced accordingly.

(17:59):
And obviously the case gainedmajor attention because of
Kelsey Grammer's fame, and itshowcased s Smith's thoroughness
and his empathy for the family.
Would you look up over there?

Angela (18:13):
I figured out the reason why you haven't seen him in a while,

John (4) (18:17):
why

Angela (18:17):
it's been what appears to be a lot of Hallmark Christmas movies

John (4) (18:22):
That would explain why that would

Angela (18:23):
be why you haven't seen him.
But yes, it

John (4) (18:25):
would.

Angela (18:26):
He is got a TV series that he is, he's part of coming out this year.
I don't know if it already is.

John (4) (18:33):
Really?

Angela (18:34):
Yeah.
But yeah, a lot of Christmas movies,I don't know that they're Hallmark,
but it appear, it looks, it feels veryHallmark Ian is what I'm gonna go with.

John (4) (18:45):
Gotcha.
Yeah, that would explain it.
I have seen him in some ofthose types of movies for sure.

Speaker 4 (18:51):
Yeah.

John (4) (18:52):
But you know, that Karen Grammar case was huge.
Obviously it was before I was around, butit was huge in Colorado Springs and it,
and then, it was also, it's also kind ofinteresting because Chris Christofferson
Plays Lou Smith Oh, wow.
In one of the movies about JonBenet, Ican't remember the name of the movie, but

Angela (19:19):
an actual movie.
Not a docu, just an actual movie.
Actual

John (4) (19:22):
movie.
Yeah.
And Chris Christofferson played Lou Smit.
So John Anderson talksabout that in his book.
'cause he gotta meet Chris Christofferson,who was like one of his heroes.
And then that's

Speaker 4 (19:35):
pretty cool.

John (4) (19:35):
Lou Smit invited him and Chris Christofferson over to his
house for dinner, so they all wentover there for dinner and stuff.
So, pretty freaking cool.
Really.
And Chris Christofferson wanted tospend as much time with Lou Smit
as possible so that he could gethis mannerisms and stuff like that.
Yeah.
Locked down.
So.
Do

Angela (19:53):
you like it when actors do that?

John (4) (19:55):
I do too.
And Chris Christofferson wasa hell of a good actor, and
yet even better songwriter.
I never cared all that much for his music.
But man, that guy wrote somehuge hits for a lot of people.
So that's kind of, that'skind of Lou's background.

(20:16):
I mean, he really had a stellar.
Career leading up to JohnAnderson asking him to join the
El Paso County Sheriff's Office.
And you know, I said last week that theywere really close friends and they really
liked each other and all that kinda stuff.
But I don't think that had anything todo with John Anderson bringing him on

(20:40):
board to be the chief of detectives.
Right.
I think it was his skill level.
And by that time he was alreadylegendary all across Colorado as like
an unbelievable homicide investigator.
So, and you know, obviously with himbeing asked to join the JonBenet Ramsey

(21:02):
investigation, that speaks volumes tohow highly respected he was in the state.
And how well known he was in thestate by that period of time.
So he joined.
Went right to work on the Heather DonChurch case, which is something that
him and Anderson had already kind oftalked about that, you know, this was

(21:28):
this was John Anderson's priority.
He wanted this case solved.
We talked about, that's the wholereason that he ran for Sheriff Yeah.
Is to solve this case.
And so when Lou started, hejust, I mean, it's gotta be so
difficult to walk into a cold case.

(21:50):
No doubt.
It's hard enough to walk into ahomicide investigation anyway, but
when you're years away from the actualcrime, it's gotta be so damn difficult.
And, you know, you didn't work it,it was a whole nother department.
And so, but he read absolutelyevery piece of paper in.

(22:13):
Case file, everything, and justmeticulously went over everything.
And then the one thing that he just keptcoming back to, kept coming back to is
this palm print that was fingerprints thatwere left on the screen to the bedroom.

(22:36):
And like I said, that screenwasn't put in correctly.
It was put in backwardsand so it didn't fit Right.
And hastily, yes.
Yeah.
And so, you know, he was convincedthat new fingerprint or that

(22:57):
fingerprint was what this casereally was gonna be solved by.
He thought that was thebest evidence in the case.
But like I said.
El Paso County Sheriff's Officehad already submitted it and
it came back with no match.
And so

(23:19):
he went to talk to the guy at the lab orthe fingerprint dude, or whatever the hell
you call him, and whoever the hell it was.
Fingerprint dude.
And they determined that, and I've heardof this in multiple different cases.
I don't know if it's still this way,but back then a lot of cops all across

(23:41):
the country were under the assumptionthat when you submitted fingerprints to
aphis, like all of the fingerprints werehoused in like one large depository.
And when you submitted fingerprintsto aphis, it compared 'em against
that whole depository of fingerprints.

(24:03):
So if it didn't match, thenthat meant that person had
never been fingerprinted before.
But what him and so many others,like I said this, I've heard this in
multiple other cases, cold cases, wherewhen they go back and look, what they
discovered was no, there's like allkinds of these fingerprint deposit

(24:29):
depositories, and you have to submitthem separately to each one of them.
So loose mins started diggingin and discover, trying to
discover how many there were.
And he identified 92 systems that thisfingerprint had not been submitted to.

(24:52):
And so, I mean, you think aboutthat and like I said, this has come
up in multiple different cases.
I think it was a huge failure.
On the part of probably theFBI, I don't know exactly.
I don't know the history of aphis.
I think though that it was, that itcame outta the FBI, but whoever, it

(25:14):
was a huge failure because I knowfor a fact multiple cops across the
country was under the same assumptionthat these guys were under, which was
the same assumption that I was underuntil I started seeing this in cases.
That, you know, when yourun your fingerprints, it

(25:35):
just ran against all of 'em.

Angela (25:37):
Now I need a reminder, because every time you say the word, I just think
of something that needs to be sprayed for.
But what does APHIS stand for again?

John (4) (25:51):
The automatic fingerprint identification system.

Angela (25:55):
Okay.
Does it not sound like something thatsomebody needs to spray for though?
When you just say the word aphids?

John (4) (26:02):
Well, there's a, anyway, I know aphids, there are aphids,

Angela (26:06):
but every time I'm like, my brain is special.
Continue.

John (4) (26:14):
So, I mean, I can understand exactly why I can't really fault the El
Paso County Sheriff's Office for thisoversight because like I said I've heard,
I don't even know how many cases that werenot solved because when they submitted
the fingerprints, it came back as a nomatch and they had no idea that they
needed to send them all over the country.

(26:38):
And

Angela (26:39):
so are we foreshadowing that there's some decent news coming up?

John (4) (26:43):
Yeah.
So it hit once they submittedthem to this 92 different systems.
It hit on a guy by the name ofRobert Charles Brown, who had
been arrested multiple times,but outta Louisiana, California.

(27:05):
And he was a neighbor of HeatherDon Church and the church family.
And he was actually talked tothat morning, that of the night,
you know, the night, the morningafter she had went missing.
And, but they never reallydug into him at all.

(27:31):
And so, you know, Lou Mint bringshim in and starts questioning him.
He's 38 years old.
He was working as a tree trimmer, ahandyman, and he lived about a half a
mile from the church home in Black Forest.
And so

(27:52):
they questioned him on Septemberthe 18th, like I said, as the
neighbor during the canvas.
And he was cooperative.
He denied any knowledge andhe allowed him to look around
his property and everything.

Angela (28:05):
Weasel.

John (4) (28:06):
Yeah.
Oh, this guy's a major piece of shit.
And he refused to let 'em look througha locked out building without a warrant.
But he,

Angela (28:18):
but let him look through everything else.

John (4) (28:20):
He let 'em look around the property.
Did not

Angela (28:22):
raise a red flag with somebody.

John (4) (28:24):
Well, it sure as the shit should have, and it definitely does with me.

Angela (28:28):
Yeah.

John (4) (28:29):
But they cleared him because they said that there was no probable
cause, no reason to suspect him.
His alibi was left unverified.
His fingerprints were not matchedinitially, obviously, which.
I, I'm assuming that he had neverbeen arrested in Colorado Springs

(28:50):
because it should have definitelyhit if he had a Colorado arrest.
Yeah.
But I don't know, it's just,
it's striking to me that they didn'tdig into this piece of shit deeper.
You would think,

Angela (29:07):
how do you let them look through everything but one thing
and you're just like, okay,

John (4) (29:12):
well that's just the thing.
And then I guess it's just, I don't know.
Shitty police work.

Speaker 3 (29:19):
Yeah.
But

John (4) (29:21):
wouldn't you, I mean, if you're an investigator and you're called into
an abduction of a young girl, wouldn'tyou run the backgrounds of neighbors?
Wouldn't you think that would be likea very preliminary investigative step,
is to find out who these people arethat are close to her and if they have

(29:41):
a criminal record because we know thispiece of shit did have a criminal record.

Angela (29:47):
Do we know if he was friendly with the family so she would've trusted him?

John (4) (29:52):
No.
Okay.

Angela (29:53):
We don't know.
Or they weren't?

John (4) (29:55):
They weren't.
Okay.
No.
And you know, one of the things thatended up screwing him is like we've
talked about several times they didexactly what good interrogators do and
the first thing they did is say, now,have you ever been to the church house?
Did you ever do any workon the house or anything?

(30:17):
No.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
So

John (4) (30:19):
you never have been on the property?
Nope, I've never been there.
I've never set foot on the property.
Then why are your fingerprints there?
So they locked him into his story?

Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yep.

John (4) (30:30):
And then they sprung the trap and he, I mean, what
the hell was he gonna say?

Angela (30:37):
Yeah.

John (4) (30:37):
And it

Angela (30:37):
Oh, he'd backpedaling.
Oh, I, oh yeah.
Come to think of it.

John (4) (30:46):
Yeah.
He actually just confessed.

Angela (30:50):
Really?

John (4) (30:51):
Yeah, pretty much.
I mean,

Angela (30:53):
he made it that easy, huh?

John (4) (30:55):
Pretty much.

Angela (30:56):
Wow.

John (4) (30:57):
They had so once they matched the fingerprint to this piece of shit,
they went to Louisiana where he wasfrom, and talked to people down there,
one of whom was an ex-wife of his who.
Just described an absolutefreaking animal that everything

(31:18):
was just wonderful and peachy.
They dated, he was like thenicest guy in the world.
Everything was great.
They got married and he turned into atotal piece of shit and she said that
she spent the majority of the marriagejust bruised and beaten from head to toe.
And then, you know, there was multiple,I think ex-wives that they interviewed

(31:45):
that all pretty much said the same thing.
The dude was an absolute pile of shit.
He was suspected in like arape in Louisiana, but he
was never prosecuted for it.
But he ended up,
he was interrogated by LouSmit and John Anderson and.

(32:08):
He, he admitted up he ended upadmitting that he killed Heather.
And according to him that it was aburglary and that he surprised Heather
and that he admitted to hittingher once in the head and grabbing
her neck to silence her, and that'swhere she was killed, is in the home.

(32:34):
He denied any sexual assault.
Said that he removed the body throughthe patio door and drove her out to
Ramparts Rampart Range Road, whichlike we said, was about 30 to 40 miles
away and dumped her body out there.
So, you know, he claimed that itwas opportunistic, that he panicked.

(32:56):
He showed absolutely nofreaking remorse whatsoever.
And.
But I have a hard timebelieving that bullshit.
And I don't think that, I don't think thatthey bought into that bullshit either.
You know?

(33:17):
I think he would've had tohave known that they were home.

Speaker 4 (33:21):
Yeah.
I mean, maybe

John (4) (33:23):
not, but
the lights were on all night.
They were watching freakinghome alone earlier in the night.
Like, I think he broke inthere specifically because
Heather was home alone.

Speaker 4 (33:39):
And he knew

John (4) (33:40):
that,

Speaker 4 (33:41):
yeah, with a baby brother, but it's not gonna do much good.

John (4) (33:47):
No, it's not gonna do much good at all.
And he had to have known, Ithink that Sage was in there,
that Sage was in the crib.
And I don't know, man, I.
We've said it a million different times.
You know, the saying cannot understandthe insane and, but this piece of shit,

(34:08):
you know, in the next episode we willdig deeper into this animal, but he,
I know I say this a lot and it's amazingto me how often I end up saying this,
but like he's suspected as being one ofthe more prolific serial killers in the

(34:29):
nation and definitely one of the moreprolific serial killers ever in Colorado.
'cause he is suspected in over 48different murders across the country.

Angela (34:42):
Dang.
I don't even know his name that well.

John (4) (34:45):
Most people have probably never even heard

Speaker 4 (34:47):
of

Angela (34:47):
it.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:48):
Weird.

John (4) (34:53):
But you know, the one thing that.
The one thing that really came from theepisode that we did on Rocky Mountain
Reckoning on serial killers is therealization that unless they're convicted
They're not famous.
Yeah.
Like Larry Dwayne Hall, that pieceof shit, he's suspected in over 50

(35:17):
murders, but nobody knows that name.
Russell Royal Long, that's another one.
Hell, Lene Eaton.

Angela (35:25):
Yeah.

John (4) (35:25):
Other than Wyoming people.
Yeah.
He is not a household name.
I

Angela (35:30):
mean you

John (4) (35:31):
and me.
Yeah.

Angela (35:32):
He's your

John (4) (35:33):
white whale.
But Clark, Perry, Baldwin,Robert, Ben Rhodes.
The vast majority of the serialkillers that we talked about
during that episode Yeah.
Are absolutely unknown.

Speaker 4 (35:44):
Yeah.

John (4) (35:44):
You know Ted Bundy, we talked about him.
He's a big one.

Angela (35:48):
Yeah.

John (4) (35:49):
The Galagos, they're pretty famous.
There's been several bookswritten about them and stuff.

Angela (35:54):
Israel Keys.

John (4) (35:55):
Israel Keys.

Angela (35:56):
It makes my skin crawl to even hear or say his name.

John (4) (35:59):
Yep.
Akala.
That's another one.
The whole dating game connection andeverything there that made him pretty
famous, but outside of them, the bestmajority nobody's ever even heard of.

Speaker 4 (36:14):
Yeah.

John (4) (36:15):
You know Gary Ridgeway?
He's a big name.
Keith Jesperson.
I think most people know that name.
But Larry Dwayne Hall, nobody knows that.
Robert, Charles Brown, this piece of shit.

Speaker 4 (36:30):
Yeah.

John (4) (36:31):
Nobody knows that name.
And so I think that it really justcomes down to, first of all, I think
it comes down to the news cycleand how busy of a Newsday it is,
or how busy of a Newsweek it is.
Yeah.
When these cases come to light.
And then,

Angela (36:50):
was it an election year?

John (4) (36:52):
Right?

Angela (36:53):
Because that's all you're gonna see.

John (4) (36:55):
And then, you know, how,
what's the, what's,what am I trying to say?
Like how spectacular the crime is.
Like, it was funny because I was ina conversation earlier today and I
mentioned a new Ed Geen documentary.

Angela (37:15):
Yeah.
Charlie Ham's playing him

John (4) (37:17):
that I just watched.
I don't know, I Oh, it's a documentary.

Angela (37:20):
Okay.
The limited series Monster.

John (4) (37:24):
I haven't heard nothing about that.
That's about Ed Geen.

Angela (37:27):
Well, there's, it's a series.
So the one that.
Was just Jeffrey Dahmer and thenI can't remember who the second
one was, but now they're doing EdGean and Charlie Ham's playing him.
I'm gonna have hard time with that.

John (4) (37:41):
Oh, so it's like a

Angela (37:43):
Yeah, it's the Monster is the name of the series, but each
season is a different monster.

John (4) (37:48):
But it's like a theatrical thing.
Okay.
Yeah, I don't watch thatstuff, but I don't care for it.

Angela (37:53):
It's that there, it's a docuseries kind of, so it's not, I'm
sure they take some liberties, but theydon't take a whole lot of liberties.
So I'm not trying totalk you into Washington.
I'm just saying I'm gonna, I'm gonnawatch it, but I'm gonna struggle
with Charlie being a killer.
I don't know

John (4) (38:11):
who Charlie is.
So

Angela (38:13):
you don't watch Sons of Anarchy?

John (4) (38:15):
Oh yeah, I do.

Angela (38:16):
He's Jack's.

John (4) (38:17):
Oh, okay.
All right.
Yeah, he's

Angela (38:19):
Jax.
Jax is a killer in a different sense.

John (4) (38:22):
That's what I was just gonna say.
What do you mean he can'tstand and be a killer?
Everything I've seen him in,he's a freaking killer in a

Angela (38:28):
different sense.

John (4) (38:29):
He plays Ed Geen.
Yeah.
Ed Geen was like a little dorky,freaking nothing of a guy.

Angela (38:35):
Yep.
He's gonna play Ed Geen.

John (4) (38:37):
That should be interesting.

Angela (38:39):
That's what I'm thinking.

John (4) (38:41):
Anyway, I just, I was talking about this

Angela (38:43):
anyway, we just turned to Cisco and Ebert for a minute.
This

John (4) (38:45):
new documentary that I just watched on Ed Geen and it's, oh boy.
It shows the crime scene photos, boy.
Yeah.

Angela (38:58):
Wow.

John (4) (38:59):
And especially the one of Mrs. Warden, which I don't know if
you're familiar with the story, butshe was the one that was hung up
like a deer and gutted and beheaded.

Angela (39:13):
And they showed it.

John (4) (39:14):
Yeah.

Angela (39:15):
Wow.

John (4) (39:16):
So, well, I

Angela (39:17):
heard the movies that we're gonna watch the West Memphis,
they show in the beginning.

John (4) (39:22):
They do,

Angela (39:23):
yeah.
Yeah.
So,

John (4) (39:24):
but not, some

Angela (39:25):
people do it.

John (4) (39:26):
I mean, the, that's pretty rough to see Three Little Dead boys.
To see a woman's body that is literallygutted like a deer and beheaded.
I was very surprised they showed that.

Angela (39:38):
Yeah, that's a lot.

John (4) (39:40):
And then they, was there a

Angela (39:41):
trigger warning?
At least?

John (4) (39:42):
Nothing.
No.
I mean, I think at the beginningof it, there was like, but there
wasn't, like you're about to seesome shit that nobody wants to see.
Have a warning, but you can't

Angela (39:53):
unsee.
Yeah.

John (4) (39:54):
So I am issuing a trigger warning.
'cause as much, I mean, it doesn't,it really doesn't bother me.
I've seen shit on the ambulanceand the fire department that
nobody should have to see.
So I'm.
I've always been able to compartmentalizepretty well, but a lot of people can't.
And so I'm telling everybody like,yeah, it's a fascinating documentary.

(40:20):
And Harold Schechter is in it, and he, Imean, are you familiar with Harold Ser?
No,

Angela (40:27):
but if you're gonna warn people, you should probably have
timestamps so they can fast forward.

John (4) (40:31):
It's, I don't know how many times they show it.
Oh, really?
It's throughout the whole damn thing.

Angela (40:35):
All right.
Nevermind.

John (4) (40:37):
But Harold Scheer is a true crime author that has written, I
mean, he wrote the book on Bel Andes.
He wrote the book on Ed Geen.
He wrote the book on Alfred Packer.
I mean, he is a phenomenal freakingresearcher and pretty much wrote
the definitive biography of Ed Geen.

(40:58):
It's the best book I'veever read on Ed Geen.
Wow.
So Harold Schechter really knowshis shit, so he's in there, but.
Where I was going with that isI mentioned it and the people
I was talking to was like, who?
And I'm like, ed Geen, andthey're, I don't know who that is.
And I was like, oh, shit.

(41:20):
Like,

Speaker 4 (41:21):
wow.

John (4) (41:21):
I guess he's not a big, he's not, his name isn't popular to people.
I thought it was people outside the truecrime world, but I was like, and it was,

Angela (41:30):
he made human skin belts and such

John (4) (41:33):
belts, lamp.
Well, he made belts out.
Nipples.

Angela (41:36):
I know.
But lamps, he made

John (4) (41:37):
lampshades out of human skin.
He made, he covered hischairs and human skin.
Yeah.
He had a box full ofvulvas that he had painted.
He had,

Angela (41:48):
yeah.

John (4) (41:49):
Skin masks where he had like taken the skin off people's faces

Angela (41:53):
and, you know,

John (4) (41:54):
I mean, he was.
He was, he's a

Angela (41:57):
disturbing dude.

John (4) (41:58):
He was Buffalo Bill way before Silence and the lamps.
Yeah.
And that's where Silenceand the Lambs came from.
Was Edin.
That's also where Psycho,the movie Psycho came from

Angela (42:08):
and yeah.
'cause his was a mom complex, wasn't it?

John (4) (42:11):
Yeah.
To the point of, we don't knowif he was sexually involved with
his mom or not, but we're prettycertain he wanted to be and Okay.
He, like, when she died, he just boardedup her room and left it untouched.
It was like pristine when they went in.

(42:33):
The rest of the housewas absolutely destroyed.
Trash all over.
Yeah.
Body parts all over.
I mean, he ate his soup.
He used human skulls as Yeah.
Soup bowls.
Yeah.
And I mean, yeah.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, psycho End.

(42:53):
Silence of the Lambs are three bigmovies that were based on Ed Geen.
So I was very surprised that the wholegroup, I was actually at therapy and
it was like everybody in therapy, allthe therapists were like, who's that?
Because they all talk truecrime with me now all the time.
Have you heard of this case?

(43:13):
And what about this case?
What do you know about that case?
Do they listen?

Angela (43:16):
Should you shout out?

John (4) (43:17):
I don't know if they're listening or not, but to my therapy
team, you guys were freaking awesome.
If you listening to Rock,

Speaker 3 (43:25):
there you go.

John (4) (43:26):
But I was very surprised that they hadn't heard of it again.
And I thought he was such a big name.

Angela (43:32):
Yeah.

John (4) (43:32):
But you know, then you talk about like these other cases and maybe
it's just like true crime retards likeme that know these names, but I dunno,

Angela (43:41):
Eden's a big name though.

John (4) (43:44):
It was huge.

Angela (43:45):
Yeah.
Anyway, I mean, we don't fault them.

John (4) (43:49):
No.
Oh, of course not.
But it's, it was just surprising to me.
'cause I think, you know,like if Ted Bundy, I think
everybody would know Ted Bundy.

Angela (43:59):
Yeah.
I would

John (4) (43:59):
think

Angela (44:01):
you'd have to be living under a giant rock.
Not to know Ted Bundy.
Gacy Dahmer,

John (4) (44:09):
but son of Sam.
In many respects, ed Geen wasworse than, at least some of them.
Not maybe killing, 'cause he onlykilled two people that we know of.
But the depravity,

Speaker 4 (44:27):
yeah.

John (4) (44:28):
I mean, he had a human heart in the skillet on the stove
when the cops went in there.
Ugh.
Like, it doesn't get much moredepraved than the shit that he did.

Angela (44:43):
Yeah.

John (4) (44:44):
So, I don't know.
I know

Angela (44:45):
he is right up there with HH Holmes.
Except for he killed more people.

John (4) (44:49):
Well, the interesting thing about Ed Geen though is I don't
think that he wanted to hurt people.
Like he wasn't a sadist.
I don't think he got off on causing pain.
He was trying to recreate his mother.
He was freaking Norman Bates.
He was trying to be his mother.

(45:13):
Like I know.

Angela (45:14):
Yeah.
Buffalo

John (4) (45:15):
Bill.
Yeah.
I mean, it's weird.
We're making references to movies,but they were based on his whole Yeah.
What he was doing.
And he, I like, they never confirmedwhether he ever dug his mom up or not.
He said he wasn't able to, andthere was something about maybe

(45:35):
she was covered in concrete and hewasn't able to get her body out.
It makes you wonder if he would'vebeen able to get his mom's body.

Angela (45:44):
But he admitted to trying.

John (4) (45:48):
He was, all he said is I couldn't do it.

Angela (45:51):
Oh, okay.

John (4) (45:52):
But it makes you wonder if he was able to get his mom's body, if
he would've just never hurt anybody.

Angela (46:00):
That does make you wonder,

John (4) (46:03):
because he dug up like half the freaking cemetery.
They don't even know.
They took all the body parts and

Angela (46:12):
Oh, 'cause he was robbing

John (4) (46:13):
Yeah.
Like parts.
Yeah.
They took all the body parts thatthey found in his house and basically
put 'em in a mass grave becausethey had no idea who went to who.
And they never, and this one'sa little bizarre to me because
I can understand it and I can'tunderstand it, but they never exhumed.
Like I'd have exhumed thewhole freaking cemetery.

(46:34):
I'd been like, dig upevery freaking grave.
We've got to know.

Angela (46:38):
There's an expense to that though.
I don't

John (4) (46:40):
give a shit, man.
If it was my loved one, I would bejust like, well, I'm just playing

Angela (46:44):
devil's advocate.
That's why.
Oh, I get

John (4) (46:46):
it.
I get it.
I completely understand.
But if it was my loved one, I'd belike, you'd dig that freaking hole.
Or I'm going to.
'cause I need to know if they're there.

Speaker 4 (46:55):
Yeah.

John (4) (46:55):
Or not.

Speaker 4 (46:56):
Yeah.

John (4) (46:57):
And then like this new documentary that I was
watching, they offered to dig uphis mom and the town said No Ed

Angela (47:06):
Gain's mom.

John (4) (47:07):
Yeah.
To see if she was in there.
She's

Angela (47:09):
probably the only one that was,

John (4) (47:10):
or if he actually got her.
'cause they don't know.

Angela (47:13):
Yeah.

John (4) (47:14):
But I don't know.
Anyway, it's very surprising the

Angela (47:21):
can you imagine that vote at a town hall meeting

John (4) (47:25):
whether we're going to exhume the

Angela (47:27):
serial killer's mom?
Well.
Don't you need more thantwo to be a serial killer?

John (4) (47:34):
Yeah.
Technically he's not a serial killer.
Yeah.
That we know of.
There was a couple that went missing, A

Angela (47:41):
psychos mom, we'll say.

John (4) (47:43):
A couple of people that went missing.
One was like a 14-year-oldgirl that wasn't too far from
Plainville where he lived.
And then there was like anotherwoman that I think disappeared
that he was suspected of, but he'sonly known to have killed two.
And that was Mrs. Warden and I can'tremember the other woman's name.

(48:06):
She ran a bar in town that,and he killed those two.
All the rest of 'em were grave robberies.
So technically he is not a serial killer.
He's just a nut bag.
I'm pretty positive he killed his brother.
That's almost certain.
But.

(48:27):
I mean, it was so many years before I,but that's what I mean when I say that he
didn't really get off on hurting people.
I don't think that he was likea serial killer and that he had
this insatiable urge to kill likesome of these freaking whack jobs.
His paraphilia was body parts, andI think that the only reason that

(48:55):
he ended up killing was becausehe'd used up all the fresh bodies

Speaker 3 (49:00):
In the

John (4) (49:01):
cemetery.
Wow.
And he needed a fresher one.
Otherwise, I don't thinkhe ever would've killed.
That's, it is a bizarre case, but itsurprised me that they didn't know that.
And apparently, you know, outside of likethe true crime community, a lot of these
big names are just not knowing, but.

Angela (49:20):
I can't decide if that's good or bad.

John (4) (49:23):
I know, but you know, you've, in this particular case, we kind of went off
on a tangent there, but in this particularcase, we got Robert, Charles Brown,
and I don't know, it's tough becausewe'll find out that he was linked to and
convicted of a second murder in Colorado.

(49:44):
But
we've talked about this before,and that is, I can understand why
agencies don't investigate a personthat's already in prison because it's
quote unquote a waste of resources.

(50:06):
But on the other side of thecoin, then that means that, I
mean, he's been convicted of two.
He suspected in more than 48, so thatmeans that there's like 46 families out
there that don't have a definitive answer.
Yeah, that's a toughone to convince me of.
I think that as a society, wehave a moral obligation to provide

(50:32):
answers to families if we can.
What does that look like?
I don't know what that looks like.
Does that look like every state havinga dedicated department that does
nothing but work cases like that?
I don't know.
Maybe because we know that standardlaw enforcement investigators

(50:54):
cannot commit the time necessaryto investigate cold cases.
Some of them have cold case units, othersdon't have any cold case units, but cold
case units or something that has come up.
They're working only that particular case.

(51:14):
And so I don't know, I should therebe somebody, some organization
that is investigating othercases that are potentially linked
to one particular perpetrator.
I kind of think there shouldbe what that looks like.
Yeah.
How that all plays out.

Speaker 4 (51:33):
Yeah.
I don't

John (4) (51:33):
really know, but when we're talking about like Rodney Akala who has a
collection of over a thousand photographsof women who may or may not be dead.
I think that somebody needsto be diligently working that.
Yeah.
Trying to identify every oneof those people and the list

(51:54):
is long as fricking could be.
You know, on Rocky Mountain Reckoning,we just covered Naomi Kidder, who
is potentially, and I think verylikely linked to Larry Dwayne Hall.
But because hall's in prison,they're just like, whatever.
Yeah.
And I don't know if it'sthat or if there's just no
evidence, but I don't know.

(52:15):
It does seem like we need to beinvestigating all of these potential
serial killers to locate everypotential victim that we possibly

Speaker 4 (52:25):
can.
Yeah.

John (4) (52:26):
You know, I mean,
you have some of 'em, like
what's his nut?
The coed killer?
The great big son of bitch
Ed Kemper.
You have somebody, my

Angela (52:46):
brain's going through all these names.

John (4) (52:48):
You have somebody like Ed Kemper who was really
open about all of his kills and.
I think there's a pretty goodlikelihood that he didn't hide anything.
'cause he just opened up to John Douglasand just pretty much said I everything.
But then you have others likeDale Wayne Eaton, like Larry

(53:10):
Dwayne Hall, like the son of abitch we're talking about tonight.
Robert, Charles Brown, that maybelike with both Robert Charles Brown
and Larry Dwayne Hall, they confessto all these and then recanted.
It's like a freaking game.

Angela (53:27):
Yeah.

John (4) (53:29):
And so I think that there's a lot of those out there.
I don't think we knowall of Bundy's victims.

Speaker 4 (53:38):
Probably not.

John (4) (53:39):
I don't think we know all of the Galagos victims.
I mean, the list is just long of onevery one of these pieces of shit.
And so, I don't know.
I don't know what the answer is, but youknow, next episode we're gonna be jumping
into this piece of shit and kind of whatcame out of the investigation and what

(53:59):
kind of a freaking sick animal he is.
But I think we have bodies all overthe country tied to this son of a
bitch, and probably a large portionof them have never been found because
he admittedly buried multiple victimsin like Louisiana and California

(54:23):
and so we don't have a clue.

Angela (54:26):
Yeah.
Is he still alive?

John (4) (54:30):
Yeah, as far as I know, he's still doing time in, in the
Colorado Correctional Institution.
One of them,

Angela (54:40):
yeah, one of the 15.

John (4) (54:43):
Well, it's hard because, you know, like Chris Watts was sentenced
in Colorado, but his, he's doinghis time in like somewhere else,
Michigan or some shit like that.

Angela (54:55):
I knew somebody who was sentenced in Utah and did his time in Arizona.

John (4) (54:59):
Right.
And even though Colorado has morefreaking prisons than anybody else,

Angela (55:03):
yeah.
They send him somewhere else

John (4) (55:06):
for his safety.

Angela (55:08):
Oh.

John (4) (55:08):
Which I could give a shit exactly about Chris Watson's safety

Angela (55:14):
because where's the safety for those two little
girls, Nan and that little baby?
Come on.

John (4) (55:20):
Shanan.
Celeste.

Angela (55:23):
I couldn't remember Bella.
Yeah, and Nico.
Nico, yeah.
I knew Shena and Nico.
I couldn't remember thelittle girl's names.

John (4) (55:30):
Yeah, Bella and Celeste.
I mean, that case hits me hardbecause the whole thing took place
less than a mile from my house.
When I was living down there.
The son of a bitch wasjust damn near my name.
I remember the cop cars allover the freaking place.
I remember all of that going down.

Speaker 4 (55:48):
Yeah.

John (4) (55:49):
I mean, it hit way too close to home for me.
But, you know, he's being held somewhereelse, so, I should know, and I'll look it
up before the next episode to make surethat I know where this piece of shit's at,
but I'm sure he is still alive and I thinkhe's doing time in Colorado, actually.
So, but

Angela (56:07):
just makes me wonder if he would talk.

John (4) (56:11):
No, I don't think so.
He's, you'll see he plays gameswhen we get to the next episode.
He is a game playing piece.
Shit's out of a bitch.
So, yeah, no, he likes to tease.
He's a truly evil sociopath that has nofeelings for anybody else but himself.

Angela (56:30):
I was just hoping that since he came right out and
admitted it, maybe just maybe.

John (4) (56:37):
He likes to play games fun.
You'll find that out in the next episode.
Okay.
Some arrests happen in a blaze of sirens.
Others come slowly afteryears of silence and failure.
Robert Charles Brown didn'texpect anyone to come for him.
He certainly didn't expect to be undoneby a fingerprint that he left behind

(57:01):
two years earlier, but Lou Smit waswatching, listening, and waiting.
When Smit reopened Heather's case,he didn't reinvent the wheel.
He didn't storm in with pressconferences or bold claims.
He just did what others had failed to do.
He looked carefully.

(57:21):
He paid attention, and hebelieved that even in the coldest
case, evidence still speaks.
That one latent fingerprint left.
A piece of Heather left on a pieceof Heather's bedroom window, had
been sitting in the system quietly,waiting for someone to match it when it

(57:41):
finally hit Brown, A drifter, a formertruck driver, a man with a history of
violence who was already in custodyin another state on unrelated charges.
That is not true.
A man with a history of violence,and he was hiding in plain sight.

(58:02):
The arrest of Robert CharlesBrown didn't just solve a case.
It shattered a wall of silence that itstood for four long years, and it proves
something important that justice, nomatter how delayed is still possible when
the right people are finally listening.
Lou Smit didn't carry a reputationbecause he sought glory.

(58:26):
He carried it because he earnedit case by case, victim by victim,
one unanswered question at a time.
And in Heather's case, heproved once again that you
don't need to shout to be heard.
You just need to pay attention.
Heather Dawn Church finally had aname and soon that doesn't make sense.

Angela (58:51):
He was wondering about that.

John (4) (58:54):
The Heather Dawn Church case finally had a name, and soon
the world would learn just howdangerous that name really was.
There's a moment in every case.
When the unknown become becomesknown, when a name, just

(59:16):
a name changes everything.
Robert Charles Brown, that's the name,Heather Don Church's family, was finally
given the man who took her, who silencedher, who discarded her in a ravine
and counted on the world forgetting.
But Heather wasn't forgotten.

(59:36):
And when that fingerprint matched,when the arrest was made, it wasn't
just about law enforcement closinga file, it was about restoring
something that had been stolen truth.
It didn't erase the grief, it didn'tbring Heather back, but it gave her
family something solid, somethingthat they could speak out loud.

(59:59):
Because knowing who did it means you canfinally stop blaming the wrong people.
Stop questioning yourself.
Stop living in limbo.
Let's be clear, this isn't a triumph,it's a reckoning because to know who
took Heather means having to sit with thereality of what she endured, what he took

(01:00:24):
from her, what she never got to become.
She never gotta finish high school.
She never got to see her brothersgrow up, never got to become the
woman that she was meant to be.
But in solving her case, Heathergave something back to the world.
She showed us what justice can look likeeven when it arrives years too late.

(01:00:47):
And she reminded us thatvictims are not statistics.
They are stories, they are lives.
They are daughters, sisters,classmates, artists, and dreamers.
Heather's name will neverbelong to Robert Charles Brown.
It belongs to her family, to the peoplewho never stopped fighting for her, and to

(01:01:11):
the justice that finally said, we see you.
This is for Heather, for the silence thatended and for the voice that still echoes.

Angela (01:01:25):
If this case moved you, if Heather's story matters to
you, like it matters to us, takea moment right now to support it.
Follow the show.
Give us a rating.
Hit that thumbs up, heart or five stars,whatever your platform calls for, and
most importantly, share this episodebecause the more people who hear her

(01:01:45):
name, the louder her voice becomes,

John (4) (01:01:48):
and you can also support the work that we do
by visiting dark dialogue.com.
There.
You'll find case files, bonus content, andlinks to our adoptive victim program where
you can help spotlight other cold cases.
Still waiting for answers.
We're also on Patreon and on coffee.
If you'd like to helpfund this work directly,

Angela (01:02:09):
have a tip and or a case you want covered or something
that needs to be said, reach outto us at [e-mail].
We read everything andwe never stop listening.

John (4) (01:02:20):
Next episode, we'll take a hard look at the man behind the fingerprint,
Robert Charles Brown, who he was,what he admitted to, and the trail of
destruction that he may have left behindacross the country because one solved
case led to a terrifying possibility.
Heather wasn't the only one.

Angela (01:02:42):
This story is far from over, so if you haven't already, please
subscribe, follow, and stay with usbecause the only way to make sure these
cases aren't buried is to keep digging.

John (4) (01:02:54):
This is dark dialogue.
Until next time, keep the dialogue alive.