Mystery at the Lake Superior Shoreline: The Unsolved Murder of Dale Wheeler

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
It was an unseasonably warm fall day into Luth, Minnesota,
the kind of day that invites you to slow down
and savor the moment, and it came after a week
of miserable weather. For thirty three year old stay at
home mother of three, Dale Wheeler, it was a rare
chance to enjoy some time alone. She chose to skip

(00:31):
her usual Sunday routine of going to church with her
family and instead stayed home by herself. The weather was
too beautiful to stay inside, so she set out on
a long bike ride, eventually taking a break along the quiet,
rocky shore of Lake Superior. But what should have been
a peaceful afternoon turned tragic. As she sat by the water,

(00:53):
Dale was brutally attacked, her life stolen in a place
she found serene and safe. The murder shocked the community.
After all, the area was busy that day, full of families, joggers,
and locals taking in the warmfall air, and yet somehow
no one saw the attack. More than four decades have passed,

(01:15):
but investigators taking a fresh look at the case are
still holding onto hope, hope that someone somewhere knows something
that could finally bring answers. I'm your host, Megan and
Each week on a Simpler Time True Crime, I cover
older unsolved cases and challenge the idea that a simpler

(01:36):
time means a safer time. This week, I'm bringing to
you the unsolved murder of Dale Wheeler. Dale Wheeler was

(02:05):
a very active and athletic woman. Staying fit and pursuing
her athletic passions was something central to her life before
and after giving birth to her three children. At just
five feet tall and one hundred and five pounds, she
was tiny but mighty. She graduated in nineteen seventy one
from the University of Michigan with a bachelor's degree in

(02:27):
physical education. She was a tennis enthusiast and instructor, and
she had been the Lady's Single doubles and Mixed Doubles
champion in Duluth. She was a mourning jogger and loved
to ride her bike, frequenting what is called the North
Shore area. The week leading up to September twenty fifth,

(02:49):
nineteen eighty three was filled with crummy, cold, wet weather,
so when that weather shifted, Dale decided to break from
her Sunday routine of going to the First United Methodist
Church with her husband Tom and children Carrie age ten,
Nathan aged seven, and Andrew age four. Instead, she was
going to stay home after her family left, Dale felt

(03:12):
drawn to the beautiful outdoor weather. At around eleven am,
she left a note for Tom saying she would be
going for a long bike ride and would be back
before six. Dale departed her home on Woodland Avenue in
Duluth and made her way towards Scenic Highway sixty one
on her blue twenty six inch Shwin three speed bicycle.

(03:34):
She had her purse and rucksack backpack with her and
bolted onto the back of the bike was a child seat.
Now I want to give you a little more information
about the area, just so you can picture it. Duluth, Minnesota,
is a port city in the northeastern part of the state,
located on the western tip of Lake Superior, which is
the largest freshwater lake in the world by service area.

(03:57):
It's one of the Great Lakes, with around eighty seven
thousand people living there. Deluts known for its stunning natural beauty,
its maritime history, and its rugged, hilly terrain that offers
sweeping lake views for outdoor enthusiasts. Many are drawn to
what's called the North Shore. One of the most iconic
routes through this region is the North Shore Scenic Drive,

(04:20):
a one hundred and fifty mile stretch of Highway sixty
one that hugs the shoreline of Lake Superior, starting in
Duluth and winding all the way to the Canadian border.
It's more than just a road, it's an experience. The
drive offers stunning lake views on one side and dense
forest on the other, with rocky cliffs, waterfalls, and charming

(04:43):
small towns scattered along the way. People come from all
over to bike this route, especially in the summer and
early fall. Some tackle it in segments, stopping to hike,
take in the lighthouses, or visit one of the many
area state parks, while others do the full stretch all
at once. And for those who'd rather explore on foot,

(05:05):
there is the Superior Hiking Trail. It's one of Minnesota's
most celebrated outdoor gems. It runs roughly parallel to the
Scenic Drive and covers about three hundred and ten miles
from Duluth to the Canadian border. The trail winds through
rugged forest, over bluffs, and across countless creeks and rivers,
offering dramatic views of Lake Superior with the change of seasons.

(05:29):
And much like the bicyclists, the hikers kind of range.
Some of them are day trippers doing shorter segments, and
then there's three hikers who take on the full trail
over a course of several weeks. And so that Scenic
Highway sixty one is what Dale planned to do on
her bike. She was going to take that trail about
thirty miles to the community of Two Harbors and then

(05:50):
turn around and come back. The area was bustling that
day with hikers, joggers, cars, and other bicyclists. For the
most part, Dale's safety concerns would be around other distracted
drivers taking in the scenery and not paying attention and
seeing her. That's something bicyclists always have to be on
guard for. But she never could have imagined that danger

(06:11):
lurked in the shores she frequented with so many people
around her. When six PM arrived and Dale hadn't returned,
her husband Tom felt at ease. Dale was very reliable.

(06:32):
If she said she would be somewhere at a certain time,
you could expect to see her. But in nineteen eighty three,
there was no way for him to shoot her a
quick text and see if she had just maybe underestimated
how far she'd go or she was off and how
long it would take her, And they weren't able to
take safety precautions were able to do today, such as
using GPS on our phones to share a location with

(06:55):
a loved one when we're doing something like this, So
trying to table his worries temporary, he waited alongside his
children a bit longer. Six turned into seven, Seven turned
into eight, and when Dale hadn't come home by nine
thirty pm, Tom Wheeler phoned police. Officers responded quickly because

(07:15):
they felt it was possible she had gotten hit by
a car and that she was injured and needed medical attention,
So they drove up and down the highway and searched
the area with spotlights, but they found nothing. At sunrise
the next morning, the search continued. The searchers left the
roadside and began looking along the rocky shoreline below. The

(07:36):
terrain can be hard to picture, but all include some
pictures on the podcast Instagram at Simpler Time Crime pod.
Richard Swanson, who would later become a sergeant with the
Saint Louis County Sheriff's Department was on patrol as a
deputy at the time. He was near an area off
the highway called Bluebird Landing when he saw a boat

(07:56):
making its way towards the shore. When he spoke to
the man in the boat, a fisherman named Elvin Sower,
he asked him if he had seen any sign of
a woman or a bicycle near the shore, and Alvin said,
in fact, he had not a woman but a bike
about a half mile in the other direction. So Officer

(08:17):
Swanson traced back in that direction towards a pull off,
and there he found the bike, the Blue Shwin with
the child seat attached. Officer Swanson surveyed the area for
any sign of Dale, and as he looked down towards
the beach and scanned the area, he saw something that
caught his attention, a woman's body. The next quote I

(08:40):
share is a little graphic, and a few moments after
that I'll be describing the state of how Dale was found.
So just a quick heads up, Swanson told the Duluth
News Tribune quote, a few feet from the car, I
could see a bike down by the beach. I found
missus Wheeler. I was standing maybe twenty to thirty feet
from her head. I saw a face looking back at

(09:01):
me that was full of blood. I saw something that
didn't appear to be a natural death, so I backed
away end quote. Swanson called for backup. Sheriff Gary Waller
told the Tribune that because of where the bike was
on its side, right off of the highway, they thought
that maybe she'd been hit by a car, but as
they got closer, it became evident that that was not

(09:22):
the case. The bike was not damaged or thrown down hastily,
it was carefully leaning against a rock. And examining Dale Wheeler,
she had extensive injuries and bleeding to her face, and
the strap of her backpack was tied around her neck.
She had been struck in the arm's face and body.
On her forehead were two gashes, and the bruising on

(09:44):
her arms suggested that she had put her arms up
to defend herself against the attacker. She also had defensive
wounds on her fingers and other parts of her hands.
Her body was located about twenty five feet off from
the water's edge and about seventy five feet from the roadway,
with the closest address to where her body was found
being one zero three eight five North Shore Drive, even

(10:08):
though there were a lot of people out that day,
part of why she wasn't seen was that her body
was partially obscured. Whoever did this to her placed her
under an overhanging tree and then hastily covered her with
nearby debris, including a dead tree trunk and a tire.
And another thing to note about the layout is that
this rocky area is below the roadway, so even though

(10:31):
it was really close to where cars were driving, it
was likely outside of their view. So with this discovery,
investigators had to do one of the hardest parts of
their job. They had to tell Tom Wheeler and his
three small children the fate of what had happened to Dale.
Dale loved being a wife and mother and adored kids

(10:51):
in general. She had been born into a prominent local family.
Her father, Richard B. Heinbach, was a jeweler and owned
the store Bagley and Co. A family business that was
a pillar in the community for one hundred and thirty
one years until it's closing in twenty sixteen. And maybe
because she grew up in a family that was so

(11:13):
involved in the community that it led her in the
direction that it did because she was involved in so
many community initiatives. She was part of the Junior League
of Duluth. That's a nationwide organization that she was part
of a local chapter, and it's a woman led nonprofit
civic organization dedicated to developing female leaders in fostering volunteerism.

(11:35):
One topic close to her heart was raising awareness around
chemical dependency and substance use disorder, particularly how it can
impact women. Pat Falls, who was the vice president of
the Junior League at the time, said quote Dale used
her league involvement as an opportunity to serve her community
and for her personal growth. Her interests were focused in

(11:55):
areas of children, education, and training. She most recently so
served as chairman of the Education Committee, heading the league's
community seminar, The Chemical People, which is to be given
in November end. Quote Dale was a member of the
YMCA and on the board of directors for Camp Miller.
She belonged to the Duluth Friends of Tennis organization and

(12:17):
also volunteered for the Junior Great Books program. But the
role she valued most was that of being a wife
and mom. Her neighbors recalled her being so happy working
in her beautiful garden, and how each year she would
bake Christmas cookies with her children and hand deliver them
with the kids to all the neighbors. So, given everything

(12:37):
we know about Dale, who by all accounts didn't have
an enemy in the world, investigators were left to wonder
who would do this to her and why. Thanks for
tuning into this week's episode. I've noticed a wave of

(12:59):
new listeners recently, and that's entirely thanks to all of
you for sharing the show, leaving reviews, talking about it online,
and recommending it to your friends. It really does make
a difference. If you haven't already, please be sure to
hit subscribe on your favorite podcast apps so you never
miss an episode. If you're new here, welcome. This is
a weekly podcast where I revisit older unsolved cases and

(13:23):
challenge the idea that the so called good old days
were as safe as we remember. At the heart of
it all, I aim to bring attention to stories that
still need answers and show you how you can help
new episodes drop every Monday. I also work directly with
families to help share their loved one stories, particularly cases
that are twenty years old. And more so please reach

(13:45):
out to Simpler Timecrimepod at gmail dot com. Now back
to the episode. One of the things that investigators in
Minnesota were trying to establish was motive. Dale's cause of

(14:05):
death had been strangulation, though as I previously mentioned, she
had also endured a brutal beating as well. Something noteworthy, though,
was that Dale was found with all her clothes on
and there were no signs of sexual assault. Her purse
was missing, and in processing the crime scene, investigators found
her backpack with items strewn about roughly about one hundred

(14:26):
and fifty to two hundred yards from where her body was.
Her checkbook, wallet, and other miscellaneous items were amongst those items,
and the cash she had been carrying had been removed
from the wallet. So naturally that would lead someone to
believe that robbery may have been the motive, but Swanson
wasn't convinced. He told the Tribune quote, I think it

(14:47):
was an attempt to make us believe robbery was a motive.
Based on the layout of the scene, police believed that
Dale voluntarily pulled off in this location. She set the
bike down and went to sit on the rocks, either
just to take a rest or enjoy the sun, and
that's where the attack unfolded. Police looked for possible witnesses.

(15:08):
Something that was just shocking to them was that there
could be so many people out exercising and driving and
enjoying the day and nobody witnessed Dale being attacked. But
that appears to be the case. Not one person came
forward to say that they witnessed the attack on Dale
or any part of it unfolding. After the news covered

(15:29):
the murder, hundreds of witnesses came forward to talk about
female bicyclists they saw that day, and somewhere a woman
had been seen with a male or talking to a
male who they thought may have been suspicious, but none
of the clothing descriptions matched what Dale was wearing. Swanson
said they could not identify anybody who actually spoke to
Dale along the route that day or saw Dale speaking

(15:52):
to anybody else. There were some people who saw her
riding her bike, with the last confirmed sighting being around
one thirty pm. The autopsy determined her time of death
to be approximately three PM, but the ask for witnesses
to come forward was not completely fruitless. Authorities told the
media that they were hoping to speak to a man

(16:12):
who they believed might be a witness to the crime.
All have a picture of the nineteen eighty three composite
sketch of this man on the Instagram. He is described
as white, around twenty eight years old, which, by the way,
felt really specific to me. I don't know how you
land on twenty eight in what makes someone look twenty eight,
but that's the age anyway. White, twenty eight, about five

(16:34):
foot eleven and one hundred and sixty five pounds, with
black hair in a bushy beard. He was wearing dark
work type clothes and was driving a dark, older model
mid sized Sedan. Police released this composite sketch just three
days after the murder, and they didn't give a lot
of information as to why they first thought this guy
was a witness, But when he didn't come forward by

(16:57):
day ten, they changed their tune and called him a suspect.
They said they had given ample time for the man
to come forward, and because he hadn't, they imagined he
had something to hide. And I just have to say,
in covering old cases on here, I see this strategy
used by law enforcement and their interactions with the media
a lot. The whole No, no, we just want to

(17:17):
talk to you. We think you might have seen something.
You're just a witness. We don't think you're a suspect,
and I just I feel like you got to pivot
from that strategy. These criminals who commit these crimes are monsters,
and oftentimes they're not the brightest. But I haven't seen
someone fall for that yet. Unfortunately. Police said that this
man was brought to their attention because he was seen

(17:38):
sitting in his car in the area where Dale Wheeler's
body was found and her bike were found on the
afternoon of her murder, and this person was also seen
walking around his vehicle around the same time. Police told
the press they were looking for a pilot of a
small aircraft. Witnesses told investigators that this plane had flown
up and down the shoreline near where Dale Wheelers buy

(18:00):
he was found, and that the plane was flying about
twenty feet above the water. Deputies hoped that this pilot
was maybe a witness, and this one I truly think
they thought was a witness because no one saw him
land the plane, but they thought maybe from his view
he saw something that people from land couldn't see. But
at least from what has been released, publicly. It doesn't
seem like they made any contact with whoever that was.

(18:24):
The murders sent shockwaves through the local community. Jinny Byer's
family owned the Shorecrest supper club in Motel less than
a block from where Dale was found. She said they
typically let their fourteen year old daughter go to the
beach alone, but now they're reconsidering that, and that their
younger children had heard word of the attack and they

(18:44):
were scared to go to sleep that night knowing a
killer might be nearby. Bill Byer was bartending at the
Shorecrest on the day of the homicide. He told the
Star Tribune, quote, traffic was heavy along here, and there
were a lot of people on bikes out there. There
were people sitting up on the rocks out there. There
were cars parked out here. They were going down to

(19:04):
the rocks to enjoy the view. There were many boats
out on the water. Another bartender from the restaurant said
he was outside working on his car most of the
afternoon of the murder, but he didn't hear or see
anything suspicious. Another person, a nearby student named Matt, was
jogging on Monday morning, the day after Dale disappeared, and
the day her body was found. He said he actually

(19:27):
saw Dale's bike while out on his jog, but he
didn't think anything of it. Is people often set their
bikes down to go enjoy the beach. He was shocked
when he found out about the murder. Later. He lived
nearby and told the paper quote, we locked all the
doors last night. We don't know if the person who
did this is still around here. It was just so strange.

(19:47):
It seems like some imbalanced person would have done it.
It doesn't seem like they have much to go on.
End quote. And what about those people who lived in
the address of the house. I mentioned that the killing
was closest to well. Jay, the homeowner, said he came
home on that Monday to reporters standing in his driveway.
He said when his wife, Darlene arrived home, they talked

(20:09):
about how they had walked the beach on Sunday night
and must have just been feet away from Dale's body.
Her body, after all, was found just seven hundred feet
from his home. Another neighbor, a woman named Ellie, shared
that she has four children and that her whole family
was spooked. She said they had no idea who this
person was who did this? And if this person was

(20:29):
still lurking around, so they were taking precautions. The bus driver,
who normally dropped children off at a meeting point and
allowed them to walk short distances home instead was taking
kids directly to their driveway. Ellie said that when she
went to get the mail, she told her children to
keep an eye on her through the window and make
sure she came back. She did say her fear was

(20:49):
reserved for being outside, and that within the house she
and her family were less jumpy and felt a sense
of safety. In numbers, Bill Bayer, owner of the supper club,
hold the paper quote, this isn't New York or downtown
somewhere you don't expect it. You expect it somewhere, but
always someplace else. Dale Wheeler was laid to rest and

(21:20):
the investigation continued, but despite the early chatter, within a
month of the homicide occurring, Leeds fizzled out. In early October,
her family and friends put up a twenty five hundred
dollars reward, and by the end of the month the
reward increased to five thousand dollars, but still crickets. Police
briefly looked into the possibility that her murder was connected

(21:42):
to some occurring in the town of Superior, a ten
minute drive from Duluth, just over the border into Wisconsin.
One of those was an elderly store clerk who had
been beaten in an attempted robbery. Another was a mother
and her chidler baby who died in a house fire
that had been determined to be delay brittlely set, and
another was a man beaten inside his home. It was

(22:05):
a stretch, and none of these really had any overlapping
similarities to Dale's case. It's just that it was a
string of violent crime in a relatively close proximity area,
all within just days of Dale's death. But they quickly
really dismissed all of that. Like so many cold cases,
the days turned into weeks and weeks into months, and

(22:26):
without resolution to her case, her family and community tried
as hard as possible to keep her name alive and
remember her light and her kindness, not what happened to
her on her final day on earth. A Dale Wheeler
Memorial Scholarship was set up for high school girls graduating
who had an interest in tennis, and the very first
Dale Wheeler Memorial Tennis Tournament was held just before the

(22:49):
first anniversary of her death with eighty participants. Linda Roach,
who was one of the organizers, said, it's a celebration
of the family. It's a happy event. We wanted to
perpetuate a feeling Dale had. Her family was always very important.
Her husband Tom Wheeler spoke and said Dale thought education, wellness,

(23:10):
and fitness were important, and this tournament ties all of
those things together. The biggest thing to her, first and
foremost was the family, and the family concept of tennis
is what makes it such a great sport. In December
of nineteen eighty four, fourteen months after Dale Wheeler's murder,
a person was out looking for a Christmas tree just

(23:32):
off of a rural north Shore road when they stumbled
upon something odd, a very weathered, discarded purse, and in
it was a driver's license belonging to Dale Wheeler. It
was her missing purse. The purse was found a few
hundred feet north of the highway and three miles down
the road from where her body had been found. The

(23:53):
purse was covered in moss and mud and contained a
few other items, though nothing that really pointed in any
direction to killer. It does make you wonder why discard
the purse so far away from where the body was found,
especially when near the original crime scene. There were articles
strewn about that would have been in her purse, including

(24:13):
anything money related like her wallet and checkbook. So why
take the purse, which holds no real valuables, away from
the crime scene and discard it somewhere else. It's just odd.
In May of nineteen eighty five, former First Lady Betty
Ford came to Duluth with close ties to Dale Wheeler.
You'll remember that at the time of her death, Dale

(24:34):
was leveraging her position, volunteering with the Junior League of
Duluth to form a task force on chemical dependency and
host an event that was supposed to happen just a
couple of months after her murder. With the death of
Dale Wheeler, that event was unable to be organized and
proceed and so her vision was temporarily tabled. But then
the plan pulled together in a way that would have

(24:55):
made Dale Wheeler so happy. You see, Betty Ford was
a recovered ELB alcoholic, a member of the nationwide Junior League,
and a guest lecturer, so in Dale Wheeler's honour, she
came to Duluth to discuss chemical dependency and specific barriers
women face in battling alcoholism, particularly social stigmas. She also

(25:16):
discussed how she had been a large proponent of raising
the national drinking age to twenty one, which had happened
the year prior in nineteen eighty four. The First Lady's
Visit was a powerful and beautiful reminder of Dale Wheeler's
vision and advocacy. Shortly thereafter, also in May of eighty five,
a peculiar thing happened. An anonymous photo copied letter was

(25:39):
sent to several area newspapers, news outlets, and police stations.
Attached to each letter was a fifty dollars bill. The letter,
which was postmarked from Duluth, read, when angels such as
her are separated from us, attention must be paid. The
dead do not rest easy until justice is pursued and

(26:00):
the killer captured or destroyed. End quote. It further read,
quote the money is for the reward, if there is
already a reward offered. Add this to it. The letter
writer indicated that they had mailed it all over and
that appeared to be true. Many people didn't know what
to make of it. According to the Duluth News Tribune,

(26:23):
law enforcement agencies in Duluth Superior and up in thunder Bay, Ontario,
Canada had received the letter, with one or two just
missing the fifty dollars bills. Other organizations that received the
letters were the Duluth Police Department, Minnesota State Patrol, and
then the Saint Louis County Court Administrator, Superior, Evening Telegram,

(26:45):
thunder Bay Chronicle Journal, thunder Bay Police Department, the Wall
Street Journal, and Saint Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch. Interestingly enough,
the Saint Louis County Sheriff's Office, who was in charge
of investigating her death, did not receive a letter. Some
people wondered if this was the killer taunting police in
some way. You have to remember this was only about

(27:07):
a decade after the Zodiac killer sent his final taunting
letter after his reign of terror in California, and so
this type of action by a perpetrator was fresh in
the minds of those who followed that notorious case. But
Saint Louis County Sheriff Ernie Graham's told the media at
the time he didn't think that was the case. He said, quote,
all it could do is serve to regenerate interest in

(27:29):
the case. That is, unless they wanted to issue some
sort of challenge. My thoughts are that in all likelihood
we have a friend or acquaintance of the victim who
feels strongly about the case. End quote. A friend of
the Wheeler family, Robert Mars, and custodian of the reward fund,
told the press that he welcomed contributions to the fund,

(27:50):
but that the Wheeler family was hoping to have privacy
and stay out of the media. And that's so understandable.
I can only imagine the pain and grief they fell
losing Dale, having the conversation come up in the community
so often, no new leads came out for years, just

(28:16):
shy of the eight year mark of Dale's murder. In
June of nineteen ninety one, the Saint Louis County Sheriff's
office stated they were looking at a former Duluth man
who they suspected to be a serial killer, as a
possible suspect in Dale Wheeler's case. The man was thirty
eight year old Patrick Thomas Walsh. In nineteen ninety one,
he was in custody and charged with the murder of

(28:37):
his coworker, thirty five year old Pamela Sweeney, he had
broken into her house, sexually assaulted and murdered her. In fact,
he had stolen keys from her desk and used them
to enter the house. On the night of her murder,
he pistol whipped her to overpower her and then later
shot and stabbed her. And like many of the criminals

(28:59):
I talk about on this podas cast he had a
long rap sheet where he was continually permitted to come
back out to society and repeat his actions. When he
was fourteen years old, he was in juvenile court for
stabbing a twelve year old girl. She survived, and because
he was so young, he was very lightly sentenced to
a juvenile facility. Then in nineteen seventy one, he broke

(29:20):
into a woman's apartment in Duluth and stabbed her repeatedly.
She barely survived, and he was arrested and charged with
second degree attempted murder, but was acquitted by reason of
insanity and sentenced to a mental health facility for quote
homicidal tendencies for several years. In nineteen eighty, he resided
with a roommate, a US Army Reserve officer named Cindy

(29:43):
may Brown. She disappeared and He told people that she
had gotten into a brown van with three other individuals
and moved away to California, leaving her own car behind.
She actually wasn't reported missing officially until months later, and
she's still never been found. He is cons a strong
suspect in her disappearance given what it is that we

(30:03):
know about him now, but at the time authorities believed
that she had just packed up and moved away. In
nineteen eighty four, a woman named Cindy Gerdis was sexually
assaulted and brutally stabbed to death with a kitchen knife
in her apartment. Her case, thought to be one of
the most brutal cases in Minneapolis area history, still remains

(30:23):
unsolved to this day, but Walsh is considered a strong
suspect in her case due to the fact that his
wife at the time used to be roommates with Cindy
and he was well acquainted with her. By the time
Pamela Sweeney's murder occurred, his behavior had really ramped up.
Sweeney was living in constant fear of Walsh, whom was
harassing her and stalking her at the workplace she was

(30:46):
looking for a new job in trying to find a
way out pictures of female employees at the facility tack
to a wall had begun disappearing. Pamela Sweeney had told
her boss that her keys went missing from her death,
and she had confided in everyone from her pastor to
her mother that a man named Pat at work was
making her nervous. Two days after her murder, her keys

(31:09):
were found in his truck. Walsh was found guilty in
her murder and sentenced to life in prison, and he
remains behind bars in Minnesota to this day. So investigators wondered,
because he was in the area at the time, was
it possible that he stumbled into Dale Wheeler that day
as she was relaxing on the rocks. Like his other victims,

(31:31):
she was petite and young and attractive. But that kind
of is the end of it. There are many differences.
Wheeler's murder seems to be a crime of opportunity, whereas
Walsh's other killings were very calculated. Almost all of Walsh's
crimes involved a knife as well, whereas Dale Wheeler was strangled.
So while Walsh is not ruled out in Dale Wheeler's case, overall,

(31:55):
he's not considered a very strong suspect in nineteen ninety three,
Candice Renalis of the Duluth News Tribune did an in
depth article for the ten year anniversary of Dale's murder,

(32:15):
and in her interviews with investigators, they dropped a huge
piece of information that had never previously been revealed. They
said that they spoke to whom they think is their
prime suspect, but they could never prove it. They said
that early in the investigation they came across this man
who was a young Duluth amateur photographer, and they said

(32:36):
he might have been infatuated with Dale Wheeler. He had
come forward to say that he had seen Dale Wheeler
sitting on a rock as he was taking photos along
the north shore that day. He said he never got
closer to her than forty to fifty feet away, and
that he never spoke to her. He also said he
didn't take any photographs of her, but when police asked

(32:57):
to see his film, he refused to turn it over,
and he then abruptly stopped cooperating and lawyered up. Police
said that they were very suspicious of this man, but
couldn't pull a case together to prove anything. In nineteen
ninety three, when that article was released, they said he
no longer lived in the Duluth area, but they were
keeping tabs on him, and it's unclear if he's even

(33:19):
still alive, and if so, if they've continued to but
I imagine not. It should be noted that this person
is different than the bushy haired man from the composite sketch.
The article also discussed how law enforcement had worked with
the FBI in Quantico to develop a profile of the killer,
but they wouldn't release any details of what was found

(33:40):
in what was developed for this criminal profile. Believe it
or not. After this ten year anniversary piece, Dale's case
would fall from the newspapers and news channels for nearly
three more decades. It wasn't until twenty twenty one that
Brady Slater from the Duluth News Tribune did a piece
on Dale's still unsolved case, which I have linked to.

(34:02):
The show notes there wasn't a whole lot of new
information to share the family like in years prior chose
not to participate in the article. It was just too painful,
especially because Dale's husband, Tom Wheeler died just months earlier
in the summer of twenty twenty. But Slater was able
to speak to the new investigator on the case, Jessica

(34:22):
Leboor of the Saint Louis County Sheriff's Office. She wouldn't
say much because it's still an open investigation, but said
that she worked on the case as time allowed and
shared that the case was far from over. She wouldn't
speak on if there was evidence or DNA that could
be now retested with modern technology, but she did say
we're at such a different place now with science and

(34:44):
technology that there's stuff we couldn't have fathomed. I hope
to see that grow so there can be a resolution
in the case. And that is the most recent update
on the case. The murder of Dale Wheeler remains one
of those deeply uns settling crimes that feels almost too
senseless to comprehend. With no clear motive, no known enemies,

(35:06):
and no definitive suspect, It's a case that leaves behind
far more questions than answers. Was it truly random, a
crime of opportunity carried out by a stranger, or is
there something more beneath the surface that investigators just haven't
uncovered yet. More than four decades later, those who knew
in Lovedale are still waiting for clarity, for accountability, and

(35:28):
for someone to finally come forward with the truth. If
you have any information, maybe about the man with the
bushy beard, something you saw that day but you were
afraid to mention at the time, something someone mentioned to
you in the years following that you didn't know what
to do with. Maybe you know who this amateur photographer
is and you've had your own experience with him. Any

(35:50):
information at all may be just what is needed to
push the case forward. If you have any information on
the unsolved murder of Dale Wheeler, please contact the tip
line at eight seven seven nine nine six six two
two two. This has been another episode of a Simpler

(36:12):
Time True crime. If you appreciate the work I'm doing,
please leave a five star review and follow my Instagram.
I'm also on Facebook and TikTok, and you can email
me at Simpler timecrimepod at gmail dot com. As always,
thank you so much for listening, and tune in next week.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Mystery at the Lake Superior Shoreline: The Unsolved Murder of Dale Wheeler