The Disappearance of Ann Racz

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
True Crime Brewery contains disturbing content related to real life crimes.
Medical information is opinion based on facts of a crime
and should not be interpreted as medical advice or treatment.
Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome to True Crime Brewery. I'm Jill and I'm Dick.
One April evening in nineteen ninety one, Anne Race's three
children waited for her to pick up some food for
them at McDonald's, which was less than a mile away,
But instead of seeing Anne's white mini van pull into
the driveway, their father showed up hours later with a

(00:49):
small bag of cold French fries. He said that their
mother had gone away on a trip to think things over.
This was so unlike Anne, who planned everything and put
her children above all else that Anne's children didn't believe it,
and neither would the police join us at the quiet
end for the disappearance of Anne Race. Forty two year
old Anne had been planning to divorce her husband John

(01:12):
for several months. She'd rented a condo and moved her
and her children's belongings there before she vanished. No one
believed John's story, but there was no evidence that anything
had happened to Anne. Years went by, while her children
tried to understand where she could be and their father
behaved strangely, never fully cooperating with the investigation. The circumstantial

(01:34):
evidence and suspicions were piling up, but could investigators prove
murder without a body?

Speaker 3 (01:41):
So before I get to the beer review, Uh huh,
let me just mention that you and I were on
an episode of twenty twenty last night.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
I know, wasn't that exciting?

Speaker 3 (01:49):
It was? Wow? Well that twenty twenty was doing an
episode about Chandler Alderson. They titled There's Road Mapped of
Murder and we had covered that case last fever. We
call it parent Trap and it was from February of
twenty four.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Okay, So if anyone wants to revisit it or watch
us on twenty twenty, of course it's on Hulu now,
so you can watch it anytime. Anytime you think you'll
watch it again.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Oh I already have, okay, and I'll do it some more.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
All right. Well, yeah, a lot of fun. So thanks
to twenty twenty. It was a good experience to have.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
It was I was nervous about going into it, nervous
as the show started, but I think we acquitted ourselves
quite well.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Okay, cool.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
We have a nice California beer today. It's from the
brewery in Placentia, California. Very good place make some really
powerful stouts. The one we're drinking today is called Curiosity,
sort of like Curiosity, but a twto. So it's an
American Imperial stout. Fourteen percent alcohol by volume, black, little

(02:54):
teeny tan head sit him and leaves off the aroma.
We got some chocolate, coffee and alcohol. Well taste. You
got cinnamon throughout the whole taste. It builds up by
the end you're really hitting some good cinnamon. You got
some milk, chocolate, some coffee, and some bourbon. So this
is a bit spicy, but not in a bad way.
It's balanced out by some cream in a world class beer.

(03:15):
And one final thing. Unless you read the label, you'd
never guess the beer as fourteen percent alcohol by volume.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Well, good, let's give it a try. It sounds good.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
That's quite good. But this is when to share.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, we'll see about that.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Well, I tell you don't notice it going down, and
you drink a couple half a bottle of this, you'll
be sitting there wondering what hit you.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
All right, Well sometimes that's good. Not like I'm driving anywhere. No,
all right, let's open it up and take it down
to the quietent. Okay, So let's go back to April eighteenth,

(04:03):
nineteen ninety one. Anne Race left her husband John and
moved into a rented condo with her three children. So
the condo was located close to the family home, but
Anne didn't want John to know where she was living
until he had a chance to calm down and accept
that she would be filing for divorce. The next day,
John was served with the divorce papers. On moving day,

(04:27):
Anne went into her older daughter's room before dawn. She
sat near her fourteen year old daughter, Joanne's pillow and
touched her shoulder. As soon as she stirred and looked
up at Anne, Anne said, today's the day we're moving,
and you mustn't tell anyone where we're going, especially your dad.
Joanne could see the fear on her mother's face. Anne's

(04:48):
husband and Joanne's father, John, had already left for work
that morning. Anne didn't want to tell Joanne's little brother
or sister yet because she didn't want them to know
they were moving until after school, when she would pick
them up. So she had this planned and ready to
go and.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
Well planned out. She'd been doing this for weeks, even months,
getting ready for this particular day.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, and that's the kind of person that she was,
was someone who liked to plan things out, and she
wanted things to be as smooth as possible for the
children as well. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Anne said to Joanne, I'm scared to death that your
father's going to hurt me. I will take all three
of you to school, pick you up this afternoon, and
take you to our new place. Anne had given Joanne
advanced warning of her intentions a month earlier, but at
the time it didn't seem that real to the team.
But the first time Anne brought up the idea back
in Marsh, she tried to make her daughter understand her

(05:40):
reasons for leaving and had told Joanne a few things
that made her a little bit afraid of her husband.
Joanne had anything important that she wanted to keep with
her she needed to tell her mother, joe Aanne said
she wanted to bring her blanket. Anne had knitted a
blanket for Joanne and if Joanne could only bring one thing,
it was going to be that blanket and Joanne kept
her mother secret. Now that April day, Anne said, today's

(06:03):
day we're leaving. We'll get you blanket and some other things.
I'll pick you up from school and we'll go over
to the new place.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah. So, even though Anne told Joe Anne not to
tell anyone her plans, several of Anne's friends knew of
the impending separation. They knew about Anne's fear, her unhappiness
with her nineteen year marriage, her husband's demanding sexual patterns,
and his extreme stinginess. Some of her close friends even
knew about the other man who Anne saw as her

(06:31):
soulmate so earlier. On that Thursday morning, April eighteenth, John
Race left their house in Valencia for his pre dawn
drive to Compton, which was more than forty miles away,
and that's where he taught elementary school. His early morning
departure created the perfect window of opportunity for Anne, who
was moving out of the house that day. The timing

(06:52):
would allow her to avoid John's anger, at least for
a while. First, she had to take joe Ane fourteen,
Glenn aged eleven, and Caitlin aged seven, to school. Walking
the kids into each of their classes, Anne stopped to
talk with each teacher and let them know that her
children would have a new address.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
So Anne returned to the house and pulled over next
to a moving van parked down the street. It was
eight twenty in the morning. Both men in the truck
had been told the day before to wait for Anne's
signal before pulling into the driveway of the upscale, two
story home near the end of a cul de sac
on Fortuna Drive. Then they needed to load her belongings
into the truck as quickly as possible, so we'd be

(07:31):
really timing this down to minutes right.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
Well, she wanted to have it all done pretty quickly.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
The movers followed as Anne led them through the house,
pointing out the items to be loaded. According to one
of Ann's friends, she had carefully planned every detail of
the move well in advance. Starting back in August nineteen ninety,
Anne had begun hiding everything she planned to take with
her in the back of closets and cupboards she could
grab them quickly on moving day. She got boxes and

(07:57):
baskets in advance, storing them out of John's sight. Most
of the items were for the children, including clothing, books, toys,
a computer, and three mattresses. While the movers rushed to
load the truck, they noticed that Anne was nervous, quite nervous.
Each time she heard her car door closing, she jumped
up and ran to a window to look outside.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
Oh yeah, she was terrified. So the loading process, including
boxes Anne put into her minivan, took a little over
an hour, and the truck followed Anne's car from Fortuna
Drive to Peachland Avenue. After less than two miles of driving,
they pulled into the condominium complex where Anne had leased
a two bedroom plates to the movers. Anne looked visibly

(08:37):
relieved to be at her new home, and she paid
them in cash. After they left, she walked across the
street to a public phone located in a medical office building.
She decided not to have a phone installed in the
new condo because she was afraid her husband would be
able to trace that number and get her address. So
a few days earlier, Anne had requested help from two

(08:59):
women she trusted completely. When was her niece Katherine Kathy Ryan,
the daughter of her older sister. The other was her
closest friend, Dianne Wood. So Kathy lived with Anne and
John for three months back in nineteen eighty eight, and
they still talked in person or over the phone at
least once a week. Anne shared the details of her

(09:19):
marriage problems with Kathy, and several things about John bothered Kathy.
Among the things that she'd observed or heard about from Anne,
Kathy especially despised John's control over the family finances. Frugality
was one thing, but John's was just ridiculous. She hated
how he ordered Anne and the kids not to flush

(09:41):
the toilets every time they used the bathroom in order
to reduce the water bill, and he would bundle up
all the household trash, put it in his car and
take it to dispose of in dumpsters at supermarkets or
strip malls, just to avoid paying for a trash pickup.
So he was very cheap and he could be pretty
test about it as well. So Anne told her sister

(10:03):
Emmy and her niece Kathy about a male friend named
Bob Russell who lived near San Francisco. She had known
him when they both attended Morningside High School, where they
graduated back in nineteen sixty six. The friendship had rekindled
and they'd been communicating for months. A few times Anne
called Bob from Cathy's house. In early March, Anne had

(10:25):
asked Kathy if she could put her down as a
reference in the application to rent a condo at Peachland.
She also used Kathy's home address to get a credit
card so that nothing would be sent to the house
on Fortuna Drive.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
So.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
Knowing that the end of her marriage would impact her children,
Anne took steps to prevent the trauma from affecting Glenn
and Caitlyn in school. Anne consulted with both of their teachers,
and at a parent teacher conference in March, Anne told
Caitlyn's teacher that she planned to leave her husband and
take the children with her. So the kids, she said,

(10:59):
didn't yet know of it, nor did her husband. This
was just her plan at that point.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
That's the plan. Deanne Wood. Anne's best friend had known
for nearly two years about the failing Race marriage. She
had heard about John's frugal ways. He would carry in
a used styrofoam cup with a fast food places logo,
then pretended he had paid as he refilled it. He
wouldn't allow his family to use air conditioning, even on
the hottest days. Instead, he told him go lie down

(11:25):
in the garage floor it's cool concrete.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Oh my god, that's pretty bad.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah. And that's the amount of money that you're going
to save by doing stuff like that is chicken feed.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, it's not a lot.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
But Anne could be frugal as well. They lived in
one of the nicest neighborhoods in Valencia. Their house was
paid for, but it wasn't well furnished. Her clothes were
neat and clean, and she always looked nice, but she
wouldn't spend money on designer clothing. They didn't have fancy
cars like a lot of people did in Vista Ridge,
but they had reliable cars. They had saved some money

(11:58):
and made good investments. Like I said, they'd paid off
their house. That's a big accomplishment, it is.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:04):
It was more impressive considering that John didn't earn a
big sally as a sheriff's deputy or by teaching, and
Anne had left her teaching job soon after they married
so that she could be a full time mom.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
Well, a serious and more personal issue really undermined Anne
and John's marriage. John made her have sex with him
every single night. He demanded that she go to bed
at the same time he did, and submit to whatever
he wanted. She hated feeling used and dreaded this nightly
humiliation To avoid his temper, though she went along with

(12:36):
it just about every night, even though she hated it.
The sexual duties would come to an end, but Anne
was worried that finances would be tight until after the
final divorce settlement, so she wouldn't be able to take
the kids out much anymore. So she decided to make
sure they had some entertainment, so she bought them a
VCR and a TV to have in the condo. Anne

(12:58):
had signed a six month lease at PA and this
was concerning to Anne's friend Dianne. Anne kept telling people
that she was afraid of John, so the decision to
live there was kind of hard to understand. The residents
parked in car ports there and there was no gated entry,
so John could easily drive through any time looking for
her car. Dianne told Anne she was foolish to move

(13:21):
so close, but Anne had selected Peachland so the kids
wouldn't have to change schools. But still, Deane thought John
would go searching for her when he got home that
evening and he would see that she had moved out.
So what Anne did is She planned to leave her
car in a supermarket parking lot on her first night
there and had Dianne drop them at the condo.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, it's still some point. She's going to be parking
at the condo, right, and it's only two miles from
her home.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
I know.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
Well, I can see that she'd want to be able
to have her kids so that they could see their father,
but he's too close.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Well yeah, especially if you're afraid. But Anne told Diane
that she had left a Dear John letter for her husband.
She'd put it in an envelope and put it on
the kitchen table for him to find. She was determined
not to talk to him until after he had read
this letter, and she wanted him to be served with
the divorce papers at seven o'clock that night. Her plan
was that he would find out she had left by

(14:18):
reading the letter, and then as he was reading it,
the doorbell would ring and he would be served with
the divorce papers. But unfortunately, the divorce papers were not
served to John until the following evening, April nineteenth. So
at the condo, Anne did her best to make it
nice for the kids. She and Joanne would share one
of the two bedrooms in bath while Glen and Caitlin

(14:39):
shared the other one with their own separate bathroom. That afternoon,
she left to pick the kids up from their schools,
and she talked with the teachers to let them know
that Joanne, Glen, and Caitlin would be absent the next day,
which was a Friday, So on the way back to
the condo, she stopped at a park to prepare them
for this main major change in their lives. So Anne

(15:00):
already knew about the move, but Glenn and Caitlin were
surprised that they'd be living in a different place. For dinner,
Anne took them to Taco Bell, where they ran into
a church member and while they ate, Anne told her
about the move and her fears of retaliation by John.
Then she stopped at a payphone and called Dianne Wood
to request another favor from her. She asked her friend

(15:22):
to drive over to the shopping mall and meet her
at the grocery store. As Anne had mentioned earlier, she
wanted to leave her car there so John wouldn't be
able to find it at the Peachland condo at Carports
that night, so Dianne did as she was asked That evening,
Anne paced nervously and watch TV with the kids, and
at eight o'clock she told them to stay while she
went to a public phone to call their dad. She

(15:45):
believed that the notice of her filing for divorce had
been served about an hour earlier, as she had requested.
It took two tries to reach John, and Anne learned
that her plans were already falling apart. The divorce notice
hadn't been served, and on Friday morning, Deane drove over
to the condo to pick up Anne and the kids
to take them to the parking lot where they'd left

(16:06):
Anne's minivan. The three kids were at home since Anne
had kept them out of school for the day and
she didn't want John to pick them up and ask
them questions about the move. Anne told her friend about
the phone call to John on Thursday night. He hadn't
answered on her first try, but she dialed the number
again and this time he did answer, so.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
According to what Anne told Dianne, she and John talked
for a long time and says she has a bit
shocked at his mild reaction. He didn't seem as angry
as she expected. It was only a couple of times
that he raised his voice at her. The telephone conversation
An told her friend was interrupted by the medical center janitor,
who told her that he had to close and lock
up the doors. So she hung up and walked about

(16:48):
a block to peach Land School, where she used an
outdoor public phone and called John back. And his calm
demeanor made her feel more comfortable. So she's thinking, I
was not taking us as poorly as I thought he was.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
I think she kind of was, but I don't think
that he really was that calm about it. I think
he was hiding his feelings at that point, because, at
least to her friend Diane, his reaction was not consistent
with a man who'd come home and found his family
had left him. Although Anne described his reaction as reasonable,
Diane suggested that he was probably camouflaging his anger, so

(17:21):
she warned Anne not to let down her guard with
him at all. Anne mentioned that she and the kids
planned to spend the weekend doing some fun things together.
Maybe they would go to six Flags Magic Mountain, which
was only about four miles north of their condo at Peachland,
or she might take them to Malibu Beach, a one
hour drive through the Santa Monica Mountains. She told Dianne

(17:42):
and other friends that she probably would not attend the
local church service on Sunday, April twenty first.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
There, let's do some backstory on his folks. Anne was
born in Hawaii, but before she was born, her family
had spent time in at Japanese in tournament camp. Her
big brother earned his diploma from Hilo High School in
nineteen fifty two. That's when Anne was only three years old.
Anne learned early on how to write, and she expressed
herself well. By the time she entered school, Anne had

(18:32):
a strong interest in movies and actors. She began writing
to popular stars and received autographed photos of them in
the mail. In the late nineteen fifties, the family moved
to Los Angeles for her father's work. Anne did well
in school and she had exceptional writing skills. She attended
Los Angeles High School. She was popular and easily made friends.
One of them was Bob Russell, a quiet, intelligent kid

(18:55):
who admired Anne greatly. He saw her as one of
the most positive people he knew. Intelligence and compassion for
other people also impressedent to Bob. They just clipped almost effortless.
They had a few dates because of mutual interests and
a long friendship, but apparently it didn't get too romantic.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Now. Anne got her Bachelor of Arts degree at California
State University, and she dated a young man and brought
him home to dinner a few times, but that relationship
didn't last. Instead, through him, Anne met a quiet, twenty
four year old man, John Lewis Race. John was handsome
with thick dark hair, brown eyes, and a mustache. They

(19:32):
had many interests in common, including the teaching profession that
Ann planned to enter. John already had a job teaching
the sixth grade at Tibbie Elementary School in Compton So
John had attended college in New Jersey, but came to
the West Coast to earn his teaching credential at California
State University. He seemed to really enjoy teaching, but he

(19:53):
also had an interest in law enforcement. Soon after graduation
from cal State Long Beach, Ann found a job teaching
fourth grade at Ramona Elementary School. Then the two got
married on July first, nineteen seventy two, at a chapel
in Hollywood. Anne and John had made a long list
of plans for their future together. Their goals included financial security.

(20:14):
That was a big one, and travel was their next priority.
Since they had the summers off from teaching, they took
a road trip to the East that summer and they
visited his parents. Then once back in southern California, Anne
and John settled into an apartment and resumed their jobs
as teachers that September. John began thinking of changing his

(20:35):
career then and decided to work in law enforcement. So
he went through interviews, took written tests, and passed the
medical exam to join the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Eighteen weeks at the Sheriff's Trading Academy and Regional Services
Center followed that. Beginning assignments for new deputies usually involved
duty at county jails.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
John got an early assignment guarding prisoners at a correctational facility.
The jail is only about ten miles from Valencia. In
July nineteen seventy six, Anne gave birth to their first child,
a girl named jo Anne. John and Anne combined their
given names to form hers Joanne's birth and an Anne's
professional teaching career. She and John preferred to give the
baby a full time mother. John salary with the Los

(21:18):
Angeles Sheriff's Department paid the bills, and with careful management,
they saved toward the purchase of a home. John's career
with the LASD gave him assignments in several locations. He
worked his way up to sergeant and earned an appointment
as a trainer.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah. Along the way, John set a goal in his
life to become a millionaire, and that decision was likely
why he developed such frugal habits. He went from just
plain frugal to extremist behavior. Anne knew about her husband's
compulsive saving, but he never shared his objectives with anyone else.
He was a real loaner. He wouldn't socialize with adults,

(21:54):
but was pretty good with kids. Anne socialized, but the
couple rarely socialized with other couples. Other people seemed to
be uncomfortable with John when it came to participating in
games at the family barbecue or a birthday celebration, John
usually made himself scarce, and if he did agree to
join in, he made everyone else miserable because all he

(22:14):
would do is complain and argue.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
Well, so it seems that John has a bit of
a social misfit.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, I think he wasn't the most social, that's for sure.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
Yeah, Well, I can see not being social but complaining
and arguing, don't Well, yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
I guess he couldn't play a game without trying to win,
one of those types of people.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
Ann and John had a son, Glenn, born in nineteen
seventy nine, and their daughter, Caitlin, was born in nineteen
eighty three, and nothing meant more to Ann than her children.
She gave them unconditional love and took an active role
in their education. She celebrated her thirty sixth birthday on
January seventeenth, nineteen eighty five. Other than some growing discontent
with her marriage, most aspects of Anne's life gave her happiness,

(22:57):
especially with her kids.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
So by nineteen eighty five, John Race had worked twelve
years as a deputy sheriff, so he was posted for
a while with the Malibu Hidden Hills Station in Agura,
at the western end of Los Angeles County near I
one O one. His unit served a blend of residential, rural, mountain,
beach and recreational areas from the valley to the beach.

(23:20):
But a weird thing happened there in September of that year,
in the watch commander's office, there was a safe that
contained money that had been seized on drug arrests, along
with cash that had been posted for bail. A thief
took three envelopes filled with about six thousand dollars, and
it seemed odd that the robber took only that amount
when more than one hundred thousand dollars inside the safe

(23:43):
could have easily been stolen. Investigators suspected then that it
was one of the officers who might be involved, but
no one could find evidence to accuse John Race. Dee
Ann Wood would remember that she heard about the incident,
and she was sitting with John and Anne in their
family room when it came up on the TV news
that there had been a robbery at the Malibu sheriff station.

(24:05):
They thought it was probably an inside job, so Dianne joked, oh, hey, John,
where are you guys going on your vacation this year?
Are you getting some new furniture too? Ha ha ha.
But suddenly Dion saw Anne standing behind her husband, waving
her hands kind of frantically and mouthing no, no, no.
Anne's reaction kind of stunned her, and she immediately changed

(24:27):
the subject. Later, when she left, Anne followed her out
to the car and told her she didn't know if
John was involved or not. After that, everyone avoided bringing
it up.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
Sure, why would you bring it up. Keep peace in
the family if they're investigating it, the County Sheriff's Department
will do that.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Well, yes, but it seems like Anne thought he did it.
It does my point.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
Does sound like she thought he did it.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
And it's also curious that that same month, John retired
from his position as a sergeant with the Los Angeles
County Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 3 (24:58):
Well, that sets us some flags.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah, he returned to teaching in Compton, but even with
a reduced salary, John still had his financial goals and
he was sticking to them. So they paid off the
house on Fortuna Drive early. They bought a three bedroom
condo at the Peachland Complex, rented it out, and then
sold it for a profit. The front yard at their
house was landscaped because the city required it, but John

(25:22):
refused to spend any money to landscape the backyard. Now
that bothered Anne because she wanted to be able to
use it to have company over or have the kids
play with their friends, but he refused to do it,
he said it wasn't necessary. So they pretty much just
lived with this awful dirt backyard in this beautiful neighborhood.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
Well, he would have left the front yard just a
pilot dirt if he could have.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
For sure, it was the neighborhood association would not allow it.
That's what I was trying to get to now. Anne
also had a home based business called Monday Flowers, and
before dawn each Monday morning, she drove to downtown Los
Angeles and bought fresh flowers at a wholesale market, and
back home she arranged them in vases and made personal
deliveries to banks, doctors' offices, and some other businesses. So

(26:07):
this earned her about three hundred dollars a month, but
some of her friends thought she just did it to
get away from John. She might have, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
Back in nineteen sixty six, when Anne graduated high school,
she made an agreement with her friend Bob Russell to
stay in contact, which they did. They kept in touch
for years, corresponding by mail, even after Russell moved to
the San Francisco Bay area. There he had a girlfriend
and he fathered a child. Meanwhile, Anne met and married
John Race and the letters between Russell and Anne stopped.

(26:39):
At Christmas time nineteen eighty eight, Bob Russell wondered about
his former school friend, found her address and sent her
a card. She responded and the exchange of mail started
up again. To avoid trouble at home, and gave Bob
the post office box number she used for her flower business.
Threw their letters over the next twelve months, and and
Bob still had a lot in common. She wanted to

(27:02):
see him in person, so in January nineteen ninety she
told John she would like to go to San Francisco
for the weekend and even mentioned plans to visit her
old high school friend Bob Russell and his four year
old daughter, and asked John if you would mind now.
After some discussion, he agreed since she would be taking
her five year old daughter, Caitlin with her. Then Anne
asked if it would be okay for her and Caitlyn

(27:23):
to stay at Bob's house. John wasn't in favor of
that idea. The visit with Bob went well. He and
Anne talked about old times, caught up on their lives
over the past twenty four years. They watched as their
little girls played together, After returning home, Anne couldn't shake
the feelings she had for Bob Russell. She really wanted
to see him again, and they exchanged frequent letters with

(27:45):
increasing levels of affection and attraction.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, so it was becoming romantic.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
Sure, sounds like it.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
It was. With Bob Russell constantly on her mind, Anne
found an excuse to see him again when the pta
to which she belonged duld the San Francisco Convention that spring.
Her announcement to John that she planned to attend angered
him and they ended up arguing, but she stood her
ground and she insisted and bought her own ticket. Anne

(28:12):
went alone on the trip. Mutual feelings of love between
Anne and Bob grew. They had romantic dinners by the bay.
They talked and talked, and they ended up consummating their
feelings by sleeping together for the first time. Anne did
tell Bob about her unhappiness in her marriage, explaining that
she did not love her husband and she felt trapped

(28:32):
by him. When Anne returned home, she and Bob continued
to be in contact every day by phone or mail.
They began to discuss the possibility of spending the rest
of their lives together. She would find a way to leave.
John and Bob wanted to make sure that their relationship
was not the main reason for her wanting to divorce
her husband, but Anne assured him that her marriage had

(28:54):
been beyond repair for years. Anne that she had started
thinking about separation along time ago. Bob made a commitment
then to wait for her, even if it took years.
That summer, Bob traveled to Valencia and Anne met him
at a hotel within a mile of her home. This
was within sight of the McDonald's restaurant, where Anne sometimes

(29:15):
bought fast food for her children. Anne's best friend Dianne,
soon learned about Bob, but she didn't know all of
the details. On Thanksgiving, Anne drove to San Diego for
another meeting, and Bob took her to meet his parents.
So it was getting serious. Sure is the future looked
bright for them, but they had no way of knowing

(29:36):
that it would end abruptly.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
One of the goals Ann and John had set for
themselves involved travel, but their trips were done as much
on the cheap as possible. John usually arranged for overnight
stays through a home exchange system. He set strict rules
about purchasing souvenirs. Before taking his family to Paris, he
told them if they wanted T shirts that read Paris,
they should buy them at a Target store in the

(30:00):
actual city.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
Now, what's the point of that. You can buy cheap
T shirts in Paris. It's a very tourist deep city, sure,
and it's not really a souvenir if you buy it
at the local target.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
Dianne would recall one example of this that really shocked.
She was taking them to the airport to go to Europe. Glenn,
the middle child, had his flutecase with him, and she
asked him why he was taking it to Europe. He
said that his dad told him that if he played
his instrument on a street corner with a case open
in front of him, people might throw money into it
and now would help pay for the trip. Then, when

(30:30):
they came back, Dianne asked Glenn if he had made
any money, and he said he had, so.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
I could kind of see this. If the kid wanted
to do it for some spending money of his own
to tell him to do it to help pay for
the trip, that's just it seems above and beyond anything reasonable.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
Well, he seems like the type that would take the money,
oh absolutely made yep, and say good, this is towards
the trip.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Uh huh he did. So Anne was beginning to find
John's extreme frugality very annoying. Eventually she chose to try
with her aunt Kay rather than with John. In nineteen
eighty nine, she traveled to Russia with her Aunt Kay,
and in nineteen ninety they traveled to Hawaii in Japan. So,
while shopping in Honolulu and bought a black and gold

(31:14):
ring for herself, and she wrote a letter to Bob
Russell and told him about what she had bought. So
in this letter, she wrote, when I put that ring on,
it will not be or signify a wedding band to me.
It's just a ring, even though I'll wear it on
my left ring finger. In fact, because it will say
sweetheart in Hawaiian, I will think about you every time

(31:35):
I feel it or glance at it. I will visualize
both of us being together and happy in the future,
which I strongly believe and affirm, So it will be
that way in reality. So she was definitely in love.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
Yeah, yeah, I know she knew this guy from high
school growing up. Yep, but they haven't been together for
twenty some years.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
She's fallen hard for him, she is, and you know
sometimes when you know, you know, well, I can see that, yeah. Well.
Anne showed this ring to Diane, who was concerned about
the risk of her wearing it. Another item of jewelry
also concerned Diane. A necklace with a sheriff's star had
been worn on Ann's neck for a very long time,
but Bob Russell had sent her a gold chain with

(32:18):
a sapphire pendant. Anne began wearing it underneath the neckline
of her blouse. She loved the gift from Bob, and
one day she told Diane, I'm going to start wearing
it on the outside and see if John even notices.
Dianne advised her against that, but then a few days later,
Diane saw the necklace hanging outside of Anne's blouse. Anne
told Diane that John had not noticed it, but Diane

(32:40):
said he likely did, even though he didn't say anything.
She said, please be careful. She just didn't want her
friend to get hurt. Speaking about it later, Dianne said
that she believed that John had noticed the necklace. He
must have known it came from Bob. Where else would
it have come from? He monitored all of Anne's spending.
This chain and Anne's normal cautious behavior didn't make sense

(33:03):
to Dianne, but she did understand that Anne was unhappy
in her marriage and she was in love with Bob.
Anne used public telephones to call Bob, hoping that John
wouldn't catch her doing it, and she told Diane once
that John had driven by, but she didn't think he
had seen her at the phone. Dianne just shook her
head and said, Anne, he knows, but Anne just didn't

(33:24):
believe her. Anne saw Bob as a different kind of
man than John, and the idea of divorce was really
growing in her mind. So, in her usual methodical approach
to problems, she began researching divorce. Then she consulted a
divorce lawyer in March of nineteen ninety one, and that's
when she started putting money away for her new life.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
In early April, Anne's oldest daughter, Joanne, had a close
friend named Kristin, who was the same age as Joanne.
Kristin and Joanne spoke often on the phone. Kristin was
at the house a lot, and she went on outings
with Joanne and her mother in front of Kristin one
day and told Kristen's mother that when Kristin and jo
Anne were in her house on Fortuna, they were not
to tell John the location of a condo because she

(34:07):
feared for her life.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
Now that's quite a statement to make, Yes, it is.
You could say he's going to be pissed off, he's
going to take the money, he's going to do that
or this, But to fear for your life is just
a whole different thing.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
Well, in my unprofessional examination of this, I think when
people say they are fearing for their life if they
leave somebody, they're serious. Absolutely, Yeah, just a histriotic way
of putting it.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Not usually I think reading for saying that. Yeah, I
think it needs to be taken seriously. So in the
first or second week of April, Anne told Glenn's teacher
that there was about to be an upheaval in her
family and she wanted to be called if Glenn's behavior
changed at all. She also reminded Joanne around this time
not to say anything to her father about their move.

(34:53):
So that's really tough on the kids that they have
to keep a secret from their dad. Yes, I understand
why they had to, but that is tough. On April twelfth,
Anne sent a postcard to Bob that read, d day
is soon. Will give you day to day account, just
to let you know that I'm okay. On Saturday, April thirteenth, John,
Anne and the three children went to attend a wedding

(35:14):
in San Diego. Her aunt Kay was at the wedding,
and Anne gave her the new ring she had bought
for herself in Hawaii so that Kay could take it
to a jeweler to have it seized. The next day,
Anne returned from San Diego, signed the lease on the condo,
paid the rent, and picked up her key on Monday,
April fifteenth, and began secretly moving some of her belongings

(35:36):
into the condo. She made sure that Diane and Kathy
had Bob Russell's phone number so that they could contact
him if anything happened to her. So, if you're making arrangements,
if something happened to you, you are afraid it is,
you genuinely have a problem, You sure do. She told
Dianne that she'd be moving the children into the condo
that Thursday, and she planned to pick them up after

(35:57):
school that day, tell them about the divorce, and take
them to the condo. She planned to keep them with
her on Friday because she was afraid that Bob would
become violent when he was served with the divorce papers.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
Now, there's no history of physical violence, is there not?

Speaker 2 (36:12):
Against her? But I believe there was a history of
throwing things and threatening.

Speaker 3 (36:17):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Yeah. Plus I don't know how far this sexual abuse
went as far as making her have sex. Was there ry?
Quite possibly?

Speaker 3 (36:26):
Right?

Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
On Tuesday, April sixteenth, Anne told Pastor Thorpe that she
had rented a condo near the family's Fortuna house so
that the kids would not have to change schools. That night,
Anne talked about her plans at the regular monthly meeting
of the women's church circle, with what was described by
the other women as a very frightened demeanor and even

(36:48):
as the members of the group to pray for her.
She's concerned about the impact the divorce would have on
her children, and she said that John had a violent temper,
that he struck out at objects in the house, he
owned guns, and he had threatened to kill her if
she left him. She planned to keep her new address
secret from him and is planning to take the children
to another church that Sunday. She knew that it would

(37:09):
be safer to move away from the area, but she
didn't want to disrupt a children's school year. She told
the group that John was planning to murder her. He
would sit in a dark room in the house and
tell her he's planning a perfect crime.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
Well, that's upsetting it, sure is. I just don't know
how she thought she would be able to keep that
location a secret for very long.

Speaker 3 (37:28):
Well, that's one thing.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
She didn't have a restraining order, and they're his children,
so it's very complicated.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
So she'd listen in some proximity to her old.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
House, Yeah, within a mile or two.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
So he'll probably figure out pretty easily where she is.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
Well, right, and what are the kids going to do
if he keeps asking them? How long would they be
able to keep it up?

Speaker 3 (37:50):
You know, not that long? No, So I think I'd
be looking for some police guidance or something.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
Yeah, but you know that's not easy. There are plenty
of women that go to the police in the same happens. Yeah,
it's just there doesn't seem to be a good way
to go about it.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
Really.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
So after that church meeting, another woman asked Anne if
she thought that John was really capable of murder. Anne
looked at her with fear in her eyes and said,
he told me he would kill me and they would
never find my body, so just remember that statement. Then
the next day, she told the pastor that she was
nervous because John had threatened to kill her. So April

(38:49):
eighteenth was moving day, and John called the principal of
the school where he taught and told him that Anne
had left him and taken the children with her. He
said he needed some time off of work in order
to deal with the marital situation. Strangely, he asked the
principal do you think I'm the kind of guy that
would be violent? Do you think I'm a mean person?
Do you think I'm the kind of person who would

(39:11):
hurt somebody? And the principal answered no to all of
these questions, but he thought it was pretty weird, and
then he did grant John the time off. But on
the day that Anne moved out, John tried to find
out her new address from his neighbor and from the
moving company. Then he called the pastor and arranged for
a counseling session that weekend for both of them. Then

(39:32):
on Friday, Anne kept the children out of school and
took them to the beach. That day, she spoke with
Bob Russell, she spoke with her attorney, and she spoke
with Diane and another woman friend. She seemed relieved and
looking forward to the future. Anne called her neighbor and friend,
Brenda George, who had children the same age as Anne's,
and Anne told Brenda about the separation and asked her

(39:55):
please not to tell John where the condo was located.
Brenda drove to the and spoke with Anne in person,
and Anne told her that she was afraid of John,
but that she was still determined to leave him and
she was doing everything she could to make it a
smooth transition for the children. So John was served with
the divorce papers on the same day. On Saturday, April twentieth,

(40:17):
Anne took Joe, Anne and Glen to Magic Mountain while
Caitlin went to Sea World with her Brownie Troop. Anne's
niece Kathy, visited the condo around four thirty p m.
And Anne was only partially unpacked. She seemed happy and
optimistic about the future. She continued to park her minivan
down the street and planned to return the new VCR

(40:38):
because it didn't work. She said that the children had
spoken with their dad on the phone and she had
agreed to meet with him and Pastor Thorpe. Even though
it was one of the last things she wanted to do,
She did make plans to drop off the children with
John after church that Sunday. An that evening, Anne and
John met with the pastor for counseling. John wanted to

(40:59):
say the marriage, but Anne was sure that she wanted
a divorce, so on Sunday, Anne took the children to
a different church. Then she dropped them at the Fortuna
House without getting out of her van or even turning
off the engine. After she called Bob from a payphone
and told him how happy she was that she had
left John. Bob and Anne talked about plans to take

(41:22):
their children to Disneyland on June second, but this was
the last time Bob ever spoke to Anne.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
Anne also called her sister and brothers that same day.
She is relieved and happy and adamant about sticking to
her decision to leave John, but she was willing to
meet with John and the pastor at his request. She
planned to go back to the Fortuna House the next
day to pay the workers for sentile work, but she
wanted to leave the house before John got home, and

(41:49):
planned also to visit her mother and siblings in Los
Angeles on Wednesday, April twenty fourth, but that Sunday.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
The twenty first, Anne and John had another counseling session
with Pastor three. John still wanted Anne to come back
and Anne still wanted a divorce. There was no mention
of any trip. They had another counseling session scheduled for
the following Thursday. Pastor Thorpe was even concerned for Anne's
safety and he told them that they should not be

(42:16):
alone together after this session. When Anne drove Pastor Thorpe home,
she told him that she was confident about her decision
to divorce John, and at around eight pm, Anne's neighbor Brenda,
saw Anne pick up the children again without getting out
of her van.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
On Monday, April twenty second, Anne took the children to
school in the morning. She kissed Caylyn goodbye, as show
as dead, Caitlyn would never see her mother again. Caylen
brought her teacher a note from Anne that said Anne
would be picking up Caitlyn after school every day that
week except Monday, on Monday, Caitlyn had after school activities
with a Brownie troop.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Now, just imagine being that young and your mother just
disappears overnight. I know you just wouldn't even be able
to understand what's going.

Speaker 3 (43:01):
On, not even beginning to be close to that.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
No, So later that morning, Anne closed out a joint
certificate of deposit account that was worth over thirteen thousand dollars.
At Anne's requests, the bank gave her a check for
three thousand dollars payable to herself, a check for over
eighty nine hundred dollars payable to John, and thirteen hundred
dollars in cash. Anne then went to another bank and

(43:26):
deposited the three thousand dollars check into the account of
her floral business. But she would never withdraw that money,
it would just sit there. After leaving the bank, Anne
drove to the supermarket where she bought groceries. Inside of
the store, Anne got milk and ingredients to make the
pizza that she planned to make for dinner for herself
and the children. Back in the condo, she put the

(43:47):
milk in the small refrigerator that her niece Kathy had
given her. Then she laid a package of Boboly pizza
crust on the counter alongside a jar of pizza sauce.
At two thirty that afternoon, Anne arrived at the Fortuna
house and gave John the cashier's check for his share
of the CD, along with another check for three thousand

(44:08):
dollars to pay her part of the tile work being
done in the kitchen. Then she left quickly. Within a
few minutes, she made a deposit in her Monday Flowers account,
and her next stop was the elementary school in high school,
where she picked up Glenn and Joanne. Anne drove to
the Valencia Hills Clubhouse, where Caitlyn's Brownie troop usually met

(44:28):
every Monday. She got out of her car and walked
towards the entrance, but she noticed a parent waving to
her in the parking lot. His daughter was one of
Caitlyn's classmates and a fellow Brownie, and he told Anne
that the troop had gone bowling, so missing her youngest
daughter didn't bother Anne because she knew that her friend Carol,
whose child also belonged to the troop, would bring her

(44:49):
home as soon as the bowling ended. So, as transportation
chairman for the brownies. Carol frequently gave Caitlin a ride
home that was nothing unusual.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
April twenty second, nineteen ninety one as loom large in
Joanne's mind. She would recall getting out of school about
two point thirty, being picked up by her mother and
going over to the Fortuna house. They're going to have
homemade pizza for dinner that night, but first her mom
told her that she needed to talk to her dad.
They're going to have a talk, and Glenn and Joe

(45:20):
Anne were told to go in the house and wait.
Don Peterson, a retired neighbor on the opposite side of
Fortuna Drive, had been curious since he saw the moving
van four days earlier, so he kept an eye out
to see what would happen next.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Yeah, kind of a nosy neighbor.

Speaker 3 (45:34):
Yeah, he's a guy who knows everything is going on.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
But you know, in this kind of a case, it
can be good.

Speaker 3 (45:40):
Oh, I think is always good.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
Yeah, I really don't mind.

Speaker 3 (45:43):
Have someone watching.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
So in the afternoon on that Monday, Peterson noticed Anne's
white mini van pull into their driveway and stop about
halfway into the garage. He could see Anne in the
driver's seat, and the kids inside, and he watched as
John came out of the house and talked to Anne
through the driver's window. Their conversation lasted about twenty minutes
while the children remained seated inside. Anne's foot never left

(46:07):
the brake pedal because Peterson could see the break lights
on the whole time.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
Yeah Finally he saw Joe Anne and Glenn hop out
of the van and walk into the house. John and
Anne continued to talk about twenty more minutes. According to
joe Anne's memory, the conversation between her parents lasted long
enough for them to get hungry. Even if they went
over to the condo right away, it would take some
time for Anne to prepare the pizza, so Joe Anne

(46:32):
came out of the garage and said she was hungry.
Asking when they were going to eat, Anne said she
would go to the McDonald's, which was less than a
mile away, and bring something back for them. So she
left at about four o'clock, and it would normally take
only a few minutes to get to McDonald's, so usually
she could go to McDonald's, get the food, and get
back ten fifteen minutes very quick. The cake yep, but

(46:54):
in Peterson's memory of that afternoon, Anne backed out and
drove downhill toward the cul Deescant exit. Still watching, Peterson
saw John go into the house through the front door. Inside,
John told his kids that he was going to McDonald's
to get them some food too, and that sounds weird,
but it's their dad, so yeah. Meanwhile, Anne drove only

(47:16):
about three houses away and parked in a driveway where
another resident, Tom Deardorf, stood outside. Deerdorf's daughter and Caitlin
were the same age and often played together. Joe Anne
sometimes baby sat with her like other neighbors. Deardorf had
been surprised when a moving band showed up at the
race home a few days earlier, and Deardorf wondered if

(47:37):
Joanne was still planning to keep an appointment that Monday
night to babysit for them. So, as he washed one
of the cars that he restored as a hobby, he
saw Anne leaving and he waved her over. Anne pulled
partly into his driveway and Deerdorf asked about joe Anne
babysitting that night. At seven thirty. Anne said she'd be there.
Then she told him that she was on her way

(47:57):
to get her kids some food at the McDonald's. This
exchange between the two of them lasted only a few
seconds before Anne pulled out again to leave up the street.
Peterson was still watching, and then something else caught his eye.
He saw John coming out of the garage in a
big hurry. He got in his car, backed out, and
drove down the street the same direction that Anne was going,

(48:20):
and Peterson saw Anne's van as it was just rounding
the curb, and John was right behind her in his car.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
So after both parents had left, Joanne and Glenn kept busy.
While waiting for something to eat, Glenn played Nintendo. Joanne
phoned one of her close friends, Kristen, a classmate who
often spent the night with her in the race home.
After they talked for a while then hung up, Joan
felt like it was taking a real long time for
her parents to return. Anne and John had been gone

(48:48):
for about an hour when Carol, driving four of the
browdies home from the bowling trip, dropped Kylen off at
the Fortuna house. As they pulled up to the curb,
Caitlin said, I don't live here anymore. I live in
a condo now, but unaware of it's move Carol left
and said, oh, come on, Caitlyn. Then she watches Caitlyn
climbed out, walked to her front door, open it, and
waved to confirm her as a family member inside.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Yeah. Caitlyn would later recall being distressed about her parents'
absence that time, and she stood outside near the air
conditioner and cried. The exact time that John returned to
the house would be the subject of confusion and a
lot of controversy later on. When asked later, Joanne at
first guessed he was gone only a few minutes, but
there were other sources that said it might have been

(49:31):
anywhere from two to four hours. So when the front
door finally opened, John entered the house alone, watching Glenn
play his Nintendo games in the family room. Joanne looked up,
expecting to see her mother come in with some bags
of hot food. Instead, John offered them a small little
sack of cold French fries. So it puzzled them when

(49:53):
John said, your mother said she's going away for a
while to think things over. He didn't answer when they
asked when she would be back either. Joe Anne called
her friend Kristen back to tell her that her father
had finally returned and that the food was cold. So
at Kristin's house, her mother thought there was trouble, judging
by her daughter's expression, so she asked Kristin and she

(50:14):
told her that something weird was going on. It would
be a long time though, before the full implication would
become apparent. The fries did not satisfy the racist children's appetites.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
Probably not no.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
They'd expected to eat pizza for dinner, so John told
them he would treat them at a nearby restaurant. So
they all got into his honda at about seven o'clock
and drove about a mile before turning into a strip mall,
where John led them into a pizza parlor. After they ate,
they returned to the Fortuna house. All three children wondered
where their mother was and why she would decide to

(50:47):
take a trip out of the blue without even saying
goodbye to them. This was not like her at all.
Time passed and Anne still did not return. John told
the kids that they would sleep at his house, but
this only added to their ing ziety. They would need
a change of clothing for school on Tuesday, and everything
they owned was at the condo. Their school books, along

(51:08):
with personal things were inside backpacks that were lying in
the back of Anne's minivan, but John just kind of
blew it off. He assured them that everything would be
taken care of. Yeah, he's got the plan, but the
kids are worried. Even the younger one just has a
bad feeling, even not knowing. You know.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
Now. Later that night, over at the Peachland condo, managers
William and Cheryl Fret, were concerned about Anne and her kids.
They had agreed to make some small repairs in the
condo and I tried all afternoon to get access. Long
after dark, there still were no lights on in any
of the windows, so the Frets believe that Anne would
have mentioned any plans to be away overnight, and they

(51:43):
wented to what was going wrong. So, getting ready for
school on Tuesday morning, Joanna and Glenn wore the same
clothes I had worn on Monday, and John called the neighbor, Brenda.
George explained that Caitlin had only her brownie uniform and
asked if he could borrow an outfit for Brenda's from
Brenda's daughter for Kate to wear it to school that day,
And when Brenda walked over with the outfit, John asked

(52:05):
if she would pick Caylen up from school that afternoon
and for the rest of the week. So Brenda was
confused about this whole situation, but said that she'd be
happy to help.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
Joanne was stressed out that whole day, and that evening
she decided to call Pastor Thorpe from an upstairs bedroom
where her father couldn't hear her talking. When Thorpe answered,
Joanne explained that she was worried. She couldn't believe that
her mother had not come back to the house to
pick up the three of them and take them back
to the condo. Thorpe tried to reassure Joanne, telling her

(52:36):
that he expected to see Anne on Thursday evening at
a counseling appointment with both parents. Buddy said he would
check to see if she had returned to the condo
that same night, So Thorpe drove to Peachland and knocked
on the door of Anne's unit shortly after nine o'clock.
No lights were on and no one answered. He wrote
on the back of his business card, Anne, please give

(52:57):
me a call when you return. Joanne was concerned about you.
I will not reveal this address, so Thorpe, stuck it
in the sliding glass store and left. Glenn needed a
change of clothing by Wednesday morning, so John turned to
Brenda George again and borrowed some of her son's clothing.
A short time before she planned to pick up Caitlyn
from school, Brenda got another strange call from John. He

(53:19):
said he was at a bank in Los Angeles and
would be delayed.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
Now, where's that coming from?

Speaker 2 (53:25):
What's the out doing?

Speaker 4 (53:26):
So?

Speaker 2 (53:26):
A short time before she planned to pick up Caitlyn
from school, Brenda received another mystifying call from John. He
said he was at a bank in Los Angeles and
would be delayed. He asked her to watch Caitlin until
he got home. Brenda knew that John had taken time
off from work that week, so she couldn't understand why
he needed to go all the way to Los Angeles

(53:46):
to do banking. Then he didn't return home until seven
thirty that night, and he gave no explanation for why
he was so late.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
And earlier that afternoon, Joanne, who was tired of wearing
the same skirt and blouse, walked over to the condo
after school. Maybe she could find some clue about her mother.
Joanne found that she could get in through the sliding
glass door by pushing hard near the latch and opening it.
She saw nothing to help reduce her fears about Anne,
so Joanne gathered some clothing for herself and her siblings

(54:15):
to take with her, and as soon as she got
back to the Fortuna house, she saw something that gave
her a bit of hope. On a kitchen table lay

(54:44):
the school books, pens and pencils. Over to one side
of the room. She saw her backpack and Glenn's backpack,
along with her cosmetic case, all of which had been
left in the back of Anne's car. So did this
mean her mother had returned?

Speaker 2 (54:56):
Well, she hoped so, but now.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
So she ran into the living room saw her father
and asked him where the stuff had come from. He
said that Anne had dropped it all off. He added
a brief comment that Anne had said the kids would
prefer to stay with their dad, and Joanne wanted to
know what that meant, but he didn't elaborate well.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
At the most recent counseling session with Pastor Thorpe, Anne
and John had scheduled their next meeting for that Thursday
at four o'clock a few hours beforehand, John called Thorpe
and said that Anne would not be able to come
that night. So this struck Thorpe as pretty odd because
Anne had never been absent or even late for any
of their meetings in the past. If she ever needed

(55:34):
to change an appointment, she called well in advance. Because
of Joanne's concerns and the fact that he hadn't heard
anything from Anne himself, he felt like something was very wrong.
Then it surprised Thorpe even more when John said he
would come alone to the counseling session. He arrived at
the church office close to seven point thirty and their

(55:55):
conversation was about why Anne hadn't shown up, and Thorpe
noticed sweat on John's forehead, as if he'd been involved
in some kind of physical exertion. He also had a
couple of scratches on his face, possibly made by a fingernail.
By Friday morning, several other people were worried about Anne.
Her sister called Brenda George to ask if she had

(56:17):
heard from Anne, and both women felt like something was
really off. Separately, they talked to a few other mutual
friends and none had heard anything from Anne. They asked
Brenda to speak with John and try to get more information,
and Brenda chose to do this over the phone, so
she called John that night at ten o'clock. She told
him that she had spoken to Anne's friends from her

(56:39):
church group and to her sister, and they were all
really concerned because none of them had seen Anne or
heard from Anne. John's answer, though, did nothing to help
with Brenda's worry. He just said that she was all right,
she was safe, don't worry. Then he added, when I
think she may not come back, it makes me want
to cry.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
Oh what's that mean?

Speaker 2 (56:59):
Yeah, So this conversation left Brenda even more unsettled. Now
she's thinking something really happened here Anne's friends.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
Concerning and confusion was shared by Joanne, trying to maintain
hope but fear the worst. She just didn't know what
to do. She couldn't understand why her father would not
tell her where her mother went and when she would
be home. None of this made any sense, and Joanne
started to have some dark suspicions, so she decided to
call her cousin Kathy, and Kathy listened while Joanne explained

(57:28):
what had happened, and after trying to resture the teenager.
Cathy said she would go to the condo to see
if she could figure anything out.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
Yeah, So Kathy drove over to peach Lynn that evening
and looked around the car ports for Anne's minivan at
the condo, She saw no lights were on and found
the doors locked, so even more troubled, she left. Joanne
called Kathy again that Saturday from a girlfriend's house where
she spent the night, and again on Sunday while her
father was with Pastor Thorpe. Kathy agreed to go over

(57:57):
to the condo again that Monday. Throughout that weekend, Brenda
George continued to worry about her neighbors on explained absence.
Anne had gone on trips before, and she had always
discussed it with Brenda in advance. Brenda had taken care
of Caitlin during one of Anne's previous planned trips, and
Anne had provided specific instructions for her, very detailed. Anne's

(58:19):
good friend Dianne spoke briefly with Brenda, but didn't think
much of it at first because the separation had been
in effect for only a few days. It was the
following Sunday, April twenty eighth, when Kathy called her and
asked if she had seen Anne. She had last seen
Anne a week ago that Friday. Kathy said no one
had seen her since that Monday, including her kids. Then

(58:42):
something that Anne had once said made Dianne's mind. Race.
Anne had said that if she really did leave John,
he might kill her. At the same time, it seemed
like it was just an off hand comment when she
said it, but now it was terrifying. Dianne had warned
Anne to be careful and not to underestimate John, but

(59:03):
she had not seen the danger that he might actually
kill Anne. If she hadn't been seen from Monday until Sunday,
there really was no other explanation than she was dead.
There's no way she would have walked away or not
been in contact with her children.

Speaker 3 (59:18):
Oh, absolutely so. Pastor Thorpe held services that Sunday, and
John was in attendance. He announced to his congregation at
their friend Anne Race had separated from her husband and
was away. Thorpe asked for their prayers. Among those in
attendance were Roma Pryor and her husband, both in their
late sixties, and they decided to do more than just

(59:38):
pray for Anne. Having known Anne and John for ten years.
They invited John and the kids to join them for
dinner on Monday night. Roma also spoke to other church
members who agreed to deliver home cooked meals to the
Fortuna house for the rest of the week. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
But the following Monday, John returned to his teaching job
in Compton. His principal welcomed him back and expressed hope
for everything being okay at home.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
So he's only been absent from work for a week.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Yeah, he took a week off.

Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
Now with his wife still missing, whereabouts is totally unknown.
He goes back to work.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
Yes, yes, not a good look an, he's very shady Anne.
While they were speaking, the principal noticed a scratch mark
on the side of John's face, which extended down below
his jaw onto his neck, about two inches long. This
brought to mind the image of what a raking fingernail
might do, but he didn't give that any serious thought.
John had said nothing about his wife being missing to

(01:00:32):
the people at his work, but later that day, at
his appointment with Pastor Thorpe, he did mention that Anne
had called and told him that she had left her
car at a lot called Flyaway in Van Nuys. That
was about fifteen miles south of Valencia. So Flyaway provides
travelers with parking, airline counter services, and bus transportation to

(01:00:54):
the La International Airport. He implied that Anne was off
on a trip because she'd parked, but Thorpe just didn't
believe she would take a trip without telling him.

Speaker 3 (01:01:04):
Around this time, Bob Russell received the last letter Anne
had written to him, which she had mailed the day
she disappeared. In the letter, she discussed how happy she
was to be leaving John and to be involved with Bob.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Yeah Joanne and Glenn had begun making secret trips to
the condo to pick up things they needed and to
leave notes for their mom. There was no sign that
Anne had been back there or that she'd gone traveling.
Her curling iron and cosmetic bag were there, her closet
was filled with her clothing, and the pizza crust and
bottle of sauce remained untouched on the counter. Her calendar

(01:01:38):
was there too, and there were no entries after April
twenty second. On April thirtieth, Pastor Thorpe spoke on the
phone with Bob Russell and Anne's sister Emmy. They were
both very worried about Anne's disappearance, So the next day,
Pastor Thorpe filed a missing person's report. So it's pretty
strange when it's your pastor that has to file the

(01:01:58):
missing person's report, is it?

Speaker 5 (01:02:01):
Yep?

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
So may Second Sergeant John View and Detective Sally Finnen
of the Sheriff's Department's Missing Persons Unit began investigating Anne's disappearance.
Pastor Thorpe spoke with the detectives and went to see
John Race. When Thorpe asked John when he last saw Anne,
he became visibly enraged about the fact that Anne had
left him. He yelled about an argument that the couple

(01:02:24):
had had in the driveway of the Fortuna house. That
same day, Anne's sister Emmy came in from Arizona. She
and Cathy went to see John. When they asked him
where Anne was, he said she'd gone on a trip.
Emmy said she'd discussed her plans with her and they
had not included a trip. But John said that she'd
gone away to think and he wasn't worried, but he

(01:02:46):
did complain about how hard it was for him to
work and take care of the children. He said it
would be easier for him in seven weeks after school
was out for the summer. Now, this was a surprising comment.
Did he mean to say that Anne would still be
on her trip in seven weeks? Nothing was making sense.

Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
Well, that sure doesn't make sense, because it sounds like
he's not expecting.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
Her back exactly. He avoided any more questions that they
had and said that he had seen Anne on Tuesday.
She'd met him and he'd given her some money.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
Then, on May third, Emmy and Cathy went into the
condo and saw everything Anne had left there. This included
all of her toiletries and most of her clothing. Later
that day and May asked John again where Anne was,
and this time he said that he had met her
at Tips restaurant on Tuesday, April twenty third. He says
she'd been wearing her Hawaiian ring. Then he said he

(01:03:39):
had met her again on April twenty fourth, And I
called him on Friday, April twenty sixth to tell him
that a minivan has parked at the flyaway lot.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Now, remember Anne had given that ring to a relative
to have its size, so she wouldn't have been wearing it. Nope, No,
so she's parked at the flyaway lot. John said he'd
gone to the lot and moved the van into the shade,
but Emmy and Cathy knew that Anne never used that lot,
and also there was no shade there. Cathy drove by

(01:04:07):
the lot and she did see the minivan. Then, on
May fourth, John canceled the counseling appointment with Pastor Thorpe.
That afternoon, Thorpe went to see him and again asked
him where Anne was. John told Thorpe that he had
met Anne at a Jack in the Box restaurant and
at Tips restaurant. He said he did not know where
she had gone or when she'd be back. The scratches

(01:04:29):
Thorpe had seen before were still visible, and around this
time Emmy also noticed a pink line scratch on John's hand.

Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
The detective spoke with Joanne several times on May sixth
and the days had followed. When she described the events,
Joanne said that her father had told her that he
had met Anne and given her eight thousand dollars. On
April twenty second, the Missing Person's detectives interviewed John on
May sixth. Contrary to all of the other evidence, John
said that Anne stated that their less counseling appointment as

(01:05:00):
she is still considering if she wanted a divorce.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
Now, remember, that's not what Pastor Thorpe said.

Speaker 3 (01:05:05):
That's not what Pastor Thorpe remembers.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Now, that's not what anyone remembers. Everyone would say that
she was determined to get a divorce.

Speaker 3 (01:05:12):
John also said that later on April twenty first, he
took the children out to a restaurant, and Anne came
to the restaurant and took the children home with her.

Speaker 2 (01:05:20):
Well. When asked about April twenty second, John said that
Anne had come to the house with money from the
certificate of deposit and the money for the tylers. He
said that they talked outside of the house, and because
she enjoyed traveling, he wanted to give her a chance
to take a vacation just to think things over. So,
he said, Anne left the children with him and he

(01:05:41):
promised to take care of them. He said that Anne
and the children said goodbye to each other before she left.
Now none of the kids would say that's true. John
said that he had met with Anne and given her
money in an effort to convince her to stay with him.
Then on May seventh, the Missing Person's detectives went to
the flyaway line and looked at Anne's locked minivan. There

(01:06:02):
was no sign of any foul play, but the driver's
seat was all the way back and there was no shade.
That same day, she was entered into the National Database
for Missing Persons. Then, on May eighth, Aster Thorpe told
detectives about the marriage counseling sessions, Anne's fear of John,
and his advice to them not to be alone together

(01:06:23):
at any time. Thorpe also said that Anne had made
up her mind about the divorce. Anne that her disappearance
was totally out of character. So later that day, the
detectives went to the Fortuna house to interview the three children,
but John refused to allow an interview with either of
the younger children. He gave the detectives the key to

(01:06:44):
Anne's minivan and said he had not heard from her
since April twenty sixth. He did recognize Sergeant View, who
had been with him at the Sheriff's office when he
worked there in the nineteen seventies, and he asked him
to go upstairs for a private conversation. Few agreed. Once upstairs,
he asked John again where his wife was. He said

(01:07:04):
that she was on a trip to an unknown location,
but he had nothing to verify this. Then he kept
trying to redirect the conversation to other topics, saying that
he and Anne had had problems of a sexual nature.
He said he was a good father, and he had
enjoyed being a deputy sheriff, and he didn't know why
anyone would think he had something to do with Anne's disappearance.

(01:07:25):
So the detective and John had not been friends at
the time. They were just two deputies assigned to the
same location. But John suddenly wanted to chat about the
old days. So the detective reminded John the purpose of
the meeting was to find information that might help find
his wife. He said, John, we're here to find out
what happened to Anne, and the best way to do

(01:07:47):
that is to go downstairs and you talk to both
of us and tell us where she is.

Speaker 3 (01:07:52):
You have it back in the living room. The interaction
didn't change. John was being evasive and would say nothing
more about where Anne might be. View answered that certain
views suggested that maybe he and Detective Finnan should talk
to the three kids, But John became defensive, saying he
didn't want to upset the children and it wouldn't be
a good idea for anyone to interview them now. After

(01:08:13):
some persuasion, John reluctantly allowed her to have a brief
conversation with Joanne, but not with Glenn or Caitlin. The
detectives en visited Diane, who told him that Anne had
privately shared a concern over possible violence from her husband
if she tried to leave him. John had injured his
hand twice in anger by slamming his fist into a doorframe.

(01:08:34):
Anne had also told her that she worried about the
guns he kept and feared that he might use them
if provoked. Dianne spoke about her friend's relationship with Bob Russell.
Also he lived near San Francisco, she said, but that
is not where Anne had gone. Diane knew this after
her recent phone conversation with Bob.

Speaker 4 (01:08:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
The detectives went to the condo with Joe Anne after this.
Along with the other personal items, there were milk products
and the refrigerator that would spoil. Joanne said she thought
her mom was dead because it was completely out of
character for her not to tell anyone where she was
it's a wise young person. Anne did not appear in
court for her divorce proceedings, and her family ended up

(01:09:13):
clearing out the condo. While packing up her things, they
found almost two hundred dollars in cash. The detectives learned
about Anne's excitement about her relationship with Bob and her
happiness about leaving John. Dianne had spoken with Bob, who
told her he had last spoken to Anne on April
twenty first, and the last letter she had sent him

(01:09:33):
was postmarked on April twenty second. So the circumstances were suspicious,
and the investigation was then handed over to the Homicide
Division on May thirteenth. So on May fourteenth, detectives Danoff
and Salerno drove to the flyaway lot. The parking stub
showed that the minivan had entered the lot at ten
a m. On April twenty fifth, one day before John

(01:09:57):
said that Anne called him from there. The minivan was
towed for processing. There was no trace of blood in
the van. Around seven o'clock that evening, the detectives went
to talk to John and he said to them, she's
not missing. She's on a vacation. Then he did give
a very detailed statement. John told the homicide detectives that
about two years earlier, Anne had told him she was

(01:10:20):
tired of the house routine, the kids and all that,
and she wanted to get away. Then she took two
trips with her aunt. She began corresponding with Bob and
visited Bob twice, which caused John and Anne to argue. Still,
John said he was surprised when she moved out with
the children on April eighteenth. She called him that evening
but refused to meet with him. She called him again

(01:10:41):
on Friday, April nineteenth and refused to meet with him,
but they did agree to joint counseling with Pastor Thorpe,
and when they met with Thorpe on April twentieth, he
promised Anne that he would be a better husband and
suggested that they could sleep in separate bedrooms. He said
that Anne told him she might be willing to try
them up. She brought the children to him on Sunday,

(01:11:02):
April twenty first, and met with him and Pastor Thorpe
later that day. He wanted her to come back, but
again she refused, and then when.

Speaker 3 (01:11:11):
Asked about April twenty second, John told the homicide detectives
that Anne arrived at the Fortuna house around two thirty
in the afternoon. He said that she stayed in the
minivan and gave him the money for the tow work.
He asked her to walk with him to the backyard
patio area to talk, and she agreed. He said that
he told her in the backyard that he would take
his own life if their marriage ended, and according to him,

(01:11:33):
Anne says she would try. They walked back into the garage,
and he said, and the children said goodbye to her
before she left.

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
Yeah, the children did not agree to that. No, So
on Tuesday, April twenty third, John said Anne came to
the house between one thirty and two pm, and she
would not get out of her minivan. He said they
drove separately to a restaurant, Carl's Junior, and went inside
there together. He said he walked home so Anne would
feel sorry for him. Then he walked back to Carl's

(01:12:02):
Junior around four or five pm and got his car.
So that right there is very suspicious, Yes, it is.
He said. He met with her again the next day
at Tip's restaurant around four pm. They sat together, he said,
and he gave her seventeen thousand dollars in cash. She
said she was going away, but she would not specify
where or for how long.

Speaker 3 (01:12:23):
John said his final contact with Anne was when she
phoned him between two thirty and three eight pm on Friday,
April twenty sixth. In that call, he said, Anne told
him that she was going away, that she'd parked the
van at the flyaway lot, that he could leave it
or pick it up whatever he wanted to do. She
asked him to take care of the children and she
would contact him when she returned from her trip.

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
Well. At the end of the May fifteenth interview, the
homicide detectives asked John for the house phone bills from
January to April of nineteen ninety one. He agreed, but
he said he could not give them the April bill
because he thought he had thrown it away. He still
showed no concern for Anne and would not let anyone
interview the two younger children. Mostly he wanted to chat

(01:13:06):
about mutual acquaintances in the sheriff's department. Now, that's very
similar to Alec Murdoch when his family was killed. When
there was the boat accident, he tried to kind of
make a connection and be buddy buddy with the police.

Speaker 3 (01:13:19):
I'm sure so.

Speaker 2 (01:13:21):
On May seventeenth, the homicide detectives went to the condo
for the first time. They saw the items Joe, Anne
and Dianne had told them about, but they also saw
four matching suitcases and Anne's passport. John told them that
another five suitcases from a nine piece set were at
his house. John's school principal heard from a school administrator

(01:13:42):
that John had been talking to the media about his
wife's disappearance. The principal had no idea before this that
John's wife was even missing, and John falsely told him
that he had filed a missing person's report, but we
know it was the pastor who did that. Then on
May twentieth, the detectives found out that Anne's his family
had loaned her twenty five hundred dollars for her divorce,

(01:14:03):
and that she had intended to put it into her
floral business account. They checked the account and learned that
there had been no activities since April twenty second. Then
on May twenty third, a moving company returned Anne's belongings
to the Fortuna house. John told Anne's sister Emmy that
he was starting to get worried about Anne. It's been
a month, He's starting to get worried.

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):
He also said that he thought Anne was a lesbian
because she didn't want to sleep with him anymore. Well,
what other explanation could there be? Right? It was only one,
That's the only one. Yep. He also said that she'd
stopped wearing her wedding ring. Detectives asked John for the
April telephone bill again on May twenty seventh, as well
as a full length photo of Anne for the missing

(01:14:48):
person's flyers. He said he could find neither, and he
again refused to allow anyone to speak with the two
younger children. So it's all getting pretty fucking suspicious, Yes,
it is. I mean it feels like most people just
know she's dead in their hearts, in their minds, they know.

Speaker 3 (01:15:05):
Yeah, yeah, hoping against hope exactly.

Speaker 5 (01:15:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:15:32):
So on June fifth, John finally agreed that Glenn and
Kaylen could be interviewed. He said that he thought Anne
might be in Hawaii. On June eighth, detectives interview at
the Churchwomen's Circle, and they interviewed Glenn and Caylen on
June tenth, and then The next day, Anne's case was
on the local news stations.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
Yeah, then John went to the sheriff's station to complain
about his photo being on Anne's missing person's flyer. So
how weird would that be for a husband to complain
about something like that when his white missing. Then he
said he had done nothing improper and had simply given
Anne some money. This was the only time John ever
initiated contact with the detectives. Hadn't called them to see

(01:16:11):
how the investigation was going. Nothing, and in contrast to this,
Anne's family members and Bob Russell checked in on the
case very frequently. Then that July, Emmy called John and
asked if Caitlin could come and visit her in Arizona.
He said he'd like to bring her himself, but Emmy
told him that the family wanted to maintain a relationship
with the children, but that he was not welcome at

(01:16:34):
their family gatherings because Anne had filed for divorce. But
of course it's because they suspected him. Yes, John said
that Anne was in Hawaii, but Emmy said no, our
relatives in Hawaii would know that if she was. Then
John said, yes, she's not in Hawaii.

Speaker 3 (01:16:51):
Hey, Yeah, no.

Speaker 2 (01:16:53):
Detectives finally did get a search warrant for the Fortuna house,
and one of John's guns was found in a desk drawer,
along with his April phone bill that he said he
couldn't find. Despite a thorough investigation, the homicide detectives couldn't
find any evidence to support John's claims that he met
with Anne on April twenty third and twenty fourth, or

(01:17:15):
that he'd received any calls from her after April twenty first,
so the case wasn't making much progress. On December fifteenth,
nineteen ninety one, when Emmy and Kathy went to the
Fortuna house to visit the children, they saw a birthday
card there that said for my husband and it was
signed love Anne. John told them that the card was

(01:17:35):
from Anne, but then Emmy pointed out that this was
not Anne's handwriting. And John had nothing to say about that.

Speaker 3 (01:17:41):
We told you, it's nothing you can say now.

Speaker 2 (01:17:44):
He must have told the kids, look, your mom sent
me a card something like that.

Speaker 3 (01:17:47):
Righty, you could maybe buzzy test a kid.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
The little kid, yeah, the older.

Speaker 3 (01:17:52):
One could be mid teens, upperutines.

Speaker 2 (01:17:54):
Yeah, and she she always thought her mom was dead.

Speaker 3 (01:17:57):
Really, yeah, so information about Anne was distributed at law
enforcement and corridors offices in every state. Searches of areas
near the restaurants John had mentioned turned up nothing. No
one recalls seeing Anne or John at Tips or Carls Junior.
There was no credible evidence that anyone had seen or
heard from Anne after April twenty second. She did not

(01:18:18):
use her credit cards, did not access her bank accounts
after the twenty second. Her story was covered in several
TV programs and newspapers over the years. With no leads,
detectives led multiple searches in areas where bodies might be dumped,
including isolated rural roads, woods, canyons, mines, and lakes. Human

(01:18:39):
remains were to be recovered from time to time, none
of which belonged to Anne. John could be charged with
murder without a body, but it would make proving us
guilt more difficult.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
Yeah, So, there had been a recent case in the
area of very similar case where the body was not
found and the husband had been acquitted of murder. So
they didn't want to rush into the one and have
someone else get away with it because of double jeopardy
if they lose, that's right. Yeah, So in nineteen ninety two,
John actually told Anne's sister Emmy that Anne was out

(01:19:12):
gallivanting and that the children never even asked about her anymore.
Two years after Anne's disappearance, her siblings met with John
and they asked him to just please tell them what
had happened to Anne. John first told them that he
had no idea that Anne had wanted a divorce and
that she just suddenly moved out. When they objected and
said Anne had told many people about her intention to

(01:19:34):
divorce him, he had no response. Ann's siblings told John
that they didn't want the children to think their mom
had abandoned them, and they asked him, you know, think
of the kids here, But he just said, oh, you
just wait, she'll come back. And this is after years.
Come on, how's that even possible?

Speaker 3 (01:19:50):
Go keeping up hope.

Speaker 2 (01:19:52):
So, the years were passing, and Anne's family members held
annual memorials for her. The family offered a ten thousand
dollar reward for information, and they put together an organization
called Friends of Anne. But John never showed concern for
Anne and made no efforts whatsoever to locate her. As
the children grew up, their father told them that Anne

(01:20:13):
had gone away to think or that she was on
a vacation, and he was not consistent with how much
cash he had given her either. Sometimes he said he
wanted her back, and other times he would call her
a whore who was just out fucking around. During one
argument with Joe Anne, he actually spat on a piece
of Anne's artwork. So how heartbreaking for these children.

Speaker 3 (01:20:35):
Yeah, have to listen to that, They have to live
with them.

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
He's their father.

Speaker 3 (01:20:39):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:20:39):
Yeah, especially Joe Anne, who knows, you know, awful.

Speaker 3 (01:20:43):
Detective Danoff retired in two thousand and one and the
case went cold. Was his ten years after right, yep.
Then in May two thousand and five, the investigation was
turned over to Sergeant to Laura Scott of the Homicide
Bureau Cold Case Homicide Unit. Scott as Detective RARYL. Comstock
to help her. The cold case detectives read the reports

(01:21:03):
and reinterviewed witnesses. They checked all the sources of information
about missing persons, and sent out new flyers with an
age progressed photo of Anne.

Speaker 2 (01:21:13):
Yeah, so they basically started over. Yeah, which it's harder
actually after that many years passed, of course.

Speaker 3 (01:21:19):
In June two thousand and six, the detectives held a
press conference about Anne's disappearance in the hopes that media
attention would bring out new witnesses. This time, I had
success when Kristin best Joanne's best friend from high school,
saw the missing person's announcement on TV while she was
at the gym. She contacted the cold case detectives and
was interviewed on June thirty, two thousand and six. Joanne

(01:21:43):
didn't remember calling Christin on the night Anne disappeared, but
Kristin did. She explained she had not come forward years
earlier because her parents did forbid her from getting involved.

Speaker 2 (01:21:53):
Can you imagine that, Yeah, we.

Speaker 3 (01:21:54):
Don't want to have you exposed to that stuff. Well,
she told detectives that Joanne told that her father was
gone for two and a half hours and brought back
only a cold bag of fresh fries on the night
and disappeared.

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):
Then in September, the detectives finally learned from the school
principle where John were that John had had a scratch
which looked like it had been caused by a fingernail.
By October, the detectives believed they had enough circumstantial evidence
to arrest John, so the grand jury proceedings in early
October two thousand and six had moved forward easily, despite

(01:22:30):
the absence of a smoking gun or even a body.
The jurists were convinced that circumstances pointed to John Race's
involvement in Anne's death. They issued an indictment for him
to be tried for that crime, along with a warrant
for his arrest. Accompanied by three deputies, Sergeant Scott drove
to La drove to the La airport and they waited

(01:22:50):
in the customs section for arriving international flights, and they
watched for passengers from a Korean Airlines jet from Indonesia.
So John was returning. He arrived with his Asian girlfriend
and Scott stopped him, advising him that he was under
arrest on charges of murder. He and his current girlfriend
had been together for a couple of years at this point,

(01:23:12):
and within a few days he posted a million dollar
bail and went home. The bail enabled him to remain
free pending the outcome of the trial, which would be
held more than seven months later in the San Fernando Courthouse.
So Anne's youngest daughter, Caitlin, was the chief defense witness.
She believed her father was innocent. She testified that her

(01:23:33):
father sometimes got scratches from the family cat. She was
very close with him and had spoken with his lawyers
many times. Between the grand jury and the actual trial.
One of the lawyers had shown her all of the
letters that Anne had written to Bob, and reading the
letters was traumatic for her. So, yeah, they're showing this
girl letters that Anne had written to her lover. How

(01:23:55):
is that going to be a good thing for that girl?
That's horrible and had just kind of turned her again.
That's her mother.

Speaker 3 (01:24:01):
Yeah, maybe there's also stuff in the letters about how
John treated her.

Speaker 2 (01:24:05):
Maybe, but they were romantic letters.

Speaker 3 (01:24:08):
Yeah, probably not going to spend much time talking about
her ex or soon to be x.

Speaker 2 (01:24:13):
I don't think so. But Caitlin said that her father
usually told her that Anne had gone on a trip,
but at times she overheard him on the phone angrily
saying that bitch left me. So she'd never confronted him
about what happened. She'd just kind of taken his word.
But John contended that someone had murdered Anne. John was
now admitting that he thought someone had murdered Anne, but

(01:24:35):
he said that the evidence did not prove that he
was the killer. His attorney's stress that there was nobody,
no crime scene, and no forensic evidence that would tie
him to Anne's murder. The prosecution's evidence about Anne's character
and habits did show that she'd been a reliable person
who made plans, told people her plans, and did what

(01:24:56):
she planned. She had told Glenn and joe Anne that
after the visit to the Fortuna house, they would return
to the condo and she would make pizza, and the
materials to make the pizza were waiting on the kitchen
counter at the condo. When Joanne had told her parents
that they were hungry. Anne had told Joanne that she
would run to the McDonald's. As she drove off, she

(01:25:16):
told the neighbor that she had to go get the
kids something to eat. She intended to go to McDonald's,
return to the Fortuna house, and then take the children
back to the condo. She had had no intention of
taking a trip. Also, Anne had had plans for the
following days. It was completely out of character for her
to suddenly ignore all of these plans, only have contact

(01:25:37):
with John and no one else, suddenly take a trip
and cease all contact with everyone she loved, Anne had
tried to carefully give the children a smooth transition with
the divorce. She'd notified their teachers, and she'd set up
the condo with their things, So given the attention she
paid to her children, it was very odd that she
would abandon them. It was not credible.

Speaker 3 (01:25:59):
No. Anne had also left behind her possessions and money.
She had never used her credit card or bank account
again after April twenty second. But John had multiple motives
for killing Anne, including revenge, jealousy, and money. Now money
was important to him, and he would not have been
okay with splitting their community property. Some evidence was very incriminating,

(01:26:21):
including the two neighbors who saw him follow Anne just
before she disappeared. McDonald's was five minutes away, but he'd
been gone for two and a half hours. Then there
were the scratches on his hand and throat, and he
could not keep his story straight. John was much larger
than Anne, and he had been trained in administering the chokeholds,
so he could have killed her and no blood would

(01:26:42):
be found.

Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
So a reasonable deduction was that John followed Anne and
killed her that night because she was leaving him and
she was having an affair with another man, and she
would be taking half of their property in money. There
was also evidence of premeditation and deliberation. He had convinced
her to come to the house with the children, which
gave him a chance to be alone with her, and

(01:27:03):
he had seen his opportunity when she drove alone to
the McDonald's. John was convicted of first degree murder after
almost two days of jury deliberations. His bail had been revoked.
His bail was revoked immediately upon the guilty verdict. So
he arrived for his sentencing in an orange jumpsuit, and
he was sentenced to twenty five years to life. On

(01:27:24):
the eighteenth of April two thousand and eight, seventeen years
after moving Day for Anne, NBCTV showed an episode of
Dateline about this case, titled Prime Suspect.

Speaker 4 (01:27:35):
So.

Speaker 2 (01:27:35):
In this programme, Glenn Race Anne in John's son, made
a surprising statement. He finally acknowledged that his mother had
been murdered by his father. Four days later, on the
anniversary of Anne's disappearance, more than sixty people gathered at
the New Hall Presbyterian Church to participate in a memorial
service that was organized by Anne's good friend Diane Wood

(01:27:59):
pastor glennisan Thorpe, who had left the community seven years earlier,
returned to officiate. Joanne shared fond memories of her mother's
lessons about peace in life. Glenn Race said, I love
my mom so much, and he stated that the trial
had helped him remember wonderful things about her. So John
appealed his conviction in twenty ten, but it was affirmed

(01:28:20):
and he became eligible for his first parole hearing in
January twenty twenty three, but he remains incarcerated at the
California Institution for Men in Chino, California, and John remains
firm on his claim that he is innocent. He's never
admitted to it.

Speaker 3 (01:28:37):
Didn't do it, It's what he says.

Speaker 2 (01:28:38):
So I think if you don't admit it, your chances
of getting parole are pretty slim, right, Well, you're supposed to.
They want you to show contrition, yeah, and take responsibility.

Speaker 3 (01:28:47):
You can't do that if you don't acknowledge the fact
that you're responsible for her death.

Speaker 2 (01:28:51):
Well that's why I wonder about the Menendez brothers if
they get out, they haven't really taken responsibility. I mean,
they've admitted to doing it. But I really blamed the
parents for why they killed them. Yeah, so in my opinion,
that's not showing remorse or taking responsibility. No, so I
don't know. I guess to some people that is.

Speaker 3 (01:29:10):
I think he's guilty, But I'd like to know what
he did with her body.

Speaker 2 (01:29:14):
Before he got well you and everybody else, yes, No,
I mean not the final place.

Speaker 3 (01:29:19):
But if he killed her on the twenty second or whatever, yeah,
and didn't find her car for a few days, how
did he get or what did he do with her
body after he killed her and then came home two
hours later with the cold bag of fries? Where was
her body for those couple of days or so?

Speaker 2 (01:29:38):
Yeah, we don't know. I would guess it was hidden
in the woods or someplace like that. It wasn't in
the van, or they would have had the decomposition right.
Just got me thinking, well, of course, it has a
lot of people thinking. I mean, I think the fact
that he was a cop for a while did help
him out with this. What's the big delay? She was
just a missing person for quite a while. Yeah, so

(01:29:58):
homicide really wasn't on the scene right away.

Speaker 3 (01:30:01):
No, so they might have been well when they discovered
a car in the parking lot, the flyaway lot. Nothing
was done to it for several days right before it
started getting looked over.

Speaker 2 (01:30:11):
Yeah, they didn't get into the van for quite a while.
So you know, he got away with it for quite
a while actually, because yeah, he went to prison, but
a lot of his younger years he got away with it.
He had girlfriends, he got to raise his kids, he
got all the money. So he did get away with
it for quite a while. And since he has no
conscience about it, that didn't bother him at all. Yeah,

(01:30:32):
everybody else suffered, So I think it's a really interesting
case that nobody cases are always quite fascinating. Yes, yeah, Okay,
so we have some great list of feedback and some
case updates, so I hope you'll all stick around for
that quick reminder to those who haven't subscribed to TCB
Premium that that's still an option, because we know that

(01:30:53):
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and then boom. You don't want to hear those ads.
Subscribing Ti grabber dot com slash subscribe or is a
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(01:31:13):
this includes our entire backlog of hundreds of episodes, extra
episodes for subscribers only, and a gift of your choice
with a personal thank you note from us. But whether
you subscribe or not, we appreciate your support. And onto feedback.

Speaker 3 (01:31:34):
It's time for listener feedback. Okay, I just collected a
few things for us to talk about. So one is
an email from at Leslie Sunshine seventeen. There's a case suggestion.

Speaker 2 (01:31:58):
Here, Okay wrote, love your content, Please please please cover
the Springfield Three from Springfield, Missouri, nineteen ninety two. Such
an eerie case. You want to tell us a little
bit about that.

Speaker 3 (01:32:11):
So on June seventh, nineteen ninety two, Cheryl Levitt, her
daughter Susie Streeter, and Streeter's friend Stacy McCall disappeared from
Levitt's home in Springfield, Missouri, and to this date, no
trace of the three women has ever been found.

Speaker 2 (01:32:26):
Wow, three women, and you thought it was really difficult
that they couldn't find Anne.

Speaker 3 (01:32:31):
Streeter and McCall had graduated high school just the night
before they attended some post graduation parties and arrived at
Levitt's house around two o'clock in the morning on the seventh.
They planned to go to a water park with some
friends that day, but no one's ever found them. There's
been two possible suspects that have been named, but while
they haven't been exonerated, there no arrest made. Case remains unsolved.

Speaker 2 (01:32:56):
Okay, yeah, I'd be happy to do an unsolved case.
You that many of those, and we have a voicemail
from Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (01:33:04):
Elizabeth sens a voicemail.

Speaker 4 (01:33:07):
Hi, Dick and Jill. My name is Elizabeth, and I
am an absolute addict to your podcast. I discovered you
about a year ago, and ever since I found you,
I've devoured every single one of your episodes until yesterday, sadly,
I listened to your latest episodes. So now I'm wondering
what am I gonna listen to now because every single

(01:33:29):
true crime podcast that I used to listen to before
I found you feel so blind now. So I think
I might have to start listening to you guys from
Scratch all over again to keep me company, you know,
when cooking, when going for a walk, cleaning the house,
and so on. Anyway, the case that I want to

(01:33:49):
recommend to you is that of the abduction and mourther
of Sarah Everard in twenty twenty one in London. Her
case feels really close to my heart because she was
doctored a few blocks from my house on her way
back home and the doctor was unfortunately the least expected
of suspects. And I will leave it there because I

(01:34:09):
don't want to eat too much away. But this is
a case that absolutely shook the UK. It would be
brilliant if you could cover it, and it will will
also be great if you could cover all the regions
in the world. Perhaps I understand that language can be
a limitation, but there are some very interesting and shocking
cases in Mexico and Latin America, so yeah, that'd be great.

(01:34:34):
As for beers, for medical reasons, I can't drink anymore,
but my fiance, he's a graft beer lover and a
connoisseur like Dick, and he recommends Day which is a
brewery in Cheltenham. Also because he is from the Basque country,
he recommends as well Bascueland, which is a brewery in

(01:34:55):
San Sebastian. And he's asking me as well that if
you are ever sitting Bilbao in the Basque Country. You
cannot miss.

Speaker 6 (01:35:05):
To have a beer in Pero Chiko Bar, which is
a lovely bar near the city center and they specialize
in craft beer.

Speaker 4 (01:35:15):
So there you go. I look forward to your next
and to your next episodes. Cheers from London, and have
a good rest of your day. It's almost nine, well
it's n nine thirty year, so yeah, so probably have
a nice afternoon. Thank you and bye.

Speaker 2 (01:35:35):
Thank you. Elizabeth. You're very kind, extremely kind, maybe too kind.

Speaker 3 (01:35:40):
Yeah, she's very effusive.

Speaker 2 (01:35:42):
I love that. It's very nice. You know, sometimes you
just click with certain people. Like I've said, we're kind
of niche, but certain people do click with us. It's
really wonderful.

Speaker 3 (01:35:51):
For some reason, for some reason.

Speaker 2 (01:35:53):
Right. Yeah, So that's awesome, and I like the recommendation.
I had heard of it and a really shocking case
for sure. Plus what about all that beer info pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (01:36:04):
They're good stuff to know.

Speaker 2 (01:36:06):
Yeah, all right, so thanks a lot, Elizabeth. I will
definitely look into that case for you. So we have
another email from Ashley with a case suggestion. Ashley writes,
I love listening to your podcast and the banter between
the two of you. I also enjoy listening to the
description of the beer that you're drinking, as I am
an avid beer drinker too. I have an idea for

(01:36:27):
a podcast, and I'm hoping you haven't already done it,
as I did not check the previous episodes. The podcast
is concerning the murder of Stephanie Bennett and Raleigh, North
Carolina on May twenty first, two thousand and two. I'm
currently reading a book about it by Amanda Lamb titled
Evil Next Stoor The Untold Stories of a Killer Undone

(01:36:47):
by DNA. The man accused of killing her, Drew Planton,
was one very disturbed individual, So thank you for your consideration.
Anything to add on that case, Sticky.

Speaker 3 (01:36:58):
Well, just looking up a couple of things. She was
raped and strangled in her apartment in May of two
thousand and two. Took a few years, like three years
before an arrest was made. A guy named Drew Planton
lived nearby. It was a suspected a peeping tom case
in the apartment complex where Stephanie lived. But the biggest
positive on him was that his DNA matched that found

(01:37:20):
at the murder scene. So he's arrested. He's waiting to
stand trial and he hung himself and died.

Speaker 2 (01:37:25):
Well. Yeah, DNA is an amazing thing, definitely, So thank
you Ashley very much. We'll look at that. I'm quite
sure we haven't covered it, right. Did you do a
search of the website?

Speaker 3 (01:37:35):
I checked our website.

Speaker 2 (01:37:36):
Yeah, we have six hundred episodes, so sometimes we don't remember,
but we're sure we haven't done that one.

Speaker 3 (01:37:41):
Yes, yes, okay, we're as sure as I can be.

Speaker 2 (01:37:44):
Okay, Well, so we have an email from Rain, and
Rain writes, Hello, I'm curious to know if you'll ever
cover a high profile case such as the mysterious death
of late film actress Natalie Wood or the Tate La
Bianca murders caused by the certain cult members of the
Manson family. In addition, I really would like to know
both of your guys opinions on the recent parole of

(01:38:06):
the former Manson family member Leslie van Houten. Do you
guys think she should have been released on parole? Okay,
thank you and keep up the amazing work you guys
do on your podcast. Have a great day. Thanks Rain.
So I'm going to let Dick answer this first.

Speaker 3 (01:38:21):
Well, answer as much as I can. We would be
able and willing and wanting to cover a high profile
case the one you mentioned Natalie Wood. That's a fascinating
story about what happened or what may have happened.

Speaker 2 (01:38:35):
It's a mystery.

Speaker 3 (01:38:35):
Still, Yeah, that I could famous people. I guess we've
done sort of semi famous people.

Speaker 2 (01:38:41):
Oh yeah, we've done some famous cases. The thing with
those is they do get more listens, But then I
kind of feel like they've been done so many times.
Are people just going to say, oh, brother, here's another one.
So we don't want that to happen. But what do
you think about Leslie van Houghton getting out of prison.

Speaker 3 (01:38:57):
I didn't think way or the other on that. I think,
on the one hand, she's served her time and she
could be released. On the other hand, this is particularly
gruesome bunch of murders.

Speaker 2 (01:39:09):
It is. Yeah, So I guess I feel like if
she takes responsibility and she's been in prison that long
and the parole board thinks that she can try it,
I think I'm okay with it. On the other hand,
as far as covering the Manson murders, I just can't.
I think it's because when I was a kid, it
wasn't that old of a story yet. And there were

(01:39:29):
all these TV specials and books about it. And I
had a sister who would actually flash pictures of Charles
Manson at me and threaten me as a child. So
I was terrified of Charles Manson as a child and
the whole story. But then I'd have to say, when
we saw Once upon a Time in Hollywood, what a
great movie, Chris spoiler alert, Sharon Tate didn't get killed.

(01:39:50):
But it's been a couple of years.

Speaker 3 (01:39:51):
Did it happened that way?

Speaker 2 (01:39:52):
Right? Didn't happen that way? So but Natalie Wood, absolutely,
we're looking at doing the Menendez brothers, which we've never done.
See what happened with them? And we have done quite
a few high profile cases. So yeah, all right, Well
that does it for feedback today. Keep those emails coming,
and we would love to get a voicemail from you you. Yep,
thank you for being here today at the Quiet End

(01:40:13):
with us. We'll see you next time at the Quiet End.

Speaker 3 (01:40:16):
Bye bye, bye, guys,

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