April 21, 2025 • 27 mins
Part 2 of 3. After the disappearance of Patty Vaughan in the fall of 1996 under suspicious circumstances, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office was reluctant to name her husband JR a suspect, although they admitted the investigation was centered around him. The circumstances surrounding Patty’s abandoned Dodge Caravan were highly suspicious, as was the idea that she would leave her children behind. Blood evidence found in the minivan and in her Wilson County home certainly indicated foul play but still, with no body, authorities declined to make an arrest, or, it seemed, treat the case as a homicide. When a year had passed, the police were no closer to finding Patty than they were on day one.
If you have any information about the disappearance of Patty Vaughan, please contact the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office at 210-335-6000.
If you’re experiencing domestic abuse, please get help by calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE, or 800-799-7233. You can also text “start,” S-T-A-R-T to 88788 or visit thehotline.org
You can support gone cold and listen to the show ad-free at patreon.com/gonecoldpodcast
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Follow gone cold on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, and X. Search @gonecoldpodcast at all or just click linknbio.com/gonecoldpodcast
The Wilson County News, The San Antonio News-Express, foxsanantonio.com, and news4sanantonio.com were used as sources for this episode.
#JusticeForPattyVaughan #WhereIsPattyVaughan #BexarCounty #SanAntonio #Texas #TX #TexasTrueCrime #TrueCrime #TrueCrimePodcast #Podcast #Unsolved #ColdCase #MissingPerson #Disappearance #Vanished #UnsolvedMysteries #Homicide #UnsolvedMurder #ColdCase #CrimeStories #PodcastRecommendations #CrimeJunkie #MysteryPodcast #TrueCrimeObsessed #CrimeDocs #InvestigationDiscovery #PodcastAddict #TrueCrimeFan #CriminalJustice #ForensicFiles
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If you have any information about the disappearance of Patty Vaughan, please contact the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office at 210-335-6000.
If you’re experiencing domestic abuse, please get help by calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE, or 800-799-7233. You can also text “start,” S-T-A-R-T to 88788 or visit thehotline.org
You can support gone cold and listen to the show ad-free at patreon.com/gonecoldpodcast
Find us at https://www.gonecold.com
For Gone Cold merch, visit https://gonecold.dashery.com
Follow gone cold on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, and X. Search @gonecoldpodcast at all or just click linknbio.com/gonecoldpodcast
The Wilson County News, The San Antonio News-Express, foxsanantonio.com, and news4sanantonio.com were used as sources for this episode.
#JusticeForPattyVaughan #WhereIsPattyVaughan #BexarCounty #SanAntonio #Texas #TX #TexasTrueCrime #TrueCrime #TrueCrimePodcast #Podcast #Unsolved #ColdCase #MissingPerson #Disappearance #Vanished #UnsolvedMysteries #Homicide #UnsolvedMurder #ColdCase #CrimeStories #PodcastRecommendations #CrimeJunkie #MysteryPodcast #TrueCrimeObsessed #CrimeDocs #InvestigationDiscovery #PodcastAddict #TrueCrimeFan #CriminalJustice #ForensicFiles
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gone-cold-texas-true-crime--3203003/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Before we start the episode, we'd like to offer our
utmost thanks to new supporters at Patreon dot com slash
Gone Cold Podcast. So thank you Casey M. And Wayland
L for your generous support. If you'd like to listen
to Gone Cold, Texas true crime ad free and have
access to exclusive episodes, go to Patreon dot com Slash
(00:25):
Gone Cold Podcast. We immensely appreciate all the folks who
support us there. Thanks y'all. Now onto the episode. The
Gone Cold Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
Listener discretion is advised. Thirty two year old Patty Vaughn
was last seen on Christmas Day nineteen ninety six. According
(00:49):
to her estranged husband Jr. Who came to spend the
holiday with their three children, the two had heated arguments,
resulting in Patty storming out of the house next day.
Her light blue Dodge Caravan was found at Farm de
Market Road nineteen thirty seven and Loop sixteen oh four
in South Bear County, about fifteen miles from her Wilson
(01:11):
County home and approximately five miles from Quinney Electric, her
place of employment. The vehicle was locked, the exhaust manifold
was still warm to the touch, and the vehicle was
reported not to have been in that area earlier in
the day. After retrieving keys from Jr. Who didn't want
(01:31):
anything to do with the minivan or its retrieval, Patty's
boss and a coworker changed the flat tire it had
and took it to Quiney Electric. The driver's seat was
all the way back, but Patty was hardly tall enough
to drive with the seat in that position. At first,
Patty's family found it difficult to enlist the help of police,
(01:53):
so they did some searching themselves and also reinflated the
flat tire it held the air. There were no punctures
or roadwear that would have caused the tire to go flat,
meaning someone had purposely deflated it, a discovery that only
added to the already long list of troublesome details in
Patty's disappearance. It was far from the last.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
You know. It was set up to make it look
like Patty disappeared from her vehicle in Bear County.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
The van was.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Set up to look it was staged to look like
she disappeared from there to distract from the fact that
something happened at their house in Wilson County, and that's
why we felt law enforcement would push to prove that point.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
After the family of Patty Vaughan reported that it appeared
someone had intentionally let the air out of the tire
of her Dodge Caravan, Deputies B Johnson and Adrian Ramirez,
crime scene investigators for the Bear County Sheriff's Office, were
sent to inspect the vehicle. Ramirez told us what he
found on the bottom portion of the rear center seat.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
As we're looking through the van on site, that's when
I spotted the blood in the rear portion of the van.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
When they got the mini van back to the department,
the deputies discovered something else.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
It wasn't until we took the van back to the
department that we had Natesch's gloves on that. When I
got out of the van, my partner noticed that my
knees were wet. I said, ah, hold on, let me
take off my gloves. And then I felt and I
said it didn't wash. That's when we started looking inside
(04:16):
the crevices of the where the seat's going on that
and there was water in there, and then there was water.
We took some plastic parts off. There was water underneath
there and this thing's been totally washed.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
It was obvious it had been sprayed out at least
from the rear seat to the sliding door. Upon removing
the rear seat, Johnson and Ramirez saw a significant amount
of water in the seat mounts. The deputies removed the
plastic covers from the center seat and found red tinted
condensation around the area closest to the sliding door. Using luminol,
(04:57):
a chemical that reacts to blood, among other things, and fluoresces,
they discovered many other areas where blood had likely been
Several spots lit up on the interior of the sliding door,
between the sliding door and the center seat, under the
rear portion of the front passenger side seat, under the
(05:18):
rear seat nearest the sliding door. Chief forensic errologist L. D.
Ginsburg later identified human blood on the carpet underneath the
rear seat. A sample of the carpet was taken for
further testing. Only a single set of fingerprints could be
found on the Mini van, on the fender above the
(05:39):
wheel well of the tire that had gone flat. The
vehicle had been wiped down inside and out on Saturday,
December twenty eighth, nineteen ninety six, an anonymous callar phoned
the Bear County Sheriff's office on Christmas Day. The tipster
said their friend had seen a blue minivan pulled to
(06:01):
the side of the road and a white male exited.
The man began running away from the van, the caller continued,
but suddenly stopped and ran back to the van, as
if they'd forgotten something. According to Patty Vaughan's family, the
man's description matched Patty's estranged husband, Jr. Vaughan, and a
(06:22):
car scene picking him up matched the description of the
car Jr's mother drove. A popular misconception about the van's
contents has also been the subject of speculation. Even it
appears by law enforcement, a red jumpsuit with an emblem
of the letters j M was found inside. However, it
(06:44):
was found in a box alongside many other articles of
clothing Patty had been collecting from folks to donate elsewhere.
The search for Patty continued. Her aunt Jean told the
San Antonio Express News that there was no reason and
to look for her at the location the searches were
taking place. Other than the fact that her van was
(07:05):
found there. Patty had no reason to be at that spot.
Geene added that Patty would walk, crawl, or drag herself
to a phone to call her children if she were able.
The following day, the Bear County Sheriff's Office, including Deputy
Adrian Ramirez, came to Patty Vaughan's home. A couple days
(07:28):
before the same day they searched the van, investigators had
seen what looked like blood on the floor of the
master bedroom, but when they returned, all traces, at least
those visible to the naked eye, were removed. That's where
they concentrated their efforts.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Process in a resident we used lumino, you know, suffluorescent
chemical that you used to see if there's any blood
present on the floors or on the walls, and it reacted.
But the thing about that chemicals ever, reacts to bleach
and all this other stuff also.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Even if it was bleach, it was telling. And in fact,
when Patty's cousin, Barb came to the house to get
articles of clothing for the search dogs, she said the
bedroom reeked of bleach. Jr's sister, Marilyn, consistently interrupted the investigators,
even going so far as to tell them any blood
(08:27):
they found in the master bathroom was hers and due
to her menstrual cycle, but the luminol had fluorreessed on
a large area there. Patty's cousin, Barb told us.
Speaker 5 (08:38):
She said that to the officers and they were just
floored by it because they were like, well, lady, if
you left this much blood behind, you need to be
in hospital. So it was it was just a lot.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
In the bathroom. The luminol showed what looked like shoe
prints which led to the master bathroom closet. Mop. Like
swab markings were also observed on the bathroom floor closet
area and on the bedroom floor, which was hard wood
adjacent to the master bathroom.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
They found like swab marks from the mop. It was white,
white marks, drag marks from the bedroom. Blood found behind
the baseboard by the door in the bedroom. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yes, that had come right. It looked like before they
had that wall had been cleaned behind the bedroom door.
There was white marks and s white marks on the wall.
And then they actually found physically Patty's blood in the
baseboard behind the baseboard on the floor crack.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
The iluminol also reacted to spots on a mop and
bucket found in the garage. As in the case of
the Mini van. Samples were collected from the Vaughan home
and were later proven to be blood. Matching it to Patty, however,
would prove to be a more arduous task than simply
asking for a comparison sample, of which the Sheriff's office
(10:04):
requested from her children. Early on, Jr. Declined that request. Meanwhile,
searches in south Bear County trudged forward. Though official searches
were called off that Saturday evening, Patty's family and some volunteers, however,
continued their efforts. The Heidi Search Center organized as Sunrise
(10:28):
to Sunset Search for Saturday, January fourth, nineteen ninety seven.
About two hundred showed up from Bear County Sheriff's Office
deputies and volunteer firefighters to dog handlers and members of
Patty's church. Again, love for Patty shined through, as solemn
faced acquaintances and friends told reporters about her good nature
(10:51):
and devotion to her children. No one who knew her
believed she would have left of her own free will.
Her father, Billy Brightway, and stepmother had come into town
from Atlanta. The disappearance of Patty, who he called an
Angel had taken a toll on Billy. The searches that
day and the others to come turned up nothing. In
(11:26):
thirty seven year old j R. Vaughan's statement to police,
he briefly describes their lives together, getting married, the several
times they moved, and how they settled into his mother's
house in Wilson County. Eventually, a mother in law's house
was built for Jr's mom at the back of the property,
and he and Patty took over residence of the main house,
(11:48):
which was to be split between them should his mother die.
Back to Jr's statement, he talked about various problems with
their marriage and reconciling them by giving her more control
of the check book. Patty's family suggests she never had
any control over any of their checkbooks other than the
one used for Jr's construction contracting business, of which Patty
(12:12):
handled accounting. Also in the statement, JR. Claimed he found
out about Patty's affair with her boyfriend Gary on December thirteenth,
nineteen ninety six, which began after they separated. He then
spoke of visiting his divorce attorney on Christmas Eve to
put down a deposit on Christmas Day morning, he left
(12:35):
his San Antonio apartment, and when he arrived at he
and Patty's home, let himself in through the back door.
Their three children opened gifts, after which Jr. Helped them
assemble the toys as Patty prepared dinner. After dinner and cleanup, Jr.
Said both he and Patty fell asleep in the living room.
(12:57):
When they got up, he continued, Patty went to the
master bedroom to avoid his family, who were coming over
to pick up the kids. After they did and left,
the arguing began, he said. Quote. At times we raised
our voices, we yelled, we calmed down, We said many
hateful things. I threatened to take the kids from her.
(13:21):
She said no way, and I told her she had
already done enough things with Gary that I could win custody.
She walked out of the bedroom, walked to the dining
room table, picked up her purse and her coat, and
walked out the front door, crying and yelling. End quote.
Patty's family takes issue with much of Jr's statement here. Patty,
(13:43):
they said, wasn't known to yell, even when she got
mad or upset. In any other way, she would have
been crying her cousin Barb told us, but she never
would have yelled. Quote. She threw open the door, walked
to her van and started off and left. She drove
out the driveway, turned right and went up out of sight.
(14:05):
I closed the house up, locked and latched the front door,
paced around the house and walked back to my mother's home,
and I told her of our argument end quote. According
to eyewitnesses, there was a problem with Jr's story concerning
Patty leaving in the van, which he claims was gone
(14:25):
until her boss found it the following day.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Neighbors talk about how the van had been in the garage.
Patty and Jr. Had lived in that house and moved
all of his mother's stuff out to the garage. There
was never room enough for the van in the garage
because Patty always said, when are you going to clean
it out so I can park the van in the garage,
And there was never room, And all of a sudden
there was room in the garage for the van to
be parked one night.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
Yeah, that night she disappeared.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
The night she disappeared, Patty's boyfriend, Gary was also scrutinized
by police as he rode with his sister He admitted
asking her to drive by Patty's house on Christmas Day,
but had spent the rest of the day and evening
with his family for the holiday.
Speaker 6 (15:11):
Gary had an alibi. Gary had phone call see where
he called from his sister's house to Patty's house. He
and his sisters drove by Patty's house that afternoon.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
And Gary helped us the whole time we were out
looking for her. He's out there with us. He brought
us water and food, and searched and handed out flyers.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Jr. On the other hand, never showed up for searches
and kept Patty's family from seeing her children, with whom
they were extremely close. After giving his statement to police,
he also lawyered up a smart move for someone who
was innocent or guilty. It should be noted was never
interviewed by them again and stopped his speaking with the press.
(16:02):
On January twenty second, nineteen ninety seven, j R. Vaughan
withdrew his divorce petition. Patty's family continually searched her aunt.
Jean told reporters for the San Antonio Express News that
they didn't expect Patty to be found alive. The reality
of what we have to face now won't hold a
(16:23):
candle to what we've had to face out there looking
for her, Pulling apart every bush and pile of garbage,
opening every empty refrigerator, she said, adding nothing can compare
to all the horrifying things we imagined out there looking
for her. She deserves to be brought home. Authorities had
(16:44):
already obtained Patty's dental records in preparation for finding her body.
Official searches, usually led by the Heidi Search Center, continued,
though they had become sporadic. The police investigation as a
whole appeared to have moved at a snail's pace, and
witnesses important witnesses, such as Jr's sister Marylyn, were interviewed
(17:08):
just once. On January seventeenth, nineteen ninety seven, a Wilson
County judge signed off on a warrant ordering five milli
liters of blood be taken from Jerry Ray j R.
Vaughn and the same amount from each of he and
Patty's three children. The blood was to be compared to
the blood found in both Patty's Dodge caravan and in
(17:31):
the master bedroom and bathroom of her home. Both the
Wilson County and Bear County Sheriff's offices were putting out
conflicting information, telling reporters in one breath that they'd found
several indications of foul play, but in another insisting that
the case was being investigated as a standard missing person's case.
(17:52):
They had no suspects, only persons of interest. They'd later say,
whatever the case, whatever was truly going on inside the
mines of investigators, the forensic testing was moving as slowly
as the investigation itself. More than a month after the
blood was taken from Jr. And the kids, Patty's aunt
(18:14):
and cousins questioned why the Bear County Medical Examiner hadn't
yet ran the necessary tests. Doctor Vincent Demayo, chief Medical Examiner,
told reporters basically that it was the bureaucracy. He was
waiting on a purchase order to buy a kit from
a private lab in North Carolina. The kit, a reverse
(18:35):
paternity kit, was relatively new at the time. It would
remove Jr's DNA from the children's samples, isolating Patty's DNA,
which could then be compared to the samples taken from
her home and mini van. No state funded lab in
Texas could perform such a test. At the time. For
(18:56):
the family, those hold ups were frustrating and bordering on infuriating.
Even area citizens were sending in letters to the editor
of the San Antonio Express News venting their frustrations at
the lack of movement on the DNA testing. Finally, on
April seventh, nineteen ninety seven, more than three months after
(19:19):
Patty Vaughan disappeared, the results of the tests came back.
Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackett announced that the blood found
in Patty's vehicle and house did belong to her. The
lawman also insisted he'd try to get both the Texas
Rangers and the Bear County Sheriff's Office more involved, though
(19:41):
there was far more to it that was at least
part of the issue from the get go. The case,
as former Bear County Sheriff's Office Deputy Adrian Ramirez told us,
was a jurisdictional nightmare.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
You know, another problem that we had. We had the
case because the van was found in Burke County. Then
somehow or another, Wilson County took the case because the
house was in Wilson County.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Eventually the jurisdiction transferred back to the Bear County Sheriff's
Office solely. Sheriff Tackett also made a comment that would
hang over the investigation like a dark cloud, defining it
in unfortunate terms, and arrest, he said, probably won't come
until her body has been found. Desperate for answers and
(20:41):
frustrated with a law enforcement investigation that appeared to be
going nowhere, the family of thirty two year old Patty
Vaughan hired private detective Charles Parker. Parker was confident not
only in his own capabilities, but also in the possibility
that his investigation would breathe new life to the one
being performed by the Bear County Sheriff's Office, though they
(21:04):
all but scoffed at the idea, pointing out that hiring
pis typically does little good in such a case. Wilson County,
who were still jointly working the case, insisted that there
wasn't enough evidence to take it to the district attorney,
but promised the departments would not rest until they found
out what happened to Patty. Assisting the private investigator was
(21:29):
an attorney, a psychologist, and an intuitive psychic. On April seventeenth,
nineteen ninety seven, Parker Road shotgun in a helicopter taking
photos of an area he thought Patty's body would likely
be found about four square miles. Apparently, the investigator's psychic,
(21:49):
Susan Okonski, had drawn maps of the place she'd envisioned
Patty to be buried. The maps bore a striking similarity
to a construction side of which Jr. Vaughn was the
superintendent the future site of an elementary school in Pleasanton,
about thirty eight miles southwest of the Vaughan home. A
(22:11):
State helicopter equipped with infrared had detected hotspots in a
portion of the foundation, and ground penetrating radar was also
brought in to identify any anomalies within the concrete. Jr.
Vaughn had worked at the construction site the day after
his estranged wife went missing, it was reported, although according
(22:34):
to the San Antonio Express News, no concrete had been
poured between December twenty one, nineteen ninety six, and January
thirty first, nineteen ninety seven, four days before and more
than a month after Paddy disappeared, respectively, Since Jr. Also
filed for divorce the day after his estranged wife went
(22:56):
missing and delivered the keys to Patty's van to her
in employer. It's unclear how much time he's thought or
known to have spent at the job site that day.
With Jr's permission anyway, which meant no warrant was required.
Authorities drilled four holes in the concrete slab and about
two feet into the soil from where samples were taken
(23:19):
to be tested, but cadaverdogs had failed to react at
any of the drilled boores. The next day, a machine
that detects methane was brought in, but again nothing was found.
Three weeks later, the soil samples would prove to be
useless as evidence. By June nineteen ninety seven, the Bear
(23:43):
and Wilson County Sheriff's offices had amassed a file that
measured approximately four inches thick, and one and a half
of those inches involved tips that were called in. Wilson
County was far more vocal than Bear about the case,
often venting their frustration in their lack of progress. They'd
(24:04):
spent two thousand man hours investigating the case, Sheriff Tackett reported,
the most the department had ever worked on a single case.
He refused to label JR. Vaughan as a suspect, while
also acknowledging that much of the investigation was concentrated on
him due to the recent separation and Patty's romance with Gary. Still,
(24:28):
they were no closer to finding Patty Vaughan than they
were the day they entered the investigation. More frustrated, of course,
was Patty's family.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
They didn't investigate the car wash. They didn't investigate, I
mean anything really when they found the blood and house,
they didn't. They never even had Jr. And his sister
leave the house. They were in there while they were
doing their luminal testing.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
By the time a year had passed, Patty's family out
thousands of flyers featuring her description and photograph, and relative
to their numbers and availability, had inarguably put in more
work than authorities in Wilson County. Besides handing out the flyers,
searching and strategizing, Patty's aunt Jean told reporter Adolph Pasquero
(25:21):
that they'd written physical letters, emailed, faxed, and called law
enforcement agencies about the case in an attempt to keep
the pressure on. Every single day of the past year
consisted of following leads, eliminating possibilities. Jeane said even when
it looked like their exhaustion and feelings of hopelessness would
(25:44):
get the best of them, they would never give up. Meanwhile,
quotes given to the media by law enforcement made it
sound like they already had if it wasn't for the
fact that Patty was still missing. Lieutenant bub Baker of
the Bear County Sheriff's Office said there was probably enough
evidence to take the case to trial. What if you
(26:06):
do indict someone and get a conviction and she turns
up alive, Baker asked, rhetorically, continuing, if you don't have
a body, it's very seldom you can get a district
attorney to prosecute the case. Up until the point Lieutenant
Baker made these comments, there had been at least sixty
five nobody convictions in the United States that we counted,
(26:30):
and likely many more, including one that was unfolding in Lubbock, Texas.
At that very time. The Sheriff's office told reporters that
they'd exhausted all leads. We'll continue Paddy's story next time
on Gone Cold Texas True Crime. If you have any
(26:53):
information about the disappearance of Patty Vaughan, please contact the
Bear County Sheriff's Office at two one zero zero three
three five six thousand. We'd like to thank Kathy Barb
and former Bear County Sheriff's Office Deputy Adrian Ramirez for
taking the time to speak with us about Patty's case.
(27:15):
If you'd like to join gon Cold's mission to shine
a light on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases, get
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You can also support the show by leaving a five
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(27:38):
else you listen. However you choose to support Gone Cold,
we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all.
Before we start the episode, we'd like to offer our
utmost thanks to new supporters at Patreon dot com slash
Gone Cold Podcast. So thank you Casey M. And Wayland
L for your generous support. If you'd like to listen
to Gone Cold, Texas true crime ad free and have
access to exclusive episodes, go to Patreon dot com Slash
(00:25):
Gone Cold Podcast. We immensely appreciate all the folks who
support us there. Thanks y'all. Now onto the episode. The
Gone Cold Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
Listener discretion is advised. Thirty two year old Patty Vaughn
was last seen on Christmas Day nineteen ninety six. According
(00:49):
to her estranged husband Jr. Who came to spend the
holiday with their three children, the two had heated arguments,
resulting in Patty storming out of the house next day.
Her light blue Dodge Caravan was found at Farm de
Market Road nineteen thirty seven and Loop sixteen oh four
in South Bear County, about fifteen miles from her Wilson
(01:11):
County home and approximately five miles from Quinney Electric, her
place of employment. The vehicle was locked, the exhaust manifold
was still warm to the touch, and the vehicle was
reported not to have been in that area earlier in
the day. After retrieving keys from Jr. Who didn't want
(01:31):
anything to do with the minivan or its retrieval, Patty's
boss and a coworker changed the flat tire it had
and took it to Quiney Electric. The driver's seat was
all the way back, but Patty was hardly tall enough
to drive with the seat in that position. At first,
Patty's family found it difficult to enlist the help of police,
(01:53):
so they did some searching themselves and also reinflated the
flat tire it held the air. There were no punctures
or roadwear that would have caused the tire to go flat,
meaning someone had purposely deflated it, a discovery that only
added to the already long list of troublesome details in
Patty's disappearance. It was far from the last.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
You know. It was set up to make it look
like Patty disappeared from her vehicle in Bear County.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
The van was.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Set up to look it was staged to look like
she disappeared from there to distract from the fact that
something happened at their house in Wilson County, and that's
why we felt law enforcement would push to prove that point.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
After the family of Patty Vaughan reported that it appeared
someone had intentionally let the air out of the tire
of her Dodge Caravan, Deputies B Johnson and Adrian Ramirez,
crime scene investigators for the Bear County Sheriff's Office, were
sent to inspect the vehicle. Ramirez told us what he
found on the bottom portion of the rear center seat.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
As we're looking through the van on site, that's when
I spotted the blood in the rear portion of the van.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
When they got the mini van back to the department,
the deputies discovered something else.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
It wasn't until we took the van back to the
department that we had Natesch's gloves on that. When I
got out of the van, my partner noticed that my
knees were wet. I said, ah, hold on, let me
take off my gloves. And then I felt and I
said it didn't wash. That's when we started looking inside
(04:16):
the crevices of the where the seat's going on that
and there was water in there, and then there was water.
We took some plastic parts off. There was water underneath
there and this thing's been totally washed.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
It was obvious it had been sprayed out at least
from the rear seat to the sliding door. Upon removing
the rear seat, Johnson and Ramirez saw a significant amount
of water in the seat mounts. The deputies removed the
plastic covers from the center seat and found red tinted
condensation around the area closest to the sliding door. Using luminol,
(04:57):
a chemical that reacts to blood, among other things, and fluoresces,
they discovered many other areas where blood had likely been
Several spots lit up on the interior of the sliding door,
between the sliding door and the center seat, under the
rear portion of the front passenger side seat, under the
(05:18):
rear seat nearest the sliding door. Chief forensic errologist L. D.
Ginsburg later identified human blood on the carpet underneath the
rear seat. A sample of the carpet was taken for
further testing. Only a single set of fingerprints could be
found on the Mini van, on the fender above the
(05:39):
wheel well of the tire that had gone flat. The
vehicle had been wiped down inside and out on Saturday,
December twenty eighth, nineteen ninety six, an anonymous callar phoned
the Bear County Sheriff's office on Christmas Day. The tipster
said their friend had seen a blue minivan pulled to
(06:01):
the side of the road and a white male exited.
The man began running away from the van, the caller continued,
but suddenly stopped and ran back to the van, as
if they'd forgotten something. According to Patty Vaughan's family, the
man's description matched Patty's estranged husband, Jr. Vaughan, and a
(06:22):
car scene picking him up matched the description of the
car Jr's mother drove. A popular misconception about the van's
contents has also been the subject of speculation. Even it
appears by law enforcement, a red jumpsuit with an emblem
of the letters j M was found inside. However, it
(06:44):
was found in a box alongside many other articles of
clothing Patty had been collecting from folks to donate elsewhere.
The search for Patty continued. Her aunt Jean told the
San Antonio Express News that there was no reason and
to look for her at the location the searches were
taking place. Other than the fact that her van was
(07:05):
found there. Patty had no reason to be at that spot.
Geene added that Patty would walk, crawl, or drag herself
to a phone to call her children if she were able.
The following day, the Bear County Sheriff's Office, including Deputy
Adrian Ramirez, came to Patty Vaughan's home. A couple days
(07:28):
before the same day they searched the van, investigators had
seen what looked like blood on the floor of the
master bedroom, but when they returned, all traces, at least
those visible to the naked eye, were removed. That's where
they concentrated their efforts.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Process in a resident we used lumino, you know, suffluorescent
chemical that you used to see if there's any blood
present on the floors or on the walls, and it reacted.
But the thing about that chemicals ever, reacts to bleach
and all this other stuff also.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Even if it was bleach, it was telling. And in fact,
when Patty's cousin, Barb came to the house to get
articles of clothing for the search dogs, she said the
bedroom reeked of bleach. Jr's sister, Marilyn, consistently interrupted the investigators,
even going so far as to tell them any blood
(08:27):
they found in the master bathroom was hers and due
to her menstrual cycle, but the luminol had fluorreessed on
a large area there. Patty's cousin, Barb told us.
Speaker 5 (08:38):
She said that to the officers and they were just
floored by it because they were like, well, lady, if
you left this much blood behind, you need to be
in hospital. So it was it was just a lot.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
In the bathroom. The luminol showed what looked like shoe
prints which led to the master bathroom closet. Mop. Like
swab markings were also observed on the bathroom floor closet
area and on the bedroom floor, which was hard wood
adjacent to the master bathroom.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
They found like swab marks from the mop. It was white,
white marks, drag marks from the bedroom. Blood found behind
the baseboard by the door in the bedroom. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yes, that had come right. It looked like before they
had that wall had been cleaned behind the bedroom door.
There was white marks and s white marks on the wall.
And then they actually found physically Patty's blood in the
baseboard behind the baseboard on the floor crack.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
The iluminol also reacted to spots on a mop and
bucket found in the garage. As in the case of
the Mini van. Samples were collected from the Vaughan home
and were later proven to be blood. Matching it to Patty, however,
would prove to be a more arduous task than simply
asking for a comparison sample, of which the Sheriff's office
(10:04):
requested from her children. Early on, Jr. Declined that request. Meanwhile,
searches in south Bear County trudged forward. Though official searches
were called off that Saturday evening, Patty's family and some volunteers, however,
continued their efforts. The Heidi Search Center organized as Sunrise
(10:28):
to Sunset Search for Saturday, January fourth, nineteen ninety seven.
About two hundred showed up from Bear County Sheriff's Office
deputies and volunteer firefighters to dog handlers and members of
Patty's church. Again, love for Patty shined through, as solemn
faced acquaintances and friends told reporters about her good nature
(10:51):
and devotion to her children. No one who knew her
believed she would have left of her own free will.
Her father, Billy Brightway, and stepmother had come into town
from Atlanta. The disappearance of Patty, who he called an
Angel had taken a toll on Billy. The searches that
day and the others to come turned up nothing. In
(11:26):
thirty seven year old j R. Vaughan's statement to police,
he briefly describes their lives together, getting married, the several
times they moved, and how they settled into his mother's
house in Wilson County. Eventually, a mother in law's house
was built for Jr's mom at the back of the property,
and he and Patty took over residence of the main house,
(11:48):
which was to be split between them should his mother die.
Back to Jr's statement, he talked about various problems with
their marriage and reconciling them by giving her more control
of the check book. Patty's family suggests she never had
any control over any of their checkbooks other than the
one used for Jr's construction contracting business, of which Patty
(12:12):
handled accounting. Also in the statement, JR. Claimed he found
out about Patty's affair with her boyfriend Gary on December thirteenth,
nineteen ninety six, which began after they separated. He then
spoke of visiting his divorce attorney on Christmas Eve to
put down a deposit on Christmas Day morning, he left
(12:35):
his San Antonio apartment, and when he arrived at he
and Patty's home, let himself in through the back door.
Their three children opened gifts, after which Jr. Helped them
assemble the toys as Patty prepared dinner. After dinner and cleanup, Jr.
Said both he and Patty fell asleep in the living room.
(12:57):
When they got up, he continued, Patty went to the
master bedroom to avoid his family, who were coming over
to pick up the kids. After they did and left,
the arguing began, he said. Quote. At times we raised
our voices, we yelled, we calmed down, We said many
hateful things. I threatened to take the kids from her.
(13:21):
She said no way, and I told her she had
already done enough things with Gary that I could win custody.
She walked out of the bedroom, walked to the dining
room table, picked up her purse and her coat, and
walked out the front door, crying and yelling. End quote.
Patty's family takes issue with much of Jr's statement here. Patty,
(13:43):
they said, wasn't known to yell, even when she got
mad or upset. In any other way, she would have
been crying her cousin Barb told us, but she never
would have yelled. Quote. She threw open the door, walked
to her van and started off and left. She drove
out the driveway, turned right and went up out of sight.
(14:05):
I closed the house up, locked and latched the front door,
paced around the house and walked back to my mother's home,
and I told her of our argument end quote. According
to eyewitnesses, there was a problem with Jr's story concerning
Patty leaving in the van, which he claims was gone
(14:25):
until her boss found it the following day.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Neighbors talk about how the van had been in the garage.
Patty and Jr. Had lived in that house and moved
all of his mother's stuff out to the garage. There
was never room enough for the van in the garage
because Patty always said, when are you going to clean
it out so I can park the van in the garage,
And there was never room, And all of a sudden
there was room in the garage for the van to
be parked one night.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
Yeah, that night she disappeared.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
The night she disappeared, Patty's boyfriend, Gary was also scrutinized
by police as he rode with his sister He admitted
asking her to drive by Patty's house on Christmas Day,
but had spent the rest of the day and evening
with his family for the holiday.
Speaker 6 (15:11):
Gary had an alibi. Gary had phone call see where
he called from his sister's house to Patty's house. He
and his sisters drove by Patty's house that afternoon.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
And Gary helped us the whole time we were out
looking for her. He's out there with us. He brought
us water and food, and searched and handed out flyers.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Jr. On the other hand, never showed up for searches
and kept Patty's family from seeing her children, with whom
they were extremely close. After giving his statement to police,
he also lawyered up a smart move for someone who
was innocent or guilty. It should be noted was never
interviewed by them again and stopped his speaking with the press.
(16:02):
On January twenty second, nineteen ninety seven, j R. Vaughan
withdrew his divorce petition. Patty's family continually searched her aunt.
Jean told reporters for the San Antonio Express News that
they didn't expect Patty to be found alive. The reality
of what we have to face now won't hold a
(16:23):
candle to what we've had to face out there looking
for her, Pulling apart every bush and pile of garbage,
opening every empty refrigerator, she said, adding nothing can compare
to all the horrifying things we imagined out there looking
for her. She deserves to be brought home. Authorities had
(16:44):
already obtained Patty's dental records in preparation for finding her body.
Official searches, usually led by the Heidi Search Center, continued,
though they had become sporadic. The police investigation as a
whole appeared to have moved at a snail's pace, and
witnesses important witnesses, such as Jr's sister Marylyn, were interviewed
(17:08):
just once. On January seventeenth, nineteen ninety seven, a Wilson
County judge signed off on a warrant ordering five milli
liters of blood be taken from Jerry Ray j R.
Vaughn and the same amount from each of he and
Patty's three children. The blood was to be compared to
the blood found in both Patty's Dodge caravan and in
(17:31):
the master bedroom and bathroom of her home. Both the
Wilson County and Bear County Sheriff's offices were putting out
conflicting information, telling reporters in one breath that they'd found
several indications of foul play, but in another insisting that
the case was being investigated as a standard missing person's case.
(17:52):
They had no suspects, only persons of interest. They'd later say,
whatever the case, whatever was truly going on inside the
mines of investigators, the forensic testing was moving as slowly
as the investigation itself. More than a month after the
blood was taken from Jr. And the kids, Patty's aunt
(18:14):
and cousins questioned why the Bear County Medical Examiner hadn't
yet ran the necessary tests. Doctor Vincent Demayo, chief Medical Examiner,
told reporters basically that it was the bureaucracy. He was
waiting on a purchase order to buy a kit from
a private lab in North Carolina. The kit, a reverse
(18:35):
paternity kit, was relatively new at the time. It would
remove Jr's DNA from the children's samples, isolating Patty's DNA,
which could then be compared to the samples taken from
her home and mini van. No state funded lab in
Texas could perform such a test. At the time. For
(18:56):
the family, those hold ups were frustrating and bordering on infuriating.
Even area citizens were sending in letters to the editor
of the San Antonio Express News venting their frustrations at
the lack of movement on the DNA testing. Finally, on
April seventh, nineteen ninety seven, more than three months after
(19:19):
Patty Vaughan disappeared, the results of the tests came back.
Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackett announced that the blood found
in Patty's vehicle and house did belong to her. The
lawman also insisted he'd try to get both the Texas
Rangers and the Bear County Sheriff's Office more involved, though
(19:41):
there was far more to it that was at least
part of the issue from the get go. The case,
as former Bear County Sheriff's Office Deputy Adrian Ramirez told us,
was a jurisdictional nightmare.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
You know, another problem that we had. We had the
case because the van was found in Burke County. Then
somehow or another, Wilson County took the case because the
house was in Wilson County.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Eventually the jurisdiction transferred back to the Bear County Sheriff's
Office solely. Sheriff Tackett also made a comment that would
hang over the investigation like a dark cloud, defining it
in unfortunate terms, and arrest, he said, probably won't come
until her body has been found. Desperate for answers and
(20:41):
frustrated with a law enforcement investigation that appeared to be
going nowhere, the family of thirty two year old Patty
Vaughan hired private detective Charles Parker. Parker was confident not
only in his own capabilities, but also in the possibility
that his investigation would breathe new life to the one
being performed by the Bear County Sheriff's Office, though they
(21:04):
all but scoffed at the idea, pointing out that hiring
pis typically does little good in such a case. Wilson County,
who were still jointly working the case, insisted that there
wasn't enough evidence to take it to the district attorney,
but promised the departments would not rest until they found
out what happened to Patty. Assisting the private investigator was
(21:29):
an attorney, a psychologist, and an intuitive psychic. On April seventeenth,
nineteen ninety seven, Parker Road shotgun in a helicopter taking
photos of an area he thought Patty's body would likely
be found about four square miles. Apparently, the investigator's psychic,
(21:49):
Susan Okonski, had drawn maps of the place she'd envisioned
Patty to be buried. The maps bore a striking similarity
to a construction side of which Jr. Vaughn was the
superintendent the future site of an elementary school in Pleasanton,
about thirty eight miles southwest of the Vaughan home. A
(22:11):
State helicopter equipped with infrared had detected hotspots in a
portion of the foundation, and ground penetrating radar was also
brought in to identify any anomalies within the concrete. Jr.
Vaughn had worked at the construction site the day after
his estranged wife went missing, it was reported, although according
(22:34):
to the San Antonio Express News, no concrete had been
poured between December twenty one, nineteen ninety six, and January
thirty first, nineteen ninety seven, four days before and more
than a month after Paddy disappeared, respectively, Since Jr. Also
filed for divorce the day after his estranged wife went
(22:56):
missing and delivered the keys to Patty's van to her
in employer. It's unclear how much time he's thought or
known to have spent at the job site that day.
With Jr's permission anyway, which meant no warrant was required.
Authorities drilled four holes in the concrete slab and about
two feet into the soil from where samples were taken
(23:19):
to be tested, but cadaverdogs had failed to react at
any of the drilled boores. The next day, a machine
that detects methane was brought in, but again nothing was found.
Three weeks later, the soil samples would prove to be
useless as evidence. By June nineteen ninety seven, the Bear
(23:43):
and Wilson County Sheriff's offices had amassed a file that
measured approximately four inches thick, and one and a half
of those inches involved tips that were called in. Wilson
County was far more vocal than Bear about the case,
often venting their frustration in their lack of progress. They'd
(24:04):
spent two thousand man hours investigating the case, Sheriff Tackett reported,
the most the department had ever worked on a single case.
He refused to label JR. Vaughan as a suspect, while
also acknowledging that much of the investigation was concentrated on
him due to the recent separation and Patty's romance with Gary. Still,
(24:28):
they were no closer to finding Patty Vaughan than they
were the day they entered the investigation. More frustrated, of course,
was Patty's family.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
They didn't investigate the car wash. They didn't investigate, I
mean anything really when they found the blood and house,
they didn't. They never even had Jr. And his sister
leave the house. They were in there while they were
doing their luminal testing.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
By the time a year had passed, Patty's family out
thousands of flyers featuring her description and photograph, and relative
to their numbers and availability, had inarguably put in more
work than authorities in Wilson County. Besides handing out the flyers,
searching and strategizing, Patty's aunt Jean told reporter Adolph Pasquero
(25:21):
that they'd written physical letters, emailed, faxed, and called law
enforcement agencies about the case in an attempt to keep
the pressure on. Every single day of the past year
consisted of following leads, eliminating possibilities. Jeane said even when
it looked like their exhaustion and feelings of hopelessness would
(25:44):
get the best of them, they would never give up. Meanwhile,
quotes given to the media by law enforcement made it
sound like they already had if it wasn't for the
fact that Patty was still missing. Lieutenant bub Baker of
the Bear County Sheriff's Office said there was probably enough
evidence to take the case to trial. What if you
(26:06):
do indict someone and get a conviction and she turns
up alive, Baker asked, rhetorically, continuing, if you don't have
a body, it's very seldom you can get a district
attorney to prosecute the case. Up until the point Lieutenant
Baker made these comments, there had been at least sixty
five nobody convictions in the United States that we counted,
(26:30):
and likely many more, including one that was unfolding in Lubbock, Texas.
At that very time. The Sheriff's office told reporters that
they'd exhausted all leads. We'll continue Paddy's story next time
on Gone Cold Texas True Crime. If you have any
(26:53):
information about the disappearance of Patty Vaughan, please contact the
Bear County Sheriff's Office at two one zero zero three
three five six thousand. We'd like to thank Kathy Barb
and former Bear County Sheriff's Office Deputy Adrian Ramirez for
taking the time to speak with us about Patty's case.
(27:15):
If you'd like to join gon Cold's mission to shine
a light on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases, get
the show at free and have access to bonus content.
You can at Patreon dot com slash Gone Cold podcast.
You can also support the show by leaving a five
star rating and written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever
(27:38):
else you listen. However you choose to support Gone Cold,
we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all.
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