June 23, 2024 • 31 mins
Right now in true crime: Donna Adelson Discovery hearing, Kouri Richins hearing update, Long Island serial killer update with possible connection to 1996 cold case.
In part 1 of 2 in this episode series we will talk about 3 disappearances from the North Bay Psychiatric hospital in Ontario Canada. We will discuss the disappearances of Phillipe Guerin in 1966, Norman Welch in 1976 and Terry Zubko in 1982. Let’s chat about their stories and how they could have just simply vanished into thin air.
Sources for episode:
https://www.toronto.com/news/crime/behind-the-crimes-how-did-6-patients-vanish-from-a-psychiatric-hospital/article_0f6861b8-de1c-555a-b43e-c63d171f8dda.html
https://www.baytoday.ca/local-news/he-just-vanished-325931
https://www.northbaypolice.ca/news-releases/unsolved-missing-person-investigations/norman-richard-welsh
https://www.northbaypolice.ca/news-releases/unsolved-missing-person-investigations/terry-anthony-zubko
https://int-missing.fandom.com/wiki/Terry_Zubko
In part 1 of 2 in this episode series we will talk about 3 disappearances from the North Bay Psychiatric hospital in Ontario Canada. We will discuss the disappearances of Phillipe Guerin in 1966, Norman Welch in 1976 and Terry Zubko in 1982. Let’s chat about their stories and how they could have just simply vanished into thin air.
Sources for episode:
https://www.toronto.com/news/crime/behind-the-crimes-how-did-6-patients-vanish-from-a-psychiatric-hospital/article_0f6861b8-de1c-555a-b43e-c63d171f8dda.html
https://www.baytoday.ca/local-news/he-just-vanished-325931
https://www.northbaypolice.ca/news-releases/unsolved-missing-person-investigations/norman-richard-welsh
https://www.northbaypolice.ca/news-releases/unsolved-missing-person-investigations/terry-anthony-zubko
https://int-missing.fandom.com/wiki/Terry_Zubko
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It is solvable. It was solvabletwo weeks after it happened. March twenty
fifth, two thousand and four,Cross Plains, Tennessee their last day question
Mark. Jennifer Just, twenty one, stands in the kitchen of her boyfriend
Joey Benton's family home, where sheand her two year old daughter, Adriana
Wicks have been living. She hasthe only phone in the home in her
(00:22):
hand and is on a call withher father. Jennifer expresses how the night
before, she and her boyfriend's parents, Joe and Cindy Benton, have been
involved in a very heated argument.In fact, it was so heated that
Jennifer was still rattled from the nightbefore. She moves the receiver down to
talk to a muffled female voice comingfrom behind her. She then says goodbye
(00:42):
to her father and hangs up thephone. And what happens next, Well,
that's what we're here to find out, isn't it. Jennifer and Adriana
Wicks have not been seen or heardfrom since March twenty fifth, two thousand
and four. I'm a true crimeinvestigated podcaster living in the same town where
the Wicks girl went missing. HiI'm Jules, and I've teamed up with
(01:03):
Jennifer's sister Casey Robinson to ask somebig questions from our little hush town that
we've been too afraid to ask eachother over the last twenty years. Where
are Jennifer and Adriana Wicks small Town'stalk? And guess what we're listening Missing
in Hushtown is coming twenty twenty four. Wherever you get your podcasts, The
(01:25):
entire first season will drop in August. We'll see you then. Welcome to
Primetime Crime. I'm your host,Kylie. Let's talk right now on true
crime, and then together we aregoing to work on warming up some cold
cases. Let's go Hey, guys, welcome back to Primetime Crime. It's
Kylie. We are going to goahead and get into right now on true
crime. We have a few thingsto talk about. First things First,
(01:49):
I do not want to forget tomention this Donna Adelson, who is Charlie
Adelson's mom. If you've been listeningto my summer series you have been following
along. She is going to beon trial later this year. But they
have announced the date that they're goingto be doing all the discovery stuff and
(02:09):
They're also going to be talking aboutwho the witnesses are all going to be,
and that is going to be onJuly twenty second, So I will
be sure to keep you guys updatedon that one, because I do think
it's going to get really interesting forthose of you that saw initially when Donna
first appeared in court, she wasvery theatrical, very dramatic, almost to
(02:34):
the point where it was a littlelike off, like something was off.
So it's going to be very interestingto see how Donna presents from here on
out, how she's actually going topresent during trial, because having a defendant
that is like overly expressive and dramaticand all of that is not going to
bode well for her. So it'sgoing to be very interesting to see what
(02:57):
all happens with that. Okay,next thing I want to talk about is
the judge in the Corey Richins murdercase has officially set a preliminary hearing.
Now. Corey is the mom whowas accused of killing her husband, Eric
Richards in March of twenty twenty two. He is the one that ended up
(03:19):
passing away, and he had fivetimes a fatal dosa fentanyl in his system.
She went on to write a bookabout grief after he passed away,
and it was a children's book,and of course it has now ended up
being tied to her allegedly, soher attorney had withdrawn from her case and
(03:42):
they now of course have newly appointedattorneys to her and given them time to
become familiar with her case so theycan prepare for trial. And they have
now said that they're ready or willbe ready, and they have scheduled a
preliminary hearing for August twenty six seventhand twenty eighth. They said that it
could last about two or three days, and this is basically the hearing in
(04:06):
which the judge is going to determineif there is enough evidence in order for
her to stand trial. She ischarged with aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder,
two counts of distribution of a controlledsubstance, two counts of insurance fraud,
and two counts of mortgage fraud.So it's going to be so interesting
(04:26):
to see what unravels with this.I do feel like they do have plenty
of evidence to take this to trial, So really looking forward to August twenty
sixth, twenty seventh, and twentyeighth to see what ends up happening.
Okay, moving on to Long Islandserial Killer. So I came across this
article and I feel like it's worthtalking about, worth mentioning. You never
(04:46):
know in a case like this howmany people rex Huerman has targeted and cross
paths with, and how many murderershe's really orchestrated, because they are still
in the process of trying to findeverything out. So the sister of a
murder victim, Alisha Showalter Reynolds,she was murdered in nineteen ninety six.
(05:12):
She was a graduate student at JohnsHopkins University and she was in the process
of working on a vaccine for aparasitic infection at the time that she disappeared.
She was twenty five years old.She ended up being murdered by who
they called the Root twenty nine stalkerwhile she was driving from Baltimore to Charlottesville.
(05:34):
So in all of this stuff thathas been going on, of course,
back when Alicia was killed, therewas a composite sketch that was come
up with and Alicia's family is noticingsimilarities between rex Huerman and this sketch,
and they think that this could bea potential lead, and they are asking
(05:59):
invest gators to police look into thisbecause it really does look like him.
I will say it oddly looks likehim. So the circumstances surrounding Alicia's disappearance,
She was in the process of drivingone hundred and fifty miles to meet
her mom to go shopping, andthey had planned to meet around ten thirty
(06:20):
in the morning. Alicia, ofcourse did not arrive and her mom waited
at the mall and she thought thatmaybe some bad weather had delayed Alisha.
So around six pm, Alicia's carwas found abandoned along the shoulder of Route
twenty nine near Virginia, and therewas a white paper napkin placed under the
(06:43):
windshield wiper, which is a signof there being issues with the vehicle,
like having car trouble or something.They later discovered that there was nothing at
all wrong with the car. Therewere three witnesses who came forward to tell
police that they saw Alicia talking toa clean cut, white male. He
was driving a dark colored pickup truck. Coincidence, I don't know. They
(07:10):
did not find Alicia's body for anothertwo months, but they did end up
finding it and it had been dumpedin the woods fifteen miles east of Colpepper,
Virginia. This case remains cold,and it does still remain open.
The Virginia State Police are of courseactively investigating Alicia's case. But when I
tell you that the police sketch,even down to how the person in the
(07:35):
sketch's hair is parted, is eerilysimilar to Rex's the way he wears his
hair today. Now this happened innineteen ninety six, I get a lot
of things could be of course different. This is all speculation, but I
think dealing with someone like Rex Hureman, we have to look at all of
the possibilities and the fact that hecould be connected to so many of these
(07:58):
cold cases, because he is astatistic, horrible human allegedly, and I
think the more that we can tryto connect to him and actually prove that
he was involved is involved, themore we can get closure and justice for
these families. So also really interestingto note that Rex Hireman's mom resided in
(08:22):
a part of Virginia since nineteen ninetyfour. This is about fifty miles from
where Alicia was last seen alive,and of course, during some different depositions,
Rex had admitted to traveling to Virginiaon multiple occasions throughout twenty eighteen.
Alicia's sister is hopeful that this couldbe the break that they need, hopefully
(08:45):
to question Rex and try to seeif there is any connection between Alicia's murder
and him, because they have gonefor a long long time without figuring out
what happened to Alicia, and theydeserve to get justice just as much as
anyone else does. There's also reportsthat between February and March of nineteen ninety
six, twenty three separate women saidthat they had while they were driving,
(09:11):
they had lights flashed at them orhorns were honked at them near Route twenty
nine in an attempt to get themto pull over. And it really makes
you wonder, first of all,who this person was, and if they
had pulled over, what would havehappened to them? Now, there was
a woman who did stop, andshe stopped under the ploy that something was
(09:33):
wrong with her car. She wasdriving along and this person was honking his
horn, flashing lights, saying,hey, something's wrong with your car.
She ended up stopping and she endedup getting into his car, his truck,
and then he attacked her with ascrewdriver. Luckily she was able to
escape because she jumped out of thecar. And it really just makes me
(09:56):
wonder who this person was. Wasthis person Rex, because Rex is the
kind of person I think from everythingwe've learned that will stop it nothing to
get what he wants, and thiscould have been something that he did initially
to try to get victims and itreally didn't work out very well for him,
so then he turned to attacking sexworkers because it was easier for him
(10:20):
to get these victims to come tohim. The things that are going through
my mind right now, I don'tknow, of course, this is all
speculation. There was no confirmation yet, but I do feel like it's a
conversation that we should be having.And at the end of the day,
Alicia's case is important and we needto get justice for her and closure for
(10:41):
her family. So I did wantto bring it up just to kind of
talk about it and just put itout there that there are a lot of
other cases that they are going tobe looking at that Rex could very much
be connected to. Okay, that'sall I have for right now. In
true crime, I have been tirelesslytrying to catch up on the crime Con
(11:01):
sessions that I missed. If youguys are interested in listening to these sessions
and watching them, they load allof the sessions from this year and past
year's crime Cons to an app thatis called crime Hq, and they have
a lot of other stuff too thatthey have, like book club and different
things throughout the year that you canparticipate in. It's cheap, like five
(11:24):
dollars a month or six dollars amonth, so if you're interested, I
would highly suggest you join because itis so worth it. I enjoy very
much being able to watch all ofthe crime Con sessions that I didn't get
to attend because you can't be intwo places at once when you're at crime
Con even though you want to be. Crime HQ is a way to really
(11:46):
be able to watch all the differentthings. So if you're interested, I
highly suggest that this is not anad. It's just me saying I really
enjoy CRIMEHQ and if you don't getto come to crime Con, it's the
next best thing to being there.So we are going to go ahead and
get started with today's episode. Okay, guys, finally I am back with
a unsolved case. I feel likeit has been such a hot minute since
(12:09):
I've officially done a unsolved case.I know that's what my podcast is about,
but sometimes your girl needs to takea break. So today we're going
to be talking about the North BayPsychiatric Hospital disappearances. This is such an
interesting rabbit hole that I have gonedown. I've actually had this one on
(12:31):
my list for a bit. Sowe're going to talk a little bit about
the hospital itself, and then we'regoing to go into some of the people
who mysteriously vanish from this hospital,and it's just going to be very,
very interesting. So North Bay PsychiatricHospital was located in North Bay, which
(12:54):
is a city in Ontario, Canada. The hospital house patients from nineteen fifty
seven to twenty eleven, and theunits were sometimes locked units and sometimes unlocked
units, it depends on the reasonthat you were there. In twenty and
eleven, the patients that were atthe facility ended up being relocated when the
(13:20):
former Northeast Medical Center and North Bayand District Hospital merged into one site.
They ended up becoming North Bay RegionableHealth Center. And this is located on
a Highway seventeen West and the originalNorth Bay Psychiatric Hospital location ended up being
(13:41):
torn down in twenty thirteen, andthat's the one we're going to be talking
about today. So over the spanof the time that they were open,
they had six people who mysteriously disappeared. Now, these people had no connection
to one another other than the factthat they were all patients at the North
Bay Psychiatric Hospital, and they alldisappeared under different circumstances, different years.
(14:07):
They all were there for different reasons, of course, but six people literally
vanished from this hospital and were neverseen or heard from again, which I
think is so wild and a testamentto how they needed to do better with
their security. And considering it isfairly common for people to try to escape
(14:31):
psychiatric facilities, you think that therewould be something more in place to prevent
this. But nonetheless, we aregoing to talk about three of the people
that disappeared from the North bas PsychiatricHospital today and then in part two I'm
going to talk about the other three. I really wanted to break it up
because I wanted them all to havekind of their moment for their story to
(14:56):
be shared, and I didn't wantthe episode to be too much talking about
six people versus talking about three.So today we're going to be talking about
three different cases. I am goingto be telling them in chronological order.
Like I said, these people haveno connection other than the fact that they
were patients at North Base Psychiatric Hospitalin North Bay, Ontario, Canada,
(15:18):
and they all disappeared under odd circumstancesand were never seen or heard from again.
So first up, we have ayoung man named Philippe garn and he
disappeared in June of nineteen sixty six. So Philippe at the time of his
disappearance was twenty seven years old.He had polio when he was only ten
(15:45):
years old, so this left himwith some physical disabilities. He walked with
a limp and he just kind ofhad like some lingering physical disabilities. He
was a patient at the North BayPsychiatric Hospital at the time that he disappeared.
He was, like I said,twenty seven years old. Now,
the details of his disappearance aren't reallyclear. There's not really a whole lot
(16:10):
that the hospital was able to provideas far as what the circumstances of his
disappearance were. But he ended updisappearing and the hospital at the time had
sent a letter to the Widafield PoliceDepartment to report him as missing. So
this department police department was only inoperation for ten years from nineteen fifty eight
(16:33):
to nineteen sixty eight, and eventuallythis police department would be annexed to what
is now known as the North BayPolice Department. Now, because of this,
a lot of things were lost intranslation as far as some of the
details of Philippe's disappearance and what exactlywas going on and any potential leads or
anything like that. So there wasa lead that had come in from a
(17:00):
clergyman who had picked up a hitchhikerand he kind of matched the description of
Philip, which we'll talk about ina little bit, and they did follow
up on this lead, but theyended up coming up empty handed with it.
And as of right now, Philipe'scase is the oldest missing person's case
from North Bay and sadly, hisparents both passed away without knowing what happened
(17:23):
to their son. They always wondered, they never got answers. So in
twenty sixteen, there was a pressconference that honored the fiftieth anniversary of Philippe's
disappearance. Three members of his familywere at disappearance and his sister in law,
(17:44):
who is named Dora said that whenPhilippe disappeared, she was en route
to North Bay to tell Philippe thatshe was going to be marrying his brother,
who was named Omar, But whenshe got there, they said that
Philip was gone and he hasn't beenseen since. She said that Philip's disappearance
(18:07):
was really really hard on the familyin general, but very hard for Philippe's
parents, who never knew and nevergave up hope of figuring out what happened
to their son. Philipe was fiveseven, He had a medium built,
he had short brown hair, browneyes, and he had no upper teeth.
That is a description of Philip now. He disappeared, like I said,
(18:30):
in nineteen sixty six, so Philipwould be eighty five years old today,
and that really puts this into perspective. How long ago this happened and
how much time has passed with noclues, no leads, nothing as to
what happened to Philip. No remainshave been found, and most of his
(18:52):
friends and family have passed on,of course, and the people that were
present at the North Bay Psychiatric Hospitalaround the time Philippe disappeared have also passed
on. So anything that they knewor were holding in or hiding for whatever
reason, died with them. SoI always say it's never too late to
(19:14):
solve a cold case, and Ilike to believe that, however, in
Philippe's case, that might really bethe honest truth, that all the people
that knew something that could have helpedwith his case have passed on. And
also the fact that his missing personswas through this police department that only existed
(19:36):
for ten years and then ended upbeing changed into something else, So a
lot of things got lost in translation. And again, it was nineteen sixty
six. Things were a lot differentback then. So that is the story
of Philipe. Of course, ifhe does have any family that are still
living, I think it's important tohonor them and tell Philippe's story because you
(19:57):
truly never do know if someone outthere knows something. Okay, the next
story I'm going to tell you isof a thirty one year old man named
Norman Welsh. So. Norman andhis mother were on a vacation in Sturgeon
Falls from their home in Saint Catherines. So, for whatever reason, July
(20:21):
thirteenth, nineteen seventy five, Normanwas walking along the highway in Sturgeon Falls
by himself, and he ended upbeing picked up by police. I don't
know why. If they thought thathe was suspicious, they were concerned for
him, whatever the case may be. They ended up picking up Norman and
they thought that he could be asafety risk, and they took him to
(20:45):
a local hospital and from there hewas admitted to a psychiatric hospital. So,
of course, in this Norman gotvery very upset. He was demanding
to go back home, said hewanted to go back to Saint Catherine.
I don't know where his mom wasin all of this, if they had
contacted her, I'm really not sure. It was nineteen seventy five, so
(21:07):
things are a heck of a lotdifferent than they are today. So on
July nineteenth, the nursing staff broughtNorman outside for just some fresh air,
and he ended up running towards thewooded grounds that surrounded the hospital and from
there he was never seen again.He didn't really have anything with him when
(21:30):
he ran away. They do thinkthat he had about fourteen dollars in his
pocket. But Norman definitely wasn't setup to be able to survive on his
own. He was in a strangeplace. He didn't have any of his
possessions on him, and he alsohad epilepsy and required medicines for seizures,
and without these medicines, he wouldnot do well, would obviously go into
(21:55):
a seizure, and he wasn't ableto handle that on his own. Typically.
When he first disappeared, North BayPolice Department and the hospital staff conducted
several searches in the hospital grounds,but they were unsuccessful in locating him,
and he was never seen again.His remains have never been located. I
would love to know what his momsays about all of this. I am
(22:18):
super intrigued by it. I reallywasn't able to find anything much more on
Norman. There's not really a wholelot out there. But I am sure
that his mom lived in this constantstate of sadness and wanting to know what
happened to her son, and thefact that she was with him. They
were on vacation. It was supposedto be a good time, and he
(22:41):
ended up being admitted to this psychiatricfacility, and then he ended up being
completely gone and missing, and noone could give her answers as to what
happened when Norman went missing. Hewas wearing dark blue and gray checkered plants
and a black and white checkered shirtand slips. Norman would be eighty years
(23:03):
old today in twenty twenty four,And it really is astonishing to me that
you can be missing for such along time and nothing is ever found.
It really makes you wonder what becameof these people, all of these stories.
I'm going to tell you, itreally makes you wonder what happened after
(23:23):
they left the facility? What happenedAnd we're going to talk about it a
little later, But why were theyallowed just to leave? Like there was
obviously hospital personnel around? So howdoes someone like Norman, who's obviously upset
(23:44):
and agitated, he wants to leave, and he is outside, surrounded by
hospital personnel, and he's just ableto run off and there's nobody around that
can go after these people. Likepsychiatric facilities, especially in today's age,
a lot of times they're lockdown.But when they're not lockdown, you have
(24:08):
trained, professional staff that are ableto help wrangle these people if they do
try to escape. I don't know. It just completely and totally blows my
mind. And this next one isalso going to be infuriating, and it
just makes me want to rage becauseI feel like all of these could have
been so so preventable. So thenext one we're going to talk about is
(24:30):
a eighteen year old guy named TerryZubgo or zoop Go. He was,
of course a patient at North BayPsychiatric Hospital. He was living with his
parents at the time, and endedup being admitted to the hospital in May
of nineteen eighty two. With allof these stories, especially these first three,
(24:53):
there's not really a clear description ofwhy they were omitted, what they
were struggling with. But mental healthhealth was a lot different back then than
it is now. Of course weknow that. So on July twenty first
of nineteen eighty two, Terry wasgranted privileges to walk around the outside hospital
(25:14):
grounds unsupervised. Now, anyone knows, if you are a patient in a
psychiatric facility, you should not beand you're a danger to yourself for others,
you should not be allowed unsupervised anywhere, especially on hospital grounds. But
they let him walk around for anhour unsupervised on hospital grounds. He ended
(25:37):
up not returning, big shocker,and the hospital ended up searching for him.
Nothing ended up turning up and theydid end up filing a missing persons
and police also did some searches forhim and they came up empty handed.
They found nothing. There was also, like in the first case with Philippe,
(26:00):
there was some sightings of him inthe weeks following his disappearance, but
nothing really ever turned up and Terryhas not been seen or heard from since.
So, like I said, Terrywas eighteen at the time of his
disappearance, and he also suffered fromcatatonic amnesia. This could be part of
(26:21):
why he was hospitalized, although Idon't know the real reason, the full
reason that he was hospitalized, andat the time of his disappearance, he
was taking medicine for this catatomic amnesia, so he could have wandered off and
not even know who he is becausehe has this amnesia situation going on.
So Terry had long, straight bearnhair, hazel or blue gray eyes,
(26:47):
a thin build, a fear complexion, a scar on his lower forehead,
a scar on his left nostril,a twelve to fourteen inch lant's long scar
on his inner forearm. His teethwere in good condition. At the time
of his disappearance. He was wearinga blue t shirt, blue jeans or
brown corduroy pants. He had abeige and brown striped V neck sweater or
(27:10):
an off white pullover with a blackstripe at the collar. And he was
wearing blue running shoes which were asize nine. And if Terry is still
alive and out there today, hewould be sixty years old. Again,
it really shows you how long timehas passed since these people went missing.
And this is a perfect example ofsomebody who could have truly been suffering from
(27:33):
a mental health crisis. He hadthis catatonic amnesia. He might be out
there and not even know who heis, and that is really sad and
scary. He could have started awhole new life and you just never know.
He was a really, really cutekid. I'll be sure to post
a picture of him as well.These three people that disappeared, they all
(27:56):
disappeared under different circumstances, but Ithink one thing remained, and that is
over the years from nineteen sixty sixwhen I highlighted the first disappearance of Philip
to nineteen eighty two when we talkedabout the disappearance of Terry. They obviously
didn't have personnel on staff or enoughstaff to make sure that they were keeping
(28:23):
the people that were patients at theirhospitals safe. That is, at the
end of the day, the mostimportant thing about any type of hospital,
but especially in a psychiatric setting,when you're dealing with people who are a
lot of the times a danger tothemselves, a danger to others, suffering
from these different types of things thatcould cause them to not be in their
(28:45):
right frame of mind, to bea harm to others or a harm to
themselves, or require hospitalization for sometype of mental health issues. And I
know nowadays things are a lot differentand things are taken all lot more seriously,
but back then, it just seemslike they weren't really taken that seriously
and they were allowed to just kindof wander and do their own thing,
(29:08):
or they didn't have enough personnel onhand to make sure that they were keeping
these people safe. So we havesix people in total that we're going to
talk about. I wanted to dothese first three really highlight them, talk
about them, but there isn't alot of information out there, and their
cases are extremely old and extremely cold, and that is why I felt the
(29:33):
need to do this episode. Andit just is wild that after these three
went missing. We still have threemore tragic stories to share about three additional
people that went missing, and oneof the ones I'm sharing in the next
episode tried to disappear from that facilitynine separate times, and she was finally
(29:56):
successful on the tenth attempt. Howdoes that e happen? So I think
this opens up a conversation. Hopefullydifferent facilities around have learned from the mistakes
that the North Bay Psychiatric Facility tookpart in, and they were able to
make things better for current patients becausethey do still see psychiatric patients, it's
(30:19):
just in a different location now.So hopefully they were able to learn from
this, and there's not six additionalpeople who were going to go missing over
the next couple decades, because allof this is super super preventable, and
it's just really sad and fortunate thatthese people had to mysteriously disappear. It's
not necessarily that they lost their livesbecause their remains have never been found.
(30:42):
We just don't know what happened tothem, and it was very easily preventable,
in my opinion. So that isthe story of Part one of the
North Bay Psychiatric Hospital, and weare going to pick back up next week
for part two. Well, Iwill tell you about three more different cases,
(31:02):
and then we're just going to talka little bit about the stigma attached
to mental health and how things havechanged since back then and how things are
now, because I think it's agood, important conversation to have. But
as always, I appreciate you guys. I will see you on Friday for
possibly almost maybe close to the lastsummer series episode. I think I have
(31:26):
Friday's episode and then one more andthen we'll be on our official last episode
of the summer series. But Iwill see you then, and I hope
you have a great week ahead,and you guys stay safe. Bye.
It is solvable. It was solvabletwo weeks after it happened. March twenty
fifth, two thousand and four,Cross Plains, Tennessee their last day question
Mark. Jennifer Just, twenty one, stands in the kitchen of her boyfriend
Joey Benton's family home, where sheand her two year old daughter, Adriana
Wicks have been living. She hasthe only phone in the home in her
(00:22):
hand and is on a call withher father. Jennifer expresses how the night
before, she and her boyfriend's parents, Joe and Cindy Benton, have been
involved in a very heated argument.In fact, it was so heated that
Jennifer was still rattled from the nightbefore. She moves the receiver down to
talk to a muffled female voice comingfrom behind her. She then says goodbye
(00:42):
to her father and hangs up thephone. And what happens next, Well,
that's what we're here to find out, isn't it. Jennifer and Adriana
Wicks have not been seen or heardfrom since March twenty fifth, two thousand
and four. I'm a true crimeinvestigated podcaster living in the same town where
the Wicks girl went missing. HiI'm Jules, and I've teamed up with
(01:03):
Jennifer's sister Casey Robinson to ask somebig questions from our little hush town that
we've been too afraid to ask eachother over the last twenty years. Where
are Jennifer and Adriana Wicks small Town'stalk? And guess what we're listening Missing
in Hushtown is coming twenty twenty four. Wherever you get your podcasts, The
(01:25):
entire first season will drop in August. We'll see you then. Welcome to
Primetime Crime. I'm your host,Kylie. Let's talk right now on true
crime, and then together we aregoing to work on warming up some cold
cases. Let's go Hey, guys, welcome back to Primetime Crime. It's
Kylie. We are going to goahead and get into right now on true
crime. We have a few thingsto talk about. First things First,
(01:49):
I do not want to forget tomention this Donna Adelson, who is Charlie
Adelson's mom. If you've been listeningto my summer series you have been following
along. She is going to beon trial later this year. But they
have announced the date that they're goingto be doing all the discovery stuff and
(02:09):
They're also going to be talking aboutwho the witnesses are all going to be,
and that is going to be onJuly twenty second, So I will
be sure to keep you guys updatedon that one, because I do think
it's going to get really interesting forthose of you that saw initially when Donna
first appeared in court, she wasvery theatrical, very dramatic, almost to
(02:34):
the point where it was a littlelike off, like something was off.
So it's going to be very interestingto see how Donna presents from here on
out, how she's actually going topresent during trial, because having a defendant
that is like overly expressive and dramaticand all of that is not going to
bode well for her. So it'sgoing to be very interesting to see what
(02:57):
all happens with that. Okay,next thing I want to talk about is
the judge in the Corey Richins murdercase has officially set a preliminary hearing.
Now. Corey is the mom whowas accused of killing her husband, Eric
Richards in March of twenty twenty two. He is the one that ended up
(03:19):
passing away, and he had fivetimes a fatal dosa fentanyl in his system.
She went on to write a bookabout grief after he passed away,
and it was a children's book,and of course it has now ended up
being tied to her allegedly, soher attorney had withdrawn from her case and
(03:42):
they now of course have newly appointedattorneys to her and given them time to
become familiar with her case so theycan prepare for trial. And they have
now said that they're ready or willbe ready, and they have scheduled a
preliminary hearing for August twenty six seventhand twenty eighth. They said that it
could last about two or three days, and this is basically the hearing in
(04:06):
which the judge is going to determineif there is enough evidence in order for
her to stand trial. She ischarged with aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder,
two counts of distribution of a controlledsubstance, two counts of insurance fraud,
and two counts of mortgage fraud.So it's going to be so interesting
(04:26):
to see what unravels with this.I do feel like they do have plenty
of evidence to take this to trial, So really looking forward to August twenty
sixth, twenty seventh, and twentyeighth to see what ends up happening.
Okay, moving on to Long Islandserial Killer. So I came across this
article and I feel like it's worthtalking about, worth mentioning. You never
(04:46):
know in a case like this howmany people rex Huerman has targeted and cross
paths with, and how many murderershe's really orchestrated, because they are still
in the process of trying to findeverything out. So the sister of a
murder victim, Alisha Showalter Reynolds,she was murdered in nineteen ninety six.
(05:12):
She was a graduate student at JohnsHopkins University and she was in the process
of working on a vaccine for aparasitic infection at the time that she disappeared.
She was twenty five years old.She ended up being murdered by who
they called the Root twenty nine stalkerwhile she was driving from Baltimore to Charlottesville.
(05:34):
So in all of this stuff thathas been going on, of course,
back when Alicia was killed, therewas a composite sketch that was come
up with and Alicia's family is noticingsimilarities between rex Huerman and this sketch,
and they think that this could bea potential lead, and they are asking
(05:59):
invest gators to police look into thisbecause it really does look like him.
I will say it oddly looks likehim. So the circumstances surrounding Alicia's disappearance,
She was in the process of drivingone hundred and fifty miles to meet
her mom to go shopping, andthey had planned to meet around ten thirty
(06:20):
in the morning. Alicia, ofcourse did not arrive and her mom waited
at the mall and she thought thatmaybe some bad weather had delayed Alisha.
So around six pm, Alicia's carwas found abandoned along the shoulder of Route
twenty nine near Virginia, and therewas a white paper napkin placed under the
(06:43):
windshield wiper, which is a signof there being issues with the vehicle,
like having car trouble or something.They later discovered that there was nothing at
all wrong with the car. Therewere three witnesses who came forward to tell
police that they saw Alicia talking toa clean cut, white male. He
was driving a dark colored pickup truck. Coincidence, I don't know. They
(07:10):
did not find Alicia's body for anothertwo months, but they did end up
finding it and it had been dumpedin the woods fifteen miles east of Colpepper,
Virginia. This case remains cold,and it does still remain open.
The Virginia State Police are of courseactively investigating Alicia's case. But when I
tell you that the police sketch,even down to how the person in the
(07:35):
sketch's hair is parted, is eerilysimilar to Rex's the way he wears his
hair today. Now this happened innineteen ninety six, I get a lot
of things could be of course different. This is all speculation, but I
think dealing with someone like Rex Hureman, we have to look at all of
the possibilities and the fact that hecould be connected to so many of these
(07:58):
cold cases, because he is astatistic, horrible human allegedly, and I
think the more that we can tryto connect to him and actually prove that
he was involved is involved, themore we can get closure and justice for
these families. So also really interestingto note that Rex Hireman's mom resided in
(08:22):
a part of Virginia since nineteen ninetyfour. This is about fifty miles from
where Alicia was last seen alive,and of course, during some different depositions,
Rex had admitted to traveling to Virginiaon multiple occasions throughout twenty eighteen.
Alicia's sister is hopeful that this couldbe the break that they need, hopefully
(08:45):
to question Rex and try to seeif there is any connection between Alicia's murder
and him, because they have gonefor a long long time without figuring out
what happened to Alicia, and theydeserve to get justice just as much as
anyone else does. There's also reportsthat between February and March of nineteen ninety
six, twenty three separate women saidthat they had while they were driving,
(09:11):
they had lights flashed at them orhorns were honked at them near Route twenty
nine in an attempt to get themto pull over. And it really makes
you wonder, first of all,who this person was, and if they
had pulled over, what would havehappened to them? Now, there was
a woman who did stop, andshe stopped under the ploy that something was
(09:33):
wrong with her car. She wasdriving along and this person was honking his
horn, flashing lights, saying,hey, something's wrong with your car.
She ended up stopping and she endedup getting into his car, his truck,
and then he attacked her with ascrewdriver. Luckily she was able to
escape because she jumped out of thecar. And it really just makes me
(09:56):
wonder who this person was. Wasthis person Rex, because Rex is the
kind of person I think from everythingwe've learned that will stop it nothing to
get what he wants, and thiscould have been something that he did initially
to try to get victims and itreally didn't work out very well for him,
so then he turned to attacking sexworkers because it was easier for him
(10:20):
to get these victims to come tohim. The things that are going through
my mind right now, I don'tknow, of course, this is all
speculation. There was no confirmation yet, but I do feel like it's a
conversation that we should be having.And at the end of the day,
Alicia's case is important and we needto get justice for her and closure for
(10:41):
her family. So I did wantto bring it up just to kind of
talk about it and just put itout there that there are a lot of
other cases that they are going tobe looking at that Rex could very much
be connected to. Okay, that'sall I have for right now. In
true crime, I have been tirelesslytrying to catch up on the crime Con
(11:01):
sessions that I missed. If youguys are interested in listening to these sessions
and watching them, they load allof the sessions from this year and past
year's crime Cons to an app thatis called crime Hq, and they have
a lot of other stuff too thatthey have, like book club and different
things throughout the year that you canparticipate in. It's cheap, like five
(11:24):
dollars a month or six dollars amonth, so if you're interested, I
would highly suggest you join because itis so worth it. I enjoy very
much being able to watch all ofthe crime Con sessions that I didn't get
to attend because you can't be intwo places at once when you're at crime
Con even though you want to be. Crime HQ is a way to really
(11:46):
be able to watch all the differentthings. So if you're interested, I
highly suggest that this is not anad. It's just me saying I really
enjoy CRIMEHQ and if you don't getto come to crime Con, it's the
next best thing to being there.So we are going to go ahead and
get started with today's episode. Okay, guys, finally I am back with
a unsolved case. I feel likeit has been such a hot minute since
(12:09):
I've officially done a unsolved case.I know that's what my podcast is about,
but sometimes your girl needs to takea break. So today we're going
to be talking about the North BayPsychiatric Hospital disappearances. This is such an
interesting rabbit hole that I have gonedown. I've actually had this one on
(12:31):
my list for a bit. Sowe're going to talk a little bit about
the hospital itself, and then we'regoing to go into some of the people
who mysteriously vanish from this hospital,and it's just going to be very,
very interesting. So North Bay PsychiatricHospital was located in North Bay, which
(12:54):
is a city in Ontario, Canada. The hospital house patients from nineteen fifty
seven to twenty eleven, and theunits were sometimes locked units and sometimes unlocked
units, it depends on the reasonthat you were there. In twenty and
eleven, the patients that were atthe facility ended up being relocated when the
(13:20):
former Northeast Medical Center and North Bayand District Hospital merged into one site.
They ended up becoming North Bay RegionableHealth Center. And this is located on
a Highway seventeen West and the originalNorth Bay Psychiatric Hospital location ended up being
(13:41):
torn down in twenty thirteen, andthat's the one we're going to be talking
about today. So over the spanof the time that they were open,
they had six people who mysteriously disappeared. Now, these people had no connection
to one another other than the factthat they were all patients at the North
Bay Psychiatric Hospital, and they alldisappeared under different circumstances, different years.
(14:07):
They all were there for different reasons, of course, but six people literally
vanished from this hospital and were neverseen or heard from again, which I
think is so wild and a testamentto how they needed to do better with
their security. And considering it isfairly common for people to try to escape
(14:31):
psychiatric facilities, you think that therewould be something more in place to prevent
this. But nonetheless, we aregoing to talk about three of the people
that disappeared from the North bas PsychiatricHospital today and then in part two I'm
going to talk about the other three. I really wanted to break it up
because I wanted them all to havekind of their moment for their story to
(14:56):
be shared, and I didn't wantthe episode to be too much talking about
six people versus talking about three.So today we're going to be talking about
three different cases. I am goingto be telling them in chronological order.
Like I said, these people haveno connection other than the fact that they
were patients at North Base Psychiatric Hospitalin North Bay, Ontario, Canada,
(15:18):
and they all disappeared under odd circumstancesand were never seen or heard from again.
So first up, we have ayoung man named Philippe garn and he
disappeared in June of nineteen sixty six. So Philippe at the time of his
disappearance was twenty seven years old.He had polio when he was only ten
(15:45):
years old, so this left himwith some physical disabilities. He walked with
a limp and he just kind ofhad like some lingering physical disabilities. He
was a patient at the North BayPsychiatric Hospital at the time that he disappeared.
He was, like I said,twenty seven years old. Now,
the details of his disappearance aren't reallyclear. There's not really a whole lot
(16:10):
that the hospital was able to provideas far as what the circumstances of his
disappearance were. But he ended updisappearing and the hospital at the time had
sent a letter to the Widafield PoliceDepartment to report him as missing. So
this department police department was only inoperation for ten years from nineteen fifty eight
(16:33):
to nineteen sixty eight, and eventuallythis police department would be annexed to what
is now known as the North BayPolice Department. Now, because of this,
a lot of things were lost intranslation as far as some of the
details of Philippe's disappearance and what exactlywas going on and any potential leads or
anything like that. So there wasa lead that had come in from a
(17:00):
clergyman who had picked up a hitchhikerand he kind of matched the description of
Philip, which we'll talk about ina little bit, and they did follow
up on this lead, but theyended up coming up empty handed with it.
And as of right now, Philipe'scase is the oldest missing person's case
from North Bay and sadly, hisparents both passed away without knowing what happened
(17:23):
to their son. They always wondered, they never got answers. So in
twenty sixteen, there was a pressconference that honored the fiftieth anniversary of Philippe's
disappearance. Three members of his familywere at disappearance and his sister in law,
(17:44):
who is named Dora said that whenPhilippe disappeared, she was en route
to North Bay to tell Philippe thatshe was going to be marrying his brother,
who was named Omar, But whenshe got there, they said that
Philip was gone and he hasn't beenseen since. She said that Philip's disappearance
(18:07):
was really really hard on the familyin general, but very hard for Philippe's
parents, who never knew and nevergave up hope of figuring out what happened
to their son. Philipe was fiveseven, He had a medium built,
he had short brown hair, browneyes, and he had no upper teeth.
That is a description of Philip now. He disappeared, like I said,
(18:30):
in nineteen sixty six, so Philipwould be eighty five years old today,
and that really puts this into perspective. How long ago this happened and
how much time has passed with noclues, no leads, nothing as to
what happened to Philip. No remainshave been found, and most of his
(18:52):
friends and family have passed on,of course, and the people that were
present at the North Bay Psychiatric Hospitalaround the time Philippe disappeared have also passed
on. So anything that they knewor were holding in or hiding for whatever
reason, died with them. SoI always say it's never too late to
(19:14):
solve a cold case, and Ilike to believe that, however, in
Philippe's case, that might really bethe honest truth, that all the people
that knew something that could have helpedwith his case have passed on. And
also the fact that his missing personswas through this police department that only existed
(19:36):
for ten years and then ended upbeing changed into something else, So a
lot of things got lost in translation. And again, it was nineteen sixty
six. Things were a lot differentback then. So that is the story
of Philipe. Of course, ifhe does have any family that are still
living, I think it's important tohonor them and tell Philippe's story because you
(19:57):
truly never do know if someone outthere knows something. Okay, the next
story I'm going to tell you isof a thirty one year old man named
Norman Welsh. So. Norman andhis mother were on a vacation in Sturgeon
Falls from their home in Saint Catherines. So, for whatever reason, July
(20:21):
thirteenth, nineteen seventy five, Normanwas walking along the highway in Sturgeon Falls
by himself, and he ended upbeing picked up by police. I don't
know why. If they thought thathe was suspicious, they were concerned for
him, whatever the case may be. They ended up picking up Norman and
they thought that he could be asafety risk, and they took him to
(20:45):
a local hospital and from there hewas admitted to a psychiatric hospital. So,
of course, in this Norman gotvery very upset. He was demanding
to go back home, said hewanted to go back to Saint Catherine.
I don't know where his mom wasin all of this, if they had
contacted her, I'm really not sure. It was nineteen seventy five, so
(21:07):
things are a heck of a lotdifferent than they are today. So on
July nineteenth, the nursing staff broughtNorman outside for just some fresh air,
and he ended up running towards thewooded grounds that surrounded the hospital and from
there he was never seen again.He didn't really have anything with him when
(21:30):
he ran away. They do thinkthat he had about fourteen dollars in his
pocket. But Norman definitely wasn't setup to be able to survive on his
own. He was in a strangeplace. He didn't have any of his
possessions on him, and he alsohad epilepsy and required medicines for seizures,
and without these medicines, he wouldnot do well, would obviously go into
(21:55):
a seizure, and he wasn't ableto handle that on his own. Typically.
When he first disappeared, North BayPolice Department and the hospital staff conducted
several searches in the hospital grounds,but they were unsuccessful in locating him,
and he was never seen again.His remains have never been located. I
would love to know what his momsays about all of this. I am
(22:18):
super intrigued by it. I reallywasn't able to find anything much more on
Norman. There's not really a wholelot out there. But I am sure
that his mom lived in this constantstate of sadness and wanting to know what
happened to her son, and thefact that she was with him. They
were on vacation. It was supposedto be a good time, and he
(22:41):
ended up being admitted to this psychiatricfacility, and then he ended up being
completely gone and missing, and noone could give her answers as to what
happened when Norman went missing. Hewas wearing dark blue and gray checkered plants
and a black and white checkered shirtand slips. Norman would be eighty years
(23:03):
old today in twenty twenty four,And it really is astonishing to me that
you can be missing for such along time and nothing is ever found.
It really makes you wonder what becameof these people, all of these stories.
I'm going to tell you, itreally makes you wonder what happened after
(23:23):
they left the facility? What happenedAnd we're going to talk about it a
little later, But why were theyallowed just to leave? Like there was
obviously hospital personnel around? So howdoes someone like Norman, who's obviously upset
(23:44):
and agitated, he wants to leave, and he is outside, surrounded by
hospital personnel, and he's just ableto run off and there's nobody around that
can go after these people. Likepsychiatric facilities, especially in today's age,
a lot of times they're lockdown.But when they're not lockdown, you have
(24:08):
trained, professional staff that are ableto help wrangle these people if they do
try to escape. I don't know. It just completely and totally blows my
mind. And this next one isalso going to be infuriating, and it
just makes me want to rage becauseI feel like all of these could have
been so so preventable. So thenext one we're going to talk about is
(24:30):
a eighteen year old guy named TerryZubgo or zoop Go. He was,
of course a patient at North BayPsychiatric Hospital. He was living with his
parents at the time, and endedup being admitted to the hospital in May
of nineteen eighty two. With allof these stories, especially these first three,
(24:53):
there's not really a clear description ofwhy they were omitted, what they
were struggling with. But mental healthhealth was a lot different back then than
it is now. Of course weknow that. So on July twenty first
of nineteen eighty two, Terry wasgranted privileges to walk around the outside hospital
(25:14):
grounds unsupervised. Now, anyone knows, if you are a patient in a
psychiatric facility, you should not beand you're a danger to yourself for others,
you should not be allowed unsupervised anywhere, especially on hospital grounds. But
they let him walk around for anhour unsupervised on hospital grounds. He ended
(25:37):
up not returning, big shocker,and the hospital ended up searching for him.
Nothing ended up turning up and theydid end up filing a missing persons
and police also did some searches forhim and they came up empty handed.
They found nothing. There was also, like in the first case with Philippe,
(26:00):
there was some sightings of him inthe weeks following his disappearance, but
nothing really ever turned up and Terryhas not been seen or heard from since.
So, like I said, Terrywas eighteen at the time of his
disappearance, and he also suffered fromcatatonic amnesia. This could be part of
(26:21):
why he was hospitalized, although Idon't know the real reason, the full
reason that he was hospitalized, andat the time of his disappearance, he
was taking medicine for this catatomic amnesia, so he could have wandered off and
not even know who he is becausehe has this amnesia situation going on.
So Terry had long, straight bearnhair, hazel or blue gray eyes,
(26:47):
a thin build, a fear complexion, a scar on his lower forehead,
a scar on his left nostril,a twelve to fourteen inch lant's long scar
on his inner forearm. His teethwere in good condition. At the time
of his disappearance. He was wearinga blue t shirt, blue jeans or
brown corduroy pants. He had abeige and brown striped V neck sweater or
(27:10):
an off white pullover with a blackstripe at the collar. And he was
wearing blue running shoes which were asize nine. And if Terry is still
alive and out there today, hewould be sixty years old. Again,
it really shows you how long timehas passed since these people went missing.
And this is a perfect example ofsomebody who could have truly been suffering from
(27:33):
a mental health crisis. He hadthis catatonic amnesia. He might be out
there and not even know who heis, and that is really sad and
scary. He could have started awhole new life and you just never know.
He was a really, really cutekid. I'll be sure to post
a picture of him as well.These three people that disappeared, they all
(27:56):
disappeared under different circumstances, but Ithink one thing remained, and that is
over the years from nineteen sixty sixwhen I highlighted the first disappearance of Philip
to nineteen eighty two when we talkedabout the disappearance of Terry. They obviously
didn't have personnel on staff or enoughstaff to make sure that they were keeping
(28:23):
the people that were patients at theirhospitals safe. That is, at the
end of the day, the mostimportant thing about any type of hospital,
but especially in a psychiatric setting,when you're dealing with people who are a
lot of the times a danger tothemselves, a danger to others, suffering
from these different types of things thatcould cause them to not be in their
(28:45):
right frame of mind, to bea harm to others or a harm to
themselves, or require hospitalization for sometype of mental health issues. And I
know nowadays things are a lot differentand things are taken all lot more seriously,
but back then, it just seemslike they weren't really taken that seriously
and they were allowed to just kindof wander and do their own thing,
(29:08):
or they didn't have enough personnel onhand to make sure that they were keeping
these people safe. So we havesix people in total that we're going to
talk about. I wanted to dothese first three really highlight them, talk
about them, but there isn't alot of information out there, and their
cases are extremely old and extremely cold, and that is why I felt the
(29:33):
need to do this episode. Andit just is wild that after these three
went missing. We still have threemore tragic stories to share about three additional
people that went missing, and oneof the ones I'm sharing in the next
episode tried to disappear from that facilitynine separate times, and she was finally
(29:56):
successful on the tenth attempt. Howdoes that e happen? So I think
this opens up a conversation. Hopefullydifferent facilities around have learned from the mistakes
that the North Bay Psychiatric Facility tookpart in, and they were able to
make things better for current patients becausethey do still see psychiatric patients, it's
(30:19):
just in a different location now.So hopefully they were able to learn from
this, and there's not six additionalpeople who were going to go missing over
the next couple decades, because allof this is super super preventable, and
it's just really sad and fortunate thatthese people had to mysteriously disappear. It's
not necessarily that they lost their livesbecause their remains have never been found.
(30:42):
We just don't know what happened tothem, and it was very easily preventable,
in my opinion. So that isthe story of Part one of the
North Bay Psychiatric Hospital, and weare going to pick back up next week
for part two. Well, Iwill tell you about three more different cases,
(31:02):
and then we're just going to talka little bit about the stigma attached
to mental health and how things havechanged since back then and how things are
now, because I think it's agood, important conversation to have. But
as always, I appreciate you guys. I will see you on Friday for
possibly almost maybe close to the lastsummer series episode. I think I have
(31:26):
Friday's episode and then one more andthen we'll be on our official last episode
of the summer series. But Iwill see you then, and I hope
you have a great week ahead,and you guys stay safe. Bye.
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