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June 3, 2025 26 mins

The disappearance of Lindsay Wells, who vanished while nine months pregnant on March 27, 1999, serves as the central theme of our discussion today with Melanie Flowers, her close friend. In this first part of a two-part series, we delve deeply into the circumstances surrounding Lindsay’s life and the events leading up to her mysterious disappearance. Melanie recounts her last interactions with Lindsay and illuminates the tumultuous relationships that may have contributed to the troubling situation. The conversation further explores the inadequate investigations that have left crucial questions unanswered for over two decades. As we navigate through this somber narrative, we aim to shed light on the unresolved aspects of Lindsay's case and the implications for those who seek justice for her and her unborn child.

The views expressed in this podcast are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my partners. These are my opinions and theories and the people mentioned are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

www.allisondubois.com

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Welcome to the Dead Life.
Here's world renowned mediumAlison Dubois.
Today on the Dead Life, I havea special guest today.
We're going to hear fromMelanie Flowers, the never before
heard from best friend ofLindsay Wells.
Lindsay disappeared when shewas nine months pregnant back on
March 27, 1999.

(00:24):
Melanie and I are going tounpack what led up to her disappearance
to book a reading with me forFather's Day readings.
Email us@bookingisondubois.com if you have a life question
for me and Sophia for my loveme love me not segment or witness
information about LindsayWells disappearance.
Leave your question or commentat 802-332-3811.

(00:48):
If you want to watch past andpresent episodes of the Dead Life
you can follow me on YouTube,please like and subscribe.
I'm pleased to announce thatmy Divination 22 intention setting
vodka, both the money potionand love potion are now available@divination22.com
and bigthirst.com you can nowget your hands in your own bottle

(01:08):
and use your inner light tochange your life.
I want to welcome MelanieFlowers to my show.
Melannie, thank you for beinghere for Lindsay.
Thank you for having me.
I.
It's interesting.
I had googled Lindsay's namelast night to get the date again
because I just worked case andso I had different dates in my head
and my Instagram and YouTubepopped up pretty close under her

(01:33):
name.
That's how littleinvestigation seems to be have been
happening in the last 25 yearsthat there were no real updates on
her case.
I found that astounding.
I should be way down there inthe list of information available
on her.
Can you tell us about Lindsayand how you two met?

(01:55):
Well, I think it was back in 96.
I was about 16, I think she was.
Oh God no.
Was it.
I don't know, it was so long ago.
It's been 25 years.
Yeah, it's been a long time.
So yeah, she, it might havebeen, you know, 96 and she was about

(02:17):
19.
She was wild, like just funwild though in just spirit.
Beautiful girl.
But she had some troubles, youknow, following her, especially with
her daughter's father and that family.
But we just, I don't know howour paths crossed but she was just

(02:43):
fun.
She was kind of like a biggersister to me and we just had so much
fun together.
She was just a beautiful soul,you know, just person in general
and we just had so much fun together.
So when was the last time yousaw or talked to Lindsay?

(03:04):
The night before she wentmissing, I was supposed to get her
that morning, take her to herappointment, and that's.
Yeah.
And how did she seem to youwhen you talked to her?
She was fine.
I mean, there's historybetween her and the fiance.

(03:25):
There was a lot of turmoil inthat home, especially with the mother.
So when she went missing, mymind straight went to John and his
mother.
I'm so glad to hear that fromyou, because I had added that as
one of my questions, so we canjust address it.

(03:45):
But it seems to me if he wasliving with his mom, and I believe
Lindsay was living there aswell at the time, that I would think
the mom would have a lot tosay, that she'd be protesting his
innocence, that she would haveknown that, you know, exactly what
went on in the house and whatunfolded and be a little bit more

(04:06):
forthcoming.
But I didn't see anyinformation available from her as
far as what happened that night.
And the vibe I got just fromthe mother's energy is she's the
kind of mom that would help ason cover up something gruesome or
criminal.

(04:26):
That's just my opinion.
He did not like Lindsay.
I will be very honest with you.
Even when I was in that homewith Lindsay, it was dark energy,
in a way.
She just was never pleasant tobe around.
Her and Lindsay argued a lot,which caused Lindsay and John to

(04:49):
argue.
It was just.
Lindsay never wanted to be there.
Yeah.
I mean, you can't really blame her.
I mean, I'm sure she felt veryunwelcome in that home.
I also had talked to somepeople close to Lindsay that said
she was talking about givingthe baby up for adoption.

(05:11):
Had you heard that?
No.
And when I heard on yourpodcast that it was David's mother,
they didn't even have a greatrelationship because I moved Lindsay
out of that house with mymother, which.
Oh, my goodness, that became ahorrific event as well.
You know, I had to move thathouse into her grandfather's house

(05:34):
where she finally.
That was.
That was.
That was Lindsay's mom thatyou moved her out of her house?
No, David's mother.
David's mother.
Gotcha.
And I don't.
I mean, there was a bunch ofpeople living in that home.
I have no doubt.
I met David.

(05:55):
Yeah.
That there was so much goingon in that circle.
Yeah.
And it was.
She was in turmoil againunderneath that roof.
And we literally had to packher up and just take what we could,
but she hang there so shecould be with her daughter, you know,

(06:15):
and see her daughter.
But there was A lot of backand forth and it was really sad because
she wanted to be with herdaughter, but they were using her
daughter as, you know, a toy.
Yeah, it wasn't okay.
But David's mother andLindsay, they did not get along either
because they wanted to use asa pawn Lindsay's and David's daughter.

(06:37):
It was really sad.
That is sad.
So I talked to David and Ihave my own impressions that I got
of him.
He was an interestingcharacter for sure.
He actually didn't know how toedit himself.
I found that interesting.
He was pretty.
With me anyways.
He was pretty straightforwardin trying to get it mile or threatening

(07:02):
to get at Miles when they werein jail together because Miles was
wearing a wire to try andrecord David incriminating himself.
And, and he, I could see himactually get getting upset that,
that people would even belooking at him as a subject.
So much so that he was willingto take a lie detector test with

(07:25):
us, which we did administer tohim with a professional polygraph
expert, which we'll go into as well.
But it was an interestingenergy in Simi Valley.
I don't know what it is now,but given the circumstances then
I can't imagine it got much better.
And when I was there, therewas a big drug overtone to Simi Valley,

(07:48):
like a bit of a criminalenergy that was there.
And the homicide detectivethat I was working with that we brought
in independently of SimiValley, he had arrested a number
of people we walked past onthe, in the park and on the streets
and he just point them out andhe's like, yeah, I pinched that guy.

(08:09):
And it was just amazing at howmuch criminal activity seemed to
be in the area there.
And again, big drug energy there.
So much so that it was such alow energy.
I was shocked when we went toDA or not David.

(08:29):
We went to John's house and wewanted to go into the backyard.
And the people wanted money soproduction gave them some money so
that we could go into thebackyard so I could pull impressions
because that's what I do.
And I wanted to bring in asonar that doesn't disrupt the dirt,
it just goes over it to see ifthere's a depression in the earth.

(08:53):
And they wanted $3,000 to lookfor a nine month pregnant woman that
could be buried in the backyard.
Which I just thought wassoulless on their part.
But that really was the energyof the town.
It was what are you going todo for me?
And very much opportunistic in nature.

(09:14):
So I just wanted to put thatout there for for the listeners so
that they get a visual of whatkind of place she was in.
And it seemed that Lindsaywould go from one bad boy to another.
Yes.
And that she thought she couldfix them somehow or saw potential
in them, which is a veryslippery slope for women.

(09:34):
Yes.
Go down.
Bad boys.
The first word, bad.
Not necessarily a good thing.
You don't try and fix.
You let them fix themselves.
So I.
And pregnant women tend to bemore in danger than non pregnant
women when it comes to relationships.
So that was another strikeagainst Lindsay and her trying to

(09:57):
just live some sort of a lifeand find her happiness.
It didn't seem it was going tobe with John.
Was Lindsay afraid of David?
I wouldn't say she was afraidof David in a way.
I mean David was always in andout of jail, prison.

(10:19):
I think I saw him maybe two times.
Maybe if that it was more his mother.
She was scary.
And then the family behind that.
So.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(10:40):
When we were there filming,those were not people that were willing
to be interviewed.
Oh no.
And John amazingly happened tohave checked himself into rehab when
we were there, so wasunavailable for interview.
Yeah.
Not surprised at the time.
Yeah.
So I thought that was telling.

(11:02):
And in his, you know, if itwas my pregnant fiance that disappeared,
I'd move heaven and earth totry and give whatever information
I had to try and help find my.
My wife to be and my child.
Absolutely.
And.
And he just ghosted us.
David, on the other hand, hewas very willing to be interviewed.

(11:27):
He was very forthcoming withhis time in jail and his history.
So it was, you know, that'snot even anything I had to look at
the file for.
He just sort of unloadedeverything and gave.
Gave me plenty of information.
Because when I'm interviewing,I'm watching them for deception or
for what they're not saying oravoiding talking about and everything.

(11:54):
I asked him, he answered.
So I, I did appreciate thatfrom him.
And I just wanted to say thatbecause we're going to go into some
more details of the town andwhy some cases don't get solved.
And this one, it felt andstill feels to me that if just a
few things were unraveled,this could be solved.

(12:17):
Like this feels like asolvable case to me.
So I just wanted to put thatout there.
So now let's go to John.
What did you think of?
I know you said John's motheris scary, but I also heard something
about the dad and I don't knowif this is something that was common

(12:40):
knowledge or if you had heard,but did he own or manage, like, a
concrete factory.
I never saw John's father atthat house or heard of him.
But John, he had a truck.
He did work in concrete and plastering.
And the morning of the day, Iwent over to their house to get Lindsay

(13:05):
because I had, I believe,called her.
She didn't answer.
I called the house, and itjust kept ringing and answer.
So I went over there to get her.
He had concrete stuff andplaster stuff out on the driveway.
The garage that's always openbecause we hang out in that garage.

(13:29):
There was stuff all over the driveway.
And he.
The garage was kind of half shut.
And he was sitting on a couchwhere the couch is in the garage.
And then there's a pool table.
And there was two legs dangling.
And I kind of bent down underneath.
And I said, hey, where's Lindsay?
And he, like, freaked out.
He had this weird look on his face.
And he goes, she's not here.

(13:49):
He's all, get out of here.
And I kind of just was like,oh, okay.
And I left because.
Scared me sometimes.
Well, sure.
Yeah, that was.
So I just went home and I keptcalling and calling and nothing.
Nothing.
And then I think Lindsay'smom, Donna, had messaged me the next
day asking, you know, have youseen Lindsay?

(14:11):
And I said, no.
And then that's when I startedfinding out everything.
But the interesting thing tome was there was a rug underneath
the pool table.
The rug was missing.
When I started really thinkingabout things.
Yeah, we had gotten someinformation in our investigation

(14:33):
that the garage may have beena place where this took place and
or disposal of Lindsay.
We interviewed Miles about that.
Miles is.
I always knew that there was amic or a.
Was it a mic or a mat?
But I don't know.

(14:55):
Miles was a good friend of John.
That had very shady, deceptiveanswers for me and my investigator,
my homicide detective.
We both interviewed him at thesame time and felt that he was not
telling us everything and thathe was lying.

(15:16):
And we got him to agree totake a lie detector test, which he
then never took.
So, to me, my sense is Milesknows exactly what happened to Lindsay.
He seemed to me to be the kindof friend you'd call if you needed
to get rid of a body.
So he was very foreign.

(15:40):
It's as if he tries to becomethe person, the friendly person he
thinks you won't suspect.
Where they're almost overlyfriendly in nature and trying to
appear open when there was really.
He was very evasive about the questions.
So.
And my partner, John Perkins,was my homicide investigator.

(16:05):
Had Worked.
And I believe he started LOSLAPD Cold Case Unit.
So he had been doing this fora very long time.
And he had the same sense thatMiles was a part of this puzzle in
what happened to Lindsay.
So I was hoping maybe Miles byit's been 25 years, would grow a

(16:29):
conscience in this.
In this time.
But, yeah, it's interestingbecause the difference between David
and John, for me, they had putpictures in front of me in the beginning,
because I don't want to knowanything about the people until I've,
like, read the energy of thephotographs of the people involved.
And David felt like somebodywho would be a petty criminal, maybe

(16:54):
some assaults, that kind of a person.
But as soon as I put my handon John's picture, my impressions
were that he would be capableof taking someone's life.
And that was my impression.
And so in the beginning, I wasalready like, david didn't do this.
Even though David's not anupstanding guy, he's not.

(17:18):
He's not somebody that youwould want to trust with your house
keys.
He.
He didn't seem to be somebodywho would do this to her either.
So in my mind, I started toeliminate him.
John, we got information thathe had laid concrete in the backyard

(17:41):
the day after Lindsay disappeared.
So the materials that you wereseeing were being used then, which
may be why he was trying toget you off the property so quickly,
because you probably showed upthere while everything was in.
In pro.
In the process.
My feeling was when ithappened, maybe in the middle of

(18:05):
the night, that she was movedthen and then whether she was buried
in the backyard and concretewas laid, or they laid concrete over
things that they buried, tiedto a possible murder that they just
wanted to make sure nobody wasever going to find.
Either way, it felt totallysuspicious that that concrete would

(18:29):
be laid the day after shedisappeared, hours after she probably
disappeared.
And we got very littleinformation as far as, for me, did
the police take luminol through.
Why weren't the.
Did the police take luminolthrough the garage?
Did they luminol the bathtub,which brings a fluorescence to blood,

(18:53):
any blood that may have been there.
And interviewed the mother,John's mother.
I wanted to see information ona thorough investigation.
I didn't see that.
I'm not saying it doesn'texist, but we were not able to access
that while we were there.
Now, the police, while we werethere, seem to be trying to placate

(19:17):
us and cooperate on a basic level.
However, when we asked themnot to park marked police vehicles
in front of the hotel that wewere doing David's lie detector,
where we were administeringthat test.
When we pulled up withproduction, they had more than one

(19:38):
marked car parked right infront of the entrance to the hotel.
So right then, me and myinvestigator felt as though we were
being set up because we didn'twant David to get scared that the
cops were there and run off.
You know, whether or not he'sgot some inner beef with them or
a warrant or had beenthreatened by them, we don't know.
We just didn't.

(19:58):
We wanted them to be inanother room observing but not interacting
with him, and they sort ofblew that.
Oh, God.
So you may not be surprised tohear that.
But David still showed up andwent in and took the test.
And I sat there with JohnPerkins, my.
My investigator, and wewatched him pass that test when he

(20:22):
was asked those questions.
And for years, the police inSimi Valley had speculated that David
did it.
And they kept pointing thefinger to Dave, at David, which is
why we wanted to give him thelie detector test.
He wanted to take it toexonerate himself because he didn't
want people thinking he woulddo that to Lindsay or a baby.

(20:44):
And.
And also so his daughterdidn't have that view of her father.
So he had a lot of motivationin being able to take that test,
which we were happy to makeavailable for him.
He came in, he passed it.
He was so relieved.
And he said, I've been tellingthem, I think it had been around

(21:04):
10 years, maybe exactly 10years when we were filming, because
it was 09.
He said, I've been asking themfor years to give me a lie detector,
and they wouldn't give me one.
And so we were the firstpeople who even gave him a lie detector
test.
And the interesting thing thathappened is a few hours after the

(21:25):
lie detector test, after our.
In the person that we hadadministering it, our professional
lie detector test analysisguy, after he gave him the test and
gave us the results, and wesat there while he took the test.
So we saw this all unfold andgot the results.

(21:47):
John Perkins, my investigator,gets a phone call that.
That the.
The agent made a mistake, thatthe guy that administered the test
was now wanting to change hisfindings, that in the.
In that David passed the liedetector test.
Now he was starting to saythat David didn't.

(22:09):
And me and John were.
John Perkins were completelytaken aback.
I said, have you ever seen this?
And he said, in all my yearsof being a homicide detective, I've
never seen somebody administera lie Detector test and then go back
on the findings.
And so I thought that wasbeyond suspicious.

(22:30):
It seemed more like some sortof collusion had taken place or.
I don't know if lawenforcement got to him.
I mean, I'm just speculatinghere, but it seemed like he had talked
to somebody who was trying toconvince him otherwise.
This man had been giving liedetector tests for decades.
He knew exactly what he was doing.

(22:51):
And when we sat with him andhe gave us the findings, he.
He was 100% sure David wastelling the truth.
So for him to then change hismind was mind blowing.
Yeah.
So again, when cases aren'tsolved, there's usually forces that
are key, often that arekeeping it from being solved.

(23:12):
And I just thought you'd liketo have that information for any
interaction you may have withDavid and his daughter in the future.
David passed that lie detectortest, so I wanted to say that publicly
to exonerate him, because Iknow that where he lives, if he's
still there, they're going togive the second finding, the one

(23:33):
that happened hours after histest, after we'd cleared out with
production.
And I just wanted it to be onthe record for him.
That's good, though.
He never crossed my mind.
I mean, him and his daughter.
Yeah.
Just.
I could see why he would wanthis name cleared.

(23:55):
For his daughter's sake, too.
Right.
Lindsay loved her, and sheloved Lindsay.
So, yeah.
I'm awfully glad that thedaughter wasn't at the house with
Lindsay.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Because John didn't strike meas somebody who would have a problem
with that, with the childdisappearing as well.

(24:20):
So obviously he didn't.
Because Lindsay was ninemonths pregnant, that baby was completely
viable and could have livedoutside of her body.
So I believe it was a boy.
I think I remember hearing itwas a boy.
Yeah.
So all of this is just soincredibly horrible.
So, Miles.
That was part of it.

(24:41):
We.
We interviewed him over acouple of days, talked to him.
He wanted to take pictureswith me and my investigator.
And he seemed to like thewhole limelight idea of, you know,
being a star, like, whatever,you know, it was just really bizarre
because we were there for amissing person's case, most likely

(25:02):
a murder, a double homicide at that.
California itself is a statethat has always had problems with
criminals because it's wherepeople run that are running from
something, typically.
And on top of that, when I wasthere, I lived there three years,
and I just couldn't even stand it.
I'm like, I have to go home.

(25:23):
And people served a fifth oftheir sentence was the average.
So if you got 25 years, youserve about five.
And I just thought that wasreprehensible and it made complete
sense why there's so manycriminals on the, on the streets
there and they run and hideand they acclimate to towns and cities

(25:48):
where they fit in.
And there was a very big drugpresence in Simi Valley Methy.
It was like a meth energythere to me at the time when we were
there in 09 and, and that is avery low, low energy to be around
for sure.
And people do very nuts thingson meth.

(26:08):
So I, I, it felt a littledangerous there.
Honestly, I'm glad I was therewith security and a production crew.
To be honest, keepingLindsay's story alive is the most
loving thing we can do for herand her baby.
So thank you to my listenersfor tuning in.
Tune in next Tuesday for parttwo of Melanie Flowers as we look

(26:29):
further into the disappearanceof L.
Lindsay Wells.
I'm Allison Dubois.
This is the Dead Life.
And to all of my believers outthere, don't stop believing.
Join us next week on the deadlife.
And don't forget to subscribenow to get notified of every new
episode.
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