246 - The Disappearance of Mary "Bobo" Shinn - Trace Evidence

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
On the morning of Thursday, July twentieth, nineteen seventy eight,
twenty five year old Magnolia, Arkansas resident Mary Bobo Shin
had big plans after teaching a children's art class at
her studio north of the city. She planned to get
together with friends, play tennis and lounge.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Out by the pool.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
However, when an unknown man called about taking a look
at a house that she had listed for sale, Bobo
put her plans on hold. The caller, who she never
identified by name, explained that his car was in the
shop and he'd need to take a taxi to meet
the young woman. But when Bobo heard this, she told
the man not to worry and that she'd come pick

(00:48):
him up from a local convenience store. Over the course
of the next thirty minutes, she was spotted in several
places in and around the city behind the wheel of
her custom blue nineteen seven six Buick Special. Hours later,
friends and family grew concerned when they hadn't heard or
seen the twenty five year old. After her mother went

(01:09):
out searching, Bobo's car was located abandoned in the parking
lot of a grocery store.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
The windows were down, the doors.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Unlocked, The keys dangled from the ignition, and the young
woman's purse had been dumped out all over the passenger seat.
A pair of white shoes were found on the floorboard
of the driver's side, slightly tucked up beneath the brake
and accelerator. The car was scratched up, covered in dust,
pine needles, and grass seeds. There was no sign of

(01:38):
Bobo anywhere. For more than forty years. The disappearances haunted
not just her family, but also local law enforcement and
the entire city of Magnolia. While some believe the artist
and budding house flipper may have been selected at random
by a total stranger from an ad she'd placed in
the paper, others believed she was likely targeted by a local,

(02:01):
someone who knew Bobo, knew the lay of the land,
and knew exactly what to do.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Was it a case of.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
A kidnapping gone wrong, a targeted and well planned out abduction,
or was it really a random case of being in
the wrong place at the wrong time. This is Trace Evidence,
Episode two forty six, The Disappearance of Mary Jimmy Bobo Shin.

(02:33):
Welcome to Trace Evidence. I'm your host, Stephen Pacheco Today
we begin our eighth year of Trace Evidence with one
of the more mystifying disappearances I've ever covered. Before jumping
into the case, though, I wanted to mention that I'll
have an announcement or two at the end of the episode,
so make sure you stick around to find out about

(02:54):
some new exciting endeavors for Trace Evidence. With that being said,
let's not weigh any more time. This is episode two
forty six, the Disappearance of Mary Jimmy Bobo Shin. It

(03:15):
was an uncomfortably hot and muggy afternoon in southwestern Arkansas.
A slight breeze sweeping in from the east offered little
more than a tease of relief that was quickly swallowed
back by the oppressive summer afternoon. A thin veil of
gray clouds hung over the landscape like a dusty old
blanket whose frayed and torn expanse showed glimmering hints of

(03:37):
the vast blue sky beyond. While the cloud cover provided
a slight respite from the scorching sunlight, it did little
to suppress the grossly sticky atmosphere that shone through in
the dark mad of sweat soaked shirts and flushed faces
as locals fruitlessly drew old kerchiefs from warm pockets in
an attempt to brush back the dewy sweat eating upon

(04:00):
their brows. While some sought out what little comforts could
be provided by local pools and the spitting hiss of
lawn sprinklers spinning amidst the green grass, those driving more
contemporary vehicles rolled up their windows and clicked on the
air conditioning for a moment's piece. However, for many there
was no escaping the unrelenting heat as they proceeded on

(04:23):
to their jobs or made their way across town running
necessary errands. This was true of sixty three year old
Harry Irwin, a local man who, when he wasn't operating
in his official capacity as the tax collector for Columbia County,
was busy maintaining and working the large fields of his farm,
then located just outside the city limits of Magnolia, the

(04:45):
seat of Columbia County. Using the back of his hand
to sweep away stray hair stuck to his forehead as
sweat poured down his face, the man took a momentary
break from the arduous task of bailing hey to catch
his breath and look out over the expanse of his property.
The roadway leading west out of town Benton arched its

(05:07):
way twisting right along the border of Harry's property, and
while traffic was thin to say the least, he often
saw people as they headed toward or exited from Magnolia.
Some cars he recognized, others he couldn't confirm having seen before,
but either way, there was hardly a cavalcade to keep
up with. On this particular Thursday afternoon, though, there would

(05:30):
be one car that would not only stand out, but
the memory of it would haunt Irwin for the rest
of his life. It was just after noon when he
spotted the blue car moving along the gravel road, kicking
up a cloud of dirt and dust in its wake.
Irwin watched as the vehicle's speed slowed and then began
veering side to side along the roadway. Squinting his eyes,

(05:53):
Irwin couldn't make out distinct features, but saw enough to
later confirm that there was a woman at the wheel
and a man the passenger seat. They appeared to be
arguing and struggling for control of the wheel, which then
seemed to be causing the car's wild swerving. Erwin watched
as the vehicle appeared to right itself and the metallic
blue gleam vanished into the distance, followed quickly by the

(06:16):
dust storm clinging to its rear bumper. At the time,
Irwin thought little of the event he had just witnessed.
Not long after, he would fully grasp the gravity of
what he had seen when he came to learn that
Bobo Shin, daughter of a prominent local businessman and member
of a well known Magnolia family, vanished that very afternoon.

(06:38):
Her car, with its custom blue paint job, was found
hours later, abandoned in a grocery store parking lot. Evidence
that the scene suggested the vehicle had been driven through
a dusty area and perhaps even a hay field. What
had become of the missing twenty five year old remains
a mystery to this day. While more than forty years

(06:59):
have past, many and Magnolia remember the disappearance and cited
as the day Magnolia lost its sense of safety and
security that it had exuded for prior generations. Harry Irwin
would always wonder what became of miss Shin, and whether
or not he truly was the last person to see
her alive. Mary Jimmy Shinn was born on Sunday, January eleventh,

(07:25):
nineteen fifty three, in Columbia County, Arkansas, to parents Gresham
and Sue. Mary would go on to be the couple's
fourth out of five children, and notably the last daughter.
The baby girl of the family, She grew up with
three older sisters, Sarah, Linda, and Becky, and later would
be an older sister herself to the final member of

(07:45):
the family, a boy named Jay. At a young age,
Mary was given the nickname Bobo, which permeates the entire
record of her life. From official documents to school yearbooks,
everyone referred to her as Bobo, and for the sake
of keeping things simple, I will do the same from
here on out. There are a large number of descriptions

(08:08):
of Bobo throughout her youth, but they all tend to
agree on several key descriptors. She was a happy, fun
loving young woman who was very close with her family.
She loved traveling and was an outdoor enthusiast who enjoyed
swimming and playing tennis, which would become a daily activity
for her as she grew older. However, it would be
art that captured Bobo's heart and mind most powerfully, and

(08:31):
she was quite gifted. From an early age, it was
apparent to everyone that while she could achieve anything she said,
her mind too, Art was forever entwined with her mind
and soul. Her ardent love of art would be fed
in part through family, as her mother had her own
interests in the arts and encouraged creative expression in her children.

(08:51):
Bobo grew up in a nice, comfortable home in an
affluent neighborhood along Sue Street, just over a mile north
of the city center. Her father, Gresham, was well known
throughout the city. He was a self made man who
had overcome many hardships, ultimately becoming a prominent motel contractor
who was involved in many of the city's hotel and
motel enterprises. While Sue may have passed on a love

(09:15):
of the arts to her children, Gresham instilled in them
an appreciation for property speculation and development. Sue was also
involved in the business side, with it being noted that
she had become involved in the hospitality industry along with
Gresham beginning in nineteen forty nine. Together the couple formed
the family business Magnolia Lodging, and their development of hotels

(09:38):
and motels spread beyond Arkansas, with them operating Hilton and
Marriott properties in Dallas, Texas as well. The couple would
go on to develop more than fifty properties in their
lives together, Bobo would take on all sides, possessing both
an innate artistic ability and a keen eye for real estate,
the latter of which would play an eminent role in

(10:00):
the mystery surrounding her later disappearance. As a youngster, she
attended east Side Elementary School. She was active in school
and extracurricular activities, joining the Girl Scouts and later the
school band. She also became very involved in the church,
specifically Magnolia's Central Baptist Church, which the family regularly attended

(10:22):
and where her mother, Sue, taught Sunday school for many years.
According to everyone who knew her, Bobo was a very
welcoming and kind young woman who made friends easily and
developed a large circle of friends and acquaintances. Academically, she
was as dedicated and gifted as she was to art,
earning high marks in a constant spot on the honor roll.

(10:44):
As a teen, she went on to attend Magnolia High School,
where she continued to be involved in all manner of activities.
Her senior yearbook notes her as belonging to the student council,
History Club, French Club, Pep Club, as well as being
voted into Homecoming Royalty. Starting in her sophomore year, she
became a cheerleader and would later go on to take

(11:05):
her place as captain. In the spring of nineteen seventy one,
she graduated from Magnolia High with honors and went on
to attend Southern Arkansas University, located less than a mile
from the family home. Continuing with her high academic standards,
Bobo pursued a degree in art, and in the spring
of nineteen seventy six she graduated, obtaining a bachelor's degree

(11:30):
in studio art. Bobo was a highly talented artist, and
many of her works were exhibited at her alma mater
as well as at the Arkansas Center for Arts in
the state capital of Little Rock. Her involvement and skill
are still honored, with artist exhibitions and rewards to gifted
artists being granted in her name. Not long after earning

(11:50):
her degree, Bobo opened an art studio in a small
home then located at four to twenty three Magnolia Street,
just over a mile south of the family home. There
she would paint, display her own work, and teach. At
the time, she taught painting, drawing, and art history to
both adults and children. Her appreciation for art expanded beyond

(12:11):
her own interests, and she took great pride in helping
others to find their footing in the world of artistic expression.
In addition to her artistic endeavors, Bobo followed in her
father's footsteps and turned an eye towards real estate development,
but not quite on the same level. Her interests didn't
involve building hotels and motels, but rather focusing in on

(12:33):
homes in Magnolia that had fallen into disrepair. She'd buy
a home, put in the money and work necessary to
bring it back to life, and then she would sell
that revitalized property at a profit, what today we refer
to as house flipping. As a result, many local papers
and media reports would later refer to Bobo as a
real estate agent, but that wasn't exactly accurate. She didn't

(12:55):
own a business, nor was she hired on to sell homes.
You wouldn't see her face in the local papers with
a house listing, nor did her image appear on for
sale signs or bus stop benches. It was a hobby
for lack of a better term, and something her father
had encouraged her involvement in as a way to earn
money to bankroll her art studio, which was far from

(13:16):
a lucrative endeavor, but rather a passion project. Even then,
it wasn't the most valuable pursuit, as Bobo didn't want
to deal with large homes and high values, rather spending
her time working on smaller homes and selling them for
an exceedingly thin profit margin. By the summer of nineteen
seventy eight, things were going well for Bobo, who was

(13:38):
then twenty five years old. She lived a busy life
between outings with friends, time spent with her family, and
balancing her art studio against her real estate prospects. She
continued to live in the family home on Sioux Street,
and if she wasn't at home or work, there was
a good chance of finding her on a tennis court
or soaking up the sun pool side at one of

(13:58):
her father's hotels. At the time, she frequented the pool
of the Coachman's Inn, a property her father had developed
located along East Main Street, just a few blocks south
from her studio. One afternoon, while making her way to
her small studio, she came upon an older home in
need of restoration, located at seven eighteen East McNeil Street.

(14:22):
The home was less than half a mile from her studio,
two blocks to the north. It was a small, two bedroom,
single family home just over eight hundred square feet, which
had originally been constructed in nineteen forty nine. Bobo knew
a good project when she saw one, and over a
period of weeks she put in the elbow grease where
she could and hired workers to complete tasks she wasn't

(14:45):
quite up to. When work on the house was done,
she took out an ad in the Magnolia Banner News.
There were no photos, just a straightforward write up which
read beginner's Delight two bedroom, completely remodeled, good located. The
ad listed the McNeil Street address and a number to
call for interested parties. That number would ring the Shin

(15:07):
family home. The ad first appeared in the paper on
Friday July fourteenth, six days before the disappearance on Saturday
July fifteenth. Just the next day, an unidentified man caught
the attention of a clerk at what was then the
Townhouse Motel, located at three ZHO one East Main Street.

(15:28):
The Townhouse was a Shin family property located across the
street and just west of the Coachman's Inn. Door to door,
the two buildings are three hundred and thirty one feet apart,
and both motels are within clear view of one another.
According to an employee at the Townhouse, a white male
with a beard stepped out from a white car and

(15:48):
entered the lobby. Another person was seen waiting inside of
the white car while the bearded man picked up a
wall mounted payphone and appeared to make a few different calls,
though details are spot carse The employee would later tell
authorities that this unknown bearded man then approached the front
desk and specifically asked the female clerk if she knew

(16:09):
where Bobo Shin hung out. When the clerk replied that
she didn't know for sure, the man turned and exited
the lobby, apparently getting back into the white car and
driving off. At the time, the employee found it strange,
but nothing to be overly concerned about. I should note
no specific time has ever been reported for when this

(16:30):
encounter happened on this same day, though Sue Shin reported
that she had answered a call from an unknown man
who wanted to know where her daughter was. Sue explained
to the Shreveport Journal saying, quote, he said he had
talked to Bobo about trading a house that he had,
oh seven or nine miles out on the Tailor Highway
for one of her houses. He asked me where Bobo

(16:53):
hung out. I told him Bobo didn't hang out anywhere,
that she was usually either here or at the studio
end quote. The call was brief, but odd enough for
Sue to mention it to her daughter when she arrived
home later that day. According to Sue, Bobo didn't have
much of a reaction and made no references to the

(17:13):
caller or his identity. If she knew it at the time,
it was brushed aside, with Bobo noting that if the
caller was serious about the house, he'd call back. Whether
or not the unknown man ever rang the Shin family
home again is unknown. The next few days seemingly passed
with little of note for Bobo. She spent her time,

(17:34):
as she often did, teaching, working on her art, hanging
out with friends and family. Whether or not anyone else
called about the home on East McNeil Street between Sunday
and Wednesday has never been reported, and there are no
confirmed sightings of the unknown bearded man during that time
period either. On Wednesday, July nineteenth, the day before Bobo's disappearance,

(17:57):
she received a call from a man who expressed interest
in purchasing the home, Much like the sighting at the
Townhouse motel. There is no officially released time for when
this call happened. However, it was confirmed that Bobo agreed
to meet the potential buyer at the home so he
could get the full tour, and that meeting occurred at
approximately four pm. Sue and Gresham later noted that Bobo

(18:21):
didn't mention the viewing to either of them, which generally
meant she didn't think it would go anywhere. Sue explained
later saying, quote, she didn't mention his name, and any
other time she probably would have. She acted like she
probably wouldn't see him again, like it was not a
big prospect. If she thought it was important, she would

(18:41):
have talked it over with her father end quote. This
seems to suggest, at least from Sue's perspective, that Bobo
likely didn't believe there was going to be a sale
made for what reason she felt that way, we have
no way of knowing, and given the circumstances, she shared
no details with her family or any of her friends.

(19:02):
No names were given, no terms discussed. It ultimately appears
that for Bobo, the showing had fallen flat and she
had no expectations moving forward. On the other hand, there
had to have been some kind of an interaction between
the two which opened the door for continued discussion about
the McNeil home, because, if we will soon learn, the

(19:23):
potential buyer was given the phone number to Bobo's Magnolia
Street Art studio and arranged a time to call the
following day. Thursday, July twentieth, nineteen seventy eight, began as
a warm, clear morning with blue skies and temperatures in
the upper sixties. Shortly after sunrise at six nineteen am,
temperatures would begin a steady climb, reaching the nineties by

(19:46):
early afternoon, and with that scorching heat came a sticky
veil of humidity and graying clouds. According to Sue, that
Thursday began as most days did, with she and Bobo
rising early and setting out on their normal morning walk
at approximately six point thirty. She recalled her daughter being
dressed in cut off blue jeans and tennis shoes, though

(20:08):
there was apparently nothing that stood out as unusual or
worth remembering during their walk and morning chat. After arriving
back at the family home, Sue told Bobo that she
would be heading off with one of her sisters to
visit a family member in Hope, a city located approximately
forty miles northwest of Magnolia. Bobo's plans for the day,

(20:29):
at least in what she told her mother, were simple.
She'd be driving over to her studio, where she was
set to teach a children's art class that morning. Sue
would be haunted by that morning, not because of an
eerie feeling or anything of concern that jumped out at her,
but because of how.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
Completely normal and casual it was.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
She later noted, quote, I went on and got ready
to leave, and she was in her room getting ready
to go. I just went by her room. She told
me to have fun. End quote. She never imagined this
would be the last time she'd ever see her daughter.
The curse of hindsight often retroactively transforms even the most

(21:10):
normal of moments into mysteries. Where those desperate for answers
become lost in the fog of unknowing, hunting for red
flags or hidden clues with even the most conventional of encounters.
Bobo's movements for the next few hours following that walk
have never been reported, if they're actually known. The twenty

(21:30):
five year old next shows up in the record at
ten am, when she began teaching a children's art class
at her Magnolia Street studio. Shortly after eleven am, Angie Pendrick,
a good friend of Bobo's, called her at the studio
to check in and confirm plans they had made to
play tennis that afternoon. Angie detailed the conversation to the
Magnolia Banner News, saying, quote, she said, after answering the phone,

(21:56):
that she thought I was the man who was supposed
to be calling her. She said that if it was
to be the man who was looking at her house,
I asked her to come to my house. She said
that she would if the man didn't want to see
the house right away. I hung up quickly so that
she could get her other call end quote. Bobo reportedly

(22:16):
stated that she was expecting the man to call around
eleven fifteen, around the same time that Angie was on
the phone with Bobo, an unidentified man entered the Easy Mart,
a convenience store with a drive through window, then located
on the northeast corner of East Main Street and North
Dudney Streets, just over half a mile south of the studio.

(22:37):
The store was then located directly across Dudney Street from
Smitty's Grocery Store, and north across Main Street from a
car dealership Jordan Brothers Pontiac Buick then at six twenty
one East Maine. The unidentified man approached the counter and
presented cash, asking the employee to make change for him
so he could make a phone call. At eleven fifteen,

(22:59):
a witness who works across the street from the Easy
Mart reported seeing the unknown man standing in front of
the building using the public payphone. At that same time,
the phone began ringing at the art studio, and Boo answered,
having a short conversation with a man on the other
line before hanging up. She then called angieback, who noted

(23:21):
that Bobo told her that the man had a home
and some property outside of town that he was interested
in trading for her property on McNeil Street, Angie explained. Quote.
She said that his house was nine miles out on
the Tailor Highway. I asked her if she would want
a house that far out, since it would require so
many trips in order to fix it up.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
She said she might want it for her boyfriend. I think.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
She told me that this man had offered to take
a taxi to her studio because his car was in
the Pontiac Place. She started to tell him to walk
across the street and she would meet him at the
Easy Mart. She told me that she would be over
to my house at one thirty pm if she were through.
She never acted as if anything was unusual. She was

(24:06):
rushing the conversation and acting as if she was getting
ready to leave right away.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
At the conclusion of this phone call, Bobo made a
statement which at the time didn't feel all that urgent,
but given what would happen later, has made everyone wonder
if perhaps the twenty five year old had some reservations
about this potential buyer. Angie would tell authorities that before
hanging up the phone, Bobo said, come looking for me

(24:34):
if I'm not back this afternoon. Much of this call
is corroborated by Bobo's sister, Becky, who noted that she
heard her sister tell the man that she would pick
him up, and she also heard the chilling request to
look for her if she didn't return. Five to ten
minutes after making plans with the unknown caller, Bobo called

(24:55):
another friend to break their plans to get together, noting
that she had a house showing instead. Reportedly, she explained
to this other friend that she would see her at
a swimming party later that afternoon. Sometime between eleven twenty
and eleven thirty am, Bobo left the art studio, and
it's presumed that she made the short four minute drive

(25:16):
north to the family home on Sioux Street to change clothes,
not wanting to meet the buyer, wearing cutoff jean shorts
and a T shirt. I say this is presumed because
no one knows for certain when exactly Bobo stopped home
to change her clothes, but the clothing she had been
wearing earlier in the day were located at the house
after her disappearance. From this point forward, I should note,

(25:40):
the timeline gets a little weird. There's a lot happening
at similar times, and much of it is based on
witness statements, so all of the times are rather approximate.
There will likely be some discrepancy stated, but we'll address
those later on. In the episode, between eleven thirty and
eleven forty, a witness the spot's Bobo pulling into the

(26:01):
Easy Mart, at which time an unidentified man got into
her car. The vehicle was difficult to miss. She drove
a nineteen seventy six Buck Special with a custom blue
paint job. Also between eleven thirty and eleven forty, another
witness reported seeing Bobo and the unidentified man arriving at
the McNeil Street house. This witness stated that the two

(26:24):
spoke outside of the home for a few minutes and
then went inside. Around ten minutes later, the two emerged
from the home and drove away from the property. If
this witness is correct with the time, this would have
Bobo and the unknown man leaving the McNeil house between
eleven forty and eleven fifty. Ten minutes later, at approximately
twelve PM, an employee of Jordan Pontiac Buick stated that

(26:48):
he saw Bobo and an unknown man pulling out from
a gas station then located on Main Street. After pulling out,
the vehicle is noted as proceeding west, last being seen
stop at a traffic light at the intersection of Maine
and Pine Streets, three tenths of a mile from the
Easy Mart. All of these locations are in close proximity,

(27:09):
and even given the modern geography of Magnolia, the drive
from the Easy Mart to the McNeil Street home, back
to the mart, to the gas station on Maine, and
then to the intersection of Maine and Pine covers just
one point three miles, and it would take no more
than six minutes to travel to those locations in that order.
If Bobo and the unknown man did spend ten minutes

(27:31):
in the house, give or take, they would have left
some time between eleven fifty and eleven fifty five. It's
then another four minute drive to the intersection of Maine
and Pine, putting the vehicle there around eleven fifty nine
or twelve o'clock, which.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Fits with the witness account.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
The next alleged sighting of Bobo takes place at approximately
twelve oh five. This is when Harry Irwin, the Columbia
County tax collector, is bailing Hay on his property and
claims to see a vehicle fitting the descriptions of Bobo's
swerving along the roadway as a man and woman appear
to be fighting for control of the wheel. The distance

(28:07):
from the intersection to the location of mister Irwin is
a six minute drive, which fits in with the twelve
oh five ish sighting. Bobo is never seen again after
twelve oh five, and no one knows with any level
of certainty where she and the unknown man may have gone.
At approximately two thirty PM, Sue arrived home with another

(28:29):
of her daughters and noted that Bobo wasn't there. She
would later state that she found her daughter's absence somewhat concerning,
as she wasn't aware of any plan she had to
be out, and Bobo almost always left behind a note
explaining where she had gone to. Sue's concern began changing
into worry over the next few hours, as several of
Bobo's friends called the house looking for her. Then, at

(28:51):
four thirty PM, Angie Pendrick called the house, somewhat annoyed
that Bobo hadn't showed up for their get together. It
was during this conversation Angie explained the circumstances about the
potential buyer to Sue, and she became very worried for
her daughter's safety. Hoping to track her down, Sue drove
over to the Art studio, but found the lights off

(29:12):
and the door closed and locked. Considering what Angie had
told her about the earlier chat with Bobo, she then
made her way to the Easy Mart, but no one
there remembered seeing the twenty five year old. From there,
Sue walked across the street to Jordan Pontiac Buick. The
dealership was preparing to close as it was nearing five pm.
Speaking to the manager, Sue inquired about the prospective home

(29:34):
buyer who had told Bobo that his car was being
worked on at that location. The manager then explained to
the frantic mother that there were no cars being serviced
at that time and he had no knowledge of anyone
dropping their car off at the dealership that whole day.
Realizing the gravity of the situation, Sue went back to
her car and drove home to make a few calls

(29:55):
looking for her daughter. Just after five pm, the manager
of the dealership closed up the business, locking the door
behind him. He then got into his car, planning to
drive home, and he proceeded north onto East Main Street
and then made a right turn onto North Dudney, passing
the Easy Mart on his right. Looking out the driver

(30:16):
side window to his left, the man quickly spotted a
vehicle which closely resembled Bobo's. She had purchased a car
from his dealership, and he remembered the custom paint job.
The man pulled into the parking lot of Smitty's Food Mart,
directly across the street from the Easy Mart. Approaching the vehicle,
he pulled open the driver's side door, which was unlocked,

(30:38):
and leaned into the car. Reaching in, he opened the
center console and saw paperwork with Bobo's name on it,
confirming that this was in fact her car. Armed with
this information, the man got back into his vehicle and
made the quick drive over to the Shin family home.
Arriving at the home on Sioux Street, the manager explained

(30:58):
to Bobo's mother that he'd found the car, and she
immediately picked up the phone and called the police to
report her daughter missing. Shortly after that report came in,
then Arkansas State Trooper Ron Stovell stopped by the Magnolia
Police Department and was informed about the missing person's call.
He later explained saying, quote, if I recall correctly. Jim mckinnis,

(31:21):
a city officer at that time, made mention that he
thought he had spotted her car down behind Smitty's. He
and I drove down there and it was her car
end quote. According to the official record, Trooper Stovell was
the first officer on the scene at approximately six thirty PM,
and when he saw the car, he got a gut
feeling that something was terribly wrong. Before making any big moves,

(31:45):
Stovell contacted Lieutenant Phinis Duval with the State Police Criminal
Investigation Division, then located in the city of Hope. Phinis
agreed to come down that night and begin working the
scene alongside Stovell and State Police investigator Russell Welsh, who
had been assigned as chief investigator. Bobo's car was found
sitting in a parking space of the lot of Smitty's

(32:08):
Food Mart, approximately one hundred and fifty yards from the
Easy Mart where she had originally picked up the unknown buyer.
Examination of the car revealed several interesting details which gave
detectives the belief that Bobo had likely been the victim
of some kind of foul play. The doors had been
left unlocked, the windows were rolled down, and the keys

(32:28):
were dangling from the ignition. Bobo's purse, which has been
described as both blue canvas or blue denim, was located
inside the vehicle, and it appeared the contents had been
dumped out on the passenger seat, with some spilling onto
the floorboard. Her wallet was there, cherry red with a
snapping clasp, and inside were business cards, photos, and a

(32:50):
small amount of cash.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Her driver's license.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Was located, along with a stick of Wrigley spearmint gum
in a black and white wrapper. Additional items found included
a banker seat, a cheap black paper address book, and
a cigarette case which contained an open pack of cigarettes
Kent golden lights with only one cigarette inside. Bobo's sunglasses

(33:13):
were found on the seat, which was concerning to the family,
as they noted that she wore contact lenses and those
contact lenses caused mild light sensitivity, so she never went
anywhere without her shades. Next to them was a copy
of The Thornbirds, a nineteen seventy seven novel by Colleen McCullough.

(33:33):
Perhaps one of the more fascinating yet cryptic clues came
in the form of Bobo's shoes. The white pair of
size eight tennis shoes were located on the floorboard of
the driver's side, somewhat shoved up under the pedals. Mike Low,
an Arkansas State Police investigator, had a few ideas about
the placement of the shoes, later telling the Batesville Guard, quote,

(33:56):
these shoes were found kind of up and under the
break and acceler A lot of girls will be driving
along and take one shoe and reach over and kick
off their shoes and drive in their bare feet or socks.
That's how these shoes were. She felt relatively comfortable with
the person in the car with her end quote. For

(34:16):
their part, members of the shim family didn't agree with
Loe's analysis. Her older sister Linda, stated that she had
never known Bobo to take her shoes off while driving,
or to drive without shoes at any time in the past.
Sue had another idea, considering the belief that Bobo had.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
Gone home to change.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
She explained, quote, I feel like she might have run
home and changed her clothes and changed her shoes in
the car. She did that sometimes when she was in
a hurry end quote. Two items conspicuous by their absence
were Bobo's appointment book and a yellow air mattress she
often used when sunbathing at public pools. Investigators theorized at

(34:58):
the time that the susp Speck's name or other information
leading to his identity, may have been contained within the
appointment book, causing him to take it. It was also possible, though,
that the book had been lost during some kind of
a struggle which may have occurred elsewhere. If indeed an
abduction had taken place, what sinister implications there were from

(35:19):
the absence of the air mattress were not commented on publicly.
While the contents within the car implied certain possibilities, the
exterior told its own cryptic story. Dust, dirt, and scratch
marks were found on both sides of the car, as
well as the undercarriage. The paint near the rear left
fender had sustained deep scratches, and particles of seed fragments

(35:42):
were recovered in the score line. The scratches appeared to
have been caused by low lying bushes, brush and branches,
suggesting the vehicle had been driven off the road and
through a wooded area. The off road travel was further
confirmed by the discovery of grass seeds and the car's
radiator and pine needles. Trapped in and under the grill.

(36:03):
There were also reportedly several sliced pieces of grass found
inside the car. Investigator mic Loane noted, quote the vehicle
had been driven across a hay meadow because the belly
pan was wiped clean and the doors had been opened,
and when they closed the doors, it snapped some of
the grass off end quote. Once the initial examination of

(36:25):
the car was completed, the vehicle was taken into police
custody and transferred to the Arkansas State Crime Lab in
Little Rock. At the time, the lab, which had only
been created one year earlier, operated out of the State
Police Building, taking the entire third floor and part of
the basement. Forensic examiners spent a great deal of time

(36:45):
processing the vehicle. In addition to dusting for prints, the
vehicle was thoroughly vacuumed, and all particles collected from the
carpet and upholstery were analyzed through additional testing. Ultimately, much
of the lab report showed negative vers results, but a
few key pieces of evidence were recovered. Several unidentified hairs

(37:06):
were found, and three partial prints were lifted from the
rear view mirror and the glass of the driver's side door. Unfortunately,
they could not eliminate the possibility that the prince belonged
to Bobo, as they did not have hers on record
for comparison. Investigator Lowe explained, quote, these are the latent
print impressions that came off her car. They tell us

(37:27):
that they're female, about ninety percent sure that they're female.
We think they're Bobos, but she was never fingerprinted, so
we have no way of knowing for sure.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
They did attempt to get her prints, going to the
family home and dusting items that had only ever been
handled by her, but they were unable to obtain a
print detailed enough to be used for ruling the others
in or out. To date, the prints recovered from the
car have never been identified. There were, of course, a
few issues with the state of the vehicle and a

(37:59):
nowalysis of the scene. Firstly, it was known for certain
that the manager from Jordan Pontiac had entered the vehicle
and fumbled through the papers. Police did not know if
anyone else may have opened the car or moved items
around inside, while the contents of Bobo's purse being dumped
out could have suggested a struggle, or perhaps that the

(38:20):
suspect was looking for something suspicious. There were some doubts
about the legitimacy of that purse being dumped out, According
to Chief Investigator Russell Welsh, they began wondering if maybe
the perse had been dumped by an onlooker or perhaps
even one of the police officers who had been first
on scene. According to Welch, that suspicion was confirmed when

(38:42):
two weeks later, a Magnolia police officer admitted that he
had dumped out the purse while searching for identification to
confirm the vehicle's owner. Investigator Mike low would later state
that all of the officers he had questioned who had
been present that night denied ever touching the purse. Discovery
of the car and subsequent examinations by local and state authorities,

(39:03):
while not quite conclusive, convinced most working the case early
on that Bobo had likely been the victim of foul play.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Perhaps an abduction.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Action was taken quickly, as within hours of the car
being found, Mike Kinnard, then thirteenth Judicial prosecuting attorney, reached
out for assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation at
the time. The FBI agreed to handle and investigate any
leads that might come in from states outside of Arkansas,
leaving that part of the investigation to state and local authorities.

(39:34):
For investigators within the state, they were determined to get
down to a more concise timeline of events, as well
as aiming to interview potential witnesses in and around locations
where it was known Bobo had visited in the hours
leading up to her disappearance. While some were canvassing areas,
others were involved in boots on the ground searches, which

(39:54):
targeted more rural areas of Columbia County to the north
west and south of Magnolia. According to multiple reports, Bobo
planned to pick up the unknown man at the Easy
Mark the day she disappeared, and so investigators went down
to the small store to interview employees as well as
customers who may have been there around the same time

(40:15):
as Bobo. The clerk working behind the counter explained to
police that she had seen a man using the payphone
outside of the store at around eleven fifteen am. She
described the individual as a white male, clean shaven, with
a pot belly and dark curly hair. The employee was
asked and agreed to sit down with a composite artist
to create a sketch of the unknown man. That sketch

(40:38):
would become just one of many contained within the police file,
some allegedly of the same man, and others of different
individuals described by other witnesses. Mike Low would later note
the reliability of the easy mark clerk, saying, quote, she
was a pretty good little witness. She got a pretty
good look at him, and she remembered a lot was
real calm end quote. However, there was another witness who

(41:02):
was able to provide investigators with even more information. This
witness was the daughter of the store's manager, who was
present and remembered seeing the man using the payphone. According
to her, the caller had originally entered the store and
asked for change a quarter, specifically so that he could
use the phone. She went on to tell police that
the man had spoken on the phone for approximately five minutes.

(41:25):
She described him as a white male, thought to be
in his mid twenties, standing approximately five feet eight inches tall,
with dark, naturally curly hair. She's described him as heavy
built and slightly overweight. She was also able to report
that the man wore a white shirt, possibly a T shirt,
and faded blue jeans. Asked if there was anything specific

(41:47):
about the man which stood out to her, the witness
replied that he had a slow, lumbering walk, which she
went on to describe as lazy like. Learning about the
call made from the phone, authorities reached out to the
phone company in hopes of learning additional details, such as
when precisely it was made and how long it lasted. Unfortunately,

(42:08):
due to the way the telephone system was at the time,
since the call had been made to a local number,
no record of it was kept. Heading west across the
street from the Easy Mart back to Smiddy's Food, investigators
spoke with several employees who were working the afternoon and
early evening the day of the disappearance. Two of the

(42:29):
people they spoke with delivered very similar stories, each reporting
independently that while they hadn't seen Bobo or her alleged abductor,
they did see the car. According to their statements, they
first noticed the missing woman's car parked in the spot
where it would later be found by police at approximately
one PM. Another employee, working as a stock boy at

(42:52):
the time told police he first noticed the car in
the parking lot at one thirty. Given that other witnesses
would place Bobo and the known man in her car
driving through town between twelve and twelve oh five pm.
The one PM siding of the car in the parking
lot would suggest that whatever the crime, it had been
conducted in a little over an hour, accounting for driving

(43:13):
the vehicle back to the food mart. Later, authorities would
narrow the timeline even more, determining that between the last
sighting of the missing woman and the one PM siding
of her car, no more than fifty seven minutes could
have passed. This would therefore imply that taken outside of town,
the suspect could have traveled no further than twenty nine

(43:33):
minutes before returning, and even that estimate leaves no time
for whatever was done to Bobo herself. Investigators would find
another witness, this time someone who claimed to have seen
both Bobo and the unidentified man during their stop at
the McNeil Street home less than thirty minutes before the
twenty five year old's disappearance. While this person's statements would

(43:55):
play a major role in guiding the early days or
even years of the investigation, more than four decades later,
law enforcement officials would note that at best, they consider
the account unreliable and perhaps at worst, completely inaccurate. Regardless,
this witness ultimately became a key source for detectives, and
his statements functioned to bulwark earlier theories that would fail

(44:18):
to live up to either the passage of time nor
the stringent critiques from experienced investigators who pointed out multiple
inconsistencies which remain unaddressed to this day.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
The witness was a carpenter.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
Who was working on a home across the street from
the McNeil Street home on the morning of the disappearance.
By his own statements, the witness placed himself approximately seventy
five feet from the property that day. According to his account,
at approximately eleven am, he saw a blue car fitting
the descriptions of Bobo's Bwick Special pulling up to the property,

(44:54):
arriving from the west. This time created some confusion, as
investigators knew for certain that at eleven am, Bobo was
still at her studio awaiting a call from the potential buyer.
When pressed further for the time, the witnessed acknowledged he
didn't look at his watch and he could have seen
the car arriving anytime that day between ten thirty and

(45:15):
eleven thirty.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
The carpenter went on.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
To state that a woman exited the blue car, and
he later identified Bobo from a photo as the woman
he saw that morning. According to him, a second vehicle
pulled up within minutes of Bobo, which he described as
being a Pontiac any year between nineteen sixty nine and
nineteen seventy nine, dark green with a lighter green vinyl top.

(45:40):
He also suggested it could have possibly been a nineteen
seventy two Bonnaville Catalina, or maybe a heavier model Pontiac
like a Leman's. This second car reportedly arrived from the east.
The witness stated that a man emerged from this second vehicle,
who he described as being a white male twenty five
to twenty eight years old, standing six foot one to

(46:02):
six foot two and weighing between two hundred and fifteen
and two hundred and twenty five pounds. He went on
to say that the man was heavy and fairly wide
across the shoulders. He had dark brown collar length hair
and a medium length beard with a mustache. He was
wearing a baseball type mesh cap. The carpenter stated that

(46:25):
the woman and the man proceeded into the house, were
inside for between ten and fifteen minutes, and then exited.
At that point, he claimed, the woman got into her car,
the man into his, and both drove off from the property,
heading west on McNeil. There were a lot of questions
about this witness's statements, primarily his insistence that Bobo and

(46:46):
the unknown man arrived in separate vehicles. This directly conflicts
with statements from other witnesses who spoke with and or
were present when the man called Bobo at the art studio.
Investigators wondered was it possible that she needed to pick
up the potential buyer and was actually seen with him
in her car if indeed they had arrived in two

(47:09):
separate vehicles and his was allegedly being worked on at
the Pontiac dealership. In fact, an employee of Jordan Pontiac
Buick would later tell police that he was on break
when he saw Bobo arrive at the Easy Mart across
the street. He explained quote, sometime around the middle of
the day on Thursday July twenty, nineteen seventy eight, I

(47:32):
just happened to notice a man standing by the telephone
outside the Easy Mart across the street. A car pulled
up to him, which looked just like Bobo's car end quote. Unfortunately,
the employee didn't get a great look at the caller,
who he would only describe as a white male twenty
five to thirty years of age. In addition to these discrepancies,

(47:54):
it was noted by investigators that not only was the
carpenter's seventy five feet from the property at the time
he saw all the comings and goings, he had poor
eyesight and wore very thick glasses. Then there was the
issue of his sighting being comprised in the form.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
Of mistaken identity.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
Two houses down from the property, at seventy eighteen East
McNeil lived a local man who worked as a welder.
He was in his late twenties, wore a mesh baseball
style hat, had a beard, and drove a dark green
nineteen sixty eight Chevy. This man was interviewed by police
and confirmed that he left work for his lunch break

(48:32):
that day, as he often did, and arrived home on
East McNeil Street at approximately eleven thirty am. According to investigators,
this guy fit the details of the carpenter's description, but
when he was shown photos of the welder and his car.
He denied that he had been mistaken and instead insisted
that Bobo had arrived separately from the unknown man in

(48:55):
the unidentified dark green car. Investigators were less certain about
the discrepancy, yet the carpenter's description would be taken as gospel.
A detailed composite drawing was created based on his description,
and this unknown large and heavy bearded man with long hair,
a hat, and a dark green vehicle became the target

(49:16):
of a massive search. Tipsters began calling in delivering the
names of every bearded man they knew in the area.
Police set up roadblocks, questioned people who drove by prominent
locations in the case. Over the course of the next
few days, anyone behind the wheel of a green vehicle
and any driver or passenger with a beard was given

(49:37):
special attention. Investigators requested records from the Department of Motor
Vehicles and ran down every green car in the area
which closely or even partially matched the description given. As
it turned out, it wasn't all that extensive of a search,
as there were a few of those vehicles registered in
and around Magnolia. None of the cars Foor owners interviewed

(50:01):
could be conclusively linked to the crime or to Bobo herself.
In the days following the disappearance, expansive searches were conducted,
and their size and scope continued to grow. The Magnolia Police,
Columbia County Sheriff's Office, State Police, Arkansas National Guard, and
FBI scoured rural areas of the county on Friday, Saturday,

(50:24):
and Sunday. It was estimated that Sunday search, the largest
to that point, involved more than three hundred individuals who
combed the landscape on foot, horseback, and four wheelers. There
were even searches from the sky, with the addition of
helicopters operated by the Civil Air Patrol and the local
citizens ban radio clubs also participated. For the most part,

(50:48):
these searches focused in on south and southeastern Columbia County.
On the same Sunday that the largest of the searches
was executed, authorities received a call from Harry Irwin, the
tax collector for Columbia County. Erwin would report at that
time that on the day of Bobo's disappearance, he had
witnessed a car fitting the description of her Buick Special

(51:10):
behaving oddly just outside of town. Erwin, who at the
time was bailing Hey on his property just west of
Highway one thirty two, said he saw Bobo's car pass
by on the dirt and gravel road, Columbia thirty two.
According to his account, the car was traveling between ten
and twenty miles per hour, and there was a woman
at the wheel and a mail in the passenger seat.

(51:32):
He believed there to have been some kind of a
struggle inside as he watched the car swerving from side
to side along the road, and he saw what he
believed to be a fight for control of the steering
wheel between.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
The man and woman.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
Whether or not Irwin actually was the last witness to
see Bobo alive has never been determined, but the sighting
would haunt him for the rest of his days. Irwin
passed away two years later, never knowing with any certainty
what exactly he had witnessed that day. Mike Lowe years
later would note that while they found his account probable,

(52:05):
it was difficult to confirm if possible. He explained, quote,
Harry went to his grave thinking he'd seen the abduction
taking place, and he may have. Whether he did or
he didn't, we don't know. It was hot, and he
had his equipment. To keep an eye on that old
farm equipment. It'll buck you if you're not careful. So

(52:26):
whether he saw it or not will never know, but
he very well could have, and that does put it
in a direction that interests us now end quote. Regardless,
there would be multiple searches launched within the area Irwin
specified in nineteen seventy eight, and over the years many
more searches would focus in and target that area, not

(52:48):
solely for Erwin's sighting, but because there were hay fields
and wooded areas that certainly could have been where Bobo's
car had been driven off road. There were, of course,
other witnesses who offered up curious, fascinating, or simply unbelievable
accounts of what they had seen or heard. A female
clerk working at Smitty's told investigators that on the day

(53:09):
of the disappearance, she saw two colleged aged kids forcing
a female into a four wheel drive vehicle behind the store.
According to her, she thought they were just fooling around,
so she took no action. Another witness driving through Magnolia
that day told authorities he believed he saw Bobo's blue
car heading south out of town, but noted he didn't

(53:32):
see a passenger or anything suspicious. Monday July twenty fourth,
four days after Bobo disappeared, her family hired a Shreveport,
Louisiana based private investigator named Bill Gray. Speaking to the media,
Gray announced that the Shin family were putting up a
twenty five thousand dollars reward for information leading to Bobo's return.

(53:55):
It was also noted that the family was installing a
special phone line in the house, which would function as
a hotline for tipsters to call with whatever information they
might have. Speaking for the family, Gray noted that they
were not going to stop in their pursuit to bring
their beloved daughter and sister home, telling the local media quote,
We're just trying to do anything we can. Anyone with

(54:18):
information is asked to call us. We will keep all
information strictly confidential end quote. On this same day, chief
investigator Russell Welsh informed the local media that they were
seeking a potential witness. Allegedly, on the day of the disappearance,
a deaf man was in the area of the Easy
Mart selling pencils at the time Bobo picked up the

(54:41):
unknown driver, though they could not say with any certainty
if the man had witnessed to pick up. They had
been told by additional witnesses that he had been standing
within fifteen feet from where Bobo and the man had been,
and it was believed he might have gotten the closest
look at the suspect to date. This story ran in
local papers for several days, but if the deaf man

(55:02):
was ever identified and interviewed, it was never officially confirmed.
Later in the evening of the twenty fourth, a tip
was called in from a bus driver operating out of Shreveport,
eighty miles southwest of Magnolia. The driver claimed to have
seen a woman closely fitting Bobo's description on a run
he had made west to Houston, Texas. While investigators worked

(55:25):
to track down others on the bus to see whether
or not they could support the driver's account, Bobo's brother Jay,
her boyfriend Willis Stroop, and her brother in.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
Law Wayne Newton no not that.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
Wayne Newton traveled to Houston and managed to track down
the woman from the bus driver's report. Not only was
it not Bobo, but the woman had blonde hair and
was traveling with a young child. Though things didn't work
out for them, the three were determined to track down
every possibility, no matter how far fetched it might seem.

(55:57):
On Tuesday, the twenty fifth, investigator Welch stated that they
were just beginning to break the surface on a huge
stack of leads that needed to be tracked down. They
had received dozens of calls since the disappearance, and a
lot of information had been delivered, though much of it
probably wouldn't pan out for them, according to Welsh, who
would tell reporters quote, we're checking out everything. I've got

(56:19):
a stack of leads here on my desk and we're
keeping busy, but so far nothing end quote. During this interview,
Welsh for the first time made mention of a new
composite drawing the one that was created based on the
carpenter's description. They hadn't yet revealed that drawing to the public,
wanting to show it to other witnesses first, but Welsh

(56:41):
expressed a lack of confidence, noting that the picture quote unquote,
looks like a thousand people. Days earlier, they had released
an extremely vague composite, seemingly based on the descriptions of
other witnesses, showing a clean shaven man, short and heavy
with dark, curly hair, seemingly matching the man making the
phone call at the easy Mart's pay phone. Three days later,

(57:04):
on Friday, July twenty eighth, they officially released the carpenter's sketch.
This one was quite different from the original, showing a
man standing over six feet tall and weighing more than
two hundred pounds. Interestingly, this composite describes the suspect as
having dark hair and a dark red tinted beard. This
adjustment of the beard color was a new detail which

(57:26):
had not been previously revealed, although many working the case
still believed this was a description of the welder living
on McNeil rather than an actual suspect. Following the release
of the sketch, the Shin family also jumped into action,
increasing their reward for information from twenty five to thirty
five thousand dollars the next day, Saturday, the twenty ninth,

(57:49):
Just for the record, adjusted for inflation, thirty five thousand
dollars in nineteen seventy eight would be more than one
hundred and seventy thousand dollars in twenty twenty five money.
Hoping to contribute in whatever way they could, Gresham Shin
informed the media that he had been along on several
searches with law enforcement scouting along roads in Columbia County

(58:10):
as well as neighboring Lafayette County. Gresham described his experience
telling reporters, quote, what you do is you drive down
these little roads, go as far as a car can go.
Then you have to get out and walk end quote.
The hope was to find the scene of the crime,
something investigators had been working without since day one, or

(58:32):
perhaps some sign or trace of where Bobo may have
been taken. Monday, July thirty first, marked the final day
of the month and nearly two weeks since Bobo had disappeared.
Investigators found themselves pulled in countless directions, receiving tips about
every bearded man who lived in the area, and many

(58:52):
who could not be identified let alone tracked down leeds
took them all over Arkansas and even into Louisiana and Texas.
Yes Russell Welsh described the tips following the release of
the second composite as little more than a witch.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
Hunt for any bearded man.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
He relayed an example of the tips they were working with,
explaining that a woman working at a store reported seeing
a suspicious bearded man. He explained, quote, it's hard to
follow up on a lead like that. But I went
to the store. I talked to the store manager. I've
had little old ladies tell me a bearded man drove
up next to them at a stop sign and looked

(59:29):
at them.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Kind of funny.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
For a while, everyone who had a beard was a
suspect end quote. Welsh himself traveled to Shreveport to question
a suspect in another case after a local law enforcement
expressed that he fit the suspect's description and had committed
a similar style crime. However, the detainee had no connections
to Magnolia, and Welsh found nothing to place him in

(59:53):
town the day of the crime or anytime around it.
That suspect would go on to be charged with first
agreement in connection with the killing of Meridian, Mississippi women
several weeks prior. Investigators had somewhat of a misinformation problem
inhibiting them all across the country. It was being reported
that Bobo was a real estate agent, and any police

(01:00:15):
department dealing with missing or murdered real estate agents called
in whenever they.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
Arrested a suspect.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
The problem was, Bobo wasn't a real estate agent, at
least not in the same sense. She didn't advertise, her
photos weren't in the paper. There was nothing about her
local ad that they felt would make her specifically stand
out as a target for someone going after real estate agents.
As a result, they had to sort through a great
many tips and suspects whose m O ultimately did not

(01:00:44):
match that of the man they were seeking in connection
with the disappearance. Considering the small town feel of Magnolia,
for the most part, residents struggled to accept the possibility
that Bobo could have been targeted by one of their own,
and that's sense of disbelief even stretched out to some
of the investigators, who felt certain that they had to

(01:01:05):
be looking for a stranger someone passing through the city.
It was theorized that Bobo may have not been targeted,
but rather was the victim of a drifter or random
person who just happened upon her ad for the house
on McNeil. For his part, private investigator Bill Gray completely disagreed.
There was a lot of talk in the media about

(01:01:27):
Bobo being abducted by what reporters referred to as a
random pervert, their words, not mine. Gray felt that the
crime hadn't been spur of the moment or improvised, rather
saying it seemed more likely that the crime had been
thought out and planned. He explained saying, quote a random
pervert does not act like that. It's a spontaneous thing.

(01:01:49):
They don't care who they grab end quote. While true
in some cases over the last four and a half decades,
it's been learned that while some predators targeted random, others
have specific requirements or desires that the victim must fit
before they act. This would be Bill Gray's last media
appearance working for the family, as after failing to develop

(01:02:11):
any solid leads or suspects, they moved on. The second
PI they hired came out of Dallas, Texas. Joe Daniel Smokey.
Joe Smith had a notorious reputation which preceded him. He
had worked on multiple different roles in law enforcement and
law enforcement adjacent positions, including but not limited to, bail

(01:02:33):
bondsman and deputy constable. He had also had his run
ins with the law, approximately thirty of them, for everything
from communicating threats, verbal abuse, and theft. It was suggested
that Smith had success in his private investigations in part
because due to his own sometimes unlawful actions, he had

(01:02:53):
connections to what at the time was referred to as
the criminal underworld. Smith had a difficult path cut beef
for him, coming into the case late and needing to
do a lot of work to catch up. By mid August,
nearly a month after the disappearance, the case was already
grinding down to a standstill for investigators both local law

(01:03:14):
enforcement and higher privates. The tip line, which had been
installed in the Shin family home had dried up from
what was once a flood to just drips and drabs,
with it being noted that they had dropped from hundreds
of calls in the first weeks to less than ten
calls by the early days of August. Multiple witnesses, family members,

(01:03:34):
and friends of Bobo were questioned by police, and a
whole slew of polygraph examinations were conducted. In some instances,
desperately hoping to enhance information on potential suspects, witnesses were
asked to undergo hypnosis in an attempt to sharpen their memories.
The search for Bobo and or her abductor began transforming

(01:03:55):
from an above board police investigation into a desperate hunt
wherein rights and laws were sometimes not followed by those
charged with enforcing them. One example would involve State Police
investigator Lieutenant Phinis Duval. On Friday, August eighteenth, the State
police were conducting aerial searches of an area south of

(01:04:16):
Magnolia when they thought they had stumbled upon a key
piece of evidence when they spotted a dark green car
hidden amongst the trees of a wooded area. Lieutenant Duval
arrived at the scene and without warrant or authority, decided
to pry open the vehicle's trunk for any signs of Bobo,
but instead he found an empty space and no traces

(01:04:37):
of evidence.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
The car was confirmed to.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
Belong to Magnolia local Bill Homes, and while police considered
him a possible suspect at the time, they quickly realized
a major flaw. Homes had reported his car stolen two
weeks before Bobo had disappeared. Lieutenant Duval's actions caused quite
an uproar in Magnolia, where people were all ready beginning

(01:05:00):
to feel like the investigation was becoming a different kind
of animal. Aggressive searches for any and all bearded men
resulted in a lot of the male population shaving off
their beards to avoid what they described as harassment not
just from local authorities, but also friends and neighbors who
became suspicious of them. Ultimately, Lieutenant Duval's actions and holmes

(01:05:22):
complaint would be heard before the Columbia County Quorum Court,
a legislative body in the state of Arkansas made up
of fifteen Justices of the Peace serving two year terms.
Holmes himself spoke before the court, pointing to the unlawfulness
of Duval's actions and asking out loud, are they going
to tear up every green car they see? These actions

(01:05:46):
and the backlash erupting from them seems to have weighed
heavily on law enforcement, who, for lack of a better description,
began reigning things in and public discussion in media interviews
about the case became fewer and fewer as police grew quiet.
Gresham Shin applied ample pressure to local officials, stopping in
daily to the City County Investigator's office.

Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
Chin reached out.

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
For assistance, speaking multiple times to the head of the
state police as well as Washington DC investigators. Shinn even
spoke with the Arkansas Governor, hoping to get more done
about the investigation, and, partially in response, a task force
was sent from Little Rock to Magnolia. However, they left
within a week, noting that there was almost no solid

(01:06:32):
evidence to work from and leeds had previously dried up.
Chief Investigator Welsh was conducting a very thorough but necessarily
methodical search, and the task force simply wasn't designed for
such an investigation. Despite the continued investigation and additional searches
of areas all around Columbia County, little progress was made

(01:06:55):
and the case continued to dwindle. August and September would
yield no solid results, and by the arrival of October,
nearly three months since the disappearance, Welsh acknowledged that they
had run down more than three hundred leads and not
a single one of them had helped advance the case. Seemingly,
State and local authorities agreed that things were drying up,

(01:07:18):
and the State Police reduced the amount of officers assigned
to the case from six to one Russell Welsh. Still,
Welsh noted the investigation had been expansive and beyond the
known searches. He confirmed that law enforcement had scoured more
than one thousand, four hundred ponds in the area but
had found nothing. For the most part the year of

(01:07:41):
nineteen seventy eight would come to its conclusion with little
if any solid developments. In May of nineteen seventy nine,
ten months following the disappearance, Chief investigator Russell Welsh officially
left the case, transferring out of Magnolia to the city
of Mina, some one hundred and fifty miles away. At
this point in time, State police investigator Mike Low took over.

(01:08:05):
Low had already been working the case for a period
of time prior to taking over. He came into the
investigation with great drive and determination, as well as a
personal interest. Low was a Magnolia native and had attended
Southern Arkansas University during the same period as Bobo. They
even shared a history class together and knew one another

(01:08:26):
on an acquaintance basis. Unfortunately, by the time Low officially
took over, the case was already rather cold and original
leads and pursuits needed to be revisited. October of nineteen
seventy nine, fifteen months since the disappearance, would become a
pivot point in this case. It was this month when

(01:08:47):
the Shim family terminated their agreement with PI Smokey Joe Smith.
They quickly moved on to their third PI, this time
hiring William Deere, also of Dallas, Texas. Deer quickly traveled
to Magnolia and brought five investigators along with him. He
set up an office at the Coachman's in one of
the hotels the Shim family had worked on. The private

(01:09:11):
investigator quickly learned that things in little Magnolia didn't quite
operate the way he was used to. He explained, quote,
Magnolia was different. It was and is a very private,
closed little town. Usually you go into small towns like that,
offer money and people will talk. I've been known to

(01:09:31):
cut money in half and say you'll get the rest
when the information checks out. I'll have scotch tape for
them when it does. And in the nineteen seventies in Magnolia,
twenty five thousand dollars was a lot of money. But
in Magnolia the money didn't work end quote. One of
Deer's first acts was the creation of a brochure which

(01:09:53):
contained many photos of Bobo and went into the details
of her disappearance. These brochures were plastered all over ten
in businesses, in store windows, on trees and phone booths.
Deer and his team even spent time at Smitty's Food Mart,
where the car had been found, handing out the brochures
to shoppers and passers by. Included in the brochure were

(01:10:14):
mentions of the shim family reward and numbers to call
with information. Unfortunately, the arrival of William Deer and his
aggressive investigation tactics would deliver a result that never seems
to assist, but only ever hinders the search for missing persons.
The case would become, as Deer would later describe it,

(01:10:35):
a political football. On Friday, November two, Deer announced to
local media that he expected a break in the case
within one week. He and his team, beginning that weekend,
planned to search approximately seventy five wells located throughout the area.
They would also focus on ponds and other bodies of water,

(01:10:57):
reportedly using what at the time they could called a
new type of bloodhound that can detect human bones, or
what we would call today a cadaver dog. According to Deer,
there was more information available in Magnolia than what local
authorities were reporting, claiming that he had received several letters
from locals providing additional details. Three weeks later, Deer reported

(01:11:21):
that he had developed a suspect who he would describe
as both a genius and a brilliant guy. Deer's suspect
would later be identified as twenty seven year old Michael
Glenn Morse of Stamps, a city twenty miles northwest of
Magnolia located in Lafayette County. Deer claimed that he had
statements from multiple people which had led him to Morse,

(01:11:45):
including witness accounts that the man had made statements about
the crime, looked very similar to the composite drawing, and
had allegedly shaved off his beard in the days following
the disappearance. Morse's name has been bandied about previous Lee,
mostly through local rumor and speculation. At the time, there

(01:12:05):
was a structure located in the woods south of Stamps
known as the Hippie Hut. Morse was reportedly associated with
that spot, and Deer theorized that Bobo had likely been
taken there. Even more than four decades later, ghost stories
persist about the missing twenty five year old haunting that spot.

(01:12:26):
There was, of course, one major issue with investigating Morse
as a potential suspect. On Sunday, October fifteenth, nineteen seventy eight,
Morse was found dead along Lafayette County Road thirty four,
two and a half miles north of Stamps. Reportedly, he
died as a result of a self inflicted gunshot wound
fired from a ninety Winchester Pump Action twenty two caliber rifle.

(01:12:50):
The rifle was rather long for what some would consider
a probable weapon to use for a self inflicted shot,
and at least according to some, the scene itself didn't
agree with the official ruling. Rumors circulated around the death,
with Morse's family denying it had been self inflicted, and
with other officers president at the scene allegedly telling people

(01:13:12):
that Morse had been found with his hands folded across
his chest, suggesting the scene had been staged. But what
actually is rumor versus legitimate fact is quite unclear. According
to Deer, his key witness was the much debated carpenter
for whom the second composite sketch had been constructed. Another

(01:13:33):
witness supporting the accusation was a former employer of Morse's,
who claimed that on the date of the disappearance, Morse
had taken the day off because he claimed he needed
to meet with his real estate agent in Magnolia. Morse's father,
Dewey Morse, passed away at the age of fifty nine
on Friday, June second, nineteen seventy eight, just five weeks

(01:13:55):
before Bobo's disappearance, and William Deere would later state that
he had been informed by a psychic that Morse had
killed her and laid her body in the grave with
his father, specifically that she would be found lying on
top of the casket. According to Deer, he reached out
to both Dewey's wife and Michael's widow and was granted

(01:14:19):
permission to dig up the grave and conduct a search.
On Tuesday, November twenty first, Deer and his investigators, along
with several representatives of local and state law enforcement, arrived
at Columbia County's Western Cemetery in Emerson, eighteen miles southwest
of Magnolia. While law enforcement had made it clear publicly

(01:14:40):
that they did not think Deer was on the right track,
they still thought they should be present. Deer did, however,
have some support from prominent names in the area. Sam Tatum,
director of the State Crime Commission, joined with his investigation
and publicly supported him, as did Tommy Robinson, to director
of the State Department of Public Safety. Ultimately, though after

(01:15:04):
the dirt had all been turned over, there was no
sign of Bobo located, and before Deer could even address
the growing line of reporters gathering at the cemetery, law
enforcement officials were already getting into their cars and leaving,
noting that the lead had been little more than a
rumor that had successfully suckered in this supposedly skilled and
experienced private investigator. Despite the lack of a result, Sam

(01:15:29):
Tatum continued to support Dear, suggesting to the media that
the lack of finding Bobo's remains did not deter him
nor Deer from their beliefs that Morse was responsible. He
would later tell The Times, quote, until we find a body,
we don't have a crime. However, there is very little
doubt left that we know who did it end quote.

(01:15:51):
In one interview, Tatum described Morse as a former acquaintance
of Bobo's, though friends and family never confirmed this. By
my own research, the only connection I can find between
the two is that they both attended Southern Arkansas University
and there was some overlap. However, the grave exhamation would
bring a lot of heat and attention down on Deer

(01:16:13):
and Tatum, as Morse's mother, Corinne and his widow Norma,
filed a two million dollar lawsuit against both men, claiming
an invasion of privacy and the intentional infliction of emotional distress.
According to the two women, while Deer had approached them
about exhuming the grave, he had lied about his reasons

(01:16:33):
and never suggested that he believed Michael had played any
role in the crime. At the same time Deer was
making claims about Morse being involved, local law enforcement made
it clear to the media that not only had Deer
failed to share any of the so called evidence he possessed,
he also hadn't spoken with anyone at the prosecutor's office.

(01:16:54):
Prosecutor Mike Cannard, asked about Deer's allegations, noted that he
had been trying to get information out of the private investigator,
but found him secretive and unwilling to share. Cannard told
the Shreveport Journal that he knew the suspect Deer and
Tatum had in mind and quote, I intend to see
that mister Deear brings to my office any evidence that

(01:17:16):
he has which may point to a crime being committed,
and if he refuses, I'll exercise the subpoena powers. If
they have evidence regarding the crime, or evidence which points
to a specific suspect, then I expect them to make
it available to this office.

Speaker 2 (01:17:31):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (01:17:32):
Still, Deer did not present any evidence to Canard or
state or local officials. Columbia County Sheriff John Blair joined
Canard in his calls for transparency, noting that he and
his office had worked the case hard for the previous
year and four months, and they found it not only insulting,
but possibly illegal for the private investigator to be concealing

(01:17:54):
alleged evidence of a crime. Much as Canard had, Blair
called Deer's bluff, saying to reporters, quote, this situation has
gotten out of hand as far as publicity goes. If
Deer has got all the evidence that's been reported in
the papers, then why hasn't he brought this to me?

Speaker 2 (01:18:12):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
Sam Tatum, in response to the request for evidence, told
the media that he had shared everything he had with
Sheriff Blair, as well as his own father, Wade Tatum,
the then sheriff of Lafayette County. According to Sam Tatum,
it was Sheriff Blair's responsibility to take that evidence to
the prosecutor's office, but there was only one problem. Sheriff

(01:18:36):
Blair denied that Tatum had ever delivered even a scrap
of evidence to him, saying, quote, I don't know how
much they've got. They may have a full deck, but
if they do, I sure don't know about it. End quote.
In regard to this discrepancy, Tatum would later say that
in actuality, all of his evidence was in his head

(01:18:58):
and that Deer was the on who was actually in
physical possession of it. According to Prosecutor Canard, the first
time they had heard about any of this so called
evidence was when William Deere held a press conference, which
Canard watched from his office alongside Sheriff Blair and Lieutenant
Phinis Duval. According to Canard, all three men had the

(01:19:21):
same reaction. They were perplexed by deer statements and had
no idea what the alleged evidence he had was. Tatum
began to pull back slightly, stating that he was involved
in the investigation as a private citizen, not as the
director of the State Crime Commission. Further, he noted he

(01:19:42):
was very experienced with law enforcement, having grown up around it,
and having been commissioned as a deputy sheriff in both
Columbia and Lafayette Counties. Cannard replied that given those statements,
Tatum had no statutory authority to be conducting or participating
in criminal investigation, nor was he vested with the power

(01:20:02):
of arrest. Frustrated, Canard told reporters, quote, if Sammy is
working for the sheriff of Columbia County, it seems strange
to me that the sheriff was as perplexed as I was.
And if Sammy has entered into some sort of investigatory
cooperation with Bill Deer, then they should be turning over
their evidence to the proper law enforcement.

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
Authorities end quote.

Speaker 1 (01:20:26):
The war of words from both sides would continue in
the media over the course of the next few weeks,
and while public support initially stood behind William Dear, the
more time passed without him handing over evidence, the more
people began to doubt the veracity of his claims. Many
people had heard the rumors about Michael Morse possibly being involved,

(01:20:47):
but no one had produced a shred of evidence to
support that claim. A few weeks later, in early December,
reporters asked Cannard if he still intended to subpoena the
evidence in Deer's possession, but dismissed the possibility. He noted
that as far as he and investigators were concerned, Deer
didn't have any evidence to support his wild theories and

(01:21:09):
it would be a waste of time and taxpayer funds
to subpoena him. Russell Welsh, the former head of the case,
was contacted about the possibility of Morse having been involved
and replied that he found that highly unlikely. Welsh noted
that they had previously interviewed Morse following an anonymous tip
saying that he matched the suspect's description. According to Welsh,

(01:21:33):
Morse did not match the description and also had a
solid alibi for the day of the crime. Robert Compton,
a lawyer hired by the Morse family, said Deer and
Tatum's actions had been despicable and they were merely trying
to point the finger at a man who wasn't around
to defend himself in some desperate attempt to claim a
reward and the prestige for having solved this case. For

(01:21:57):
some that didn't seem like such a strip wretch. William
Dear had previously garnered a great deal of praise for
solving another missing person's case. He had been hired on
to locate a sixteen year old from a prominent Michigan
family who had disappeared, and Deer made a lot of
statements about the case in local papers. When the sixteen

(01:22:18):
year old saw the story, he immediately called home, not
realizing his family believed him to be missing. For his part,
Deer took credit for solving the case within just a
few days, regardless of how much truth there were to
any of the claims made by Dear or the witnesses
who had gone to him. Mike Kinnard determined it was
in the best interest of everyone for the State Police

(01:22:41):
to conduct a more thorough, albeit post mortem investigation into
Michael Morse and the possibility of his involvement. Lead investigator
Mike Lowe, Lieutenant Finis Duval, and Richard Branch of the
State Police interviewed more than a dozen people throughout the investigation,
and everything they learned led them to believe that Morse
had played no role in the crime. While they could

(01:23:03):
find no solid evidence to confirm he had not been involved,
they couldn't find anything to suggest that he was During
the investigation, they reviewed all records connected to Morse and
found that he had previously been interviewed not once, but
twice by two different law enforcement officers. Multiple witnesses signed
statements saying that at the time of the disappearance, Morse

(01:23:26):
had been clean shaven and did not fit the description
of the suspect. However, two women, both working as secretaries
for ASU, stated that Morse had come in to re
enroll in classes on Wednesday, July twenty sixth, nineteen seventy eight,
six days after the disappearance, and that he had a
beard at the time. In fact, they noted that he

(01:23:48):
had complained to them that he believed he was previously
questioned by police because he had a beard. For Lieutenant Duval,
it was another example of the complexity of the case
and the contradictory information they had to work with. As
he would tell the Batesville Guard, quote, We've got people
who will swear that he did not have a beard

(01:24:09):
at the time, and here are two people who will
swear that he did.

Speaker 2 (01:24:13):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (01:24:15):
Now here's where things take in interesting turn. Duval went
on to note that following the first interview, Moose participated
in the officer who questioned him reported the discussion as
a negative interview, which Duval explained by saying, a negative
interview means the officer has ruled out the person being questioned.

(01:24:37):
According to Duval, when this officer was asked why he
had ruled Morse out, he couldn't remember what his reasoning was.
The second interview had been conducted by a familiar name
to this case, former chief investigator Russell Welch. Welch also
ruled Morse out, and when asked why, he told Duval

(01:24:57):
that Morse had given him what he felt an airtight alibi. However,
when asked what that alibi was, Welsh couldn't remember and
apparently made no mention of it in his original report.
So here you have two investigators, independent of one another,
clearing Morse of involvement, yet neither can remember why you'd

(01:25:18):
think someone's alibi, especially if it's air tight, might be
the kind of thing you'd write down in your report.

Speaker 2 (01:25:25):
But what do I know. I'm no detective. But that's
not all.

Speaker 1 (01:25:30):
There's another little nuggative information regarding interviews with Morse that
I personally found myself struck by. It's related in one
news article pretty much as an almost throwaway line, but
it rings to me as very interesting. According to the
Magnolia Banner News, in an article published decades after the crime,

(01:25:52):
Russell Welsh claimed that while he had interviewed Morse prior
to his death, it might actually not have been in
relation to the disappearance.

Speaker 2 (01:26:02):
Instead, Welsh suggested.

Speaker 1 (01:26:04):
The interview may actually have been the result of a
call police had received from.

Speaker 2 (01:26:09):
The Shin family.

Speaker 1 (01:26:10):
Allegedly, after speaking to police the first time, Morse was
really upset about being questioned, and he proceeded to make
a quote unquote vicious phone call to Gresham Shin where
he shouted and expressed his anger about being bothered by investigators.
So you have a possible suspect identified by multiple witnesses

(01:26:32):
as matching the description of the suspect. At the same time,
you have multiple witnesses saying the exact opposite about him.
Digging deeper, there are a few interesting tidbits about Morse
which were not at the time made publicly available, but
which came out over the next few decades. Firstly, Morse
was allegedly a diagnosed schizophrenic who believed that he was

(01:26:53):
the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. He was at the time
supposedly under the care of a psychiatrist who operated out
of the city of El Dorado, thirty five miles east
of Magnolia. Reportedly, Morse was prescribed an antipsychotic medication that
he needed to stay on. According to Deer, he had
originally told the media that the tip he'd received that

(01:27:15):
led to exhuming Morse's father's grave was given to him
by a psychic, but in order to protect his actual
witness he had lied. Deer later stated that a nurse
who worked for the El Dorado psychiatrist was actually the
person who had called in with the tip. According to
the nurse, Michael Morse himself stated that he had been

(01:27:35):
involved in Bobo's abduction and murder, and that is why
she contacted Deer. She was not the only person who
told Deer that they had overheard Moore speaking about his
involvement in the crime. But whoever the other witnesses were,
they've never been named, nor have they come forward publicly.

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):
As far as we know.

Speaker 1 (01:27:53):
For Deer, Michael Morse is his only end primary suspect.
He and his team of investigators came to this conclusion
following multiple searches, including lowering themselves down into old, abandoned
wells and complete interviews with between five hundred and six
hundred people, Mike Lowe, State Police, local authorities, and even

(01:28:15):
Bobo's family disagree and do not believe that Michael Morse
played any role in the disappearance. That is pretty much
how things stand to this day. When it comes to
the possibility that Michael Morse could have been involved, he's
officially been cleared by investigators for reasons no one can remember.

(01:28:35):
And while the behavior of private investigator William Deere might
not be exactly by the book, he did obtain statements
from witnesses who confirm their belief that Morse was involved.
Despite the growing debate about the reliability of the carpenter's
eye witness account, he signed a written statement confirming that
he identified Michael Morse as the man he saw Bobo with.

(01:28:57):
That statement reads, in part quote, on November twelve, nineteen
seventy nine, I was shown several photographs of different male
subjects by William C. Deer and associates of Dallas, Texas.
At this time, I voluntarily state that I have positively,
without a doubt, identified a photograph of one Michael G.

(01:29:18):
Morse as being the male subject I saw with miss
Chin in the seven hundred block of East McNeil Street
in Magnolia, Arkansas, at about eleven thirty am, on July twentieth,
nineteen seventy eight.

Speaker 2 (01:29:31):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (01:29:33):
Lead investigator Mike Lowe, however, doubted the ability of the
carpenter to make a positive identification, especially considering more than
a year had passed since he saw the suspect. Lowe
questioned the claim, saying, quote, could you identify somebody you
saw for just a few minutes sixteen months before, especially
if it was somebody you didn't know?

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
No, you probably couldn't.

Speaker 1 (01:29:57):
When doing a photo lineup, you lay the photo, and
if you keep looking at one, or touching one, or
signaling to one in some way or another, your witness
will too.

Speaker 2 (01:30:07):
And what other photos did he use?

Speaker 1 (01:30:10):
Did the other people in those pictures match the suspects description?
You can't put four pictures of a clean shaven guy
in and one picture of a bearded guy. You can't
do that. And I don't know what kind of lineup
he conducted.

Speaker 2 (01:30:24):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (01:30:25):
Deer, in subsequent interviews, would claim that the case was
never solved, not because of a lack of knowledge or effort,
but because of a battle for credit. In his opinion,
local and state investigators did not want him to come
in from out of town and solve the case from
under their noses. He argued that police and prosecutors had
done everything they could to sabotage his investigation, even going

(01:30:49):
so far as to pressure witnesses, he explained, saying, quote,
they'd follow me around, see who I was talking to
and tell them not to talk to me. I think
they knew people would tell me things they weren't likely
to tell the police, and they were afraid I would
solve it before they did.

Speaker 2 (01:31:06):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (01:31:08):
While Mike Lowe stated that he never told anyone not
to speak to Deer, prosecutor Mike Cannard made a quasi
confirmation when he told local papers that while he didn't
tell witnesses not to speak to Deer, he did tell
them they had no obligation to speak to the private
investigator if they didn't want to. In particular, Cannard stated

(01:31:29):
that he was contacted by members of the Morse family
who wanted to know if they were legally required to
answer Deer's questions. In January of nineteen eighty, William Deere
was interviewed about his role in the investigation, at which
time he described it as a political football, saying, quote,
the case is being used as a political tool to

(01:31:50):
further someone's political ambitions. Canard wanted everything turned over to him.
He wanted to put it all up on his walls
and solve the case himself health end quote. Canard denied
that claim, noting that he was finishing up his current
term and then he was retiring from public office altogether.
Asked about a desire to boost himself, Cannard simply replied, quote,

(01:32:15):
all I want is for the shins to be satisfied.

Speaker 2 (01:32:18):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (01:32:19):
At the same time, Cannard expressed some level of resentment
towards Deer and the manner in which he conducted his investigation.
He was frustrated because Deer had gone to the media
with everything he uncovered or believed, but he hadn't gone
to the police. According to Canard, that could damage their
ability to prosecute someone in the future. He explained, quote,

(01:32:41):
if Deer or somebody taking license with Deer's statements said
Morse was the end of the investigation. Any viable suspect
in the future would have the stain of us developing
a suspect while Deer is pointing the finger at someone
else entirely end quote. The back and forth in the
media continued throughout the month of January. Deer moved on

(01:33:03):
to attack the investigation itself, saying that it had not
been handled professionally, that evidence was not being stored properly,
and that a primary reason he had even been hired
was because local authorities didn't pursue the case for months
and months at a time. Essentially, Deer claimed that the
failure to solve the case or make any arrest was

(01:33:24):
due to a poorly managed investigation, inexperienced officers, and a
lack of interest in finding the answers. For their part,
investigators entirely denied Deer's claims, with Lieutenant Finished Duval later
saying quote, I'll just let our investigation stand. As for
any stumbling blocks to his investigation, I don't know of any.

(01:33:46):
I don't even know who his witnesses are. I would
just like to see this case solved. I don't care
who solves it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
End quote. For his part, Mike Lowe.

Speaker 1 (01:33:56):
Also disagreed with Deer's statements, and noted that he had
been and continued to be doing everything he possibly could
to work the case and find answers. He desperately wanted
to find the suspect, to locate Bobo, and to provide
the Shin family with as must justice and peace as
he possibly could. He told the Springfield Leader and Press

(01:34:17):
that more than three hundred people had been interviewed in
connection with the disappearance. Furthermore, he stated that approximately fifty
different people had been considered suspects over the previous years,
but all had been eventually ruled out. Showing his records,
notes and paperwork filed an entire drawer of a filing
cabinet and interviews, sketches, incident reports, and other documents, all

(01:34:40):
housed in thick two inch binders. Unfortunately, Low noted they
were still not in a position to solve the case,
but they would never stop pursuing it. Asked about the
probability of dear being correct and of Michael Moore's actually
being the person responsible, Low noted that he didn't believe
that to be the case, but in reality he couldn't

(01:35:00):
know anything with a degree of certainty, saying, quote, what
He's got is a theory, and there are thousands of
theories when it comes to this case. Hell, I've got
a theory. Can I say no, Michael Morse did not
do it. No, I'd be a fool if I said that.
But do I doubt it?

Speaker 2 (01:35:19):
Yeah? I do.

Speaker 1 (01:35:20):
But I can't say for sure. Nobody can end quote Gresham.
Shinn said that the family was frustrated by the lack
of progress, referring to this time as the torment of
not knowing. One month later, in February of nineteen eighty,
local television station KATV Channel seven presented a new series

(01:35:43):
that would examine unsolved cases in the area. The show,
debuting Monday, February eighteenth, was entitled Unsolved Mysteries, Leads, Legwork
and Legends. The show ran episodes Monday through Thursday and
utilized actors and actually in investigators to recreate the events
of crimes. It was announced that Bobo's disappearance would be

(01:36:05):
one of those stories covered, and executive producer Jim Pitcock
visited Magnolia to interview investigators, witnesses, and friends. They also
filmed at important locations from the case. Though unrelated to
the case, It's worth noting that this Unsolved Mysteries show
premiered seven years prior to the one we're all familiar with.

(01:36:27):
Despite exhaustive searching, I could not find a copy of
Bobo's episode, but if you are in possession of it,
please reach out, because I would love to see it.
I did manage to find some amazing archival footage of
Bobo's studio, interviews with police, and images of the many,
many composite sketches that were created, which I'll be sharing

(01:36:47):
on YouTube and social media later in the week.

Speaker 2 (01:36:50):
But I digress.

Speaker 1 (01:36:52):
For the most part, the case sort of stalls out
at this point in the early nineteen eighties. While it
remains active and my continues to investigate, very little is
said publicly. There are searches carried out, but for the
most part, investigators attempt to keep the precise locations hidden
from the public is they don't want to tip off
a suspect or encourage locos to go searching in those

(01:37:15):
areas by themselves. A large part of this time period
is dedicated to chasing down the possibility that Bobo's disappearance
is connected to other crimes in other states. Unable to
track down someone local who may have been involved. Investigators
were involved in the questioning of a wide number of
different suspects, some you've heard of, others who never really

(01:37:38):
broke into the headlines. Among the names considered at different
times are Robert Zanni, a violent criminal who targeted real
estate agents throughout the late seventies in Texas and Oklahoma.
The disappearance of several Louisiana women, including one taken from
an Albertson's grocery store in broad daylight, led to discussions

(01:37:59):
between Louisiana in Arkansas authorities about a probable link. The
suspect in those cases fit closely to Bobo's, a bearded,
white male believed to be in his late twenties. The
disappearance of a re evol out of Bowser Parish and
the murder of Dodie Gay, a high school student, were
connected to the area of that Albertson's, but neither case

(01:38:20):
was ever solved. Shreveport Detective Lieutenant Donnie Nichols dismissed the
possibility of any connection between their cases and Bobo's, noting
that it appeared their suspect was specifically targeting an area
and his victims didn't fit with any pattern related to
the missing twenty five year old. Then there was the
stabbing murder of real estate agent Jeene McFall, which eventually

(01:38:44):
was connected to James Debarta Labin, one of the most
notorious serial killers in one of the United States pre
eminent counterfeitters. Perhaps the most famous or infamous named to
be considered in this investigation was Henry Lee Lucas. Investigation
later spent time questioning him and his frequent partner, Ottist Tool.

Speaker 2 (01:39:05):
Lucas was quickly.

Speaker 1 (01:39:06):
Ruled out, however, when it was determined that he was
in police custody at the time of the disappearance. That,
combined with the fact that the so called confession killer
denied ever entering southern Arkansas, made it mostly a rap.
There are, of course, always side stories to tell when
it comes to alternate suspects or well known killers being considered,

(01:39:27):
and later this week I'll be releasing some bonus materials
on Patreon, digging a little deeper into these men and
their once considered associated crimes. In January of nineteen eighty one,
a thirteenth Judicial Circuit court ruled against the family of
Michael Morse in their lawsuit against William Deer, both Deer

(01:39:49):
and Tatum had been listed as defendants, but Tatum was
released from the complaint by the plaintiff. By the time
of the judgment, only Morse's widow, Norma, was still involved,
as his mother, Karenne, tragically passed away in a car
accident just a few months after the complaint was filed.

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):
Three years later.

Speaker 1 (01:40:09):
In October of nineteen eighty four, Gresham and Sue Shin
sat for an interview with the Shreveport Journal, where they
expressed their grief and frustration with the lack of developments,
though they also noted that they were as dedicated as
ever to finding their daughter and the person responsible for
her disappearance, even if it meant draining their bank accounts,

(01:40:29):
selling off their properties, and going homeless. They were willing
to do whatever it took. Sue struggled to understand why
her daughter would have given a ride to the unknown caller,
unless perhaps she knew him. She explained, quote, I just
can't understand it. She just wasn't the type to pick
up a stranger like that. She was always the most

(01:40:51):
careful of the seven or eight or nine little girls
she grew up with. She was always the one that
would want to walk on the right side of the street.
She was always the most careful. I feel like it
had to be someone she knew.

Speaker 2 (01:41:06):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (01:41:08):
Gresham agreed that the common belief among the family and
with investigators was that this was not a crime perpetrated
by a drifter or some passer by. It wasn't a
stranger who had simply wandered into town and randomly selected
the name Bobo Shin. For the first time, Gresham revealed
that there may have been evidence suggesting that in the

(01:41:28):
weeks leading up to the crime, that his daughter was
being stalked. On Thursday July sixth, two weeks before the disappearance,
one of the family's dogs got sick and died. One
week later, on Thursday July thirteenth, a week before the disappearance,
the other dog got sick and died. Gresham explained, quote,

(01:41:49):
I wish we had done an autopsy on those dogs.
Nothing was wrong with either of them. Then the smaller one,
a Cocker spaniel, the weaker one got sick and died.
Exactly a week later, the German shepherd died.

Speaker 2 (01:42:03):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (01:42:04):
These new details certainly seemed to suggest the possibility that
someone may have been keeping an eye on Bobo and
or the family home. If the dog's deaths were likely
the result of foul play, as this suggested, then it's
difficult to ignore the likelihood that someone was on the
family property on those days at the same time, without
autopsies and without knowing for sure, it's difficult.

Speaker 2 (01:42:27):
To follow up on.

Speaker 1 (01:42:29):
Yes, someone could have poisoned the dogs, but at the
same time, the dogs could have gotten into something toxic
all on their own. Two years later, in September of
nineteen eighty six, Sue Shin participated in another interview, this
time with Debatesville Guard. She expressed frustration that investigators had
in the past led them to believe that they were

(01:42:51):
just about to break the case open, only for nothing
to happen. She stated, quote many times they led us
to believe that they were right on the verge of something,
and we'd be on edge and they'd just go off
on other things. It just hurts us so bad. It
was like that all the way through end quote. She
noted that they had hired several private investigators only for

(01:43:15):
nothing to be solved. Some, Sue said, preyed on their
emotions and peeled large sums of money out of their
pockets with a lot of promises that were never fulfilled.
Several times they were told that their daughter had been found,
only for it to turn out to be a case
of mistaken identity or some low level scam to try
and get.

Speaker 2 (01:43:34):
Some more reward money.

Speaker 1 (01:43:35):
According to Sue, one private investigator had them so convinced
that he'd located Bobo that they sent their son Jay
to pick her up, only for it to turn out
to be a completely different woman. Asked about William Deer's investigation,
Sue replied that he once mentioned to them that he
would get a million dollars worth of advertising if he

(01:43:55):
could solve the case. She went on, quote that didn't
make us fear feel very good that he was doing
it for his own glory. But of course we wanted
him to do it, and we were willing to pay.
But it went on and on until we just couldn't
end quote. William Dear was the last investigator of the
family hired, with Sue noting they fired him after all

(01:44:18):
of the publicity surrounding his actions failed to yield any
new solid.

Speaker 2 (01:44:23):
Or pursuable information.

Speaker 1 (01:44:25):
To some degree, they believed that Deer did the best
he could and The family still harbored some belief that
the rift between Dear and Mike Kinnard likely undermined some
of the investigation. Sue agreed that it became a political
debate and it was more about fame and money than
finding answers. She explained, quote, they just couldn't work together,

(01:44:46):
even from the very first. They just were so afraid
that somebody else was going to get the credit. They
wouldn't tell each other things. That's the way we saw it.
We couldn't get any satisfaction from anybody because they were
all wor against each other. End Finally, it had all
become too much for them. In a family meeting, Sue

(01:45:09):
and Gresham called in their children and expressed that they
had done everything they possibly could and it was time
to leave the mystery in God's hands. They had no
intentions of forgetting or just missing Bobo, nor would they
ignore breaks in the case or new developments, but it
was slowly killing them, spending every waking moment wondering if
today would be the day. Sue acknowledged that for years

(01:45:32):
after the disappearance, she refused to leave the family home
in case somebody called the only way she'd go out
anywhere was if they had someone else to sit by
the phone for her. The case had worn on both
of them physically affecting their mental and physical health. Both
suffered from issues with their hearts, and the tremendous grief

(01:45:54):
and pain did little to assuage it. Sue explained it
wasn't a choice, but more a necessity, saying, quote, it's
not that we've given up, and not that we wouldn't
do anything we could do, any of us would, but
we just couldn't keep on end quote Sadly, just three
months after this interview, on Tuesday, December sixteenth, Gresham James

(01:46:18):
Shinn passed away at the age of seventy. He had
hoped to know the truth of Bobo's fate before his
time was up, but his family believes that after shuffling
off this mortal coil and into God's grace, he's been
reunited with his beloved daughter. Gresham Shin was laid to
rest in Magnolia's Memorial Park Cemetery following a service held

(01:46:39):
at Central Baptist Church. July twentieth, nineteen ninety two, marked
fourteen years since Bobo was last seen for nearly a decade.
There had been little, if anything stated by police about
the continued investigation. On that harrowing anniversary, Lead investigator Mike Lowe,

(01:46:59):
who took over the case twelve years earlier, participated in
a thorough and deeply probing interview. Low stated that the
investigation had taken them all around the country, pursuing leads
and states as far away as Florida, California, and New York.
Though it was believed that Bobo had likely been killed,
it was still being investigated as a kidnapping because they

(01:47:20):
hadn't found a body. The case was still active, Lo said,
but they hadn't found much, saying, quote, there's not a
month that goes by where we don't check on something
involved in the case, and we are still looking into
new leads that come up, but so far we have
come across nothing concrete end quote. The family continued to

(01:47:42):
be haunted by the unknown, though each person took their
own measures to protect their heart and sanity. While Sue
Shin acknowledged the likelihood Bobo was deceased, she wasn't ready
to commit herself to that, believing there was still some
semblance of a chance for Bobo's older sister, Linda However,
all those years of unknowing were too difficult to navigate.

(01:48:05):
She stated, quote, in my mind, I have decided that
she is dead. It's just been hard on the whole
family because everything has led to a dead end, and
nothing we have found out so far has led to anything.
It's a total mystery end quote. For the first time
during this interview, Low revealed one of the more prominent

(01:48:27):
theories developed among investigators. While there had been a lot
of talk about this being an outsider, not someone who
walked the streets of Magnolia or grew up alongside Bobo,
Lo did not necessarily agree. Fourteen years of investigating later,
and for the most part, detectives agreed that Bobo was
probably targeted from someone in the area. Lo believed there

(01:48:50):
was a chance this was a case of kidnapping gone wrong.
The Shin family was well known, they had money, and
it was entirely possible someone saw an opportunity and planned
to abduct Bobo and demand ransom from the family. For
one reason or another, something went wrong and what began
as a kidnapping transformed into a murder. Low noted that

(01:49:12):
Magnoli is a small town with approximately twelve thousand residents,
and while not everyone knew one another, the Easy Mart
where Bobo picked up the caller was the one spot
in town where almost everyone local would stop in, at
least on a weekly basis. At the same time, the
witnesses there who had gotten the most detailed look at

(01:49:33):
the unknown man, admitted to investigators that they didn't recognize him,
nor did they believe they had ever seen him before. Unfortunately,
while interesting, it does little to lend credence one way
or the other when it comes to a local or
a stranger. Low couldn't be sure, saying quote, I think
and sure as I say this, it'll turn out that

(01:49:55):
some serial killer in Oregon did it. I think that
the key is right here bed on it. I think
it was somebody who knew the lay of the land,
who knew how far it was from the Easy Mart
to the house to her art studio, someone who knew
how long it would take for her to get there
end quote. Lo also wondered about the infamous last statement

(01:50:17):
of Bobo, shin come looking for me if I'm not
back this afternoon. Was that just a joke Bobo made,
or did it suggest that perhaps she didn't feel completely
safe or comfortable with the caller? Did that statement imply
it was someone she knew or knew of, Perhaps someone
who was a little off, someone who wasn't exactly balanced.

Speaker 2 (01:50:39):
Low wondered aloud if perhaps.

Speaker 1 (01:50:40):
It was someone she went to school with or knew
through friends, someone quiet, sad, maybe someone she had been
kind to, or contrarily, someone who expressed an interest in
her that she may have ignored. Maybe it was someone
who freaked her out a little bit, sent a shiver
down her spine. Or maybe that sentence was just a

(01:51:01):
joke that ironically turned out to be legitimate. The biggest
stumbling block for Low was the fact that Bobo gave
this person a ride. Her family is convinced she would
not give a stranger a ride, and it seems unlikely
she'd be willing to take the ten mile trip out
along the Tailor Highway with a total stranger, especially one

(01:51:23):
that gave her weird vibes. But one can never know.
Bobo was known to be an extremely kind and giving person,
the kind of person that someone with ill intentions might
be skilled at manipulating or luring.

Speaker 2 (01:51:37):
Into a trap.

Speaker 1 (01:51:40):
Lowe also noted that years later, they still weren't really
certain about the composite that had been the most publicized,
the one based on the carpenter's eye witness account. Was
it accurate, was he mistaken, did he see exactly what
he explained, or was he possibly mixing up different visits
to the home on different days with different people. Former
Leader investigator Russell Welsh noted that it isn't like the

(01:52:03):
movies or TV and how they show things. Composite drawings
aren't meant to be the be all end all when
it comes to finding your purpose. He explained, quote, composite
drawings aren't meant to identify anyone. They're only supposed to
eliminate suspects. But from the time that drawing hit the newspapers,

(01:52:24):
we were del used with calls. Everybody had seen this
guy in the car next to them, at the stoplight,
at the grocery store. He was all over the place,
He was everywhere end quote. For Welch, he felt they
had done everything they possibly could, and from his first
ten months on the case to Low taking over for

(01:52:45):
the later twelve years, they worked every angle, every possibility,
but they could never get enough to move forward, file
a charge or even directly name a probable suspect. That's
just how investigations go sometimes, he commented, saying quote, there
are basically just two ways to investigate, although everybody has

(01:53:05):
his own style. You can sit up at night and
think about it, try to put yourself in the place
of whoever did this and come up with theories. Or
you can follow the facts and the evidence and go
where they lead you. Sometimes you don't have enough facts,
enough evidence to reach a conclusion. That doesn't mean it
was a bad investigation end quote. For their part, at least,

(01:53:30):
the shim family has stood up for Mike low expressing
their belief that he did everything he possibly.

Speaker 2 (01:53:35):
Could and continues to.

Speaker 1 (01:53:38):
Speaking to the Magnolia Banner News in April of twenty eleven,
thirty three years after the disappearance, Bobo's brother Jay, stated quote,
we are particularly grateful to Mike Lowe for continuing to
work on this case for so many years. We are
deeply appreciative of his efforts to bring a resolution to
it and to check out any information end quote. Two

(01:54:02):
months later, on Friday, June twelfth, Mike Lowe three Columbia
County Sheriff's Office investigators and two trustees, along with employees
of a private drilling company, spent much of their morning
excavating an old water well in the area near to
Lake Columbia, northwest of Magnolia. Lowe requested that the media

(01:54:23):
not reveal the exact location, but specified that the drill
site was within quote an area of interest to investigators.
The site was within close proximity to the former dirt
and gravel road where Harry Irwin saw what he believed
to be Bobo's blue car veering back and forth the
afternoon she vanished. The area has changed a lot over

(01:54:44):
the years, but the location searched is described as approximately
three miles as the crow flies from where Irwin spot
at the car. That road is now a part of
AR three four four, which travels close to Lake Columbia's
eastern shore. Low noted that the well they were drilling
and the nearby abandoned home are surrounded by a type

(01:55:06):
of grass similar to that found on the floorboards of
Bobo's car the night she vanished. Bones were recovered at
the site, but following an analysis, it was determined that
they were not human. They hadn't expected to find much,
but it was a location low walked all the way
back in the late seventies and to this day remains
a place that they believe could be connected to the case.

(01:55:29):
Their failure to find anything does add up over time,
and low often feels frustrated, thinking that maybe they'll never
find an answer. He explained, quote what I fear is
the only way we're going to find her is if
somebody walks us to it and says right here, and
that somebody may be dead by now, but we're going

(01:55:51):
to keep on trying end quote. Low left his position
with the state police but continued to work the case.
He eventuallyr and for and was elected as Columbia County Sheriff.
One of his first actions was to take all of
the available evidence in the case and ship it out
to the state crime Lab and the FBI for a

(01:56:12):
thorough analysis in the hopes that maybe they might be
able to lift the suspects DNA. Whether or not a
full or partial profile was developed has never been revealed.
Lowe also reached out to the FBI for assistance, specifically
from the Forensic Sciences Unit, but given the limited information
in the case, they were not able to develop a

(01:56:33):
profile of a potential suspect. On Saturday, October sixth, twenty twelve,
Sue Shin passed away at the age of ninety three.
Her obituary notes that she was preceded in death by
her husband, Gresham, but there is no mention of Bobo
even to her last days. Thirty four years after her

(01:56:55):
daughter's disappearance, she refused to believe that she was truly gone,
hold up out hope beyond hope that somehow, one way
or another, she would learn the truth. Tragically, the answers
are yet to be found, and Sue was laid to
rest beside Gresham in Magnolia's Memorial Park cemetery.

Speaker 2 (01:57:16):
Two years later.

Speaker 1 (01:57:17):
On Saturday July nineteenth, twenty fourteen, one day before the
thirty sixth anniversary of Bobo's disappearance, her siblings and living
family members made the decision to finally hold a memorial
service for her. They had not done so throughout their
parents' lives because neither could accept that she was truly gone,
and it felt like giving up to them to hold

(01:57:38):
a service. This service was held at Central Baptist Church
and countless friends, family members, and schoolmates got up to
speak about Bobo, celebrating the joy they shared with her,
and mourning the loss of a truly gifted, kind and
caring young woman. Southern Arkansas University established a Master of

(01:57:59):
Arts in Teaching scholarship in Bobo's name, and they continue
to award it each year. They accept donations towards the
scholarship both on their website and via mail, and I'll
be sure to include a link in the show notes.
A tombstone was erected in the cemetery near to Bobo's parents,
which simply reads married Jimmy Bobo Shin Forever loved by family,

(01:58:24):
Forever cherished by friends. Present at that memorial was Mike Lowe,
who was still working the case in whatever capacity he could,
even after retiring as sheriff. He was allowed to work
the case by the new sheriff, and when necessary, he's
given access to deputies to conduct police actions and searches.

(01:58:46):
The next year, in January of twenty fifteen, low decided
to restart the investigation. From the beginning, he relied only
on what solid evidence they had obtained, dismissing other less
reliable clues such as the carpenter's eyewitness account. He began
reinterviewing witnesses, getting their statements down on video, and he

(01:59:06):
sent out more information to FBI profilers in hopes of
developing some lead, no matter how minor. To this day,
Low still works the case, marking forty five years that
he has been involved in this investigation. In a twenty
twenty three interview, Low stated that he continues to receive

(01:59:27):
information and pursues all leads. In what can only be
described as a shocking revelation, Low told The Banner News
that he has managed to narrow his list of suspects
down to just one, and that person is still alive
and living in Columbia County. Asked about the case all
those years later, Low replied, quote, usually you'll have an

(01:59:50):
ex wife or a girlfriend, or a kid or a
friend who'll come in and say they heard so and
so say something about a crime.

Speaker 2 (01:59:58):
You'll have somebody in jail and or sellmate.

Speaker 1 (02:00:00):
Will confess something to them, and they'll trade that information
for stuff like cigarettes or radios. More crimes get solved
through jailhouse confessions than any other way. That's almost always
how it works. Somebody talks, and if two people know,
we're fixing to solve the thing, because sooner or later
one of them will confide in somebody or drink too

(02:00:21):
much and let something slip, or cut a deal to
save themselves. We haven't had any of that. Nobody has
talked whoever did this. He didn't tell a soul, and
he was incredibly lucky because apparently nobody really saw him,
and law enforcement didn't have a lot to go on.
You know that old saying about looking for a needle

(02:00:41):
in a haystack. We're still looking for the haystack. If
we can find the haystack, then we can start looking
for the needle. I've got two other cases that are
still unsolved, but this one, well, I've retired from the
state Police and I can't be sheriff forever, and this
is the one I want to put a cap on
before I go home for the last time. I will

(02:01:03):
never give up long as I'm living. I'll keep looking
for her.

Speaker 2 (02:01:08):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (02:01:10):
When last scene, Mary Jimmy Bobo Shin was described as
being a white female with brown hair and eyes, standing
five feet six inches tall and weighing approximately one hundred
and eighteen pounds. Bobo has a scar on her left
cheek and a birthmark on her forehead. She was last
seen driving her custom blue nineteen seventy six Buick Special

(02:01:34):
in the area of Magnolia, Arkansas, on Thursday, July twentieth,
nineteen seventy eight. There is no description or accounting for
what clothing Bobo was wearing that day. However, it has
been confirmed that she wore a custom designed gold necklace
with three diamond pendants. It has never been recovered. Bobo

(02:01:55):
is believed to have picked up an unknown man at
the Easy Mart in downtown Magnolia that morning, possibly stopped
at the house she had for sale at seven eighteen
East McNeil Street, and may have been spotted driving in
the Tailor Highway area west of town. At the time
of her disappearance, Bobo was twenty five years old, and
if alive today, she would now be seventy two. Asked

(02:02:20):
about his older sister decades later, Jay Shin still felt
the sparkle of a smile. Memories of his sister brought
not just to him, but everyone who had the pleasure
to have known her and the honor to have loved
and been loved by her. Jay stated quote, her legacy
is the memories of her, her art, and the effect

(02:02:42):
she had on her students she taught in Magnolia. I
know it sounds kind of trite, but I would like
people to just remember she was a good person. The
hard part is just imagining where she would be in
her life thirty years later. When I think about what
I've done in thirty years, it just seems real unfair
that her life was cut short. I think about the

(02:03:04):
person she would be now. I encourage anyone who knew
anything about it, if they do, to talk to Mike
Lowe at this time. If there was something that they
knew back then that they didn't bring forward, if they
would now for our family's peace of mind, there is
really no closure to it until you know what happened.

(02:03:24):
I think our family handled it through faith that she
was going to be okay wherever she was, and that's
really the only way to look at it. Whether she's
alive or whether she's in heaven, that she has peace.
We feel like we might eventually find out what happened.
We're also kind of resigned to the fact that this
is kind of the way life is. We don't know

(02:03:47):
if we will ever have an answer. The disappearance of
Bobo Shin is a complex case, made more difficult to
find your way through by the lack of evidence or
at least the lack of helpful evidence between the car

(02:04:08):
eyewitnesses and a pretty tight timeline. Law enforcement has since
the early days, had a fairly good idea of how
and what happened that day. They can account for Bobo's
location from the moment she woke up until she picks
up the unknown caller at the Easy Mart, and from
there it becomes more questionable. Unfortunately, you're stuck relying on

(02:04:29):
different eyewitness accounts, and there's really no way to know
who is or is not reliable, who's remembering accurately, who's
unknowingly filling in gaps and misremembering, and who possibly could
be consciously lying about what they did or did not see.
We know for certain that Bobo was home and took
a walk with her mother around six thirty am, and

(02:04:51):
that the next event on her daily schedule was teaching
a children's art class at her studio on Magnolia Street
at ten am. For the most part, there's no information
about what Bobo may or may not have been up
to from the time her mother left until she arrives
at the art studio sometime just prior to ten am,
But there does not appear to be anything majorly significant

(02:05:13):
in the gap of lost time, at least nothing that
would likely alter the events to come. Around eleven am,
Bobo's friend Angie Pendrick calls to chat and confirms plans
for that day where they're supposed to get together play
tennis and maybe have lunch. According to Pendrick, the two
were supposed to get together around one point thirty, but

(02:05:33):
by that time, even though no one knew it, Bobo
was already missing. According to Pendrick, Bobo told her that
she was waiting for a phone call from someone who
had an interest in the house on McNeil. This caller
is allegedly the same person she met with the previous
day when she gave him a tour of the remodeled house,
and from what we can tell, that meeting went off

(02:05:55):
without a hitch. At the same time, an unknown man
is placing a call from a payphone outside of the
Easy Mart. Bobo receives a call at her studio six
tenths of a mile to the north. The route from
the studio to the mart is fairly direct. Head east
on Magnolia, turned right onto North Dundee and the mart
will be on the left. As you approached the intersection

(02:06:17):
of Dudney and East Main Street. According to Google Maps,
that's a three minute drive for a twelve minute walk. Now,
the phone call itself is one of the first instances
in this case where I find myself a little confused
about the way it's reported. It's always told like this
guy called Bobo told her he wanted to trade property
out along a Taylor Highway for the house on McNeil.

(02:06:40):
He says that his car's being worked on at Jordan
Pontiac Buick, directly south across the street from the Easy Mart.
He apparently says that because of this, he'll need to
take a taxi and he can meet Bobo at her
art studio. Apparently, she tells the caller not to worry
about the cab, she'll come pick him up at the
Easy Mart. I can't help but wonder why she makes

(02:07:02):
this choice. At the studio, she's less than half a
mile from the remodeled house, or what Google Maps lists
as a two minute drive. Why not tell him to
take the taxi there and meet him at the house,
or why not allow him to take a taxi to
the studio from where you can make the quick two
block drive. Surely Bobo, who had a reputation for being

(02:07:23):
exceedingly kind, may have wanted to save the guy time
or money, or because it's a possible business transaction, she
wants to be accommodating. But the walk from the easy
Mart to the house on McNeil is literally eleven minutes.
She spends more time between telling the man she'll pick
him up and actually arriving at the Easy Mart than

(02:07:43):
it would have taken for him to walk the distance himself.
According to the timeline, she leaves the art studio sometime
between eleven fifteen and eleven twenty. She is thought at
this point to have driven home and changed her clothes,
although there's some debate about that. Her mother saw her
in a T shirt and cut off jean shorts and
believe she wouldn't have met her client dressed like that,

(02:08:05):
But we have no idea of knowing if after her
mother left that day she took a shower, changed clothes,
and then went to the studio. However, given the fact
that if she left the studio at eleven twenty, she
should have picked up the man at the Easy Mart
around eleven twenty two or twenty three, but that sighting
doesn't happen until eleven thirty or forty. The total round

(02:08:28):
trip distance traveled from the studio to the family home
on Sue Street, to the Easy Mart, and then back
up to the McNeil Street home is approximately four point
five miles, or what Google list is a thirteen minute
drive without traffic. This doesn't account for the time that
Bobo might have spent in her home changing her clothes.
For the sake of argument, let's say she's home for

(02:08:50):
two minutes. That means she leaves her studio at eleven twenty.
She's arriving at the Easy Mart at approximately eleven thirty three,
which falls correctly in to the timeline, or at least
close enough. Then it's two more minutes north and then
east to the house don McNeil, which should have Bobo
and the caller arriving between eleven thirty five and eleven

(02:09:13):
forty at the latest. Many of these times are later
confirmed by eyewitnesses, from the witnesses at the Easy Mart
who see the caller to the man who spots her
at the mart, with the unknown caller getting into her car.
From here, however, things somewhat diverge. We have a witness
from Jordan Pontiac, who claims he sees Bobo at the
Easy Mart at eleven forty. According to him, when she

(02:09:36):
pulls out from the store, she doesn't head north towards McNeil. Instead,
she turns left and then right onto East Main Street.
She stops at a traffic light and is last seen
by this witness stopped at the intersection of Maine and
Pine Streets, which is one block west of the Easy Mart. Now,
if the two were heading to McNeil, they would have

(02:09:58):
just headed north as McNeil CA next to North Dudney.
But if they went west, this implies there was another
stop along the way, or when Bobo picked the man up,
she was already heading out of town to view his
alleged property along the Taylor Highway. That makes a lot
of sense to me. Sure, the caller may have wanted

(02:10:18):
to see the McNeil home again, but he literally toured
it the day before and is already offering to trade
land and some cash for it. Now it's only my opinion,
but I'm not sure I believe that Bobo and the
unknown man ever went to the McNeil Street house. On
the twentieth, at twelve pm, another witness tells the police

(02:10:39):
that he spotted Bobo's car at a gas station along
Main Street, where he saw an unidentified mail entering the
vehicle with her before she drove off. The final alleged
sighting comes from Harry Irwin at twelve oh five, when
he spots what he believes to be Bobo's car moving
along a dirt and gravel road west of town in
the area of what is today AR three five. This

(02:11:01):
location is approximately three and a half miles from where
Bobo is last seen and has a total driving time
of five minutes. This suggests that if Bobo truly was
last seen around twelve PN on Main Street, then irwin
sighting five minutes later actually lines up.

Speaker 2 (02:11:18):
These accounts do not leave any.

Speaker 1 (02:11:20):
Available time for Bobo and the unknown man to have
traveled two minutes from the Easy Mart to the McNeil
Street home, where the carpenter claims they spend ten to
fifteen minutes inside before leaving. This is hardly the only
discrepancy in his account, but we'll get more into some
of those issues with his sighting later. However, if you
do include that account, then Bobo and the man arrive

(02:11:43):
at the McNeil home sometime between eleven thirty and eleven
forty to be generous. Even though we have a conflicting
witness who places Bobo at the easy Mart at eleven forty,
they spend ten to fifteen minutes at the house, so
an now we're between eleven forty and eleven fifty five.
To drive from that home to the Erwini sighting is
approximately eight minutes. This would have her arriving there between

(02:12:04):
eleven forty eight and twelve oh three, which are both
too early for Erwin, though I would guess the latter
time could fit depending on if Erwin assumed it to
be twelve oh five or if he actually looked at
his watch. While that would fit it, someone calls into
question the eyewitness who sees Boa at the gas station
at twelve o'clock, since this timeline would not allow for

(02:12:26):
an additional stop lasting more than a minute. Now the
carpenter his account just throws a monkey wrench into the
whole thing. Initially, he tells investigators that he sees Bobo
arrive at the house at about eleven am. We know
this can't be correct because at that time she's still
at the studio. He then amends his account to say
that it could be any time between ten thirty and

(02:12:47):
eleven thirty, So you've gone from I know it was
eleven o'clock too, well, it could be anywhere in this
hour of time, And based on other information, we know
that the earliest she could have arrived there, even if
she skipped going home, and it contradicts with other eyewitness testimony,
is about eleven twenty five. We know she's called at
eleven fifteen. We know she calls her friend back around

(02:13:09):
eleven twenty. The entire trip from the studio to the
march to the house for sale is one point one
miles and not accounting for traffic or stoplights, this is
a trip which by car takes five minutes. So it's
more accurate to say if she did go to the
house that day, she likely arrived between eleven twenty five
and eleven thirty five. Tack on ten to fifteen minutes

(02:13:32):
for being inside of the house. And now you're looking
at eleven thirty five to eleven fifty as your range,
which we know doesn't really fit with any of the
other times. However, the time of day is probably the
least of this witness's discrepancies. We know from Bobo telling
Angie and from her sister overhearing the call, that she
has to go pick this guy up the Easy Mart. Yet,

(02:13:54):
according to the carpenter, she arrives traveling from the east,
an unknown man arrives travel from the west. The carpenter
knows the other car is dark green with a lighter
green vinyl top, but he's kind of stuck on what
kind of car it is, saying it could be a
Pontiac anywhere between nineteen sixty nine and nineteen seventy nine,
or maybe a nineteen seventy two Bonneville Catalina, or perhaps

(02:14:17):
a Lamans Now. In fairness to this guy, the body
types of these vehicles are somewhat similar, although their headlights
and brake lights are vastly different. But who knows, Maybe
he's just not a car guy. The problem is everything
we know, says Bobo picked this guy up, so there
should not be anyone arriving in a second car at all.

(02:14:39):
Since there is no record of another call, it's not
likely that Bobo called this guy back, or that he
called her again and then they changed plans to meet
at the house together. That would have made the whole
talk about a taxi completely unnecessary. According to the carpenter,
after being in the house for between ten and fifteen minutes,
the two walk outside, get into their separate vehicles, and

(02:15:02):
then drive off in the same direction, heading west down
McNeil towards North Dudney.

Speaker 2 (02:15:07):
He's able to give a description.

Speaker 1 (02:15:09):
White male, twenty five to twenty eight six one to
sixty two, round two hundred and fifteen pounds. He says
the man is thick built and broad across the shoulders.
He also says the man has collar length brown hair,
a medium length beard, and wore a mesh baseball style hat.
Now seventy five feet isn't that far away, and even

(02:15:29):
with my increasingly poor eyesight, I could give a pretty
accurate description from that distance. I sincerely doubt, however, that
I could pick a face out of a lineup at
that distance, but there'd be enough general impression for me
to describe. We don't know enough about the carpenter to
know for sure how good or poor his eyesight was.

(02:15:50):
What I've read says he wore very thick coke bottle
like glasses, but that doesn't tell as much as both
near and far sighted lenses can get quite thick. I
assume if the man had removed his glasses to look
across the street, that would have been noted. So we've
got several issues the timeline and the second car to
be sure. Then, according to police, there's a man who

(02:16:10):
lives just a few houses down from the one Bobo
was selling. He drives a green car with a light
green top. He has longer, dark hair, a beard, and
wears a mesh baseball style hat. They theorized that the
carpenter saw that man driving down the road and mixed
it up with the man Bobo supposedly picked up. I
think there are many questions here that without the answer,

(02:16:33):
it's hard to judge for sure. Was the carpenter working
on the roof with a full view across the street
or was he doing the floor in the living room
and occasionally glancing out the window. How long exactly did
he see Bobo and the unknown man? And from one angle?
Were they facing him or did they have their backs
to him most of the time. I don't mean to
demean the witness or call his credibility into question, but

(02:16:56):
eyewitnesses are notoriously inaccurate, and it's not like they're with
some inciting incident, an accident, or something to really grab
his attention. He sees people at the house across the
street that's for sale, but for thirty seconds or five
minutes straight, it's hard to say. To me, there's a
few possibilities here. Either the carpenter has mixed up the

(02:17:17):
suspect with the neighbor, or he has mixed up his
dates and times. You're doing work on a house. Two
or three days later, I come and ask you if
you saw anything across the street specifically on Thursday. Are
you gonna remember with one hundred percent certainty the difference
between a man and a woman at that house on
Wednesday and a man and a woman at that house

(02:17:37):
on Thursday. Maybe maybe not. But given the time issue,
the second car, and him being the only witness who
describes this guy as bigger in both height and body shape,
I'm not sure how you can rely on it. I
think when Mike Lowe restarted the investigation in twenty fifteen,
it was probably the right move to throw the carpenter's
statement out the window. You don't gain much from it

(02:17:59):
besides the possible description of the suspect, but it also
contradicts all the other witnesses who saw this guy. They
generally make him several inches shorter, thick across the middle,
but not broad shouldered or muscular. They also give him dark,
curly hair and a clean shaven appearance. You're probably not
tracking a suspect down based purely on a description or

(02:18:20):
a composite drawing, regardless, so there isn't a great deal
of value lost here. We know for a fact that
Bobo showed the unknown caller of the house the day prior,
Wednesday the nineteenth, at approximately four pm. There is no
mention there of the man needing a ride, So could
the carpenter have seen him pull up in a green
car that day and blended the two accounts together. I

(02:18:42):
don't think that's necessarily outside of the realm of possibility.
To simplify everything, we focus on things that we know
with a level of certainty. We know Bobo's called at
eleven fifteen and agrees to pick the man up the
easy Mart. We know, based on what she tells her friend,
that she's going to take the man out along the
Tailor Highway, approximately nine miles outside of town, where he

(02:19:03):
reportedly owns some land. He might be willing to trade.
If this guy has already decided, Hey, I've got some
land to trade if you're interested. I just don't imagine
he needs to go back and see the McNeil Street
house again. He literally saw it less than twenty four
hours earlier. Now to mention, if we're going on the
assumption that this caller is the guy responsible for Bobo's disappearance,

(02:19:26):
there's no reason to go back to that house unless
that's where you plan to spring into action. Makes a
lot more sense to target a rural, quiet area outside
of town instead of along a neighborhood road in broad daylight.
The last alleged sighting of Bobo happens when Harry Irwin
sees the blue car believed to be hers, swerving along

(02:19:47):
the dirt and gravel road in the area of what
is today AR three four to four. Irwin reports the
police two days later that he saw the car traveling
away from Magnolia and that it looked like a man
and woman were fighting for control of the wheel. We
then have three witnesses who place Bobo's Buick Special being
seen in the parking lot at Smitty's, where it's later
found by police sometime between one and one thirty, although

(02:20:10):
two of the three witnesses say one pm. According to
their calculations, giving everything involved, approximately fifty seven minutes passed
between Bobo driving out of town and her car being
spotted at the grocery mart. Accounting for time of travel,
this suggests that whatever happened and wherever Bobo was taken
is likely no more than twenty three to twenty five

(02:20:32):
miles out of town, as that trip round trip would
take fifty seven minutes, which would leave the suspect exactly
zero time to actually do anything besides drive there and
then turn around and come back. If what happened to
Bobo took anywhere between five to ten minutes on the
low end, then you're actually looking at a travel time
outside of Magnolia of no more than eighteen to twenty

(02:20:54):
three minutes, which reduces the distance to between fifteen and
eighteen miles. This would suggest to me that whoever the
suspect was, he had some knowledge of the area and
had pre picked the location he planned to take Bobo two,
either because he was connected to it in some way,
or because he knew it was out of the way

(02:21:15):
enough that no one was going to come along and
interrupt him. Now that encompasses a lot of areas. If
we focus primarily to the west, given that's where the
car is believed to have been seen, there's a lot
of different possibilities. An eighteen mile radius would include cities
like Stamps, Buckner, Jefferson, Waldo, and even Taylor Lake, Columbia

(02:21:37):
would also be within this radius. Suffice it to say,
there's very little to go on when it comes to
trying to determine where Bobo might have been taken. Most
searches have focused in the area between US Routes three
seventy one and eighty two and AR three four four.
Most of that land, even to this day is farmland,

(02:21:57):
and I imagine back in nineteen seventy eight it was
even more so. While it's helpful to have grass clippings
and seeds to help in determining the search area, when
you're surrounded by farms and hay fields and grassy wooded areas,
it doesn't do that much for you. I imagine law enforcement
focused in on private property owners in that area and

(02:22:18):
any locations that might be unofficial places, teens hung out,
or remote plots of land that were overgrown and not
maintained or observed by anybody generally speaking, turning your attention
to the car. While we have extensive details about its
condition and the items found within, none of that really
helps in figuring out this mystery. The purse is dumped out,

(02:22:40):
but allegedly this was done by one of the first
officers on the scene, so we can't really say the
suspect was specifically digging through her belongings looking for anything,
or that there was any kind of a struggle in
the car. The shoes are fascinating. Bobo's white size eight
tennis shoes are found on the driver's side floorboard and
partially tucked under the brake and accelerate. According to Mike Lowe,

(02:23:01):
he believes that the killer drove the car back to
Smitty's with those shoes lying in that position. Why you
went and toss them out the window or leave them
at the crime scene, I honestly don't know. It doesn't
make a lot of sense to me. The car is
in a condition that suggests it was driven off road
and through a wooded area, what with scratches along the
exterior and deep ones along the rear driver's side fender.

(02:23:25):
Being that the car was left with the doors unlocked,
windows rolled down, and keys dangling from the ignition suggests
whoever left the car there didn't mind how quickly it
was found, nor did he care if someone came along
and stole it. The latter would probably have helped his cause,
but there's no solid evidence in there, no signs of
a struggle, no blood, nothing to tell us what happened.

(02:23:47):
Forensic sweeps do pull up fingerprints, which they've never identified,
but even BOBO can't be ruled out. Reportedly, three hairs
were recovered, but they have thus far been unable to
develop a full DNA profile. We unfortunately know nothing about
the hairs. Are they long or short? Blonde, brown, red, male?

Speaker 2 (02:24:08):
Female?

Speaker 1 (02:24:08):
Those answers were probably help a little bit, but like
so much of this case, it's just another mystery. Moving
away from evidence because really we've pretty much touched on
everything that might be considered solid factual information. We get
to different ideas about who might have done this, not
necessarily the exact person, but the type of person. There's

(02:24:30):
generally two ideas this was a crime pulled off by
a stranger to the area, either someone staying in town
short term or merely passing through, or this was planned
and executed by someone local, perhaps even someone Bobo knew
or who knew her. So we'll begin with the outsider analysis.
There's not a great deal to analyze as pertains to

(02:24:51):
this being a random crime pulled off by someone who
is not native to or familiar with Magnolia and its
surrounding landscape. This person could have seen Bobo and decided
they wanted to take her, or they could have read
through the local paper, spotted the ad about the house
for sale, and then began feeling things out. They call
a few days before the crime, talking about wanting to

(02:25:11):
know where Bobo hangs out. They make plans to view
the house, which they do on the nineteenth, and then
they tell Bobo, I'll call you tomorrow with a possible offer.
Then on the twentieth they pull the no car scam
and abduct her while she's driving them out of town.
Certainly a possibility that can't be ruled out. Things like
that happen all the time.

Speaker 2 (02:25:34):
Now.

Speaker 1 (02:25:34):
Bobo was a lifelong resident of Magnolia and belonging to
a well known family, she knew a lot of people.
It seems somewhat odd to friends and family that she
would show this person the house on Wednesday and degree
to pick them up on Thursday, but never mention their
name to anyone else. If it were someone from out
of town, a total stranger, or something along those lines,

(02:25:57):
you'd think she'd mention that he was new in town,
or he didn't know the area well, or was planning
to move to Magnolia, but she doesn't. It also wouldn't
make sense for him to own land along the Tailor Highway.
In fact, the only reference we know for sure that
she makes is the one about coming to search for
her if she doesn't come back. The only reason to

(02:26:17):
say that about a stranger would be because they gave
you an odd or uncomfortable vibe. And I find it
somewhat difficult to believe she would be willing to pick
this person up all to drive them out of town
into the middle of nowhere if she were legitimately unnerved
or put off by them. At the same time, we
have no way of knowing how trusting her naive Bobo
may have been. Her family doesn't believe she would just

(02:26:39):
pick up a stranger, but that's what almost every family
says in cases like this, and we know in some
instances people do things they normally would not do for me.
What gives the feeling that this was not a random
passer by or stranger is the specificity of it. This
person tells Bobo his cars at Jordan Pontiac Buick while

(02:27:02):
they're talking on the payphone, directly across the street from it.
He eventually leaves her car at Smitty's, directly west from
the street that the Easy Mart is on. If I'm
from out of town, why would I contain myself to
such a tight space. Why bother bringing the car back
into town at all when I could just drive it
two hundred miles away and dump it in the woods

(02:27:22):
or a river. This suggests that the killer had his
own car, which he left somewhere near to the three
major businesses associated with this case. Obviously, it's not some
type of conspicuous car that stands out, nor was it
parked in an area where someone might notice or find
it strange. Also, if the killer is traveling, he likely
has his own car and needs to retrieve it, so

(02:27:44):
Bobo's car has to be brought back regardless. But if
you've got the world at your fingertips, why not have
her pick you up? More towards the outskirts of town
or in an area where you're less likely to be
seen by anyone. Why not then leave her car in
a more remote location where it's going to take longer
to be found or spotted. Well, maybe this guy isn't

(02:28:04):
all that put together, given that he travels to different
places and hunts victims. That would make some sense. But
then did he pull this crime off flawlessly or did he,
by some former measure, get really lucky. It's hard to
say with any certainty, But given that we have no
real names, no real leads, and no real outsider suspects,
there's not much further you can go to analyze the

(02:28:26):
motives or methods. Now, I tend to agree with investigators
that this feels more like a crime committed by someone
who at a minimum new Magnolia and its surrounding areas.
This person didn't come up with this idea on a whim.
They planned it out, timed it out, mapped it out,
and then executed it. Wednesday the nineteenth was somewhat of

(02:28:47):
a dry run. Meet up with Bobo at the house,
do a general tour of it, Maybe build a little
rapport and disarm the victim by making her feel safe
or at least comfortable near you. Then on the twentieth
you play the car and the shop card. She agrees
to pick you up, and from there you're pretty much
in control. Once she's out of town and away from
prying eyes, you can strike and do whatever the plan

(02:29:10):
actually was. At some point, probably on that Wednesday, the
suspect gets the phone number to the art studio, probably
from Bobo herself. If we take into account that the
suspect is also the person who called the family home
the Saturday before, we have to assume he either didn't
have the number for the studio or he called that

(02:29:31):
day and no one answered. The number left in the
paper with the ad is to the Shin family home,
so it makes sense to call there first. Either way,
this person has to say something to Bobo to convince
her that he's gonna call the next day and may
have something to trade for the house. Why he doesn't
do something that Wednesday, when they're alone together is unknown,

(02:29:53):
but maybe he was waiting for really specific circumstances, or
he didn't think the home on McNeil offered enough privacy.
Maybe he noticed that carpenter across the street we know
according to her parents that after the Wednesday showing, she
didn't mention anything to them about the buyer, the showing,
or anything else to sue. This suggested that her daughter

(02:30:14):
didn't think the buyer was serious, or she didn't consider
the offer strong enough to even bring to her folks.
There's another possibility, though, that maybe this was a person
that her parents or siblings might have known, maybe someone
who if she mentioned the name, they'd say, why are
you wasting your time with that guy? Or you know,
we don't like that person for whatever random reason. Maybe

(02:30:36):
there's some kind of a history there, either directly, or
he's known around town to be a little off or strange.
Bobo was very social, she wasn't super secretive, so there
has to be a reason why she wouldn't mention the
potential buyer's name, But sadly, we may never know now.
I am somewhat inclined to believe that whoever is responsible

(02:30:58):
for Bobo's disappearance worked alone. I'm primarily led to believe
that because of the fact that Bobo's car was driven
back to Magnolia. If more than one person were involved,
I'd expect to have that second person waiting at whatever
location Bobo was taken to and then after everything's done,
you drive back together, you leave Bobo's car there, or

(02:31:18):
you dump it in the middle of nowhere where it
likely won't be found right away, buying yourself more time. That,
plus the fact that no witnesses reports seeing another person,
it's always just felt like Bobo and the unknown man
and nobody else. Given the lack of physical evidence, it
seems that whoever got into Bobo's car that day did

(02:31:39):
not strike out against her until she was either out
of the car, or they pulled some kind of a
weapon on her and she was forced to get out
of the car without fighting. It seems like one of
two things probably happened. Either Bobo was taken to the location,
removed from the car, and then killed or disposed of
in that specific area, or she was taken to some location,

(02:31:59):
locked up or concealed there, and then the suspect drove
the car back, only to return later in his own car,
knowing that the focus of the investigation will now be
in town once the car is found. If the latter
scenario happens, then Bobo could have been taken anywhere and
there'd be no way of knowing this would also buy
the suspect more time to do whatever it was that

(02:32:22):
he had in his twisted mind. Now there's been some
information presented to raise the possibility that whoever did this
might have been stalking Bobo in the weeks leading up
to the crime. There are reports of the family dogs
dying on the two thursdays leading up to the abduction,
which also happens on a Thursday, which I find interesting. However,

(02:32:42):
since the dogs were not autopsied, we don't actually know
what killed them. Surely someone could have poisoned them, but
they also could have gotten into something toxic all on
their own. It's also possible, depending on the dog's behaviors,
that someone completely unassociated with the case may have wanted
to get rid of them because some people are just
messed up like that. The dogs and the Saturday call

(02:33:04):
are the only reasons people have considered stalking, and I
think that's a possibility, but I don't think we have
enough evidence to confirm it. If you're planning to take
her from a trip outside of town, why does it
matter if you eliminate the dogs from the house. If
you know where she lives and you're following her around,
then you also know the art studio's location, and you
could have gone there any time you knew she'd be

(02:33:26):
there by herself. If you're already planning to abduct her
under the guise of purchasing the remodeled home, why bother
calling the house or asking around where she hangs out.
I think part of the problem with this case is
we don't know with any certainty that the abductor is
in fact a man who called the week before. We
have to work with a lot of assumptions here. I

(02:33:48):
think it's likely that whoever did this was local. They
might not have been from Magnolia, but maybe one of
the surrounding communities. I mean, remember, Southern Arkansas University is
in Agnolia, and that school would have drawn in students
from all over the state and probably some other states.
So there's a possibility it's someone who attends the school there,

(02:34:10):
knows the town well enough, but isn't actually a local,
or someone that might be considered a local. The question
becomes was this a perp with a victim in mind?
Or was this a suspect with a crime in mind
who was actively searching for the victim. There's two different
types of predators who will approach things from different angles.

(02:34:32):
Given the calls, given the ad in the paper, it
seems likely that Bobo herself was the target and the
crime is much more about her than anything else. Bobo
was from an upper class family whose name carried cachet
through magnolia. She was a very popular and attractive young
woman who certainly didn't struggle when it came to having suitors.

(02:34:52):
She's noted as being very kind and welcoming, the kind
of person who makes everyone feel like they're important when
she's talking with them, ending time with them. A lot
of people who have wondered if the suspect might be
someone that Bobo knew on the periphery, perhaps someone she
had classes with, maybe someone she went to school with
but didn't really know, or perhaps someone who worked at

(02:35:13):
or hung around where she used to sunbathe by the
pool or where she played tennis. It's entirely possible this
could have been someone who had hit on her in
the past or tried to get close to her, only
to be rebuffed and turned down, and things just built
from there. It's also entirely possible this was someone who
developed an infatuation with Bobo and she had no knowledge

(02:35:33):
of it. It's been reported that the only things missing
from Bobo's car when it was found were the air
mattress she used when sunbathing and her appointment book. Now,
if you're a complete stranger, not someone she knew, were recognized,
you could have given her any fake name you wanted,
and neither she nor investigators would have known any better.
But if you are someone she knows, or maybe you

(02:35:55):
screwed up and actually gave her your real name or
something that could identify you later, you'd need to make
sure that appointment book disappeared. That's certainly a possibility. It's
also possible that the appointment book was lost, destroyed, or
discarded near to where the crime happened, and that it's
completely unrelated. We are, in most instances here devoid of clues.

(02:36:15):
The only real clue we have is that last statement
she spoke, the half joking, half sarcastic line about coming
to look for her if she doesn't come.

Speaker 2 (02:36:23):
Back to me.

Speaker 1 (02:36:25):
That doesn't scream out that she's afraid of this person,
but it does sound like something you'd say if you
thought the person was a little odd, borderline bizarre, but
not sincerely scary. I mean I don't think anyone would
be wise going off on a ride out of town
into a rural area alongside someone that you're actually scared of.
It just sounds more like what you'd say about someone

(02:36:47):
who other people would view as different or out of
the norm, or maybe something you'd say about someone who
had expressed an interest in you at some point in
time in the past and perhaps took it a little
too far. To be someone in high school or even earlier,
who wrote poems or letters, left flowers or candy, even
when it had been made clear there was not a

(02:37:08):
mutual attraction. At this point, we can do little more
than speculate. When it comes to people in the local area.
There's only one who has ever been named, and that
wasn't by actual investigators, but out of state private investigator
William Deere. He focuses in on Michael Glenn Morse, a
twenty seven year old former ASU student who lives in

(02:37:29):
the city of Stamps, just shy of twenty miles northwest
of Magnolia. Now it is interesting to note that both
State Route eighty two and AR three P forty four
are roads that you can take from the Magnolia area
to Stamps and those roads border along areas that have
been the primary focus of multiple searches. We don't know

(02:37:50):
a whole lot about Morse, at least not that we
can verify. We know he lived in Stamps, was married
to a woman named Norma, attended SAU for at least
two years, as he appears in both the nineteen seventy
and seventy one yearbooks. Bobo graduated from Magnolia High in
the spring of seventy one and began attending ASU in
the fall, so there is the possibility that she and

(02:38:13):
Morse attended campus during the same time and could have
run into one another or maybe had a class together.
We know for a fact that investigator Mike Lowe also
attended SAU and was in at least one class with Bobo.
Trying to find information on Morris's difficult at best. There's
not much publicly available, at least in terms of family members.

(02:38:36):
They don't appear to have spoken much about him, either
prior to or even after his death. The only additional
information I could find is sadly, his obituary, which lists
a wife and three sons and a really small blurb
in a couple of local area newspapers about a deadly
car accident. According to the Northwest Arkansas Times, on Saturday,

(02:38:58):
September eleventh, nineteen seventy one, thirty six year old Shirley
Ann Lee was walking along US eighty two when a
vehicle driven by then twenty year old Michael Morse struck
her along the shoulder of the road. She died two
days later as a result of her injuries. I can
find no additional information how the accident happened. If there

(02:39:20):
were charges, not a thing would have been very interesting
to find out if this was purely an accident or
if there might have been more behind it, But I digress.
All I can really say about Morse is that William
Deeer claimed he was a diagnosed schizophrenic who was under
the care of a psychiatrist and was taking antipsychotic medication.

(02:39:41):
How accurate that is, it's difficult to say. It was
claimed that Morse was convinced he was Jesus Christ, and
that would surely suggest mental health issues, but I don't
really have anything solid to corroborate it. In the photos
of him I found, I haven't seen him with a beard,
but someone who thinks there Jesus probably would grow one.
The most recent photo of him I have is from

(02:40:03):
seven years before the disappearance. He allegedly wanted to build
a church on his family's property, which was supposedly close
to what everybody called the Hippie Hunt, this yanky concrete
structure in the woods on private property where teenagers and
others supposedly hung out to party. Depending on what account
you read, it's either still there or it was bulldozed.

(02:40:25):
It's either easy to find, or it's really well hidden.
It's either haunted or it's not so. The theory coming
out was that more subducted Bobo took her to the
area of this hippie hut, where he killed her and
disposed of her somehow. That's never been recovered. They even
tell stories to this day that the area is haunted
by Bobo's ghosts. But it sounds like a whole hell

(02:40:45):
of a lot of smoke and not very much fire.
According to Deer, he had multiple people telling him that
they had heard Morse talking about his involvement in the crime,
including a nurse at the psychiatrist's office. The problem is
none of these people Popill ever came forward and put
their words down officially on the record. Then you've got
other people unable to determine what he looked like at

(02:41:07):
the time. Some say he had a beard on the twentieth,
others disagree. Two secretaries at SAU state to Deer that
Morse had a beard when he came to re enrolling
classes on the twenty six, six days after the crime.
Are there words officially in the police report. I couldn't
tell you. They're only mentioned to Deer's files. And what
about that psychiatrist. He would be legally responsible for reporting

(02:41:30):
anything he has told about a crime that has been
committed that doesn't appear to have happened here. Reportedly, Morse
was interviewed in regard to the case because of an
anonymous tip stating that he resembled the suspect. The first
officer questions, Morson rules him out in his notes, saying
that he does not resemble the suspect and he has

(02:41:51):
an alibi. What was that alibi? Nobody knows because the
cop didn't write it down and he couldn't remember when
he was asked. Then there's the former chief investor Stigator,
Russell Welsh, who also clears Morse, but like before, he
can't remember why, other than remembering the man had an
ironclad alibi that we don't know what it was. Welch

(02:42:11):
then notes that he might not have even questioned Moose
about the crime, but rather the fact that Morse allegedly
called up Gresham Shinn after he was questioned and was
extremely angry and volatile on the call, frustrated that he
had been questioned in the first place. That certainly doesn't
sound like the behavior of someone who's getting along real well.

(02:42:31):
It feels weird, like he's overly angry about being questioned,
just as hundreds of other people were questioned. Some would
say that implies he's involved. Others would say he just
has a short temper and possibly mental health issues. Morse
died on Sunday, October fifteenth, nineteen seventy eight, just shy
of three months after the disappearance. Morse's death is ruled

(02:42:53):
the result of a self inflicted gunshot wound fired from
a Winchester ninety twenty two caliber pump action right. He's
reportedly found along Lafayette County Road thirty four, approximately two
and a half miles north of Stamps.

Speaker 2 (02:43:07):
Lafayette.

Speaker 1 (02:43:08):
Thirty four runs east to west and stretches out for
one and a half miles. Even today, this road cuts
through a rural area of mostly farmland.

Speaker 2 (02:43:16):
And some wooded areas.

Speaker 1 (02:43:18):
Reportedly, there was a debate about the manner of Morse's death,
with some thinking it might have been a homicide stage
to look otherwise, But whatever investigation was done happened really
quickly because by the listening of his obituary it basically
says it self inflicted. For a lot of people this
suggested some kind of guilt or connection to the crime.

(02:43:39):
He's considered a possible suspect, gets spoken to by the police,
and within a few months he's gone. We have no
inside knowledge of if a note was left, if anyone
foresaw this, if anyone close to him thought that this
would have been the outcome, with or without the police questioning.
Considering all of the talk about him struggling with serious
mental health issues, it is unfortunately not a shock to

(02:44:02):
find out the way his life ended. At the same time,
people are quick to jump on the fact that he
did this three months after the disappearance, but nobody ever
notes that he died four months after his father passed,
which could have been another traumatic insighting incident, the question
becomes has he been unfairly vilified in the aftermath as

(02:44:23):
an easy scapegoat for this crime, or is there something
more to it? Mike Low, Russell Welsh, finished, Duval, and
Bobo's parents all stated they did not believe Morse was involved.
That carries some weight for me, if for no reason
other than the fact that there was such a desperate
desire to solve this case that I wouldn't have been

(02:44:44):
surprised to see law enforcement connect the dots and just
assume this to be the case. Instead, they've kept the
case open and active for what is now going on
forty seven years. I mean, you're talking about a lead
investigator who has dedicated forty five years of his life
to try to solve this case. It's hard to imagine
he would just dismiss a good suspect out of hand

(02:45:07):
for reasons. To be perfectly frank, I don't know how
I feel about Morse. I pretty much feel like without
something more, it's difficult to connect him to the disappearance.
All of these people had the time and the energy
and the effort to reach out to William Deer and
tell him all this stuff about Moose being involved. But
outside of an anonymous tip claiming that Morse looked like

(02:45:30):
the suspect, no one's ever come forward over all these
years to suggest that Morse was involved or mention the crime,
or was behaving oddly around that time. And the guy's gone.
It's not like there would be a reason to still
be afraid of him. It just doesn't add up. And unfortunately,
I find myself incapable of depending too much on the
work deer did because of the family dropping him and

(02:45:52):
all of the back and forth drama in the papers,
making it seem like this was a case much more
about money and prestige than about actually finding legitimate answers.
Everything is circumstantial. He had a beard, he didn't have
a beard. He knew Bobo, he didn't know Bobo. There's
even mention from a former employer of Morse's that on
the day of the disappearance he took off work because

(02:46:15):
he had to meet his real estate agent in Magnolia. Firstly,
Bobo wasn't a real estate agent. But putting that aside,
if I'm planning to kill someone under the guise of
being shown a house, I'm not going to literally put
that in my request off for work. In what I
can only call an extremely ironic comment, William Deeer referred

(02:46:37):
to Morse as both a genius and a brilliant guy.
I'm not sure how many geniuses would plan a murder
and then include vital details about their whereabouts on the
day of the crime in a time off request at work.
Michael Morris is a very interesting avenue to pursue in
this case, but without additional information, I don't know, maybe

(02:46:59):
even a single scrap of evidence, it's really hard to
connect him to well anything. It feels like people reached
out to Deer, made all these claims about a deceased guy,
and then no one else ever had anything to say.
Doesn't really make sense, now, does it. Unfortunately, because he
was named, Morse is inexorably linked to this case until

(02:47:21):
and unless a new suspect is identified. The final aspect
of this case to discuss for now is potential motive.
Some people believe the crime, even if carried out by
a local, was more random than not. An easy victim
so to speak, no different from murdering a hitchhiker or
a taxi cab driver. It's more about the circumstances and

(02:47:42):
the opportunity than about the crime or the victim. Others
think that Bobo herself was directly targeted, whether that was
out of rage towards her, a grotesque fascination, or because
the killer believed he could manipulate her and lure her
into a trap. Then there's the third possibility that perhaps
this was about murder or Bobo herself instead. Some believe

(02:48:04):
that she may have been targeted with the intent of
holding her for ransom, given that the family was well
known in the area and had money personally. I consider
a fourth possibility. The Shin family were getting good contracts
for hotels and motels in the area and that may
have upset others competing for the same jobs. And on
top of that, Bobo starts flipping houses and maybe someone

(02:48:25):
doesn't like her horning in on their business. I've always
found it fascinating that the so called key witness was
a carpenter working across the street. I'd love to know
if he'd ever spoken to Bobo, if he'd ever offered
his services in her house flipping business, or if he
had placed a bid on that house or the one
she had flipped previously. This was only the second house

(02:48:48):
she'd ever flipped, so it's not like she had a
long established history of doing it. She was new to
the game, and someone might have felt possessive about the process,
or perhaps the houses on McNeil Street themselves. Whether Bobo
was taken due to obsession, revenge, or money, those are
some of the oldest motives in the book. So what
do you believe happened? Was Bobo the target of a

(02:49:10):
random crime? Was it someone local, someone she knew, or
a complete stranger who merely saw an opportunity. Was it
about Bobo money or perhaps some other motive We've yet
to come across. This July will mark forty seven years
since twenty five year old Bobo Shin mysteriously vanished from Magnolia, Arkansas,

(02:49:31):
and the echoes of that nightmarage day continue to reverberate
all of these years later. Surely someone out there has
some insight. Surely someone has some information they've never shared
or have been too hesitant to bring forward. The only
thing we can say with any certainty is that a
bright light was snuffed out that summer afternoon, and unless

(02:49:54):
someone comes forward, new evidence is found, or Bobo herself
is located, this case will remain open, unsolved, and very cold.

(02:50:14):
If you're looking for more information about the disappearance of
Mary Jimmy Bobo Shin, there are many news articles and
online posts about her case. For this episode, the most
helpful sources were the Batesville Guard, the Magnolia Banner News,
and the Arkansas Democrat. If you have any information about

(02:50:35):
the disappearance of Mary Jimmy Bobo Shin, please contact the
Columbia County Sheriff's Office at eight seven zero two three
five three seven four seven. Her case number is see
three four eight eight six seven eight. You can also

(02:50:56):
contact the Arkansas State Police Company C at eight seven
zero seven seven seven eight nine four four. It is
the same case number as the Sheriff's office. A reward
remains in place for information which leads to Bobo's location
or the identification of the suspect. What do you believe happened?

(02:51:20):
Tweet me at trace ev Pod, email me at trace
Evidencepod at gmail dot com, or comment in the Facebook group.
You can find all social media and contact links in
the show notes. Now, I'd like to take a moment
to shout out and thank our amazing Patreon producers, without
whom this podcast would not be possible. Andrew Guarino and Bertram,

(02:51:47):
Christine Greco, Crystal Jay Diarthi, Denise Stingsdale, Dianni Dyson, Jennifer Winkler,
Justin Snyder, Carol Moore, Leslie b Lisa Hopson, Nick Mohar, Shurs, ROBERTA. Jansen,

(02:52:08):
Stacy Finnegan, and Tom Radford.

Speaker 2 (02:52:11):
Your continued support and.

Speaker 1 (02:52:13):
Confidence means the world to me, and you are what
makes Trace Evidence possible. If you would like to support
Trace Evidence on Patreon, you can visit us at patreon
dot com slash trace Evidence. Now that we've arrived at
the end of the episode, I had no idea would
turn out as long as it did. But there's a

(02:52:33):
great wealth of information out there about Bobo's disappearance and
it's all important to consider. Before wrapping up for the day,
just a few quick announcements. Firstly, I wanted to draw
your attention to some of the new merchandise we've made available.
We have some new designs for shirts and hoodies and
everything in between that you can view by visiting shop

(02:52:54):
tepod dot com. That's Shop te pod dot com, or
you can visit tray dash Evidence dot com and click
the merch link at the top.

Speaker 2 (02:53:07):
There are also links in the show notes.

Speaker 1 (02:53:10):
I also wanted to announce that I'll be adding a
new section to the podcast at the end of episodes,
where each week I'll answer a handful of questions from
listeners about the previous week's case. You can ask your
questions on social media or email them to me at
Trace Evidence pod at gmail dot com. I thought this
would be an interesting way to address some of your

(02:53:30):
thoughts and questions that I get each week but can't
generally getting.

Speaker 2 (02:53:34):
Around to answer all of them.

Speaker 1 (02:53:36):
I also wanted to ask a little favor If you've
got the time, it really helps the podcast to get reviewed,
and I haven't asked for reviews in years, but it would.

Speaker 2 (02:53:46):
Definitely make a difference.

Speaker 1 (02:53:48):
Please leave a review for the pod wherever you listen
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Good Pods. Obviously I'd love a five
star review, but you leave what you think is fair.
I really appreciate it. Finally, I just want to thank
everyone for their support and kind words. I'm really excited
as we move into our eighth year in twenty twenty

(02:54:10):
five to see what we can do, and I've got
a lot of great cases in mind to cover. Speaking
of I recently made a guest appearance on one of
my favorite podcasts, the Lost and Found podcast. I highly
recommend checking it out. I don't listen to a lot
of true crime anymore these days, but I never miss
Lost and Found. For now, this concludes our coverage of

(02:54:33):
the disappearance of Mary Jimmy Bobo shin a very complicated
case with a long history, but it's still solvable. All
you need is the right piece of information, and we
know someone out there has it. So thank you all
again for listening, and I hope you'll join me next
week for another unsolved case on the next episode of

(02:54:56):
Trace Evidence.

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246 - The Disappearance of Mary "Bobo" Shinn

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}246 - The Disappearance of Mary "Bobo" Shinn