March 17, 2025 • 30 mins
Detectives Andrew Houghton and Matt Vartanian from the Elgin Police Department Cold Case Unit review multiple serial killers who were active in the Elgin area in the early 1980’s and travel to the Pontiac Correctional Facility to interview Brian Dugan, an Illinois serial killer who is serving a life sentence for three murders in the area, one of which has similarities to Karen’s disappearance.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast is based on information sourced primarily from police
and media reports, but certain names and other identifying details
may have been changed or altered for privacy and security reasons.
While the events in cases discussed are based on real investigations,
some aspects may be simplified for time and for narrative purposes.
(00:25):
Voice actors have been used to read from statements or documents.
All information presented is intended solely to inform and raise awareness.
Hosts may discuss theories regarding the cases examined in this podcast,
but such discussions are not intended to and should not
(00:46):
be considered by the listener to be legal conclusions. All
persons discussed are considered innocent until proven guilty and a
court of law. Listener discretion is as.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
This is Chief Anna Lally. Welcome to Somebody Knows Something,
a podcast from the Elgin Police Department's Cold Case Unit.
In this podcast, we will shed new light on cold
cases in the city of Elgin by sharing untold details
and by encouraging anyone with information to come forward. You
will come along with real cold case detectives as they
(01:24):
investigate active cold cases in real time and seek justice
for the victims and closure for their families. We believe
that the Elgin Police Department and our community can work
together to bring closure to cold cases because we know
that in these cases, somebody knows something.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Hello and welcome to Somebody Knows something. The Elgin Police
Department Cold Case Podcast. My name is Detective Andrew Howton.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
And I'm Detective Matt Varitanian.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Last episode, we revealed information about a new lead regarding
notes left in a car in the parking lot of
PM Bentley's, and this week we're moving on to theory
number three.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
In this episode, we will make an assumption that Karen
did leave in her vehicle alone and had planned to
drive back to Elgin, and we will theorize that she
potentially made contact with someone on her drive back to Elgin.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
You know, Matt, we've taken a few drives up the
location where PM Bentley's was, in both the Karen's apartment
and Terrie's old house. The driver of Karen's from the
bar is about ten minutes, and the drive to Terry's
just a few minutes longer than that. I know we're
certainly going to talk a lot more about Karen's apartment
and about Terry's house in later episodes, but it's important
to remind our listeners that all three locations, the bar,
(02:47):
Karen's apartment, and Terry's house are located on the east
side of the Fox River.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Yeah. We will take our listeners along with us to
recreate the two routes that we believe would have been
most likely the travel routes for Karen in a future episode,
but for now, we are focusing simply on the idea
that Karen crossed paths with another person on her drive
back to Elgin.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I will say briefly that we have considered the fact
that Karen could have potentially gone somewhere else other than
Terry's house, Yeah, and her house when she left, so
in case he went out there as thinking about that option,
we have thought about that. The problem is that Karen
didn't have another boyfriend, she didn't have family that was
close by. She had no reason that we can find
that would make her drive off to some way that
(03:31):
was away from Elgin.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
We do know that one of Karen's best friends surely
lived near the bar, and she was devastated when Karen
went missing. She said that Karen never came over after
the bar that night, and we have no reason to
believe that Karen was there at any point. Shirley lived
in the Meadowdale Apartments within a few blocks of PM Bentley's.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, so even if she drove by there, she's still
staying on the east side of the river. We also
thought about the option that Karen could have gone to
some afterbar in the area, so we interviewed a bunch
of people from the area, including Frank, the owner of
PM Bentley's, and other people, about different places that people
would go when the two am bars would close. I
think it's important to note that Karen's friends, her family,
(04:16):
her coworkers all describe her as not really the type
that would go out by herself to some other bar
like that late. And there's no cell phones, so we
can't show that she got a call from somebody saying, hey,
come over to so and so's place. That's where we're
all at. There was a bar over by Floyd's. There
was a bar called Penny Road Pub. Some of those
spots may have been opened past two am, but it
(04:38):
would be hard for Karen to know that people were
there because no one could call her to say, hey,
come to this other bar. She would have had to
go there with someone she met or have frequented those
other places on the regular basis, which we don't have
any evidence to support that.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
That's right. Well, the main topic that we want to
talk about in this episode is that there were active
serial killers during the early nineteen eighties. In this episode,
we will talk about three of those serial killers or
serial killer groups. The first serial killer we want to
discuss came to our attention when North Aurora solved the
case in twenty twenty four. Since then, a number of
(05:13):
people have contacted us and speculated that the offender in
that case could be involved in Kieren's disappearance.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Okay, like you said so. October twenty twenty four is
a couple months back. The North Aurora Police Department revealed
they had solved the nineteen seventy nine murder of a
nineteen year old girl named Kathy Holly. On March twenty ninth,
nineteen seventy nine, Kathy left her home in North Aurora
and planned to walk to the North Gate Shopping Center
to meet her sister, but she never made it there.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
And then almost a month later, on April twenty fourth
of nineteen seventy nine, a young boy who was fishing
in the Fox River just south through the I eighty
eight bridge in North Aurora, discovered her body. Police believe
that she was abducted from the parking lot of her
apartment complex prior to leaving for the shopping center. You know,
certainly an adduction in a parking lot would be someone
(06:04):
in Karen's.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Case here, right, Yeah, and she was going to a
shopping center. Pam Bentley's was in a shopping center. Like,
there's some similarities there.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Yeah, So the North Aurora police were able to use
genealogical DNA, something that we may use in one of
our cases in the future, to identify a suspect in
Kathy's murder. His name is Bruce Lindall.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Just for some background on Lindall. In twenty twenty, he
was linked by DNA to the nineteen seventy six rape
and murder of a sixteen year old girl named Pamela Mauer.
She had been strangled and sexually assaulted. He was also
a suspect in the nineteen eighty rape and murder of
a twenty five year old woman named Deborah Collander. She
disappeared from Aurora as well. Like Kathy, Deborrah was abducted
(06:45):
from a parking lot, and she was later buried in
a field and found in rural Kendall County in nineteen
eighty two.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Yeah, Lindall remains a suspect in the nineteen seventy nine
disappearance of another girl too, sixteen year old Deborah McCall.
She vanished after leaving donners Grove North High School on
November fifth of nineteen seventy nine, and she has still
never been found. You know, I know. One thing we're
trying to do with this podcast is generate community interesting
(07:13):
cases like Deborah McCall's as well. Any information we can
get and any attention that we can create to any
of these unsolved cases, whether their elgin cases or not,
is something we both think is really important.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Absolutely, if we can generate interest or tips on any
of these cases, we definitely want to do that.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
While Lindall was linked to multiple abductions and murders, often
involving women he abducted in parking lots, he was killed
on April fourth of nineteen eighty one, almost exactly two
years before Karen went missing. Lindall had met an eighteen
year old man named Charles Hubert in Naperville that day
and went with into a female's apartment. Lindall then attacked Hubert,
(07:52):
likely in an attempt to abduct the female, and Hubert
had fought back, causing Lindall to inadvertently stab himself in
the femoral artery. Huber, who likely saved his friend's life,
and Lindah died from their injuries. So, Andrew, we can
be one hundred percent that we can exclude Lindahl as
a suspect in our case with Karen.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Again.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I have to say we appreciate tips people are giving
us and post on social media. We are looking at
those and trying to follow up on them. Even a
tip like this which doesn't lead to a suspect, helps
us narrow down people in the case, right, and it
helps encourage other people to still give us details and
give us information and let us work out those finer details.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Another tip that came back to police in nineteen eighty
three involved a serial killer group known as the Ripper Crew.
These guys were arrested from multiple murders in the early
nineteen eighties all over the Chicagoland area. In fact, this
group was listed in the original file as a potential
lead from tipsters back in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
That's right, and these guys actually might have a link
to one of our other cold cases from nineteen seventy nine.
In reviewing that case and speaking with the family, some
believe that someone in this group could have possibly been
involved with Renee Tovar's case. On November twenty fourth of
nineteen seventy nine, twenty four year old Renee Tovar was
brutally murdered in the one hundred block of South Liberty
(09:16):
Street in her apartment. Renee was beaten and stabbed and mutilated,
and there have been media reports and information, including a
true crime book, which suggested that the Ripper Crew, or
at least some members could have been involved for that case.
That case is still an active cold case on our docket,
so we encourage people to check out Renee's case on
our site and provide us any information they might have
about her case. Okay, So, this Ripper Crew consisted of
(09:42):
four men, Andrew Cocareelius, his brother Thomas, a guy named
Robin Geet, and an accomplice, Edward Spritzer. The police estimated
that these four men were responsible for brutalizing up to
twenty different women in the early nineteen eighties, and reports
documented that in some of the cases, they cut off
the victims breasts after killing them, used them in Satanic
(10:03):
rituals and geiks attic, and reportedly maybe even eight parts
of their victims.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
Most of the women were abducted off the streets in
Chicago and the western suburbs between roughly nineteen eighty one
and nineteen eighty two. Right yep. So the members were
convicted for various offenses, and Andrew was actually executed in
nineteen ninety nine. He was the last inmate to be
executed in the state of Illinois. Both Robin and Edward
remain incarcerated to this day. And Thomas was actually released
(10:32):
in May of twenty twenty four and is currently living
in Central Illinois.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
So I'm looking at some of the tips and documents
from the original case file, Matt, and they talk about
these guys as a suspect back then in ninety three.
They were also suspects in the disappearance of Carol Pappas
and beaton Illinois in nineteen eighty two. She was the
wife of Cubs pitcher Milt PAPIs. Local area people recognize
that name. Milt Papus spent seventeen years in the major
(10:58):
leagues with four different teams, four seasons with the Cups.
He was a three time All Star, and on September second,
nineteen seventy two, he pitched a no hitter against the
San Diego Padres at Wrigley Field. This no hitter was
the last no hitter thrown by a Cups pitcher in
Wriggley Field up until even this day. Neils to say,
when his wife disappeared in nineteen eighty two, it was
a really big deal up here in the Chicago area.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Yeah, and Carol.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
People thought that maybe this ripper crew was involved with
her and killed her. It turned out that in nineteen
eighty seven, her car was just found in a body
of water close to the Papas's home. She had crashed
and they pulled it out and there she was. That's
a theory that kind of is consistent with Karen and
one of the things we're going to look at with
her later in the season.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Yeah, I know we will be talking about that option
soon on a future episode. So in nineteen eighty three,
the police ran down leads on the Ripper Crew pretty quickly.
Records show that all four of these guys were arrested
in late nineteen eighty two, just you know, a few
months prior to Karen's disappearance, so we can also rule
them out as being involved in Karen's case.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
You know, Matt, I will say that one thing that
was really shocking as we went down the rabbit hole
in this theory was just the sheer number of different
serial killers in the Fox Valley area in the nineteen
seventies and eighties. I mean, you go back to guys
like John Wayne Gacy, it's like thirty or forty minutes
away from here. You jump into the eighties, and a
bunch of these guys in the Chicagoland area are out here.
It's really crazy when you start to look at the
(12:23):
area and realize how many missing persons there still are
that are cold cases, how many murders that are still
cold cases, and how many are potentially involving these different
serial killers.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Yeah, there's one more person who tipsters both in the
past and since we've reopened this case have brought to
our attention as being possibly involved in Karen's disappearance. That
person's name is Brian Dugan. Dugan is still alive and
was out of custody in the Fox Valley area in
(12:55):
April of nineteen eighty three. In fact, he had committed
a murder just too months before Kieron had disappeared. At
that time, Duban was living in the Aurora area, and
he's definitely someone we need to talk about as a
viable lead in this case.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
For sure. Brian Dugan's story is an awful one. He
really had that quintessential serial killer background. People that followed
true crime podcasts and TV shows have probably heard of
something called the McDonald triad. It's a theory that was
first suggested by a forensic psychiatrist named J. M. MacDonald
in nineteen sixty three in an article called The Threat
to Kill. It's kind of fallen out of favor in
(13:29):
recent years, but we wanted to mention it here because
it is a popular theory in TV and movies things
like that, and some forensic psychiatrists still view it as
a potentially useful tool. While it's not one hundred percent
predictive of future behavior, it might be somewhat predictive of
future behavior. The theory basically says there are three different
factors in childhood that can be predictive of violent tendencies,
(13:50):
especially serial violent tendencies, and adults. Those three factors are
chronic bedwetting, fire setting, and animal cruelty. As I said,
has become more controversial over the years, but it basically
says that if a child exhibits at least two of
those different factors, there's a higher probability that that child
could become an adult who exhibits predatory behavior. Matt Brian
(14:12):
Dugan had all three of those yes.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
According to media reports, Brian was a chronic bedwetter from
a young age. He was born in New Hampshire in
nineteen fifty six and reportedly attempted to burn down the
family's garage when he was only eight. Then he hit
the trifecta when he was thirteen in dowsed a family
cat with gasoline and lit it on fire. Media reports
had documented that Dugan was also a suspect in sexual
(14:37):
offenses in his youth, including the attempted sexual assault to
one of his siblings. Dugan's first confirmed case in Illinois
that we could find was a case in nineteen seventy
four in Lyle. He attempted to abduct a ten year
old girl at the Lyle train station, but she had
screamed and run away. Dugan was arrested, but the chargers
had later been dropped.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, he had a number of different cases in Illinois,
and those cases included three confirmed deductions where he raped
and murdered a victim. Matt, I kind of want to
work backwards here and walked through those cases just to
get an idea of his cases.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
Sounds good.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
So Dugan was ultimately arrested and convicted of abducting a
seven year old girl named Melissa Ackerman in Smanoc, Illinois,
on June second of nineteen eighty five. Samanok is about
an hour from Elgin and it's a small, very rural town.
And on that day, Dugan drove up to two girls,
aged seven and age eight in his blue AMC Grimlin
(15:33):
as they rode their bicycles on a rural roadway. He
abducted Melissa's eight year old friend and threw her into
his car and then chased after Melissa, who fled. Melissa's
friend was able to escape from Dugan's car even though
he had disabled the rear locks. She was able to
scramble over the seat and get out of the car.
As he came back carrying Melissa screaming, The friend fled
and hid from Dugan, but Melissa wasn't as lucky. Her
(15:56):
body was found several weeks later in a creek about
fifteen miles from the site where she was abducted.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
So Dugan had later admitted to abducting, raping, and strangling
Melissa before dumping her body in that creek, and he
was later convicted for that case, and that was when
his confessions in later DNA had come into play.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
That's right. So, after his arrest in eighty five, DNA
and some statements linked to Dugan back to not one,
but two other murders. He was linked to the nineteen
eighty three abduction, rape, and murder of a ten year
old girl named Jeanine Nakariko from her Nahperville home, and
in nineteen eighty four abduction, rape, and murder of a
(16:33):
twenty seven year old woman named Donna Schnor near Batavia.
All the sites of his abductions were in the Fox
Valley area, and as we said before, he was living
in Aurora and was around this area at the time.
Karen went missing.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Yeah, and we know that Dugan was incarcerated from nineteen
seventy nine to nineteen eighty two, but he was paroled
in July of nineteen eighty two and committed its first
confirmed murder, the murder of ten year old Jeanine on
February twenty five of nineteen eighty three, just two months
before Karen had went missing. Janete had stayed home from
(17:06):
school with the flu and her mother worked, you know,
just down the street. She had come and checked on
Jeanine throughout the day, even having lunch with her, and
then that afternoon Dugan knocked on the door and discovered
that Janine was inside alone. When she refused to answer
the door, he kicked it in, chased her up into
her bedroom, and that is where he tied her up.
(17:27):
He then kidnapped her and then drove her to a
nearby park. After he raped her, Dugan had Janine walked
down a gravel path barefoot. He crept up behind her
and used the tire iron to bash her skull in
and dumped her body in near and by. She was
found roughly about two days later by some local hikers.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
There are lots of articles and information about Dugan in
each of his cases were huge in the area at
the time. We could literally spend hours just talking about
one of these cases. But really it's his second murder
that interests us the most in relation to Karen.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Yeah, that's right. We know that Dugan targeted young children
in two of his cases. Janine was ten and Melissa
was seven, but it was the abduction of Donna Schnorrer
on July fifteenth of nineteen eighty four which led citizens
to submit tips regarding Dougan in this case in which
we found to be relevant to this investigation.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Yeah. So Janine was abducted from her own home and
Melissa was abducted on a roadway, but Donna was different
in a couple of ways. For starters, Donna was in
her late twenties and she bears a striking resemblance to Karen.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Yeah, that's right. Donna was a nurse who Dugan saw
stopped at a red light in Aurora as she was
driving home alone at roughly about three am on July
fifteenth of nineteen eighty four. He followed her on to
Randall Road near Moussart and then sideeswiped her car, ran
her off the road.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Right, Yeah, it sounds a little familiar to Karen's situation.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
Right.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Assuming Karen left PM Bentley's and drove back to Elgin,
she'd have been driving alone in the early morning hours.
She's in her twenties. Plus, Donna's case was a little
over a year after Karen's disappearance, so we know he's
dim in February of eighty three. He's still active in
eighty four, and he's out, he's not in prison. So
is it possible that Dugan did something similar to Karen?
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Yeah? Maybe so.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Basically, after a Dugan ran Donna off the road, he
blocked her car in with his and exited his vehicle.
She reportedly rolled down her window and said something like, hey,
what the hell are you doing? And he approached her
and punched her in the face, abducted her, tied her up,
and forced her in his car. He left her car
parked on the shoulder of the roadway and drove a
short distance to a nearby rock cory, where he raped
her before drowning her in the quarry and dumping her
(19:31):
body in the water. He later abandoned his car somewhere
else to conceal the fact that there was potentially a
paint transfer between the two cars, and because as he
was leaving, several men driving into the quarry to fish
saw him driving out. Those same men found Donna's body
just a couple hours later and called the police.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
So Dugan's EMO was not identical to Karen's case, But
Karen was a young female in her twenties potentially driving
home alone that night, similar to Donna's situation. Yeah, you know,
the thing is, Andrew Dugan did abduct, rape, and dump
his victims in close proximity to where he had originally
taken them, and all three of his confirmed victims were
(20:11):
you know, located fairly quickly after the crime had occurred.
He also concealed two of the three in bodies of water.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Yeah, but there are numerous bodies of water along the
routes Karen would have taken, including a large quarry. It
is possible that he could have been close enough to
simply conceal maybe both her body and the vehicle, and
that she just hasn't been found.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Right, Yeah, I mean, it is possible he had dumped
Janine just off of a path, but it seemed like
he progressed and learned something after Janine's murder, Dugan dumped
Donna and Melissa in water to try to conceal their bodies,
unlikely to wash away any trace evidence. He even covered
Melissa with large rocks, so he was sort of honing
his craft a little bit here.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah, and in Donna's case, he got rid of his
own car, so it's at least plausible theorized he could
have potentially gotten rid of or concealed Karen's car. If
he's getting rid of his own car, we just don't know.
We have to at least consider that though, right.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Yeah, that's true. I think we also should mention that
Dugan was a suspect in numerous other cases as well,
some of which were uncharged in nineteen eighty five, that
give or provide some other background on how he operated
which might be relevant to Karen's case. So, for an example,
in May of that year, he reportedly followed a woman
who was driving alone all the way to her house
(21:24):
and approached her pretending to be a concerned citizen. Dugan
had told her that her tailight was out, and then
he entered the woman's car armed with a knife and
abducted and raped her. But he later released her.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Yeah, So again, something like this could have happened with Karen.
Maybe Dugan follows her back to Elgin Parks on the
street and approaches her in a similar manner. He could
certainly force her to drive him somewhere else like that
and then conceal her in the car, but then he'd
have to get back and get to his car.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Yeah. The fact that he would not only run women
off the roadway but also follow them to her home
could fit for Karen's case here, and Andrew, obviously we
now have this situation with Susannah and someone following her
home from Pam Bentley's to think about. That could be
similar to Brian Dugan's emo as well. Yeah. Dugan had
also abducted a nineteen year old woman who escaped from him,
(22:13):
and successfully abducted and raped a sixteen year old in
the days after that. Oddly enough, he didn't kill either
of these women. He even told one of them his
actual first name, Brian.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
You know, I think one thing we took away from
going through all these cases with Brian Dugan is that
if Karen did cross paths with Dugan, there's a number
of things that he could have done other than just
running her off the road like he did with Donna.
He also didn't seem like he really pre planned very much.
It seems like he was kind of just out and
about and if he saw an opportunity, he acted almost immediately.
(22:46):
You know, he kidnaps a girl in broad daylight with
Janine Donna's driving along, and he runs her off the
roadway and abducts her and then takes her to a
place where people are frequently fishing, and they actually see
him leaving.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Even with Melissa, the abduction site where he took her
was close to attractor dealership, and her friend that ran
away was able to hide near that dealership, so there'd
be people around. I mean, he's not really careful in
what he's doing.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Yeah, Yeah, I mean I agree. I think he definitely
took some you know, some steps. He disabled the locks
you know in the car for example, when he abducted Melissa,
and it seems like he had equipment with him, you know,
such as a knife and row up or duct tape,
you know, something to bind somebody. But it didn't seem
like he had a pre planned site to take his
victims or to dump the bodies.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Yeah, and in some cases, he told the victim his
actual name, and then he just lets him go, you know,
he lets them live. In other instances, he killed the
victim pretty shortly after the abduction. At rape. You know,
in one article we found Dougan claim to have let
some of the women go because he claimed he was
sure he wouldn't be caught in those cases. And the
cases where he killed people were ones where he'd just
(23:53):
he was afraid he'd be caught. That just never really
tracked for me as I read it. Yeah, I mean,
we're talking about him cobducting adults and teens, some of
who saw his car, who he told his name, who
saw his face, and he lets those people go, and
then two of the three people he kills are little kids.
You know, they may not have recognized him as well,
(24:14):
they may not have remembered his car as well. It
just didn't make sense to me that he would do that.
I mean, I think that his credibility is just kind
of shot. It seems more likely to me that he
would kill people that he thought he could get away
with killing, not that he was afraid that he'd get
caught so he would kill these kids.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
Yeah, his actions just don't scream that he was very
meticulous in his planning or had things, you know, really
well thought out in advance, and he was very very
brutal with his victims. While we don't know if Dugan
was involved in Karen's case, certainly there are similarities. Karen,
like Donna, was a younger white female who was potentially
(24:51):
driving home alone in the early morning hours, and she
was driving in the Elgin area, which is close in
proximity to his other cases.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Yeah, and Dugan had other cases where he followed women
home and approached them there. Again, that's something that could
be similar to Karen's case. In fact, some of Karen's
family and friends actually reached out to us and asked
if we were considering Brian Dugan as a suspect, So
we certainly wanted to talk about him as a possibility
in this case. Dugan was sentenced to the death penalty
(25:25):
for Jeanine's case, but in two thousand and three, he,
along with one hundred and sixty six other death row
inmates he in Illinois, had their sentences commuted to life
in prison by then Governor George Ryan. It was the
largest blanket commutation for the death penalty in American history,
and Dugan's still alive. He's currently incarcerated and protective custody
at the Pontiac Correctional Facility.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Well, like we've said before, we decided at the start
of this investigation that no tip or theory should be
off the table for this case. So even though we
can't specifically link Dugan to this case, and there are
some differences between his cases and Karen's disappearance, there is
enough there that we wanted to talk to Brian, so
we went to Pontiac to do just that.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
All right, So we're here in Pontiac at the Pontiac
Crectional Facility. So there's about six hundred inmates here.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Building's been here since eighteen seventy one.
Speaker 5 (26:20):
So it's an old facility. They have a max security
prison here and a medium Brian's over and it's a
protective custody right now.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Yeah, protective custody. So yeah, very much like the feel
that you would kind of expect of for like a
state prison, right A lot of kind of spread out buildings,
a big yard in the middle. The buildings look very
kind of old and just kind of dated. I mean,
obviously there's some snow on the ground from last night,
so it kind of adds the effect to it a
little bit.
Speaker 5 (26:49):
Yeah, get big concrete buildings like probably built the thirties
and forties and stuff, some old administrative buildings. But we're
gonna head it and see what Brian has to say
and see if it's talked to us.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Okay, So after arranging an interview and going through security,
we waited for Dugan on a what was it the
third floor in every room, Yeah, of their internal affairs
unit at the jail. It's a long concrete building built
in the nineteen thirties. It looks, I mean, almost like
something out of World War two or an old prison movie.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
A guard escorted Dugan into the building. He was dressed
in a blue uniform and was handcuffed to a chain
around his waist. You know, Dugan is sixty eight years
old and he certainly looks at He has gray hair
and uses a walker to help him get around. After
he came into the room, we asked that the cuffs
be removed, and Dugan took off his coat, rubbed his wrists,
and sat on a small bench in front of us
(27:42):
in a room where there was a banquet windows that
overlooked the snow covered court that was below.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Dugan didn't have anything new to tell us, but I
should add that in other media reports he's always maintained
that he does not have any outstanding cases anywhere else
in Illinois, which would include Elgin, Ann carpenter Asville.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
At this point, we don't have any physical evidence that
would link Brian Dugan to Karen's case, but we also
don't have a Karen's car or her body. As we've
mentioned in past episodes, we will be looking at various
bodies of water in the area that would possibly be
along Karen's routes of travel as we just try to
investigate this case further. So maybe that will provide some
(28:18):
new information that could link Brian Dugan or somebody else
in this case. For now, he is still a bit
of a question mark in this case, but he is
someone to keep in mind for our case and for
other area cold cases with similar mos here in Illinois
between nineteen seventy four and nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
In our next episode, we are changing up the order
of our theories. Originally we planned to move on to
theory number four that Karen made at home, but as
with all police investigations things can change. Our month's long
preparation to bring new technology and launch a massive search
for Karen in area bodies of water is now becoming
a reality in the next few weeks, so we're moving
up Our original theory number tis that Karen crashed her
(29:01):
car into a body of water on her drive back
to Elgin. Next episode, we will take our listeners along
as we identify the routes Karen could have taken, travel
those routes and prepare to literally dive deeper into Karen's
case here on. Somebody Knows something.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
If you, or anyone you know has information about this
case or any other cold case in Elgin, please contact
the Elgin Police Department Cold Case email at cold Case
tips at ELGINIL dot gov or the cold Case tip
line at eight four seven two eight nine cold. You
can also review cold case information on the Elgin Police
(29:40):
Department's Transparency Hub by going to ELGINIL dot gov and
navigating to the Elgin Police Department's Transparency Hub, where every
cold case, homicide, and missing person's case is listed with
photographs and information about each case.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
About
This podcast is based on information sourced primarily from police
and media reports, but certain names and other identifying details
may have been changed or altered for privacy and security reasons.
While the events in cases discussed are based on real investigations,
some aspects may be simplified for time and for narrative purposes.
(00:25):
Voice actors have been used to read from statements or documents.
All information presented is intended solely to inform and raise awareness.
Hosts may discuss theories regarding the cases examined in this podcast,
but such discussions are not intended to and should not
(00:46):
be considered by the listener to be legal conclusions. All
persons discussed are considered innocent until proven guilty and a
court of law. Listener discretion is as.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
This is Chief Anna Lally. Welcome to Somebody Knows Something,
a podcast from the Elgin Police Department's Cold Case Unit.
In this podcast, we will shed new light on cold
cases in the city of Elgin by sharing untold details
and by encouraging anyone with information to come forward. You
will come along with real cold case detectives as they
(01:24):
investigate active cold cases in real time and seek justice
for the victims and closure for their families. We believe
that the Elgin Police Department and our community can work
together to bring closure to cold cases because we know
that in these cases, somebody knows something.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Hello and welcome to Somebody Knows something. The Elgin Police
Department Cold Case Podcast. My name is Detective Andrew Howton.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
And I'm Detective Matt Varitanian.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Last episode, we revealed information about a new lead regarding
notes left in a car in the parking lot of
PM Bentley's, and this week we're moving on to theory
number three.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
In this episode, we will make an assumption that Karen
did leave in her vehicle alone and had planned to
drive back to Elgin, and we will theorize that she
potentially made contact with someone on her drive back to Elgin.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
You know, Matt, we've taken a few drives up the
location where PM Bentley's was, in both the Karen's apartment
and Terrie's old house. The driver of Karen's from the
bar is about ten minutes, and the drive to Terry's
just a few minutes longer than that. I know we're
certainly going to talk a lot more about Karen's apartment
and about Terry's house in later episodes, but it's important
to remind our listeners that all three locations, the bar,
(02:47):
Karen's apartment, and Terry's house are located on the east
side of the Fox River.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Yeah. We will take our listeners along with us to
recreate the two routes that we believe would have been
most likely the travel routes for Karen in a future episode,
but for now, we are focusing simply on the idea
that Karen crossed paths with another person on her drive
back to Elgin.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I will say briefly that we have considered the fact
that Karen could have potentially gone somewhere else other than
Terry's house, Yeah, and her house when she left, so
in case he went out there as thinking about that option,
we have thought about that. The problem is that Karen
didn't have another boyfriend, she didn't have family that was
close by. She had no reason that we can find
that would make her drive off to some way that
(03:31):
was away from Elgin.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
We do know that one of Karen's best friends surely
lived near the bar, and she was devastated when Karen
went missing. She said that Karen never came over after
the bar that night, and we have no reason to
believe that Karen was there at any point. Shirley lived
in the Meadowdale Apartments within a few blocks of PM Bentley's.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, so even if she drove by there, she's still
staying on the east side of the river. We also
thought about the option that Karen could have gone to
some afterbar in the area, so we interviewed a bunch
of people from the area, including Frank, the owner of
PM Bentley's, and other people, about different places that people
would go when the two am bars would close. I
think it's important to note that Karen's friends, her family,
(04:16):
her coworkers all describe her as not really the type
that would go out by herself to some other bar
like that late. And there's no cell phones, so we
can't show that she got a call from somebody saying, hey,
come over to so and so's place. That's where we're
all at. There was a bar over by Floyd's. There
was a bar called Penny Road Pub. Some of those
spots may have been opened past two am, but it
(04:38):
would be hard for Karen to know that people were
there because no one could call her to say, hey,
come to this other bar. She would have had to
go there with someone she met or have frequented those
other places on the regular basis, which we don't have
any evidence to support that.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
That's right. Well, the main topic that we want to
talk about in this episode is that there were active
serial killers during the early nineteen eighties. In this episode,
we will talk about three of those serial killers or
serial killer groups. The first serial killer we want to
discuss came to our attention when North Aurora solved the
case in twenty twenty four. Since then, a number of
(05:13):
people have contacted us and speculated that the offender in
that case could be involved in Kieren's disappearance.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Okay, like you said so. October twenty twenty four is
a couple months back. The North Aurora Police Department revealed
they had solved the nineteen seventy nine murder of a
nineteen year old girl named Kathy Holly. On March twenty ninth,
nineteen seventy nine, Kathy left her home in North Aurora
and planned to walk to the North Gate Shopping Center
to meet her sister, but she never made it there.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
And then almost a month later, on April twenty fourth
of nineteen seventy nine, a young boy who was fishing
in the Fox River just south through the I eighty
eight bridge in North Aurora, discovered her body. Police believe
that she was abducted from the parking lot of her
apartment complex prior to leaving for the shopping center. You know,
certainly an adduction in a parking lot would be someone
(06:04):
in Karen's.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Case here, right, Yeah, and she was going to a
shopping center. Pam Bentley's was in a shopping center. Like,
there's some similarities there.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Yeah, So the North Aurora police were able to use
genealogical DNA, something that we may use in one of
our cases in the future, to identify a suspect in
Kathy's murder. His name is Bruce Lindall.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Just for some background on Lindall. In twenty twenty, he
was linked by DNA to the nineteen seventy six rape
and murder of a sixteen year old girl named Pamela Mauer.
She had been strangled and sexually assaulted. He was also
a suspect in the nineteen eighty rape and murder of
a twenty five year old woman named Deborah Collander. She
disappeared from Aurora as well. Like Kathy, Deborrah was abducted
(06:45):
from a parking lot, and she was later buried in
a field and found in rural Kendall County in nineteen
eighty two.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Yeah, Lindall remains a suspect in the nineteen seventy nine
disappearance of another girl too, sixteen year old Deborah McCall.
She vanished after leaving donners Grove North High School on
November fifth of nineteen seventy nine, and she has still
never been found. You know, I know. One thing we're
trying to do with this podcast is generate community interesting
(07:13):
cases like Deborah McCall's as well. Any information we can
get and any attention that we can create to any
of these unsolved cases, whether their elgin cases or not,
is something we both think is really important.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Absolutely, if we can generate interest or tips on any
of these cases, we definitely want to do that.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
While Lindall was linked to multiple abductions and murders, often
involving women he abducted in parking lots, he was killed
on April fourth of nineteen eighty one, almost exactly two
years before Karen went missing. Lindall had met an eighteen
year old man named Charles Hubert in Naperville that day
and went with into a female's apartment. Lindall then attacked Hubert,
(07:52):
likely in an attempt to abduct the female, and Hubert
had fought back, causing Lindall to inadvertently stab himself in
the femoral artery. Huber, who likely saved his friend's life,
and Lindah died from their injuries. So, Andrew, we can
be one hundred percent that we can exclude Lindahl as
a suspect in our case with Karen.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Again.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I have to say we appreciate tips people are giving
us and post on social media. We are looking at
those and trying to follow up on them. Even a
tip like this which doesn't lead to a suspect, helps
us narrow down people in the case, right, and it
helps encourage other people to still give us details and
give us information and let us work out those finer details.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Another tip that came back to police in nineteen eighty
three involved a serial killer group known as the Ripper Crew.
These guys were arrested from multiple murders in the early
nineteen eighties all over the Chicagoland area. In fact, this
group was listed in the original file as a potential
lead from tipsters back in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
That's right, and these guys actually might have a link
to one of our other cold cases from nineteen seventy nine.
In reviewing that case and speaking with the family, some
believe that someone in this group could have possibly been
involved with Renee Tovar's case. On November twenty fourth of
nineteen seventy nine, twenty four year old Renee Tovar was
brutally murdered in the one hundred block of South Liberty
(09:16):
Street in her apartment. Renee was beaten and stabbed and mutilated,
and there have been media reports and information, including a
true crime book, which suggested that the Ripper Crew, or
at least some members could have been involved for that case.
That case is still an active cold case on our docket,
so we encourage people to check out Renee's case on
our site and provide us any information they might have
about her case. Okay, So, this Ripper Crew consisted of
(09:42):
four men, Andrew Cocareelius, his brother Thomas, a guy named
Robin Geet, and an accomplice, Edward Spritzer. The police estimated
that these four men were responsible for brutalizing up to
twenty different women in the early nineteen eighties, and reports
documented that in some of the cases, they cut off
the victims breasts after killing them, used them in Satanic
(10:03):
rituals and geiks attic, and reportedly maybe even eight parts
of their victims.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
Most of the women were abducted off the streets in
Chicago and the western suburbs between roughly nineteen eighty one
and nineteen eighty two. Right yep. So the members were
convicted for various offenses, and Andrew was actually executed in
nineteen ninety nine. He was the last inmate to be
executed in the state of Illinois. Both Robin and Edward
remain incarcerated to this day. And Thomas was actually released
(10:32):
in May of twenty twenty four and is currently living
in Central Illinois.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
So I'm looking at some of the tips and documents
from the original case file, Matt, and they talk about
these guys as a suspect back then in ninety three.
They were also suspects in the disappearance of Carol Pappas
and beaton Illinois in nineteen eighty two. She was the
wife of Cubs pitcher Milt PAPIs. Local area people recognize
that name. Milt Papus spent seventeen years in the major
(10:58):
leagues with four different teams, four seasons with the Cups.
He was a three time All Star, and on September second,
nineteen seventy two, he pitched a no hitter against the
San Diego Padres at Wrigley Field. This no hitter was
the last no hitter thrown by a Cups pitcher in
Wriggley Field up until even this day. Neils to say,
when his wife disappeared in nineteen eighty two, it was
a really big deal up here in the Chicago area.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Yeah, and Carol.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
People thought that maybe this ripper crew was involved with
her and killed her. It turned out that in nineteen
eighty seven, her car was just found in a body
of water close to the Papas's home. She had crashed
and they pulled it out and there she was. That's
a theory that kind of is consistent with Karen and
one of the things we're going to look at with
her later in the season.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Yeah, I know we will be talking about that option
soon on a future episode. So in nineteen eighty three,
the police ran down leads on the Ripper Crew pretty quickly.
Records show that all four of these guys were arrested
in late nineteen eighty two, just you know, a few
months prior to Karen's disappearance, so we can also rule
them out as being involved in Karen's case.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
You know, Matt, I will say that one thing that
was really shocking as we went down the rabbit hole
in this theory was just the sheer number of different
serial killers in the Fox Valley area in the nineteen
seventies and eighties. I mean, you go back to guys
like John Wayne Gacy, it's like thirty or forty minutes
away from here. You jump into the eighties, and a
bunch of these guys in the Chicagoland area are out here.
It's really crazy when you start to look at the
(12:23):
area and realize how many missing persons there still are
that are cold cases, how many murders that are still
cold cases, and how many are potentially involving these different
serial killers.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Yeah, there's one more person who tipsters both in the
past and since we've reopened this case have brought to
our attention as being possibly involved in Karen's disappearance. That
person's name is Brian Dugan. Dugan is still alive and
was out of custody in the Fox Valley area in
(12:55):
April of nineteen eighty three. In fact, he had committed
a murder just too months before Kieron had disappeared. At
that time, Duban was living in the Aurora area, and
he's definitely someone we need to talk about as a
viable lead in this case.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
For sure. Brian Dugan's story is an awful one. He
really had that quintessential serial killer background. People that followed
true crime podcasts and TV shows have probably heard of
something called the McDonald triad. It's a theory that was
first suggested by a forensic psychiatrist named J. M. MacDonald
in nineteen sixty three in an article called The Threat
to Kill. It's kind of fallen out of favor in
(13:29):
recent years, but we wanted to mention it here because
it is a popular theory in TV and movies things
like that, and some forensic psychiatrists still view it as
a potentially useful tool. While it's not one hundred percent
predictive of future behavior, it might be somewhat predictive of
future behavior. The theory basically says there are three different
factors in childhood that can be predictive of violent tendencies,
(13:50):
especially serial violent tendencies, and adults. Those three factors are
chronic bedwetting, fire setting, and animal cruelty. As I said,
has become more controversial over the years, but it basically
says that if a child exhibits at least two of
those different factors, there's a higher probability that that child
could become an adult who exhibits predatory behavior. Matt Brian
(14:12):
Dugan had all three of those yes.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
According to media reports, Brian was a chronic bedwetter from
a young age. He was born in New Hampshire in
nineteen fifty six and reportedly attempted to burn down the
family's garage when he was only eight. Then he hit
the trifecta when he was thirteen in dowsed a family
cat with gasoline and lit it on fire. Media reports
had documented that Dugan was also a suspect in sexual
(14:37):
offenses in his youth, including the attempted sexual assault to
one of his siblings. Dugan's first confirmed case in Illinois
that we could find was a case in nineteen seventy
four in Lyle. He attempted to abduct a ten year
old girl at the Lyle train station, but she had
screamed and run away. Dugan was arrested, but the chargers
had later been dropped.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, he had a number of different cases in Illinois,
and those cases included three confirmed deductions where he raped
and murdered a victim. Matt, I kind of want to
work backwards here and walked through those cases just to
get an idea of his cases.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
Sounds good.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
So Dugan was ultimately arrested and convicted of abducting a
seven year old girl named Melissa Ackerman in Smanoc, Illinois,
on June second of nineteen eighty five. Samanok is about
an hour from Elgin and it's a small, very rural town.
And on that day, Dugan drove up to two girls,
aged seven and age eight in his blue AMC Grimlin
(15:33):
as they rode their bicycles on a rural roadway. He
abducted Melissa's eight year old friend and threw her into
his car and then chased after Melissa, who fled. Melissa's
friend was able to escape from Dugan's car even though
he had disabled the rear locks. She was able to
scramble over the seat and get out of the car.
As he came back carrying Melissa screaming, The friend fled
and hid from Dugan, but Melissa wasn't as lucky. Her
(15:56):
body was found several weeks later in a creek about
fifteen miles from the site where she was abducted.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
So Dugan had later admitted to abducting, raping, and strangling
Melissa before dumping her body in that creek, and he
was later convicted for that case, and that was when
his confessions in later DNA had come into play.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
That's right. So, after his arrest in eighty five, DNA
and some statements linked to Dugan back to not one,
but two other murders. He was linked to the nineteen
eighty three abduction, rape, and murder of a ten year
old girl named Jeanine Nakariko from her Nahperville home, and
in nineteen eighty four abduction, rape, and murder of a
(16:33):
twenty seven year old woman named Donna Schnor near Batavia.
All the sites of his abductions were in the Fox
Valley area, and as we said before, he was living
in Aurora and was around this area at the time.
Karen went missing.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Yeah, and we know that Dugan was incarcerated from nineteen
seventy nine to nineteen eighty two, but he was paroled
in July of nineteen eighty two and committed its first
confirmed murder, the murder of ten year old Jeanine on
February twenty five of nineteen eighty three, just two months
before Karen had went missing. Janete had stayed home from
(17:06):
school with the flu and her mother worked, you know,
just down the street. She had come and checked on
Jeanine throughout the day, even having lunch with her, and
then that afternoon Dugan knocked on the door and discovered
that Janine was inside alone. When she refused to answer
the door, he kicked it in, chased her up into
her bedroom, and that is where he tied her up.
(17:27):
He then kidnapped her and then drove her to a
nearby park. After he raped her, Dugan had Janine walked
down a gravel path barefoot. He crept up behind her
and used the tire iron to bash her skull in
and dumped her body in near and by. She was
found roughly about two days later by some local hikers.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
There are lots of articles and information about Dugan in
each of his cases were huge in the area at
the time. We could literally spend hours just talking about
one of these cases. But really it's his second murder
that interests us the most in relation to Karen.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Yeah, that's right. We know that Dugan targeted young children
in two of his cases. Janine was ten and Melissa
was seven, but it was the abduction of Donna Schnorrer
on July fifteenth of nineteen eighty four which led citizens
to submit tips regarding Dougan in this case in which
we found to be relevant to this investigation.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Yeah. So Janine was abducted from her own home and
Melissa was abducted on a roadway, but Donna was different
in a couple of ways. For starters, Donna was in
her late twenties and she bears a striking resemblance to Karen.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Yeah, that's right. Donna was a nurse who Dugan saw
stopped at a red light in Aurora as she was
driving home alone at roughly about three am on July
fifteenth of nineteen eighty four. He followed her on to
Randall Road near Moussart and then sideeswiped her car, ran
her off the road.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Right, Yeah, it sounds a little familiar to Karen's situation.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
Right.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Assuming Karen left PM Bentley's and drove back to Elgin,
she'd have been driving alone in the early morning hours.
She's in her twenties. Plus, Donna's case was a little
over a year after Karen's disappearance, so we know he's
dim in February of eighty three. He's still active in
eighty four, and he's out, he's not in prison. So
is it possible that Dugan did something similar to Karen?
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Yeah? Maybe so.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Basically, after a Dugan ran Donna off the road, he
blocked her car in with his and exited his vehicle.
She reportedly rolled down her window and said something like, hey,
what the hell are you doing? And he approached her
and punched her in the face, abducted her, tied her up,
and forced her in his car. He left her car
parked on the shoulder of the roadway and drove a
short distance to a nearby rock cory, where he raped
her before drowning her in the quarry and dumping her
(19:31):
body in the water. He later abandoned his car somewhere
else to conceal the fact that there was potentially a
paint transfer between the two cars, and because as he
was leaving, several men driving into the quarry to fish
saw him driving out. Those same men found Donna's body
just a couple hours later and called the police.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
So Dugan's EMO was not identical to Karen's case, But
Karen was a young female in her twenties potentially driving
home alone that night, similar to Donna's situation. Yeah, you know,
the thing is, Andrew Dugan did abduct, rape, and dump
his victims in close proximity to where he had originally
taken them, and all three of his confirmed victims were
(20:11):
you know, located fairly quickly after the crime had occurred.
He also concealed two of the three in bodies of water.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Yeah, but there are numerous bodies of water along the
routes Karen would have taken, including a large quarry. It
is possible that he could have been close enough to
simply conceal maybe both her body and the vehicle, and
that she just hasn't been found.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Right, Yeah, I mean, it is possible he had dumped
Janine just off of a path, but it seemed like
he progressed and learned something after Janine's murder, Dugan dumped
Donna and Melissa in water to try to conceal their bodies,
unlikely to wash away any trace evidence. He even covered
Melissa with large rocks, so he was sort of honing
his craft a little bit here.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah, and in Donna's case, he got rid of his
own car, so it's at least plausible theorized he could
have potentially gotten rid of or concealed Karen's car. If
he's getting rid of his own car, we just don't know.
We have to at least consider that though, right.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Yeah, that's true. I think we also should mention that
Dugan was a suspect in numerous other cases as well,
some of which were uncharged in nineteen eighty five, that
give or provide some other background on how he operated
which might be relevant to Karen's case. So, for an example,
in May of that year, he reportedly followed a woman
who was driving alone all the way to her house
(21:24):
and approached her pretending to be a concerned citizen. Dugan
had told her that her tailight was out, and then
he entered the woman's car armed with a knife and
abducted and raped her. But he later released her.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Yeah, So again, something like this could have happened with Karen.
Maybe Dugan follows her back to Elgin Parks on the
street and approaches her in a similar manner. He could
certainly force her to drive him somewhere else like that
and then conceal her in the car, but then he'd
have to get back and get to his car.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Yeah. The fact that he would not only run women
off the roadway but also follow them to her home
could fit for Karen's case here, and Andrew, obviously we
now have this situation with Susannah and someone following her
home from Pam Bentley's to think about. That could be
similar to Brian Dugan's emo as well. Yeah. Dugan had
also abducted a nineteen year old woman who escaped from him,
(22:13):
and successfully abducted and raped a sixteen year old in
the days after that. Oddly enough, he didn't kill either
of these women. He even told one of them his
actual first name, Brian.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
You know, I think one thing we took away from
going through all these cases with Brian Dugan is that
if Karen did cross paths with Dugan, there's a number
of things that he could have done other than just
running her off the road like he did with Donna.
He also didn't seem like he really pre planned very much.
It seems like he was kind of just out and
about and if he saw an opportunity, he acted almost immediately.
(22:46):
You know, he kidnaps a girl in broad daylight with
Janine Donna's driving along, and he runs her off the
roadway and abducts her and then takes her to a
place where people are frequently fishing, and they actually see
him leaving.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Even with Melissa, the abduction site where he took her
was close to attractor dealership, and her friend that ran
away was able to hide near that dealership, so there'd
be people around. I mean, he's not really careful in
what he's doing.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Yeah, Yeah, I mean I agree. I think he definitely
took some you know, some steps. He disabled the locks
you know in the car for example, when he abducted Melissa,
and it seems like he had equipment with him, you know,
such as a knife and row up or duct tape,
you know, something to bind somebody. But it didn't seem
like he had a pre planned site to take his
victims or to dump the bodies.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Yeah, and in some cases, he told the victim his
actual name, and then he just lets him go, you know,
he lets them live. In other instances, he killed the
victim pretty shortly after the abduction. At rape. You know,
in one article we found Dougan claim to have let
some of the women go because he claimed he was
sure he wouldn't be caught in those cases. And the
cases where he killed people were ones where he'd just
(23:53):
he was afraid he'd be caught. That just never really
tracked for me as I read it. Yeah, I mean,
we're talking about him cobducting adults and teens, some of
who saw his car, who he told his name, who
saw his face, and he lets those people go, and
then two of the three people he kills are little kids.
You know, they may not have recognized him as well,
(24:14):
they may not have remembered his car as well. It
just didn't make sense to me that he would do that.
I mean, I think that his credibility is just kind
of shot. It seems more likely to me that he
would kill people that he thought he could get away
with killing, not that he was afraid that he'd get
caught so he would kill these kids.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
Yeah, his actions just don't scream that he was very
meticulous in his planning or had things, you know, really
well thought out in advance, and he was very very
brutal with his victims. While we don't know if Dugan
was involved in Karen's case, certainly there are similarities. Karen,
like Donna, was a younger white female who was potentially
(24:51):
driving home alone in the early morning hours, and she
was driving in the Elgin area, which is close in
proximity to his other cases.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Yeah, and Dugan had other cases where he followed women
home and approached them there. Again, that's something that could
be similar to Karen's case. In fact, some of Karen's
family and friends actually reached out to us and asked
if we were considering Brian Dugan as a suspect, So
we certainly wanted to talk about him as a possibility
in this case. Dugan was sentenced to the death penalty
(25:25):
for Jeanine's case, but in two thousand and three, he,
along with one hundred and sixty six other death row
inmates he in Illinois, had their sentences commuted to life
in prison by then Governor George Ryan. It was the
largest blanket commutation for the death penalty in American history,
and Dugan's still alive. He's currently incarcerated and protective custody
at the Pontiac Correctional Facility.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Well, like we've said before, we decided at the start
of this investigation that no tip or theory should be
off the table for this case. So even though we
can't specifically link Dugan to this case, and there are
some differences between his cases and Karen's disappearance, there is
enough there that we wanted to talk to Brian, so
we went to Pontiac to do just that.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
All right, So we're here in Pontiac at the Pontiac
Crectional Facility. So there's about six hundred inmates here.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Building's been here since eighteen seventy one.
Speaker 5 (26:20):
So it's an old facility. They have a max security
prison here and a medium Brian's over and it's a
protective custody right now.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Yeah, protective custody. So yeah, very much like the feel
that you would kind of expect of for like a
state prison, right A lot of kind of spread out buildings,
a big yard in the middle. The buildings look very
kind of old and just kind of dated. I mean,
obviously there's some snow on the ground from last night,
so it kind of adds the effect to it a
little bit.
Speaker 5 (26:49):
Yeah, get big concrete buildings like probably built the thirties
and forties and stuff, some old administrative buildings. But we're
gonna head it and see what Brian has to say
and see if it's talked to us.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Okay, So after arranging an interview and going through security,
we waited for Dugan on a what was it the
third floor in every room, Yeah, of their internal affairs
unit at the jail. It's a long concrete building built
in the nineteen thirties. It looks, I mean, almost like
something out of World War two or an old prison movie.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
A guard escorted Dugan into the building. He was dressed
in a blue uniform and was handcuffed to a chain
around his waist. You know, Dugan is sixty eight years
old and he certainly looks at He has gray hair
and uses a walker to help him get around. After
he came into the room, we asked that the cuffs
be removed, and Dugan took off his coat, rubbed his wrists,
and sat on a small bench in front of us
(27:42):
in a room where there was a banquet windows that
overlooked the snow covered court that was below.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Dugan didn't have anything new to tell us, but I
should add that in other media reports he's always maintained
that he does not have any outstanding cases anywhere else
in Illinois, which would include Elgin, Ann carpenter Asville.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
At this point, we don't have any physical evidence that
would link Brian Dugan to Karen's case, but we also
don't have a Karen's car or her body. As we've
mentioned in past episodes, we will be looking at various
bodies of water in the area that would possibly be
along Karen's routes of travel as we just try to
investigate this case further. So maybe that will provide some
(28:18):
new information that could link Brian Dugan or somebody else
in this case. For now, he is still a bit
of a question mark in this case, but he is
someone to keep in mind for our case and for
other area cold cases with similar mos here in Illinois
between nineteen seventy four and nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
In our next episode, we are changing up the order
of our theories. Originally we planned to move on to
theory number four that Karen made at home, but as
with all police investigations things can change. Our month's long
preparation to bring new technology and launch a massive search
for Karen in area bodies of water is now becoming
a reality in the next few weeks, so we're moving
up Our original theory number tis that Karen crashed her
(29:01):
car into a body of water on her drive back
to Elgin. Next episode, we will take our listeners along
as we identify the routes Karen could have taken, travel
those routes and prepare to literally dive deeper into Karen's
case here on. Somebody Knows something.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
If you, or anyone you know has information about this
case or any other cold case in Elgin, please contact
the Elgin Police Department Cold Case email at cold Case
tips at ELGINIL dot gov or the cold Case tip
line at eight four seven two eight nine cold. You
can also review cold case information on the Elgin Police
(29:40):
Department's Transparency Hub by going to ELGINIL dot gov and
navigating to the Elgin Police Department's Transparency Hub, where every
cold case, homicide, and missing person's case is listed with
photographs and information about each case.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
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