The 1986 disappearance of Denise Pflum

Denise left her home in rural Indiana on March 28, 1986. She's never been found, and her case remains unsolved.

If you have any additional information on Denise’s case, please call the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department at [phone] Ext. 604 or Indiana State Police at [phone].

Episode Transcript

(00:27):
Welcome back to status spending in thecase Overview series, Scott Folder and Heather
Rights back with you for another Friday. Starting to feel a bit like summer,
or at least spring ish, Heather, how are you spring ish?
For sure? We've been getting alot of rain and high winds over here,
some tornadoes we're getting at all.Isn't great? Isn't the Midwest just
lovely? It's gorgeous? Yes?What is your definition of the Midwest where

(00:50):
I live? Yeah? But where'syour where's your boundaries? My cutoffs?
I don't really know. I feellike maybe as far as like well,
I don't know, Minnesota, Wisconsin, all that is considered Midwest to me.
So it's kind of bothered me becausepeople from like half of the country
call themselves Midwesterners. Yeah. Andmy thing is like, once you get

(01:14):
down past like Tennessee, I feellike you can't even include Yeah, I
agree, any of them. SoI'm gonna say you're the border. I'm
gonna say it's Ohio in the east. I'm going to draw the border Kentucky
too. It does not include Kentucky. I still don't even feel like Kentucky's
Midwest, honestly, But So theMidwest is Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,

(01:36):
Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, maybeparts of and the upper midwest is the
Dakotas. I'm making this up asI go, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan.
Yeah, that's everybody. So ifI didn't name your state, you're
not a Midwesterner, right, Imean people in Pennsylvania say that they're Midwest,
and I'm like, are you though, No, that's East. And

(01:57):
Pennsylvania is a weird state because it'slike its own country. It's it's so
different in different places. But theeastern part of Pennsylvania is freaking New York.
So that's not Midwest. And thewestern part is up against Ohio,
and now Ohio feels east to me, always has, but I'll give that
to you. I mean, Ialways thought it was east too until people

(02:17):
called us Midwesterners. So I'm like, all right, whatever. I mean,
we do get a lot of differentweather, and I don't know,
I don't know what classifies you asMidwest. I don't either. I don't
know. I'm even gonna I wouldsay even Columbus is the cutoff. So
everything east of Columbus is not everythingwest is. Okay, Well, I'm

(02:38):
I'm Southwest, so so you're aSoutherner. You live in Kentucky. We
love people from Kentucky. What's wrongwith that? They make some where they
make bourbon, some good good sourmash and no, actually bourbon, because
if it's made anywhere else, asyou know, why am I telling you
this? It's whiskey. It's sourmash or yeah, whiskey. Yeah,

(03:00):
there we have it. This hasbeen a great use now, you know,
from people who don't know. You'rewelcome, Welcome to my podcast.
This is Geography. We are backwith another episode of Status Spending. We
want to plug the true crime podcastfestival in Now my country's all upside down.
We're going to Austin, Texas inAugust, and with my new situation,

(03:24):
Heather, I might be more likely. I still got football coaching is
a problem though, Well for goingtell him you're sick, just cough a
really hard one day. If youcan't do that, you can't have a
football coach. No, I meanthey can deal with one day without you.
Just tell the play to make.Yeah, they're gonna have to.
I'll just FaceTime it, you know, hold up the iPad so I can

(03:46):
see what's going on in the game. So, um, I will say
this new job does afford me theopportunity to perhaps include that is part of
my commuting across the country now,So I'm not promising yet, but we
are starting to hear from people whoare planning to go yes, which is
who we know, so that's veryexciting. Well, yeah, we are,
sorry, I forgot about that text. I know that. I know

(04:09):
it's kind of expensive and it's acommitment, but Austin I've never been there,
but I've heard just amazing things aboutAustin, Texas. Sign up.
You know. Half of it isthe place we had fun in Chicago outside
of a true crime podcast festival stuff, So the True Crime and Paranormal Podcast
Festival use our promo code status.I don't know. I'm telling you this
because I'm about to play an adtelling you all the same stuff. So

(04:31):
we'll move on any news and notesfrom you before we turn things over to
Heather for this week. No,no, okay, I am Heather,
so rob you that with that,We'll be right back. Are you a
true crime advocate? Are you passionateabout uncovering the truth and bringing justice to

(04:51):
victims? Do you love the paranormaland spooky tales. We know you do,
and that's why you won't want tomiss the True Crime and paran Normal
Podcast Festival that's taking place in Austin, Texas August twenty fifth to twenty seventh
of this summer twenty twenty three.The festival features panel discussions, workshops,
and live podcasts being recorded right therein front of you, with a special

(05:14):
focus on ethics and advocacy in thetrue crime sphere. That's very important topic
now more than ever. Get yourtickets now at Truecrime Podcast Festival dot com
and join us in Austin for anunforgettable experience. Don't miss out on the
chance to connect with other advocates andtake your passion for true crime and the
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fifteen percent off for attend and attendVIP tickets if you use the code status

(05:41):
at checkout that's Truecrime Podcast Festival dotCom. Use our promo code status at
checkout for fifteen percent off and we'llsee you in Austin, Texas this August
twenty fifth through the twenty seventh.All right, I am ready. I'm
looking forward to is for reasons.I just explaining, not bad reasons.
But it's been a day. It'sbeen a brain day for me on another

(06:04):
case of mind. So nice toreboot empty, you know, fresh page
and I'm ready, Okay, Ihope. So it's not going to be
a long one, but it isinteresting. And again we like to share
the ones that are unsolved unresolved,and especially the ones that have these weird
twists and turns along the way whereyou think it's solved and it's actually not.

(06:25):
So that's what I got for youtoday. We're going to be talking
about Denise Flum. I did lookup how to say her name, so
I wouldn't butcher. Its spelled pflumand it's pronounced flum. If I'm wrong,
that's what it was said on thenews clips. That doesn't necessarily mean
anything, but we'll go with it. Well, yeah, we are going

(06:46):
to Connorsville, Indiana, the Midwest, as we established, Yes, in
Effayette County, So anybody who isfamiliar with like Ohio and Indiana, it's
relatively close to Newcastle, Indiana.It's kind of close to Oxford, Ohio.
Just to kind of get your bearingsabout you. Sixty six miles east

(07:09):
by southeast of Indianapolis. Just figurethat math out in your brain. In
twenty twenty, the population was aboutthirteen thousand, three hundred and twenty four
Relatively small. It's only about sevenpoint seven square miles in size, and
yeah, it's like a little babytown. Most of the town is located on
the north bank of the West Forkof the Whitewater River. I love Rivertowns.

(07:34):
I don't know why I love Rivertowns. I tend to be a lot
more interesting from my experience, thisseemed to be a lot smaller. So
yeah, everybody knows everybody kind offeel yea. So again, this is
Denise Flum. She was eighteen yearsold when she went missing. Denise left
her home on March twenty eighth,nineteen eighty six. She was heading back

(07:57):
to where she attended a party thenight before, which oddly enough, was
Good Friday, same day you're listeningto this episode on Wow. And she
was heading back to that party placeto try to find her missing purse.
So she went to the party,went home, slept, woke up like,
oh my purse is missing. Thiscase so your nightmare, I can

(08:18):
tell already. Legit yep, searchingfor a lost purse. That's why I
don't care. Well, that's notthe only reason I don't carry purses,
but I prefer not to carry purseswith me. But eighteen year old girls
in the eighties are carrying purses.Absolutely. Yes, she did the thing
that I would do. She askedher friends, she asked her sister,
just basically, anybody in her lifeclose to her if one of them could

(08:41):
go with her. She didn't wantto go there alone. She was just
trying to make it there, lookfor her purse and get back. She's
like me. She didn't want tobe alone when she was doing that.
And if you think about it,it's really smart of her to do that
because she's an eighteen year old female. This is a place where a party
happened the night before. But nowI'm assuming everybody would be gone from the

(09:03):
party, right, So who knowsif she even knew the person who owned
the place that she was at theparty. Well, we've all seen the
aftermath of a real good house party. Yeah, and there was a bonfire
one yeah, Yeah, cans everywhere, everything's charred. Yeah, it's kind
of eerie. We've seen this timeand time again, this party was on
a farm, huge bonfire, soa lot of the party occurred outside.

(09:28):
I'm sure there was drinking, justkind of goes hand in hand with these
type of parties. It was nota Bible study bonfire, no, probably
not. So this is the nextmorning. This is the next morning.
Yes, So the person who livedthere would eventually tell the authorities that she
never came by that day because Iguess her family and friends of course knew

(09:48):
that that's where she would was headed. So when she was reported missing,
they were like, no, wenever saw her. After her disappearance,
a friend would tell the authorities thatshe did see her that day though,
and it was around two pm atthe Fashion Bug store that was located on
thirtieth Street. I'm not sure exactlyin relation to her house how close that

(10:09):
was, but it sounds like itwas relatively close. And this is the
last known sighting of her. SoI'm not sure exactly the time that she
was supposed to be heading to thatfarm. I just know that it was
after she had awoken that day,so that's like it was before too.
Yeah right, yeah, that's whatI was saying. So they had gone
back to the party to try tofind a purse, did they find it

(10:31):
or not? And then at twoo'clock she's seen, we think, and
that's the last correct. And Iwould assume that she got up in just
like you said, in the orderof events, she got up, she
went to look for a purse,either found it or didn't. She's not
shopping with no purse, correct,And that that was my thought process too.
So but it's going to get alittle bit more confusing though, because

(10:54):
it doesn't feel like that's how ithappened. So the following day, on
March thirtieth, nineteen eighty six,her cream colored nineteen eighty one Buick Regal
was found abandoned on Tower Road inGlenwood, Indiana. So when I looked
up this address in relation to thearea that she went missing from, which
was Connorsville, basically a variation ofhow far away that was anywhere from twelve

(11:18):
minutes to a twenty three minute drive, so still very close in proximity to
where she lived. It was foundfrom a farmer who was driving by and
noticed that it was on the sideof this dirt road next to a barn,
and they were like, Okay,this seems out of place. And
they called the authorities. Obviously wasout of place. It shouldn't have been

(11:39):
there. Her father, as ofeven as recent as last year twenty twenty
two, he still visits that sitewhere her car was found. He still
drives down that dirt road. He'srecorded videos of himself driving down that dirt
road saying, you know, whoeverbrought her car here did it with intent
and purpose. They knew what theywere doing, They knew where they were

(12:01):
going to leave her car. Yeah. Yeah, I can't imagine what's going
through a father's head. I knowI was documenting it and doing it,
but driving down that road, youcan't help but think, was my daughter
here? Was she still alive atthis point? What happened to her?
Right here? That's rough? Right? No, I completely agree. This

(12:24):
is where it gets a little bitconfusing about the timeline though, because authorities
believe that that car was left therebetween twelve thirty and one fifteen, the
day that she went missing. Buther friend confirmed that she had seen her
in a store at two PM thatday. Yes, you say pm right,
twelve yep, But she is ina store. How solid do you

(12:46):
think that sighting is? After Iread that from they the police law enforcement
on this case. I don't believethat maybe that was the exact time that
she's seen her. I don't know. Well. What stands out to me
is how are they arriving at thatdrop time? That's what I want to
know. I couldn't find anything,and that's literally the question I wrote in
my notes. I couldn't find anythingthat brought me to the point where I

(13:09):
was like, oh, okay,that makes sense that they would say it
was dropped between this time and thattime, other than the fact that if
this farmer who called it in frequentedthat area or that farm and he was
like, no, I was hereat such and such time and it wasn't.
But then when I got here atthis time, it was. But
it's not called in until the followingday, right right, So it doesn't

(13:30):
make any sense to me. That'ssomething that I would love to know more
about if anybody has information on it. But it's super strange because it's eighty
six there's no cameras, there's novehicle data, So how are they arriving
at within a forty five minute windowof forty eight hours? Could be?
I feel like they just have moreinformation than they've released to the public to

(13:52):
know that specific that's really narrowed down. Yea, yeah, it is,
especially for a rural country road,right, And I and I, like
I said the video that the dadposted, Like, I watched that like
three times, and it literally lookslike if you just imagined Ohio, that's
what it looks like, just flatfarmland, long dirt road. Like,

(14:13):
I'm really still curious about that fact. And maybe some of the stuff I
say later, maybe it'll make youthink of why they would have said that.
But I don't know. So thislocation where her car was found,
it was roughly three miles from wherethe party was, so not even that
far. So whoever did this followedher to the location of the party,
knew that she was coming back.I don't know. Lots of thoughts.

(14:39):
The friend that goes to retrieve thepurse with her, there's at some point
nobody went with her. No,she asked everybody too. Sorry, I
don't know if I included that.She asked everybody too, but nobody was
available, so she had to goby herself. Yeah, so really we
don't know. Right, her pointsare the car being found yet we don't

(15:01):
know when that was. But itwas March thirtieth, right, so two,
it was a day and a halfafter the party. It was the
night of the party, another nightand then the cars found well reported and
there is no firm outside of theparty. I assume people saw her there,
but there is no firm time stampfor her. There's a sighting at
the store, possibly possibly around two, yeah, but from the party.

(15:24):
For the next thirty six hours,we don't know where she is. I'm
sure somebody did, right, Andthat's that's one of my questions too,
Like, was that sighting from thatSaturday? So the party happened Friday,
she goes to look for her Saturday, the friend says I saw her at
Fashion Bug at two pm. Wasshe confused or not correct on her own

(15:46):
timeline? Did she possibly see heron Friday, the day of the party,
at two at that store or wasit actually Saturday when she went missing?
Yeah? Right, So I thinkin my mind that we have to
take two parallel tracks at the sametime. One is well three, one
is party related or involved um anyanything having to do with a Fashion Bug

(16:07):
store, and neither are all openavenues. Yeah, and when when her
family found out about where the carwas found. They were very confused as
to why her car or she wouldhave been there at all. I guess
the location that it was found out. They just couldn't understand what she would
have been doing there. You haven'tseen a photo of her car, um,

(16:30):
I believe I have. I canprobably send that over to you.
If it's handy. Let me poolI had it. I think I had
it up earlier. Yes, Ido. Um one sec it's coming your
way. And her mom does havea Facebook page set up too. There's
a bunch of photos of her onthere as well. In a minute in

(16:51):
a parking line was dumped. Isthis is just her car? That's what
I meant is they took a punchof her car where it was found.
Okay, I'll have to double check, but I don't think I found one
like that. Where's this photo fromher mom's the page that her mom set
up on Facebook. I guess somebodytook a picture of a new used car.
Maybe it's a random possibly All right, yeah, sorry, continue,

(17:15):
No, you're fine. I willget you some photos of her two though.
So basically since that that weekend,she was never heard from again.
After she left the house to lookfor her purse. Her body has never
been found. Her family suspected thather high school boyfriend knew something about her
disappearance. They suspected that since dayone. Before I get any more into

(17:37):
the investigation, I do want todescribe a little bit about her. Her
mother, Judy, stated that shehad a bright future out of her She
was a star athlete, gifted artist. She ranked at the top of her
class. Her dreams were to becomea scientist. She had already graduated from
high school and had been accepted toMiami University in Ohio, where she was
majoring in microbiology. I know she'sreally smart. When her mother was interviewed

(18:02):
by Dateline in twenty twenty due toan update that I'll share with you here
in a minute, she said,quote she had everything going for her.
If she were here today, she'dbe working on a cure for cancer,
or well maybe even a cure forthis coronavirus. She just wanted to help
people. End quote. Fast forwardabout three decades from when she went missing,

(18:22):
and there was a press release fromFayette County Sheriff's Department in July nine,
twenty twenty. Quote Sean M.McClung is charged with voluntary manslaughter resulting
from an investigation into the death ofDenise Flum. Quote wow, nobody,
nobody, Okay. So Sean wasonce the boyfriend of Denise. They dated

(18:45):
for about three years and had brokenup shortly before her disappearance. At the
time of her disappearance, the authoritiesquestioned him and he claimed that she was
in fact still alive, which tome, in my brain, that just
sounds weird. Well, how wouldyou know, right, like, she's
alive, don't worry about it,Like, how would you know that she's
missing? So that rang weird tome, like red flag. But after

(19:10):
a few decades after he had beenquestioned whatever, he admitted to them that
he killed her in March of nineteeneighty six. So that weekend, after
the party, he confessed to completeto police on video recording, and I
did watch a clip of this.He did this as a plea deal.
He was terminally ill, and hetold the police that he would confess and
show police where her body was,with the agreement that he would be released

(19:33):
from prison. He was in theirserving time for unrelated charges. Though.
Yeah, so in the video youcan actually hear him say that he pushed
her to the ground, and whenthe investigator asked if he killed her,
he said, yes, I did. Denise's mother said that the information that
he provided to police never really fitand she didn't think that it would go

(19:55):
anywhere, or she didn't think thathe actually killed her. And then the
information that they provid he provided tothe police never led them to her body
either. See that's a leading question. Yes, did you kill her?
As a leading question? And heeven said her name, He said,
did you kill Denise Flumb? Andhe said, yes, I did.

(20:17):
What happened next? What happened next? What happened next? You keep doing
that until she's dead in a story? That's ye every time nuts like I
said. That was in July,they searched that none of the information leads
to her body. Then a fewmonths later, in September of twenty or
sorry, a few months later,he recanted his confession. He stated that

(20:38):
he only confessed in order to gainhis freedoms since he was terminally ill,
he didn't want to spend the restof his life in prison. And then
a few months later he died inSeptember of twenty twenty ye So, um,
I don't know it, didn't saybut he was terminally ill. How
old is he going to be.He's not that old. It sounds to
me like maybe he had some sortof cancer and pass sube COVID made it

(21:00):
worse. I don't know. Ididn't look into the details of how he
died. Hang on eighty six abouther eighteen, He's born in sixty eight,
so he was fifty two when hedied. So when her mother,
Judy, was interviewed in twenty twentyby Dateline regarding those charges against him,

(21:21):
she said that after Denise and Seanhad broken up, she started to be
more social with people. She wouldhang out with her friends a lot more,
and she started dating. Fayette CountySheriff Joey Laughlin was only seven years
old when Denise disappeared, and thenhe eventually ended up being on the case
with Detective Chad Blaze to like solveit wild Yeah. Laughlin stated that they

(21:45):
believed there were several persons of interestin the case, but no one was
ever named at the time, likein eighty six. As of January twenty
twenty two, VISs is looking intoher disappearance with a documentary. I think
it's been released by now, Ifnot it's very close to being released.
But there are two more individuals whohave confessed to killing her. But it

(22:06):
sounds like these were both like barroom confessions to their friends. And in
this documentary you can hear one ofthe friends talking about it, like,
yeah, he would say it.He would say, yeah, I killed
her, and this is what Idid. He's like, but he always
said it when he was drunk.So it's like, how much weight can
you give that? Well, it'sgood enough, it's good enough to start

(22:26):
to start. Yeah, And inthe documentary, I didn't get to,
like I said, I'm not sureif it released yet. I would hope
it did. But in the clipsof it, you can see where they
were bringing out cadaver dogs and differentsearch teams, so they've gotten some tips,
I think, during the process ofthis, so they are looking into
this other than that. So Ilike to go on Reddit, as you

(22:49):
know, and I haven't done thatin a while, so I wanted to
share this little snippet that I foundfrom Reddit users straight meaning. So they
posted this three months ago, saidthe investigation focused focused in on the car,
but it didn't seem to show anysigns of foul play, which I
don't know if I mentioned this before. When they found the car, it
was found locked up. It waslocked, okay, yea, And where

(23:12):
were the keys? Where's anything inthe I don't think anything was in the
car. I don't think there wereany keys or anything. Okay, but
it's locked. There was one leadin nineteen eighty eight, however, when
they got a call from Virginia whichgave them, which gave the Flum family
some hope. The woman reportedly calledand gave some information that led them to

(23:36):
believe that the caller was in facta Nie, which is really sickening if
that was a hoax, you know. So the parents felt that the phrasing
within the call was very similar tohow she would phrase things things that she
would say, so they felt thatshe knew to call on that day of
the week due to her mother beingoff of work. So they were like,
Okay, she wouldn't have called onsuch and such day. She definitely

(24:00):
knew that I was off work.So they flew out to Norfolk, Virginia
to follow up on that call tosee if they could find this woman.
I guess when they got there,the woman then denied calling them, and
then eventually said she did call,but then oddly said that she only did
it due to thinking that she hadseen their daughter, so they she wanted

(24:21):
to get them there to see ifthey could find her. You know,
it's in a terrible, despicable situation. Once a little bit nice is that
moment when the woman realizes, holyshit, these people are here. Yeah,
like, oops, she told thetruth? How many cases? Well
did she? But we've seen howmany cases like that? Right, It's
I don't get that. That's oneof the things about this I have the

(24:44):
hardest time relating to is people whowill call up, you know, not
just a family member or victims familymember, but like their mom or somebody
very very close to them, andit's usually a bigger case, like more
publicized, and they're already going throughall the that and then you got this
going on to We've probably had liketwelve of those, whether you know,

(25:07):
claiming to be or someone who saysthis, this person's right next to me.
Possibly even on that case that therecording disappeared on Scott Yes, oh
yes, right, god, um, I'm in charge of anything. See
that that was our mistake. Somethingelse that he did say in that post,

(25:27):
And I want to touch on thisbecause I feel like it's just if
I don't, then you're gonna belike, hey, you dropped the ball.
There was one suspect for a moment, I guess, even though they
said there were three persons of interest, but nobody was named. Apparently they
were named very briefly, and itwas Larry Hall. He is a serial

(25:49):
killer. He was the subject ofa show called Blackbird on Apple TV.
He has been proven to have killedtwo women, but he confessed to at
least thirty five. The FBI believesthat he's killed up to fifty women though,
which we hear that all the timetoo. He actually confessed to this
case, but then he quickly saidnope, didn't do it, just kidding.

(26:11):
So obviously they had to backtrack andstart looking at other leads again.
And then in twenty eighteen, abody was found. Many thought that it
was her, eventually ruled out,and then you know the twenty twenty thing
where he where the boyfriend was charged. But as of right now, there's
currently one hundred thousand dollars reward offeredfor information that leads to an arrest in

(26:33):
this case. Her family was originallyoffering twenty five thousand dollars in March of
twenty twenty. But since then,I think, since the dateline thing and
that whole confession, I think Idon't know if Dateline assisted or if they
had, you know, crowdfunding,But now it's up to one hundred thousand.
Well, date Line's obviously about solvecases, but they do that Missing

(26:55):
an America thing. Yeah, Imean we thought it was often then it
wasn't. So again, this isa perfect case for statuspending. The investigating
agency is still the Fayette County Sheriff'sDepartment. Will link the phone number in
the show notes, or you cancall Indiana State Police as well. The
sources I used were NBC News News, Nichetion, the mother's Facebook page for

(27:19):
her daughter, that Reddit link,and then the crime door app. All
right, that's what I have.I don't have any theories myself, because
my brain goes haywire with these kindof cases. There's too many possibilities.
But you know Acam's razor, Ifeel like it's right in front of us.
Yeah. I think you just takethem one by one and don't get

(27:41):
lost. Yeah, let's how youhave to do it. What are your
thoughts though, Like, just withthe minimal information that we have, what
seems like the most logical thing thathappened here. Yeah, it's not much
much information. Is a car operational? Do they say they did not?
That's a very good question, thoughI'm gonna assume who yes, if it's
not set anywhere, But that couldbe a bad assumption too. So we

(28:04):
don't know a time she left togo get her purse after nobody's available to
help her. We do not,at least I do not mourning, because
when you realize you've done that,if it's me, I gotta find my
wallet, nothing else is happening.And until I find my keys or my
wallet, whatever is missing exactly,And did she have to work? Like
who knows what she needed it forthat day? You know? The sighting

(28:26):
at the store is the big,big sort of if in this case,
because that would be a super helpfulpiece of the timeline. On the one
hand, it's an eyewitness thing,and who knows from how far away she
was seeing. She didn't say shetalked to her friend. On the other
hand, she has her friend,so she has a better chance of recognizing
her than somebody who just saw thiswoman's picture on the TV. For example,

(28:51):
hard to say. It's tempting tobelieve the party was involved, especially
if the boyfriend has the ex boyfriendhas anything to do with the party.
He was at the party, yousaid, I'm not sure if he was
at the party. I couldn't confirm. I'm not saying he killed her at
the party or anything, but youlook for escalation, and that that would
fit if it's an X you know, situation and then there's some kind of

(29:15):
encounter at the party. I wouldassume that she was that he was at
the party, just because in numerousinterviews the family did say from the start,
I not necessarily they thought that hedid anything to her, but that
he had knowledge about what happened toher that night. You can't roll out
the craziness of a situation like anemployee at the store, for example,

(29:37):
or any other interaction that she mighthave that doesn't have a personal relationship to
it and doesn't have any kind ofescalation to it. Those are way rare,
but they do happen, and Ithink you put him on the table
more with unsolved cases that are thisold, because you do have to give
cops some credit. It's tough backin eighty six. It's kind of it's
kind of hit and miss back then, but there they know where to look

(30:02):
first. You know, when aneighteen year old goes missing, show me
your friends who should dating? Andusually that's where it's going to end.
But the longer a case goes on, I think, the more you have
to rope in some more creative ideas. Wrong place, wrong time. Also,
I'm not sure what part of Indianawe're talking about, but it's this.
I know it's going to be byan interstate, and it's going to

(30:22):
be by a big city. It'sgoing to be close. So either like
it, come up? What's upthere? Indianapolis is probably too far away?
What about Louisville and interstates? Iknow, go into Louisville. I
could probably look where is this Connorsville? No, where's the car? Oh

(30:42):
um, it is in glenn Wood, directly Westmo. Glenwood, Indiana.
Yep. Actually have a map Ican send you. I can get my
fat fingers to work. I see, all right, Well it's not it's
close to its closer to Indianapolis,and I thought it's still it's kind of
halfway between Cincinnati and Indianapolis and it'snot too far from her. I see

(31:08):
it's not too far from the party, but it's in an area where the
family says she doesn't belong there.I found a photo also of the where
the car was found with the investigatorsout there. I'm going to go back
to the party with this map thatyou just sent me, because it's a

(31:29):
there's a county road that goes fromthe party basically to the car, and
it's I don't see a scale here, but it's not very very far.
Just the map alone tells me notpremeditated. Yeah, but there are aspects
that are either extremely lucky or alittle bit sophisticated where nobody no physical evidence.
That's pretty rare. It's eighty sixso no DNA, but it's still

(31:55):
pretty rare. The problem is,though she's fine in the morning, like
she was, she was at home, right, okay, So she left
her parents home at twelve thirty pmon Friday, so good friends. So
what I had in my notes beforewas that she went missing on Good Friday,
which I think that's accurate because fromthe sounds of it, they were

(32:15):
on spring break that week, theparty was Thursday night, and Friday,
the twenty eight is when she wentback to find her purse. So that's
when she would have been missing.Yeah, so her car would have been
found Saturday, got you all right, Well, she still has to have
gone home. We think she lefther family's house at twelve thirty pm to
look for her purse. I wouldhave been Friday, and then her cars

(32:37):
found twenty four hours late Friday.Correct, And her car was found one
fifteen distance at one fifteen when hereturned to the field after lunch. So
the reason they're saying between twelve thirtyand one fifteen is because that farmer came
back from lunch and it was sittingthere. Got you Okay? These newspaper

(32:57):
articles, you guys very helpful.She left at twelve thirty on Friday,
cars found twenty four hours later.I want to know if she ever came
back on Friday night. That's whenthat's going to happen. Was the dropping
of the car, even in arural area in the middle of the day,
is high risk, and the onlyreason to do it is because of
something that happened at four o'clock inthe morning the night before or sometime late

(33:23):
at night the night before. It'snot ideal to drop a car at lunchtime
on a weekend, on a holidayweekend. But you don't have a choice
because you have to deal with thebody in the car, all right.
So a situation where she left tofind the purse by herself and she did,

(33:45):
and then that's sighting at two pm. Then is that Friday? We're
Saturday? That's yeah, setting atwo pm now fits if it's on Friday.
Now that she has her purse,not only does she have money to
go shopping, but she's got peaceof mind to go shopping and kind of
enjoy it more because she's not missinganything like that. There may be like
another party on Friday night. There'ssome other situation that very few people are

(34:08):
aware of, but more than oneperson is aware of that happen on Friday
night, and that's what all thisis about. And it could be related
to Thursday, that party, butit doesn't necessarily have to be. I
think that's where I'm going to guessthe ex confessing. I'll bet if he
asked the DA and the detectives,they would say, we still think he

(34:30):
did it even though information didn't panout. Maybe he got cold feet,
maybe changed his mind, because theyhave incentive to say that because they got
a plea deal going and they believein this. They think he's a guy
they want to close a case.He may or may not be the guy.
He could have gotten cold feet.It's not impossible that he doesn't remember
either, at least not remember wellenough to have anything that he can point

(34:53):
to that is cooborative. So manyyears later, it would have been helpful
for them to have, I think, done that the right way in terms
of tell us what happened, becausethey're going to be able to pick out
things that they can collaborate outside ofa body from the story that most people
wouldn't think of. So just becausehe can't remember where the body is doesn't

(35:16):
mean he didn't do it. Afterthirty years. I know people probably think
that's nuts, but there's a lotof mental coping that goes along with that.
And even your ted bundies there yougo, there's your reference. He
couldn't remember where he put all ofthem. I don't think now in his
case, it's probably because there's somany. But he's got health issues.

(35:39):
There's usually substance abuse, mind alteringstuff, and your brain compartmentalizes that stuff.
Usually people react all kinds of differentways. Some people can't deal with
it, so they confess more often. People compartmentalize it, and it's almost
becomes a dream at a certain pointand it never really happened, and then

(36:01):
recall specific information about that thirty yearslater. I'm throw a wrench in this.
Just found another news article about somebodywho was a suspect. He was
a twenty three year old. Hewas released from Monroe County Jail after serving
a year in jail on theft andreceiving stolen goods charges. He was transferred

(36:22):
to Monroe County to face those charges. Blah blah blah goes on a little
bit. He was accused of theabduction of a sixteen year old, a
clerk at a shoe store on thesouth side of Indianapolis. He is alleged
to have forced the girl at knifepoint to drive him in her car west

(36:42):
on I seventy from Indianapolis. Somewherealong the way, he took over driving
and leader got lost south of Tarahoe, Indiana. According to the sergeant,
the girl escaped from him when hepulled into a farm driveway to allow her
to go to the bathroom. Theowner of the farms all the headlights came
out to see what was going onand rustled the guy to the ground.

(37:04):
The girl broke free, ran tothe farmer's house. Um, and then
this guy took off and they werelike a chase with him following fer no
no, no no, the policeor chasing this guy like a high speed
chase. He vanished. Yeah,he like vanished. Um, that occurred
two days before she went missing.No. Wow, then he abandoned the

(37:30):
vehicle same m So I guess hewas being looked at briefly. Well,
yeah, I get I see why. That's crazy. But they ruled him
out or at least couldn't go anyfurther than that. Yeah. I think
he escaped from jail. That wouldraise him even higher because he's got no
means himself in those first days especially. So yeah, wow, okay,

(37:53):
yeah this guy, jeez, Idon't know, maybe it was him.
Shit, that's pretty solid. Imean, they either ruled him out or
couldn't go any further. Right,we're at speculation station right now. Yeah,
we sure aren't. But but Idon't have any other theories. Honestly,
Like, I don't know anything aboutthe party. I don't know of
people who were questioned I you don'treally see anything in the newspaper articles that

(38:17):
were posted regarding anyone being talked to, like oh she seemed down, or
oh she seemed like she was havingissues with so and so like that.
I don't see anything like that.So I can't even really begin to give
any type of theories on that.I mean, if the party were directly
involved, you would think it wouldhave happened to the party. But then
you've got the property owner saying,no, she never came back, right,

(38:38):
either because he's hiding something or hegenuinely doesn't know that she came back
on her own to grab something andleave. Right. This is one of
those that it's it's very sad.Obviously, it's very smart girl who's going
to go on and do great things. Whatever she wants to do. She's
going to be fine in adulthood.This is this is strating because this is

(39:00):
one that's solved today. If that'sscene is processed forensically, she'd be driving
a brand new vehicle with vehicle data. This does not get unsolved. More
than likely a man back in theeighties. All it took was not finding
a body. Very sad, allright, we've got those photos that we're

(39:20):
going to be posting at status spendingpodcast dot com and we want to thank
our Patreon supporters. We'll get yousome Patreon stuff here sooner than than later.
And True Crime Podcast Festival in August. Going to keep reminding you until
we get there. Hope to seeyou out there, and we will talk
to again on Friday