A Cold Night in November

Kathy Jones, at just 12 years old, vanished on a cold November night in 1969 on her way to a Nashville skating rink. In our first episode, we'll explore that night and the following days.

If you have any information on Kathy’s case, please contact Metro Nashville Police Department’s Cold Case Unit at 615-862-7329.

Flatrock was created in collaboration with Spreaker. Senior production provided by Kim Green. Executive producers are Olivia Lind and Greg Thornton. Co-produced by Dixie Bratton, Chris Chamberlain, Jamie R. Hollin, Cathy Lind, Betsy Phillips, Terry Quillen, and JJ Wright. Backed by Brandon Herrington. Music by Preston Garland - prestongarlandmusic.com. Additional voices provided by Lindsay Moryoussef, Shea from All Crime No Cattle, Thashana McQuiston, and Steven Pacheco.

Additional music in this episode:
artist: XTaKeRuX / album: Illusion / track: Dark Room / license: Attribution / source: FMA / http://freemusicarchive.org/music/XTaKeRuX/2019073141810785/Dark_Room_

artist: Chris Zabriskie / album: It’s a Wonderful Jaws / track: Let the Pain Speak to Me / license: Attribution / source: FMA / http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/Its_a_Wonderful_Jaws/ChrisZabriskie-ItsaWonderfulJaws-05-Pain

artist: Chris Zabriskie/ album: It’s a Wonderful Jaws / track: I Used to Need the Violence / license: attribution / source: FMA / http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/Its_a_Wonderful_Jaws/ChrisZabriskie-ItsaWonderfulJaws-03-Violence

Additional audio in this episode:
Castle, William. House on Haunted Hill. Allied Artists, 1959.
Wood, Ed. Plan 9 From Outer Space. Valiant Pictures, 1959.
News2, ABC, 22 Nov. 2007, www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwAzPFv2qWE.

Special thank you to Bea Jones and Chief Mickey Miller of the Hendersonville Police Department.

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Flat Rock contains disturbing subject matter whichmay not be suitable for all listeners.
Listener discretion is advised. As Novembernineteen sixty nine transition to December, the
Beatles Come Together was at the topof the charts. The United States held

(00:25):
its first draft lottery since World WarTwo, and authorities were rounding up members
of the Manson family in Nashville.A young girl disappeared on the way to
a roller rink, to be founda few days later, murdered from Nashville,
Tennessee. I'm Olivia Lynde and incollaboration with Spreaker, this is flat

(00:48):
Rock. After the break, we'lldiscuss what flat rock is and the crime
that led us here. True crimehas been an obsession for me since I
was probably way too young. Itstarted with scary movies and Your Heart Stand

(01:12):
the shocking fact about great Robbers broughtout a space. At four or five
years old, I accidentally watched TheTerminator. By age ten, I was
digging into my mom's Hitchcock collection intaping Silence of the Lambs on HBO.
I guess crime is a form ofhorror because it wasn't long before I was

(01:34):
watching American Justice and other true crimeshows with my mom, and I was
hooked. I didn't discover true crimepodcasts until Sereal debuted in twenty fourteen.
From there, I found In theDark and of course, my favorite murder.
Right around then, I started houndingto Shauna McQuiston to start a podcast
with me. She's that funny andbrilliant friend who always has great insight into

(01:57):
whatever you're discussed. In early twentyseventeen, we launched Something's Not Right,
a cheeky conversational true crime podcast.Hello, and welcome to Something's Not Right.
I'm Olivia, and I'm to Shauna. It turns out everyone else had
the same idea. Conversational true crimeis pretty maligned at this point, but

(02:23):
we put our hearts into the showand kept at it. We're now more
than seventy episodes in. Kathy Jones'scase was the first one we ever covered,
and we've revisited it since. You'llhear to Shauna voicing Kathy's mother,

(02:43):
Nora throughout this series, but hereshe is talking with me about the case
on Something's Not Right. This isus remembering where we first heard about Kathy
and wondering why the stories of somedisappeared. Little girls live on while others
are forgotten? Should your parents frommy dad didn't, but my mom,
My mom was the one who mentionedit to me. Actually, I mean,

(03:06):
you know, everybody remembers Marsha Tremble, right which happened? And my
mom still talks. Yeah, aboutsix years after this. I mean I
remember it just because they were stilltrying to figure it out up until until
they did a few years ago.Marsha Tremble was nine years old when she
disappeared in February nineteen seventy five froma wealthy Nashville suburb where she was delivering

(03:28):
Girl Scout cookies. Her body wasn'tfound until thirty three days later, and
the murder went unsolved until just elevenyears ago. A man arrested for raping
a Vanderbilt student in nineteen seventy fivewill now be looked at for one of
Nashville's most notorious crimes. The casewas a sensation and a shock to the
city. In that moment, Nashvillelost its innocence, said Mickey Miller in

(03:51):
two thousand and two, when hewas still a Metro Nashville police captain.
He also looked into Cathy's murder.As a cold case investigator, we'll hear
from him a lot in this series. Miller was right. The murder of
Marcia Tremble changed how the city sawitself, and that's one reason Nashvillians remember
her. But why Marcia Tremble andnot Kathy Jones? Why did one victim

(04:15):
become a symbol while another faded intooblivion? That bothered me, which is
why in this podcast I choose toremember Kathy Jones and to find out everything
I can about who she was inlife, how she died, and who
might have committed this horrific act.Let's start our story with the place hers

(04:36):
ended. I'm standing in the vacantlot behind the Crispy Kreme where Kathy Jones's
body was found. It's near thecorner of Nolensville Road in Thompson Lane.
It's a commercial area like it wasback then. I'm looking across the alley
at a vape store and a coupleof adult bookstores, and you can hear

(05:01):
a lot of noise coming off ofthe street, but it's actually a lot
quieter back here. It's sort ofa hidden and secluded spot right in the
middle of a busy area. Thisneighborhood is known as Woodbine, which basically
means the same thing as honeysuckle.The larger area, which encompasses several neighborhoods,

(05:23):
is called flat Rock. It wasnamed for a large flat rock that
was nearby here. Near there therewas a salt lick where the animals would
come to eat, and I'm surethat that was a good draw for hunting.
And so it's something really peaceful flatrock, you know, the animals

(05:46):
and the honeysuckle. I just can'timagine that right up next to a crime
like this. On Saturday, Novembertwenty, nineteen sixty nine, twelve year
old Kathy Jones spent the afternoon doingchores for mom Nora at their little white

(06:06):
house on Ludy Street. Kathy hadn'tplanned to go anywhere that night, but
she changed her mind. As Norahlater told a newspaper reporter, Nora died
in nineteen eighty nine. So you'reabout to hear Tashauna, my podcasting partner,
reading Norah's quote from the Nashville Banner. Throughout the series, you'll hear

(06:28):
voice actors reading quotes from newspapers andother archived sources, mostly because those witnesses
have died or can't be found.Here's Tashauna as Nora. During the afternoon,
Kathy had said she wouldn't go skating. After talking with girlfriends on the
phone, she decided she would goahead. She cleaned up around here all

(06:48):
day Saturday, picking up clothes,just doing everything. So I gave her
a dollar. I remember telling herto wait till Monday to go to the
skating rank because she didn't have nobodyto go with her. Saturday night.
She said if she waited till Monday, she'd spend her dollar, and she
wanted to make sure she's spent itskating. She dressed up for an hour

(07:08):
to go to that skating ring,put a red ribbon in her hair and
bath powder all over. My sisterhad given her the boot skates and she'd
put red and blue fur pom pomson the fronts to pretty them up.
She went out about fifteen till eightSaturday night, and then she came back
in to get her extra coat.I said, Kathy, you call when
you're ready to come home and I'llcome pick you up. She said,

(07:30):
every time I call that phone,just rings and rings and rings, and
nobody answers. You know how itis when the phone's in another part of
the house and you got kids andnoise going anyway. I told her,
you just let it ring till Ianswer it. She started out, and
she came over and kissed me andsaid, thank you mother, thanks for
the dollar, and then oh lord, she went out the door. That's

(07:55):
the last time Norah saw Kathy alive. She left home around seven four five
PM, wearing a navy blue skirt, gold sweater, brown loafers, and
a blue overcoat. She told hermother she planned to pick up a donut
at the neighborhood Krispy Kreme on herway to the All Weather Roller Drome's skating
rink on Thompson Lane. I meanshe slipped off from her brothers because she

(08:18):
didn't want to be followed to theskating ring. But a friend of her
said she didn't see Kathy at theskating ring. I always drove her to
the skating ring. She had neverwalked alone to the rink before. Some
newspaper accounts at the time of thedisappearance claimed Nora couldn't take Kathy to the
skating rink because the battery in thefamily car was dead. Mickey Miller said

(08:39):
otherwise. He's the chief of theHendersonville Police Department, just north of Nashville,
but he looked into Kathy's case whenhe was still in Nashville homicide detective
working the Marsha Tremble case. He'sa burly man with thinning hair and a
white mustache. I talked to himin March twenty nineteen as he sat chewing
an unlit sig are in his office. The mother and said that normally she

(09:03):
would take her, that Kathy neverwalked there. Kathy always walked that way,
And in fact, we went backand tracked the same path that she
walked, and she went by thefire hall, and there was actually when
we were walking up through there,we walked all the way from Ludi Street

(09:24):
up to the skating right. Therewas a couple of firemen at that time
that had worked there the day thatshe disappeared and remembered seeing her walked past
that. Several witnesses later told investigatorsthey saw the little girl on her way

(09:46):
to the rink, proudly carrying apair of hand me down white boot skates.
Mickey Miller talked about why those skatesmattered so much to Kathy. She
had gotten a pair of roller skatesfrom her cousin and they you know,
they were used rollers guys, butto her they were brand They didn't have
a lot those kids didn't. Kathywas last seen about a block from her

(10:11):
house, cutting through the parking lotof the Gambles Cbe Market near the Woodbine
Fire Department. She most likely crossedNolensville Road at the light at Joiner Avenue.
The walk from her home in thethree hundred block of Ludi Street to
the rink shouldn't have taken more thantwenty minutes. The Krispy Kreme donut shop
she planned a visit still stands inthe same spot, but in a newer

(10:33):
building. It's close to the intersectionof Thompson Lane and Nolensville Road and within
view of performance Studios, the costumeand theatrical makeup shop that sits in the
old roller Drome building. While NolensvilleRoad was a busy street lined with businesses
and lights, it was well afterdark when Kathy left home. The alleys

(10:54):
would have been in complete darkness byfive PM. At that time of year.
Police believed Kathy probably took a shortcut through the alley between Nolensville Road
and Grand View Avenue. Mickey Millerwalked that route and it made him uneasy,
and you get you get a wordfeeling, you know what I mean.
It's it's a heartbreaking. My husbandand I followed that short cut two

(11:18):
one night earlier this year. Itdidn't necessarily seem dangerous, but I still
couldn't imagine a small girl Kathy wasall of four foot ten and eighty seven
pounds braving a dark alley like thisalone. Did we want to cut over
to the alley right here? Imean, are we I'm safe? I
saw a guy talking to himself,Well, you can always back out all

(11:43):
Did you get that we can alwaysnot go down the alley? My husband
says. Did Kathy go down thatalley? Did she feel unsafe or was
she trying to be brave? We'llnever know because Kathy didn't come home.
Norah told the Nashville Banner that shedidn't get the call she expected from Kathy,

(12:07):
so she went to the rink topick her up. When she got
there, it was closed. Sheheaded straight home and reported her daughter missing.
Norah said Kathy had never run awaybefore. And said she didn't have
any problems at home which would havecaused her to take off either. There
were problems at home, though,but how much Norah was aware of them

(12:31):
is now an unanswerable question that somethingwill explore in more depth in an upcoming
episode. The search for Kathy wason. In addition to police, the
Metro Civil Defense Director sent out hisunit to search for the missing girl.
Searches went on through the weekend untilthe following Tuesday, December second, when

(12:54):
at twelve ten pm, Civil DefenseSergeant Alan Waldron found Kathy's body and a
vacant lot behind the Crispy Cream justthree hundred yards from the roller drome.
Kathy's body lay naked and bound inweeds described as anywhere from two to four
feet high. According to a nineteenninety eight article in the Alt Weekly Nashville

(13:16):
Scene, The crime scene photos showedKathy's back was bent and her arms were
tied behind her, with strips oflining torn from her jacket. Her eyes
were slightly open and her head wastilted back. There were superficial cuts around
her throat and abdomen with small amountsof blood. Her blouse was tied around

(13:37):
her mouth, as a gag.The only clothing still on her body was
a single sock. Kathy's other clotheswere on the ground beside her. The
new to her roller skates, whichshe treasured, sat beside her feet.
In nineteen ninety eight, detective CharlesMills, one of the original investigators,

(13:58):
spoke to the Nashville scene. Hesaid, the experience of seeing that crime
scene affected him profoundly. When Iarrived on the scene, the body was
laying in a patch of weedy fieldabout waist high. It got to me
because she was from a very poorfamily. I never got the kid's look
off my mind. With her layingthere in those weeds. I don't see

(14:18):
how a person could murder a younggirl like that. A young girl like
that, what was Cathy Jones like? Often when it comes to true crime,
you learn very little about the victim. The perpetrator's story goes on after
the killing. Investigations, trials,imprisonment. We hear about the circumstances leading

(14:43):
to the crime and the perpetrator's backgroundin great detail. Even in unsolved cases
like Cathy's, those unknown killers continueliving and sense as detectives and amateur salutes
build a narrative, hoping to findthe clue that put it's a name with
a crime. The details of suspectsand perpetrators lives are usually sordid and tawdry,

(15:07):
so human nature being what it is, we find them compelling, we
pay attention, but all too oftenthe victim becomes a footnote. In a
murder, there's no more story totell. With child murders, the story
is even shorter, of course,and the network of people connected to the
victim even smaller. There are nocoworkers, no boyfriends or girlfriends, only

(15:31):
a few years worth of classmates andteachers. The victim fades into the background.
Archived news stories about Kathie's case bearthis out. You'll learn that she
was petite and shy, that herfamily didn't have much money, that she
loved her second hand skates. Forthe rest of this episode, we'll explore

(15:54):
in what we do know about kathyin life, which sadly isn't mine.
It's what little like a cobble togetherfrom news clippings, what I've been told
by investigators, and some of thethings I heard from people who knew the
family in nineteen sixty nine or wereclose to them long after Kathy was gone.

(16:17):
Norah Kathleen Jones was born to NorahElizabeth and William Richard Jones on May
sixteenth, nineteen fifty seven. Hermother, who was just sixteen when Kathy
was born, told the paper aboutthe circumstances of her birth and early childhood.
She had a rough time getting started, you know how it is.

(16:37):
She was born prematurely and it shejust had a lot of trouble here and
there and had some operations. Shewas small for age. I guess at
her age now she wouldn't be morethan eighty seven pounds four feet ten.
All that trouble put her seven yearsold starting school. She was healthy as
a line then though summers she'd justget golden. I remember she have on

(17:00):
that little turquoise bathing suit she likedso much, and her hair would get
sun street like blondes do, andshe'd be the prettiest girl in this neck
of the woods. News articles publishedsoon after Kathy's death quoted several people who
said she was shy and quiet.Here's Norah again. She was shy.

(17:21):
She turned that radio one and closedthe door in that bedroom because she was
in there dance and by herself,and she didn't want you to know it.
I got her a radio of Romefor Christmas, a doll too.
She didn't know what it was gonnabe for Christmas. She wanted a record
player and a stack of records.I might have got it. I guess
I would. The Joneses would goon to have two sons, William Richard

(17:47):
and William Kelly or Ricky and Kellyin nineteen sixty. In nineteen sixty four,
the family didn't have a lot ofmoney. Word was that Kathy and
her brothers were old clothes to school, and that Kathy, a sixth grader
when she died, may have beenpicked on by classmates at wood By an
elementary school. She also had anissue with one eye, perhaps a lazy

(18:08):
eye. At the time Kathy died, her parents were separated. Her brothers
were nine and five years old.Norah and the kids lived in a small,
clapped home on Ludi Street. TheWoodbine section of the Greater Flat Rock
area was a working class neighborhood,described in the Nashville Banner as having many

(18:29):
frame houses, all stuck over withduitt yourself editions. Cathy's father, William,
known to friends and family as Billor Billie, was living in Clarksville,
Tennessee, about fifty miles northwest ofNashville, near the Tennessee Kentucky border.
He was working as a carnival workerat the time. By most accounts,
he was a kind man who caredfor his children, but he was

(18:53):
also a heavy drinker. B Jones, Kelly's widow, had an overall positive
of impression of Bill. Every singletime we saw each other, he spoke
of Kathy and the event that tookplace, and you know, he was
still upset. You could tell.He pulled out old newspaper clippers and we

(19:14):
just want to show you and talkabout her. I'm not sure how far
he got in school. He evensaid he couldn't read. When he pulled
out to newspapers, you know,he would know his pictures, and you
know, he would tell the storyand what his theory was. I don't
know much about Nora. I neverlearned what she did for a living at

(19:34):
the time of Kathy's death, butpeople who knew her later believed that she
did have a job during that period. Family members said she was a homebody
and could be hot tempered. ByNovember nineteen sixty nine, Nora had another
man in her life, a cabdriver named Darryl Steinbach. It's not clear
whether they lived together at that point, but Steinback definitely spent a lot of

(19:57):
time around the house on Ludy Street. The two were involved before Bill Honora
separated. According to Chief Mickey Miller, this little girl twelve years old,
her mom and dad had split uprecently because her dad came home and caught
her mother with Darryl Steinback, andso Darrell just kind of moved in.

(20:19):
So at the time of Cathy's death, and Darrell was a boyfriend, he
wasn't a husband at that time.Later on he did marry. There may
be more to that story. Accordingto a friend of Steinbach's, we're calling
him Tim because he doesn't want hisname used. We were able to speak
with him in spring twenty nineteen,and you'll hear from him throughout the series.
And Daryl told me that the reasonthat they got together was that she

(20:44):
had already left Bill because they foughtall the time and he beat her up
pretty bad. And she met Norahbecause he picked up in the cab.
And so that's the story I got. You know, now, I never
heard of anything about them being caughtby Bill Jones involved. I couldn't tell

(21:07):
you. Here's what b Jones saidabout those allegations. And there was rumors
that Bill was an alcoholic and hewas very abusive to Nora, and the
boys told that, you know,Rick and Kelly, that their dad was
an alcoholic. But I think theywere so young they didn't remember a lot

(21:27):
back then of how he acted.Because like when Cathy was killed, I
believe Kelly was maybe five, sohe was very young. And then m
Kelly didn't speak much of his fatherat first, and then it was like
they had no history with him.So of course, you know, we

(21:49):
have a separation there. There's alwaysdifferent thoughts, and you know, the
boys stepped by their mom, youknow, they were Mama boys, and
they didn't want to go out thoughtthat. Of course, this is mostly
hearsay, and there's disagreement within thefamily about whether Bill really was abusive or
whether that was a narrative Nora wantedthe family to believe to persuade her guilt

(22:14):
about the affair with Steinback or tojustify leaving her husband. We may never
know whose version is the most accurate, or if the truth was somewhere in
between. That said, Bill Joneswent on to have a seemingly stable life.
He remarried and stayed with his secondwife until her death. According to
B. Jones, the job heworked at, I believe he was there

(22:36):
for like twenty years, if notlonger. From my understanding, he remarried
again. They were married until shepassed. I'm not sure exactly how long
that was, but it appeared tobe many years. He I mean,
great personality. He maintained a job, he led a comfortable life, and

(22:59):
he was right down to earth.I mean, you wouldn't think he was
someone that would do to that.They try to fade it, you know.
I don't know a whole lot aboutNorah's life after Cathy was killed.
She married steinback in Brooking, SouthDakota, in August of nineteen seventy one.
At some point after that, thetwo moved to East Nashville. I

(23:21):
found a record of one arrest forher in that part of town. In
April of nineteen eighty two. Shewas pulled over in a brown nineteen seventy
buick around eleven ten PM, wantedin connection with an aggravated assault. I
wasn't able to reach the witness listedon the arrest report, so we don't
know the details of the assault.However, the report gives a detailed narrative

(23:42):
of the authorities encounter with Nora byone of the arresting officers. Stopped on
pickup for felony warrant and brown buickwanted for ten fifty two in Seattle Court
area. I did as suspect andplaced under arrest. During search, suspect
away from officer, jerked arm outof officer's grasp, causing injury to officer.

(24:06):
Took two officers to hold in handcuff, mace, chemical spray, and
four inch blade knife found in purseduring search for gun used in ten fifty
two. This incident added resisting arrestand carrying a weapon to the aggravated assault
charge against Norah. The report listeda knife, scissors, mace, and
a bat as the weapons she hadon her. As far as I know,

(24:27):
that's the extent of Norah's criminal history. People who spoke to me agreed
that Nora didn't talk about Kathy muchlater in life, but her daughter's death
had a profound effect on her.According to Steinback's friend Tim, you know,
I felt very sorry I had alot of simpthy for Nora. I
mean it just it destroyed her.Kelly, Cathy's youngest brother, died by

(24:52):
suicide in nineteen ninety seven. Hiswidow Bee shed some light on what was
going on in his life around thattime. Now, Kelly was okay drinking
beer, but once he drank liquor, he became a total different person.
It started all the way back toKelly and I married nineteen eighty eight.
While I was pregnant with his firstdaughter, he pulled a gun out and

(25:19):
said he was woudn't kill herself.On that incident, I called the police
because I did not know. I'venever been around this type of behavior.
That started around many years of eventsof him pulling the gun to kill itself.
And that's why his children are notconvinced he was the one that shot
itself, But given the events thatled up to that, I believe he

(25:44):
did it. But he wasn't tryingto handle things that happened to him as
a child that Garrol had did tohim. He was trying to figure things
out to why he was feeling thisway or that way, and I just
couldn't understand it. And he wouldtalk about Darryl, and we were trying

(26:06):
to get through that, and ofcourse I didn't make it better about they're
drinking. And then he killed itself. We don't know why, we don't
know what let up to it,but these were things going on. He
was dealing with his childhood problems.You know, he was emotional, right.

(26:30):
Kathy's death cast a shadow over somany lives. She and her cousin,
Donna Robertson had been close as kids. As an adult, Donna became
a tireless advocate for Kathy. Shecapped after the cold case detectives and did
whatever she could to keep them focusedon the case until her own death in
two thousand and nine. Most ofKathy's relatives who were alive at the time

(26:53):
of her murder are gone now.Her father, Bill died in two thousand
and two, and Nora died ofcancer in nineteen eighty nine at just forty
eight years of age. She livednearly twenty years without knowing who killed her
daughter. With each passing year,another piece of Kathy's story dies. There

(27:15):
are so few left now to serviceher voice, to remember her as more
than just a faded image. Alittle girl's body in a vacant lot,
lying in high weeds next to asecond hand pair of roller skates, A
forgotten tragedy on a cold night inNovember. Much like Kathy's death cast a
shadow on the lives around her,she cast a shadow over mine. There's

(27:38):
a lot more to her story thanwhat the public heard. Stay tuned because
in the coming episodes, we're goingto be diving much deeper into what really
happened that cold night in nineteen sixtynine. Flat Rock was created in collaboration
with Spreeker Senior Production and provided byKim Green. Executive producers are Olivia Lynde

(28:03):
and Greg Thornton. Co produced byDixie Bratton, Chris Chamberlain, Jamie R.
Holland, Kathy Lynde, Betsy Phillips, Terry Quillan, and J.
J. Wright. Backed by BrandonHarrington. Music by Preston Garland. Additional
voices provided by Lindsay Moore, yusafShay from All Crime Now, Cattle To,
Shauna McQuiston and Stephen Pacheco. Additionalmusic provided by artists x takaroo X

(28:30):
and Chris Zabriski. More information andlinks to their work is available on flat
Rockpod dot com and in the shownotes. Special thank you to b Jones
and Chief Mickey Miller of the HendersonvillePolice Department. If you have any information
on Kathy's case, please contact MetroNashville Police Department's Cold Case Unit at six

(28:52):
one five eight six two seven threetwo nine