S2 E7 - Other Agencies Find Similar Cases

In 2004, Seventeen different law enforcement agencies, from at least six different states, came together to compare similar cases. They shared crime scene photos and autopsy reports to determine if another five victims, along with the Lawton victims, could have been the work of the same person.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
This is a true story, butthe opinions of people interviewed or talk to
you are just that opinions, notfacts unless stated otherwise. Opinions stated by
witnesses are not to be seen asthe opinions of the sweete Anna Project or
anyone working for the podcast, andthe credibility of those opinions is to be
determined by the listener. Everyone haspresumed innocent until proven otherwise in a court

(00:24):
of law. Welcome to this episodeof The sweete Anna Project Season two,

(00:45):
covering the law and murders and obviouslysome cases that we believe in authorities believe
are connected outside of law in Oklahoma. Christina is back with us for this
episode. So how you doing?Christina joined good now after my nice COVID
stint. How are you? Ican't complain. Just h in Indiana trying

(01:06):
to survive the winter storm life,So you know that's yeah, great time.
I told you they just lifted thetravel band, so I'm pretty happy
about that for sure. And thatgroundhog saw his shadow, so is that
good or bad? That means morewinter? Six more weeks? Oh good?
I know Hill? What's his name? Osatani phil Man. The only

(01:30):
reason I know that's because of theBill Murray movie. So yeah, today
we're gonna be kind of going overin two thousand and four, early two
thousand and four when authorities got togetherand decided that some of these cases were
connected, like some of the casesand outside states were connected, and then

(01:51):
we're going to discuss like one ofthe main ones that they talk about,
which is Casey Joe Pipestem. SoChristine is gonna go ahead and get us
started on all that. So theOklahoma Newspaper had a published article by Ken
Raymond on February twenty ninth, twothousand and four, and this is when

(02:12):
the OSBI had connected five deaths ofthe Lawton based sex workers. Officials had
emphasized that there was no proof thatthe deaths were related, but that changed
in February of two thousand and threewhen an OSBI investigator said his agency thinks
the five Lawton deaths are the workof the one serial killer and twelve suspicious

(02:37):
deaths scattered across four states, includingOklahoma, and investigators were facing the possibility
of at least one and maybe twoserial killers. So they had six states
of law enforcement that was Oklahoma,Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi. They
got together and wanted to see whatthey could find, and they found that

(02:59):
possibly twelve bodies were connected, includingLawtons. But how many killers. Yeah,
So, Jessica Brown was the OSBIspokesperson at the time, and she
said her agency does not think thatthe series is connected to seven other murders
in Oklahoma, which are the mainones that would be including Texas, Arkansas,

(03:23):
and Mississippi. All but one ofthe bodies were found along the Interstate
forty corridor, which raises these suspicionsthat a long haul truck driver may be
the person responsible for preying on thewomen at or near truck stops, which
would make sense, and we specificallytalked about this in the very first episode

(03:46):
of season two when it came toJohn Robert Williams. And still one of
the big theories is that a truckdriver or a truck driver and another person
are responsible for these murders. Sobetween September eighteenth, two thousand and three
and January first, two thousand andfour, some more bodies. We had

(04:10):
Sandra Beard forty three, Sandra Richardsonthirty nine, and Patsy Laverne Leonard twenty
three. They were found in Okfusky, Macintosh, and Potawatomee Counties, and
three victims, Jennifer Hyman twenty four, Casey Joe Pipestem nineteen and an unidentified

(04:32):
woman were last seen in Oklahoma,but their bodies were found in Mississippi and
Texas, and it just so happensthat Hymen and Pipestem lived in Oklahoma City.
Margaret Gardner, who was thirty sevenof Memphis, Tennessee, was also
found dead on an I forty onramp in West Memphis, Arkansas. And

(04:57):
in February of two thousand and four, there were representatives of at least seventeen
law enforcement agencies from six states andthey met together at the OSBI headquarters in
Oklahoma City to compare their notes oneach of these cases, and seven of
the cases were discussed in great detailand some of the officers shared their crime

(05:21):
scene photos and autopsy reports. Andseveral other unsolved thomicides were also considered,
so that means there's even other onesthat maybe they haven't even released the names
of yet. The OSBI did notidentify the cases that were discussed, but
it's likely that one was a fourteenyear old prostitute found dead in Wise County,

(05:43):
Texas in nineteen ninety eight. That'sso young. Yeah, it's pretty
messed up. That is, Imean fourteen. That is the fact that
you would even have to be aprostitute at fourteen to survive is terrifying.
Hey, kad is two others maybethis of Tennessee prostitutes Nancy Alvis forty six
and Patricia Thornton thirty seven. Theirbodies were found in two thousand and one.

(06:09):
But at this time there are nosuspects in any of those murders,
and at the time, officials didn'tattribute seven deaths to one predator and more
s Burroughs, a sheriff's deputy inGray Towny, Texas, said that there
was no evidence of any of thesebeing the result of a serial killer,
and this is where the one unidentifiedwoman was found in October. Those words

(06:32):
shouldn't even be used in this thing. In any of these, he said,
Like I said, there are similaritiesand there are differences, and he
just reiterated that there's no evidence ofany of these being the result of a
serial killer. But the similarities includedthat at least six of the victims were
prostitutes. Most were found along interstatehighways, which has been the theme of

(06:57):
the podcast, and most frequent boxstops, which is another glaring theme that
we've always talked about. So theUSBI said they couldn't go into detail shocking,
but the condition of the bodies wassimilar, like we've said, and
investigators have collected some evidence from thebodies. Like we've stated before in the

(07:19):
podcast, we know the law enforcementhas more info than they're giving to the
public, and it seems to beso very generic what they're saying. They
don't have any evidence of these beingthe result of the serial killer. Yet
there's all these similarities that are thesame. And you know, a lot
of the times the serial killers havethe way they kill the people are is

(07:41):
the same way. So how onecould say that is beyond me. But
and my whole thing is like Iunderstand the whole concept of keeping back information,
you know, I understand how thatall works, and it makes sense,
it really does. But they couldread lease little bits of information like

(08:01):
the Delphi case, don't know,they release that little bit of information and
the public jumped on it and it'slike, we'll find you know who this
catfish Instagram account belongs to because agroup of all kinds of people who either
have nothing better to do or theyjust live for this, and some of

(08:24):
them have skills that a lot ofyou know, the authorities or law enforcement
don't have, right, you knowwhat I mean? So why a lot
of these places actually employ x youknow, hackers and those sorts of things
actually help them as part of theirprosecution or you know, a reduced sentence
because they have skills that the policedon't even have. Exactly, Yeah,

(08:48):
that's point. Yeah, depending onwhat evidence that they have, because I
mean they fully admitted they're like,we have evidence that we haven't released,
which is why we think that thesedeaths are connected. And I would love
to know like what some of thatevidence is. But at the same time,
I understand why they would keep someof that close to the vest.

(09:11):
But we also have to think thisarticle, which is a great phenomenal article.
This was two thousand and four.You know, we're almost twenty years
removed. Now. I don't seewhat is the stopping authorities or you know,
law enforcement from releasing little bits ofinformation more often. And we have
our law and law enforcement contact andthat person has been very helpful with information.

(09:39):
A lot of times that is harderto find, and I'm thankful for
that, but at the same time, it's frustrating, and even for our
contact, it's frustrating because that personhas tried to get more information and has
gotten shut down. So yeah,and you wonder, at what point are
they not sharing it because it helpsthem not to have to answer questions.

(10:03):
You know, they can they can't. They can say we can't comment on
an ongoing investigation, So it takesthe heat off if they don't know.
But on the flip side, whenyou're allowing so much time to go by,
witnesses are going to be forgetting things. Just release a little bit,
you know that maybe there should besome sort of legislative intent or legislative someone

(10:26):
bringing something to the table in thelegislature federally even you know, there's a
certain amount of time that goes bybefore you actually give out specific pieces of
evidence. But then if you've hita brick wall, hey, you know,
then you can or you you arecompelled to release a specific amount by
this date, you know, justto help solve some of these things,

(10:50):
because you know, you're having investigatorsretire, you're having people you know move
away and we all know the firstforty eight is the time, and then
now we're looking at you know,forty eight months, forty eight years and
some of those cases, and it'sjust you know, people aren't going to
remember anymore. The OSBI doesn't havethe best reputation, which you know,

(11:13):
we'll talk about here in a littlebit, especially when it comes to some
of the some of the details orcases being presented to the OSBI, and
then local authorities just getting shut downwith information after that, which is kind
of troubling. You would think thatthey would want to work more together to

(11:33):
actually solve the cases, but theysee themselves as on a different totem poll
higher up than the rest of thelaw enforcement agencies. And that's the way
it's always been ever since any kindof bureau investigation was formed, you know,
And they don't want to answer tothe FEDS, so they don't want
to give up their information, soeverybody's just working against each other instead of

(11:54):
or the victim. Yeah. Soyou know, speaking on that, one
of the main cases that they attributedto the Lawton murders, you know,
the work of the same person orsame two persons is Casey Joe Pipestem and

(12:16):
Casey Joe. She was a sexworker, She had a drug habit.
She was only nineteen years old.She was of a Native American descent as
well. She was seminal, Ibelieve, but she was last seen at
a truck stop in Oklahoma City whichwas at Interstate thirty five and it looks
like northeast one twenty two now.She was last seen, I believe,

(12:39):
on January twenty ninth. She wasfound a couple days later on January thirty
first, two thousand and four,in Grapevine, Texas. She was also
found in a creek. She wasnude. Her cause of death was ruled
strangulation. And that's interesting that theycould actually determine her cause of death,

(13:01):
which some of our other women theydidn't know or they it was drug related,
but this one was evidently strangulation.So her case was actually profiled on
America's Most Wanted and that's where itgarnered a lot of attention. It resulted
in eighty four tips, including oneabout John Robert Williams, our suspect that

(13:24):
we pretty much started us off talkingabout, and actually in twenty and thirteen,
chargers were filed against him and hisgirlfriend at the time, Rachel Cumberland,
in Casey's death. But there's beenno movement on this case since then,
and he's only actually been convicted ofone death, Jennifer Hyman, and

(13:45):
the other charges were dropped. Herewe go again. There's years of this
time going and we still haven't hadanything else, no prosecution, no other
discussion about you know why he wasn'tprosecuted. But he was definitely charged and
considered a person of entrance, Iguess at the beginning, but was formally

(14:07):
charged and then they were dropped.So Casey's uncle had Underwood later said she
just got out on the street andshe tried to make it on her own.
But she wasn't cut out for that. You have to be hard,
and that is pretty hard meeting.I think that could have been worded a
little differently. She was trying tomake it on her own. When you're

(14:28):
nineteen years old, there's different waysto make it out on your own,
you know. Yeah, and shedidn't have the best upbringing, you know.
Yeah, they're true. We don'treally know what her relationship was with
her uncle. You know, shedropped out of high school, She was
involved with drugs and she looked ather grandmother until her grandma passed away when

(14:50):
she was only seven, so shekind of bounced around with other relatives,
so we don't really know she triedto mail seem like she tried to make
it on her own since she wasabout seven. Yeah, she definitely you
know, all these places, differentplaces that she kept having to go,
so poor thing. Yeah, Honestly, at this point in time, around
two thousand and three, two thousandand four, this is when like all

(15:11):
these deaths are actually getting attention finally, you know, And I think that's
probably the timeframe they had the mostattention on him. And some super weird
stuff happens in Oklahoma City. Soa guy named Barry mclead, he ran
a truck stop ministry in northeast OklahomaCity, and he was out there warning

(15:35):
sex workers to be careful since twothousand and three, because, like I
said, that's when I think themost attention was on some of these cases.
And there's a chance he might havefound evidence related to at least one
of the cases because on January twentyninth, two thousand and four, mclead

(15:56):
was one of the last people tosee pipestem before she disappeared from the truck
stop and he knew her as Sugar. So two days later, Pipestem's body
is found in a creek in Grapevine, Texas. Right, so, soon
after Pipestem was found, mclead goesand he finds two notes that were stuffed

(16:22):
in the door of basically his littlechapel, which, in all honesty was
it was a horse trailer that wasconverted to a little chapel. And to
be honest with you, man,good on him. Yeah, I'm not
a hugely religious person, but youknow he's trying to help these girls,
you know, warn them. Soone of the notes referred to a parking

(16:47):
lot sin and it was basically likea rally against pimps and any kind of
sex worker or prostitute. Now,the other note was dated on January thirty
first, which happened to be theday that Casey's body was found, and
this note read, hey, minister, you need to get busy for Jesus

(17:08):
and clear the horrors out of here. And it was just signed with the
word warning. The mclead he tookthe notes as a threat that if he
didn't do something about the problem,then whoever wrote these notes was going to
and to be honest with you,I mean, we briefly touched over,
you know, several theories throughout thispodcast, but this being one of them

(17:32):
a religious aspect, kind of likea like a cleansing type thing, you
know, living in sin you needto rid the world of them, that
kind of thing. So I don'tknow, what do you what did you
think about all that very purgash likewe're gonna get rid of the things that
we don't like. But honestly,you how many stories do you hear about

(17:55):
somebody saying that person was evil orthat person it's a sinner, so I
killed them to cleanse the world,or it's very rare, but you got
some nuts out there, you know. And when they bring religion into their
reasoning, it becomes even more likefanatical. And they would say things like

(18:17):
the parking lot sin or something thatto you and I would sound like,
okay, what are you talking abouta lot of things could happen in a
parking lot. But he seemed verymuch like he knew when he was talking
about and was warning the minister whohad a relationship with these girls, Oh
for sure. So I don't know, I mean, could it have been
planted, of course, but itjust seemed a little bit one of those

(18:42):
shock sort of value things where you'renot expecting it and you leave it in
the horse trailer. You're either you'rearound there. You know what the horse
trailers used for exactly. And youknow, this guy has probably talked to
a lot of these women, youknow, because he's admittedly was they were
trying to warn them about the previousdeaths and basically, you know, their

(19:06):
lifestyle could probably unfortunately have them ina situation that's not that great, you
know. Yeah, and if itsaid, hey, minister, it's someone
close, they didn't just pick arandom you know, I'm not saying this
is the killer, but whoever wrotethe note is somebody right there, because
if you and I saw a horsetrailer, we wouldn't think that someone converted

(19:26):
it to a chapel, well unlessthere were you know, unless there was
some ship painted on the side ofit or something like well that's true,
but I mean unless I've said ministryfor sex workers, like you know what
I'm saying, Like, sure itcould be that, but I guess I
still wouldn't know that that person wastrying to save the girls unless I knew

(19:47):
of the area, if that makessense. Yeah, definitely. I mean
I think I think the minister hadhad great intentions, and to be honest
with you, like the timing ofthat casey Joe pipes them and she disappeared
from that area, and then youhave this. Yeah, and you know
by saying you need to get busyfor Jesus, Well, he was busy

(20:08):
for Jesus. He was doing whatJesus would want him to do, what
Jesus did. So the guy whowrote it obviously was not someone well versed
in the Christian religion. Yeah.Well the guy, the guy who wrote
the knows apparently he was thinking moresodom and Gomorrah. Yeah, you need

(20:29):
to Mary Magdalene. I was ona Mary Magdalen you know thought process.
So I think he was more ofthe maybe the Old Testament, you know,
the new But yes, kudos tothat minister. What a wonderful that's
to me. That is someone thatis really living the word. So oh
for sure. Yeah. And likeI said, like I'm not very religious,

(20:52):
I come from a very religious family, So I mean I get it
right in the judgment, there's nojudgment, you know, you could tell
he was out there in he wasactually ministering, like in the field is
what they call like, you know, this is that's what you're supposed to
do. You don't have to doit, you know, in a church
on Sunday for an hour, becausethat doesn't make you a Christian, tell

(21:15):
you exactly, Yeah, don't livetheir life right. But the people like
him, they're out there actually doingit, so you know, kudos to
him. He's a blessing. SoDean Wideman, he's a well respected Texas
profiler and he analyzed some of thecases for the Oklahoman for two months.

(21:36):
He said these notes should not beignored. But let's reiterate that he was
profiling for the Oklahoman, not lawenforcement. He said that if you have
somebody disappear from there and later founddead, then these notes appear. As
an investigator, I'd be pretty interested. I don't think you can take these
letters. They are something to keephis evidence until they're proven not to have

(21:59):
value. Yeah, that's an interestinglittle tidbit. The Grapevine. Texas police
were actually interested in the notes.They reached out to the Oklahoma when they
read this article. They're like,hey, look, we are interested in
copies of these notes because for likeI said, Casey Joe pipes down,
that's where she was found, andthere might also be cases nearby that might

(22:23):
be of interest, you know.So yeah, And speaking of Grapevine,
Texas Police, one of their lieutenants, Larry Hallmark, he was very involved
in Casey's case. He had spentover a decade interviewing pimp's sex trafficking victims
and family members trying to figure outwhat happened to her. A decade and

(22:48):
he also interviewed chuckers who remembered seeingher, and almost all of them said
the same thing, that she wasa sweet girl and did not deserve to
die. Not that anybody deserves it, but I feel like it's even worse
when you have a girl that's hadthat's life and this is how it ends.
He actually interviewed John Robert Williams,so he said that Robert Williams didn't

(23:10):
He didn't recognize her until he sawpictures of her, like in her outfits
that she would wear at the truckstops, and he called her a little
bit so he said that's what shewent by. But he was charged implicated,
but he's never convicted. So interesting, you know, I know that
Hallmark said that he does credit thetrucking industry for helping solve a lot of

(23:33):
the crimes that are committed by othertruckers. So that's a good thing,
you know, you got from goodpeople out there. You know, we've
not been very kind to the truckingindustry during this season two, you know,
because that's one of the main theories. But at the same time,
we can't sit back and just generalizean entire occupation of people, you know,

(23:55):
because I know a few truckers whoare just upstanding, great eyes.
I've always seen lots of different documentarieswhere they have the missing pictures up at
the truck stops. Yeah, definitely, you know some of the truckers that
have helped do that, Like Godbless the people that have done that and
help those families get closure or foundthe missing people. Because you know,

(24:17):
sex trafficking is a big deal onthe road. You know, you have
to get from where you are onthe road somehow, you know, to
get to another country if they takeyou or not. But everything starts on
a road. So yeah, youjust never know. Everybody's got to get
gas. Everybody has a stop soand especially when these ladies are where girls

(24:38):
for that matter, are involved inthat industry, like that's their main clientele.
And I remember I used to live, you know, not such a
great section of town here in FortWayne, and you know, I'd go
to a truck stop for breakfast earlyin the morning, usually after a quick

(24:59):
bar visit, you know, anduh, you know, it'd be it'd
be two or three in the morning, and there's not many people in there.
Um, usually just local people.These guys that were in there,
you know, in the early morninghours, they're just drinking some coffee,
wanting a good home cooked meal.But you'd always see like either in the
hallway going to a bathroom or something, you'd see that wall of missing people.

(25:25):
I always appreciated that because if there'sanybody moving around more than anybody else,
it's truckers. So what did youthink about, you know, the
notes that were found and stuff likethat. I don't know, I don't
know why anybody would a not wantthem as evidence, because who knows what

(25:45):
sort of physical evidence could have beenon them. Yeah, definitely, you
know, not just what it said, but physical evidence. Yeah, I
think that that was you know,I mean it might not have been the
person that committed the murders, butcould see someone's you know, maybe that
is the feeling around town is takecare of the horse quote unquote, you

(26:07):
know, and that kind of givesyou the mentality of some of the people
that might want to hurt these girls. So I think that that is something
that should definitely be explored more.And it just, you know, I
feel like these victims are getting younger. Yeah, they It's kind of trending

(26:30):
that way. And you know,I read where it so that not only
was she strangled, but she wasalso beaten, badly raped and then thrown
off a bridge to where she landedin the creek. I mean that,
I mean, what a way,you know, poor thing, like these
people we've got, you know,someone has got to come forward and somebody
knows something. Again, I don'tsay it again, because somebody knows something.

(26:52):
Yeah, And on the next episodeit should be an pretty interesting one
because we were going to get intomore of Dean Wideman, who was the
guy who did the profile for theperson who is suspected to be responsible for
at least some of these deaths,because, like we had just stated,

(27:15):
even authorities, you know, inlaw enforcement. They admitted, Okay,
these are connected, like, we'repretty sure that there's twelve, including Lawton.
But on the next episode, Ihave a couple of good friends of
mine coming on the podcast. Ihave a private investigator and a journalist and
author coming on. And then Ialso have a good friend of mine named

(27:36):
Jen Bouckolds, and she does apodcast called Break the Case, and she
is very well versed. She wasvery involved in the arrest of Rebecca Gold's
murderer. She also holds master's degreesin both criminology and forensics. I was
lucky enough to be on their podcasta couple of weeks ago because they wanted

(27:59):
more information on these so I sentthem the profile and then sent them a
lot of this information, and theyagreed to come on to the podcast to
talk to me and Christina about theirpersonal opinions and thoughts on some of this
stuff. So I'm I'm eager tohear what they have to say when we
get down to the nitty gritty ofsome of this stuff. Yes, me

(28:19):
too, very excited about that.Well, Christina, I think that's about
all we got for this episode.What do you think? I think?
So I guess we'll see you nexttime. Yeah, definitely. Let's I'm
going to credit some sources real quick. The Oklahoman obviously a great article,
actually series of articles written for theOklahoman. We also have Amber Advocate dot

(28:42):
org, Justice for Native Women dotcom, and tavia Talk dot com groups
missing Thank you for that information,especially the Oklahoma huge source of information.
But all right then, until nexttime,