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The story I have for you today is a true mindbender. Just when you think you have
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it figured out, I am going to throw a huge twist your way that will make you gut check all your assumptions. Cuz this
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is a case that starts like so many before. A young woman goes missing and her boyfriend that she had a tumultuous
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relationship with was the last one to see her alive. So when her body is found, he becomes the prime suspect. But
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years later, old news footage gets unearthed that reveals a now convicted killer was at the crime scene watching
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on as police worked. So, who really killed Tina Knob? It's just before noon in York,
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Pennsylvania on May 22nd, 1985. You know, a time before apps and cell phones when you could skip school and play
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hookie without parents being instantly notified. Well, that's what two teenage boys were doing that day. Skipping
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school to do important things like throw large rocks into a creek just under the
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West Princess Street Bridge, seeing who can make the biggest splash. Priorities.
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Yes. But when one of these teens reaches for another large rock, he notices something underneath it. a garbage bag
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with human hair sticking out from it. Now, this might deter some, but not this kid. He opens up the bag and gets the
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shock of his life when he finds a human skull inside. Now, for a brief second, he and his buddy aren't sure what to do.
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They even consider taking off and just going back to school before they get into trouble. But reality kind of slaps
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them in the face, and they know that the right thing to do is go tell the police
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what they found. I can't imagine just like having this innocent day off school and then boom, there's a body.
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Oh, I know. I like Well, so I understand their reaction to be like, "We should probably just go back. Let's let's just
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pretend like we were where we were supposed to be all along, right?" Exactly. So, what the York PD finds when they
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come to investigate are the remains of a young female inside in an advanced state
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of decomp. Now, she'd been buried in a shallow grave that had been hidden by those large rocks. Like some sources
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claim that she was under like 2 or 3 feet of rocks, which police told the York Dispatch tells them something. This
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would have taken someone real time, which they think might show that whoever buried her, they say, took care, maybe
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even showed compassion for her. Two to three feet of rocks. I mean, that's like Ashley, we used to pick up rocks in my
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parents farms. That's like a lot of work. We literally would spend a day on a gator picking up rocks out of a field.
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Yeah. Like I'm imagine like picking up rock after rock, finding all of them, stacking them. Like would it take like
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hours for one person to do? Yeah. Which is why it's like surprising that nobody would have seen that
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happening? I mean, again, is is it happening under the cover of night or something? But this is an area where
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people are driving around. This isn't like the middle populated, right? But again, is that like is that
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because someone's trying to put distance between themselves and this person? Like
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you would think if the person didn't know her, they would just leave her out to be found
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because how is it going to get tracked back to you? Right. So the police kept saying like,
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"Oh, that they're taking care or whatever for her." Like for me, it's more like they needed to make sure she
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wouldn't be found because she's connected to them. And they think they know who that her
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is. You see, the victim in front of them is still clothed in corduroy pants and a
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windbreaker jacket. And there's also a pair of sneakers at the scene, too. And they recognize this clothing. Or at
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least they think they do. Almost 15 months ago, like to the day, an 18-year-old named Tina Knob had been
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reported missing by her family. And the last thing she was reported to have been
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wearing was corduroy pants, a windbreaker jacket, and sneakers. Does the decomposition look like she's been
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there all 15 months? So, I'm not sure that they 100% know that yet, but it is looking like it. And
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honestly, it's a little surprising to me that she wasn't found sooner or that like whoever buried her wasn't spotted
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when they were doing that cuz like I said, that would have taken some time. And the bridge that Tina's body is found
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under isn't like off like down some country road. It's like in the town of York near a high school and a park and
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the police station. So, you have to think that people and cars are like going over this bridge every single day.
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I mean, maybe it wasn't that noticed because she was in that garbage bag. It might not have stood out as much.
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Well, maybe. But I'm actually glad you brought that up because I did want to mention there is some conflicting
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information if Tina's body was actually found in a garbage bag or not. Like, I'm
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not sure if that plays a role in this too. Some sources say she was. And then one of the boys who found her says she
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was too. However, Barry Bloss, who was one of the lead investigators, said during an interview with the Cadorus
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murders podcast that that's not true. No bag. So TBD if that played a role in her
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not being found or if whoever put her there just like flew under the radar and got very lucky. I don't know. Anyways, 3
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days after she's found, the autopsy is done. And while they're eventually able to confirm with dental records that the
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victim is in fact Tina Knob, they're not able to determine any cause of death. Now, one thing the autopsy notes, as
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mentioned in the New York Daily Record, is that her pants were open and her zipper was pulled down. So, this could
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indicate some kind of sexual assault took place or at least was attempted, but again, because of the condition of
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her remains, they can't test for that at this point. And I read she was too decomposed for them to even do a
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toxicology like report or testing. And Barry Bloss points out in that podcast a lot of that likely had to do with the
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water level. It had risen multiple times in the last 15 months since Tina was last seen. So not only had she been out
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there just for a long period of time. Her body was like underwater. Exactly. Exactly. So, while they aren't
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certain about how Tina died, investigators do suspect foul play and they believe someone killed Tina shortly
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after she disappeared back in February of 1984. So, now they have to work backwards.
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Now, luckily, the jurisdiction she was found in is the same one she went missing in. So, they have everything
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they need at their fingertips. According to the York Daily Record, they know that
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on February 24th, 1984, Tina was last seen by her boyfriend, 19-year-old John Ruticil. Now, he saw her at about 10
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p.m. when she left their apartment to go to a friend's house. Now, when she hadn't returned by the next day, John
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called Tina's mother, aa, but aa didn't know where she was either. Now, Barry Bllos said in that interview that it was
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actually the other way around, that Tina's mom went to John because she hadn't heard from Tina. And we tried
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reaching out to John to like try and confirm or get comment about this, but we never heard back from him. So, I
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don't know which way it was. But either way, I think it's fair to say that both became really concerned pretty quickly
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because Tina and John have two little kids and it's not like her to just not be there for them without any
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explanation. So, best I can put together from some conflicting information because, by the way, the police won't
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answer our questions either. It seems like not too long after this, the York Daily Record reports that Aina, John,
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and Tina's sister Debbie went to report Tina missing. Now, when she was just missing, it's unclear how serious police
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were taking her disappearance in the early days. I assume, or I at least hope, that they were talking to her
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friends, confirming she never made it anywhere that night, which to my understanding, she didn't. I hope they
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were talking to her boyfriend, her family, but none of that was reported on. And like I said, police won't give
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us an interview when we requested on it to like get some clarity. They told us they couldn't talk about this case. So,
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I don't know what they did early days. But I do know that after her body is found, that's when a real investigation
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gets underway. And if they weren't already, friends and family start pointing the finger at John. You see,
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things weren't all sunshine and rainbows in their relationship. Tina's friends and family tell police that Jon and Tina
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had like a rocky relationship. Sounds like Tina even kicked him out at one point and for pretty good reason because
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John, by the way, was also seeing another woman in their building around the time Tina disappeared. Oh, and get
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this, according to the York Daily Record, just 6 months after Tina's disappearance, John married this other
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woman. So, he had been dating the woman like the whole time and then immediately gets
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married. Yeah. he had been cheating on her while that they were together and obviously
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living together they've got kids together. Um and I like as far as I can tell and
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again this has never been said explicitly but it doesn't seem like there was any break right like like his
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girlfriend his baby mama goes missing and then this woman comes in and like within 6 months while she's still a
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missing person they get married. So, the police interviewed Jon at his mother's house in the early days of their
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homicide investigation. And according to the York Daily Record, Jon admits that he and Tina often disagreed. And those
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disagreements usually revolved around her going out with her friends at night and him being stuck to watch their
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children. And they actually had one of those fights, he says, when she left that final time to go to her friend's
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house. I guess he had asked her to stay home. And according to Barry Bloss, he even went as far as to try and
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physically stop her from leaving. Like John admits to police that that night he took the shoelaces out of Tina's shoes
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and tied them around the door knob and like the deadlock so tight that she could not physically get out of the
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house. And interestingly, it sounds like she was found without shoelaces in her shoes, which seems to back that story
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up. But the only mention of this detail is in that podcast interview with Barry Bloss, which is like I can imagine all
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these years later that coming out, but it wasn't reported on earlier. So after trying to physically lock her
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inside, John tells the police that he eventually told Tina like, "Fine, just go and apparently let her leave and then
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you know the rest." So, just to be clear, John attempts to stop her from leaving using
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shoelaces, then just like changes his mind, lets her go, and she just happens to go
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missing the next day. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's John's story, and he's sticking to it. Now, I know
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that they at least talked to his new wife cuz remember, he's been married for a minute by this point. And it's
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reported in the New York Daily Record that she tells police, quote, "If I had any thought John did this, I would not
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be with him. I value my life and my kids." End quote. Now, they also interviewed John's mother, who insists
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her son had nothing to do with Tina's death, and she's got lots of theories about what could have happened. She says
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Tina was known to walk alone at night. She would even walk along a bicycle path along the creek where her body was
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found. In at least one source, John's mom claims that some of his friends also saw Tina up to like two and a half
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months after she disappeared. So, I think she's like trying to make the timing not so suspicious. Like maybe she
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left and then something happened way later. Like that fight she had with Jon that night means nothing because that's
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not the night that she was like last seen. But to be clear, no one else is ever quoted saying that they saw Tina
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after February 24th. So, this sighting doesn't really hold any weight, especially because when police interview
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Tina's friends, according to the New York Daily Record, one of them says Tina was supposed to come over on the 24th.
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This is the day that she disappeared, but she never showed up. Another one of Tina's friends had this like interesting
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encounter with Tina, which at least one source says took place in February before her disappearance. Now, unclear
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on the exact date, but that friend says that Tina had come around to like say goodbye. And Tina didn't tell her where
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she was going. And this friend didn't think Tina was like leaving her kids or anything, but it did feel like more than
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just like her saying like, "Oh, I'm leaving wherever we are together. I'll see you later." kind of thing. Like it
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felt a little more ominous or at least looking back on it, it does. And this person points out that, you know, Tina
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was a young mother. She was unemployed. And who knows, like maybe she just needed a break. But Tina obviously
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didn't leave because the West Princess Street Bridge where Tina's body was found was only a few blocks away from
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where she lived. Now, sometime not long after Tina was discovered, the York PD gets an anonymous call from a woman who
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says, quote, "I want to tell you who killed Tina Knob. I have to hurry before they come and get me. We were having a
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pot party that night. her and me and Steven Wayne, they got into a fight and then click, the line goes dead. Now,
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some sources say that this woman on the call said, "I know who killed the skeleton under the bridge and that they
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got to arguing versus like a fight." So, there are some conflicting reports on the exact wording of this, but like I
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mean, you still get the idea of like this is a bombshell. Yeah, but it's a bombshell with
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questions. First off, who are Steven Wayne? The police don't know. No one seems to know. Not even John recognizes
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these names. And if I were John, I would be like searching high and low for anyone with those names to get the heat
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off of me. Yeah. Or at least side eyeing them. I know. But he truly does not know.
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Doesn't even pretend to know to help himself out, which honestly to me feels honest, right? So there is nothing in
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the source material that the police could or did trace this call back to where it might have originated from. If
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the police change their mind and talk to us, I will obviously ask. But as far as
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we can tell, this tip ends up being kind of like a black hole of nothing that they can verify. It just gives them two
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more names to add to the list along with John, if those guys even exist at all. I
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assume they asked more than just like who are Steve and Wayne when they talk to John like or like a party like did
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they ask about that like I hope they did. I would assume they did but who they asked or what they said
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what the question was like never reported on. I don't know. So police really only have John? Well,
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yes, but only until June 8th when all of a sudden they are forced to consider an
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unlikely suspect. It's anyways. Anyways, so assuming something happened in the apartment, if it was
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John, because to me that seems like the most likely scenario again if it were him. The real question Detective Barry
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Bloss and others had is how could he have gotten Tina's body to where it ended up without anyone seeing. As I
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mentioned, they lived a few blocks from the West Princess Street Bridge. So, you
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would have to cross several streets from the apartment building to leave the body
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where it was ultimately found. And it's Tina's mother who offers up a theory to investigators. She tells them that there
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were some large furniture boxes in the apartment before Tina vanished and at some point those boxes went missing. She
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said she even asked John about the boxes and he claimed like he didn't know what
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had happened to them. So Tina's mom suggests to police that John could have put the like barely over 5ft Tina in a
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box and like carried her that way. So the implication is that he's just like carrying her in a giant box. Like that
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feels just as conspicuous. I agree. Like I kept the thing I kept trying to find was like did they have a
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car? Like did she have one? Did he have one? Did they have access to one? There's no mention of that anywhere. So
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I feel like I'm missing a piece here of like I I understand where her mind's going and it's where I would you know if
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I had a daughter that was murdered like you'd be looking for anything. But I don't I don't know because like I feel a
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car has to be involved because carrying a bag, carrying a box like across all these streets, I like that's going to
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draw attention to. So maybe she's thinking again, I don't know the car situation, but is it a box to put into a
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car to then drive? I don't know. All unclear. But either way, it's still all a little sus.
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Though, it's worth noting that no boxes seem to have been found anywhere. So, this is all theories, all speculation
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with no actual proof that John murdered Tina or a box had anything to do with anything. So, according to the York
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Daily Record, over the next 2 years, police continued to question Jon off and on. At times, they would even pick him
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up and drop him at the site where Tina's body was found. The hope being that like
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at some point, Jon would just confess. But he does the opposite. He maintains his innocence the entire time. And then
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finally in 1987, John gets smart and he lawyers up. According to Barry, when he talked in
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that podcast, he refuses to take a polygraph, which he initially agreed to, but like you got a lawyer now. They're
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never going to let that happen. So according to that York Daily Record article, 1987 was the last time police
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talked to John. And I don't know if it's because of this or just the fact that police really don't have much else to go
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on, but Tina's case went cold after that. Though there were attempts over the years to heat things up. Like in
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August of 1988, Crimestoppers offered a $1,000 reward for information on Tina's case. So like that was a step in the
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right direction, but not a step that really moves the needle. The only thing that does that comes in May of 1989. And
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it comes from a news cameraman at WGA TV. So, this person is reviewing some old footage that he had taken out there
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doing the Lord's work, making connections, paying attention. And I don't know all the details of why he was
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reviewing this stuff or like what was going on, but the station ends up sending the district attorney of this
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county a videotape and is like, "You need to watch this." And when the DA hits play, it's news footage from the
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day that Tina's body was discovered and removed from underneath the bridge. And at one point, the person operating the
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camera like pans up to the West Princess Street Bridge, and you can see eight people there, like gawkers, just kind of
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watching what's happening below. Now, nobody would have recognized those eight people in 1985.
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But now in May of 1989, one of those people on the bridge, a teenager, stands out like a beacon. It's
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Quintterio Poncho Smart. And the DA knows him because just a month before looking at this tape, his office had
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secured a conviction against Smart and an accomplice for the murder of 29-year-old Judy Anne Keterman, which
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took place in October of 1987. What? Yes, coincidence maybe. But as the district attorney
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points out, Judy and Tina's murders had some like real similarities. Like for starters, they were both young women
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with children. And more importantly, both crimes took place along the east side of Kadoris Creek. Although there
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was nothing in the source material that says she was buried like Tina. And there
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was a cause of death for Judy. She was beaten and sexually assaulted. Whereas we don't have the full picture with Tina
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because she was too decomposed. Do we know how far apart the crime scenes were though?
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I mean like a 15-minute walk from where Tina's body was found to where Judy was murdered. Like you can walk along this
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creek trail bike path thing that I mentioned earlier. And this dude Quintterio is a really bad guy. He was
00:20:05
also convicted of sexual assault of another woman and the robbery of that woman's brother. And according to
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multiple sources, Quintterio had also told others that he had killed before. Maybe meaning Tina, maybe just boasting,
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I don't know. So he was watching like a a crime scene get investigated and then he himself goes on to become a murderer
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of of someone like in that like the same dem demographic and same like area too which like makes
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you wonder like is is him being there proof that he like or you know circumstantial proof that maybe he did
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something to her and was like watching his own work or or did it give him the idea that you
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could get away with murder if you did it here or even just like was there something sick and twisted in him and
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when he saw what happened like did that give him the idea to then do what he did
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in ' 87 like I don't I don't know the answer I don't think anyone knows the answer now
00:21:05
detective Barry Bloss in that podcast interview indicates that Quintterio was interviewed but not by him and like then
00:21:13
we get nothing else about him in that interview not if he was cleared not if they suspected him not even what
00:21:18
questions he might have been asked about Tina. And unfortunately, Detective Barry
00:21:23
Bloss passed away in 2023 or we would have tried to ask him ourselves because I have so many questions about this guy.
00:21:31
It seems like if they do still suspect him, they haven't gotten enough to move forward because Quintterio has not been
00:21:38
arrested or charged in connection to Tina's murder. But he is, I will say, at least behind bars because he got like 30
00:21:44
years for Judy's murder and additional time for the other sexual assault and robbery. But that's not a whole lot of
00:21:51
solace for the police or for Tina's family who are left wondering if this could be their guy. And the fact that
00:21:59
Tina's pants were unbuttoned and unzipped feels more like the MMO of Quintterio. Like unless John has some
00:22:05
wrap sheet that I don't know about yet. No, it doesn't appear that that he did. as far as I can tell. But I will say um
00:22:13
Detective Bloss had his own theory about the pants not related to Quintterio, but
00:22:18
like his goes back to John. So I guess he talks about this in the podcast. He says that he thinks if something had
00:22:24
happened in Tina's apartment, it would have been possible that John dressed her. I guess they were like pretty tight
00:22:32
jeans she was wearing. And like who among us hasn't had to like lay on a bed to like zip up their favorite pair of
00:22:38
jeans? You know what I'm saying? Like that's how these were apparently. So he's thinking that maybe he put the
00:22:43
pants on her but couldn't get the pants zipped up or buttoned or whatever. And Barry also notes that the jacket Tina
00:22:49
was found in was John's windbreaker. But in my mind I'm like if John dressed her,
00:22:54
why put her in your clothing, right? Like it's just as likely I mean their boyfriend, girlfriend, they live
00:22:59
together. Like I've grabbed Eric's jacket. I don't know. So that's that's Barry's theory. I don't know for me if
00:23:05
it totally makes sense. Yeah. Like to me, it's just as likely that she could have grabbed his jacket
00:23:10
before leaving the house. Like it's big, it's warm, whatever. Yeah. The only thing I think about in
00:23:15
relation to the pants is like touch DNA. Like I know I don't know what they have
00:23:22
to work with since so much was destroyed by the water. But if like if if you found his DNA on her pants like in
00:23:29
specific areas, can that would that prove that he pulled them up? Probably not because they lived together. like
00:23:36
did he pull up her pants or did he fold laundry that week in my opinion? So, I don't know if that's even
00:23:41
available. I don't know if anything would have survived the water. Obviously, it's not something they would
00:23:45
have access to like test or do anything with in the 80s and early 90s. So, they did more of what they could in the '9s.
00:23:53
In October of 1990, Detective Barry Bloss and his partner appeared on an episode of Crimestoppers 800, which is
00:23:59
like a syndicated show that aired nationwide from like a short stint, 89 to 91. and they were hoping that someone
00:24:06
would see the episode and offer some information. They even read the transcript of that anonymous tipers call
00:24:12
from 1985, thinking that maybe the woman who called in might call again, but it doesn't appear that she did. And while
00:24:19
tips do come in, there's a problem. A second case aired on the show that night and people got confused. They call the
00:24:28
York PD with tips on that case, not Tina's. So once again, nothing really comes of this. The years drag on, but
00:24:37
the York PD once again circles back to the boyfriend, John, who is now divorced. And when they do this again,
00:24:44
they're still not talking to him. He's lawyered up, but they decide to talk to people that he works with, hoping Jon
00:24:49
might have said something to them. They talk to his friends, but no one has anything to offer. And over the years,
00:24:55
police also interview other people Jon ends up having relationships with, hoping that he might have said something
00:25:00
to them or maybe even made threats indicating that he had done something to Tina. But nothing comes of that either.
00:25:08
So, fast forward to 2005. This is when DNA testing is like a real tangible thing. Police do send off some stuff for
00:25:17
testing. Now, we know one of the pieces of possible evidence sent is a soda can that was collected at the scene as
00:25:23
reported by the York Daily Record. Nothing in the source material explicitly states that the clothes were
00:25:29
sent. I'd like to think they were, but again, knowing they were in water all that time.
00:25:34
I don't know if they would produce anything. A lot of times labs will actually look at stuff before they even
00:25:38
like do all the testing and burn the money, which is maybe what they did here. Long story short, whatever they do
00:25:44
send off, no DNA ends up being found. And this testing in 2005 appears to be the last big push in this case. And
00:25:52
while investigators over the years would return to the cold case, reinterview people, relook at evidence, they all end
00:25:59
up in the same place. No arrests made, no closer to solving Tina's case. And this goes on and on and on. John has
00:26:09
never been arrested in connection to Tina's death. No one has. And I want to make that clear because we talk about a
00:26:15
couple of different people in this episode. Tina's brother is never formally connected to her case. The same
00:26:20
goes for the mystery Steven and Wayne, too, if they exist. And this is probably a good time to say that if the woman who
00:26:27
made that call is still out there, I'm sure police would love to hear from you. John has continued to maintain his
00:26:33
innocence over the years. In a 2016 York Daily Record article, John is quoted as
00:26:38
saying, "I wish this would get solved. That would be something positive in my life." Something positive is exactly
00:26:45
what needs to happen in this case, especially for Tina's two children. Tina's father, Tim, died in 2018,
00:26:52
followed by her mom, AA, in 2021. And they never found out what happened to her, who took their daughter from them.
00:27:00
And then her sister died of cancer, too, unfortunately. 40 years is a long time to keep a
00:27:07
secret. So do yourself a favor, whoever you are, or whoever out there may know something, and free yourself of whatever
00:27:13
burden you've been carrying all this time, just come forward. You know anything about the death of Tina Knob,
00:27:20
who is thought to have been murdered in February of 1984 in York, Pennsylvania, please contact the York Police
00:27:26
Department at 7178461234. We're also going to leave a link in the show notes where you can submit a tip
00:27:35
anonymously. [Music]