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Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. >> And I'm Brett. And today, I'll be taking
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you on a trek through the mountains of Montana, where a little known serial killer went undetected for years,
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despite his brazen crimes. Murders he likely would have gotten away with, had it not been for the surprising
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investigative combo of a mother's unrelenting determination for answers. And this brand new thing the FBI was
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developing a little something that you might be very familiar with now, but at the time no one had heard of criminal
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profiling. It was still in its infancy at the time. But this would be one of the very first cases where the FBI put
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their learning to work to catch a serial killer, David Meerhoffer. It's summer 1973 and 12-year-old Heidi
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Joerger wakes up to a breeze on the back of her head. She might have had this [music] brief hazy moment where she
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embraces the Montana mountain air, but then she realizes that's all wrong. Yes, she's outside. She's camping with her
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family, but she's inside a tent. There shouldn't be a breeze. When she opens her eyes, it is pitch black. So she
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starts to like feel around and her hand actually touches grass. And when her eyes finally adjust to the darkness, she
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notices that there is this [music] gaping hole sliced through the back of her tent. And her little sister Susie,
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who had been sleeping right next to her, is gone. Now Heidi doesn't hesitate. She
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runs to wake up her parents in their nearby camper. Bill and Maretta Joerger hurry out with flashlights, hoping to
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see seven-year-old Susie wandering their campsite somewhere, maybe using the restroom. But what they find causes even
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more panic. Susie's stuffed animals that she'd been sleeping with are in the grass outside the back of the tent near
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where the hole was. Now, they figure she couldn't have been gone long. It's just
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after 5:00 a.m. now, and Heidi tells them that she last laid eyes on her sister at 1:30 a.m. They'd both like
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woken up, chatted for a little bit before then falling back asleep. Did something wake them?
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>> Not that she remembers, but it's something that I've wondered about because their parents had put them to
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bed earlier before going to their camper to sleep. So, I know that they were asleep earlier. But it seems unlikely
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because it wasn't just Susie and Heidi in the tent. Two of their brothers were actually in there, too. You see, the
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Jagger family had an order about their campsite. So, for this month-long excursion that they were on from their
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home in Michigan to Montana, the four youngest kids slept in the tent. Their oldest son, Dan, had a sleeping setup in
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the family van. [music] Parents, Bill and Marietta, have their own camper. And even the grandparents, who were on this
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trip, they also have their own sleeping quarters. And no one else reported hearing anything strange in the night.
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They all stayed asleep until the family started waking them up one by one to help search for Susie. In the book The
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Lost Child, which was written by Suz's mom, Marietta, she describes the moment that she saw Suz's stuffed animals on
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the ground and the hole in the tent. And Brett, I'm actually just going to have you read from the sentence so people can
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hear directly from her. It's at the bottom of page 26. As I stumbled around the campground
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searching, I was gripped by a terrible sense of separation, panic, and hopelessness in my inability to see. I
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remember looking up at the black night sky [music] and begging God to send the sun. The darkness was unbearably
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frustrating. And in that moment, like desperate for a logical explanation, Maretta and Bill
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are asking Heidi if there was anything inside the tent that Susie could have used to cut the hole herself. But of
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course, there wasn't. And right away, Marietta knows in her heart of hearts that someone has her daughter. She just
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hopes that they haven't gotten too far. Using flashlights, they all start searching for Susie around the
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campground, even waking neighboring campers. But there is no sign of Susie. So Sus's dad and grandpa drive to the
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closest town to alert police. The Gallatin County Sheriff's Office and FBI special agent Pete Dunar out of the
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nearby Boseman, Montana office rush to the campground and right away they see what Marietta [music] sees. They search
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every car and building and question all the campers. A volunteer search party forms to help look for Susie. And as the
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crowd of helpful people begins to grow, the Joerger family overhears something that must have made them even more
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worried for their little girl. One of the volunteers is talking to another one [music] about the other child that was
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attacked at that very campground while asleep in his tent just a few years prior. So Marietta goes right to law
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enforcement and ask them about this. Like what what are they talking about? And they confirm this is true. 5 years
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before in May 1968, 12-year-old Michael Rainey was stabbed in his tent at that same state park. He'd been on a boy
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scout trip and was sleeping right next to another kid. That case was never solved. And now this seems like way more
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than just a coincidence that Susie went missing from the same place. >> So finding her might mean actually
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solving two cases and preventing more, which makes the stakes all that much higher. When the light of day begins
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slowly creeping in, the sun reveals one more clue. Where Suz's stuffed animals had been. They can barely make out a
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foot path [music] in the dew of the grass leading away from the tent toward the parking area. There's also a rock
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with reddish brown stains. This is by no means comforting to anyone, and this ramps up the urgency of the search. The
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FBI sets up a command center at the campground. Authorities start working on a bolo for Susie, and they rush Suz's
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sleeping bag, her stuffed animals, the rock that cut part of the tent, all to their lab for testing. And they also
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widen the search area to include Rivers, the local dump, and the nearby towns of
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Three Forks and Manhattan, Montana, where they start going doortodoor. And all of those efforts do result in some
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suspect names being tossed around, mostly local oddballs. And any of them who didn't have a solid alibi for the
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early morning hours of June 25th were brought in for questioning and polygraphs. They even dispatch police to
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the Jagger's home in Michigan to check their house and mail to see if anyone made any threats. And they go doortodoor
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there to find out if any neighbors had any information about Susie or somebody who could be a threat to her. But no
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matter how much or where they search over the next several days, nothing is found. And mind you, this case is
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getting some real headlines around Montana. And Marietta is giving local reporters interviews in case it could
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help, thinking that someone out there had to know something. Her desperate please just had to reach the right
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person. It takes [music] five full days before the first big development comes in. And strangely, it comes to the
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Denver field office of the FBI. >> Like Denver, Colorado. Yeah. They get a call at 700 p.m. on June 30th from a man
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who says that he is Suz's kidnapper. And he says, "Tell someone the ransom is $25,000."
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But he hung up without giving any more information. Where should they take the money? When? Yeah. Now, no one knew if
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this was a hoax or if they should be expecting another call. But the phone didn't ring again until July 2nd. This
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time, not in a Denver field office. Not actually in any office at all. The phone
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rang at the home of Gallatin County Deputy Ron Brown. The thing is, Ron Brown isn't home. Even though it's 11:16
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p.m., he's still out helping with Suz's search. So, his wife, Jane, answers, and
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the man says to her, "The Denver FBI must think I'm a crank. I'm raising the ransom to $50,000.
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And this time, he gives real instructions. He demands that the ransom be put in a suitcase in small bills, and
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placed in the end stall of the men's restroom at the Denver bus stop." >> The Denver, Colorado connection.
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>> We're back to Denver again. And this time it feels legit because he says that
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he can prove he has Suzie by telling them something about her that a random stranger wouldn't know. He says that
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Suz's fingernails, like on her index fingers of each hand, are humped a little, like slightly deformed. And this
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is true of Suzie. And it's also true that a stranger wouldn't know that. I mean, it wasn't put on any of the press
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bulletins about this case. Actually, Marietta writes in her book that in the chaos and fear after Susie first
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disappeared, they were like giving her description to the authorities and stuff, but they had like totally
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forgotten this detail about her. Like, it was barely noticeable and Susie was born with it. So, like again, literally,
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she was born with it and they never thought about it anymore. So, this caller, this is either someone who knows
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Suzy, knows the family and would play some kind of like not some kind, the crulest hoax on them, which seems
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absolutely out of the realm of possibility. >> Or this is really the man who kidnapped
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her. Once authorities are made aware of this call, they send an urgent teletype to the Denver field office to get
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someone to the bus depot to do surveillance. They also launch a plan to get some dummy bills together to fill a
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suitcase because the Acres don't have just like $50,000 in cash sitting around. But whoever it was that called
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never comes to the bus depot, never picks up the cash or I don't know if they saw the police or what, but like
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that pickup never happens. >> Never materializes. >> No. And in the time that the sheriff's
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office is waiting, another crime in the area happens. And actually, it's one that I've already covered on my other
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show, The Deck. 20-year-old nurse, Donna Lemon, goes missing after last being seen buying a can of beer at a bar in
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Gallatin Gateway on July 5th, 1973. So, this is just 10 days after Suzie and 30 miles south of Headwater State Park.
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Now, her case ends up seeing slightly more resolution than Suz's because within four days, they end up finding
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Donna's body on the banks of the Snake River down in Idaho. And while [music] this might pull on some resources, take
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away from Suz's case, that investigation happens like much smaller, it's much quieter as it plays out. And honestly,
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the most distracting part for police at the time is like they start getting tips
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from locals suggesting that maybe Suz's case and Donna's case are somehow connected, which doesn't make a whole
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lot of sense to officials. like the circumstances, the victims themselves, everything about the two cases felt very
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different. And none of the tips had anything concrete to point to. They were all just basically saying like this is
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really a weird coincidence like in such a small place having two cases like this
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back to back. >> How could they not be connected, >> right? But the investigators aren't
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bringing the cases together. They have a kidnapping right now and all of their effort is going into locating Suzie
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hopefully alive. And the Joerger family is doing anything they can to support. In order to feel like they're doing
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something helpful, they start fundraising for actual cash should the kidnapper call back and want to follow
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through on the ransom demand. They also make calls and organize a reward fund for information. It's like the 1970s
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version of GoFundMe. And Maretta writes in her book that thanks to a major donation from an anonymous person, they
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actually do raise $50,000. [music] So, they are quickly ready for a call. A call that just never comes. As July
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becomes August, and as summer comes to an end with very little in the way of legit leads, the Jagger family has to
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think about heading home. >> They have been living at the campground this whole time, fueled by locals who
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brought them food and other necessities. Marietta has a whole chapter in her book
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titled God's Good People about how nice everyone was to them in their time of need. But I can't imagine that feeling
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like packing up that long drive back to Michigan. I mean, on their way out west,
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everyone had been buzzing with excitement for their family adventure. Marietta had taken to doing a headcount
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after each pit stop. So on the way home, not only was the tone in the van just sad, but Marietta's headcount was down
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by one. Montana had stolen their youngest child and they were returning home without her. The other kids needed
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to return to school. Bill has to go back to work. Authorities assure them that they'll still be working the case,
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though, and they hatch a plan for the Jaggers to get a tape recorder that if they get any calls from the kidnapper at
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home, they'll be recording. So, the Jaggers eventually settle into a new normal in Michigan without Suzie. But I
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don't even know that normal is like the right word cuz Marietta barely leaves the house just in case the kidnapper
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calls like tape recorder at the ready. [music] And the house phone does ring constantly with well-wishers and
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psychics even offering visions. And Marietta answers every single one. It is her job now, her post, and she will not
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abandon it. But on September 24th, her youngest son, Joe, calls from catechism class. He unexpectedly needs a ride
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home. I guess Bill's at work. Marietta, I mean, she's at home on phone duty, but
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Joe is only 5 minutes away. So that's the moment when she rushes out to get him. And in the 10 minutes she is gone,
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the phone rings. Now, luckily, the oldest of the Jagger kids, [music] 16-year-old Dan, he is home and presses
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record before answering the phone. And of course, this is the call. It's the kidnapper.
00:14:04
In the parks and forest you love, there are stories waiting to be told. I'm Dillia Deira, the host of Park
00:14:11
Predators, a true crime podcast that reminds you sometimes the most beautiful places hide the darkest secrets. Listen
00:14:18
now wherever you get your podcasts. The call from the kidnapper lasts only 2 minutes in total, and the recording no
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longer exists, but a transcript [music] does. So, I'm going to have voice actors
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read part of it so you can hear the exact words that the man said. >> Now, you're Suz's brother, huh?
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>> Yeah. You like to know where she's at? >> Yeah, I would. Well, you're going to
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have to wait a while. Why? You've had too much police and FBI activity. You may think I'm a hoax, but I know
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something about Susie that nobody knows. >> Oh, why don't you tell us? >> Okay. Fingernails of her first fingers
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are humped. >> I know that. I meant Why don't you tell us where she is? >> Because I can't hardly do that. It's a
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pretty dangerous situation, you know. >> Well, can't you just drop her somewhere
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and let us pick her up? >> Do you want to come west quite a ways? >> Yeah, no problem there.
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Well, we'll make arrangements one of these days, but for right now, you're going to have to wait a while.
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>> Why do we have to wait? >> Cuz that's the way things have to be. >> Why? >> Well, cuz a person does things like
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this, he can't get caught. He's got to figure out ways not to get caught. >> Just drop her somewhere a day ahead of
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time and just leave that place. >> Yeah, sure. I don't want to drop her just for nothing. Anyway, I just want to
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tell you to wait a while. You will be contacted. It may be another week. It may be a month or two months or so, but
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you'll get contacted. >> He's keeping them in like suspended torture. Maybe a week, maybe a month.
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This feels way less like finding a way out and more like he's >> screwing with them.
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>> Kind of screwing with them. >> I know. >> I were they able to trace calls like
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this back then, like in the 70s? They actually were, but I guess in 73 this I mean it takes like a few weeks to do,
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but the FBI finds a receipt of the call through a phone company and traces it to
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a pay phone at a gas station diner near Cheyenne, Wyoming, >> but by the time they get there in like
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October, I mean, not only is the guy not there, but like so many people have used
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that pay phone. >> Yeah, it's public. >> It's impossible to actually get like usable fingerprints. And nobody reports
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seeing any kidnapper looking guys using that particular phone. >> Great. >> Now around the same time is also when
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the lab results come back in of like all the stuff they sent off to the FBI. But
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all of that stuff is a dead end to no prints on anything. Now they do confirm that the substance that they saw on that
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rock that like reddish brown stuff that was human blood but the sample wasn't even suitable for any further testing.
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And the only hair that they collected from the sleeping bag turns out to be consistent with Suz's. And the cut
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didn't tell them anything either other than it was cut with a sharp instrument, which like
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>> it was cut. >> So there is nothing physical that is going to tie back to their guy. And if
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he was still looking for a way to let Susie go and get something out of it, he hasn't found it because he never called
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back like he told Dan he was going to. So the family endures the holidays without Susie. And the end of 1973 also
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marks the end to any solid leads or action in the investigation. And while I'm sure nobody wants to say it out
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loud, there is less and less hope of finding Suzie alive. If they were to do more searches, it would probably be for
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remains. They just don't even know where to look. >> But the truth is, remains are what they
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would end up finding, but in the strangest way possible. So, [music] come February 1974, this is now over 7 months
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since Sus's kidnapping, the Gallatin County Sheriff's Office is faced with another missing person's case. Now, on
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its surface, this case looks closer to Donna Lemons, remember her? Than it does Sus's case because the missing young
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woman, Sandy Dykeman, was 19 years old and living on her own in Manhattan, Montana, which is like this small town
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like 10 minutes from the state park. So, her dad, John Dykeman, reported her missing on Monday, February 11th. He
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said that Sandy hadn't been seen since Saturday night. She wasn't answering her door or her phone, and her car, this
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little white Ford Cortina, was missing. All of this totally not normal behavior for his daughter. Now, Manhattan is a
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small town, so deputies taking this report are even familiar with Sandy, who waitresses at the Bowling Alley Cafe.
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So, after they can't seem to find anyone who knows where she is, the sheriff organizes a search for her and her car,
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which aren't anywhere in this small town. So, their search has to expand to the farreaching corners of the county,
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which is how Deputy Don Hton and town marshal Ron Skinner end up at this old abandoned ranch about a week after Sandy
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was last seen. And as Dawn and Ron are like walking around the property, something white catches their eyes in
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the sage brush. It's a pair of women's underwear, and they look like they've been recently worn. So, they bag the
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underwear and continue their search to a nearby barn where they have to force their way inside. And peeking out from
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under a tarp and some hay is Sandy's little white car. Now, when Don and Ron approach, they're like probably
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expecting to find Sandy's body, but the only thing they see when they peer through the windshield is some clothing.
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No sign of Sandy, not even a bloody crime scene. But this is still highly suspicious. So, they bring in
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reinforcements to process this place over the next several days. And the FBI and the rest of the sheriff's office
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search almost every inch of the property, the house, the barn, the outuildings, [music] and it is just red
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flag after red flag, both in what they find and in what others bring to them. Like one day during crime scene
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processing at the ranch, this local guy shows up saying that he found a woman's red blouse nearby. And then they find
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more clothes in a suitcase in Sandy's car. all of which seem to belong to her, but they don't appear to have been
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packed up the way that she would if she had left voluntarily. And then in the abandoned house, they find melted candle
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wax in like various places, and they discover a closet that looks as if it had been nailed shut with a pile of
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feces in it. And a bloody whip is found in the barn, [music] or at least they think it's blood on this whip. And then
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it's on February 19th that they find bones in a burn pile near the old ranch house and scattered around outside. They
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collect over a thousand pieces of bone fragments, including some teeth. The picture that's getting painted is that
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something very bad happened to Sandy here. But there was still a twist yet to come for investigators. When the
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pathologists and anthropologists review the biological materials and bones from the ranch, they conclude without a doubt
00:21:28
that some of the remains belong to Sandy Dykeman. Yes. Specifically, it's the teeth that they compare and match to
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Sandy's dental records. >> Here's the twist. Experts [music] say that not all of the remains belong to
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Sandy. There are at least two people who were reduced to a pile of ash because some of the bones belong to a girl
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between the ages of 5 and 8 years old. Susie, it is everyone's first [music] thought, but they have nothing as
00:21:58
definitive to ID Susie yet. But if it's her, this is the biggest development Susie's case has seen in months. And it
00:22:07
without a doubt connects Susie and Sandy's cases. And if Sandy's killer is Suz's killer, there is one name that
00:22:16
actually appears in both investigations. David Meyerhoffer. David Meyerhoffer is a 20-some
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yearear-old lifelong Manhattan resident, a former Boy Scout and Marine who served
00:22:33
in Vietnam. And he is back home now working as a self-employed carpenter in town. And David is someone who is known
00:22:41
to them. This guy's always eager to help. He's curious, constantly asking the deputies questions about the
00:22:48
kidnapping investigations that they were working when he sees them at the local cafe. He was one of those local oddballs
00:22:54
that actually came up in Suz's case. One of the guys that witnesses told the cops
00:22:58
they should just look at early on. And they did. But David had been pretty cooperative. So back then he's like kind
00:23:05
of annoying but not really suspicious. But his name came up in Sandy's case, too, for two different reasons. One, he
00:23:13
is actually the local man who just happened upon that blouse that he turned over to police by the ranch. Mhm.
00:23:19
>> And two, apparently, he had gone on a date with Sandy just a few months ago, [music] and when he asked for a second
00:23:25
date, Sandy turned him down. >> Okay. So, there's a connection to Sandy, but how does he connect to Suzy?
00:23:32
>> I mean, only by her bones, or probably [music] her bones being found with Sandy. and
00:23:37
Sandy being socially connected to David. Like, it's not solid, >> but it's something
00:23:42
>> and they got to start somewhere. So, agents actually go and pay David a visit
00:23:46
at his warehouse in Manhattan, which is only like a half block from where Sandy lived. And he acts as if he has nothing
00:23:53
to hide. He agrees to even take a polygraph test. And he passes. So, the agents move on. But there's nothing to
00:24:02
really move on to. The cases both just kind of hit a dead end and they only heat back up because agent Dunar ends up
00:24:12
going to Quantico, Virginia for this routine FBI training that following spring. And he happens to attend this
00:24:20
session that's being put on by some agents who have psychology backgrounds. And they're talking about this like
00:24:25
brand new idea, how studying a crime scene could give insight into the killer themselves. And with nothing to lose,
00:24:34
Dunar asks them if they will take a look at Sandy and Suz's cases. And they must
00:24:39
see it as a worthwhile challenge because they start to put together a psychological profile of the probable
00:24:45
killer. They say that Suzie was probably murdered within 2 days of her abduction
00:24:50
by a man who likely is white and in his 20s. He has to be at least modestly intelligent. They say he's a loner,
00:24:58
unmarried, and has little experience with women. They think he's a local guy, but has military experience and would be
00:25:05
physically fit. He most likely has killed before, and from those murders, he's probably kept souvenirs. [music]
00:25:12
And he's likely the type that would try to insert himself into an investigation,
00:25:18
>> which the blouse [music] hits two of those, right? Like a souvenir and inserting himself into the
00:25:24
investigation. >> Also, the calls taunting the Joerger family. [music] Actually, they say he
00:25:29
probably isn't even done doing that, even though it's been a while. Like, this is their like prediction, if you
00:25:35
want to say. They think that he is going to call again, and they think it's going
00:25:38
to be on a significant date. >> So, with the one-year anniversary of Sus's kidnapping coming up, agents work
00:25:46
with Marietta to make sure that she is prepared. >> Wait, they know this is David, right?
00:25:52
Like, I'm like checking everything off on the whole profile. This is again like profiling isn't proven at this point,
00:25:58
right? >> Not even it's not exact. The feds are like they're believing it. It's like
00:26:02
these local agents are like it's almost like brand it's like hoie, right? It's like I how there's no way you can know
00:26:08
this. It's not a proven thing. And so like [music] >> they're listening to them and they're
00:26:12
willing to like you know be prepared but they are less convinced because [music]
00:26:16
in their mind the thing that they know is polygraphs, >> right? >> David passed a polygraph.
00:26:20
>> They are known science already cleared him >> but they're still they're they're going
00:26:24
to move along with the plan. They let the press have access to Marietta for anniversary headlines,
00:26:29
knowing that that might trigger the kidnapper to call her. And Marietta is prepared to play her part, though she
00:26:36
has been haunted over this dream that she had. Like, it is so [music] vivid. She says it's like watching a movie. And
00:26:45
in this dream, she says she sees Susie being taken from her tent, put in a truck, and waking up afraid because
00:26:52
she's with a strange man. And the man takes her somewhere, undresses Susie, and then strangles her before
00:26:58
dismembering her. But maybe it's just a dream. Maybe those bones of a little girl they found aren't her little girl.
00:27:05
They still haven't proven it. She has to have hope, especially as the phone rings
00:27:11
on the morning of June 25th, 1974. Now, only the transcript of this has survived
00:27:17
from this call, and it is heartbreaking to read. The caller asks if it's Suz's mom that he's speaking to. And when she
00:27:25
says yes, he [music] says, "Well, I'm the guy who took her from you exactly a year ago to the minute." He says that
00:27:32
she's alive, but he can't give her back because he's gotten used to her. And Brett, I don't know how, but Marietta
00:27:39
keeps the kidnapper talking [music] for an hour. And in that time, he says that he and Susie have been traveling west
00:27:47
and sightseeing. And Marietta is like sobbing and begs the man to give Susie back, saying they will pay any amount.
00:27:54
>> But he says it's too late for that because if he gives Susie back, she'll be able to identify him. But Marietta
00:28:00
says like no one is going to make a child testify. Like you don't have to worry about her identifying you because
00:28:05
it would never make it to court, >> right? It would just never happen. I can't believe she's able to basically
00:28:13
negotiate with this man. >> I know. And at one point she actually does call his bluff saying that she
00:28:18
doesn't actually believe that he still has Suzie. She's like, "Prove it to me." Like, "Prove to me that she's alive."
00:28:25
>> But he can't. He says that he has been using psychotherapy to wipe her memory.
00:28:31
And Marietta goes, "How are you qualified to do something like that?" Now, he doesn't give a real reason. So,
00:28:38
she switches tactics and she asks how he knew that Susie was even in the tent. and he said that he'd been lurking
00:28:44
around the campsite that night and he had come by, heard her and her sister talking, but then he waited till they
00:28:50
fell back asleep >> and then he [music] took her. >> Okay, maybe we should add never go
00:28:54
camping to our list of life rules. >> Honestly, putting your kids in a different tent is one of mine. This is
00:29:01
not the only time something like this has happened. And something like this even happens like in recent memory of
00:29:08
mine, like it made headlines. It is rare, but it is legit nightmare fuel. Keep [music] your kids close.
00:29:16
>> Camping. Just because you're out in the middle of nowhere doesn't mean you're
00:29:18
out in the middle of nowhere alone. >> Right. >> So, this man tells Marietta that he has
00:29:23
been good to Susie and that he took her because he always wanted a little girl, which is
00:29:28
>> not what a mother wants to hear. And when Marietta asks where Susie is, at that very moment, he says that she is up
00:29:35
in his cabin sleeping. And when she asks again if Susie's okay, the kidnapper says yes [music] and talks about how he
00:29:41
could never kill a little girl like that. And like the man even gets emotional on the [music] phone before
00:29:48
hanging up. Now investigators study every detail of this call. This guy had a western accent. There was no
00:29:57
background noise, but it sounds like he's outside. And the FBI tries to trace the call, but for technical reasons, for
00:30:04
some reason, like this time it doesn't work. However, a few days later, they catch a lucky break because this Montana
00:30:12
rancher notices a suspicious call on his phone bill. Suspicious because it was over an hour long and placed at 3:25 in
00:30:20
the morning. So, he goes to the telephone company in Bosezeman to dispute the charge because he knows like
00:30:27
it's not like >> it's not my call. >> I'm not paying for it. Right. And when the employee makes a copy of the bill,
00:30:32
she notices the recipient of the call was William Joerger of Farmington Hills, Michigan. Remember, Sus's case was huge
00:30:40
there in Montana. She recognizes the Jerger name immediately. She knows this is the father of the missing girl. So,
00:30:47
she reports it to police. >> I mean, the you said lucky break. This is like a one ina million chance of this
00:30:55
happening. >> It's not even done. Odds get more wild from here because the farmhouse where
00:31:00
this call was placed from. That ranch is right next to the old abandoned ranch where the human remains and Sandy
00:31:07
Dykeman's car had been found. Now, when Agent Dunar interviews the rancher, he swears that his whole family had been
00:31:13
asleep when the call was made, and he has no idea how that call got made because all the doors were locked, so no
00:31:19
one could have come in and used their house phone and there wasn't even a break-in or anything like that. But come
00:31:25
to think of it, the rancher had recently seen some suspicious tire tracks out on
00:31:31
some land where he had another phone line. Now, it wasn't like an actual phone receiver that you could just like
00:31:36
pick up and use. It would take someone with knowhow to be able to tap into the line, but it was a possibility. Now,
00:31:43
he's not thinking about that back then, but he had been so bothered by the tracks on their own that he had
00:31:48
inspected them closely and noticed that they were made by a specific Goodyear tire. Tires that he knew were on the
00:31:56
truck of his former ranch hand, David Meerhoffer. Agent Dunar doesn't want to jump to
00:32:03
conclusions. >> I mean, I don't think anyone's doing any jumping at this point. All roads are
00:32:08
leading to David, >> but he doesn't want to go right to him. So, first he goes to a manager of the
00:32:14
local phone company to figure out how someone could have tapped into the phone line. Basically, he finds out it could
00:32:20
be done honestly with an ordinary phone as long as the person was familiar with phone lines and wires. And guess who has
00:32:27
telecom's experience from his military service? >> David. >> So, this convinces him enough that he
00:32:33
now needs to talk to David again. And he wants to get right to the point. We know
00:32:38
David already passed one polygraph, but agent Dunar convinces him to do another one. This time using truth serum.
00:32:45
>> Hello, 1974. >> I know. And by now, by the way, David has a lawyer, but he doesn't stand in
00:32:51
the way. And Brit, he passes again. >> Again? >> Yes. So, they let David Meyerhoffer
00:32:58
leave. And once again, Agent Dunar is convinced that David is probably not the man who killed Sandy and Susie. But
00:33:07
those FBI profilers, they are not so convinced. They try to make local authorities understand something about a
00:33:14
true psychopath. Like those kind of people can pass polygraphs all day long, even under the spell of truth serum. So
00:33:23
it's them who pushes agent Dunar. Just keep at David. So agents pay him another visit the next day asking if they can
00:33:31
search his [music] property. And David and his lawyer say like, "Sure, have at it." Which shocks me, though, because
00:33:39
[music] what agents find is incriminating [music] and downright creepy. It turns
00:33:46
out David is a record keeper. Investigators find a receipt timestamped for the same day and location. Remember
00:33:55
that first call that was made to the Jagger house, like the one from the gas station diner in Wyoming?
00:34:01
>> There's a receipt. Next, they find sheets with blood stains. Two unused Disneyland tickets, one of which is for
00:34:09
a child. They find a tube of lipstick. They find a little girl's blouse [music] and a necklace. David also has cut out a
00:34:18
ton of newspaper articles, some about the criminal investigations in which he's now the center of, and others that
00:34:25
seem almost like a to-do list. And there actually was one in particular that stands out. There was this article about
00:34:32
upcoming Girl Scout camps, their [music] dates and their locations, including a handdrawn map of Camp Silvercloud. Now,
00:34:39
what's so interesting about that is during the time when they had been looking at David, there had been an
00:34:46
attack on two girls who were at that camp. They were like on a walk in the trails when this man jumped out at them,
00:34:52
tried to strangle one with a robe before being scared off by the other. And they
00:34:57
were never able to determine who that guy was. But now they're pretty sure they know.
00:35:02
>> Yeah. Then there is the actual to-do list on stationery labeled things to do today. And he wrote easiest ways to
00:35:10
access the camps and wrote things like densely wooded and good cover. He even had a check mark next to camp
00:35:17
silvercloud. Like dude marked it off his list. Which [music] makes the next clipping that they find scary. David had
00:35:26
cut out a newspaper photo of a little girl named Karen Smith who was photographed fishing with her dad.
00:35:35
>> What was the date? So, around the 4th of July, which means they weren't too late.
00:35:40
Karen Smith was okay. And actually, even though this is an old case, our reporter
00:35:45
Emily got a hold of Karen Smith and interviewed her for this episode. She's a grandma now, living her best life, but
00:35:52
she says she was like 5 years old at the time, and the FBI sent an agent to basically be her bodyguard after this.
00:36:00
Because, keep in mind, David is not in jail. >> Yeah. >> This dude is free to roam. So, she
00:36:05
wasn't allowed to go out to recess with her friends. And this agent even crashed
00:36:09
on the family's couch. Basically, around the clock protection from David Meerhoffer.
00:36:14
>> Wait, like I I like knew he wasn't in jail, but how is he not in jail after this search?
00:36:20
>> I couldn't tell you because [music] nothing in the case file tells me, but Karen says she basically felt like she
00:36:27
survived a serial killer thanks to that agent. Yeah, but like I'm sorry. In what
00:36:33
world are bloody sheets and a little girl's shirt? Not to mention a crime to-do list, honestly.
00:36:40
>> But not enough to arrest this guy. >> Like like this kind of gets me conspiratorial because like why did he
00:36:46
even let them search so easily knowing what they would find? It's like it's almost like he felt untouchable.
00:36:52
>> That's exactly what I was going to say. >> And for some reason he was. Apparently,
00:36:57
David just like talks his way out of all of that stuff, saying like, "Oh, those sheets, those clothes, like those were
00:37:04
there when I bought the place." Now, I don't want to make it sound like they were just not interested in him anymore.
00:37:10
They're still very interested. They just, I guess, don't feel like they have an airtight case.
00:37:16
>> I mean, a to-do list. >> I know. So they what they do next is they arrange a voice lineup for Marietta
00:37:23
and Bill cuz remember they've talked to the kidnapper on the phone. They separately ID David Meyerhoffer as the
00:37:29
man who had been calling their house. Still police want [music] more. The FBI flies the Joers to Montana and arranges
00:37:36
a face-toface meeting between Marietta and David Meerhoffer. Again, his lawyer allows this because according to author
00:37:44
Ron Franel, who wrote the book Shadowman, which was a valuable resource when looking into this case, David's
00:37:50
lawyer still genuinely believes in his client's innocence. And David says straight to Marietta's face that he is
00:37:58
not the man who abducted Susie. But Marietta knows in her gut, she like she knows she was just face to face with the
00:38:04
guy who kidnapped her daughter. However, because he denies [music] it, they tell
00:38:08
her they can't do anything. >> I mean, what do you do? Like, you come all the way to Montana and they're just
00:38:15
going to like let him walk out of there. >> I don't know how they went back the first time and like to go back again to
00:38:21
not like knowing, you know, >> knowing you saw him. >> I I don't know. I don't know. But they
00:38:27
send them back to Michigan. [music] And the FBI profiler says that if David is their guy, he will want to regain power
00:38:34
over the situation. He's going to call Marietta again soon. That's what they say. And they say in the meantime,
00:38:40
they're going to be surveilling him, watching his every move. And they do a pretty good job. But one day in late
00:38:46
September, agents somehow lose track of him. [music] And of course, that's exactly when the phone rings at the
00:38:53
Jagger house. And Marietta didn't come to play. When she accepts the long distance call, she gets right to it and
00:39:01
she literally says, "Hello, [music] David." And listen, he tries to play dumb like, "Who's David? I don't know
00:39:06
what you're talking about." But Marietta is like, "David, I just sat across from
00:39:10
you. I know it's you." But he won't admit anything to her still. But he is still saying that he has Susie and he's
00:39:18
saying that Susie is safe. And so she says the same thing she said all along. Prove it. And that's when the voice of a
00:39:25
little girl comes on the phone and [music] says, "This guy, he's nice and I'm sitting on his lap." Now, Marietta
00:39:34
knows her daughter's voice. [music] Even after all this time, she would recognize
00:39:38
it. That was not her daughter. This call triggers an intense reaction from authorities. They swarm Manhattan,
00:39:48
Montana. But David's in the wind. Even his lawyer doesn't have tabs on him. And now that he seems to be on the run, the
00:39:55
county prosecutor agrees to an arrest warrant. But within 18 hours, David reappears in town swearing that he's
00:40:02
just like been there the whole time. But they find a piece of paper in his pocket
00:40:06
from the motel in Salt Lake City where they determine that last call to Marietta was made from. So now it's
00:40:13
over. And it's almost as if he wanted to get caught. And when investigators go back and tear apart his property looking
00:40:21
for more, [music] they realize they must have missed something the first time. And the most damning piece of evidence
00:40:28
is actually packed away in David's freezer. David Meerhoffer's freezer is filled
00:40:38
with many normal things. Packages of deer, elk, [music] frozen dinners. But among them is a package wrapped in
00:40:46
butcher paper with the letters SM [music] DS on the outside and inside is Sandy Dyman's hand. Fingers [music] with
00:40:58
nail polish severed from the palm. >> Wait, why didn't they find this when they searched before?
00:41:05
>> I don't know. [music] I guess this is their first foray into the freezer. I get the sense that like the first search
00:41:11
was pretty surface level. I don't know if it's cuz they found a [music] decent amount of stuff. They were like, "Surely
00:41:16
it's all out in the open." >> Maybe that's why he was fine with them looking. Like, you know, they didn't
00:41:21
find in the first search. What are you going to find this time? >> Well, they have it now. And there is no
00:41:26
more talking his way out of this situation. And David knows it now, too. He tells his lawyer that he will confess
00:41:33
to killing Sandy and little Suzy. But if the state agrees not to pursue the death
00:41:39
penalty, he'll also tell them about two other murders that he got away with. On September 29th, 1974, more than a
00:41:49
year since Sus's kidnapping, Agent Dunar and the county attorney sit down with David Meerhoffer. He admits abducting
00:41:56
Susie from her tent and taking her to his truck [music] and then to the abandoned ranch. He says that he
00:42:02
undressed her, but when he started to sexually assault her, Susie fought. So he strangled her.
00:42:08
>> I mean, that's just [music] like Marietta's dream. >> I know. He says that he ended up cutting
00:42:13
her up and scattered the remains and then burned them except for her head, which he put in the outhouse. And they
00:42:20
end up finding it just like he said. >> This monster tossed this little girl's head into an outhouse, which happened to
00:42:28
be the one place at the ranch [music] that they'd never searched. As for Sandy, he says that he went to her
00:42:36
apartment while she was sleeping and [music] jumped on her, strangled her, tied her up, and put tape over her
00:42:42
mouth. And he says that she must have suffocated under the tape because while he was packing her car, he came back and
00:42:49
[music] just found her dead. So, he took her body to the abandoned ranch and proceeded to conceal it in the same way
00:42:55
that he had Suz's. Dismemberment [music] and fire. Those two confessions weren't
00:43:01
really a surprise to anyone. I mean, even the dismemberment part, they had kind of determined that based on the
00:43:06
remains that they had found. The next confession, though, that one was a surprise. David said that he was the
00:43:13
person who killed Michael Rainey, [music] the 12-year-old boy scout who was found
00:43:18
stabbed in his tent at the same state park, but 5 years before Susie was taken, >> that people were talking about when they
00:43:24
were searching for Susie. The thing is, he gives no explanation for this other than he wanted to take a kid, but he
00:43:32
didn't take him. >> Exactly. It doesn't make much sense. And then the fourth murder that he confesses
00:43:38
to is another curveball cuz it's not like any of the other cases. And it was one that they really hadn't even been
00:43:45
considering a homicide. It was the death of a teenage boy named Bernie Pullman back in 1967.
00:43:53
So Bernie had been on a bridge above the river in Manhattan, Montana when he was
00:43:58
shot. And it had sort of been deemed an accident, like maybe Bernie caught like a wild or stray bullet from someone's
00:44:04
hunting rifle or something. And at the time, David was just a senior in high school when that happened. And he
00:44:10
doesn't give investigators any reason for that murder either. Not that there would like be a good one. And listen,
00:44:16
Agent Dunar asks David about a few other missing and murdered Montana girls and women, including Donna Lemon, but David
00:44:26
says he had no involvement in any of the other cases they bring up. He even denies being the hooded guy who tried to
00:44:34
take the girls from Camp Silvercloud, >> even though that was literally on his like murder to-do list.
00:44:40
>> Mark marked off, which like to me makes everything else he's saying like less
00:44:44
credible. Yeah. >> And then he wouldn't even entertain the idea of talking about cases outside of
00:44:48
Montana, even though he had lived in California during boot camp and Vietnam during his service. So, who knows if
00:44:55
David left a trail of cases in his wake? >> Wait, so [music] who was the little girl on the phone?
00:45:02
This This is what I'm like spiraling on. He refused to talk about that too. They
00:45:08
don't know if the voice Marietta heard was like a kid talking in real time. Maybe it was a recording.
00:45:16
>> I mean, either way, doesn't that prove that he was at one point in time with another kid? That is still a mystery.
00:45:24
They talked to people at least at the hotel, right? We know he like calls Maretta that time from a hotel in Salt
00:45:31
Lake. And they said they talked to people, but nobody remembered seeing anything odd or like they don't really
00:45:37
point out him. So, they we don't know if he was like even with a kid there. Was he solo there? I lean more toward the
00:45:44
idea that this was maybe recorded because he was only out of sight for 18 hours and I would assume that if another
00:45:50
kid went missing in that time >> and between those two locations >> it's also 19 like 70 right like I maybe
00:45:56
they don't know like if something but like I don't know to your point though when how he got that recording I don't
00:46:04
even know where is it now like he would have had to had it at the hotel like maybe a recording makes even less sense
00:46:10
like the thing is I'm fully convinced this man had more victims that we just don't know about. Because remember the
00:46:16
blouse and the necklace and like the lipstick found at his house. >> Here's the thing. Sandy and Suz's
00:46:21
parents were shown those items and they say that they didn't belong to their daughters. So those are probably
00:46:26
souvenirs from other girls and women, which means there might have been hope to get answers for other families. Maybe
00:46:33
they could do some kind of like plea to close out other cases that he was like most certainly connected to. But that
00:46:40
[music] never happened because just a few hours after his confession, David's found dead in his jail cell. He died by
00:46:50
suicide. This man's method of murder was essentially random, which is why it is so astonishing [music] to me that FBI
00:46:59
profilers were able to peg him so well. I mean, they predicted [music] the phone
00:47:05
calls. And, you know, it might have been partially luck, but it paved the way for
00:47:09
all of the criminal profiling that came after this because it made some of the doubters respect their craft a little
00:47:16
bit more. You know, something that really bugs me about these cases is that David only
00:47:23
called and taunted the Joerger family. Like, he didn't, as far as we know, torment any of the other victim's
00:47:28
families with phone calls. And nobody seems to know why. And actually, in the Donna Lemon case, like when they were
00:47:35
early on, like, oh, these are so separate. They're not connected. I think that was one of the reasons why they
00:47:41
never connected them or why he wasn't considered a serious suspect because he never called her family after her
00:47:46
murder. But then I go back to like, well, if he really only did that once that we know of,
00:47:50
>> then why would it >> why would that factor in like why aren't we considering him in Donna's case? We
00:47:55
know David traveled a lot. He was delivering machinery for his dad's company. [music] He could have easily
00:48:01
taken Donna to Idaho where she's found and left her there. >> And did they ever compare the stuff they
00:48:07
found at his place to Donna or like show any of that to her family? >> That's the thing. Like not that I know
00:48:12
of. No. [music] And like I mean I I kind of get maybe all these years later why people don't you would you would think
00:48:17
that he would have taken Donna to the same abandoned property that he took Sandy and like Susie to and maybe that's
00:48:23
why they're like oh well they're found together the other cases he confesses to her so long ago like Donna was like in
00:48:27
that same time frame he would have just taken her there but like I think that's saying like that's looking at that like
00:48:35
yeah sure logically that makes sense but that's not what we're dealing with >> right we interviewed Ron Francel for
00:48:40
this episode the author of Shadowman and he reminds is that it is a waste of time
00:48:44
to try and apply logic and reasoning to the actions of a psychopath. But as a crime junkie, it's hard not to think
00:48:50
about these things because somehow I think answers to other cases are in [music] there somewhere. Like why Susie?
00:48:59
Why then? And who else? Marietta wrote in her book that in the months leading up to their vacation that
00:49:08
summer, as she planned their trip to Montana, she developed a healthy fear of snakes and bears invading their
00:49:15
campsites. Never in her wildest dreams did she think that a man on the hunt for a child would be far worse than any
00:49:23
animal she could ever dream of encountering. But in the end, Marietta forgave David.
00:49:30
She went on to become an advocate for forgiveness and speaks openly against [music]
00:49:35
the death penalty.