00:00:01
the non-emergency dispatch line at the Shaban County Sheriff's Office in Wisconsin started to ring the caller
00:00:07
won't give his name but sometime before Sunrise he and his wife were walking in Nicholls Creek and they stumbled upon a
00:00:15
dead body there is a 35-year-old woman who was reported missing in August of 1989 named Reese poan there is a note in
00:00:23
her missing person's report about a gallbladder surgery scar that really raises some eyebrows and it's that scar
00:00:30
that helps detectives confirm their Jane Doe is without a doubt reys poan and I'll never forget this moment we were in
00:00:38
the office and Emily comes in and she's like hey I think Reese's case might be connected to a bunch of others and I
00:00:47
think there might be a serial killer in Wisconsin that nobody knows about except
00:00:53
for me by searching through newspaper archives and public records databases our reporter Emily started finding more
00:01:07
dismemberment victims in Wisconsin in the Years surrounding Reese's murder at least 12 people 11 of them women were
00:01:15
found whose heads or hands had been cut off during or after their murders now a handful of these women are still
00:01:22
unidentified and most of the cases have never been solved all in different jurisdictions for the most part yes yes
00:01:30
which we're thinking is maybe why no one has kind of looked at this holistically
00:01:35
before and like when you see this we haven't come across something like this like who are you supposed to tell I mean
00:01:41
like we have the most badass group of women here at audio cheu doing the absolute Lords work but like try calling
00:01:47
up the FBI and saying that you have a podcast and there might be a serial killer like honestly it's going to be a
00:01:52
little easier because crime junkie actually is pretty well known now we have a lot of law enforcement fans like
00:01:58
thanks guys but other podcasts have made fools of themselves by calling the FBI and they end up becoming the butt of
00:02:05
like internet jokes so Emily tried reaching out to various FBI field offices in Wisconsin but like only ever
00:02:12
got connected with a Pio who then never even returned a call or an email but undeterred she you know compiles
00:02:20
everything that she's found into a document that she sends off to detective hatch who trusts her and in turn he
00:02:27
sends it to the FBI field office in milwauke and here is what was in that document
00:02:33
our list begins in 1982 when the partial remains of a Jane do are found in calonia which is in southeast Wisconsin
00:02:41
according to the do project they're still trying to identify her but the woman was likely between 45 and 60 years
00:02:47
old and had given birth at some point in her life then in March of 1983 in rine which by the way is just 11 miles from
00:02:56
calonia a woman's arms hands and legs are found buried in a backyard she's identified as 51-year-old Helen
00:03:06
Sebastian I have truly become obsessed with Helen's case and I hope to bring you a whole episode on her one of these
00:03:13
days but today's not that day so 7 months after that in October of 1983 dismembered partial remains of a man are
00:03:20
found in petrifying Springs Park in Kenosha County a mere 15 minutes south of where Helen's dismembered body was
00:03:27
found this person is identified as 18-year-old Eric Hansen he's our only male victim now in may 1984 in Vernon
00:03:35
County which is Western Wisconsin a woman is found lying on the side of a gravel road a few miles outside of the
00:03:42
town of Westby with her hands cut off and major trauma to her head she has still never been identified but she was
00:03:49
likely in her 60s and wore Dentures that's what they know about her and her hands have still never been found now 30
00:03:56
minutes west of there in February 1985 24-year-old Terry doway is found decapitated and on fire in a rural part
00:04:03
of Veron County now Terry's case was unsolved but there actually was a break in the case in the fall of 2024 when
00:04:10
charges were brought against a man named Michael pop now he pleaded not guilty in
00:04:16
January of this year so developments in her case are actively underway unclear if pop is a suspect in any other cases
00:04:23
if this is like the outlier on all this I don't know it's still actively unfolding so then in the spring of 198 7
00:04:30
indigenous woman Ray torel lot's dismembered body is found on the monomon reservation in northern Wisconsin then
00:04:37
in the summer of 1989 we know ree vanishes from Milwaukee and then her remains are found in Shaban County and
00:04:43
then the Vernon Marsh area in wershaw County the next comes on Thanksgiving Day 1990 that's when the clothes and
00:04:50
skeletal remains of a Jane Doe are found by deer hunters in price County through
00:04:55
dental records they're identified as belonging to Susan pupart who is an indigenous woman who vanished from a
00:05:00
reservation in northern Wisconsin 6 months prior to being found now Susie's story has a lot of twists and turns our
00:05:07
reporters became really interested in it while researching these cases so that's
00:05:12
the one I'm actually going to be covering on the deck which again is the other weekly podcast I host so just keep
00:05:17
an eye out for that one as well also in the fall of 1990 a Jane Doe's dismembered remains are found buried in
00:05:23
a number of plastic bags near Black River Falls Wisconsin her torso is buried in one bag her limbs are buried
00:05:30
in a separate bag her head is never found and this woman is later identified as Julia bayz and I'm going to tell you
00:05:38
about her case in this episode but after her in 1991 a woman's body is found with
00:05:45
severed hands at the Goose Lake Wildlife Preserve in Daye County Wisconsin her hands had been cut off and are later
00:05:52
found in Walworth County she's laid to rest as a Jane do but later identified as Doris McLoud a Man convicted victed
00:05:59
of sex trafficking has long been suspected in the teenager's murder then in October 2002 Boy Scouts find the
00:06:07
skull and lower mandible of a jandoo in a ravine in St Croy County which is like
00:06:13
Far Western Wisconsin and authorities have said that they likely belong to a Native American woman between the ages
00:06:19
of 35 and 50 and then lastly in 2021 you heard that right 2021 a skull is discovered which is
00:06:28
found way up North not far from Vias County the skull is missing a lower Jawbone and last I heard investigators
00:06:34
are working with anthropologists to determine who it could have belonged to But A source told us that they thought
00:06:41
that this person could have been Native American and here's the wild part so that is our list that we're working with
00:06:47
m one of the women on that list the one I said I'm going to be covering Ray Tor aot she's Reese Pam's cousin what yeah
00:06:58
the connections are too bizarre to ignore there really should have been a Statewide task force or something but
00:07:06
because the cases were mostly in separate counties no one was connecting the dots until now so I need to step
00:07:15
back from Reese's story and tell you about two of the other cases that we're going to dive into starting with Reese's
00:07:21
cousin Ray torlot so if you Google Ray the first thing that pops up is this beautiful portrait of her when she was a
00:07:28
monoman tribal princess and from the people we spoke to it sounded like Ry was very involved on the reservation and
00:07:35
the reservation is the last place she was ever seen on October 14th 1986 that's when Ry who was 18 at the
00:07:42
time went to a small house party at the time the Green Bay Press Gazette reported that there were six other
00:07:48
people at that party all of whom Ry was friends with so the story goes like this on October 14th Ry says that she
00:07:59
wants to leave the party and she gets a ride from one of the other partygoers but when they get to her house she
00:08:05
doesn't want to go inside so they kind of just drive around the reservation for a while and then they head back to the
00:08:11
party and then a little while later Ry leaves the party again but no one knows exactly when she ducked out that time or
00:08:18
if she was with anyone when she did I'm assuming this is all happening a little while after midnight but honestly the
00:08:25
reports are like they're really Slim not super detailed so she walks out and then
00:08:30
poof she is just gone she never makes it home and the next day she's nowhere to be found she gets reported missing to
00:08:38
the Tribal Police who act pretty quickly to put together search parties with canines like they question everyone at
00:08:44
the party that night they contact other reservations and Indian centers and they
00:08:48
also searched the house where the party was but they didn't find anything helpful so this search for Ray goes on
00:08:53
for 2 and 1/2 weeks but there is just no sign of her and around this time the tribal police chief tells the Green Bay
00:09:01
Press Gazette quote I've kind of given up a little bit but I'll be out there looking again later on well that's not
00:09:09
exactly what you want to hear from an investigator no but like to his credit I mean he actually contacts the FBI for
00:09:16
assistance in the search but they basically tell him that they can't conduct a fullscale investigation
00:09:22
without evidence of a crime they say there is quote nothing to indicate to us that Foul Play was involved or that
00:09:29
there was a federal problem which is like a frustrating response to me especially considering like it is tribal
00:09:36
land and that is FBI jurisdiction and for me I always like can't quite wrap my head around the statement there's no
00:09:44
evidence of Foul Play because there isn't evidence of not Foul Play like what does that mean yeah and it's
00:09:49
usually the families right who are shouting that from the rooftops and that's how it was for ry's family ry's
00:09:55
mom Josephine tells the local papers that Ry had gone off on her own before but it was usually for like 3 or 4 days
00:10:02
and they always knew where she was Josephine says that Ry didn't seem unhappy or distressed before the party
00:10:08
and apparently she had planned to be in a friend's wedding several days after she went missing plus right before Ry
00:10:13
went missing she had just become a mom her newborn daughter Elise was not even 2 months old and listen I know new
00:10:22
moming is like the hardest thing in the world I cannot imagine doing it at 18 but everyone who knew Ry felt it in
00:10:28
their bones she wouldn't have left her daughter but as for detectives with no leads they're like really scraping the
00:10:36
barrel they even connect with a Native American psychic from Chicago who apparently tells them that Ry is either
00:10:42
dead or in serious trouble and the psychic actually describes an area where Ray's body might be which detectives
00:10:49
promptly search to no avail it's always so wild to me that psychics were just like regularly involved in
00:10:55
investigations back then and like and why they write them off so much now like and actually in particular this psychic
00:11:01
their name's Robin Ferman and she used her Clairvoyant abilities to help with a number of police investigations in
00:11:07
Wisconsin and other states she claimed that she could get impressions basically of missing people and I'm not sure if
00:11:14
it's because of Robin or because of something else that I don't know about but around this time investigators
00:11:21
changed their tune finally to say that they do believe that Rey may be dead but when asked whether or not Foul Play is
00:11:29
involved in the case they say and I'm quoting here yes and no and before you ask like I have no idea what they meant
00:11:38
by that investigators never really explain that cryptic answer but they do tell reporters that they have several
00:11:44
suspects including the men who like Ry allegedly got a ride with like from the party like to her house and then back
00:11:51
wait do detectives know who they are so they do but no names are ever released to the public in fact I've never seen
00:11:58
names in Criminal Cas is so closely guarded the chief of the Tribal Police Chief Keith torot wouldn't even tell us
00:12:05
their names off the Record quick question is torlot a common name there or no so here's the thing so
00:12:13
the chief is actually Ray's cousin would that also make him cousins with reys yep
00:12:22
I think they were like first cousins once removed so like this case is personal for him I would say anyway they
00:12:28
believe they know who gave Ry a ride again that first time we're not talking about like we don't know of anyone who
00:12:34
like after the second time she left from the party back to the party right but they clearly don't have proof of
00:12:39
anything because months go by without any arrests or new information it's just like this flood of rumors but those
00:12:47
rumors must hold a little truth to them or just the sheer amount of time that goes by with no word from Ry finally
00:12:54
holds more weight cuz 4 months in investigators officially announced that Ray Tor A lot's case has become a murder
00:13:00
probe and that they're calling in the FBI now again investigators won't say why they believe Ry was murdered they
00:13:07
say they have a suspect in mind but just not enough evidence for an arrest again
00:13:13
names of the suspect or suspects Never released and then in April of 1987 2 months later detectives are finally able
00:13:21
to prove their assumption Ry was murdered the announcement comes after a hunter stumbles across a bra strap while
00:13:29
he's out walking in a remote area of the monomane Indian Reservation which leads
00:13:34
him then to a headless female body pretty much every article at the time about the discovery mentions Rey in some
00:13:42
way so she is definitely on investigators minds but they don't want to say anything without proof it's 3
00:13:48
days later when Josephine is able to identify the body as belonging to her daughter based on her clothing and then
00:13:54
a scientific identification comes through DNA testing but that doesn't happen for 10
00:13:59
years but at the time detectives trust Josephine's word now an autopsy is also done and the manner of death is ruled a
00:14:06
homicide but Chief torlot told us that for a number of reasons mainly the state of the decomposition and the swampy area
00:14:14
where the body was found and the missing head the coroner wasn't able to determine a cause of death and honestly
00:14:20
Brit after this ruling very little progress at all is made in Rey's case and as much as we tried to dig into this
00:14:29
case on our own we ran into a lot of hurdles and a lot of roadblocks for one as Chief torlot told us ry's case File
00:14:38
is very thin her investigation went cold almost immediately and the work that has
00:14:43
been done has been like extremely Hush Hush plus people on the reservation are hesitant to talk about it even to Elise
00:14:51
Ray's daughter when I was growing up I really didn't hear a lot of stuff like that in
00:14:56
that per se I would just hear like people just say say like oh you look like your mom or oh your mom was really
00:15:03
nice dancer and I mean um she's I mean they would just say that they wouldn't talk about the actual I think it it
00:15:12
seemed like it was like that whole part was shielded from me honestly it's really hard to
00:15:21
talk about with everybody on the reservation I want to say I think it really hit hard for everybody when that
00:15:29
happen I can see how much pain it is for them honestly still like you can still see it
00:15:38
to this day like it happened yesterday it was a very touchy subject I guess you want to say for everybody honestly the
00:15:47
people who are at the house I mean those are her friends you know what I mean I think they've carries a certain kind of
00:15:54
guilt about that I asked one time I said I was like can we talk about that can we talk about that night and then
00:16:02
they were they actually were like no I don't want to talk about it and it's weird because it's me that's saying it
00:16:11
that's asking them it's something that has bothered me a lot I mean if you really looked at how close
00:16:22
this house was where she was to where my grandparents live it's literally a block
00:16:27
away that's crazy maybe because of a lack of cooperation maybe for a zillion other reasons the investigation stalls
00:16:37
though no excuse is an acceptable one to elely and her family they don't feel like investigators did enough at the
00:16:43
time and she's heard that there was lost evidence in the case and she thinks that
00:16:48
multiple agencies didn't coordinate well it seemed to her to just be a mess but they didn't just mess up a job the way
00:16:55
that you or I might screw up like a spreadsheet this is her mom's literal life and you only get one shot at the
00:17:03
early days of an investigation and now that's lost investigators hope back then was that if they could find Ray's head
00:17:11
maybe that would give them some physical evidence to work with but they searched
00:17:15
for five months without locating it were her hands removed like Reese 2 I don't know because not all of Ray's remains
00:17:23
were found police told us that it was only her lower half that was found and that and again we know her head was
00:17:29
never found and Ray aside is there any theory around why so many of the Wisconsin dismemberment hands and heads
00:17:37
were removed I mean to prevent identification but could there be some other reason yeah we kept asking
00:17:43
detectives that very question during our reporting and nobody could say for sure
00:17:47
I mean they pointed out that obviously if a killer was like a seasoned criminal like you're saying they might do that
00:17:52
for identification purposes it's also possible that this is like depending on you know who the killer was what the
00:17:58
relationship the motive was like just pling Revenge could be another Factor we also had some sources tell us that in
00:18:04
certain cultures it is a belief that someone can't rest in peace without being buried fully intact so there could
00:18:11
be several different factors at play but to go back to Ray's case we spoke with Chief torela and he said he still has
00:18:19
suspects in Ray's case and no one has been excluded as a person of interest unfortunately though lots of people that
00:18:27
he wanted to talk to have since passed away and he hoped maybe for a deathbed confession in this case but that's never
00:18:34
happened he did do some DNA testing though on what I don't know on what he wouldn't tell us but I think the what is
00:18:42
the wrong question because this what I was getting to there is a question that is far more interesting to
00:18:49
[Music] ask at one point Chief torot said that he had his DNA tested to prove that he
00:18:57
wasn't involved like the FBI asked him for it or he did that as part of his investigation not clear like we tried to
00:19:06
ask the FBI but they never got back to us and chief toot said no one has been ruled out as a person of interest
00:19:13
correct but he's also been working this case since the beginning like he's the guy that's been heading it up from the
00:19:18
tribal side for almost 30 years so I feel like the FBI would have stepped in if he was a real person of interest I
00:19:26
don't know and for all I know there is isn't even DNA evidence to compare stuff to like that's something that they
00:19:32
wouldn't share it's all so muddy and complicated and we were this close to getting an interview with one of the
00:19:39
detectives working on this case Emily actually reached out to the detective who is directly assigned he agreed to
00:19:45
talk but then Chief torlot wouldn't authorize the interview and since our coverage has been ongoing for like years
00:19:52
now we even went back and asked again and the detective said that he isn't allowed to do media interviews I don't
00:19:59
know if that's because the shared jurisdiction with the FBI or why everyone is so Hush Hush on Ray's case
00:20:05
why Chief torlot doesn't want him talking but it seems like they don't want people asking questions or like
00:20:11
getting the word out which in my opinion just hurts their chances of actually receiving tips in her case yeah so at a
00:20:18
certain point in her adulthood Elise gets to the point where she feels like she needs to take matters into her own
00:20:24
hands conduct her own interviews with Ray closest friends and honestly her primary goal isn't even to get her mom's
00:20:32
murder solved she wants to just learn more about her mom and keep her name alive through
00:20:38
conversation it sucks because I don't I don't have memories I think we have two pictures together I think
00:20:47
that's all we have and it sucks because I don't know what she was like I don't know I hear a lot of stuff but I wish I
00:20:57
got to know that myself um not knowing how her voice is like what was my mom's favorite color
00:21:06
was she a dog person she um what was her favorite hobbies what is she like doing
00:21:14
cuz I don't know any of that stuff is that stuff her family can share with her didn't you mention something about ry's
00:21:20
mom so yeah Josephine and Rey had a sister too and that's who Elise lived with and she had her dad but elely she
00:21:27
said she never felt like she could ask questions because anytime Ry would come up it would just make everyone so upset
00:21:33
so she really grew up with her mom being this like taboo subject in her family and of course we know the
00:21:40
extended family is also Reckoning with the death of another relative were they close like I know
00:21:48
cousins can mean like very different things for different families know I know we don't know exactly how close
00:21:53
they were as cousins but they definitely crossed paths on the monomane reservation where they grew up Reese's
00:21:58
daughter Michelle remembers seeing Ry perform at powow or like traditional Native American culture celebrations she
00:22:05
performed as a dancer and I know that Rees knew about Ray's murder because of a tip that hatch found buried in Reese's
00:22:14
case File a tip in Reese's case File about Rey and it is chilling the tip is from a woman named Geraldine or Jerry
00:22:24
one of Reese's friends from church and when interviewed by police in 19 1990 Geraldine reveals that just 2 months
00:22:32
before reys went missing reys confided something in her and Rees had stated that she was scared and depressed and
00:22:41
when Geraldine questioned her Reese indicated that Reese was in danger ree confided in Jerry that she was afraid
00:22:47
that she would end up like her cousin Ray tortilla commented something to the effect that he's going to cut off my
00:22:54
head he already killed my cousin Reese had supposedly made this individual really mad at her and he swore he was
00:23:01
going to do this to her he who this is GNA Eat You Alive she told Jerry a name but Jerry couldn't remember the name you
00:23:11
got to be kidding me I wish she basically predicted exactly what was going to happen to her I know it seems
00:23:17
almost impossible that investigators never connected the two murders but they just never compared notes in fact we
00:23:24
actually connected the investigators in both cases just this past year in October 2024 and that's when they
00:23:30
finally sat down and had their first ever meeting wait I don't understand Reese told someone that she was afraid
00:23:39
that she was going to end up like her cousin that someone was mad at her someone was going
00:23:44
to uh well we're not saying that on video we can't say that anymore okay someone was going to yes a couple months
00:23:51
later the exact thing happens exactly like she predicted and no one looked into it not until our reporting team
00:23:58
came along I wish these different counties would just talk to each other more I know so they're talking 2024 but
00:24:06
like no huge breakthroughs happened at this fall meeting it did finally bring together Tribal Police the County
00:24:13
detectives the feds the state investigative agencies they basically went down the POI list in both Ray and
00:24:20
Reese's case to see if there were any overlaps unfortunately it like all comes back to like what is the name that reys
00:24:26
told Jerry like who was she afraid of but nobody knows I do know that what comes out of this big meeting everyone
00:24:33
coming together is that investigators detectives all left that meeting with a new to-do list full of leads that they
00:24:40
wanted to follow up on that are still underway as of this recording of this episode and the whole jurisdiction thing
00:24:47
seems to be a major hurdle though not just in Ry and ree's cases but in most of the Wisconsin dismemberment cases
00:24:54
that Emily and I found and I asked detective hatch about these two has there been any
00:25:00
determination on whether any of them are connected or suspected to be fully no um
00:25:07
and I've reached out to a handful of the uh detectives that from some of those cases and got like a thumbnail of the
00:25:15
scenario of what happened in those cases I didn't hear anything that would lead me to believe that they are related um
00:25:23
except for one that is really interesting to me can you talk about the one that you think think there's
00:25:28
potential for it yeah there there's um a woman named Julia Bez she was I believe
00:25:35
36 years old um I believe she was Puerto Rican and she was a mother of four and she was ultimately um abducted from
00:25:48
Milwaukee and in October of 90 her dismembered body was found in um plastic bags garbage bags in a shallow grave by
00:25:57
mus hunters in the village of Brockway which is in Jackson County directly across the river from Black River Falls
00:26:05
so I reached out to the sensitive crimes unit at Milwaukee Police Department and
00:26:09
I was able to get my hands on a report and as I put Julia's address it was only just a few blocks from Rees and it was
00:26:17
only a half a block from National Avenue in Reese's direct [Music] path so that brings us to our next case
00:26:26
Julia bayz known to most people as Julie she was last seen in June of 1990 about
00:26:33
9 months after rees's disappearance unfortunately we don't know the exact date that Julie was last
00:26:39
seen alive because she isn't reported missing until nearly 5 months after the fact nobody noticed she was gone for
00:26:46
five months well because of different relationships and reportedly Julie's prior drug use her two sons weren't
00:26:54
living with her one of them was with his dad another was in foster care and then
00:26:58
her 14-year-old daughter Marisol was with her father in New Jersey and then Julie's 10-year-old daughter also named
00:27:04
Julie was in foster care in Milwaukee plus according to Julie's half sister L the one who eventually does report her
00:27:11
missing Julie lived this very transient lifestyle so L tells police that Julie made a habit of going off on her own and
00:27:19
she would like return weeks later I don't know where she would go and actually Julie's daughters don't
00:27:23
remember even their mom doing that but apparently L began to get concerned nobody in the family had heard from
00:27:29
Julie in a while she wasn't with their mom in Puerto Rico and her apartment manager hadn't seen her around at all
00:27:35
there in fact according to police reports that we got through a records request it had been so long since the
00:27:40
apartment manager had seen Julie that he actually moved her stuff into storage in
00:27:45
Julie's missing persons report L tells police that she last Saw Julie June 18th 1990 at a Tavern about 5 minutes from
00:27:53
Julie's apartment and that Julie left the bar after having an argument with her boyfriend Pedro so police looked at
00:28:00
Pedro it seems like they're at least initially suspicious of him but on paper it never led to anything official so of
00:28:07
course we did some of our own digging the day that Julie went missing her daughter Marisol was with her grandma
00:28:12
Julie's mom and Marisol remembers the last conversation she had with Julie to me she had said that she was going out
00:28:21
with a friend they were going to go out uh dancing somewhere so um and that was the friend was picking her up it was a
00:28:30
girlfriend of hers that she was always with and they went out and she just never came back so she went out socially
00:28:39
the night she disappeared which is sad because now I see it like you know that was the last time and I didn't even
00:28:44
realize it was going to be the last time do we know which is correct was she meeting a girlfriend or Pedro that last
00:28:52
night so based on interviews that we did and then the records that we got I actually think both stories are true we
00:28:58
learned that Julie actually went out with her bff Maricella at a Tavern where they were regulars and a Tavern where
00:29:04
Pedro was known to play in a band that's where Julie and her girlfriend supposedly went dancing that night and
00:29:10
the bar is no longer there but for our Milwaukee crime junkies it was at 15th and Mitchell and it was possibly called
00:29:17
the El wano lounge and reports state that L again this is Julie's sister it's actually half sister it says that she
00:29:23
was at the bar that night so she tells police that Julie and Pedro got into an argument and that Julie left never to be
00:29:29
seen again was Pedro interviewed I wish I knew like again the police reports we got through the open records request are
00:29:35
like super thin I know police at least got a statement from Mariella the friend that she was with that night obviously
00:29:41
they got a statement from L's but they didn't give us any copies of like the friend statements or any of the
00:29:46
follow-up reports about Pedro if there were any and so that was basically it like there were some routine follow-ups
00:29:53
on Julie every few years to see if she had like renewed her driver's license or if any of her kids had heard from her
00:30:01
but at some point with no more viable leads the case just went cold and I'm talking like completely cold no other
00:30:07
followup is done until 2012 and this whole time she's just missing yeah she's never found but also it doesn't seem
00:30:16
like police were actually looking for her because literally there's this note in the case File in August 2012 mind you
00:30:22
this is 22 years after she goes missing and B I'm going to have you read it cuz like I think it's shocking it says on
00:30:31
4412 at 2:40 p.m. Squad 2131 went to the address of 825 South 23rd Street Number
00:30:40
6 to conduct followup regarding the missing person Julia bayz at the address we found that apartment number six does
00:30:48
not exist the building only houses Apartments 1 through 5 this was confirmed by the mailboxes and meters
00:30:55
located in the rear of the building there was also no bz on the mailboxes what I know it's 22 years
00:31:03
later and also this apartment doesn't exist 22 years later but like what does that mean does it does it actually mean
00:31:09
anything and like of course her name isn't on the mailbox 22 years later right so the thing I I also don't know
00:31:15
is like there's nothing in the report to say why an officer was even sent there in the first place like did they get a
00:31:21
tip for some reason again they can't possibly think they were going there to see Julie the notes say follow up on
00:31:27
what I know and like it's possible again maybe someone all those years ago gave the wrong address for her or someone
00:31:34
made an error writing it down or something I really don't know again as for why 22 years later I'm assuming I
00:31:41
have to think someone called in and asked for an update or made a tip I it just doesn't make sense to me and I
00:31:46
can't make sense of it with what they gave us yeah basically they learned nothing seems that way yeah and over the
00:31:53
next 3 years there is this like annual followup with the case but the reports are never more than a couple of
00:31:59
sentences long and in 2013 detectives call the number on file for Julie but like it's no longer in service duh like
00:32:07
so they check with the Department of Transportation to see if she updated her address but it hadn't been updated since
00:32:11
around the time she went missing and then it's the same story in 2014 and then in this 2014 report the detective
00:32:17
writes that Julie was reported missing by L in 2010 which is just like straight up wrong but this detective at least
00:32:25
tries to contact l unsuccessfully I mean did they try to contact her children or
00:32:30
do more followup with Pedro or the friend she was at with not that I know of and actually we tried to reach Pedro
00:32:37
and her friend too but no luck so come 2014 Marisol her daughter decides she needs to put some pressure on
00:32:45
investigators now that she's older and she can understand the situation a bit more she goes back to the police station
00:32:52
herself initially when I went to the police department they're like hire private investigator and I was pretty
00:32:59
upset at that and you know I was like to do your job you know because it's not like we can afford to hire anyone I know
00:33:06
my mom is a Jane though somewhere I know my mom would not just come back and not
00:33:12
see us or you know her mom um so he finally listened and he he that's when he you know collected DNA samples and
00:33:23
what do you know 8 months later in July of 2015 Detectives call Marisol and her sister Julie back down to the station
00:33:31
their DNA had been a match to a Jane Do's Remains What Jane Doe where where and when so as it turns out on October
00:33:42
10th 1990 so this is 4 months after Julie disappeared a man in Black River Falls a city 3 hours West of Milwaukee
00:33:51
was out foraging for mushrooms when he stumbled upon a garbage bag containing a human arm and leg and then when police
00:34:00
descend on this area and search it they find more bags of dismembered remains nearby in a shallow grave and it looks
00:34:06
like it had gotten partially dug up by animals now according to the Jackson County Sheriff quoted in the lacrosse
00:34:12
Tribune at the time most of the parts were bones but some still contained some flesh and after a thorough search of the
00:34:19
area officials told the papers that the only body part that they could not find was a head and according to marasol this
00:34:28
discovery site was near a reservation as well just like in Ray's case and if Black River Falls sounds familiar
00:34:37
remember Larry Reese Pan's violent ex-boyfriend yeah yeah remember he now lives in Black River Falls but at the
00:34:47
time no one makes the potential connections police in Milwaukee and Jackson County where Black River Falls
00:34:53
is aren't even thinking about Ray torot or ree pooke camp they're telling local news outlets that the body was likely
00:35:00
dumped by someone traveling through the region because this spot is a halfway point between the Twin Cities and
00:35:06
Milwaukee and they say quote people feel they're in a remote area plus there were
00:35:12
no missing people in their County and I almost couldn't believe this when I read
00:35:17
it but the Jackson County Sheriff said quote Jackson County is not the only place anything like this has happened
00:35:24
there are lots of them there have been bodies found in Vernon lacrosse marathon and Juno counties all over the state you
00:35:32
have heads without bodies bodies without heads bodies without hands Jackson County is not by itself in any way is
00:35:39
this his way of telling the public not to Panic or is he like trying to connect things listen I don't know but I'm
00:35:47
willing to bet that the sheriff only said this to somehow make the situation seem less like a big deal like oh don't
00:35:53
worry residents there is nothing wrong with our County this dismemberment stuff is happening everywhere oh I feel way
00:35:59
better now I know and now again when he's making the statement like the remains are still unidentified but I'm
00:36:06
kind of shocked that it took so long if they were looking for missing women far and wide now the timing on all of this
00:36:13
gets a little unbelievable because they only ended up doing DNA testing on this dough months before Marisol gets
00:36:21
Milwaukee py to take her DNA which is two decades later yeah and what's also wild is that in all that time Marisol
00:36:29
had been looking for her mom and she told us that she had seen that Jane Doe's name is Page a ton it's so crazy
00:36:36
because I had gone into the Jane do Network year after year and I had seen the Jane do from Black River
00:36:44
Falls I would see it and I would always say no uh age would say like from 20 to 30 my mom was 36 Caucasian even though
00:36:54
my mom was very light complected she was Hispanic and it also said she had a tattoo of a mushroom and I was like my
00:37:01
mom didn't have a tattoo come to find out the tattoo of the mushroom was the imprint of the the remains um on a
00:37:10
mushroom field because that's where she was found so it had imprinted I guess on
00:37:15
the skin as she decomposed and I had see every year I would see it and I just keep going like no that's not her for
00:37:22
Marisol and little Julie just knowing where their mom was provided a huge relief
00:37:28
Julie had gone her whole life thinking that her mom had just abandoned them as a kid she was in and out of 12 different
00:37:35
foster homes until she was finally adopted to find out that she did not abandon me and that she wanted me um is
00:37:43
a big pack in my life because I have a child now and I would not do that I would not I don't want to live without
00:37:54
not knowing and not and not having to tell my child that you know her grandmother didn't care about me cuz her
00:38:00
grandmother did care about me your mom loves you a certain way there's nobody in the world that's going to love you
00:38:05
like your mom finally with a name for their Jane do the Jackson County Sheriff tells the Leader Telegram that they're
00:38:12
going to get to the bottom of who killed her that before it was hard because they
00:38:17
didn't have the name of their victim didn't have a starting point but all that was going to change starting now
00:38:24
well that was in July of 2015 unfortunately from what I can tell no further breaks ever come in the case we
00:38:31
put in a records request for the investigative files in Julie's case that got denied the only reason we know the
00:38:38
little we do is from like an incident report we also asked for interviews with detectives who like have her case or
00:38:44
jurisdiction they denied our requests Emily did speak on background to a law enforcement Source who worked on the
00:38:51
case but that Source doesn't work for the Jackson County Sheriff's Office anymore so like we didn't get a ton and
00:38:57
it doesn't seem like they ever even considered that their dismemberment case could be connected to any others because
00:39:05
Marisol and Julie by the way didn't even know about Reese poan or Ray torlot cases until we brought them up in our
00:39:14
interview and she disappeared 9 months before my mom you know in Milwaukee so close yeah that wow I had no idea the
00:39:25
fact that also a mother also in the same area they were getting away with murder
00:39:32
and then you know just the fact that there's so many there's so many out here and so many families too that like ours
00:39:41
just you know we don't know we just have to sit here and wonder and hope it's really only detective hatch in Shaban
00:39:50
County who's trying to shed light on all the similarities between these cases we
00:39:56
show to the Jackson County Sheriff's department and um found out that there was evidence physical evidence that they
00:40:03
had um there's nobody actively working on the case but there's a detective that was assigned that case and that my
00:40:11
request to them was to see if there was evidence that had been sent or not sent hopefully they would send all that
00:40:17
evidence to a uh crime laboratory to maybe identify any kind of you know DNA or evidence related to a suspect hatch
00:40:28
is also working with Jackson County authorities to see if anyone on ree poan suspect list matches anyone in Julia Bay
00:40:35
as's case File and he presented to the FBI's Cold Case homicide task force about all of these Wisconsin
00:40:42
dismemberment cases some of which were not even on their radar so these are all cases I wish I had more to bring you on
00:40:48
but we felt like the best thing we could do at this point is to just like get everything we do have out there for
00:40:53
people to hear because maybe someone out there knows something about these Wisconsin Women and are one man maybe
00:41:01
someone is in law enforcement and they have a similar case that we don't even know about from that time period And if
00:41:07
nothing else maybe everyone can just come together and let Charlie and Michelle and Elise and Marisol and Julie
00:41:13
all know that their mothers haven't been forgotten that for this one moment millions of people across the world are
00:41:21
thinking about their moms and I believe there's so much power in the collective human consciousness you might call it
00:41:27
prayer whatever we call it however we direct our intentions to a singular focus of peace and Justice I do believe
00:41:34
it's powerful I had likeed you know them to find who did it and you know to finally have that closure different
00:41:41
piece of you is always missing when you don't know who did this why they did it where they are who they are it would be
00:41:48
really nice to have that type of closure for sure I just want Justice I think after we find who did
00:41:56
this to her I think that's the only only time I'll be able to feel Rel cuz my mom didn't
00:42:03
deserve this she did why did you do it it's not just my mom but it's somebody's sister
00:42:15
somebody's friend it's Somebody's Daughter it's somebody's it's my son's Grandma you
00:42:22
know what I mean it's something that has hurt our family and I don't know what that looks
00:42:32
like for us to get over that I don't I don't know what that is for all of us honestly maybe one day
00:42:42
we'll get justice but at the same time me talking about it doing this and helping other families that's my own
00:42:50
personal Justice cuz even if my mom's case doesn't get solved at least I know that I'm kind of spreading awareness for
00:42:58
other families that are in the situation and helping them and hopefully one day that they'll do the same this idea of
00:43:07
speaking up of bringing attention to the cases of women of color was echoed by Ry
00:43:12
hulia and Reese's daughters here's ree's other daughter Michelle why does it have
00:43:18
to be our own are the only ones that keep that flame going why can't somebody else help us
00:43:24
because they know a lot of our people they tired too and that's sad thing about it I'm hoping that when somebody
00:43:32
hears they listen and they help you know in any which way that they can you know
00:43:39
if it's news people get us out there too let our people be seen get the law enforcement
00:43:45
out there as hard as they do for any but any other race on the night news and everything you know CNN and it's like
00:43:53
well what about ours where do we where do we F in all this and if something were to happen you see
00:44:03
something say something if you see something a right try to help them because some women we
00:44:13
we don't say anything that's the thing and I know a lot of us think we're strong but we're we can only be strong
00:44:23
so much crime junkies please help us get Justice for Ray and Julia and all of the
00:44:29
Wisconsin dismemberment victims from the get our Hope was to tell all of these stories 12 total and that's still Our
00:44:36
Hope but there's just not enough information out there we've tried getting interviews with detectives in
00:44:41
all of the cases we filed records requests with little success but let's make sure that the conversation doesn't
00:44:47
end here I'm going to put a list of the cases that we want more information on in the description for this episode and
00:44:54
on our website so if you have any information at all about about the murders of ree poan Ray torlot or Julia
00:45:00
bayz or if you know anything about the pattern of dismemberments in Wisconsin please reach out to Detective Nathan
00:45:07
hatch at the Shaban County Sheriff's Office you can reach him at his office line 920 459
00:45:14
3135 or at his email nathan. hatch Shaban county.com or you can message us as well if you know something or if
00:45:24
you're a loved one of one of these victims please drop us a line we are counting on you to help us tell these
00:45:30
long overlooked stories and finally get some justice and answers for these victims and their families make sure you
00:45:37
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