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Around every corner, there's a twist. After a woman goes missing, it's up to law enforcement and her children to make
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sure justice is served. But listen closely, because we think that there might be more crimes out there connected
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to this case that are yet to be solved. This is the story of Charlotte Grabby. It's around 8:00 p.m. on July 24th, 1981
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when 21-year-old Jenny Grabby gets a call saying that her 39-year-old mother Charlotte hasn't come home after working
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in the fields on the family farm. Now, Jenny's brother Jeff and his wife Cindy, Cindy's actually the one calling. They
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also live on the property with Charlotte, which is how they realized that she was MIA so quickly. So Jenny
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hops in her car, drives the few miles to the farm in Marshall, Illinois, and together she, Cindy, and Jeff head to
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the soybean field where Charlotte had been working. Now, even though she's nowhere to be seen, when they show up,
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they know she was here because they look in the shed that's nearby and they find
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Charlotte's tractor. They find Charlotte's lunchbox sitting on it. And inside the lunchbox, they find
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Charlotte's migraine medicine. But again, no sign of Charlotte. and no sign of her car, which like you could say
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would be all the more reason to think maybe she left on her own, but if she did that, why not take the medicine that
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she needs with her? I get that, but like farm kid here. Truly, this is like your
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episode. Sometimes stuff happens fast and you got to move like just as quickly. I can totally see her just like
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popping out, leaving everything to take care of whatever emergency farm thing happened. I knew all of this and yes,
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you are not wrong. But I haven't given you the full context for why everyone is so worried. Charlotte is actually in the
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middle of a really nasty divorce with Jeff and Jenny's dad, Fred, which should be marking the end of years of abuse
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that Charlotte's endured at his hand. I mean, even shortly before the filing, he'd recently been charged with battery
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for assaulting her. So Fred's clearly not been willing to let go of Charlotte. And while not many people outside of the
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family know what's been going on behind closed doors, Charlotte doesn't hide these ugly truths from her kids. They're
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grown adults and she looks to them for support. In fact, she had just told her family like days ago that if she ever
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didn't come home for any reason, something was up and they should come look for her. Ashley, I feel like you
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should have led with all of that information. I'm I'm trying to tell a story here. So to add to their worry, a
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couple of neighbors tell Jeff and Jenny that Fred was actually spotted in the area around 4:00 to 4:30. So the kids
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set off to find Fred at this point. One of our reporters, Emily, spoke to Jenny for this episode and she said that they
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looked around for him a little bit, specifically at a couple of bars in the area where he was known to spend a lot
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of time. But when they couldn't find him, Jenny reached out directly to the Clark County Sheriff James Thompson,
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known to the family and others in this small town as Red. And by the next day, Red enlists the help of the state police
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who are able to track Fred down. They end up finding him on the farm in the very place that his wife might have
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disappeared from that shed. Per the records, Fred tells police that in the early afternoon on the 24th, he showed
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up at the shed with a woman named Vicky Mallister because she wanted a burn barrel. So Fred began to load one up
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just as Charlotte started to pull up on the tractor. So, I guess he instructed Vicki to hide in the front seat of his
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truck because oh, by the way, Vicki was his new girlfriend. Oh, and he wanted to
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avoid some kind of blowup, but it sounds like like that didn't really matter because then he admits that when
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Charlotte got off the tractor, they started arguing about his and Vickiy's relationship anyways. And Fred says that
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the fight ended with him telling Charlotte to go to hell and then he hopped in his truck and drove away. And
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he says that Charlotte actually followed him in her car, racing up behind him to
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give him the finger. And the last time he saw her is when he crossed over I7 while Charlotte went right heading
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towards Teroot, Indiana, which is like just over the like state line about 20 minutes from Marshall. And the grabby
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property is super close to the border near the Waw Bash River. Convenient that she just left on her own. Very. And Fred
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also tells police that Charlotte has done this before. And you know what? Like she might be gone. We might not be
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able to find her, but she's gonna come back. She's playing some kind of game. And did he say where he and Vicki went
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after this altercation? He says that he went to a trailer, which I think belonged to Vicki. And he said he got
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there around 400 p.m. And then he stayed there till the next morning. Okay, Fred.
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I know, but like at least part of what Fred told police seems to be true because police follow up with the grabby
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neighbors who indicate that they did see Fred driving in his pickup truck down the road with Charlotte's car following
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right behind him, just like he said. One of those neighbors said that this happened between 4:15 and 4:30.
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But this is where Fred's narrative starts to fall apart because both neighbors that they end up talking to
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tell authorities that they don't believe it was Charlotte driving Charlotte's car. One of the witnesses describes the
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driver as a woman who had blonde curly hair. Charlotte is known to have straight, short, dark hair. And both
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witnesses know Charlotte super well. So these accounts like have some real teeth
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to them. So the big question now is did Vicky Mallister have blonde curly hair? This is my first question. We asked
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Jenny and all these years later, she says she couldn't exactly remember. She remembered it being like frizzy. But
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according to police records we got our hands on, Cindy did tell police that Vicki had blonde curly hair. And also we
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did get our hands on some pictures of her from back in the day. And like definitely it looks light colored,
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definitely curly. So I don't think it's a mystery as to who could have been driving Charlotte's car. Now, if I were
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Red or the state police, obviously I'm going straight back to Fred, calling him a big fat liar and pressing him to tell
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me why witnesses spotted someone who looked an awful lot like his girlfriend driving his missing wife's car the day
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that she went missing. But I don't know if they did any of that. Like, there's nothing I can see in the files that we
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have that shows they went impressed Fred. I'm not saying they didn't. But what we do know is that on July 26th,
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this is now 2 days after Charlotte was last seen, this is when police interview Vicki, except there's nothing about them
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pressing her on if she was the one driving that car. Not like the thing I want to know the most. Vicki pretty much
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just tells them the same story that Fred did. She says that she was hiding in the
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truck. She could hear Fred and Charlotte arguing. Fred eventually jumped in the truck and then they drove away arriving
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to her trailer between like 4:00 and 5:00. So, police don't get a whole lot from Fred and Vicki because it feels
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like we're not asking any of the important questions. Fair, but maybe they wanted to find Charlotte's car
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before they go making accusations. And luckily, that is exactly what happens next, like the very same day that they
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interview Vicki. Charlotte's car is discovered parked and locked at a bar in Teroot. And unfortunately, or maybe
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fortunately, there's nothing super alarming about the condition of the car. Like, when police finally get inside and
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search the vehicle, there's no signs of a struggle or blood or anything. The only thing of interest that we do know
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they find in the car is a gun. But in rural Indiana, it's like honestly not weird to find that in someone's car.
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This is my PSA about road rage people. Like you do not know who is behind that wheel or what kind of day they have had
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or life or what they have under their seat. 1,000%. Yeah. And Jenny told us that in her mom's case, she thinks that
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this gun that they found was actually one that her dad purchased, but he never took it with him when he moved out of
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the house after the split. So her mom was keeping it with her and on her like for protection basically. Is there any
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testing they can do on it to see if it was used recently or anything? You know, I don't think there's any testing they
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can do on the gun itself. I mean, I know they could test Fred for like GSR gunshot residue, like to see if he'd
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fired a gun, right? We know like that exists. Yeah. Nothing says that they did this, though. But I don't think there's
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like a test you can run on a gun to know if it was fired within the last couple of days. So, I know the car eventually
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gets returned to Marshall for further examination. And then things like hairs and fibers and fingerprints are found in
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the car, but none of these things that are found seem to tie directly back to Fred or Vicki. So, while the car didn't
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appear to provide a ton of new information, finding that gun that Charlotte kept closed for protection
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just reinforced how truly terrified she was of Fred. And if there was any doubt about that, Charlotte cleared that up in
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her own words. [Music] Two branches of the same tree, two pieces of a soul. Where one sister goes,
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the other will be. For she is but half of the whole. The missing half. Pre-order your copy at
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ashleyflowers.com. Police found that Charlotte kept a safety deposit box at a local bank. And
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when investigators got access to that box, they found a three-page signed letter dated July 10th. This is about 2
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weeks before she disappeared. And in this letter, Charlotte accuses Fred and his business associate, this guy named
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Dale, of doing some shady stuff like stealing from other farms. And Charlotte's letter also describes a
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scheme where Dale and Fred would remove serial numbers from oil pump jacks, which seems to indicate that they were
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like maybe stolen or stealing them or whatever. So essentially, these two were getting into all kinds of things. But
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even more damning, Charlotte says in her letter, quote, "Fred and I are getting a
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divorce, and I'm not sure I will not be killed through all of this." End quote. It's always so like chilling and
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devastating to me when a victim like sees it coming, you know, like it's like a train barreling towards them that they
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can't stop. They can do nothing to stop. You want to like reach back in time and
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be like you you're like you're writing this letter for a reason. like you're not crazy. You you need to do some like
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reach out for help. Do something. And this is like you know the PSA we do to everyone like if you're having those
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feelings like you so many times people are like well it's not going to happen to me and I just I'm going to write it
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down just in case. Just in case just in case is like you're at a line that like it's already gone far too far. So like
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we're going to have a ton of links to resources in the show notes, but like there are plenty of people out there
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like Charlotte who are like doing things like this, writing this letter. So, the
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signs that Charlotte was in danger before she vanished were very real, not just in the form of assaults from Fred.
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Jeff tells police that actually the day before Charlotte's disappearance, she got a strange call from a woman. And
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this woman told Charlotte that she had some documents that would get Fred in trouble and she wanted to meet up at a
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bar. No. Obviously, no. Charlotte's not even falling for it either. And when the
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woman refused to give her a name, Charlotte refused to go meet her. Yeah. But like this is another big mystery
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within a mystery. Who was this woman? What was this all about? It only adds to like all of the questions they're
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already asking. And what if anything this has to do with Charlotte's disappearance? Police don't know because
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like a lot of things in this case, it's all too vague. But Charlotte's kids don't need the same evidence maybe even
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the police do or the jury would. They are convinced from the jump that their own father murdered their mother, but
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not everyone is on that train. There are at least a few people who are on Fred's
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side. Police interview a friend of Fred's named Esle, and he tells police almost exactly what Fred told them. He
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thinks that Charlotte is playing some kind of game, that she would come back, and he doesn't think that Fred would
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ever harm Charlotte. Police also talked to Fred's business associate, Dale. And according to a Forensic Files episode,
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he oddly enough tells police that he, you know, thinks Fred didn't do it because Fred was with him at his house
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on the night of the 24th. Okay, get your story straight, Dale. Right. Because like Fred, Fred's saying he was at
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Vicky's, right? Like, right. And also like I feel like we should take anything Dale says with like a grain of salt.
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Like he was probably doing illegal stuff with Fred. Precisely. And worth noting that Jenny told us that Charlotte was
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afraid of Dale, too. Now Dale is unfortunately no longer alive or like I would have just gone and asked him about
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all of this. Also, even if Dale is telling the truth, Fred being at his place that night kind of means nothing,
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right? Like we don't know when Charlotte actually went missing. No, not really. So, according to Jenny, her mom usually
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went out to the field like really early in the morning, often at daybreak, like as farmers are known to do. Yes.
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Sometimes she would work till like late in the night. The only thing we have to even kind of give us a timeline are
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those neighbors who saw Fred and not Charlotte driving away. So, like remember, one of those neighbors puts
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this between 4:15 and 4:30 p.m. Another neighbor actually puts Fred's truck at the shed between 3 and 4, but by 4:30,
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both the truck and Charlotte's car were gone. So, if something happened to her at the shed and like at this time frame,
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we're looking at 3 to 4:30 and then like who knows where Fred really was and when
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after that. Now, as August rolls in, authorities and locals form search parties to look for Charlotte, including
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searching the Waw Bash River near the Grabby property. But it is a needle in a hay stack because Marshall is located in
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rural Illinois and the area is quite literally thousands of acres of corn and soybean fields. Our reporter Emily
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actually was able to interview Fred for this episode and he said that they had over a thousand acres with most of it
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being in Illinois, but like some of the land cross the state line into Indiana. And this feels so similar to where I
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grew up. I just remember like miles and miles of fields with like these little houses peppered here and there. Some
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wooded areas. Sometimes they're like separating the field. Sometimes they're just like in the middle hanging out.
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It's not like there's a lot out there. And when you think about like even like corn fields and stuff too that the corn
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is high this time of year. It's so it's not like you can just like peer far and wide. Yeah. And again like there's not
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much going on. There's not a lot out there. But if you're looking for something, the land can just seem like
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endless to a point. And for everyone who did not grow up on a farm like you, um Emily actually went out there with Jenny
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to like look at the property where she was last seen. So, we're going to have photos up there today. It's still even
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very rural today so you guys can kind of get a sense of what we're talking about
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for our city folk. Now, by September, probably feeling a tug of desperation, the police actually call in a psychic to
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make sure they're just leaving no stone unturned. But even then, they have no luck locating Charlotte, or should I say
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Charlotte's remains because Jenny and Jeff are sure, sure, sure, sure sure that their mother is gone. And they're
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so sure who is responsible. So, it's like salt in the wound for them when their father does an interview with the
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Herald and Review and now publicly says that he thinks his wife is alive. Okay, Fred. And this just pushes Jeff and
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Jenny even more and they pressure authorities to convene a grand jury. And in October of 1981, they get their wish
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sort of. What's a sort of grand jury? No, there's a regular grand jury, not a sort of grand jury. But um the problem
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is when Fred and his girlfriend Vicki appear before the grand jury, they just plead the fifth. So like the people they
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believe know something that they're like pushing this grand jury for aren't saying a word. Well, and it's also not
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like this is just a suspect off the streets for Jenny and Jeff. Like this is their dad. I know. Are they like totally
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aranged by this point? Are they still trying to talk to him, convince him to like tell them what happened? Jenny told
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us that she was for sure by that time, like she was done, but she can't speak for her brother Jeff. She said that she
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has reasons to believe that Jeff was still speaking to their dad back then. But in the end, after this grand jury,
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the prosecutor informed her that they didn't have enough evidence for an indictment coming out of that. And when
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Jenny asked the prosecutor what they would need, he pointed to two things. He said, "If this is going to move forward,
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we either need a body or we need a witness." But neither of those things were materializing.
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Then months turn into years, and by August of 1984, with her mother's case now 3 years old, Jenny hires a private
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investigator named Charles Pearson. And technically, at least according to a single source, like he's actually the
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second PI hired. Like another brought on a few years earlier didn't really make any real progress like finding answers
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in the case. So, this is the second one. Charles, though, has this idea that he thinks could help Jenny get what she
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needs. He discovers that by this point, Vicky Mallister and Fred Grabby are no longer together. Okay. I feel like this
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is one of your favorite little reminders, right? Like, years changed things. Relationships. Yeah. Nobody
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wants nobody wants a case to go cold, but there is like this like point before you lose everyone in the case where like
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there it could actually be a huge benefit if you didn't make progress before. Yeah. Time makes people maybe
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change their mind about talking like this could be huge for this case. And this so this is what Charles is thinking
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too. Now at first he wants to be sly about this. So he doesn't just like go straight to Vicki. He starts hanging
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around some bars where Vicki is known to drink, play pool. The Chicago Tribune reports that they meet at one of the
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bars. They become kind of friendly and after he weasles his way in, gains her trust, whatever, he eventually drops the
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charade, explains that he's a PI, and then presses Vicki on what she might know about Charlotte's disappearance.
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And to his surprise, girl just tells him the truth, like admitting, yes, she drove Charlotte's car that day, and yes,
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she knows exactly what happened because she witnessed it. And she goes on to tell him the horrific details of what
00:19:00
Fred did to Charlotte on that July day back in 1981. And her story is pretty similar to what she told police back
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then. She said she and Fred arrive at the shed to pick up that barrel. And at some point, Charlotte came in from the
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field on her tractor. Vicki hides just like he said. But when Fred and Charlotte get into the argument, this is
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where Vickiy's story changes. She says that Fred, who was like 6'4", 280 lb, becomes violent and he attacked the much
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smaller Charlotte and ultimately strangled her to death. And Vicki watches all of this. Brit, she is like
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not not just hiding in the truck. She's like peeking out from behind the truck. And she says that after Charlotte was
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dead, Fred loaded her body into that barrel that they like came to get, put it on the back of his truck, and then
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told Vicki to drive Charlotte's car. He even gave her some gloves to avoid prints, even a bandana to try and cover
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that hair that might be recognized. And then they dumped Charlotte's car in Teroot. Then they went to Vickiy's place
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about 20 minutes away in Rosedale. And if murdering his wife wasn't bad enough, Vicki says that once they got to her
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place, Fred stripped Charlotte and then sodomized her corpse. Oh my god. The horror show kept going when he took a
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grease gun. Like I don't know if you've ever used like a [ __ ] gun. Like think of
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that. He filled Charlotte's body with grease. And Vicki said he did this because it would make Charlotte's body
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easier to burn. Basically, as the Forensic Files episode points out, the grease would be flammable. Like, clearly
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Fred had a plan in mind. I mean, honestly, this whole thing seems kind of premeditated. Like, you're going to a
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shed to pick up a barrel and you end up putting your wife's body in the barrel after you kill her. I know. This dude is
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sick. And I don't know how like, did it happen even this way? Like, did Vicki know everything? I I think there's a lot
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you can't know without being Fred, but she does know what happened next. So, he loaded Charlotte's body back into the
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barrel. Then, around sundown, they took it to the banks of the Waw Bash River. And under the cover of darkness, and
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maybe just as her kids were realizing their mom didn't come home that day, Fred poured diesel fuel into the barrel
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and lit it. And over the next 2 days, he burned Charlotte's body. And after that
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was through, Fred dumped the rest of her remains into the river, telling Vicki it
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would make for good fish bait. Jesus Christ, it's awful. Now, she said that the reason she had her fake story the
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first time, she was always too terrified to say anything, which like I mean, I kind of get like if he's going to do
00:21:54
that to the mother of his children, like who are you, Vicki, to this guy? But somehow now again all these years later,
00:22:03
Charles convinces Vicki to tell this story to authorities and eventually she cooperates them to finally nail Fred.
00:22:11
Vicki takes the police to the scene where Charlotte's body was burned, even pointing to the tree that the barrel was
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up against. The problem is it's been too long. So they even try like testing the
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soil to see like what's there, but they don't find anything. Not even so much as
00:22:28
evidence of diesel fuel left behind, but the prosecution asked for a body or a witness. And now they have a witness.
00:22:36
They do. They do. And because they have a witness, true to their word, in November 1984, both Fred and Vicki are
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arrested. Now Vicki, they need her. She's the witness who's like all this hinges on. They offer her a deal of
00:22:50
immunity to testify against Fred. There's even some talk of her possibly receiving the reward for this, which was
00:22:58
like $25,000 at that point if Fred got convicted. Big if because prosecutors know
00:23:06
convicting Fred isn't going to be easy. Like, right. Like even with this witness, it's still a nobody.
00:23:12
Those are just notoriously tricky. Yeah. And it's basically just Fred's word against Vicky's. So, they need to figure
00:23:19
out how to find a way to corroborate what Vicki is saying, like show that her version is the truth. So, in the spring
00:23:26
of 1985, with the trial just around the corner, prosecutors get creative. Since any physical evidence connecting Fred to
00:23:35
Charlotte has, I mean, basically been destroyed when he burned her body, prosecutors turned to the one thing
00:23:41
still literally standing. That tree that Vicki said the barrel was set against while Charlotte's body burned. Now,
00:23:49
knowing they didn't find anything when they tested the soil, they wondered if maybe that tree might still hold some
00:23:55
evidence. So they call in, wait for it, cuz I've never heard this term, some plant pathologists from the University
00:24:03
of Illinois. You know, every day in this job, I learn something new. Plant pathologist. Plant pathologists. Now,
00:24:10
what this guy discovers, Brett, is wild. He takes some samples of the tree and then looks at the growth rings. And then
00:24:17
he can see somehow that in 1981, most likely in the summer, that's literally how detailed they can get, some kind of
00:24:25
damage to the tree took place. And when his colleague examines things further, he can pinpoint some trace of petroleum,
00:24:33
aka diesel fuel. And like it is that petroleum or that diesel fuel that caused the damage. They didn't stop
00:24:40
there, though, because they can even tell that branches on the other side of the tree away from where Vicki said that
00:24:46
the barrel was placed, those are totally fine. They didn't have the same damage.
00:24:51
So, unless someone else just happened to be randomly burning a barrel next to this same side of this tree in the
00:24:57
summer of 81, like she's telling the truth. Yeah. Our girl's story is spot on. Yes. And the truth can be dangerous
00:25:05
when you're up against Fred Grabby because according to the police files that we have, this is where Fred's old
00:25:12
buddy Dale suddenly comes back on the scene. Police get a tip from a guy named Jim who says that Dale approached him
00:25:19
and was feeling him out for a murder for hire job on Vicki. What did Dale get arrested for this? Uh, doesn't sound
00:25:29
like it. I don't see I know. I don't see anything about him being arrested or like what came of this anywhere in the
00:25:36
file. Now, like maybe we have to take all of this with a grain of salt because it should be noted that Jim had a long
00:25:42
criminal record himself. He' just been arrested for counterfeit or counterfeiting something, whatever. I
00:25:47
mean, he could have been making all of this up to get himself out of trouble or like get himself a deal or whatever. I
00:25:51
don't know. And again, Dale's no longer alive, so I can't ask him. Either way, possible murder for Higher Plot or not,
00:25:59
the trial does go on as planned. Prosecutors are able to prove their case to the jury by putting those tree
00:26:05
experts on the stand along with Vicki and Fred's own children who do not hold back. The Journal Gazette and Times
00:26:12
Courier reports that Jenny describes at times seeing bruising on her mother's arms and her face. And it appears that
00:26:20
all of this is enough for the jury because in June 1985, Fred is convicted of Charlotte's murder. But that is not
00:26:30
where our story ends. Not even close. Because just a few weeks after his conviction, a mother of three named
00:26:38
Barbara Graham walks into the Clark County Jail and whips out a gun because she's there to break her boyfriend Fred
00:26:47
out of jail. [Music] Barbara fires off five shots, one of which hits a deputy in the leg. Another
00:26:58
shot literally goes through a second deputy's pant leg, nearly wounding them, too. It is just total chaos before
00:27:04
deputies are finally able to wrestle the gun from Barbara and end this bananas breakout attempt. Did Fred put Barbara
00:27:11
up to this? Well, Fred told us that Barbara basically informed him of her plan while he was behind bars, Fred's
00:27:19
like, "No, babe. It's a bad idea. Don't do it." But, but of course, like, when you talk to anyone who's not Fred, like
00:27:26
the story is very different. When authorities interview Barbara, she told them that Fred was instructing her on
00:27:34
things to do, like making sure she practiced with the gun, making sure she packed clothes for him, and he was
00:27:40
pressuring her to spend all of her time working on getting him out. And the whole thing gets even wilder when she
00:27:47
tells authorities that the getaway plan was to hop on a private plane and fly to
00:27:52
Florida, pick up new identification there, and then fly to South America, which like how? And yeah, like to really
00:28:01
drive any suspicion home, authorities think that the gun used in all of this was actually the same gun that was found
00:28:07
in Charlotte's car back when she was missing, when they found her car. Like, so apparently after the grand jury like
00:28:14
let down back in ' 81, they gave that gun back to Fred. What? I I know. I mean, again, like Jenny told us that he
00:28:23
was the owner of it. So like I mean technically it would be his if that's true. Okay.
00:28:31
If I were cop suspecting a guy of murder, top of my to-do list after he skirts an indictment isn't return gun to
00:28:38
rightful owner. Like especially when that man is the person who possibly just got out of a murder charge. I know. And
00:28:45
I don't know if they have to because there was no indictment in my mind. I've seen people hold evidence forever. Yeah.
00:28:49
Like it's still evidence. I know. I don't know. I don't know. Does this little jailbreak attempt plot twist
00:28:55
result in like additional charges for Fred now? Um well, so because he was just convicted of his wife's murder and
00:29:02
prosecutors figure he's I I mean I'm assuming this is what they're thinking like he's going to be away for a long
00:29:06
time. Like though he still has yet to be sentenced at that point, they don't actually pursue charges against him for
00:29:13
all of this. Barbara though is another story. Per the Journal Gazette and Times Courier, she gets charged with attempted
00:29:20
murder and two counts of armed violence. I'm sorry, Ashley. I feel like I need to
00:29:24
see like a picture of Fred or something. Like what kind of power does he have over these women to get them do this
00:29:30
like truly wild stuff for everyone? I literally had the same thought when I was researching this cuz I was I didn't
00:29:37
look at a ton of pictures like off the bat and I was like, "Okay, he's like getting women to do a ton of like wild
00:29:42
stuff for him. Who is this cult leader? It's not what you're going to expect." Okay. Okay. I truly don't know what to
00:29:48
expect. Here's our guy. Okay. Okay. Not the beautiful, handsome, charismatic looking. Maybe in his younger years. H.
00:29:59
All right. Moving on. Now, whatever hold he had over them, what whoever he found
00:30:05
that he was able to manipulate, like it's not just like his wife that he killed that suffered, like I I feel like
00:30:12
there were so many devastating consequences to these women. Like Barbara, who reminder, mother of three,
00:30:19
ends up getting sentenced to 16 years in prison for this stunt. But with Fred sitting in jail, breakout attempt
00:30:26
thwarted, and his sentencing on the horizon, authorities have to be ready to get this guy locked up for good and move
00:30:33
on. But in early September, less than 2 months after this breakout attempt, authorities have their hands full with
00:30:40
another crime that maybe could be connected to Fred. On September 4th, 1985, authorities get
00:30:51
a call that they probably can't believe. As reported by the Heraldton Review, it's from a truck driver who, while
00:30:59
passing the Grappy property, sees not one, but two homes on fire. One is the main house where Charlotte lived, and
00:31:07
the other is a smaller house once occupied by her son Jeff and his wife Cindy. Thankfully, when this all
00:31:13
happens, no one is inside. But immediately, authorities suspect that this is arson. And it's not long before
00:31:20
they get proof of it when they discover that some kind of flammable liquid was used to start these fires or like get
00:31:26
them going. I mean, it's Fred, right? Not like Fred Fred cuz he's in county lockup, but like but like it's Fred,
00:31:33
someone for Fred. So, in the Forensic Files episode, Dan Crummer, the acting sheriff at the time, suspects just that.
00:31:39
But we actually dug a little deeper on this. Uh, my new favorite saying, always go a layer deeper. Um, and Jenny told us
00:31:48
something else that has been suggested by law enforcement, but never actually proven. She says that it was actually
00:31:54
her brother Jeff who burned down the homes. And she said that he admitted this to her. She thinks it was maybe an
00:32:02
attempt to get the insurance money, possibly with Fred, maybe on his own. Like, that's not totally clear.
00:32:08
According to her recollection though, that was never actually paid out. And it sounds like, at least according to the
00:32:15
Journal Gazette and Times Courier, these homes were caught up in some kind of legal mess at the time. Anyways, so
00:32:21
whatever the plan was, I'm not sure that it worked for whoever had that plan. But
00:32:26
it's important to point out that it doesn't appear police could ever connect Fred or anyone else, not Jeff, to these
00:32:32
fires. All they could do was speculate at the time. About a week after this fire, this is when Fred does get
00:32:40
sentenced and he gets sentenced to life in prison. So at this point for law enforcement and the Grabby family,
00:32:47
justice is finally served. But that feeling is short-lived. Roughly a year after his original sentencing, Fred's
00:32:54
case gets overturned on appeal. This is in September of 1986, and a new trial gets ordered. According to the Journal
00:33:02
Gazette, it's overturned because the courts find jurors were given improper instructions concerning Vickiy's
00:33:08
testimony specifically. I mean, all a good defense attorney needs is to find one small crack. And it sounds like they
00:33:15
found one. Well, that and get the right judge in the right county because I mean, I've seen like other cases where
00:33:21
there's like a gaping hole you could run a truck through and those get denied. So, while prosecutors wait to retry Fred
00:33:26
for Charlotte's murder, they decide to go after him for his possible involvement with the escape attempt back
00:33:32
in 1985 to keep him locked up. Now, initially, they knew Fred would go away for a long time. So, remember, they
00:33:38
didn't see the point in taking him to court on those minor charges, but now with his ruling overturned, like, okay,
00:33:43
let's get him on something. But their plan doesn't work. First, there's a mistrial for that. Then, Fred is
00:33:50
acquitted for that. So, the stakes in Fred's retrial for Charlotte's murder hold even more weight now. In March
00:33:58
1988, the new trial is about to begin. And much like the first time Fred's children, Jenny and Jeff, are supposed
00:34:05
to testify against their dad. But there's a problem. Jeff's wife Cindy hasn't heard from Jeff in days. He's
00:34:14
like fully MIA, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Like, he was scheduled to testify again. Wait, is he
00:34:20
like missing missing or just like hiding out avoiding the trial? I don't think anyone really knows. At least one source
00:34:28
at the time reported that he might have been trying to dodge his creditor. So, I
00:34:32
think everyone is just really confused at first. Jeff's wife, Cindy, tells authorities that Jeff had taken a
00:34:38
business trip to California. She last talked to him on February 28th when he called her from there. And then a couple
00:34:44
of days later, after he's like a no-show back home, that's when she reports him missing.
00:34:51
No one can find Jeff in Indiana or California until June when authorities announced that they have found Jeff in
00:35:00
Seal Beach, California. But it's not a happy development because they find him dead. And not just dead, Jeff has been
00:35:09
murdered. What? He was shot multiple times and found floating in the water by some boers. Now, authorities technically
00:35:18
found Jeff's body on March 22nd, but they couldn't identify him right away. They had to actually go get his dental
00:35:24
records. Is Fred like a puppet master behind bars or just like the luckiest piece of crap alive? So, Fred, of
00:35:30
course, denies any involvement in his son's murder. And actually, in this one, he might not be lying because California
00:35:36
authorities did seem to have a pretty detailed idea of what happened to Jeff. Like I guess he had gotten caught up in
00:35:44
some kind of money laundering and bank fraud thing. In a Los Angeles Times article, police described Jeff as double
00:35:50
crossing the people that he was working with. So Jeff was shot and his body was then dumped in the ocean weighed down by
00:35:56
an anchor and then eventually as his body decomposed, that's when it like floated to the surface. Did anyone get
00:36:01
charged in Jeff's murder? No. So, even though they had a pretty good idea of what they think happened and even some
00:36:07
of the people involved, it sounds like prosecutors never actually felt they had a strong enough case to be able to bring
00:36:13
charges in that one. Now, the very smallest piece of solace and good news for Jenny in this like mountain of
00:36:21
tragedy that is her life now is that even though her brother wasn't around to testify, Fred's trial did move forward
00:36:29
as planned. And he was convicted again. This time he's sentenced to 75 years. And this one sticks. Despite Fred's best
00:36:38
efforts to once again have it overturned in 1989, it doesn't work. And he remains
00:36:43
in prison until very recently, July 15th, 2022, when he gets released almost 41 years exactly after he murdered
00:36:53
Charlotte in July of 1981. And did Vicki end up with any of the reward money? Uh,
00:36:58
uh, Jenny told us that she got part of it. So, yesish. Now, as far as her father, Jenny told us that she long ago
00:37:07
forgave him. She said what was most difficult for her was not knowing what happened to her mother when she first
00:37:13
disappeared. And you how she talked about how bad she feels for families who still don't have those answers. We've
00:37:18
talked about it before like how hard it's one thing to like grieve something and know what you're grieving, but to
00:37:23
like not know, right? And as we were talking to her about this, this was like originally all the episode was. We were
00:37:30
like this was going to even potentially be a mini. But she said something as we were talking to her, something she
00:37:37
thinks about her father, something that if true might mean we don't know the full extent
00:37:44
of Fred Grabby's crimes. And it opened up this like Pandora's box for us. Jenny believes that her father could be behind
00:37:53
as many as six other killings. I'm sorry, six other people. What makes her think that? Well, she
00:38:02
thinks this because one of them she says she witnessed herself when she was about
00:38:08
seven years old and then the other ones are based on what people told her over the years because she didn't stop
00:38:15
digging once her father went to jail. Like as she pressed on for more answers and from what she was told, it sounds
00:38:21
like wherever Fred Grabby went, death seemed to follow. And this wasn't a totally new idea. Like Vicki was also
00:38:32
vocal about Fred allegedly having other victims. According to the Journal Gazette and Times Courier, Vicki
00:38:37
testified in Fred's trial that he told her about other murders he committed. Two of the other victims were women and
00:38:44
their killings happened at an apartment in Indianapolis and were connected to some kind of union dispute that he was
00:38:51
in charge of taking care of. And she alleged that Fred also killed a man who shot his dog when he was younger. But
00:38:59
like Fred told Emily when when she confronted him about this that like it was one of his buddies who did this and
00:39:04
it got pinned on him. So he's not like saying it didn't happen. Were any of these ever investigated?
00:39:10
So this is this is the thing. I'm saying it's a Pandora's box. We don't know. Like details on these are super scarce.
00:39:17
Believe me, we still have our team digging like still going. It's part of why I wanted to put this episode out now
00:39:24
as opposed to waiting because there's a lot of power in our audience and someone
00:39:29
out there might have information for us. And I think we're running out of time because Fred is 85 years old. Jenny told
00:39:38
us that she doesn't think he's in good health. Obviously, she doesn't go visit him. Again, forgiving him and having a
00:39:43
relationship with him are very different things. But we went and visited him. When our
00:39:48
reporter Emily interviewed Fred at the retirement facility he's currently living in, she asked him about these
00:39:54
alleged other murders that people like Jenny and Vicki point to. And she asked him about Charlotte's murder, too. And
00:40:01
while Fred admits that he was a violent man at times, involved in numerous fights back in the day, he denied
00:40:08
murdering anyone, including Charlotte, despite being found guilty by two separate juries. He claims he was never
00:40:15
even abusive to Charlotte. And you would think that the least Fred could do at this point in his life is face what he's
00:40:22
done, if not for himself, than for his surviving daughter. But no. And we asked him about the houseires, too. He
00:40:29
conveniently put that all on Jeff, his dead son, never implicating himself. But I think it is important to know that
00:40:37
those house fires not the only ones somewhat connected to Fred. Charlotte's stepmom, Ethel Gore, was found dead in a
00:40:48
barnfire. A barnfire that had one single witness, Fred Grabby. And according to a
00:40:55
single source, Ethel's leg was broken and there was a lighter near her body. But Ethel's family told the Terraote
00:41:02
star back then that a lighter is not something she would normally carry around with her. Now, when we asked Fred
00:41:09
about this, he told Emily that Ethel smoked in the barn all the time. So, who knows? But wait, there's more. So,
00:41:19
Charlotte's best friend, Judy Lindley, she was found dead of a gunshot wound to her chest just 4 months to the day after
00:41:28
Charlotte went missing. And Emily got the inquest records for Judy's death. And get this, no autopsy was done. And
00:41:37
the results of the inquest were quote probable suicide. But this is the thing that I have have a problem with. Like
00:41:44
Judy was found in her bed on top of the covers. The gun that she probably took her own life with was under the covers.
00:41:56
M. That that can't happen. That's not possible. It's I I I I can't figure out how. Doesn't make sense. I know. Now, it
00:42:07
bears repeating that Fred has never been arrested or charged in anyone else's murder, and he's never been named a
00:42:14
public person of interest or even a suspect in another murder either. We reached out to the former Clark County
00:42:21
Sheriff, Dan Crumin, but he wasn't interested in talking. If he changes his mind, like, I'd love to listen to what
00:42:26
he has to say. And like I said, we're still going to keep digging to see what else we find. I mean, again, there are
00:42:32
like potentially alleged victims that like we can't even necessarily find cases that match to. So, we're trying to
00:42:38
figure that out as well. So, make sure you follow us on social. We also have a newsletter. Like, this is how we like
00:42:44
get all the updates to you that we like don't fit into an episode like every single week or the, you know, the stuff
00:42:50
that we like keep digging on. Yeah. And obviously you said we're still digging. We're still working on this, but was M
00:42:56
ever able to track down Vicki? like she's who I have all the questions for, girl. Same. So, this is wild. So, we
00:43:04
tried. Emily actually went to Vicky's house and it was so strange. So, this woman who looks a whole lot like Vicki
00:43:12
answered the door, but she said she wasn't Vicki. So, I don't know. I mean, I can't really
00:43:19
blame her for not wanting to talk after all these years. If that was her, if it was her, it seems like she possibly
00:43:26
would have a lot to lose. like she's never faced any jail time. She had immunity. Yeah. But
00:43:32
but said it wasn't her. Right. So if Vicki hears this, if you're listening somewhere, like I would still love to
00:43:40
talk. Please reach out. But I kind of want to end on this. So Jenny told us that her mom Charlotte was a loving
00:43:47
mother and grandmother. Most of all, she was a hard worker. And Charlotte grew up
00:43:51
in a farming family that instilled the same work ethic in her. And whether Jenny realizes it or not, that work
00:43:58
ethic, her continued push for answers in her mother's case is maybe the best way
00:44:04
she could have honored her mother's memory. [Music]