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hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is [Music] morbid this is morbid in 2025 it's been
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that way probably for a long time but not for us I think this is only our second episode of 2025 is it okay I was
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like am I like 6 weeks into 2025 being like happy new year new us no I think I mean for The Listener for The Listener
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for The Listener hello out there listener for the weirdos it's definitely probably like the 45th episode of 2025
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probably uh but for us it's number two yeah so it's still new it's new for us Mikey's looking to January 8th right now
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it is it's early it's crazy early days yet Mikey said I don't know what today is the
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23rd that was Mikey letting you know today is the 23rd it is but for us for us it's the eighth there you go which
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means it's David Bowie's birthday happy birthday David Bowie happy birthday David Bowie actually okay perfect segue
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I was watching Real Housewives at Beverly Hills last night thank you love it and garcel bv's son is modeling and
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she was like oh my God like there are you like so many great models um of like during my time it was like Naomi it was
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Iman it was who else did she name um oh U is it Beverly Johnson yeah yeah Beverly Johnson and he goes I don't know
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any of those people which like he wouldn't cuz he's super young but I was like even I was like oh my God it's it
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really hits you in the head life comes at you so fast yeah it really does like what it hits you in the head cuz at
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first I was like are you [ __ ] kidding me and then I was like oh you're like he's not even in his 20s like why would
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you know I mean you know why would you really know those people like guess it's when like it's when you have to answer
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to children when they're like did you have this when you were younger and you're like not only did I not have that
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there wasn't even the capability to have that like we were talking about cuz uh like Roblox is a big thing among like
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children right now but my children are not allowed to use it um that helicopter mom um I don't give a [ __ ] uh but I
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don't blame you but yeah they're not allowed to use and they will never be allowed to use it uh [ __ ] Roblox I think
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there's a bunch of predators there but that's a story for another time but they had brought it up cuz now they feel uh
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like they're fine with it they understand the reasons and they're totally fine and they had brought it up
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at one point about like one of their friends got to use it and they were just telling me some story and then they were
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like did oh did you get to use Roblox when you were younger mom and I was like we didn't even have an iPad I was like
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babe you said we didn't even know what a tablet was only that we didn't have the
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internet when I was your age the only tablets we knew of were in the [ __ ] ancient pyramids I now your ribs
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hurt oh I cracked myself up they I said Not only did Roblox not exist um the internet didn't exist they
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were still working on uh I did not have a computer and tablets were not a thing were in the pyramid did not exist so no
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did that nope I did not have to did that below [ __ ] what wow and there's been times
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they've asked me if col if pictures were in color when I was little that's such an and I was like okay yes all right I
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did have color well cuz to them our generation was born in the 1900s oh they say that all the time like damn yeah
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damn they like well you're from the and they love to say you're from the 1970s and I'm like no I'm not I'm not even
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from there Mike's like [ __ ] you guys Mike's like I'm from the 1970s and what of it but I'm always like can you not
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like send me further back into time like I'm like you're already like they're already dogging me for being born in the
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1900s and then they want to make me even I'm like all right yeah that's at least
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give me an give my accurate date okay my favorite is that your old your youngest
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thinks that I'm older than you oh all the time because I'm taller and they ask every time she ask all the time older
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than you I'm like no I am 10 years younger the kids disate 11 with with older it's so weird
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I mean it makes perfect sense but I'm like no no no I'm so much younger than Mama damn it so much younger but
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honestly at this point I wish I was older Drew is going to turn 30 uh in the 30 Club he's about to join the 30 club
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and I said to him last night I was like does that feel like weird like are you are you like mourning your 20s at all
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and he was like [ __ ] no he was like I am so excited to turn 30 as he should be
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and I felt kind of jealous I feel a little bit jealous of him that he's turning you the anticipation of it I
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know I get it but I'm not going to be 30 for like another year and a half yeah that's going to fly by babe I know I
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let's hope um it will I'm determined to make it Fly by yeah same ret yeah um if you heard me earlier uh crying as I was
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laughing that's because I sat here and I talked to Elena we're just having like some banter okay been a minute it's just
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you know New Year New Year same us but maybe not the same cuz I left a lot of me on the floor2 on the Cutting Room
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floor on the shower floor I got if you and it's going around so I'm sure a lot of you have probably faced this in the
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past couple weeks the neuro virus is going around wash your mother [ __ ] hands yeah wash your hands man I don't
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know if I don't know if I got the neuro virus or if it was like a food poisoning
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thing cuz I did eat like a sketchy Burger um you know who I am a Captain Crunch slurpie girl yeah a f the a foo
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the violence that was inflicted upon me and I literally just been sitting here telling Elena I'm drinking colostrum so
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I'm like I'll never get sick I have colostrum and it's an immunity booster you've all been so sick and not me yep
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it's true that same day literally it was like a day later like if that the Universe said [ __ ] check yourself
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before you wreck yourself actually let me wreck you the universe said oh yeah oh yeah I died for like 3 days and my
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ribs are still hurting this was like Saturday night it's Wednesday now my ribs are still hurting that's crazy the
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violence with which I yaked damn yeah I'm still recovering but you know what I woke up this morning I chose myself at a
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little pep talk with Lux my cat I ate my breakfast it was great it was wonderful
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we're trying to you know I like resolutions some people hate resolutions I like them I've never been a huge resol
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resolution girly I never really have been either I I I've always thought it was a nice concept but I've never really
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part anticipated that much always had concepts of a revolution reolution I like the ideas but I'll be the first one
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to admit that I like I never really stick to them I don't even really set them that hard I'll be like yeah really
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I want to start working out this year but I never give myself like this plan of action yeah which is most of the
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problem and this year I went in being like not my first resolution is I'm going to be nicer to me me too and I
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think that is the if any of you are like I would like a resolution or you're struggling your first resolution should
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be be nicer to you because it change it's like when your youngest goes this changes everything yes from blue but it
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changes everything because if you are like being a dick to yourself like for instance this morning I did not want to
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wake up early I felt like [ __ ] the past couple days I saw that alarm I alarm I
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turned it off and then I said no girl bet on yourself don't give up on yourself and you didn't say like get up
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you lazy sack of [ __ ] you were like hey and it made the biggest difference like if you wouldn't say it to someone
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you love and care about don't [ __ ] say it to yourself man I tell my kids that all the time no it's so true if you
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wouldn't say it to someone you love if you wouldn't say it to me if you wouldn't say it to daa or anybody else
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you love then don't say it to you no cuz that you need to be nice to yourself and
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it's like and being nice to yourself also makes it so that you don't take [ __ ] from anyone else and you shouldn't
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because you don't accept that kind of [ __ ] from outside sources hell so be nice to yourself and you will suddenly
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find yourself being like Oh no I'm not taking your nasty ass comments I'm better than that so that's my words of
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wisdom to you one page I suggest following if you're on like a like journey to like just a morning routine
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or like a fitness routine any kind of routine just like habit stacking I love Shelby Sako she's um sad to Savage on
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Instagram oh okay she has like a podcast and everything I love her she just she starts her mornings and she like has
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this whole morning routine but she's where I learned habits stacking which I like stacking is the the move there's so
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much actual scientific research behind it like you just slowly add things to your day that you want part of your
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routine yeah and once you're comfortable with one thing you add a little the other one like she said she was like I
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put too much expectation on yourself yeah she was like I used to wake up at like 9:00 for my 9:00 a.m. job and I was
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like same sister and she was like and then I slowly started waking up 20 minutes earlier did that for a couple
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week like a little lot of time just don't be hard on yourselves yeah and like if you want to do stuff you can but
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just be nice to yourself and do it slowly and you'll get there don't let people make you feel like you got to do
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it all at once or see that's part of being nice to yourself is you won't let those people tell you what to do because
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you'll be like no I deserve more than that thank you see I trust me I'm going to I'm going to do what I say yeah I
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love that it's a nicer more peaceful existence it really is people will try to drag you into [ __ ] don't let them
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we're claiming our this year that's right 202 is the year of Peace for us hell yeah and peace for morbid listeners
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hey yo all right well since you're morbid listeners and we just bantered your ears off for like 45 minutes thank
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you for letting us do that yeah we just went back to Our Roots yeah sometimes we
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got feeling that we don't do it all the time but we're feeling Our Roots I just love going back to Our Roots yes I love
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it but let's go back to what you're here for which is a case and this case is really important because it's an
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unsolved case so it's a little bit shorter obviously because when it's unsolved there's not like the whole
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trial part of everything yeah um but this was a Hulu documentary that came out like a few months ago probably and I
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said to Dave I was like we got to cover this because it's really interesting and
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I want to get more ears on this so let's go we're going to talk about the unsolved murder of Melissa wit it's so
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sad cuz she was 19 when she went missing oh and that's when you look back at 19 that's a baby oh my God for me that was
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like 10 years ago and the difference between who I was then and who I am now I know you it was like way longer ago it
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was 20 years ago that's okay I'm older than the amount of years that is but you look great yeah and you're beautiful so
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going back to the story let's talk about Melissa an wit before she disappeared obviously Melissa Anne wit was born
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April 20th 1975 she too was from the 70s oh there you go in Arkansas to John and
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Maryanne Whit uh she was raised in Fort Smith um I was want to say Arizona but it's Arkansas I look at ar oh yeah and
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my brain says Arizona I feel that Aransas AR Kanas AR Kanas don't yell at us we're kidding I know I'm kidding I
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promise but she was raised alongside her brother Ronnie and her sister's Caroline
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and Barbara her friend Tara limber would later say she was just a happy good girl
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she was such a joy to know oh I know according to that friend limber Melissa was quote well-liked by everyone who
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knew her she was a good student she was very active in her Church community at the Grand Avenue Baptist Church and she
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always had really good relationships with her family particular particularly her mother they were super close oh
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after Melissa's death her mother wrote in a letter I never had serious trouble with Melissa we were mother and daughter
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best of friends and a source of love and comfort for one another oh that's so beautiful I know and especially like at
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19 to have that relationship with your mom wow cuz obviously that's dream yeah I mean teenagers usually try to distance
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themselves from their parents around those years but Melissa's relationship with her mom was always a source of
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Pride for her and her mother as it should be yeah Tara limber recalled she and her mom marann were so close they
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loved each other so much her mom was so protective of Melissa oh this is already
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breaking my heart I know so after graduating from Northside High School in 1993 Melissa enrolled at West AR
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Community College with plans of becoming a dental hygienist oh damn yeah not long
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after starting her first semester she actually became an ambassador for the school holy [ __ ] which meant that she
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would go out and recruit students to go there promoting the school and its programs to any perspective students in
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the area yeah and like the school has to trust you to send you out there and rep
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them like that also dreams of becoming a dental hygienist Dental like School in any capacity hygienist or dentist like
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full-blown dentist so hard like so much involved in that hard and you see some of the garnar [ __ ] I was friends with a
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girl who went to dental hygienist school and she saw like spiders in somebody's mouth
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before that was something I I feel like I was better for not knowing well now you're wor I was I was better before
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that I feel you know how many times holy [ __ ] You' you've done so many info drops
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on me like that You' been better before Oh but no I can't and and also how do you just like sit there and
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calmly I guess remove the spiders from said mouth and then like got hey like we got to be like good about brushing
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around the mullers cuz like spiders there was there was some arachnids taken up not arachnid taken up
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space in there that's arachnids were holding space in your mouth God no I can't that's awful I cannot that's awful
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I got to go woof well kfsm reporter Charlene Sher told ABC News in 2024 the college had her go and recruit students
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because they wanted students like her she was already a hard worker she had Big Dreams for her life oh and it just
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goes to show that she was willing to put in the work to make her dreams reality because in her Spare Time Melissa
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actually worked as an assistant for local dental practice in town oh damn so she was like I want to do this I'm going
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to start now yeah she's already like in the you know I'm going to get the on onsite experience yes the office manager
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Anita Dodson said she was such a good girl and hard worker she got along with co-workers and patients really with
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everyone she met and according to Dodson Melissa brought an invaluable warmth and
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brightness to the office whenever she was in the building and after her disappearance she said the absence of
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that brightness could be felt by everyone oh she said the staff here are close like family and we and we did all
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we could to support each other when Missy went missing everyone was upset for such a long time she was so sweet
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and so nice oh it sounds like she just left a gaping void yeah and left like a mark on everybody that she met in such a
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good way yeah so on the morning of December 1st 1994 uh Melissa had breakfast with her mother and
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unfortunately which doesn't sound like it was very like them at all they got into an argument with each other that
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morning and it was over money according to Maryann Melissa wanted to borrow some money and hoping to teach
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her daughter a valuable lesson about the value of money she said no and that of course left Melissa frustrated and she
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left the house frustrated oh no so not wanting to end the discussion in Anger before she left for work marann wrote
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her daughter a short note reminding her that she herself marann had bowling league that evening and she said in the
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note Melissa why don't you come to Bowling World after school and after work and I'll buy you dinner oh like I
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just want to end the day on like let's so let's kind of put this behind us yeah so Melissa went to school that day left
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work at 5:00 p.m. but when she tried to start her car that night the engine wouldn't turn over later during their
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investigation detectives were able to determine that the dome light in her car had been accidentally left on while she
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was at work maybe like the door didn't close all the way or something so the car's battery was drained but
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fortunately she and a cooworker were able to flag down a local business owner who gave her car a jump start and she
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was able to get the engine started okay once the car was started she headed home
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to change out of her work clothes which investigators later found on her bedroom
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floor they also assumed that she must have seen the note that Maryann left for her because after she changed her
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clothes she headed to the Bowling World arriving sometime between 6:00 and 6:30 and parking her car in the northwest
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corner of the lot okay where her mom was inside with her bowling leak the bowling
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alley unfortunately had no security cameras in the parking lot you have to remember this is early
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it wasn't super common for everywhere to now we be like what but back then it would be like wait they had security
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cameras be more shocking the other way and it's also like back then I'm sure like Banks and that kind of place had
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security cameras but it's bowling alley it's a local bowling alley for sure so because they didn't have security
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cameras whatever happened after Melissa parked her car is almost entirely unknown according to statements from
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Witnesses she was last seen quote arguing with a black male at bowling around 6:00 p.m. and that was the last
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time anybody saw her a little before 8:00 p.m. somebody found her keys in the parking lot of the bowling alley and
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turned them into the cashier at the front desk but at that time nobody noticed that there was actually small
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splatters of blood dried onto the keys and nobody at the alley would later remember who had turned those keys in oh
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no yeah so later that night when marann returned home she was surprised to find that Melissa hadn't returned home yet
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however she figured that maybe she'd gone out with some friends and would come back later that night it wasn't
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something she was super worried about right away but the next morning when Melissa still hadn't returned that's
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when Maryann became really worried she wouldn't have spent the night out without calling her and contacting her
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somehow so she contacted the police a little after 9:00 a.m. to report her daughter missing over the course of the
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next two days Melissa's friends and family and the local police spread out across Fort Smith looking for her they
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handed out over 6,000 Flyers with her photograph but nobody had seen or heard anything that's and just having to make
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that phone call as a mother to report your child missing I can't that I feel like every time I hear that I'm always
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like I can't even bring myself to be in that position I can't that alone no you know and then to hear that no one's seen
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her no one being able to be like oh no no no she's here like I saw her here and knowing that you just have like a
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run-ofthe-mill argument before and just knowing that that's like the last contact you had with her before she just
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disappeared is so normal and so like every day of course like like I said run-of-the-mill like everybody has
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argued with their mom in the morning before heading out to go somewhere yeah and and her mom did the right thing by
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being like you know what like I don't want to end on this note meet up later like let's not end the day on a bad note
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exactly but oh oh it's so sad at least at least she knew that her daughter saw the note yeah you know I know that is a
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good thing but then of course she lived with guilt because she was the one who said of course come to the bowling alley
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oh God I hate that I know so it wasn't until Monday December 4th that Melissa's car was discovered in the parking lot of
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the Bowling World after an employee realized that the keys had blood smeared on them finally and bore the name Missy
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on the keychain more importantly there was also a pool of blood found near the car and one gold earring and a hair clip
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believed to have belonged to Melissa which I'm like why did it take people that long to realize that that was there
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she was parked in like the corner far Corner the far corner so I think that had a lot to do with it but I was like
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damn investigators yeah but when they did discover all that they cordoned off the area and they started taking samples
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and processing the vehicle for evidence until that moment Melissa's case had actually been labeled a Runway shocked
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crazy but the discovery of the blood and the personal item shifted the focus to a
00:20:25
potential kidnapping at that moment they still didn't think that she was murdered
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or anything several police officers contacted the employees of the bowling alley and the customers who were known
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to have been there that night but this is interesting one person recalled hearing what sounded like a young
00:20:42
woman's voice shouting for help at one point that evening but they said they couldn't be sure what they heard and
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nobody else remembered anything I never get these like I don't I'm like you heard someone yelling for
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help you know did you say anything in the moment to anyone else I think it's so easy to talk yourself out of what you
00:21:02
heard in the moment like I think I've probably even done it and hopefully like actually like it's been something where
00:21:10
I talked myself into what it actually was kind of thing you know it's easy to do it from a you know from hindsight
00:21:17
kind of thing and from like looking at it from an outside point of view but I always just think and I I'm like uber
00:21:23
and maybe it's because we do this I well now I think my focus has shifted so much
00:21:28
or my sh so much I'm like Wicked on on like high alert so if I hear something that I
00:21:35
think is somebody yelling I will I always say something to somebody just to be like did you hear that like am I
00:21:41
going am I crazy like I always like to know that I'm not the only one hearing it no I think doing this has made us
00:21:46
hyper aware almost like to a to a bad point sometimes yeah honestly yeah there's been points when I'm like we
00:21:52
like kind of spiral sometimes I heard a coyote in the woods the other night and I was convinced that a woman was in the
00:21:57
woods like being abducted andw was like that's absolutely coyotes I was like should we like call someone though he
00:22:03
was like ash that is 100% are not calling someone for coyotes I was like okay okay back to the story though two
00:22:10
weeks later Fort Smith police arrested a local man Larry Landrum on suspicion of
00:22:16
sexual assault and a string of other crimes unrelated to Melissa's disappearance detective Jay Ryder said
00:22:21
if my memory serves me well we questioned landram on the afternoon of December 13th about Melissa wit Landrum
00:22:27
was a bad guy he he was eventually convicted of an unrelated murder and sentenced to life in prison W so they
00:22:32
probably thought they had their guy yeah at a loss for for productive leads investigators hoped that his arrest
00:22:38
would be the break that they needed to find Melissa or at least get some kind of answers cuz you know usually people
00:22:44
like that are not associated with other great people yeah criminals no criminals
00:22:48
MH his body language and evasiveness during the interview also raised a lot of red flags and the results of his
00:22:54
polygraph examination showed deception but they were never able to collect any evidence linking him to the crime oh
00:23:01
that's frustrating yeah every lead that they get in this case so frustrating because it falls apart so quickly or
00:23:10
it's like the leadup and then it just like completely Fizzles out it's rough so a week later on December 21st Fort
00:23:18
Smith police held a press conference to provide an update on the case and at that time they disclosed that Melissa
00:23:24
had last been seen arguing with a man in the parking lot of the Bowling World on
00:23:27
the night that she went missing the individual was described as a quote black male probably in his early 20s
00:23:33
with short hair a medium builds and approximately 6 fet tall after 3 weeks of dead un leads and very little
00:23:40
evidence the local authorities were starting to express their concern that something pretty terrible could have
00:23:46
happened to Melissa the kidnapping angle is seeming less likely at this point yeah definitely as time is going but
00:23:51
they assured reporters that they did remain committed to the case Sergeant David Overton said it's becoming
00:23:57
frustrating but we continue to look for Quality leads and we hope to still find her alive but again when that much time
00:24:03
goes by it's it becomes less likely and one thing about this case is like I was saying like they dropped everything
00:24:10
there were other cases being worked on at this point in time and multiple police officers dropped those cases that
00:24:17
were like obviously important but of lesser importance and everybody committed their time to finding Melissa
00:24:23
oh wow so by that time two large full color Billboards had been ated in town showing a picture of Melissa alongside
00:24:31
the number for Crim Stoppers and the Fort Smith bank was offering a $30,000 reward for any information that would
00:24:37
have led to her safe return but neither yielded productive results that's so crazy which is yeah that's a big reward
00:24:45
so $30,000 in 1994 or 1995 would be about $64,000 today so almost more than double
00:24:53
damn that's crazy that's crazy a few weeks later on January 13th 1995 investigators got the break that they've
00:25:00
been waiting for but it definitely was not the outcome that anybody was hoping for oh no at about 9:30 a.m. two hunters
00:25:06
in Ozark Arkansas about 40 miles from Fort Smith reported to the Franklin County sheriff's officer that they had
00:25:13
been walking through the woods and they came upon what they thought was a mannequin lying face down in the woods
00:25:19
about 30 ft from the main road according to the hunters they had actually been out in those same woods and walked the
00:25:25
same exact Road the day before but they didn't recall call seeing anything at the time remember she's been missing for
00:25:32
weeks at this point like over 3 weeks close to a month that's interesting yeah detective Ryder recalled when the phone
00:25:38
call came in from Sheriff Ross all hell broke loose detective Ryder and his team
00:25:44
along with several crime scene technicians went out to the spot in the Ozark National Forest where Melissa's
00:25:49
body had been discovered and while they couldn't be positive it was Melissa at the time they were reasonably confident
00:25:54
that they had found their missing person that's awesome and she would ultimately
00:25:57
be exclusively identified through dental records oh that's awful yeah Ryder said
00:26:02
about the location it was a Logging Road more or less a single Lane Road rough terrain the road was mainly accessed by
00:26:08
loggers clearing and cutting the national forest so not a frequently traveled Road by like your every kind of
00:26:15
person Melissa's body this is so sad was lying nude in a muddy area she had a non-fatal wound wound on the side of her
00:26:23
head from what appeared to be a blow from a heavy object and based on the location ryer and the other
00:26:29
investigators theorized that the killer was probably local yeah or at least somebody who had frequented the area
00:26:34
often enough to be familiar with this particular particular section of the forest so possibly a hiker or a camper
00:26:40
something like that as they surveyed the crime scene investigators also noticed something strange there was a
00:26:47
human-sized indentation in the earth behind two large rocks just several feet away from where her body had been
00:26:52
discovered so they theorized that the killer had actually initially placed the body Behind The Rock
00:26:58
after the murder occurred like probably closer to when it occurred which would explain why Hunters hadn't seen her the
00:27:04
previous day what so he moved her they think that he did move what the [ __ ] there's there's two sides there's some
00:27:13
people who think he moved her and then we'll talk about what the other people think because why the killer would have
00:27:18
returned and moved the body about 20 feet was a total mystery my only theory is that they were feeling some kind of
00:27:25
something about the fact that she hadn't been found yet like stranger things have
00:27:29
happened yeah but I don't know there were also visible finger marks on her wrists where the killer grabbed her body
00:27:36
and dragged it from one location to the other Jesus detective Ryder said it would have been a gruesome task
00:27:41
Melissa's body had been out in the elements for 45 days and was in advanced stages of decomposition there was small
00:27:48
animal activity on the body whoever moved that body did it so it could be found more easily that's the thing so I
00:27:54
feel like if the killer moved the body then I think they did so because they were frustrated that she hadn't
00:28:01
been found yet I was actually just thinking about what I had just said I don't think they felt bad I don't think
00:28:05
there was I want her to be found cuz you don't leave a your murder victim nude you know in the middle of the forest
00:28:13
just be and be like oh I feel bad I want them to no I think they wanted they wanted her to be found they just didn't
00:28:18
want to be found themselves I agree with you yeah despite ryer suggestion that Melissa's body had been moved by the
00:28:24
killer on the other side of things some investigators believed that it was equally possible that the an that
00:28:30
animals in the forest had moved the body but there was visible finger marks on her wrists from dragging right and that
00:28:37
would be that'd be tough I think for animals to move a full body yeah I mean it's happened I suppose but usually it's
00:28:45
pieces of body I hate to be I know it's gruesome but it's just reality yeah and I don't know I feel like you would be
00:28:53
able to tell well you would be able obviously like you've done autopsy so you know yeah they can tell the
00:28:58
difference between fresh finger marks and finger Mark indentations that actually happened sounds like they were
00:29:04
saying this looks like it was more fresh yeah yeah interesting Jinx uh State Police Lieutenant Dale Bess said we
00:29:13
believe the body had been moved it looked by like by animals we did find the location where she had been in the
00:29:18
wooded area and it looks like she'd been there for quite some time now this is also just coming to me in the moment on
00:29:24
the other side of things I wonder if they said that it was animals who moved to the body because they're not going to
00:29:29
want to sit there and say that the killer was in those woods like right under their noses a few days ago when
00:29:35
they can't find him like he went there twice so it's easier to say that animals it is easier to say than like you just
00:29:41
said admit that he came back and had free reain to move the whole thing right you know who knows who knows but just a
00:29:49
day or two earlier and this is this will give you chills this freaked me out and
00:29:54
it's just awful two days earlier or sorry just a day or two earlier an anonymous caller had left a message at
00:30:00
the Fort Smith Major Crimes unit and an older woman with a thick southern accent
00:30:05
can be heard saying go ahead and tell them what you found and then a younger voice which was probably male they said
00:30:11
can be heard saying no I can't and then the call just disconnected what the [ __ ] a day or two
00:30:18
before Melissa was found Melissa's body was found what yeah in the woods that day
00:30:25
when they did finally discover her detective Ryder couldn't but wonder if somebody had found Melissa's body before
00:30:30
those Hunters did but didn't want to get involved I think that is absolutely a possibility and they never were able to
00:30:38
figure out where that call came from or who it was oh my God this makes me so mad yeah or I should say no other
00:30:43
information came out about it but other than the body in the mud and The Impressions uh humanized impression in
00:30:49
the dirt behind the Rocks the scene was devoid of evidence or anything unusual that might have helped Point them in the
00:30:55
right direction and her killer took her clothing and her jewelry what the [ __ ]
00:31:00
she was found with nothing wow yeah there was no sign of her clothes her personal items anywhere
00:31:07
technicians did take samples of the soil and the natural debris from the location
00:31:11
and Melissa's body was then moved to Little Rock to be autopsi by the state medical examiner in his autopsy report
00:31:18
they he listed the cause of death as asphixiation by strangulation and noted that leaves and soil from the area were
00:31:25
found in her Airway oh my God indicating that she had quote been strangled face down and she inhaled debris from the
00:31:31
forest floor so she was brutal and she was killed out there out there yeah she was brought from one figur she was
00:31:40
killed somewhere else brought there no it sounds like she was killed in the forest holy [ __ ] which is horrifying
00:31:47
yeah based on the evidence collected during the autopsy investor investigators concluded that Melissa's
00:31:53
killer had like we were just saying abducted her from Bowling the Bowling World parking lot and then taken her to
00:31:58
that area off the logging world she was also sexually assaulted and then strangled so the news of the discovery
00:32:06
of Melissa's body in the Ozark Woods came as a shock to everybody who obviously were out there doing the work
00:32:13
passing Flyers all the while hoping that she would be found alive but for some it
00:32:18
was a disappointing end to a frustrating mystery Fort Smith detective Klay Thomas
00:32:23
said I hate to say it but finding her body was the first break we've had in this case at at least it g gives us a
00:32:29
direction before this we didn't have that so I guess you can I guess I mean at least there was that it's like it's
00:32:38
such a double-edged sword because obviously the aim was to find Melissa alive and bring her home this is the
00:32:45
last thing you want to find but at least finding someone's body can give you anything you know like it gives you any
00:32:54
cuz before that you're just kind of blind especially with no security cameras no you know this isn't the time
00:33:00
of like digital Footprints and [ __ ] right and for her family to actually have a place to go visit her where they
00:33:06
know she's laid to rest like that which again means a lot to the last thing you want to happen of in these scenarios but
00:33:13
I'm glad they were at least able to have something to go on at this point M oh it's just awful it is Reverend Ed sa I
00:33:20
think it's saier from the family's Church conveyed similar sentiments telling reporter this is a difficult
00:33:25
time but the family feels a little relief and finally knowing something yeah cuz I I imagine that the unknown
00:33:31
must be just completely unbearable well because we've said it before your mind fills in the blanks and a lot of times
00:33:36
that's you're coming up with somehow even darker things sometimes you know absolutely several months later after
00:33:43
the initial shock had worn off marann wit gave an interview to a local reporter where she couldn't help but
00:33:48
blame herself for her daughter's death which was in no way her fault she said I try not to think about how our lives
00:33:54
would be different if I had not invited Melissa to bowling world that night there's no use thinking about it I know
00:33:59
she's gone but my heart you know as a mom I sometimes wonder what if I had done something
00:34:04
differently kills me breaks your heart she did nothing wrong no she did nothing wrong and it's awful that because of
00:34:11
somebody else being a piece of [ __ ] monster she had to feel that way for the rest of her life yeah because
00:34:17
unfortunately uh Melissa's Father John and her mother Maran wh passed away in 2004 and 2011 respectively so they never
00:34:26
got answers and just waited the rest of their lives to hear anything oh that makes me so sad they never got it now in
00:34:33
a city of nearly 300,000 residents Fort Smith obviously had its fair share of violent crime in fact around the time
00:34:40
that Melissa wit disappeared there were a number of other young women who either
00:34:44
disappeared or were also murdered in 1995 just 9 months after Melissa was killed another Fort Smith woman named
00:34:52
Lori meres went missing after she was released from jail on a public intoxication charge
00:34:58
she was on her way to pick up her paycheck with a plan to return back to the jail and bail out her boyfriend but
00:35:04
she never returned and has never been seen since damn just vanished Into Thin Air those are always the scariest man
00:35:11
yeah a year later in 1996 Fort Smith resident summer Wilkinson disappeared and her remains were later discovered
00:35:18
near a racetrack in Oklahoma oh in 2000 a man named Jonathan Cole was convicted of her death and at the time he was
00:35:26
already serving a life sentence for the 1997 murder of a 13-year-old Fort Smith girl whose remains were also found in
00:35:33
Oklahoma holy [ __ ] the most alarming of these incidents occurred on June 9th 1995 when six-year-old Morgan Nick
00:35:41
disappeared from a little Nick Morgan Nick y disappeared from a little league game in Alma AR Arkansas just 20 miles
00:35:49
uh from Fort Smith so not far at all no Morgan had gone off with some friends to
00:35:53
catch fireflies which just no that absolutely ruined you she was last seen standing by her own
00:36:00
parents car talking to an unknown man before she disappeared a few weeks before her disappearance there were
00:36:07
actually two separate incidents of attempted kidnappings in the area including one where a man tried to pull
00:36:13
a 4-year-old girl into his own pickup truck in Alma and another in which a man tried to abduct a 9-year-old girl from a
00:36:21
convenience store in Fort Smith holy [ __ ] yeah it was a dangerous area my God now despite the obvious difference in
00:36:30
their ages investigators at the time did consider that Melissa's killer might also be responsible for the attempted
00:36:36
kidnapping of the girls in Alma and Fort Smith and The Disappearance of Morgan Nick my God scary that's horrifying
00:36:43
scary despite the surprising number of assaults attempted abductions and murders of young women in this area
00:36:50
investigators on Melissa's case had pretty much nothing to work with very little to work with and even less luck
00:36:56
when it came to find leads in June of 1995 they set up roadblocks in the area uh that Arkansas State Police did in the
00:37:04
hopes that a passing motorist might have seen or heard anything that could lead them to help find Melissa's killer or
00:37:10
help them find Morgan Nick Lieutenant Dale best told a reporter we will follow leads until we've exhausted them
00:37:16
somewhere somewhere out there there is that one lead somewhere a person knows this suspect the information is out
00:37:22
there if we can just reach out to the right person and get them to call but despite their best efforts the
00:37:28
roadblocks turned up zero useful leads which is nuts that's crazy me that many girls going missing ending up dead
00:37:38
like attempted kidnappings and nobody knows anything that's the thing they're not like these people who are doing this
00:37:45
are not that smart no no like they know people they've said things they've done things like come on and people just
00:37:52
don't want to get people don't get involved people don't want to get involved especially in like smaller
00:37:56
towns you see it so much more often it's a very different mindset there's a whole
00:38:01
like you know set of small town politics that comes into play yes big time that's
00:38:07
a perfect way to say it mhm it wasn't until nearly a year later in April 1996 that investigators finally got their
00:38:14
best lead in Melissa's uh Melissa wit's murder case among the stronger suspects in her murder was a local man named
00:38:21
William Taylor who detective Ryder described as somebody with a quote history of sexual abuse and violence
00:38:26
toward women and young girls but the problem was after warrants were issued for his arrest in September of 1995 he
00:38:34
went on the run in law enforcement officials hadn't been able to find him but finally in April of 1996 they used
00:38:41
phone records to track him to Mulberry Arkansas and he was finally arrested on those 95 organt good according to Ryder
00:38:49
quote Taylor was wanted for questioning in the wit case because several coincidences make him a possible suspect
00:38:55
Taylor is known to have frequented bowling allees in the region and was living in the area at the time wit
00:39:00
disappeared about 10 miles from where her body was discovered oh [ __ ] yeah according to Ryder detective Ryder
00:39:07
investigators quote attempted to question Taylor about the murder of Melissa wit and the Abduction of little
00:39:13
Morgan Nick but we never connected him to either case Taylor on the other hand claims
00:39:19
that he was never interviewed by detectives regarding Melissa wit or Morgan Nick's cases and said that even
00:39:25
though he requested a polygraph exam to prove his innocence those those requests
00:39:29
were denied but I thought you were never asked about it yeah in the first place none of that makes any sense I'm sorry
00:39:35
did you just contradict yourself 100% And detective Ryder disputed those claims saying Taylor's probably holding
00:39:41
a grudge over being convicted of those horrible crimes he committed likely yeah uh by all appearances it does seem that
00:39:48
he was cleared as as a suspect not long after his arrest okay at at least in those two cases I was going to say he
00:39:54
did other stuff I was going to say he's not a good guy uh he was only one of a handful of suspects who investigators
00:40:00
focused on very intensely after the discovery of Melissa's body in the woods the earliest suspect was actually the
00:40:06
Good Samaritan who helped Melissa after her car wouldn't start on the night of her disappearance oh under the
00:40:12
circumstances the timing of his appearance was pretty suspicious to investigators but that man was
00:40:17
interviewed several times by investigators and ultimately cleared oh man there was also a local homeless man
00:40:24
Roger Dale Wood who was arrested for quote this is is so gross mailing obscene sexual devices to Maryann wit
00:40:32
Melissa's mother are you [ __ ] kidding me no about a week after Melissa's death
00:40:37
a postal worker was sorting some packages and noticed a package addressed to the wit home without a return address
00:40:43
and they were like that's weird they became concerned that it actually might be from the killer so the employee
00:40:49
reported the package to the authorities which like hell mother [ __ ] yeah employee to think that far ahead high
00:40:56
fives to that employee for thinking that clearly about it and to be like I don't
00:41:01
want her family to have to deal with this and this be help so let me let me call someone let me say something they
00:41:08
saw something they said something good job so the authorities opened it and they found the obscene device what a
00:41:15
piece of [ __ ] truly detective Ryder said the package had been mailed from a Dropbox wood was attempting to frame
00:41:21
another man for killing Melissa because he suspected that the man had been stealing from him wow yeah scum see scum
00:41:28
literally just scum every as far as the eye can see truly now he ended up mailing another package the to the wit
00:41:35
home a week later and he became the focus of the investigation for a short time yeah it's like dude you're you're
00:41:41
going to look like the guy I don't know why look crazy you're trying to frame somebody else well you're doing a good
00:41:46
job of making yourself look real [ __ ] guilty exactly detective ryer later commented I still find it bizarre that
00:41:52
wood interjected himself into the wit case but after an intense investigation we are are confident he was not
00:41:58
responsible for Melissa's murder damn he's just an [ __ ] he's just a piece of [ __ ] my added quote at the time
00:42:04
Melissa's body was discovered anyone with a Criminal past and connection to Melissa no matter how trivial seemed
00:42:10
like a promising suspect yeah of course but as the years past and the case evolved those early suspects were pretty
00:42:17
much more than likely just pretty desperate grasps at finding any leads yeah I mean they had to they had to they
00:42:23
had to go for anything you're when you don't have anything you have to chase down what you can you do since then
00:42:28
several other suspects have emerged who quickly became a focus of the investigation and are actually far more
00:42:33
serious than the Good Samaritan and Roger Wood like you understand why they chased them down but these next people
00:42:39
we're going to talk about are actually like make you scratch your head a in 1999 Marcus Blair a Fort Smith reporter
00:42:46
was covering the the crime beat for the Times Record when he came across an interesting story from a Texas paper
00:42:53
about a man named lar uh Larry Swearingen at the time Swearingen had been arrested for the murder of
00:42:59
19-year-old Melissa Trotter who he was accused of sexually assaulting strangling and dump dumping in the Sam
00:43:06
Houston National Forest in Texas so literally the same exact thing same exact thing even at dumping the body in
00:43:13
a national for same victim profile same victim profile and actually if you if you look at a picture of Melissa if of
00:43:21
both melissas they bear striking resemblance and he recalled I immediately thought you know wow this
00:43:27
girl looks like Melissa wit the more I read the more I realized how similar the cases were to each other o that's scary
00:43:34
yeah when Blair brought the uh story to detective Ryder's attention which like again see something say something you
00:43:40
love to see it the detective felt like he had finally gotten a break in the case that he'd been Desperately Seeking
00:43:46
he said I've been waiting for a guy like this to come along since the case began
00:43:50
I've never seen two cases this similar but I've also run into more coincidences in this case than any other but this
00:43:57
coincidence is almost unbelievable yeah things and they do look a lot alike when
00:44:02
you put them next to each other see and around the same age y unfortunately murdered in the same manner
00:44:09
assaulted dumping location similar dump things looked even more promising when Ryder discovered that Larry had
00:44:18
been in Arkansas visiting his grandparents just days before Melissa went missing oh come on add that to the
00:44:24
fact that he had a history of kidnapping in he in Melissa's now despite these coin very
00:44:35
strong coincidences between the cases saren Jen maintained his innocence in the wick case until the day of his
00:44:41
execution in Fall of 2019 for years investigators tried to get him to cooperate with an interview
00:44:48
and sought any evidence that could tie him to Melissa's death but he refused to speak to them and they were never able
00:44:54
to produce anything of substance he feels like a really good suspect to me he does and the fact that he refused to
00:45:01
speak about it just wouldn't talk about it and was like I'm being executed anyway yeah so like what the [ __ ] yeah
00:45:08
another prominent suspect in Melissa's abduction and murder was convicted rapist Travis Dale Crouch at the time of
00:45:14
Melissa's disappearance he was working as a handyman at a church camp not far from where Melissa's body was discovered
00:45:21
a [ __ ] rapist yeah working at a church camp awesome and it was not far from where her body was convicted rapist
00:45:29
working at a church camp yeah fantastic great uh he had grown up in Ozark and spent the late 1980s riding around the
00:45:35
country with several motorcycle gangs before being sent to prison in the early 90s for stabbing a man in Minneapolis
00:45:42
wow in October 1994 he was released from prison and returned to Ozark to live with his parents having grown up in the
00:45:48
area he was very intimately familiar with the region and he had actually been seen driving in the area of the Bowling
00:45:55
World at the time of Melissa disappearance detective Ryder said we have witnesses that place him in Ozark
00:46:02
Arkansas at least through mid December adding that Crouch was arrested in Louisiana on January 1st 1995 so not
00:46:09
long after Melissa was killed in interviews with law enforcement he has no alibi he had no alibi for the night
00:46:15
that Melissa went missing and couldn't account for his whereabouts during the weeks that followed oh [ __ ] yeah in 1998
00:46:24
investigators took hair fiber and stain samples from the the car that he was driving at the time but the test results
00:46:29
were inconclusive oh I [ __ ] hate that mhm otherwise he has denied playing any role in Melissa's death but again he
00:46:37
also looks like a good one another strong suspect in 1997 he was convicted of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old
00:46:44
woman in Broomfield Colorado and in this case he kidnapped the woman in her own car and drove her to a remote location
00:46:52
in the mountains where he violently sexually assaulted her this victim was able to Escape after he passed out in
00:46:58
the front seat oh my God and at that time she obviously reported the assault to police as of now he still maintains
00:47:05
his innocence and is serving uh a 64e sentence in Colorado holy [ __ ] but maintains his innocence as far as the
00:47:11
Melissa Wick case with each new suspect that emerged in this case it seemed like
00:47:16
investigators were getting closer to finding the identity of Melissa's killer finally but they were never able to make
00:47:22
any actual case against any individual but there was always one one man that many investigators strongly suspected of
00:47:30
involvement in Melissa's murder and more than any other suspect he had the criminal history to justify their
00:47:36
opinions really yes in 2000 detectives in Arkansas arrested Charles Ray vines that name
00:47:43
might sound familiar he was arrested after he violently attacked a 16-year-old girl
00:47:49
breaking into her home raping her and almost killing her holy [ __ ] not long after that arrest the investigation and
00:47:56
covered additional evidence that proved he was the notorious serial killer that the Press had dubbed the river valley
00:48:03
killer oh okay he was responsible for the brutal killings of 89-year-old Lily Jones in 1993 why did I know that name
00:48:12
mhm and the murder of 58-year-old Wanita Wofford 2 months later a little over a year later a local Fort Smith resident
00:48:20
Danny Bennett confessed to those murders and was actually sent to prison for them
00:48:25
but whatever relief that brought was shortlived because in August of that year while Danny Bennett was sitting in
00:48:30
jail or prison rather 74-year-old Ruth Henderson was murdered and the killing and crime scene were remarkably similar
00:48:38
to the murders of Jones and Wofford so the murder of Ruth Henderson was determined to have been committed by the
00:48:45
same killer and authorities were then forced to let Danny Bennett go it wasn't until 5 years later when Vines was
00:48:52
arrested for this assault on the teenage girl that investigators finally started
00:48:56
connect ing those previous cases to him and he was arrested after his arrest he made a deal with the prosecutor's office
00:49:03
in in which he agreed to provide details of his previous murders in exchange for
00:49:08
their agreeing not to pursue the death penalty at which point he confessed to the other murders holy [ __ ] yeah he had
00:49:16
lived in Fort Smith for many years including the period that Melissa wit disappeared and was killed in an
00:49:22
investigator strongly suspected him of being Melissa's killer but when he was was directly confronted about the murder
00:49:28
after his arrest he denied abducting or killing Melissa given that he had confessed to killing the other women it
00:49:35
really wouldn't make a lot of sense for him to deny Melissa's murder if he was responsible but law enforcement Still
00:49:41
Remains suspicious according to Rob Allen who was one of the FBI agents who pursued the case in 2019 he said there
00:49:48
was a lady who had emailed a detective she worked with Charlie vines's mother and Charlie Vines sometimes would show
00:49:54
up to his mother's work and that way witness reported she saw him wearing a bowling league shirt of some sort oh so
00:50:01
that's interesting that is very interesting the report about the bowling league shirt is obviously circumstantial
00:50:06
the best but it was just one of several things about Charlie Vines Charles vines
00:50:10
that made him a strong suspect he worked about 8 minutes from where Melissa's body was discovered was known to be very
00:50:17
familiar with the area like I said he lived there most of his life and was very familiar with the logging trails in
00:50:24
Ozark there's a lot of people are in 2021 27 years after Melissa's murder an investigatory team of FBI agents and
00:50:34
local La enforcement officers were sent out to the area where Melissa's body was
00:50:39
discovered in the Ozark forest and they brought several several tracking dogs with them and despite having nearly
00:50:45
three decades having passed those dogs located an old mattress in the woods with Charles Ray Vine's DNA on it shut
00:50:53
the [ __ ] up as well as several several old Cambridge cigarette butts containing
00:50:59
DNA what and this is crazy when the original investigators processed the scene in 1994 when Melissa's body was
00:51:06
found they located several Cambridge cigarette butts right near where her body was
00:51:13
discovered this again this feels like it's it feels so strong yeah he was ultimately convicted and sentenced to
00:51:20
three life terms for the murders of Lily Jones Wanita wford and Ruth Henderson but despite the best best efforts of FBI
00:51:27
and local law enforcement he refused to talk on the record about Melissa whip [ __ ] and he died in prison in September
00:51:35
2019 and he is a disgusting looking man just so everybody knows he is gross he's
00:51:42
heinous as of 2025 now Melissa wit's murder remains unsolved currently the nonprofit organization all the Lost
00:51:50
Girls is offering a $29,000 reward for any information that will lead to the arrest and successful prosecution of her
00:51:58
killer and anybody with any information about her murder is encouraged to call the organization's confidential hotline
00:52:05
at 1 1800 4419 2022 again 1 1800 449 2022 or they can email confidentially at who killed Missy wit@
00:52:18
gmail.com this is just such a frustrating case such a frustrating case cuz every time they felt like they got
00:52:25
close and that they had their guy it was just that the person wouldn't cooperate and they didn't have anything
00:52:29
else to hold them there on that or to to completely you know yeah seal the deal it's like there's a couple of really
00:52:38
good like I feel like he's in there for me Charles Ray Vines and I would say Larry Larry Larry Swearingen are
00:52:46
probably the and I was really stuck on Larry until I found that uh the cigarette butts Charles the kind that
00:52:54
Charles rine smoked were right near the body that's very very interesting and an
00:53:00
old mattress with his DNA on it it's like why was there an Old Mattress out there yeah and that's the thing it's
00:53:05
like what the [ __ ] yeah bizarre yeah and just such a tragic tragic awful awful
00:53:11
case the fact that her parents died not knowing yeah not having any answers of what happened to their 19-year-old
00:53:16
daughter no that makes me sick who had everything going for her everything going for her she came from a good
00:53:22
family she was beautiful she was well-liked she was going to be a dental hygien involved in her the damn thing
00:53:29
yeah and just went to the bowling alley to hang out with her mom one night after
00:53:33
work that makes me sick so sad so guys if you have if anybody listening has um knows anybody with any information or if
00:53:42
you have any information again that the number that I provided and the uh email you can submit it submit an email
00:53:49
confidentially and again submit a tip to that number confidential it's completely
00:53:54
confidential if you know anyone if you saw anything if your family member remembers something if you're from the
00:54:00
area do you ever heard anything at all you ever heard a damn thing it's like these kind of things I'm like this can
00:54:06
be solved absolutely this can be solved 100% oh I but's I want it to happen I know I'm glad that we did an unsolved
00:54:14
case at the top of the year I like to let's start the year yes with some fresh years on it let's get it solved but you
00:54:21
know what if the lady of the dunes the boy in the Box the Summerton man if all those things can be can be solved I mean
00:54:31
decades and decades and decades later this can be sof but yeah no I completely agree with you and so guys remember see
00:54:38
something say something yeah we love you you keep listening be nice to yourselves
00:54:43
and keep it weird but not so weird that if you see something you don't say something and not so weird that if you
00:54:49
have a tip you don't submit it because you could help the whole entire family and to get Justice for a wonderful woman
00:54:54
who was killed by a terrible monster [Music] [Music] [Music]