00:00:00
TV's number one drama, High Potential, returns with star Caitlyn Olsen as the crimesolving single mom with an IQ of
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the perfect blend of humor and mystery. She's breaking the mold without breaking
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a nail. New episodes of High Potential Tuesdays 10:9 central on ABC and stream on Hulu.
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[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Close [Music] [Music] your eyes in 20125 and imagine if you will, the idea of
00:02:12
routinely relying upon a complete and total stranger to give give you a ride to school, work, or any other
00:02:20
destination. Well, in a sense, we already do that with the advent of ride share services
00:02:29
such as Uber and Lyft, but those companies at minimum have some type of guard rails built into their business
00:02:36
model, however weak they may be in reality. In the 1970s, there were no apps or cell phones or any services such
00:02:47
as these. So, cashstrapped individuals, primarily students and young people, frequently
00:02:55
relied upon another age-old method to get where they needed to go. Hitchhiking. In the United States,
00:03:03
hitchhiking first entered the zeitgeist in the late 1920s due to the economic hardships of the
00:03:10
Great Depression. It remained a common mode of transportation in the 30s and 40s. After
00:03:18
World War II, thumbming a ride became an economical means for soldiers to return
00:03:24
to their loved ones, as well as an opportunity for motorists to perform a patriotic duty by giving them a lift.
00:03:32
The youth movement in the 1960s saw a revival of this mode of transportation. The 1970s would emerge as the golden era
00:03:42
of hitchhiking in the United States with students, workers, travelers, and sometimes even minors seeking the
00:03:51
cheapest mode of transportation by using their thumb to catch a ride. Despite warnings from parents, police,
00:04:00
and other authority figures, the hitchhiking is not always safe and in fact can be very dangerous, folks,
00:04:08
especially young ones, were regularly getting into a vehicle that they may have never seen before, driven by
00:04:16
someone that they have never met. This included young women and girls who felt the risk of hitching a ride to be very
00:04:24
low and they were willing to take that chance. It could never happen to me. However, faces on milk cartons and the
00:04:35
stranger danger years of the 1980s resulted in a sharp decline in hitchhiking. Increased media spread of legitimate
00:04:45
information and statistics had fully opened our eyes to the dangers and high-risk status of hitchhiking.
00:04:53
Thankfully, the availability of affordable alternatives such as buses, trains, and more recently ride share
00:05:01
services. Today, the need for this very risky mode of transportation is almost non-existent.
00:05:09
Hitchhiking, thumbming or hitching. It's not just getting a ride, but places one
00:05:16
in the company of another, usually a stranger, and it is their home field advantage,
00:05:23
and you are well within striking distance. The ride is usually, but not always, free. Some, in fact, far too
00:05:34
many, and perhaps many more than we may ever know, have paid the ultimate price for a ride. Between 1972 and 1973, in
00:05:45
Santa Rosa, California, a predator who had earned the name the Hitchhiker Killer or the Soma Co-ed Killer claimed
00:05:54
the lives of at least seven female victims, with many more suspected. Six of the bodies were recovered and
00:06:02
identified and one remains missing still. Additionally, an eighth presumed victim,
00:06:09
unidentified and known only as Jane Doe, is thought to be related to the case. Law enforcement and media to this day
00:06:20
refer to the series of homicides as the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker murders. This is True Crime Garage.
00:06:31
[Music] [Music] In the early 1970s in Soma County, California, young women and girls were
00:06:44
turning up dead. Homicide victims discarded by the killer or killers, as detectives put it, like trash. Many of
00:06:53
the crimes were similar in both nature and victimology. Among the victims, all of the women were last seen hitchhiking
00:07:01
in and around Santa Rosa and Soma County. Soma County, located in the Bay Area of Northern California, is situated
00:07:11
on the coastline about 55 miles north of San Francisco. The prosperous and vibrant city of Santa Rosa serves as the
00:07:20
county seat and it is the largest city with 25% of the county's population residing there. But back in the early
00:07:29
and mid70s, think medium to large suburb, 50 to 55,000 people. The city of Santa Rosa was undergoing transformative
00:07:40
changes thanks to urban redevelopment and was surrounded by classic small town America. The county was comprised of
00:07:49
rural municipalities, picturesque hills, coastal towns, and ocean views to the west and vineyards to the east, but also
00:07:59
remote and quiet wooded areas. The 1970s saw a significant rise in violent crimes
00:08:06
such as assault, rape, and murder. The decade also has the dubious distinction of being at the forefront of the quote
00:08:15
golden age of serial killers. December 28th, 1972, two teenage boys out on a hiking adventure on a Thursday afternoon
00:08:25
made a gruesome discovery, finding the remains of at least two bodies. Bones and two skulls were found about 60 feet
00:08:35
off of a narrow two-lane county road down a steep embankment in a heavy brush area. The teens promptly went to the
00:08:45
home of the oldest boy and his father called the coroner's office. The teens were hiking France Valley. So they
00:08:54
parked their vehicle, went for the hike. It was on the return to the parked vehicle that one of them spotted the
00:09:01
remains. This is near the bottom of a steep embankment at a spot just off of France Valley Road that is 2.2 mi north
00:09:11
of Porter Creek Road. There are houses there now, but still very spread out. Even looking at a map today, one can see
00:09:19
why this is a great location for hiking and a good spot for placing something that you don't want to be found or at
00:09:26
least not for some time. According to a report from the Soma County Sheriff's Office at around 400 p.m. on December
00:09:34
28th, the two young men named Glenn Frost and David Broner stumbled upon the skeletal remains of at least two
00:09:44
victims. The bodies were located down a steep embankment. The furthest one down is approximately 66 feet off of the east
00:09:53
side of that road. So to paint this picture a little bit more, we have one skull and rib cage found together at
00:10:01
least 50 ft from the road and a second skull further down the embankment and to the right. Near that we have another rib
00:10:09
cage just under some brush. Who they were was anyone's guess. By the time the sheriff's office was at the site and due
00:10:17
to the time of year, it was getting dark and getting dark fast. The terrain is steep in many places, especially at this
00:10:26
location. So, the area was roped off and guarded till morning time. There were bones and teeth scattered in this
00:10:33
general area as well, plus some portions of remains belonging to deer, ultimately
00:10:38
finding three deer skulls in this area. So as of that night, they were not sure how many sets of human remains that they
00:10:47
would recover. The next day at dawn, we have a fullon search of this area. This means grid collection and even digging
00:10:57
in some spots. On this day of searching, of course, they will be fielding questions about this discovery, but
00:11:04
unable to answer them due to the obvious. We are finding skulls, rib cages, teeth, and bones, not complete
00:11:12
bodies. So, they have been there a considerable amount of time that allowed for full decomposition.
00:11:19
It's far too early to be able to say with any real confidence who the victims may be. It is suspected immediately that
00:11:28
they are homicide victims placed there, tossed there. They could not say the victim's ages, gender, or ethnicity
00:11:36
because they did not know and would not know until the identification process is
00:11:41
successful and complete. They could not say with any level of certainty how long
00:11:46
the bodies had been there and if they were placed there at the same time, resting there for the same amount of
00:11:54
time. But there is good reasoning for the questions that the reporters from the local news outlets are peppering the
00:12:03
sheriff's office with. Questions like were the victims men or women or one of each or kids and so on because we have
00:12:14
two missing girls from that area. In fact, these girls had vanished late one Friday night months ago, but only about
00:12:24
10 to 15 miles away. And that is where and when many believe that this true crime story starts. So, Captain, we're
00:12:34
going to go back to February 4th, 1972, more than 10 months prior to finding the
00:12:40
skulls and bones down that ravine in the hills of France Valley Road. We have Yavon Weber, age 13, and Moren Sterling,
00:12:51
age 12. These two are spending a Friday evening at the Redwood Empire Ice Arena.
00:13:00
This ice skating and recreational arena was built by Charles M. Scholes, the creator of Peanuts. You know, Snoopy,
00:13:08
Charlie Brown, and don't forget about my boy Lionus. Lionus Vanpelt. The rink built in 1969 is a popular spot
00:13:17
for many folks, but especially for teenagers. Marine's mother, Arlene, dropped them
00:13:24
off between 7 and 7:30 that evening. The plan, she would be returning to pick them up at 11:00 p.m.
00:13:32
Around 900 p.m., the two tell a friend that they are going off to smoke some pot with a man that they had met earlier
00:13:42
that night. They according to this friend, this witness, they say they met this man earlier that night in the lobby
00:13:52
of that arena. The witness described the man who had been watching the skaters as
00:13:58
tall and slender, Caucasian, but someone that the witness had never seen before.
00:14:06
Reports from other witnesses indicated that the girls had gone off to meet someone at a bowling alley, presumably
00:14:14
hitchhiking to get there. The pair, it's reported time and time again, Captain, that the pair were last seen getting
00:14:21
into a vehicle on Gville Road, which is right outside of the arena. So, when the
00:14:29
mother returns to pick the girls up at 11:00 p.m., she's watching people filter out of the arena. I'm guessing that's
00:14:39
closing time for them, looking for the faces of her daughter and daughter's friend in the crowd. Doesn't see him.
00:14:48
And sadly, she never is able to collect the girls and return them home that night. And
00:14:57
shortly after the girls were reported missing. >> Yeah, it's really scary to think as a
00:15:02
child we grew up in the 80s. So places like bowling alleys or or Skate America, they don't have security video. So how
00:15:15
many creeps were just going there on the weekend watching kids and looking for opportunities? So, the girls are
00:15:23
reported missing here, and there are several different reports on this that they were reported missing by their
00:15:31
parents on Sunday. Some reports say that it was Saturday. I do want to point out
00:15:36
here though, the pickup time was 11:00 p.m. on Friday. So, 12:01 a.m. on Saturday would technically be
00:15:44
Saturday. Less than, you know, less than an hour after mom gives up hope, hoping
00:15:49
to find the girls at the arena. These were good kids. So, it was completely out of
00:15:57
character for them to not be where they said they would be or at least as far as
00:16:03
their parents knew. After the girls were reported missing, police questioned classmates and friends, but they were
00:16:09
not able to develop any really good leads. The police believed that the girls were runaways
00:16:17
and stated so publicly. and the police's investigation stalled. >> The old brilliant runaway theory.
00:16:24
>> Yes. You see this throughout the decade of the 70s and a lot really with teenagers up until this started to
00:16:33
change sometime in the 80s and then really morphed into something different in the '9s, especially after the genesis
00:16:43
of the Amber Alert. Yeah, it makes maybe some sense if the individuals were in their late teens, early 20s, but we have
00:16:52
a 13 and 14y old, not individuals that normally run away to start a new life. Yeah, 13 and 12 years old here, Captain.
00:17:01
But w what we have here is the witness that was talking with the girls that night at the arena did say that they
00:17:10
dressed and carried themselves to be to appear older. So whatever happened to them, we might
00:17:19
want to factor that into the equation. >> Yeah. When you're 12 and 13, especially
00:17:26
young girls, you want to appear older, more mature. You like it when somebody says, "Oh, what are you, 15, 16?" You
00:17:36
must get a kick out of it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I appear older than I am. There were rumors that the girls might have
00:17:43
previously been in contact with a man who lived along the Russian River, but police could not confirm that connection
00:17:52
either. A lot of suspicion here. I want to talk about where some of these details come from, the suspicions or the
00:17:59
the leads that ultimately didn't go anywhere, but they should be discussed and examined, and they were examined by
00:18:06
the police at the time. So, while they're saying that we believe that the girls are runaways early in this
00:18:12
investigation, that's the conversations that they're having with the parents behind closed doors, but they clearly
00:18:18
were doing some investigating because it was after. So, they take the missing person's report regardless of whether it
00:18:26
was Saturday or Sunday. The police, the detectives are at the girl's school. They go to the same middle school. So,
00:18:33
they're at the girls school that week talking to everybody that knew them, teachers and such, trying to figure out
00:18:41
did the girls tell anybody where they might be going. Whether it was that they plan to run away, plan to go somewhere
00:18:48
just to hang out or talked about somebody they had been hanging out with that was not a classmate or someone of
00:18:56
their age. Of course, police are going to want to talk to that individual or those individuals. Based off of that, it
00:19:03
appears to me that some of this information is coming from talking to those other children at that middle
00:19:11
school. This they were in contact with the man who lived along the Russian River. Again, police could not confirm
00:19:19
or make a real connection there. I'm what I'm guessing here with that lead, Captain is that that lead didn't come
00:19:27
didn't provide a name or identity for the man who lived along the Russian River.
00:19:33
>> And do we know if this contact was outside of the skating rink or was it just they made contact with this man at
00:19:40
the skating rink, but do we have any evidence that they were in communication with this individual before attending
00:19:48
the skating rink? >> No. So I we we need to try to separate these different leads here. So the
00:19:54
Russian River man is one lead. The bowling alley, we're going to a bowling alley is another lead. And then the man
00:20:02
that was going to be smoking pot with them is another lead. So these are all separate and these are all leads that
00:20:10
police are going to get from different individuals at different times. The bowling alley lead, I can't confirm
00:20:18
where it came from. The man on the Russian River, I believe, came from talking to somebody after the fact the
00:20:25
following week when school was back in and police are at that school interviewing people looking for leads.
00:20:33
What I think that we should probably discuss here is look, I think you can easily discredit but also at the same
00:20:43
time add validity to some of these leads, the three that we've discussed. And I don't have any proof of this. I'm
00:20:50
just going off of reasonable thinking. Thinking about how teenagers act and their movements.
00:20:58
if they were going to the ice skating rink simply as a disguise to the parents of, "Hey, drop us off here at this
00:21:07
friendly place that you know that we like to go that you feel comfortable, mom and dad, with us going off to." And
00:21:14
then we will go off to where we really want to go. Some place that we are not comfortable asking mom and dad that we
00:21:19
can go to, hanging out with people that we are not comfortable asking, getting permission to hang out with. That is a
00:21:27
very teenaglike behavior. Think about the timing. What is not in question is their friend telling police, you know,
00:21:36
around 9:00 p.m. the two came up to me, asked me if I wanted to go with them. They're going with this guy to go smoke
00:21:43
some pot. She didn't seem to think it was a big deal. I think she thought they were coming back. We don't know the
00:21:51
exact discussion that they had, but the friend says, "No, I'm I don't want to go
00:21:55
off with you guys. Guys, I'm going to stay right here. I'm going to go skating. >> Yeah, it's reasonable to It's reasonable
00:22:00
that this individual just assume they're going to the parking lot to smoke some pot and and this guy's car and they're
00:22:07
coming right back. They don't have a vehicle. So, it's if they leave, they're going to be dependent on this individual
00:22:16
to take them away and then bring them back. >> And she says she had seen the man
00:22:21
earlier. He was a guy that was watching the skaters. just somebody that was kind
00:22:26
of hanging out in the lobby area of the arena, which wouldn't be terribly uncommon. You would see a probably a
00:22:35
good amount of people hanging out between skate sessions or or people parents there that are just with their
00:22:42
kids and so on. But what I'm the where I think that we might be able to take away from some of
00:22:48
the credibility of these leads is again just back to simple teenager behavior, right? If if mom and dad are dropping us
00:22:59
off and our plan is to go off someplace else to the Russian River or to a bowling alley,
00:23:06
>> right? We would do that pretty quickly in the evening knowing that our ride is
00:23:11
coming back to retrieve us at 11:00 p.m. and we got to go there, have as much fun
00:23:15
as we can, and get our asses back to get picked up at 11:00 p.m. So, with this conversation taking place at 900 p.m., I
00:23:25
feel like your best lead, if you have to prioritize them, is probably this one of
00:23:30
the man that they are spotted with before they are no longer seen. This may tie in with the sighting of them on
00:23:40
Gville Road, presumably hitchhiking, because there is that statement of they were last seen getting into a vehicle on
00:23:48
Gville Road, which is very nearby. Regardless, December 28th, 1972, over 10 months later, skeletal remains
00:23:59
are discovered. We talked about how they were discovered. This turns out to be the site of where Yavon and Marine's
00:24:08
remains were ultimately found. It was eventually confirmed that the two missing were the two deceased. They
00:24:15
confirmed this via dental records. The victim's bodies were too decomposed for the coroner to determine their cause of
00:24:22
death. The evidence found at that scene is just like the evidence from where they were last seen. It's minimal.
00:24:31
>> Right. So besides the bones, the only evidence at the scene was a gold chain necklace with a cross, a single gold
00:24:39
earring, and some orange beads. No clothing, no personal belongings other than this jewelry confirmed by one of
00:24:48
the mothers as belonging to her daughter. Nearby, bushes contain some materials that could have been used to
00:24:55
bind the victims before their deaths. The two middle school friends, Yavon Lisa Weber and Marine Louise Sterling,
00:25:04
are considered to be the very first confirmed victims of the Santa Rosa hitchhiker murders case. Yavon's
00:25:14
stepfather was very blunt with the media and for folks paying attention to the news. His name is David Harrington. When
00:25:23
interviewed after the positive identification, he said that all along the Santa Rosa police insisted the two
00:25:32
girls were runaways. It is obvious that they weren't. He said the girls may have
00:25:38
been hitchhiking and added, "I hope other girls will learn by this and not hitchhike."
00:25:45
>> Yeah, this idea by law enforcement to me is either lazy or stupid. >> It's also a sign of the times. Yavon had
00:25:51
three siblings and Morin had a sister. As for some crime trends and crime statistics,
00:26:00
of course, the deaths were determined to be a foul play. This marked the 20th and
00:26:06
21st homicide victims of 1972 of the 1972 calendar year, and that was unfortunately a new high for Soma
00:26:16
County. The previous record was nine. So more than double. Yes, this is determined in December near the end of
00:26:25
the year. But also, yes, it also needs to be determined that we have a problem here.
00:26:34
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She's breaking the mold without breaking a nail. New episodes of High Potential Tuesdays 10:9 central on ABC and stream
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00:31:04
the air. Cheers to you and cheers to you, Colonel. >> Cheers to you, Captain. Cheers to all
00:31:10
the people in the back. We are going to start getting into a series of events all taking place after
00:31:20
Yavon and Moren went missing and most taking place before they are found and eventually identified.
00:31:30
So please listen, identify and make note of the similarities regarding things like victimology, evidence, methodology,
00:31:39
and in some cases perhaps signature as we go. The next part of the story, Captain, it's another girl gone missing.
00:31:47
We have Kim Wendy Allen. She was born on July 22nd, 1956. Kim was studying art at
00:31:55
Santa Rosa Junior College at the time of her disappearance. She has been described by friends as a unique soul,
00:32:02
very principled, but also private and somewhat difficult to get close to. Regardless, Kim was open and
00:32:09
enthusiastic about sharing her interest with others, especially those close to her. An eager learner, she was receptive
00:32:18
to teaching of all kinds, and one teacher described her as having an aura of innocence about her. In high school,
00:32:26
she had served as a spirit leader for her senior class. Kim was a genuine person who believed
00:32:33
people were inherently good, and she trusted in people's kindness and decency. Kim's usual mode of
00:32:41
transportation, however, was her thumb, and she truly did not believe that she was at risk of any danger while
00:32:50
hitchhiking. Her mother as well as several of her teachers tried to warn her about the dangers of catching rides
00:32:58
with strangers. On March 4th, 1972, 19-year-old Kim Allen thumbmed a ride from her job. This is in Larkur,
00:33:11
California, where she worked at the natural food store. So, she caught a ride with two
00:33:19
men who agreed to take her part of the way back to her school in Santa Rosa. They were unable to take her all of the
00:33:28
way to her destination. They dropped her off down the road at the Bella Avenue entrance to Highway 101. This is
00:33:39
northbound in San Raphael, about 15 miles from where they had picked her up. So, they give her a short ride, 15 miles
00:33:48
or so. The men said they had dropped her off around 5:20 p.m. that evening, and that the young
00:33:57
woman had planned to hitchhike the rest of the way back to her school. The art student had been carrying a large wooden
00:34:04
soy sauce barrel, 2 feet high and a foot wide across the top and open on one end.
00:34:13
Imprinted on the barrel were red Chinese characters. So this is a very unique and
00:34:20
descriptive item that she had in her possession at this time. >> Absolutely. >> And as we mentioned, she's an art
00:34:27
student, very creative. She was planning on creating a drum with it, but of course we know that she vanished.
00:34:37
>> Well, and if hitchhiking seems bizarre to you or seems like something that you
00:34:42
I mean, for the longest time when we started covering cases like this, I had a hard time wrapping my head around like
00:34:50
hitchhiking was a normal thing. Talk to anybody that grew up in the the ' 60s and the ' 70s and they'll tell you just
00:34:58
how common it was. Not Not only it might have been common in in their life to actually hitchhike, but the amount of
00:35:06
individuals I've talked to where they're like, "Oh, yeah, you know, I used to pick up people all the time." was just a
00:35:12
thing that we did. >> Yeah. And we've talked about that in many cases that we've covered from this
00:35:18
era and also talked about hitchhiking at length in the trailer at today at the top of today's show. The afternoon of
00:35:28
the following day. So now we're at Sunday, March 5th. The nude body of a woman was found at the base of a steep
00:35:36
20ft embankment on the north side of Enterprise Road. 8/10en of a mile from the intersection with Bennett Valley
00:35:45
Road. The victim was found by two high school students taking a shortcut through the woods. Marks on her wrist
00:35:53
and ankles indicated that she had been bound at the hands and feet as if she had been spread eagled or perhaps even
00:36:01
hog tied. There was also a wound on her left collar bone, but it was not considered to be a fatal wound. She had
00:36:10
been strangled with some type of cord or possibly wire. And the only evidence remaining at the scene was a single gold
00:36:19
hoop earring. The pathologist's report confirmed that the young woman had died around midnight on Saturday. This hours
00:36:29
before just hours before the body was discovered. Sonoma County Coroner Andrew Johansson said she had been tortured to
00:36:37
death and she was slowly and deliberately strangled, taking at least a half an hour to die. The cause of
00:36:46
death was listed as exfixiation, and the autopsy revealed she had been raped. The
00:36:52
medical examiner was able to collect semen from her body. And she also had an oily substance on the right side of her
00:37:01
body that authorities said was similar to the oil used in a machine shop to assist in cutting metal. If you have
00:37:11
large saws, even even a chainsaw that you would use outside to take down a tree to fell some trees requires oil to
00:37:21
keep it going. >> So, at this scene, they don't find any clothes either. >> Correct. Yeah. No clothes. According to
00:37:28
at least one source, police speculated that the single gold hoop earring that was found at the scene could possibly
00:37:35
have belonged to the killer. I'm guessing here that when they show this to people that knew her, nobody was able
00:37:43
to confirm that it belonged to her. So, detectives are taking a guess here, like
00:37:48
she's found with it. Could it be that it was placed there by somebody else or or
00:37:54
did it belong to her? Difficult to say. Investigators also discovered an impression, possibly that of a leg in
00:38:03
the soil at the top of the embankment about a foot long and 14 in deep. So, at first I thought, you know, this is
00:38:11
probably a whole lot of nothing. But then when I found sources saying 14 in deep, this is probably something here.
00:38:19
So, law enforcement looking at this, they theorized and they they publicly talked about finding this. They
00:38:26
theorized that this hole possibly could have been made by the killer, somebody that was getting rid of the body, the
00:38:34
killer slipping and falling as he attempted to dump the body. Moreover, the angle of the impression led them to
00:38:41
believe he may have actually seriously injured himself and may have even required medical treatment.
00:38:51
That's why they're openly publicly talking about this very specific detailed item found at the crime scene
00:38:58
because if he did if this person did require medical treatment, they want to talk to a medical facility or medical
00:39:06
facility personnel and find out, hey, did did you treat anybody recently that came in with this type of injury? I
00:39:17
don't know how quickly they were releasing this to the public because this is this is one of those items,
00:39:23
right, that I have to believe that if you got a whole bunch of good detectives working together on this, whose call is
00:39:32
this? Because I could see one side of the argument being we got to get this out to the public because if somebody
00:39:39
sought medical treatment, that's our lead. That's probably our guy. Now, we know who we need to talk to. But
00:39:46
remember the between abduction and when the body is found is like 24 hours, >> right?
00:39:53
>> If you put this out too early, maybe the person that is responsible or persons responsible hears this and
00:40:02
says, "No, no, no. Not so fast, mister. We can't go get medical attention now. I
00:40:08
can I can wrap it up here and try to walk it off or I can drive a great or good distance away and seek
00:40:16
medical attention there and hope that the dots are not connected. So that this is one of those details it's like you
00:40:23
need to get it out, but what is the perfect timing of getting that detail out? >> But already we're seeing similarities
00:40:31
between this victim and the first two victims. quite a bit of similarities. However, keep in mind because we started
00:40:39
with the finding of those first two victims. The finding was 10 months after they vanished. So, at this time, what
00:40:49
they have in Santa Rosa basically is we got two missing kids. We have no idea where they are. We're leaning toward
00:40:58
Runaway. And then about a month later, slightly more, well actually one day more than a
00:41:06
month, 30 days because February is a short month. It was a leap year that year. 30 days later, we're finding the
00:41:13
body of this college student. It would take some time though. So maybe that required medical treatment detail
00:41:23
came out after the identification. So they didn't positively and publicly state that they had identified the body
00:41:32
until March 9th and the body was found on the 5th. So 4 days earlier. The remains were posit 4 days later. I'm
00:41:41
sorry. My problem with the first case though is that we have eyewitnesses putting them at the skate rink and we
00:41:49
have really uh we have people assuming that they saw two girls hitchhiking and we have no clue if those were the
00:42:01
same girls or not. It's just speculation. And like we said there was >> this was common practice for people to
00:42:11
hitchhike. So it it's very possible it was just two different girls hitchhiking. And that that's really I I
00:42:21
like that you point that out because so that tip was a potential eyewitness tip that came in after the police had
00:42:30
reached out to the public saying, "Hey, we got these two missing girls, these two missing kids from the skating rink,
00:42:36
this arena. Did anybody see anything?" and some a man came forward saying he was driving in the area and he he saw
00:42:43
two girls matching their description getting into a vehicle. Some of the reports say presumably
00:42:51
hitchhiking. I I couldn't find a report that outwardly said like I saw them thumb in the air. And so you're hitting
00:42:59
on something that I think is key. It could be any couple of girls hitchhiking. It could also be any couple
00:43:06
of girls just getting into a vehicle, >> right? We don't have a lot of details of
00:43:12
of the actual event. >> If I'm looking for one lead, if you tell me I only get one lead to anchor my
00:43:20
investigation to, my one lead is going to be the man that approaches some kids that their friend says, "I've never seen
00:43:28
that guy before. He was older than us and he wanted to smoke pot with them." That's the one I'm anchoring my
00:43:34
investigation to. >> Well, I think something that's interesting is you were talking about
00:43:38
this oily substance that they find at the second crime scene >> and that actually makes my mind go to
00:43:47
bowling alley. >> Well, yeah. Any form of oil. And I don't know. I would like to see the
00:43:53
particulars on on how they narrowed that down because I've seen some other reports, Captain, that state that it
00:44:01
would also be something that they would consider to have been found likely to have been found in a mechanic
00:44:07
shop, you know, working on cars or vehicles. >> Yeah. Or maybe a young man that works at
00:44:14
the bowling alley that fixes >> maybe their understanding of this. Uh Yeah. And that would go back to the the
00:44:21
thought that the two girls were going to go off to a bowling alley. And unfortunately, their remains, the state
00:44:26
they were found in, were too far gone to pull such of a such substance off of their bodies.
00:44:35
>> Yeah. Cuz anybody that has been bowling often, you you come away feeling a little greasy.
00:44:41
>> Oh, yeah. You're greasy. You're dirty. >> Playing with your balls and you're a
00:44:45
little greasy. >> I also think of a couple things here. because there is such a quick turnaround
00:44:52
between the likely abduction time with Kim Wendy Allen and when her body is then found. So if she was strangled with
00:45:05
some type of cord and marks on her wrist and ankles indicating that she had been bound at
00:45:10
the hands and feet as if she had been spread eagled or perhaps hog tied. So, if she were moved elsewhere,
00:45:20
you know what kind of location you might be looking for. It could be as simple as
00:45:25
it's oil or grease off of the garage of someone's home. But it also could be a working garage
00:45:34
or it could also be as simple as she was picked up in a van. Somebody had it was a utility van,
00:45:43
>> right? somebody had oil or something that had been previously spilled or was still in the vehicle at that time. So,
00:45:50
while it is helpful to the investigation, it really the possibilities are still pretty wide
00:45:58
open with that detail. But interesting that you point out the the bowling alley angle. So on the afternoon of March 9th,
00:46:07
1972, the remains of Kendy of Kim Wendy Allen were positively identified, making
00:46:16
her actually the first victim whose body was recovered in the Santa Rosa hitchhiker murders killings.
00:46:24
In addition to the large soy barrel she had been toing, she had also been carrying an orange aluminum frame
00:46:32
backpack, which would be found several weeks after her murder. When last seen, Kim had been wearing a
00:46:41
floral ankle length blue skirt over blue jeans, a gold barret, and carrying a blue straw bag. She was also wearing an
00:46:52
oval turquoise stone ring in a silver setting and had a shoulder purse. The Press Democrat, the local newspaper
00:47:02
there, reported that she had been wearing a 24-in necklace made of seashells and other natural materials.
00:47:08
So th this young woman, this lady, she had style. I mean, you can hear it right there. The
00:47:15
what I find very interesting though is she's a young adult, but it's so specific on what was on her person or
00:47:26
with her when she went missing. And it would be easy if all those items were recovered with her, but they weren't. So
00:47:34
that's where I go back to this earring. They're not openly saying it, but if you
00:47:40
can have someone or someone ones that are telling you, look, I can name 10 items that she was wearing that day. Oh,
00:47:48
I don't recognize that earring. That's where you start to was that planted there by the person responsible for her
00:47:55
abduction. But also one of the things because the question that we're going to have to get to are there's similarities
00:48:03
in these cases, but there's similarities in a lot of murder cases. Are these cases actually connected?
00:48:10
And one of the speculations that somebody might go, "Well, Captain, you're going a little too far here." But
00:48:17
if you did abduct these girls from the skate rink and then you hear this speculation of, "Oh, well, maybe they
00:48:25
were hitchhiking," that could give this killer another option, right? Like, "Oh,
00:48:32
well, I don't I don't have to meet them at the bowling alley or the skating rink
00:48:36
or wherever and this public location because I could be identified." And maybe I was identified, but I was
00:48:44
identified by one of their peers. So, law enforcement doesn't have a lot of information on me. But there's
00:48:51
speculation that these girls were hitchhiking. Oh, well, maybe that will be my ruse. Each one of these cases,
00:48:58
let's try to separate them because we got several more to get to and through. But when you separate them, I have
00:49:05
problems with each case. And I'll try to continue to go through those. My problem
00:49:13
with the first case of the the two young girls again is simply the man at the arena. He stands out, right? In this
00:49:23
case, so we have some more details here. All right. Those weren't the only items
00:49:28
that were known to be in her possession or on her person when she went missing. So, she also had a two checks in her
00:49:37
possession and a charge card from a Santa Rosa department store. Of course, these items not found as well. One of
00:49:46
the checks was a $150 check from her father and the other in the amount of $56.28.
00:49:54
This is from her part-time job at the Lockpurer Natural Food Store. So that is a whole heck of a lot of personal
00:50:05
belongings, clothing, accessories, and >> and such missing from the person and not
00:50:11
found with her or around her at the scene. And she's found within 24 hours, very likely less than when she was last
00:50:21
seen. Now, this is where the story gets a little more strange and weird. So on March 24th,
00:50:29
20 days after she goes missing, Kim's personal checkbook was deposited into a drive up mailbox across the street from
00:50:39
a post office. This in Kentfield, California. The checkbook, which had been deposited
00:50:45
into the mailbox, they know it was dropped there between 6:00 a.m. and 12:05 p.m. that day. It contained two
00:50:55
fingerprints which police initially thought could possibly have belonged to her killer and were hoping it would lead
00:51:01
them to such. >> Right. This is a somewhat weird location. So, it's about 40 miles from
00:51:09
her destination where she was trying to get to via hitchhiking that day. Depending on what route, this is either
00:51:18
a 40inut drive to about 1 hour drive time away. This is very close to Larkspur, which is where she worked.
00:51:29
This is why I have a big issue with this. Okay, now mind you, whoever dropped this in the mailbox, it could
00:51:37
just be a concerned citizen, a nice person, right? It has the checks would have her address on them or at least the
00:51:46
address of the bank. You find this, you don't just want it lying around. It's the 70s. Writing bad checks is easy
00:51:53
peasy back then, baby. Um, if I were alive in the 70s, I'd be living off of bad checks. Somebody drops it in the
00:52:00
mailbox and it gets returned. And what's cool is they can determine exactly what
00:52:04
day and roughly what time period that had to have been. So, I don't think that it was some good Samaritan that dropped
00:52:12
this in the mailbox because you have this missing person. You have them publicly openly asking for information
00:52:20
about her. You would think that the person would take the time to notice that, you know, the name on the
00:52:26
checkbook, the address on the check, something that they would, even if they dropped it in and didn't figure it out
00:52:32
at the time that they would later call and say, "Hey, I was the Jane or the John that found this checkbook and I was
00:52:40
the one that dropped it in there." That never happens. What we do know is between the time that she's abducted and
00:52:48
later discarded of, sorry for the terminology here, no nice way of saying it, a lot of the items that were in her
00:52:56
possession, poof, gone. So, it would stand a reason that the abductor/killer was the one that dropped it in this
00:53:03
mailbox 20 days later, 19 days after she's found. What's interesting is the killer, we know she had in her
00:53:12
possession a check from her work. So, he would also, without her telling her or anything at all, he could just simply
00:53:19
look at that check and go, "Oh, I know where my victim worked." So, I'll drive to a location that's near there and
00:53:26
choose a one of those mailboxes. I point that out because I also think the two men that she hitched a ride from
00:53:37
prior to them dropping her off 15 miles north, I find their story a little problematic, right? I mean, who's to say
00:53:45
they didn't kill her, >> right? >> So, the stories out there regarding these men, I couldn't find their names.
00:53:53
The only thing I could find, the only details about these men were A, where they say they picked her up. We know
00:53:59
what time she got off work that day. B, approximately where they said they dropped her off that that Bella Avenue
00:54:07
near the on-ramp to the 101. The stories out there, Captain, are that they passed
00:54:14
the poly that they were given a polygraph examination, they passed it, and they were cleared of any wrongdoing.
00:54:21
There's a lot of other versions of that story that say that one of the two men was given a polygraph examination and he
00:54:29
passed and they were cleared of any wrongdoing. >> So maybe the other one didn't pass
00:54:33
>> or or they never gave the other guy. He didn't consent to it. >> Well, the nice thing about killing
00:54:38
somebody with another person is you have a built-in alibi. >> Yes. So what what I'm getting at here is
00:54:45
you're you're knocking on the door of what I'm getting at is alibi. I don't want to hear that you cleared them.
00:54:51
We've tal anybody that's listened to this show for a year or more knows that we have discussed the the problems with
00:54:58
clearing somebody just using a polygraph. So, we don't need to go down that road. What I want to hear is that
00:55:04
no, we cleared them because minutes after they said they dropped them off, these two guys were here and there and
00:55:11
we have all these people to place them there and they were there for this amount of time. That's not what we're
00:55:16
getting. We're getting no after the fact that at least one of them was given a polygraph exam and they passed and so we
00:55:22
cleared them. This could be as equally irresponsible as thinking that two girls 12 and 13 ran away. Well, lazy or
00:55:33
stupid, right? If I'm law enforcement, it's going to take a hell of a lot a hell of a lot for me to clear anybody. I
00:55:44
mean, even the family, they're going to go, "Well, have you ruled out the family
00:55:47
yet?" I go, "Everybody's on the table." >> Mhm. >> You work for the victim, not for the
00:55:53
victim's family, not for the public. You work for the victim. I loved when we talked to the one detective, one of
00:56:01
many, but a detective working a case that's still unsolved to this day, a New York case. I asked him, I said, "You
00:56:08
know, after walking into the scene, did you immediately have any suspects?" He goes, "Hell yeah, we did." He goes,
00:56:13
"When I arrived to a crime scene, everybody but my mother is a is a suspect." >> Everybody but himself and his mother.
00:56:19
Yeah. >> He only cleared his mother at that time. He only cleared his mother at that time.
00:56:25
One thing I found interesting though, the disappearance dates here, February 4th for the two girls, March 4th for
00:56:34
Kim. I at first I was thinking it wasn't just the same date, but the same day of
00:56:42
the week. However, that year was a leap year as I said earlier. So, the days of the week differ by a day. February 4th
00:56:50
was a Friday when the two girls were abduction abducted and March 4th was a Saturday abduction. Yeah, but it makes
00:56:59
sense because a young individual looking to do stuff, looking to get out, looking
00:57:07
to meet up friends are more likely to hitchhike on the weekend. Something else here, Captain, that is intriguing. We
00:57:18
mentioned that deep leg slashfoot impression at this scene with police even openly discussing with the public
00:57:26
that hey the the perpetrator or one of the perpetrators may have been injured when placing the body where we found it
00:57:36
based off of this hole or the impression 14 in deep. When we fast forward to December of 72 at the double dump scene
00:57:46
off of France Valley Road, they reported that there were holes there. Now, at no
00:57:53
time do they ever say that they they were similar in nature to the one found at the scene for Kim Allen. They just
00:58:03
simply described them as holes. But I thought this to be quite interesting. As vague as a description as that is, it is
00:58:13
something that is not entirely dissimilar from something found at this other scene.
00:58:24
[Music] Want to thank you so much for joining us here in the garage. So much more to get
00:58:33
to. Stick around for part two. Until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter. [Music]
00:58:50
[Applause] [Music]