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00:01:42
welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and
00:01:48
with me as always is a man who just stepped out of a Six-Day Darkness Retreat and straight into the darkness
00:01:54
of the garage here is the captain and I got a little poo on my shoe it's good to
00:01:59
be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] FR this week we are very excited to be
00:02:12
featuring Hunter harvest blood orange blonde from the creative Brewers over at second Crossing Brew Company this is a
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wonderful blonde ale and the good Folks at second Crossing added some delightful
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blood orange to Jazz it up a bit garage grade I might be a little high on this one but I love blood orange so I'm going
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to go with four and a quarter bottle caps out of five and let's give some praise and thanks to our friends that
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helped us out this week first up a big cheers and thank you to Sandy and Rockford Ohio and a big we like your jib
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to Kelsey and Johnston Rhode Island and last but certainly not least we have lesli in Hopkinton Massachusetts
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everyone we just mentioned went to True Crim garage.com and helped us fill up the fridge for this week's show and for
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that we thank you yeah bwe r n beerun make sure you go to True Crime garage.com and sign up on the mailing
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you can save some money on the store Page Colonel that's enough of the business all right everybody gather
00:03:27
around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime all right okay
00:03:50
forever forever can't can't get away all right okay all right okay forever forever
00:04:06
get the pain never goes away for the family of those that are reported as last seen here or last seen by Who
00:04:15
posters have become synonymous with the missing missing posters or missing Flyers no one needs a definition or
00:04:24
clarification you can close your eyes and envision the template when you are out in a about on occasion you may see a
00:04:32
poster or flyer and you stop and you look and you make a mental note of some of the information
00:04:40
listed the poster flyer headline missing last scene seeking information and have
00:04:48
you seen me today's case Denise flum is a case that is easily remembered for many
00:04:56
reasons but one of those is for The Unique last name spelled pflu m the missing posters show us what she
00:05:07
looks like they contain all of the pertinent information that might help someone to identify her like Denise's
00:05:15
missing poster on missingkids.org that reads missing since March 28th 1986 missing from Connorsville
00:05:26
Indiana date of birth January 14 1968 age now 55 if she's still alive a Caucasian female missing since
00:05:38
she was just 18 years old with brown hair brown eyes and she is listed as 5 foot 6 in tall and weighing about 135 lb
00:05:51
this poster is complete with two photos of Denise it look like they were taken some time during her senior year of high
00:05:58
school if we achieve nothing else in covering the story that spans several decades and
00:06:06
has several suspects we hope that at the very least we can tell you what the posters
00:06:13
cannot Denise flum was last seen leaving her parents' home in Connorsville Indiana it was Good Friday just about a
00:06:22
half past noon she was going back to an area where she attended a party the night before
00:06:30
she was going to look for her purse almost 37 years later and Denise has not come
00:06:37
home like most cold cases there have been plenty of tips theories and rumors some claim to know what happened to
00:06:46
Denise some claim to know where she is buried detectives have talked to prisoners they say they know who is
00:06:55
responsible but also like many cold cases this case faces a key problem time the Indiana State Police and the
00:07:06
fet county sheriff's department have some physical evidence they have some witness statements and incriminating
00:07:13
statements made by suspects but everyone stopped expecting Denise to return long
00:07:20
ago sadly they have been reserved to looking for her remains Judy flum Denise's mother
00:07:30
said 9 years ago that it is likely that someone killed Denise but Judy still clings to some tiny amount of hope that
00:07:39
Denise is alive somewhere Judy says quote the pain never goes away you learn to wall it off and you go about your
00:07:49
daily business you don't think you're going to lose your mind like we did back then like we said detectives have some
00:07:59
physical evidence they have some witness statements and incriminating statements
00:08:03
made by suspects but what will it take to finally catch a break in this case well
00:08:11
that likely will come in one of two forms either getting a confession or finding her remains this is true crime
00:08:21
garage and this is the case of Denise flum all right okay forever forever can't get away all right
00:08:39
okay all right okay [Music] forever missing since March 28th 1986 Denise flum was just 18 years old
00:08:58
when she V vanished and that's what this story really is to me the first thing that jumps off the page here Captain is
00:09:06
that she simply poof seems to disappear Into Thin Air very few traces of this young woman this is one of those stories
00:09:16
you hear them time and time again one bad night one bad day and it turns into a lifetime of Torment for a family an
00:09:27
endless heartache for a pack of friends portions of today's trailer leading into
00:09:32
this case description and timeline came from a 2014 Indianapolis Star article by
00:09:39
Christine Guerrera and a 1986 Palladium Item article by Harold Wy now what those missing posters cannot
00:09:51
tell you is that Denise flum was fun she was likable she had a bunch of friends and all of her life's intermediate goals
00:10:01
she had them all planned out she had worked very hard to lay the foundation of the path that stood in front of her
00:10:08
what likely would seemed like a future that was just footsteps ahead of her it was Denise's senior year at Connorsville
00:10:16
High School in the hooer state of Indiana Denise was 18 and all set to graduate with the end of the school year
00:10:24
just months away she was sixth in her class and one teacher referred to Denise as a perfectionist well like you said
00:10:32
she was sixth in her class but she also played three Sports yeah beyond the typical high school curriculum she
00:10:39
played softball basketball volleyball and she was a longtime member of the science club but more importantly at
00:10:47
Connorsville High School Denise ran track and she was hoping to secure a track scholarship after graduation the plan
00:10:57
was to go off to the neighboring state of Ohio and attended Miami University in the fall she planned to study
00:11:05
microbiology March 27th 1986 was a Thursday and on that Thursday night Denise and Friends attended a local high
00:11:13
school party she went to the party with one of her closest friends her name is Kim this was that time that time of year
00:11:21
that time in most people's lives and a time that most of us have been fortunate enough to experience you've already put
00:11:28
in all of the hard work High School graduation was imminent it was that short little window of time that goes by
00:11:37
so fast but it is a time that one can focus on socializing and creating some last minute memories with high school
00:11:45
friends both new and old before shipping oneself off into the uncharted waters of
00:11:51
a college that may be far away but as we already said in Denise's case Miami University it was just about 30 m or so
00:12:00
away from home just far enough that one could spread their wings a bit but close
00:12:05
enough to keep tight with family this party here is a great place to start off our timeline leading up to Denise going
00:12:15
missing this party was on a Thursday and it was going to be hopping yeah the party was going to be hopping you nerds
00:12:22
now it's spring break this week and the kids were ready to gather and throw down
00:12:29
from my understanding Captain a lot of the locals traveled out of town and out of state for a big spring break getaway
00:12:38
but not Denise she had track to attend to she had school and other things that she was concerned with and so she was
00:12:46
going to do a bit of a station if you will and hang out with some friends Denise attended the party that night as
00:12:53
did about 100 or so other students now this is curious to me because I've reviewed many
00:13:02
reports on the timeline of Denise going missing the number of persons attending this party seems to be up for debate
00:13:10
I've seen it reported as few as 100 people or 200 people maybe even as many as a few hundred people which seems a
00:13:20
bit exaggerated to me it sounds like the fish that I caught when I was on vacation that keeps getting bigger and
00:13:26
bigger every time I tell the story there only so many people that attended Connorsville High School this was not a
00:13:33
huge town this is a small town back then I believe the population was about 177,000 people and with some of them out
00:13:41
traveling for spring break I question how much of a quote high school party this was how many adults do we have
00:13:49
attending this big party but it was a typical party where they'd have a bonfire in those scenarios you have a
00:13:56
lot of people coming and going maybe staying for a beer and then leaving on the way to the party Kim and Denise
00:14:03
stopped off at a place called the Greenwood Inn this was to buy beer to take with them to the party now her
00:14:10
purse becomes a big portion of this story and I want to go ahead and throw out there that I have a lot of questions
00:14:17
about this purse situation so we're going to jump in and out of the purse situation from time to time throughout
00:14:24
our timeline here but for our story the way that this is typically reported is that she left her purse at this party
00:14:35
and then would need to go and retrieve it the following day I found it interesting that once you dive a little
00:14:42
bit deeper into the story that she actually misplaced the purse at the party and was aware of that situation
00:14:50
before leaving that night that she was seen and there are several people that have stated that they saw her or spoke
00:14:56
with her and she was actively looking for her purse at the party with all those other reports the shorter versions
00:15:04
I had just made the Assumption as it was reported that she had left her purse there like so many of us do leave your
00:15:11
phone somewhere leave something else and then have to retrieve it later that evening or the following day but no her
00:15:18
purse was misplaced sometime during the party and she was actively looking for it and at some point she leaves the
00:15:25
party and goes home so other than missing her purse losing her purse at the party everything seems pretty normal
00:15:32
on this Thursday evening and night so March 27th is the party she wakes up on the 28th and obviously she's concerned
00:15:40
because she doesn't have her driver's license she doesn't have any money so she wants to head back to where the
00:15:48
party was and now that it's daylight maybe she'll be able to find her purse that's correct so she decides to venture
00:15:54
out around 12:30 p.m. Denise left her her home to retrieve her purse and as the captain pointed out she's leaving
00:16:02
the home with simply her car keys and her vehicle and she has no money she has no
00:16:09
identification or driver's license because those items are in her purse that she lost the night before and her
00:16:15
family is aware that she's going to be heading back to the party site to try to look for her purse now the party site is
00:16:22
only about 15 minutes away from her home the interesting thing here is it's obvious to everyone that Denise for
00:16:32
whatever reason did not want to go alone to go looking for this purse we know this because she called a
00:16:40
few of her friends two of them in fact that we have names for that she asked hey can you go with me back to where the
00:16:48
party was I need to find my purse both of her friends that she spoke to were unable to go with her now there's some
00:16:56
question as to what this could mean here it could be just as simple as a teenager
00:17:03
that doesn't want to miss out on hanging out with some friends hey could you join
00:17:07
me for this errand that I need to run or was there something else going on here where she did not want to go alone back
00:17:16
to that location of the party to retrieve her purse Denise's house was about 7 miles outside of connorville and
00:17:22
so this party location it's pretty remote so I could see somebody going there's nothing out there there's nobody
00:17:30
out there I'd like for somebody to come with me and we know the time that she left for two factors one her younger
00:17:38
sister was at home at the time and again this is around 12:30 p.m. and on her way
00:17:44
out Denise stopped and briefly had a conversation with one of her neighbors the conversation with her neighbor is
00:17:52
believed to be and reported to be the last confirmed sighting of Denise now fast forward to later that evening
00:18:03
when Denise doesn't return home that night her parents of course they begin to worry this is not like their very
00:18:11
responsible daughter to not return home well she was also known to check in a lot so her mom starts calling the house
00:18:21
I think at around two So within an hour and a half her mom's going there's there's something wrong because she
00:18:28
hasn't come home yet and like I said it's not that far of a drive out to the to the party site and you're exactly
00:18:36
right mom got a very uneasy feeling very early on in this case now her parents they're nervous they don't know why
00:18:46
Denise has not returned so of course they go to local law enforcement and they report their daughter is missing
00:18:52
they try to inform the police and ask for their help however it's 1986 the person we're talking about is only 18
00:19:01
years old and of course the cops are telling Mom and Dad don't worry about it she probably took off with some friends
00:19:09
she'll be back late tonight she'll be back in the morning it's spring break who knows what's going on she'll return
00:19:16
don't worry about it yeah but I have a big problem with this with law enforcement your job is to Serve and
00:19:22
Protect this is maybe a 15-minute drive out to the party site from their location maybe 20 at tops send a cruiser
00:19:32
out there just a check on her yeah this is something I've always had an issue with and we've talked about this plenty
00:19:38
of times here in the garage and you can understand it's one of those debatable items one of those one of those
00:19:44
arguments where you can sympathize with the police department and say well they you know you get these reports of these
00:19:53
teenagers and then 99% of the time they turn up no harm no foul other than they weren't where they were supposed to be
00:20:01
they've done upset mom and dad and it's as simple as that now on the other side of that argument is where you empathize
00:20:10
with the parents and with the loved ones and the family and you say my God man help us out here we we are coming to you
00:20:16
we we put a lot of thought into coming to you we didn't just show up willy-nilly this is about 8 hours after
00:20:23
she was last seen our daughter sixth in her class this isn't like her she she's not someone that runs the streets she's
00:20:30
not someone that's out all hours of the night and as you said Captain she's somebody that regularly checks in with
00:20:36
mom or dad so this is incredibly out of character the other argument that I have
00:20:43
here is when we talk about these smaller towns this seems more strange to me in these smaller towns now I know 1986 a
00:20:52
lot of things have changed since then a lot of police departments and law enforcement agencies have changed
00:20:58
changed their protocol for looking for missing persons much earlier than they would have in the 70s and the 80s but
00:21:06
when you have these smaller towns forgive me small towns but part of me goes what else you got going on out
00:21:13
there nothing and that's the problem because a object at rest stays at rest and I think that's what happens is they
00:21:20
go well we're not doing anything right now so instead of getting off our getting off of our ass and looking for
00:21:26
somebody we're going to stay in lazy mode and that's just the thing man you signed up for this job likely not to be
00:21:34
a hero but as the captain pointed out to Serve and Protect and you find yourself
00:21:38
when you work as a first responder you find yourself in a situation where you could end up being the hero and this
00:21:45
case needed a hero other than her parents and some people that come along much later in this investigation I don't
00:21:52
see a whole lot of Heroes here in this case well I don't even know if this case needs a hero as much as it just needs
00:21:58
need somebody to do their job that they signed up for they took a oath like I said 15 to 20 minute drive out there and
00:22:06
look if something bad happened to her at that location maybe there would be something that the officer would come
00:22:14
across maybe another vehicle maybe another person out there you talk to detectives we talk to detectives all the
00:22:21
time and one of the things that we hear about in these cold cases time and time again is had we just spoke to the right
00:22:29
person early enough in the investigation had we just found this one piece of evidence that we know was covered up or
00:22:36
discarded of later if we would have found that earlier in our investigation this would be a solved case this would
00:22:43
be a completely different situation you and I captain here might not be sitting here 30 some years later discussing
00:22:51
Denise flum still being missing now what could have happened is the officer could
00:22:57
have said said sure give me the description of Denise heck he or she may have even known the flums this was not a
00:23:04
large town give us a description of her car that's even more important because cops are very good at finding Vehicles
00:23:13
now they don't go out looking that does not stop her parents that does not stop her family from calling people they know
00:23:20
they're calling hospitals and businesses calling friends asking where Denise could be they're rounding up people and
00:23:27
they're going out and they're doing their own search an unorganized one but they are conducting their own search
00:23:33
starting that night as soon as they are turned away for a lack of a better word from law enforcement they start actively
00:23:42
searching for their daughter they were doing so before they showed up to law enforcement but they continued the
00:23:48
search that night and then on to the next day it would be quite some time before law enforcement would get
00:23:54
involved in the search for Denise flum the following day we are now at March 29th Denise's car is
00:24:02
found parked near a farm the car was parked alongside Tower Road this is a gravel small Gravel Lane or road that is
00:24:12
east of Glenwood and the car is parked near a barn yeah technically the road is filling road but all the locals call it
00:24:23
Tower Road the landowner would later tell police that the vehicle hasn't left that spot where
00:24:30
it was found since he says about 12:30 p.m. to approximately 1:15 p.m. the day before this is interesting because this
00:24:40
lines up with our timeline we know that she left her home at approximately 12:30
00:24:46
p.m. the day before and as the captain pointed out we're talking about a 15minute drive to get to where she
00:24:54
needed to go to look for this purse and so it would appear that if Denise took off or if something bad happened to
00:25:04
her that this vehicle was placed there by someone or Denise herself a relatively short time after she left her
00:25:13
home yeah and this this road Tower Road like the locals call it is only 4 miles from the party site but it's still
00:25:21
strange because if you're looking for your purse you're not going to find it four miles away right right that purse
00:25:28
grew legs you're not finding it 4 miles away now the interesting thing here Captain points out 4 miles away I've
00:25:35
seen one report that says it's approximately a 6-minute drive from the general Party location from the night
00:25:42
before the point here is that according to multiple reports there was no reason for Denise to be in that area where her
00:25:50
car was found so at this point they're not able to find Denise but like the colonel said they found her vehicle the
00:25:58
vehicle is a white or cream colored Buick Regal 1981 when the vehicle's found the doors
00:26:06
are locked and the keys are gone and as said no one could come up with a reason for the vehicle to be in that location
00:26:15
the family also believes that the car seat was in the position that Denise would normally have it in when she was
00:26:22
driving and there seemed like there was no crime scene or no sign of a struggle inside that vehicle so there's pretty
00:26:30
much no evidence around the vehicle also it's a rural area no Footprints were found around the vehicle yeah very
00:26:40
interesting and keep in mind that at the time when her vehicle is found it's found when the family and friends are
00:26:46
out searching for Denise police have not joined in the search effort at this time
00:26:52
now they once they find the vehicle they report this to police and now the the police are getting involved the police
00:27:00
look it over and they determine that there's no sign of a struggle there's no sign of Foul Play as far as they can see
00:27:06
regarding the vehicle the condition of the vehicle and the seat is in that normal position the normal position that
00:27:14
Denise would have left it in this is according to her parents and Denise as we said is 5 foot 6 in tall and we've
00:27:24
seen in some cases where the seat position can be rather important because we may have a very short woman
00:27:30
who owns the vehicle and the seat is found all the way extended away from the steering wheel indicating a much taller
00:27:39
person may have driven the vehicle here we have a situation where it's hard for me to tell given the description by the
00:27:47
police and the pictures that I've seen and the statements from her parents I think one could make a strong argument
00:27:53
that Denise may have placed this vehicle there herself or if somebody else did they left little evidence behind to
00:28:01
indicate that someone else moved this vehicle after a rather quick assessment of Denise's car the car is returned to
00:28:09
Denise's parents and unlike the vehicle Denise never comes [Music] home this show is sponsored by better help do
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50% [Music] forever forever all right we are back cheers mates thanks for joining us here in the
00:30:41
garage cheers to you captain now this should be a homicide case not a missing person's case Denise had a lot of plans
00:30:51
in place she was excited for the future she had a good home life she was vocal and open openly expressing to those she
00:30:59
knew how excited she was for some of the upcoming events in her life and we're talking about things like prom
00:31:07
graduation going off to school and mind you she had an opportunity to go with friends on a trip out of town for spring
00:31:16
break and chose not to because she wanted to stay and focus on her schooling which the main reason was
00:31:24
track track was starting up and was active at that time that week and she wanted to stay involved with track it
00:31:32
was one of her passions well this is my problem with law enforcement they do this a lot in missing person cases where
00:31:37
they tell the family well look she probably ran away and there's zero evidence that she ran away we don't know
00:31:44
if she ever found her purse so as far as we know she has no money she has no identification like you said there's
00:31:52
evidence that she stayed in town to keep pursuing her goals and then on top of that law enforcement
00:31:59
didn't even really search her car that well and didn't search her house so it's not like they went back to her house and
00:32:06
found Journal upon Journal of her wanting to escape her life or something we've seen a bunch of these cases where
00:32:15
it appears that we may have a missing person and then the missing person's case turns into a homicide
00:32:22
investigation and we've seen multiple times where a vehicle is found and it's returned to the
00:32:29
family heck we covered one case very recently gate The Bowman where I believe that the police return the vehicle to
00:32:36
the prime suspect the vehicle is not processed properly and there is a lost opportunity there for evidence that
00:32:43
could lead you to what actually happened to Denise flum well I just think it's a
00:32:49
common misstep by law enforcement it needs to stop happening unless you have some evidence that they wanted to to
00:32:57
start a new life or they wanted to run away with somebody I mean it's not even like she had a relationship with
00:33:03
somebody that was from out of town there's there's just no reason that she would want to take off the other thing
00:33:08
too is I've never understand why especially in this case when you have an 18-year-old
00:33:15
daughter why the police aren't saying to Mom and Dad hey it's probably nothing we
00:33:23
still think that there's an opportunity that she may return but would you mind if we hold this
00:33:29
vehicle in a secured location for x amount of days and in case this turns into something else right you could have
00:33:38
lost evidence in this case especially if this vehicle was moved by the person responsible for her disappearance yeah
00:33:46
finding a fingerprint in that vehicle could be a a big deal there's no doubt in my mind Mom and Dad say yes please
00:33:54
hold on to this car and here's the other thing too you find a person's vehicle a missing
00:33:59
person's vehicle you look it over and you go H I don't see a sign of struggle I don't see any signs obvious evidence
00:34:07
of Foul Play the vehicle itself being parked in a strange location with no person with no
00:34:14
owner to be found is in itself evidence of Foul Play in my mind yes I agree and the other
00:34:22
problem that I keep going back to is why is this vehicle for miles away from the
00:34:28
party site correct she went to the party site to look for her purse it would make
00:34:34
sense if you found her car at the party site but we don't we find it four miles away on this Gravel Road basically one
00:34:43
of the most heartbreaking parts of this story is Denise's parents they I watched
00:34:52
a bunch of interviews with them these short little news clips from 1986 where they keep saying
00:35:01
like we don't believe she had any reason to run away she was not that type but we're hoping and praying that she
00:35:10
ran away right and you have her father on camera saying me and her mother are questioning everything right did we not
00:35:20
show enough affection did we not tell her that we loved her enough we could have said it more I guess we we should
00:35:26
have said it more and it's this heartbreaking thing where you're constantly telling law enforcement and
00:35:32
the media please take this seriously because my daughter she's not the type she would not run away but oh I'm
00:35:39
praying and hoping that she did well I think that's coming from law enforcement I mean the the lead detective Ted MC
00:35:46
quinley was also related to the father he was the cousin he was David's cousin yeah so I think then that becomes
00:35:56
a there's a conflict of interest anyways you probably shouldn't be the lead detective if you are related to the
00:36:04
father because look like I said it shouldn't be viewed as a missing person case it should be viewed as a
00:36:10
homicide assume the worst thank you and then and then work backwards and if evidence uh leads you to another path
00:36:17
fine but at least you're doing your due diligence from the word go but again object at rest stays at rest and to me
00:36:26
this is just it's just constant laziness by law enforcement I like what you're saying here Captain so we easily agree
00:36:34
this is most likely a homicide case and since we have run out of breadcrumbs for
00:36:39
our general timeline I think going forward we pursue this and discuss it as we would a homicide case so typically we
00:36:47
would talk about some of the persons that may be responsible for Denise to go missing let's talk about evidence or
00:36:54
some things that could be evidence in this case before we get into some suspects since this is a missing case
00:37:03
let's start off by talking about what exactly is missing simply put we have Denise her clothing that she was wearing
00:37:12
that day and her car keys that's it that's what is missing in this case what is not missing is her car as we know it
00:37:21
was found four miles from the party site right and strangely enough the other item that's not missing is her
00:37:29
purse her purse was returned to her family the same day that Denise goes missing so the purse has returned to her
00:37:38
family but what items do we find in that purse that's very that's a very good question here and that's one of the big
00:37:48
problems that I have with this case I believe there are so many things that are missing from this timeline I believe
00:37:53
that there are witnesses that have statements that are missing and I believe that there's a lot of evidence
00:38:01
that could clue us into what may have happened or give us a bigger picture a bigger better picture of what happened
00:38:09
and we simply don't have a lot of that stuff and I think it's because and I hate to do this two weeks in a row but I
00:38:18
just see a poor investigation from Jump Street in this case well and I'm just going to piggy
00:38:24
back off that for a little bit I I agree this this investigation is horeshit for
00:38:30
one but there are a couple things working against law enforcement like you said 100 plus people at this party and
00:38:38
anybody that's been to a bonfire knows that there could be crowds of people around the fire and you might go to that
00:38:46
bonfire you might be there for an hour you might have a couple drinks but you're not in a well-lit area where you
00:38:52
see everybody so there could have been I've gone to bonfires before where one of my buddies was at the bonfire I just
00:39:00
never saw them so I think one to identify all the individuals that were at this party there's also rumors that
00:39:08
she was making out with some guy John that night that person John I I don't know has if he's ever been fully
00:39:16
identified and then I think the other issue for law enforcement is this happens during spring break so you have
00:39:24
a bunch of kids out of town and then the kids that you have in town there's no school that day it's good
00:39:31
Friday so now all those individuals normally if a girl went missing let's say on a Friday at noon or 12:30 the
00:39:41
majority of the people that you would want to question their Alibi would be school they would be in school but
00:39:47
because they're not in school now every person that you interview you have to figure out what their Alibi is and then
00:39:55
you have to fall follow up on that lead to make sure that the Alibi is correct well and you're right with so many
00:40:01
people potentially at this party what we should have here is one of your favorite
00:40:06
words Captain a plethora a plethora a plethora of witness statements of people that saw her that night spoke with her
00:40:13
that night or guess what's also important the ones that didn't speak to her and didn't see her that night what
00:40:18
else did they see what else did they hear while they were there now we talked about how big could this party be well
00:40:26
we know that she went with her friend Kim and from one report that I've seen is that her senior class had 348
00:40:35
students in this class now that could mean that 300 of those 348 went to that party like one report States most
00:40:47
Reports say 100 to maybe 200 kids but what's interesting to me here is that based off the report that I'm looking at
00:40:55
in front of me right now we gain some information not a lot but the information here is that Kim Gilbert and
00:41:04
Melissa Cook both seniors at connorville high school were good friends with Denise
00:41:12
flum these were two of the persons that she called on that day before she left her home to go look for her purse these
00:41:21
are two of the people that she called to ask if they would go with her neither was able to they were unable to go so
00:41:29
now she heads out on her own and then what we are told later is she goes out looking for this
00:41:36
purse she vanishes poof disappears Into Thin Air as it would appear never returns home they find her
00:41:45
vehicle and her purse made its way home and I've seen two reports one report says that it was returned to the
00:41:54
flums house about an hour and a half after Denise left to go looking for it and the person that brought the purse to
00:42:03
them from my understanding was somebody that was pretty to fairly well known to the family this wasn't any kind of
00:42:11
mystery person to them the person has remained unidentified they're not listed by name in any of the reports that I've
00:42:20
seen but what's crazy is this purse makes its way back home Denise does not now that leads me to what is
00:42:31
missing from this case as we stated Denise her clothing and her car keys all missing but what also is missing from
00:42:40
this case is background statements for that party background a background story on the purse itself witness
00:42:49
statements here's the thing when she drove out there to retrieve her purse who was she hoping to meet was she
00:42:58
hoping to meet up with somebody once there was she hoping to speak with somebody once there help me find my
00:43:04
purse or now that nobody's here everybody's left from last night did you happen to see my purse well that's
00:43:10
another thing that's not clear did everybody at this bonfire leave or did some people just crash in their car or
00:43:18
did people set up some tents I mean I've been to bonfires before where at the end
00:43:22
of the night a couple people just set up some tents and just stay the night and so was it found by a person that went
00:43:29
back out to the party or was it somebody that woke up at the party or did they find her purse last night these are
00:43:38
questions that should be easily answered and they should have been easily found out this information should have been
00:43:43
easily found out by detectives in law enforcement and I know it sounds like we are a couple vultures circling around
00:43:50
one small item here but here's where my head is Captain I don't think we're cir around one item I think there's a bunch
00:43:58
of things that we're a little pissed off about I feel like this my gut feeling is
00:44:03
that this party and her disappearance could have a lot to do with one another yeah duh what happened
00:44:10
at that party and the thing too with the statement of there's a statement out there in multiple reports that says she
00:44:17
did not want to go alone to retrieve her purse okay well what does that mean did
00:44:22
she was she just simply a busy body that likes to be hanging out with people all the time and
00:44:27
didn't want to really do anything by herself or is there a reason why she didn't want to go alone was she afraid
00:44:34
did something happen the night before at the party that made her uncomfortable made her uncomfortable to go alone to
00:44:41
retrieve her purse and what's the backstory on the purse itself it could be just as simple as she set it down
00:44:48
somewhere misplaced it or is there something more nefarious going on here did somebody take it from her as a a
00:44:55
prank did she set it down and somebody took it on purpose when it was returned what items
00:45:02
were in the purse we we talked about her having no money and no identification because those items were in her purse
00:45:09
when she left on that Friday was there money in her purse when it was returned to the family yeah my gut feeling is
00:45:16
just one it's a royal area so maybe she just wanted somebody go with her because
00:45:21
she wouldn't feel safe out there by herself and also if you bring somebody it's probably quicker to find the purse
00:45:29
with two people looking yeah I would love to hear some background statements for the party itself yeah who's this
00:45:36
John guy yeah who's the John guy the other thing too we talk about the things she was looking forward to in her life
00:45:45
one of them being prom another being graduation then of course going off the college in the
00:45:53
fall but one of the Persons of Interest here in this case will be her ex-boyfriend and it's reported that her
00:46:03
and her ex-boyfriend broke up about a month before Denise went missing well what would be interesting to know too is
00:46:13
if her and her boyfriend his name is Shawn McClung if they were broken up who was
00:46:18
she going to go to prom with because what you have here all these years later is people saying Shawn mclung was not
00:46:26
looked at good enough early on in this investigation and I agree with those statements
00:46:32
1,00% however who was she going to go to prom with who was she in a current relationship with or hoping to have a
00:46:40
relationship with was she just going by herself just going with friends that's not uncommon is it possible that she was
00:46:47
still in contact with her exboyfriend and that maybe they were going to go together because they were together for
00:46:54
3 years which is a that's a long time that's a very longterm relationship for somebody so young and Lieutenant Ted
00:47:03
mcquin as we said he was the lead investigator on this case early on back in 1986 and when he is asked years later
00:47:15
about the ex-boyfriend sha mclung he simply says yeah I spoke with him he had an alibi
00:47:23
for that time period he was out fishing with some friends but it doesn't seem like there
00:47:29
was a whole lot of followup on Shawn well I don't think he ever confirmed The Alibi so correct so law enforcement
00:47:38
comes to me and goes what were you doing that day well I was uh fishing with a Jim and Steve well if you don't ever go
00:47:44
ask Jim and Steve then that's not an alibi that's just a story that I've told you and my issue too with him again step
00:47:52
down become don't be the lead detective if you're related to the family because look in these cases especially a
00:48:02
18-year-old you got to start with the Inner Circle well that inner circle is your
00:48:09
cousin your cousin's wife now you have to what about the sister okay now we got to look at relationships current
00:48:18
relationships and past relationships and one thing that I failed to put in my notes Here Captain is that I do not know
00:48:25
if Ted mcquin Ley was with the local police department or with the sheriff's department at the time which I think
00:48:33
could have some important meaning to it because I would imagine a town of 16 to 177,000 probably does not have a very
00:48:43
large Connorsville Police Department he may have been the only investigator that's true but at the time but we we do
00:48:52
have or at least I heard that Indiana State State Police did offer assistance so even if you stay on as the lead why
00:49:01
aren't you getting some assistance from them that that look I I get so tired of these cases you you don't have to be the
00:49:09
smartest guy in the room you just have to know the smartest guy in the room and and you become the smartest guy in the
00:49:15
room when you place smart individuals that are qualified around you and Ted Lieutenant mcquin Ley here seems to
00:49:26
have really bought into this idea of and and I'm sure he he may have had other people
00:49:34
than just Shawn mclung telling him this but he seemed to have moved on rather quickly from Shawn
00:49:42
McClung yeah you're moving on pretty quickly when you're not following up to see if his Alibi is actually legit he
00:49:49
simply seems to do this because he believes The Narrative of that there they were still friends that it was a
00:49:57
mutual breakup that they were still friendly that nobody was mad at one another and again this could this is
00:50:03
very likely backed up by other students other people but still you double check these
00:50:10
aliis and you look at this guy one thing if you you want to talk about spinning your tires here and going completely in
00:50:18
the wrong direction it sounds to me like they spent more time looking into Denise's father than they did Shawn
00:50:24
mclung back in the day because one thing they State emphatically is that David Den's father was Miles Away with
00:50:33
multiple people that were interacting and hanging out with him that day that that Friday leading up to the point
00:50:40
where he becomes aware that she's missing so I I just have a hard time understanding why they went and verified
00:50:48
those aliis but not sha mcclung's well they did that with the father but they also do that with the mo mother so that
00:50:54
they're able to make the statement to the public that we have cleared these individuals which that's great okay but
00:51:02
we're still talking about the Inner Circle close friends family members current or past
00:51:10
boyfriends or current or past relationships however you want to look at it and it just seemed like they did
00:51:17
the first couple steps of the Inner Circle and then they just again H we'll just get
00:51:23
lazy and the my other issue too is this this dumbass doesn't take any notes so when you ask him about this stuff he
00:51:34
can't even refer back to his notes MH uh H how are you investigating this oh it's
00:51:40
just it's up in it's up in my Noggin again him being the lead investigator might be more of a
00:51:51
seniority situation more of a he he rose to that rank because of attrition rather
00:51:57
than being a great investigator or detective you got to take a lot of notes you got to write everything down because
00:52:04
you do not know two weeks from now three weeks from now what seems to be insignificant today could become very
00:52:14
significant to your investigation well and the notes aren't necessarily for you because you take these notes because
00:52:23
if this case doesn't get solved you get moved to a different department then when you have new detectives coming in
00:52:30
and you have no notes then they're basically starting at square one and hoping that you remember
00:52:38
anything and I know that you know there you know there's a really good documentary about this case and I know
00:52:43
when they were asking him it's you know 30 some years later so he's not going to
00:52:48
remember anything but again you could refer back to your notes mhm yeah that documentary is called small town
00:52:56
secrets and it is available currently available on viv.com it's a three-parter it's a very good very well put together
00:53:05
documentary on this case it's one of the best true crime documentaries I've seen
00:53:10
in the last few years and a cheers to Nicole berser Moore and Gian tobani for that wonderful documentary I hope I
00:53:20
pronounce their last names correctly kudos to you and for doing a game Buster's job on that documentary
00:53:27
small town Secrets now we want to talk about notes somebody not taking notes well here's some notes that become
00:53:37
important and it's not brought into the light until a good deal of time later we
00:53:43
talk about sha mclung not being looked at his Alibi not being checked but it seems like old Ted mcquin Ley moved on
00:53:51
from him because everybody's saying well they stayed friends and it seemed like a mutual breakup yeah
00:53:57
it's almost like Ted took the timeout to talk to Shawn and then just bought everything that Shawn was selling the
00:54:05
notes that I'm talking about come from one of Denise's friends who had moved away and they stayed close and they
00:54:12
became pen pals because of the distance between them so she's writing letters to
00:54:18
her friend and she's telling her friend leading to the breakup with her current boyfriend Sean that you know what I
00:54:27
recently made what she refers to in the letter as a life or death mistake I made a fatal mistake I
00:54:37
mean it says in the letter life or death now we don't have that complete letter to clue us into what she means by that
00:54:48
statement what she's talking about though is she's telling her friend I cheated on my boyfriend and I'm
00:54:57
getting ready to tell him I'm going to tell him I'm going to confess she's an honest person she's not going to try to
00:55:05
hide this secret she's going to tell sha this is what I've done and and take it from there so she tells Shawn and I
00:55:16
don't know that this immediately led to their breakup but from my understanding he was incredibly disappointed he was
00:55:24
hurt he appreciated her honesty and they broke up sometime after that the notes I have state that she
00:55:34
dated that letter to her friend March 3D and we know that she would go missing before the end of March and we have the
00:55:43
other two friends statements saying that they broke up roughly a month before she
00:55:48
went missing so we know the date of the letter but we don't know exactly the date that she had this convers ation
00:55:55
with Shawn but it seems based on what Shawn is saying based on other people that they broke up March six so like you
00:56:04
said about a month before she went missing yeah that all lines up with the timeline I have in front of me as well
00:56:12
but again if you're law enforcement it's who's this individual that she slept with and that's somebody that you would
00:56:19
at least want to question did she continue to have a relationship with that person or did she cut that off when
00:56:26
she cut off the relationship with Shawn and was this person looked at and cleared was this person looked at even
00:56:33
more finely than you looked at Shawn mclung was this person JN who she may or may not have been making out with at the
00:56:41
party the night before was this person the same person she may be attending prom with or was John the person she was
00:56:48
attending prom with these are the things that you need to know if you're going to
00:56:51
look at if I'm I'm just a little confused why they didn't look at Shawn Mong more
00:56:57
closely early on in this investigation part of me I'm I'm a a blue backer here right I I I do my best to stand with the
00:57:08
the women and men in blue but you got to call it like you see it and from what's
00:57:13
been reported it doesn't look like there was a great job that was going on early
00:57:18
in this investigation part of me wants to believe captain that that was because they had other people that they were
00:57:24
looking at that they were more interested in at that time and could it have been whoever she was in a current
00:57:31
relationship with but it's this simple if you're able to confirm his Alibi for that Friday Sean's done right you never
00:57:41
have to go back to him right you can now ask him questions about her character and maybe other rumors now he becomes
00:57:51
somebody that is an ally for law enforcement now there's a couple things about Shawn that that I kind of dismiss
00:57:59
when people say well Shawn didn't help with the search ever or he never made contact with her
00:58:07
family I don't find that to be that strange he's he's young he's towards the end of
00:58:15
his high school career so he's going to be heading off into the real world they did break up a month ago with
00:58:24
which might not seem that long but when you're in high school a month is a very long time he claims he was already
00:58:32
seeing some other girls so maybe he was seeing somebody and he didn't feel comfortable making
00:58:39
contact so I don't find that to be as strange as some other people do what I keep going back to that is strange is
00:58:47
you didn't confirm his Alibi exactly and the thing too is we talk about him not participating in searches those are keep
00:58:55
in mind they're not organized searches yes this is the family and friends conducting their own search and again
00:59:02
even if the breakup was Mutual even if they stayed friends it's widely reported by multiple people that the two
00:59:12
of them were living very different Lifestyles leading up to the breakup so they're together for like 3 years sure
00:59:19
they probably shared a lot of common interest early in that relationship but by that senior year they were both going
00:59:26
down two very different paths and very likely had very different Social Circles by that point Denise was very honed in
00:59:34
on her schoolwork and all of her extracurricular activities like playing Sports volleyball basketball running
00:59:42
track she was building her future she had plans to go off to college and then on the flip side of that you have sha
00:59:49
McClung who was very much into the party lifestyle at that time and had a a bunch
00:59:54
of party partyer friends at that time his senior year the thing that that I cannot shake here shake and B
01:00:05
is where is the report from the person or persons that hosted that party right because we talk about the last and I
01:00:14
said I purposely said that is believed to be the last confirmed sighting well it is so far the last confirmed sighting
01:00:23
of Denise but we know at least one other person saw her after the neighbor that she spoke to on her way out that day
01:00:30
where is the statements from police from the person or persons that hosted the party the night before I it could be
01:00:38
something as simple as we know she went her intention was to go and find her purse that Friday afternoon around 12:30
01:00:48
1:00 1:30 did she did you see her did you interact with her did she ask about her
01:00:55
purse and then where is the statement from the person that Returns the purse where did they find it who did they get
01:01:00
it from when did they obtain it these things I think are very key to this case and very interesting to me because again
01:01:08
you go back to the the land owner who says her vehicle that you find the following day yeah it's been there since
01:01:16
about 12:30 to 1:30 yesterday that's not too long after she left her house all right
01:01:27
okay forever [Music] forever all right we want to thank everybody for joining us here in the
01:01:45
garage so much more to get to thank you and for everything True Crime Check out true crime
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garage.com and until tomorrow be good good be kind and don't [Music] litter is it possible to predict the
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