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Danny Hohenstein /// Part 2 /// 287

November 16, 2023 / 52:13

This episode covers the case of Danny Howenstein, a six-year-old boy who went missing in 1992, and the investigation led by FBI agent Jeffrey Rck.

Jeffrey Rck discusses the initial search efforts and the involvement of the FBI after the case went cold. He highlights a crucial tip from Danny's sister, Shannon, which led them to a suspect named Jonathan, who had a history of assaults on children.

Rck recounts the challenges faced in gathering evidence against Jonathan, including his low IQ and the lack of prosecutable charges due to legal limitations. The investigation revealed disturbing details about Jonathan's background and his relationship with his mother.

Ultimately, the investigation led to the discovery of Danny's remains, confirmed through mitochondrial DNA testing. Rck shares the emotional impact of the case on the families involved and the difficulties in achieving justice.

The episode concludes with Rck discussing his book, "In the Name of the Children," which reflects on his experiences as an investigator and the emotional toll of working on such cases.

TLDR

FBI agent Jeffrey Rck discusses the investigation into the 1992 disappearance of six-year-old Danny Howenstein and the challenges faced in seeking justice.

Episode

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Page and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a
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chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime Danny howenstein was just 6 years old
00:03:57
and he was last seen playing with a dog near his home in the afternoon hours of December 1st
00:04:03
1992 his mother Jackie was inside preparing a meal for the boy when she went to call him in Dany was nowhere to
00:04:11
be found eventually she called the police and the search for Dany began after the case went cold about a year
00:04:18
into the investigation the FBI joined forces with the local detective we have been talking with special agent Jeffrey
00:04:26
rck a 30-year FBI agent who assisted in the search for Danny howenstein and as you guys are doing your investigation
00:04:35
you're actually going to get a tip or a lead from Danny's sister Shannon I learned from the FBI the FBI was doing
00:04:44
training and because I was working these cases I was being sent for inservice training and I was learning about the
00:04:52
profiling stuff although I was not a profiler at this time one thing that the FBI drove home to us was that a lot of
00:05:02
times a person may have knowledge and not be aware of that knowledge especially a family
00:05:11
member so Vern and I were constantly telling Jackie Enchanted to think of anything and to
00:05:20
add some I'm a practical joker I love humor I live on humor and I I I I you know you I'm sure can edit this out but
00:05:30
I said to Shannon Shannon if you have a fart that comes out the wrong cheek you call us about it we want to know what
00:05:36
happened right and sure enough at some point she called me and she said that her mother had a
00:05:46
friend and her friend had a son who was um charged or or associated with assaults on children
00:06:00
and she wondered if her mother's friend's son would have any uh meaning to Danny's
00:06:09
disappearance and so Vern and I we started working this up I couldn't find the kid at all he was a kid too he was
00:06:17
he was uh in California the governor I forget the govern's name but at one point in
00:06:24
California before I got here I think it was like in 19 early 199 90s the California uh Governor enacted something
00:06:34
that caused a lot of people in the mental institutions to be released this boy that Shannon was talking about was
00:06:42
one of those people he had been in a menal institution and then he was released and because he was a minor his
00:06:52
records were sealed and I could not even identify a record that indicated he was
00:06:59
alive Vern on the other hand through his contacts and through his work and because he is so amazingly good he found
00:07:09
him he found the boy and we didn't use his name in the book because he wasn't charged so um I forget what name we used
00:07:17
for him in the book but Vern found him Jonathan and we started working up Jonathan I started working up Jonathan
00:07:24
from my angle he started working up Jonathan from his angle and what we learned is that Jonathan MH had
00:07:35
recently been taken into custody because he had assaulted a six-year-old boy on a
00:07:43
school bus and there was a time before that where Jonathan had assaulted a young six or seveny old boy near some
00:07:51
dumpsters in the apartments where he lived and so we were very interested and Vern and I both uh uh MH we realized
00:08:00
that Jonathan was in one of the state facilities for developmentally delayed children and so we started making
00:08:11
inquiries and Nick it was unbelievable we could not get any information even in a situation like this where it was we
00:08:21
had a six-year-old boy missing the the state would give us nothing so ver and I we found one of the workers an
00:08:31
investigator and we we both went there personally and just begged for help and this investigator helped us and we
00:08:42
learned that Jonathan had an extensive history of this and that Jonathan was currently in
00:08:50
the state hospital he was originally at and she arranged for us to go down and meet him and talk to him and at the time
00:08:58
he was 17 I mean doesn't this feel like a god him moment God him well and the interesting thing about this information
00:09:08
that comes to special agent rck they're actually years into the investigation Danny has been missing for years by this
00:09:17
point by the time they tracked down Jonathan who's now 17 years old living in a state hospital but the other
00:09:25
interesting angle about this information not only does Jonathan have a history of
00:09:29
assaulting other children and children younger than him MH Jonathan lived with his mother Diana around the time that
00:09:38
Dany went missing right and the two of them lived near somewhat near Dany and dany's mother Jackie right and just when
00:09:46
you hear them talk about how he attacked the six-year-old boy that lived by him by a dumpster you go well is this the
00:09:54
same thing it's not too far of a leap from what possibly could have happened happed regarding Dany in his situation
00:10:01
Danny would have been about the same age as these other two boys that were assaulted by this this older boy so you
00:10:08
and your partner now have contact and now you're going to go to the mental institution to question him and we
00:10:17
invited his doctor to stay in the interview with us because we felt uh if he said something to the
00:10:24
doctor there wouldn't be an expectation of privilege since we were there we sat with him and started talking to him and
00:10:34
he said he knew Dany and he was talking about Dany the Dany that he knew and Vern had a picture of
00:10:43
Dany that was taken in a group before Danny had the scabies and so he had long hair and he showed that picture to
00:10:55
Jonathan and Jonathan said oh that's Danny and that's the way he looks now wow that's strange now I could not have
00:11:05
picked Danny out from that picture and Vern got real red-faced because at the time Danny disappeared or or I'm sorry
00:11:15
before Danny disappeared he would have had the long hair and that's exactly how he would have looked so we
00:11:23
started concentrating on Jonathan and we took a statement from Jonathan and Jonathan told told
00:11:29
us that he and his mother knew Dany and went to Danny's house frequently and then he would play with Dany in Danny's
00:11:40
room where Dany had a video game and this is all accurate and Vern knew to a greater degree than I did because he had
00:11:50
drilled down to the details and the two of us you could just feel a ball of electricity in in your
00:11:59
stomach start to rise and he says that they were driving past Danny's house one day which would
00:12:06
have been the day disappeared and they saw Dany in front of his house and they stopped and picked him up and Dany went
00:12:14
with him and then they went to a park and at the park Danny had to go to the bathroom and Jonathan said he went with
00:12:24
him and he hurt Danny we believe that he's telling us that he Ed him and might have you know
00:12:30
killed him so this is just it's just unbelievable what's going on at the time this is
00:12:38
happening I'm in my mid-40s and Vern is about 20 years older than me he's about 65 and we finished our interview with
00:12:48
Jonathan and we decided to head right up back to Melia from down near La where we
00:12:58
were and I remember the two of us I mean between the excitement and the exhaustion we eventually had to stop and
00:13:07
we got a room and slept for a few hours and then continued back up to Melia we found Jackie and asked Jackie
00:13:16
about this boy's mother and Jackie knew the mother but said she had never met the boy and so we asked her to explain
00:13:24
to us how he knew the layout so well and of course she couldn't and then we talked to Danny's sister and
00:13:32
Danny's sister explained to us that you know the mom may not want to talk about it if she realizes what might have
00:13:39
happened and then we found Jonathan's mother and we ended up polygraphing Jonathan's mother and of course she did
00:13:47
not do too well the statement that Jonathan had given us could not be used because he
00:13:55
had a very low IQ he was not not aware of good and bad he did not know that what he might have done to Denny was bad
00:14:06
and we didn't even know if we could rely on what he said because he had such a low level of
00:14:15
intellect so I remember I called back to the FBI's uh Behavioral Science unit and
00:14:22
I asked them for guidance a guy named Roy Hazelwood said to me that you just have to keep going back and
00:14:32
eventually there will be consistencies that you can pick out Vernon and I ended up going back about eight or nine times
00:14:39
and and just like we were told there were consistencies another thing that we learned was we were able to talk to the
00:14:47
people at the facility and learn about the relationship between Jonathan and his mother Jonathan at six years of age
00:14:57
had been sexually assaulted by a boyfriend of his mother and since that time he started acting out sexually and
00:15:06
he was acting out with other boys and men sexually so his mother in the hope of bringing Jonathan back to being the
00:15:18
way he should be started having a sexual relationship with Jonathan so Jonathan and his mother start engaging in a
00:15:27
regular behavior of having sex well this is where the story gets pretty Twisted yeah so just just a quick recap
00:15:37
for myself here so I know that uh where we're where we're at in this stage Danny
00:15:43
goes missing six years old missing for a few years before this lead from Danny's
00:15:50
older sister Shannon Falls to agent rck and his partner Vern Kelch they follow up on on this lead
00:15:59
they've had other good leads leads that they thought were good and they follow up on this lead even tracking down this
00:16:05
boy where it's almost impossible to track him down because the state won't provide any information regarding this
00:16:12
kid cuz he's only 17 by this point right but when they get in contact with him they get a confession pretty quickly
00:16:19
very quickly yes he's he's pretty much honest and after seeing a picture or two of Dany the weird statement is this is
00:16:27
how Danny looks now now coming from Jonathan and then you also find out that to dig a Little Deeper that this boy
00:16:37
himself now at the age of 17 he's causing problems and has been for years but he initially is a victim himself of
00:16:46
molestation well he has low IQ and then you have to you know is he saying is this this this is what he looks like now
00:16:54
and is that just because he's mixing up present tense and past tense you know what I mean like is it something where
00:17:01
it's like well this is what he looks like now or did he mean that's what he looked like back then uh because like
00:17:08
like they said he has a pretty low IQ it might also be some indication of his comprehension of what is has actually
00:17:16
taken place right but but then the fact that we you know we have these detectives
00:17:23
that interview the mother she does bad on the polygraph test now you start wondering did her son do something bad
00:17:31
and is she covering up for her son the other thing that I want to point out here and this is not super clear in our
00:17:38
interview portion but when Jonathan the boy at the hospital states that he had gone to
00:17:47
dany's home and played a game a video game with Dany in his room because you have these situations
00:17:57
where when you have have investigators interviewing someone especially in this particular situation you wonder could
00:18:06
they be feeding information could there could this be a bad interview could this
00:18:10
be a bad confession maybe this kid doesn't fully comprehend the questions he's being asked well and it's sad too
00:18:18
because with Danny's mother she doesn't even know how this other boy would know anything about their house but we also
00:18:26
know that she's very neglectful of her on I mean to the point where yes I mean when you have to shave your kid's head
00:18:33
to try to get the you know some kind of healthy hygiene system going because you neglected him so bad that's pretty
00:18:42
awful yeah the but this is a little bit of Truth and information I believe in what Jonathan's statement is to the FBI
00:18:51
and to the local detective when he says that he had been in Don Danny's home and
00:18:57
played a video game with Danny in his room that's interesting to me because that's something that only someone who
00:19:04
had actually been there would know that was one of the things that the investigators knew about Dany that he he
00:19:11
had very little in the way of possessions as we stated he was neglected but one of the things that he
00:19:18
held dear was he had like a Nintendo video game right and that was in his room and that was something that he
00:19:25
probably spent a lot of time playing at night when his mother was not around right it's kind of his babysitter this
00:19:31
is your breadcrumb if you the investigator to know that hey there's there might be some truth in what this
00:19:37
young man Jonathan who's only 17 is telling us we learned that Jonathan and his mother would go to the bathroom
00:19:46
together and they were caught several times having sex and so this just all it was almost all too much but at the same
00:19:56
time um we felt like we had something we could work with that we could try and work up as what
00:20:05
happened to Danny in the process of talking to him Jonathan described that after he hurt Dany in the
00:20:16
bathroom his mother came in and checked Dany and said Danny was not alive anymore and they took Danny's body back
00:20:27
to his mother's car and they tried to find a place to leave Dany and and J Jonathan said to leave Dany to
00:20:36
sleep he said that uh one of the times they were doing this they ran into other people who had flashlights who were
00:20:43
calling out to them well ver went back and reviewed the search and rescue records and found that at one of the
00:20:51
points in the search a couple of the uh rescue workers Came Upon a strange vehicle in the woods and when they
00:21:01
called out to the occupants the people got back in the car and drove away and this was right in the area of where they
00:21:09
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the app [Music] [Music] today then we learned from Danny's mother that uh where where Jonathan's
00:23:39
mother lived and we went there and we went there we found in the backyard there was what could be best described
00:23:47
as a shrine and in the shrine which was to a little boy there were keys in a plate nothing but our guts which isn't
00:23:57
enough we learned from the shrine and from talking to Jonathan that Danny's body was placed in
00:24:06
that c and this was the time when there was the explosion of forensic science and they were doing mitochondrial DNA
00:24:16
and trace evidence and we the FBI had just started up these evidence teams called evidence
00:24:24
response teams and we got the sac Al evidence response team we found the car that had belonged to Jonathan's mother
00:24:35
and we took the evidence or we went um a guy from our office our Fleet guy named
00:24:41
Ralph Lux he went and we got a search warrant for the car and we took the car and we took the car back to our
00:24:48
Sacramento office and there our evidence response team went through the car they
00:24:54
recovered all the trace evidence from the trunk and backseat and all that there was nothing that would flag this
00:25:01
as a big development and they sent the uh trace evidence into the FBI laboratory and they were working on it I
00:25:10
was in contact with them and then in 1998 hikers in the area of where Danny had disappeared Came Upon a
00:25:22
skull and the skull taken to the um California State University Chico that had an
00:25:31
unbelievable forensic anthropology department and they had developed special software that let them
00:25:38
superimpose the skull onto a picture of Danny and it fit so we began to think that this was Danny's
00:25:49
skull I was in touch with the FBI laboratory the DNA with a uh his name was uh Jonathan Jeb Stewart and he was
00:26:00
working Mel condal DNA and I was trying to get him to look for DNA in the trace evidence recovered from the car the FBI
00:26:11
lab was really busy at the time and they they didn't have enough time or resources to go through every little
00:26:20
thing that was found so he said I sent him a picture of Danny and he picked out a few of the hair s that could be
00:26:28
construed or could be considered as part of Danny and he did mitochondrial DNA examinations on that the mitochondrial
00:26:37
DNA unlike nuclear DNA that's a DNA we get from our mother and it won't give us a unique person identification like you
00:26:45
can't sit there on the stand and say oh this DNA matched this person and therefore it's him it tells you that the
00:26:52
person you have is an offspring of a certain woman and and so the best we could do was to say that the trace
00:27:02
evidence recovered from the cart belonged to the person who was an offspring of a woman and the they did
00:27:11
the M mitochondrial DNA testing on the hairs and because Danny's remains were being recovered they they had a leg bone
00:27:20
that they can compare it to and I remember I got a call one day from Jeb and he says um it's the same
00:27:27
mitochondrial DNA between the hair the leg bone and Jackie and I'm telling you this Nick now
00:27:38
I mean I feel myself welling up I couldn't believe it and then uh I I thanked them and then I hung up
00:27:47
and I tried to compose myself and I called ver and um I said Vern are you sitting
00:27:54
down and he you know he's like yeah I'm sitting down I said ver burn I just got a call from the lab and they said that
00:28:02
the mitochondrial DNA from the leg bone that was recovered and the hair that was in the
00:28:11
car comes from Jackie and since we knew where Jackie's other Offspring were we could say that
00:28:21
it was Danny and I said Vern it's him and um just like I'm about to do with you he started um not being able to talk
00:28:32
and he I heard a lot of sighing and he said look I'll call you back in a few minutes and he hung up and I think the
00:28:39
two of us were each sitting at each phone crying and then he called me back and um you know we just we just we just
00:28:50
tried to accept the reality that we' found them and we found out what happened to him of course the next step
00:28:56
would be to prosecute Jonathan for what he had done and his mother but the reality was Jonathan believed that when
00:29:04
he left Danny in the woods he left him sleeping he did not know the concept of death versus life and he didn't know the
00:29:14
concept of good and bad so he couldn't even understand what he had done and this meant that he would never be
00:29:22
competent to stand trial and because Jonathan's mother was an accessory the statute on that had
00:29:31
expired already so uh Jonathan was never prosecuted but the prosecutor sits with the files in
00:29:40
his office and if they ever decide in California to let these people out of the the Mental Hospitals again then
00:29:49
they'll prosecute uh Jonathan for what he did well some of the things that I find interesting regarding the
00:29:55
interaction between you and Jonathan and in his statements during the course of your interview process is that he's able
00:30:04
to accurately describe a few things that you have to believe that only the person
00:30:10
possibly responsible for his disappearance would be able to describe and part of that is the shirt that Dany
00:30:18
was wearing on the day that he went missing he also references a Nintendo game inside of Danny's home he also
00:30:26
accurately states that Dany had two different hairstyles two different haircuts longer hair and then the buzz
00:30:32
cut at the time of The Disappearance what was the importance of the scabies that we discussed earlier regarding this
00:30:41
case well the important role of Scabies was that at the time Danny disappeared he had this shaven head
00:30:51
Jonathan said to us and I I probably left this out that when he looked at the picture he said that was the way Dany
00:30:59
used to look but not the way Danny looks now and and I don't think I explained that well because uh but that was the
00:31:07
importance of the scabies was to give us the ability to know that he had seen Danny in two different um postures of
00:31:16
appearance and on top of Dan Danny having scabies that it was believ that Jonathan
00:31:24
also had scabies around that time that Danny went missing yes there was a strong indication that Jonathan also had
00:31:31
scabies and we believe that was related but it's one of those things Nick where you have to take what you can hold best
00:31:42
first and everything else comes afterward and the scabies yes is a very important thing but we could not prove
00:31:52
that Jonathan had had scabies when Danny disappeared now Jonathan and of course that's a a
00:32:01
madeup name a fake name um for a real person but yes to your knowledge he's still he's not out walking around on the
00:32:11
streets no no and what was the aftermath for this murder investigation um with Jackie and with Danny's Family this is
00:32:24
when we get an answer like this [Music] it was frustrating for the family because uh Jonathan could not be
00:32:33
prosecuted and there could not be an actual event or series of events in time that would
00:32:43
acknowledge the information that we had learned and be able to say that Jonathan
00:32:50
was the person who who had done this with the assistance of his mother but with all victims families and
00:32:59
Jackie was no different they do love the ones that are missing and Jackie and Shannon and
00:33:09
Brandon the brother they wanted to have a memorial for Dany they wanted to acknowledge his
00:33:18
existence believe it or not because of the life Danny had lived he there was no pictures of Danny the only picture we
00:33:26
had of him was a picture of him at the dentist's office with that you know how they put that apron around your neck
00:33:34
with the chain and so I got a hold of that picture and I took it to our photo guys at the FBI and I asked them if they
00:33:45
could crop out anything that would reveal the dentist office and just give us the best picture they could and my
00:33:54
intent was to take that picture and and for Vern and I to have it framed and for ver and I to put a little
00:34:04
uh plaque at the bottom of the picture saying that um this was for you know Shannon from Vern and Jeff or this is
00:34:14
from for Brandon from Vernon Jeff and uh when the FBI found out what I was doing
00:34:20
they actually picked up the cost of it and our photo guys took you know did what they did and uh and was our way of
00:34:28
marking it there's a a wonderful newspaper article where Vern and I are at Danny's Memorial and Shannon you know
00:34:38
hugs each one of us calls us up and acknowledges us to the crowd to the people that had come and then um Danny
00:34:48
is buried Jackie died right around that time of uh you know her her lifestyle caused a premature death and so Jackie
00:34:57
and Danny are buried side or not they're they're encased side by side in a mosum
00:35:04
and uh ironically that Mum is right in the area where this campfire happened so when things settled down I I want to
00:35:12
drive up there and see if it's intact now did you become a profiler later in your career I did yes I uh I did and I'm
00:35:22
very proud of that could you take us through the process of becoming a profiler what that ENT
00:35:27
and what training is involved in that oh yeah absolutely let me start off by saying that right now the profilers at
00:35:36
the FBI uh they're in a unit called the national center for the analysis of violent crime it that's what what it's
00:35:46
known as now and I've been retired now for 12 years so that's that's what it was when I retired um it used to be the
00:35:56
behavioral analysis unit it used to be called the um child abduction serial killer unit
00:36:03
casu um it's gone through different names but the beginning of the profiling started with John Douglas and his
00:36:13
peers working at the FBI and they worked on the theory that if they went around interviewing serial killers or serial
00:36:25
rapists or these people that are committ crimes that they might be able to identify certain things about them that
00:36:33
would help uh identify other Killers so in TV now your listeners probably see well they bring
00:36:42
in the profilers and the Criminal Minds and all that criminal profiling does not
00:36:47
give you the person who did the crime it it gives you the potential personal picture of that
00:36:58
person so it's it's and it's based on in my opinion and this is my opinion it's based on statistics as an example uh one
00:37:09
of the things I did in my career to be a better investigator was once a month I attended law enforcement meetings where
00:37:19
offenders sex offenders coming out on parole agreed to be interviewed by law enforcement and if you take that and you
00:37:29
compare it to what John Douglas in the initial mind Hunters as people like to call them were doing it's very similar
00:37:38
they were going and talking to people who were still in prison but they were talking to them about their crimes how
00:37:45
they committed their crimes why they committed their crimes how they chose their victims things like that and we
00:37:51
were doing that here in Sacramento with guys coming out on parole you learn there are certain things that
00:38:01
you can identify with behavior one of the examples I love to use is that when I was attending the uh parole
00:38:12
interviews they would give us a document or a briefing document that would describe what their crime was but it
00:38:22
would also include their criminal history well I learned from going to these things from interacting with the
00:38:27
other guys that a lot of these guys that commit sexual offenses will have a history of burglaries in their criminal
00:38:39
record we're not talking about two or three we're talking about 10 15 a lot of them the question becomes or people say
00:38:46
well why are burglaries important when you consider a sexual offender and what I learned and uh there was another guy I
00:38:55
worked with named Steve h Hill from the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office who made so much available to me but what I
00:39:02
learned was that a lot of these guys if not most of them they're pleading out their sex crimes down to burglaries
00:39:12
these are guys that are going into homes they're standing over a sleeping woman or child and they're fantasizing doing
00:39:22
what they're doing and they get caught and nobody wants to be charged as a sexual crime so they're allowed to plea
00:39:35
bargain it down and they get charged with a burglary there was one guy I remember that we interviewed who had
00:39:43
about 20 burglaries on his wrap sheet and I asked the guy you know oh so you know these did you do these burglaries
00:39:51
goes oh yeah yeah and he was proud of it I said but you know really if you did these 20 there's what you probably did
00:39:57
40 right and he goes yeah and uh so if you did 40 I said so um what did you do with all the money I mean you must have
00:40:07
really nice things at home if you did these 40 burglaries you've gotten several thousand dollars not to mention
00:40:15
the jewelry and things like that and the guys would say I don't have a scent to my name so then the next question
00:40:21
becomes logically well if you don't have the money and you going into these homes
00:40:26
why were you going into those homes and that's where you know they don't want to
00:40:30
tell you you know oh well I was going in and I just didn't find anything whatever
00:40:35
and then you're like you remind them you know you're here for a reason what did you do when you went into the home and
00:40:40
then they start describing what they did and how they did it and you learn that a
00:40:45
bunch of these guys will stand outside windows and they'll look in we call them peeping Toms but you learned that where
00:40:53
you have a lot of reportings of a Peeping Tom sometimes you'll find that they urinated
00:40:59
or defecated outside the window that they're looking in at I I I don't know what the reason is or I I don't
00:41:05
understand the sexual motivation but they do it so this is an example where you know a normal or not a normal you'll
00:41:12
you know a behavior that someone will do while they're doing something wrong and
00:41:16
you can look for it and it helps you understand things so this is an example of your understanding what motivates the
00:41:25
person um you you take a a sexual offender for instance and in my opinion what I learned from the
00:41:33
profiling training and from going to these meetings is that a sexual off offender has a
00:41:40
fantasy and I'm talking about mostly guys right now and that mostly these guys will have this fantasy in their
00:41:48
head of what they want now if it's a fantasy of doing something illegal like a murder or a rape they realize
00:42:01
that their fantasy is of a behavior that is Criminal and they'll make a conscious
00:42:08
decision not to do it but some guys will also make a conscious decision to do it
00:42:16
so then what becomes important in terms of the profiling is understanding what their fantasy is what is their fantasy
00:42:24
and this is where you find where you where your listeners watch the shows and they see like with a victim there might
00:42:32
be a breast that's bitten or or the victim is posed in a certain way this is part of the offender's fantasy and this
00:42:42
gives you certain information about the offender they learn statistically that most offenders that do serial murders
00:42:49
like this they're normally white they're normally middle-aged they have a very good intelligence some of them function
00:42:57
normally in society and have their own families uh if you look at the BTK killer he's a great example if you read
00:43:04
the information about BTK and what he did you'll learn about his fantasy but you'll also learn that he had a fantasy
00:43:11
in fact I mean he also he had a family and I think my wife gets People magazine and I saw recently there on the cover
00:43:19
there was uh a a headline you know I I was raised by a serial killer and I think it's BTK Dennis Raider's daughter
00:43:29
being interviewed and talking about her background and so these this is examples
00:43:34
of uh and so it also leads you to come into crime scenes and make certain um you know uh suspicions based on the
00:43:44
crime scenes if you go into a crime scene and the victim is posed well you know you have a sexual uh fantasy guy if
00:43:55
you go into a crime scene seen and the victim their face is covered well that's a person who may or may not have known
00:44:02
the victim most times the the killer will know the victim or have seen them before and so these are things that all
00:44:12
come into play when they then take this and they process it and they come out with okay this is what we think your
00:44:19
Fender all about I hope that was helpful Jeff we want to thank you for joining us
00:44:24
here in the garage and discussing the missing person's case of Danny howenstein today before we wrap up could
00:44:31
you tell us a little bit about your book that you put out okay the title of the book is in the name of the children and
00:44:40
it's of course it's written by myself and my co-author marily strong this book was not intended to be
00:44:49
a book my wife Lori who is the Keystone of my life asked me to write an accounting of
00:45:00
myself for my sons and for the members of our family that come later so they'll have something
00:45:10
to have to know about me and I sat there for several months with a laptop and I crying and I wrote an accounting of my
00:45:22
life as if I was speaking to my sons themselves so if you read my book you'll you'll get the feeling that I'm talking
00:45:30
to you and what I do in my book is I tell I I I talk to everyone uh in a way of explaining my life I talk about my
00:45:41
childhood how it felt to be bullied and beat up all the time how I felt when I had my surgery and I was
00:45:50
angry most importantly working these crimes against children caused a lot of emotional damage to me
00:46:00
and I didn't know it at the time but I learned that it caused a lot of emotional damage to my family and I try
00:46:08
and describe in the book the effect of this crimes on me and what I learned from my family and what I learned that I
00:46:19
did to my family I got to the point where I became became a danger to myself I became
00:46:28
suicidal in the book I described two incidences where I did try and take my life um but I also try and help the
00:46:38
reader understand why I reached this point and when I finished writing this manuscript and I gave it back to Lori to
00:46:46
read she believed that if we did make this a book it might help other First Responders or other invest investigators
00:46:56
like me that work these cases because Lor and I at are best when we're helping people and we thought maybe this book
00:47:03
can help and I can't begin to tell you Nick the calls and contacts I've gotten from other law enforcement and even from
00:47:12
victims the uh I've been contacted by victims in other states who said that this book did spoke to them on a level
00:47:21
that they had never experienced before and it had helped them there if uh your readers get the book and I recommend
00:47:28
they do there's a chapter named the 22 and in that chapter there's a girl that's described who was you know very
00:47:37
assaulted and I gave the manuscript to every victim family I could find that was in the book I would not have agreed
00:47:48
to the publishing of the book if I didn't have the approval of the people in this instance we gave the book to
00:47:55
this one girl and she got back to us several weeks later and she was crying and she said she was obsessively reading
00:48:02
the chapter and over and over again and the reason was because she never realized how I saw her and I saw her as
00:48:10
a warrior Queen and it made her feel better about herself it made her um it made her understand that even though she
00:48:22
was a victim that she had fought her victimization and she had a lot to be proud of and these children in the 22
00:48:31
the chapter 22 my wife Lor and I are still in contact with them we attend their weddings and their baby showers
00:48:39
and their graduations uh at one point during the case one of them said you know are we
00:48:44
just another case to you or and you're going to go away or and I promise them I would be there for them for the rest of
00:48:52
my life and Lori and I have have made that promise and we've been living up to it if your readers read the book they'll
00:49:01
see that each chapter is named after a victim the first chapter is me I describ myself as a victim for what I
00:49:09
experienced from my birth defects and my cerebal paly and then after that the chapters are names of the cases that I
00:49:19
worked that provided transition in my life in terms of working these cases the final chapter is named Lori Joe and
00:49:28
Jordan and this is my wife and my two sons and it describes the harm I caused to them and how proud I am of them and
00:49:39
we are still very close as a family uh Lori and I Lori uh retired um this past year and since
00:49:49
she's been retired has been the happiest time of my life and the thoughts in my mind are still there the post-traumatic
00:49:58
stress but I'm better able to deal with it because I have the love of my family and of my wife Lori so I think that your
00:50:07
readers will experience what it's like to be in the head of an investigator not only in working the case but how the
00:50:15
case affects them and Captain how about a little recommended reading how about it we have
00:50:28
some highly recommended reading for you today pick up a copy of in the name of the children and FBI agents Relentless
00:50:35
pursuit of the nation's worst Predators by Jeffrey rck it's also available on audio book so if you're making a note
00:50:43
that's in the name of the children by Jeffrey rinck if you can't write that title down just go to True Crim
00:50:49
garage.com and click on the recommended page and we will have that there for you
00:50:53
at the top of the page make sure you tell a friend make sure you tell your mother make sure you get everybody you
00:50:58
know listening to the garage so we can stick around until next week be good be kind and don't
00:51:11
[Music] litter [Applause] [Music] Angie's List is now Angie and we've heard a lot of theories about why I
00:51:45
thought it was an Eco move few your worse less paper no it was so you could say it faster no it's to be more iconic
00:51:53
must be a tech thing but those aren't quite right it's because now you can compare upfront prices book a service
00:51:59
instantly and even get your project handled from start to finish sounds easy it is and it makes us so much more than
00:52:05
just a list get started at angie.com that's ngi or download the app today

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 85
    Most heartbreaking
  • 80
    Most emotional
  • 80
    Most intense
  • 80
    Biggest twist

Episode Highlights

  • Better Sleep for All
    Your mattress purchase helps give the gift of better sleep to children in need.
    “Your mattress purchase helps give the gift of better sleep to children in need.”
    @ 00m 11s
    November 16, 2023
  • Language Learning Revolution
    Rosetta Stone offers 25 languages and a 50% holiday deal on lifetime membership.
    “Rosetta Stone has an awesome holiday deal 50% off their lifetime membership.”
    @ 00m 44s
    November 16, 2023
  • A Chilling Confession
    Jonathan reveals he knew Danny and describes a disturbing encounter.
    “He hurt Danny, we believe that he's telling us that he killed him.”
    @ 12m 25s
    November 16, 2023
  • The DNA Breakthrough
    Mitochondrial DNA testing confirms the identity of Danny's remains, bringing closure to the family.
    “I couldn't believe it.”
    @ 27m 41s
    November 16, 2023
  • Danny's Memorial
    A heartfelt memorial for Danny acknowledges his existence and honors his memory.
    “They wanted to acknowledge his existence.”
    @ 33m 12s
    November 16, 2023
  • The Impact of the Book
    The author shares how his book has helped victims feel empowered and understood.
    “She never realized how I saw her as a warrior queen.”
    @ 48m 10s
    November 16, 2023
  • Recommended Reading
    Pick up a copy of 'In the Name of the Children' by Jeffrey Rinck.
    “It's also available on audiobook!”
    @ 50m 35s
    November 16, 2023
  • Angie's List Rebranding
    Angie's List is now Angie, making it easier to compare prices and book services.
    “It makes us so much more than just a list.”
    @ 52m 05s
    November 16, 2023

Episode Quotes

  • It's a GameChanger!
    Danny Hohenstein /// Part 2 /// 287
  • Danny was not alive anymore.
    Danny Hohenstein /// Part 2 /// 287
  • I couldn't believe it.
    Danny Hohenstein /// Part 2 /// 287
  • We just tried to accept the reality that we found them.
    Danny Hohenstein /// Part 2 /// 287
  • I was raised by a serial killer.
    Danny Hohenstein /// Part 2 /// 287
  • She never realized how I saw her as a warrior queen.
    Danny Hohenstein /// Part 2 /// 287

Key Moments

  • Language Learning00:32
  • Disturbing Discovery23:31
  • DNA Confirmation27:32
  • Emotional Discovery28:50
  • Memorial for Danny33:12
  • Investigator's Insight50:09
  • Recommended Reading50:28
  • Angie's List Rebranding51:41

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown