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[Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to true crime garage where of you are whatever you are doing thanks
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for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always as a guy that thinks my existence is a nuisance he is the
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captain I'm the host with the mostest it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening and thanks
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for telling your mother this week in the fridge we have so hyoe stout by our good
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friends over at the Columbus Brewing Company I was drinking some great Columbus Brewing Company beers at the
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Clippers baseball game so we had to put them back on the show garage grade four and a quarter bottle caps out of five
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and today we are drinking with our good friends first up a rays of the glass to Mandy and Peachtree City Georgia and the
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big shout out to neither us in Chicago here's one to Mandy in Saskatoon Saskatchewan she's asking if the captain
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could send her one of his hoodies I'm guessing it's still cold up there I would send one but my hoodies smell like
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tears and desperation and a big we like you jib to Sally and blue bell pennsylvania here's a big cheers to
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Doreen and Belgium she told me to roll the R I'd like to go to Belgium I think I would be welcome to there and last but
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not least a shout to Katelyn in Tiverton Rhode Island thanks everybody for helping us out with this week's shows if
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yes all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
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crime [Music] the website Ohio Attorney General gov contains many resources one resource on
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there that boasts saddens me and angers me is a list of cold case homicides all taking place in my home state the great
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state of Ohio you can browse this list by searching a specific name or do as I have many times
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start at the beginning and go in chronological order through the years many cases on there have caught my eye
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several of them I have personally looked into hunting down old newspaper articles sifting
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through online message boards looking for not only information but theories and suspects after all this is my home
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state where my family and friends live and according to this list killers are walking amongst us one of the cases that
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caught my eye was that of a young woman killed at home alone in her apartment the case was initially of interest to me
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because I noticed that I once lived in the neighborhood in which she was killed on the government website this is case
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number 17 the victim's name Amy Hooper this was just one of many cases that for me stopped being just a number on some
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list and became a name on a file folder however I am slightly ashamed to say that the file ended up on a shelf in my
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office collecting dust later through conversations I learned of an even closer connection I had to the
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unsolved murder case my mother and Amy's mother taught at the same school and my
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father followed the case in the papers and on TV not too long ago I was busy cleaning out the old office and sifting
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through some old Case Files some that we have covered here on true-crime garage and others that we hope to I found Amy's
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folder flip through it and looked at her photo the sadness and anger returned and
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so I decided to revisit this case Amy was only 20 years old when some savage took her life she was very close with
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her family and had many friends the motive for this cold-blooded killing is not obvious when the killer remains
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hiding in the shadows this week we take a look at just one of Ohio's many cold case homicides this is the case of Amy
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Hooper [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Amy joy Hooper was one of three daughters born to parents joy and Hollis
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Hooper when Amy was born on November 2nd 1971 her sisters were quite a bit older holly
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was eight and sandy was ten so amy was the baby of the family joy Hooper said that amy was spoiled from all of the
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mothering and that her sisters treated her like a little baby doll they actually took care of baby Amy when
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their mother was ill for a time and was unable to do so amy was blonde with curly ringlets and hazel eyes and has an
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adult she was on the smaller size she was maybe 5 foot 3 inches tall the website that we discussed lists her at
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103 pounds but according to her family she was quote about 90 pounds soaking wet the Hooper's lived in Columbus and
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Amy attended Westland high school for a time but Amy's sisters Holly and Sandy tell us that Amy and her mother joy
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clashed a little when Amy was a teenager this from my understanding seems to be fairly normal for teenage girls
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according to the family some of this clashing had to do with a boyfriend whom the parents have viewed is abusive and
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Amy's mother joy was very concerned because Amy actually had been hit on two separate occasions by this boyfriend
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also this boy's mother worked in the school cafeteria and it sounds like she may have harassed Amy after Amy tried to
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break up with her son yeah after Amy's sophomore year at Westland high school her parents are
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gonna try to move her to get away from this douchebag well after being given a choice of where to live she was offered
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the choice of living with either her aunt or her sister Amy decided to go out to California to live with her sister
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sandy sandy moved out there in 1982 the two sisters were very close despite the 10-year age difference between the two
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ami did her junior year at high school in California and hung out with sandy and Sandy's boyfriend ray but after her
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junior year ami moved back to Ohio and went to live with her aunt in a nearby town and graduated from a different high
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school this would have been in 1989 after graduating from high school ami moved back to Columbus and moved in with
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her mom Hollis and joy had very recently gone through a divorce and although this
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was not acrimonious it was a tough time for everyone Amy wanted to save money so she could
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return to California to go to college she loved fashion and she looked for a job that would allow her to work in that
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industry she got a job as a manager at a Wilson's leather store in the Westland mall which many media reports refer to
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as Berman's leather because Berman's was bought out by Wilsons Leather at some point well she worked there for about
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six months a job that she reportedly loved and she was very responsible never showing up late never missing a day of
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work she also occasionally designed display windows for the Lazarus department store she rode the bus so she
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didn't have to spend money on a car one thing to know about Aimee is that she loved animals and had a soft spot for
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anything furry at the time of her death she had two cats that she had taken in articles about Aimee state that she was
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very social had a lot of friends and was known to frequent a Westside bar called
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coconuts she also it has been reported dated black men almost exclusively like the
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abusive boyfriend from Westland high school this fact will become significant later also her family describes her as
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very trusting friendly and although she was stubborn she would stand her ground when she needed to yeah now Amy's 20 and
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she's gonna rent her own apartment this starts on February 17 1992 renting an apartment at 49 42 Medfield away in
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Lincoln village in Columbus now even though this was apartment it wasn't a big high-rise type
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building Ami's ground-floor apartment door opened into a grassy open area outside punctuated by a spider web of
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walkways leading between the various apartments and the street so to get to amy's front door all someone had to do
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is walk up to it there were no entranceways gates outer doors or security measures whatsoever these
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buildings were not equipped with security cameras Amy leased this apartment on her own but
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allowed a friend to move in with her rent free this is a woman whose name we don't know but we do know that she had a
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small child the family isn't certain how Amy knew this roommate but her sister sandy says Amy told them that she was
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going to let them live there really because she's just taking them in to help them Amy had a kind heart and right
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and the woman and her baby really had nowhere to go who cares how they became friends and
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simply here's Amy she has a place here's a single mother hey come stay with me for a while let's
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get you on your feet it sounds like that maybe Amy tried to move this girl into her mom's house when she was still
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living there but after a few days her mother was like no we're not having Outsiders come and freeload off of our
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family and just stay here you know this woman apparently didn't have a job at the time or at least that the family
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knew of so Amy rented the new apartment and let her friend in the baby move in with her Amy in this roommate were
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really still getting settled at the time even Amy's mother had not visited the apartment yet because the women were
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still getting the place together and they were actually lacking in the way of furniture at this time Amy's sister
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Holly was also living in Columbus but she was in a serious relationship with someone in Cleveland now on Friday March
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6th Holly planned to travel up to Cleveland to see her boyfriend so she and Amy made some kind of arrangement
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where Amy would borrow Holly's car and take care of Holly's dog for the weekend it
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turns out that anyone in the car so that she could go up to see her boyfriend who
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was going to Bowling Green at the time this was a young guy whose name we we won't use Holly did not want a me
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driving her vehicle all the way up to Bowling Green so what happened is Amy borrowed her mother's car instead and
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left her sister's car with her mother for the weekend now everybody has a car to use Amy did not tell her mother that
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she was planning on going to Bowling Green and it seems that joy did not know about this boyfriend she never met him
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she only heard about him after Amy's death and again now I'm gonna bring up the fact that it's early 90s so it's not
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like you have a lot of internet dating or a lot of ways of communication with some of these people it could be
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somebody she went to high school with that went to Bowling Green for college or moved there with their family who
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knows on Monday March 9th a me sister Holly returned to town from her weekend in Cleveland and she went straight to
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work Amy actually returned the night before from her weekend and went out with some unnamed friends the night
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before the plan Amy was supposed to meet Holly on Holly's lunch hour that day to
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return her car now when Amy failed to show up Holly called her apartment numerous times to no avail
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we don't know whether she also called Amy's work but she told us that she couldn't find Amy that day it was later
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reported that by 1:00 p.m. Amy's friends and co-workers started to call each other looking for Amy
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meanwhile Holly called her father and he gave her a ride to Amy's new apartment Holly had a key to her car and was
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hoping to be able to retrieve the vehicle she and her father knocked repeatedly on Amy's apartment door but
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there was no response yeah but they were able to find her car yeah Holly's car was in fact still there and because she
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had the key she was able to open the car door and then drive the vehicle back to
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her work Hollis also left at this time likely figuring that there had been some kind of mix-up one thing we have no
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information on is whether the police ever took a look at Holly's car which we know Amy drove that morning so we don't
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know if it was ever dusted for prints or examined for signs of a struggle or even
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things out of place now at this point Holly called her mom joy to see if she knew where Amy was she had a really bad
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feeling when she was able to locate her car at Amy's apartment but Amy was nowhere to be found
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joy was a teacher and she was in the classroom all day long so it was hard for her to talk on the phone but
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eventually around 3:30 joy was gathering mail at the school where she worked and
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people from amy's work started to contact her because joy was listed as Amy's emergency contact person
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Amy failed to show up for work then when joy was finally able to call Holly joy told Holly that Amy had been to her
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house in Grove City around 6:30 that morning and returned her car and took Holly's car the two chatted while joy
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put on her makeup getting ready for work Amy told her mother at that time that there was a manager's meeting that was
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scheduled for work that day later that morning and she was supposed to be a part of this meeting from what I could
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tell from what I could find the managers meeting was to be around noon or at least that's what some reports say Joyce
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said Amy seemed normal at this time when they were talking that morning and very
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happy that morning so just a quick summarized version of that timeline because there's a lot of moving pieces
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and parts here okay so the the general timeline is this Amy returns to Columbus Sunday night we
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don't know what time she goes out with some friends early Monday morning at 6:30 a.m. she's at her mother's house
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remember they have to switch out the vehicles and so at 6:30 she talks to her mother every everything seems normal and
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happy and good at that time there's nothing strange going on with Amy she makes her sister's car and presumably
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goes straight to her apartment now where we are now is we have multiple people we
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have reached out to amy's mother trying to get ahold of her because they're like
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we haven't seen Amy we have Amy sister Holly who I found my vehicle at Amy's apartment but no Amy and now we have her
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work calling joy because she is the emergency contact listed on her information because they've not seen Amy
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either she's supposed to have been at a manager's meeting that day and mind you she's worked there for over six months
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and never missed a day of work so this is raising all kinds of alarms the you know the red flags are going up
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especially for joy well sometimes mothers just know well she's already heard from one daughter and she's heard
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from Amy's work and she's saying as soon as this went down she knew right away that something bad had happened right so
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joy Amy's mother asked Holly the sister to meet her at Amy's apartment they wanted to go to the rental office and
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asked if they had seen anything trying they're still trying to find Amy and they called Amy's father to meet them
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there as well so once they arrived hollis her father tries the door to Amy's apartment and found it locked they
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decided to go to the Super's office and ask them to open up the door now joy the
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mother had to be present in order for the super to open up the apartment door he had to receive permission from a
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person listed on Amy's lease documentation as a person who could actually authorize entry into Amy
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Hooper's apartment so around 4:00 p.m. Amy's dad and the super entered the apartment Holly and joy stayed outside
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thank thank God this is what Hollis and the super found according to the newspaper reports upon entering the
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apartment they would find Amy lying naked and bound face up on the hardwood floor of an upstairs room in her
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apartment she had been beaten over the head suffering a cracked skull which one early story in the Columbus Dispatch
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described as a split and that she was stabbed in the neck and heart her hands were bound
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behind her with a nylon cord dangling from a unique pendant tucked into her hands and the police stated that they
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were unsure whether this belonged to Amy or if it was brought into the apartment
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by the killer right this was a wood and leather medallion a heart-shaped painted
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with colors of red yellow and green glued to a black wood circle was there any sign of a sexual assault
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there was according to the newspapers that is unclear oh now regarding this medallion itself the the newspapers
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asked if this could mean something even asking if the killer was making some kind of statement because Amy was dating
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an african-american man or was this just something that was lying around right but what does I'm gonna dalian have to
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do with an african-american man well mind you the colors that were on there we have red yellow green so we have
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colors of the African flag I would believe the right or is it somebody that saw a white woman with a black man and I
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wanted to make her pay for that correct I mean is that what you're saying that's
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what the papers were saying okay I want to be very clear about that that's what the newspapers in 1992 were saying not
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what the colonel is saying not in 2019 I'm simply reporting what was reported so the question here regarding this this
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medallion this necklace whatever you want to call it is did this actually mean something did the killer bring this
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to the apartment with them or was it just something that was lying around that was found in Amy's apartment that
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the killer used to tie her up newspapers even suggested that this might be the key to the case police told the media
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that Amy may have been rendered helpless with her hands tied and then struck on the back of the head
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the family has stated that the blow to the head is what in fact killed Amy the stab wounds were
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all post-mortem and the family say that they were told that there were 13 or 14 stab wounds and all well said to me that
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seems like act of passion rage so more likely somebody she knew well that's that's pretty spot-on there by you
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captain good job out of you because according to the detectives what they told the papers was whoever did this to
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Amy was harboring some kind of rage against her now the knife that was used was found at the scene that's always
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nice when they leave that behind for you but the puzzling thing is the weapon that was used to bludgeon Amy on the
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head the blow that killed her was never found so real quick before we move on regarding the knife we know that it's
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found at the scene although we've never been told no one could tell us if this was something that the killer brought to
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the scene or something that the killer found already in the apartment we don't know if this knife belonged to Amy or
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even the roommate right but they believe those stab wounds were postmortem so where is this object that hit her on
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the head to split the skull well they didn't find that at the scene you know unlike the knife they did not find this
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weapon and in fact they according to investigators they weren't really even certain what type of weapon it was the
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only thing that they told the media was that they all they know is it was a sharp heavy object so almost immediately
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after finding Amy's body investigators they're searching alleys dumpsters garbage bins in the area they're looking
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for of course not only clues but mainly looking for the sharp heavy object that killed her right but they found nothing
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well even though that they found nothing around her apartment do we have anything
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else that we know more information about the scene of the crime we do have some more detailed
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information here regarding the murder scene we know that Hollis the father discovered the horrifying traumatic
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sight of his daughter lying dead on the floor the Franklin County Sheriff's Department
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they were called in to investigate they were the lead on this murder case the 9-1-1 call came from Amy's family at
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4:21 p.m. that day detectives were very quick to close off the scene and they started their investigation immediately
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now the apartment door windows or really anything otherwise showed absolutely no
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signs of forced entry there was also very little sign of a struggle in the apartment there was a
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phone cord now this was found to be ripped out of the wall police from what they could see at the scene surmise that
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Amy had taken a shower that morning well and this kind of gives us some kind of a
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window of when the time of death would be mm-hmm yeah and this is actually very important
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to our investigation here because what we have here captain is we know that around 4 o'clock is when her father
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enters the apartment by 421 we have detectives on the scene they've already blocked everything off so regarding the
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time of death we have a couple of indicators to tell us what that could be we know she was at her mother's house at
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6:30 and then she returned we're presuming that she came straight to her apartment maybe she stopped off along
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the way but what we do in fact know that once she returned to her apartment she did take a shower and we'll get into the
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details of this more why we know this to be absolute fact this is not something where anybody needs to let us go she
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could have taken a shower the night before or before she went to go pick up the car no we have details that point
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out that matter of fact she took a shower after returning to her home so what I'm getting at here with the window
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of time of the frame of time that we need to be concerned with to find this offender is the narrow the call narrow
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the time of death down to this she returns home sometime after the shower and before the time that she had to be
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at work that day somebody killed Amy Hoover [Applause] [Music] no one really has time to go to the post
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captain so regarding the time of death this has never been publicly stated what the actual time was police publicly
00:30:30
would only say that Amy had apparently been dead for several hours by the time she was found what other information do
00:30:38
we have from the scene of the crime well there there were things at the scene captain that would give the
00:30:43
appearance that she may have been getting ready to go to work at the time when this attack went down right okay so
00:30:50
she had a plastic pink carry all that held her makeup and hair brushes this was found lying open on the bedroom
00:30:58
floor you know ready for use right the she had an electric blanket on a pullout sofa remember we said that they had just
00:31:07
moved in and they were kind of lacking in the area of actual furniture everybody knows this when you go out
00:31:14
move out of mom and dad's house for the first time you realize I don't own anything maybe the fourth or fifth time
00:31:21
yeah I don't own anything so she was actually using a pullout sofa at the time as her bed so the pull-out su sofa
00:31:30
is still set up for for her bed and she had an electric blanket on that which was still plugged in at this time her
00:31:38
hair dryer was plugged in as well so here this paints a picture of this young woman who had returned home we might
00:31:47
even guess that she may have taken a nap maybe went back to sleep for a little bit of time possible but there are
00:31:53
people that just leave things plugged in all the time so that is a possibility and then decides to get up and start
00:32:01
getting ready for work and then somehow this attack happens right so we know that she was found in the nude there is
00:32:10
some question what she did was she surprised you know was was she coming out of the shower when she was attacked
00:32:19
or did the killer strip her you know because the shower part and the Megane part makes me
00:32:25
seem to me makes it seem like she's getting ready for work and also then it goes back to the idea that somebody
00:32:33
knows her schedule because they would know when she would have to go to work mm-hmm
00:32:37
or somebody watched her go into her apartment alone right is another possibility so regarding this this whole
00:32:46
situation of her getting ready for work what we do know is this that this was not in the newspapers but detectives
00:32:53
specifically told her family that they believe that Amy may have opened the door and was in her robe at the time
00:33:01
that she opened the door and we don't know or have details as to why they would come to this conclusion or tell
00:33:09
the family that what we do know is we have no signs of a forced entry so that has to be a consideration did somebody
00:33:17
simply knock on the door or ring the doorbell and she lets them in or opens the door and they forced their way in
00:33:24
now the other thing that I wonder about regarding this situation of telling the family that we believe she opened up the
00:33:32
door and was in her robe at that time we know that she was found dead upstairs did they find the robe downstairs near
00:33:41
the front door you know those are the questions that that you wonder how they came to that conclusion or at least why
00:33:48
they are telling the family that you know now regarding the scene itself we have Kris Floyd he was one of the deputy
00:33:56
sheriff's who was he was actually the first officer on the scene and he noted the position of Amy's body and he says
00:34:05
that he found it to be quite bizarre he said quote she was displayed it wasn't as if she fell that way my first thought
00:34:14
was this was to make a statement it's hard to know what the reason why he believes this because we have his
00:34:20
sleeved in the see how she was displayed so but I'm guessing there's there's some
00:34:26
kind of reason well use the using just his words I think what we can we can deduce from that is he is of the opinion
00:34:35
that she was displayed that she didn't fall like that some positioned her in that manner in his
00:34:42
opinion right but we also have possible post-mortem wounds and does that come into a play of where she I'd assume that
00:34:49
comes into the play of where she's gonna be Lane if you're attacking the body after she's already dead well let's talk
00:34:57
about that medallion for a while because so much has been made in the newspapers
00:35:02
about that medallion if you look up this case unfortunately there's not a lot of
00:35:08
news coverage on this case there's there's a handful of of good newspaper articles I'll say that that word good
00:35:17
newspaper articles they're not great in a sense that some of the lengthier ones while they make for a good type of
00:35:26
murder mystery if it were to be fictional this is a true story and the truth of some of this stuff seems to be
00:35:35
left out of the papers now in their defense this may be information that they just don't know okay so this
00:35:43
medallion if you look up the Columbus Dispatch news stories regarding this case and I'm sure that there was
00:35:51
probably one or two that made their way through the Associated Press but they time and time again ask the question is
00:35:59
this medallion is this necklace the key to the case because they're they're asking the obvious question here was
00:36:08
this something that the killer brought to the scene with them used it to tie her up and then either forgot about it
00:36:16
was startled and had to leave the scene earlier than they wanted to right or you
00:36:21
know left it there for any number of reasons the truth about that medallion is it's
00:36:26
very likely not the key to this case at all because we know this this is one thing that we know to be fact her sister
00:36:34
sandy her older sister remember that she lived with for a time in California old
00:36:38
sandy says to us that that medallion was not only not only did it belong to Amy but I know that it belonged to her
00:36:48
because I purchased this for her right sandy says that she bought the what she called a Rastafarian themed
00:36:56
medallion for Amy when the two attended a reggae festival in San Diego when amy was out in California with Sandy and
00:37:05
then furthermore sandy went on to tell me that not only did she purchase this for her little sister but she knew that
00:37:14
Amy would often keep necklaces hanging on a this is how it was described to me anyway hanging on a from a lamp that was
00:37:24
near her bed I think this was up on a desk or table of some sort and that all of them just kind of hung from this lamp
00:37:32
well we know that amy was found in an upstairs bedroom my thought is that this turns out to just be something handy
00:37:40
that was already at the scene we know this per her sister sandy right and that the killer grabbed it and used it to tie
00:37:47
a me up and then never felt the need to take it with them because it wasn't theirs in the first place it had likely
00:37:55
had no connection to the killer at all one the fact that her sister's story is so detailed hey I know where I bought
00:38:03
this for my sister mom and then also it makes the idea of what the police are saying they think that she answers the
00:38:12
door in a robe or something like that when she's getting ready to go to work because maybe she had this in her hand
00:38:18
or in the pocket of the robe or whatever when she's getting ready because she was
00:38:24
gonna put it on well and in the defense of the reporters I think that this is really just a detail that has gotten
00:38:30
lost somewhere along the way that's gotten lost between the investigation and the reporting of the murder and the
00:38:37
investigation because sandy was not questioned or spoken to until about two days after Amy was actually killed
00:38:46
remember she's still out in California so she has to fly back she wants to be with her family and during that time is
00:38:52
when she spoke with the investigators so my guess is the way that this thing went
00:38:57
down is that very early on the newspapers are given some details regarding the crime in the crime scene
00:39:04
right which includes this medallion or now this whatever you want to call it and
00:39:09
they kind of ran with this idea I don't know that this information ever got to them that that is not the case that they
00:39:17
don't have to question this medallion and it being in the apartment anymore because it was supposed to be there
00:39:24
right in a lot of times when people cover a story again they just read an article and then repeat a lot of that
00:39:29
stuff and then then you have another paper saying hey this medallion might have something to do with the connection
00:39:37
you know I buy more of our sisters story that she bought it for her sister well I
00:39:42
I'm stating it as fact I have no reason to believe that anything other than exactly what she said happened so I was
00:39:52
actually talking to a friend of mine regarding this case because this is a bit of a pet case of mine you know you
00:39:57
talk about red light cases this is this is one for me and we were talking about this this medallion this necklace thing
00:40:04
and they asked me well why would the detectives on the case still continue to let the newspapers believe that this
00:40:13
medallion might be a big key to solving the case and my answer is simply this one the detectives don't owe that
00:40:21
information to the newspapers they may be wanting to hold that information back but then on top of that as detectives
00:40:29
they're just happy that somebody's reporting about this case because we talked about so many times that you need
00:40:35
the public's help and if this case can stay somewhat in the public eye even though it has not you know that's
00:40:41
probably their hopes there and I do want to point out something regarding this case as well that there have been a
00:40:48
couple detectives over the years that have worked this case and I've not questioned their efforts and I don't
00:40:55
think anybody should I that from the detectives that I've spoke to and from retired individuals that I've spoke to
00:41:02
there there has been a lot of effort made on this case this case is not cold for because of lack of effort on the
00:41:11
investigation yeah but let's be honest being the end of the 80s early 90s was a different time than now and there there
00:41:18
was definitely more prejudiced and racism going on and and more people being vocal about that and so to have a
00:41:26
20 year old white girl dating you know pretty much all black guys there could be some police officers on the case that
00:41:36
are prejudiced or racist but it really doesn't seem that way in this case it really seems like they were trying their
00:41:45
best to solve this case for this family well speaking of investigators there was
00:41:51
a Franklin County sheriff's detective Clark he has been the one that is often cited in the newspapers when talking
00:41:59
about Amy Hooper's case and one thing one statement that he has made is that quote there are a couple of significant
00:42:07
things that only the killer would know and quote so one of these things might be the actual murder weapon because
00:42:16
although the cops have told the press repeatedly right and even as recently as 2011 that they didn't know what the
00:42:23
bludgeoning weapon was they did tell the family amy Hooper's family at the time of the murder at first that it might
00:42:32
have been a hammer now we don't know if they're just guessing here that it could
00:42:37
be a hammer or if in fact they did find the actual weapon and they're holding that information back right because a
00:42:44
lot of times when they're doing the autopsy they will go okay here is the here's the wound there's maybe a
00:42:52
puncture wound what are we looking for what kind of object and and they might have a broad strokes of what that object
00:43:00
is but like you said the hammer could just be a guess yeah and then they told the family that it looked like to them
00:43:07
that Amy had run to her landline phone okay so this is kind of the full story of what investigators are working with
00:43:16
the it what the evidence is showing them is that this is some this is how this might have went down right that she
00:43:23
answered the door in her robe and then the killer either is welcomed into the home or forces their way into the
00:43:32
apartment then at some point Amy made a move for the landline phone possibly to call for
00:43:40
help they believed that the killer then grabbed the phone and hit her over the head with the actual phone according to
00:43:50
one family member they were told that blood was found on the phone itself now that doesn't have to mean that she was
00:43:58
hit with the phone we do know that the only really true sign of struggle that was shown inside that apartment was the
00:44:07
phone cord being ripped out of the wall right and the fact that she dated a guy that was abusive to to her you know one
00:44:16
where's his whereabouts this day is is he around I think that's something they need to look into and also the men that
00:44:26
she was dating was there any history of abuse with them maybe not that she reported to the family or friends but do
00:44:35
they have any arrests by being a abusive to somebody else that they dated and so
00:44:42
now you have those kind of suspects and then it we have her wanting to go to Bowling Green right to hang out with a
00:44:50
friend she she came back the day before Yeah right and so does she have somebody
00:44:55
at home that she's seeing that would be jealous of the fact that she went to go hang out with somebody in Bowling Green
00:45:02
so you're saying we should get to some possible suspects here captain yeah that's all I'm saying well and I'm
00:45:12
starting with the high school douchebag okay you know not a high school anymore but the guy that she dated in high
00:45:19
school well let me finish up with the crime scene stuff first and then we'll get to
00:45:22
the possible suspects so one thing that in the investigators are keeping mum on and won't even discuss with the family
00:45:31
is whether amy was sexually assaulted or not now later all these years later we do know that DNA was found at the scene
00:45:39
we do know that that DNA does not belong to Amy this has been publicly stated we
00:45:46
do not know the source that DNA but do we know if it's male or female well I sound like we don't know
00:45:54
[ __ ] well here's here's where I'm gonna go with this okay they've never said this
00:45:59
publicly okay so we're we're basing our story off of what has been stated publicly
00:46:06
throughout this the course of this very long investigation but what we can do for you is we can pick apart the pieces
00:46:15
of this investigation and really tell you kind of what's going on with it based off of their actions and we do
00:46:21
this often when we look at these investigations how do we know that DNA was found at the scene well we know that
00:46:27
because they've publicly publicly stated that they have cleared possible suspects
00:46:33
when testing DNA right okay the only suspects that they have publicly stated have been cleared by DNA
00:46:43
testing are males so where I'm going with this is I believe that they have knowledge that the DNA found at the
00:46:53
scene that was not Amy's is that of a male that our offender is in fact a man right because there there could have
00:47:04
been females that you would you would test right yeah yeah so they must know that this DNA belongs to a man and they
00:47:13
have tested several individuals and cleared them based off of their DNA evidence
00:47:18
well can you start with the acts the abusive far eating jerk store yeah so earlier we mentioned Amy's abusive
00:47:26
boyfriend from when they attended Westland high school together well get this the the family says that they have
00:47:33
reason to believe that this guy actually tried to follow Amy to California remember her parents suggest hey you got
00:47:43
to get away from this guy you can go move with your aunt who lives in another part of Ohio or you could go
00:47:49
live with your adult sister out in California she chooses California what I've been told the family says we have
00:47:57
reason to believe that this dude tried to follow her out to California but from what
00:48:01
can recall for whatever reason he failed to do so meaning he never caught up with
00:48:06
Amy while she was in California so then you wonder was he waiting for her when she returned to Ohio
00:48:14
yeah or did he hear about her returning and go oh she's back time time to go back to being a jerk store as far as the
00:48:23
family is aware of Amy Hooper's family they say that they are not certain they have no reason to believe that the two
00:48:33
actually ever saw each other ever again after Amy moved out to California even when she moved back right but it
00:48:41
certainly seems though that he was a good candidate for a suspect to be the murderer
00:48:48
given that he was violent and vindictive but according to one of Amy's family members it seems that he has been ruled
00:48:56
out okay I've been told by her family that this individual was not only ruled out but he was cleared using DNA testing
00:49:07
okay so maybe they wouldn't talk to him he said I had nothing to do with it here's my DNA clear me yeah I've not
00:49:14
seen her and God knows how long I will cooperate with your investigation so where do they go to next the more
00:49:22
recent boyfriends well yeah that is the obvious place to go they probably may even went there before any of anybody
00:49:30
else so police honed in on her current boyfriend remember this is somebody that the family was unaware of he's a student
00:49:38
at Bowling Green State University at the time and Amy spent the weekend with this
00:49:44
boyfriend in Bowling Green what we end up learning here is that he does speak to police and he's very cooperative he
00:49:53
tells police that hey I gave her a small diamond ring that very weekend the last
00:49:58
weekend that I saw her and in fact it was still on her left hand when she died when police found her once but as we
00:50:07
said Amy's mom didn't know about this boyfriend and Amy didn't show her that diamond ring when she came over that
00:50:14
day morning the morning that she was killed yeah sometimes it's yeah you know sometimes that's sensitive with your
00:50:21
your parents you don't want to tell him you jumping into something too serious you know give him a little time well and
00:50:28
I do want to I want to remind you about something too is Amy's intentions so Amy
00:50:33
was very much wanting to be in the fashion industry that's why she took that job she applied
00:50:40
for that manager's job at the leather store Brett and she was working towards that she was saving up for college her
00:50:47
intention was to move back to California and attend school there so I can totally
00:50:54
see a situation where maybe this wasn't as serious for Amy as it was for the current boyfriend or maybe this is not
00:51:02
something that you want to discuss with mom knowing that she plans to move out of state soon right I know how it is you
00:51:08
don't want to get in one of these long conversations with with one of your parents regarding what you're doing and
00:51:13
how the order that you're choosing to do them in I prefer to never talk to my parents about relationships sex or
00:51:20
anything I mean or that I'm even alive so the family does not know about the boyfriend they didn't know about the
00:51:26
ring at the time later they did find out that he was not only a good student at Bowling Green but he was also a football
00:51:34
player regarding this boyfriend though he was cleared now as far as public knowledge goes what I could find in the
00:51:44
newspapers we don't know why or how that was never stated publicly other than he
00:51:50
was clear so much so that police have gone on and stated that he's not a suspect right publicly said he's not a
00:51:59
suspect this is happening Monday morning correct so wouldn't he be at school yes I mean
00:52:07
they would have some record if he went to class well have a lot of alibis because if he's in a class of 30 then he
00:52:14
has 30 alibis and plus that's a it's a hefty Drive it's a two and a half hour drive roughly so that's five hours we're
00:52:23
gonna be on the road mm-hmm so well and we got like he would be easy to clear yes
00:52:30
well 100% its its it would easy easy to either put clear him or put him right on
00:52:36
the suspect list and so what I think we have here is its early on in the investigation where they
00:52:43
are stating they being law enforcement stating that he the current boyfriend is not a suspect and my guess is that
00:52:50
you're probably spot on here captain that there are many people who are able to account for his whereabouts during
00:52:57
that window of time and really that window of time only has to be from 6:30 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. that day right so
00:53:07
less than a full day and if he's at school all day long well then he's not a good candidate for a suspect and what
00:53:16
I've been told here is the it's believed that even at a later date I want to point something out here it's not like
00:53:25
they find Amy's body and then they're immediately plucking suspects and testing DNA and clearing people this
00:53:33
isn't happening rapidly this is happening slowly over a long period of time and we have him who very quickly is
00:53:43
named as not a suspect from my understanding they even at a later date even much later after being named as not
00:53:53
a suspect he provided DNA and they were able to clear him in that way so there's
00:53:59
absolutely no question in regards to the boyfriend that's doing your due diligence right there when you go okay
00:54:05
we have alibis we have cleared him we don't think there's any way possible that he was even in Columbus at the time
00:54:12
but we're still gonna go back down that we have DNA and make this mother sucka take a DNA test well and that's why I
00:54:21
stated earlier that I don't believe that this has not been solved because of a lack of effort this is really them
00:54:28
circling the wagons here and stating you know what we're gonna double-check everything we're gonna double triple
00:54:34
check everything until we get this thing solved [Applause] [Music] for all of our old episodes check us out
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that out there's a link on our website good a true-crime garage com alright thanks everybody for joining us here
00:55:06
today in the garage we will see you right back here tomorrow until then be good be kind
00:55:11
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