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[Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] Friday October 27th 1989 Bay Village
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Ohio this should have been just a normal typical Friday the kids go off to school
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the parents go to work when everyone gets home we can start our weekend but on this Friday not everyone will come
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home ten year old Amy Mahalo Vic went to school she was in the fifth grade at Bay
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Village middle school after school she walked with friends to the Bay Village Shopping Plaza amy was last seen that
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day by two of her peers they would later report that they saw Amy Mahalo Vic standing outside of the baskin-robbins
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ice cream shop amy was approached by a man in his early 30s standing about 5 foot 8 to 5 foot 10 inches tall with
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dark hair and maybe a bald spot on the top of his head one witness said the man was wearing a
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tan jacket and might have been wearing glasses but could not be sure the man walked right up to Amy leaned down and
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he said something to her he placed his hand on Amy's back and led her away this man walked right up to her spoke to her
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and then took her no one who saw the man with Amy knew who he was and to this day we don't know who
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he is but we do know that he is a very very evil man I want to jump right into a very detailed timeline now there are
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pretty good timelines out there regarding Amy's case and what went on the day she went missing the Lake Erie
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murders documentary does a pretty good one but the best timeline I believe is found in James Renner's book Amy my
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search for her killer there's a chapter in there called minute by minute and this chapter is by far the most detailed
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account of the day that Amy was taken I'm not going to read the minute-by-minute chapter but most of the
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following is ripped right from the pages of renters very good book before we get
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into this timeline it's important to note a few things one Amy is in the fifth grade and her older brother Jason
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is in the seventh grade they both attend Bay Village middle school now Bay Village is a very nice small town it's
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what I would call like a it's got a suburb feel to it it's upper-middle class and at one time it was listed as
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one of the safest cities probably in the nation now October 27th 1989 the day amy
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was taken it was a particularly warm day that day in Bay Village a little after 6:00 a.m. amy woke up and dressed
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herself she picked out green pants and a pale green sweatshirt with lavender trim
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she slipped on her favorite earrings these are silhouettes of horse heads rendered in turquoise mounted on gold
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studs on the way out the door she put on a white windbreaker she slipped on a pair of black riding boots
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laced up the front she grabbed her blue denim book bag with red piping around her shoulders outside she climbed on to
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her blue antique bike and met up with two friends Kristen and Katie from down the road the three rode together to Bay
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Village middle school amy was seated at her desk and mrs. Stewart's classroom before the bell rang at 7:50 a.m. the
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students attended an assembly before lunch that day at the assembly they listened to police officer marks Petzl
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talk about safety and stranger danger at lunch amy ate spaghetti in the school cafeteria classes let out that day at
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2:10 p.m. for the fifth graders normally Amy would get on her bike and ride home
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but this day she left the bike behind instead asking a friend her name's Olivia if she could walk with
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her the two are walking but this is not in the direction of Amy's home in fact Olivia mentions to Amy you never walked
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this way - which Amy replies I'm meeting a friend or I'm meeting a family friend
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which those comments are extremely different but it has been reported both ways when the two were approaching the
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Bay Village Square Shopping Center Amy informed Olivia that the shopping center was her destination and then the two
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parted ways there a classmate of Amy's named Haley then saw Amy walked toward a black van but then Amy stopped stepped
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away and walked toward the Baskin Robbins store Amy did not go into the ice-cream shop
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she stood outside swinging around the pole keeping her head down apparently lost in thought around 2:45 p.m.
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a girl named Maddy was near the Baskin Robbins she saw Amy and she saw a well-dressed man in a beige or tan
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jacket walk up to Amy he leaned forward said something to Amy he put his hand on her back and let Amy
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away at that time Maddy assumed this was Amy's dad at 3 p.m. Amy's brother Jason arrived home now
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this is one of those really sad lesser-known moments in this case Jason later says that his intentions after
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school that day were to go to the shopping plaza he did not intend on going to the shopping plaza because he
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knew that amy was there in fact he had no idea that she would be there he was going to go there just because so many
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of the other kids would go there after school mm-hmm however on his way Jason spotted some boys that were older
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than him and these boys often picked on Jason and some of the other kids so seeing these boys Jason decides to go
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home instead now this is why I say this is a really sad moment and I know that I
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can tell from listening to Jason talk about his sister's case and talk about the events of that day he holds a lot of
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guilt regarding this decision because there's got to be a small part of him that wanders and thinks hey had I gone
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to the shopping plaza that day and seen my little sister and said you know what are you doing here
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this whole thing may have been prevented yeah if amy was hanging out with her brother maybe this perpetrator wouldn't
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come up to Amy or if he did that Jason would have been able to identify this individual yeah and the thing to note
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here that I think is very important there's a lot of kids coming from the school going to this shopping center
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okay and the whoever this offender is when they approached Amy even though there are a lot of other people around a
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lot of kids amy is by herself at this time right and as you said had the brother been standing right next to her
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or interacting with her this person may have thought this is not the opportunity
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that he was looking for want to be clear the other kids are there for a different
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agenda they're there to be at the baskin-robbins or to be hanging out Amy is there which we know because she told
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her friend she is there to meet somebody yeah and I want to be clear i don't think that
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jason has should have any guilt regarding this decision that he made he made this decision based off of these
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older boys being real jerks and you know a lot of us have been there where we've
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been sidetracked or stepped away from something we wanted to do because people we don't enjoy being around or people
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that could be harmful to ourselves are there so that brings us to about 3:00 p.m. on the timeline yeah Jason
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arrives home from school and at this time he calls his mother Margaret she's at work
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now it was common for both Amy and Jason to call her once they got home from school
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Jason tells his mom that Amy is not at the house now this does raise some alarms for Margaret but just a few
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minutes later after Jason called Amy then called Margaret Margaret assuming amy was calling from home at the time
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Amy tells her mother that she stayed after school for choir auditions later Margaret said Amy seemed off as if she
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was rushing the conversation and not her typically talkative self Margaret a little rattled by the whole situation
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does decide to leave work a little early that day she packs up her things for the
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weekend and leaves work Margaret arrives home pulling into their driveway on Winfred Drive sometime between 4:00 and
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4:30 p.m. Jason is quick to point out to his mother that Amy still has not come home
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the maternal instinct kicks in Margaret rushed to the middle school the first thing she notices is Amy's bike is still
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in the bike rack Margaret tried to get into the school but no luck so she jumped in her car and drove straight to
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the police station now we should also note the layout of Bay Village here at this time in 1989 the middle school is
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just right down the street from the shopping center and pretty much right across the street from the shopping
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center we have the police station so very quickly the she's able to arrive at the school notices the bike
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get access to the school drives to the police station this stuff is all happening very quickly once she gets to
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the police station amy's mom's gonna report her missing right away the officer that took the report this is
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Barbara Schley Peggy this good officer did not waste time treating Amy as a runaway which was the standard protocol
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at the time she believed Margaret and Margaret's fear and somehow she knew that this was the real deal so a call
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went out to officers and to surrounding towns this at 5:58 p.m. the call included an incomplete description of
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Amy but at this time we have officers in Bay Village and officers and surrounding
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towns looking for the missing little girl mark Mahalo Vick unaware of the growing
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storm at the home front he arrived home from work at 6:30 p.m. to find his family in a panic and Amy gone didn't he
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work at a car dealership he worked for Buick at the time and was more involved than just a singular dealership okay
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mark spent the rest of the evening scouring Bay Village with a friend he drove his car up and down every street
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this between his house and Holly Hill farms which is important to the family because Holly Hill Farms is where Amy
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would ride horses this was a big-time hobby of hers he also drove between their home and the school and Huntington
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Park and he walked through ravines and the woods calling his daughter's name an 11:00 p.m. thanks to the efforts of Jean
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Sabo she was the mother of one of Amy's closest friends and she was on the PTA at Amie school she took a picture that
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she had of Amy her school picture to the local news channels and then they broadcast Amy's picture with her name
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requesting help or information regarding the missing little girl amy was described as 5 foot 10 inches tall and
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weighing around 90 pounds with shoulder-length dark blond hair we need to get to one very important aspect
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about this case and information that we know that could help us find who took Amy now it was not
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immediate it was not right away that the authorities learned that there was previous interaction between the
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abductor and Amy maja Levesque what they do learn from talking to Amy's friends so some of her classmates
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told police that Amy had said she was going to the shopping center for a gift for her mother with a stranger who
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claimed to be a friend of the family now from the local newspaper here I'll read
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this Amy was last seen alive by classmate in the afternoon of October 27th talking to a man outside the Bay
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Village Square Shopping Center her classmates told police Amy had said she was going shopping for a gift for her
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mother with a stranger who claimed to be a friend of the family a neighbor told police that Amy had
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received a telephone call at her home before her disappearance from a man claiming to be a friend of Amy's mother
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Margaret maja Levesque the neighbor said the man told Amy her mother had received
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a job promotion and invited the girl on a secret shopping trip to get mrs. maja Levesque a present
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mrs. Mahalo Vic has said she was not promoted at her work at the time Margaret maja Levesque is working at the
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trading times this could have been a bit confusing for Amy okay there are there are things in this case where the
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abductor I believe got lucky on some things the first being this Amy's mother did not receive a promotion but at some
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point not too long before this abduction Margaret went from part-time to full-time now Amy was a very smart young
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girl but I could see her assuming that that might be a promotion this adding to the credibility of the stranger that's
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calling on Amy's behalf you know your mother recently received a promotion this would feel to Amy that maybe this
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person is who he says he is he's a friend of my mother because he knew that she is now working
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full-time yeah so that's a detail that maybe he just got lucky on or is it a detail that leads somebody to believe
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that he actually knew the mother correct yeah that and that's the way that they're going to go with the
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investigation at that time so when she's first missing they're talking to all of
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her friends and people at the school and people at the shopping center as soon as
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they find out this detail they being the authorities find out the detail about the phone call now they're really
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looking into Margaret mahalo vaq anybody that she worked with anybody that she knew as well as mark Mahalo Vic same
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thing people he worked with people that he knew and really anybody that knew the
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family or people in the neighborhood this is a very interesting aspect to this case and I think that this is why
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one of the reasons why this case has remained somewhat in the spotlight especially for Northeastern Ohio for so
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many years because of their there are a lot of abductions and a lot of missing-persons cases where somebody
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just simply vanishes and what I mean by that is there's no eyewitnesses there's not much of a story as to when they were
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last seen or who they were seen with yeah there's not a story leading up to them going missing or a story afterwards
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so here we have not only do we have eyewitnesses who saw a man with Amy at the shopping center now we have a
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situation where he was unlucky because Amy didn't keep this a secret she did tell some of her friends hey I'm meeting
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a friend and I've received these phone calls now there is some debate if it was one call or multiple calls or how many
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calls it would have been personally I believe there was probably more than one call but one thing that leaves this case
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and I think intrigues people about this case is the aspect of the phone call itself this is what you have when you
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have a case with a little meat on the bone there's there's something to chew on here there's something to ponder this
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could be an angle that could lead you to the right suspect now there were other calls made to other
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girls this before Amy went missing yeah it's been reported a whole bunch of different ways that there were multiple
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calls placed to girls that lived in North Olmsted Falls which is not terribly far from Bay Village but it's
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not terribly close either through the years I've really paid attention to the reports about these phone calls because
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I think personally I think that these calls are connected to Amy's case right now what I have seen as far as Bay
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Village law enforcement and the FBI is concerned they have stated on the record that they believe two calls two calls to
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two different girls are probably connected to Amy's situation keep in mind this is 1989 it was not uncommon
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for people to crank call people back then it was not uncommon for perverts to pick up the phone and just randomly dial
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somebody well also how many girls came forward afterwards saying oh I got a call but but never received a call
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possibly but what we do have on record is the law enforcement telling us that out of all of these people that came
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forward we believe that two of these are probably connected so not all of them but probably two of them to which the
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reason why I think they would know that they were connected is I believe the caller probably said similar things to
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these girls to what Amy told her friends was said to her that's your way to connect these two now in those two
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situations luckily those two girls decided to hang up on this man and not meet him somewhere again this goes back
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to where I think Amy got fooled she got tricked because this guy got lucky your mom received a promotion we know she
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went from part-time to full-time I think this was perceived by Amy to be that promotion that he was talking about so
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there were other calls made now many years later and I followed this case since 1989
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so I'm always very intrigued when I find out some new information it wasn't until last year
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and this was through bill Huffman and through James Renner that I learned a small detail about that phone call it
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sounds to me like amy was pretty thorough and pretty detailed when she told these two friends about the phone
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calls because she stated we know this little fact here this little detail here that the caller the man told Amy that we
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have 40 or 45 dollars to spend on your mother's gift and by the way because you're helping me and you're helping us
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out whatever is left over after we purchase the gift you can just keep or we'll buy something for you
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right so that's an interesting little detail the problem with this case and the problem with the perception of this
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case has always been that so many people immediately jump out of their chair and
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go well why the hell when they just law enforcement just figure out who the caller was by the call log to the house
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to Amy's house look for the number that doesn't fit or look for all the incoming
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calls that were received leading up to her abduction and trace trace down those phone numbers to addresses into
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individuals and interview those individuals the problem with that scenario is at the time police's hands
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were a bit tied on this and getting you just couldn't get that type of information what we learn is basically
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the the phone records that are kept by the phone companies at that time are very basic right very simple if it's a
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long-distance call it is billed differently than if it's a local call so therefore the phone company keeps track
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of all of the long-distance calls going in and out however they don't keep track
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of local calls going in and out because they're not billed in that same manner there's no reason for them to keep that
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record but what that does tell us is that the call or calls that Amy received came from the same area code where she
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lived but an area is pretty large and probably larger back then covering a larger radius back then
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than today yeah true so back then the chief of police for Bay Village was William Goro and I'm hoping I say his
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name right but in the newspapers he stated that the two calls that they believe could be connected to Amy's case
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took place in March and April of 1989 here's an interesting thing to ponder we know that the call to Amy was local so
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if law enforcement firmly believed that these two calls out of all the tips they
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received about other possible calls if these two calls were connected to Amy's case you damn well better believe that
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they tried to track down that information the same way that they tried to track down the phone call information
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regarding Amy's calls so what we can gather from that is that wherever these two calls that they believe were
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connected to Amy's case were located the individuals that were received these calls we can figure out from there that
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those must have been local calls as well because they were unable to track down the offender based off of that
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more information [Music] all right cheers mates let's get back today Amy Mahalo Vic case cheers to you
00:29:57
captain right right through the glass on the morning of February 8th 1990 Yanet Sebold
00:30:05
is out enjoying her daily early morning jog she was maybe a mile from her house jogging along County Road 1181 in
00:30:15
Ashland County this Spa is forty six point eight miles from the Bay Village Shopping Center where amy was last seen
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that morning janet spotted something maybe 20 feet off the west side of the road mind you for those new to this case
00:30:33
this area is very rural these are large farmland properties whatever Janet thought it was that she was seeing it
00:30:41
was enough to grab her attention so much so that she stopped jogging and walked toward the object taking very slow steps
00:30:48
soon Janet got close enough to make out that she was looking at the motionless body of a human lying face down in the
00:30:57
mud Janet ran to the nearest home and pounded on the door and Patricia Kidd opened up the door so when patricia
00:31:06
opens up the door janet is on the front porch and she is crying uncontrollably what she says is I think I found a body
00:31:15
called the police why did it have to be me that found it yeah I couldn't imagine
00:31:20
how devastating that would be especially to find the body of a child yeah and I believe that Janet was aware of you know
00:31:29
judging by the size of what she was looking at she probably knew that it was a child they did call the police and the
00:31:35
police arrived it very quickly on the scene the very sad thing here too is Amy's case was so well known to the
00:31:44
public into the surrounding areas that even though this little area this farmland community that's 48 miles away
00:31:53
for where she was last seen the local authorities there were aware of a missing girl and actually they were
00:32:00
looking for a potential body in different locations of their County leading up to this so when they get this
00:32:09
call it's kind of one of those situations where they're like [ __ ] we might know without even being there what
00:32:16
we're actually responding to and everybody's looking for this little girl and we may have found her dead in our
00:32:24
County and they were able to confirm that probably very quickly on site but they confirmed it through dental records
00:32:34
later that day so it was confirmed that what everyone suspected they had found the body that belonged to Amy Mahalo
00:32:43
Vick does the autopsy give us any clues or any information it does give us some information I'm going to read from Emily
00:32:51
Thompson's book unsolved child murders she has a chapter in there on Amy mahalo Vick and it reads the pathologist had
00:32:59
even more disturbing news for Margaret and Mark Mahalo Vick not only did he confirm that Amy had been murdered but
00:33:06
she had been brutally stabbed in the neck three times and bludgeoned over the head with a heavy object it was a
00:33:13
violent death for a young child now the autopsy report was never released to the public but this author
00:33:20
Emily states that she was able in her research to obtain a copy from the Ashland County coroner's office and she
00:33:29
goes on to say that when Amy's body was found she was fully clothed except for her shoes her genitalia showed no signs
00:33:37
of trauma however a spot of blood was discovered in her underwear the stab wounds to the
00:33:44
neck had severed the carotid artery leading to her death there was also a post-mortem stab wound to her chest
00:33:52
disturbingly her nails were irregularly broken suggesting that she had attempted
00:33:58
to defend herself from the man who had so brutally killed her her body was in an advanced state of decomposition and
00:34:06
cating that she had been dead for several months so most likely she was killed closer to the abduction date than
00:34:13
the date that she was found yes that's the way that it would appear judging by those statements in Emily Thompson's
00:34:21
book I do want to further that information a little bit because James Renner has said that he was able to see
00:34:29
the autopsy report and I but I can't remember if he had to go through from memory later when he spoke about it or
00:34:38
if he was able to take notes because you've seen Campton you've seen zodiac remember when Robert gray-smith is is
00:34:46
trying to see some of the case file from one of the murders in the in the zodiac
00:34:50
murders yeah and they're like yeah we'll let you look at it but you got to go in
00:34:54
there with nothing you know we can't have you jotting this stuff down or making copies
00:35:00
or anything like that you get you can go in there and take a quick look at it and
00:35:04
you're gonna have to remember whatever you say you're like that's actually more common than people think yeah so Renner
00:35:12
has said publicly I believe it was on his website he stated that you know this was a big moment for him because it was
00:35:21
a big battle for him to win to see this autopsy report it was something he was trying to view for quite some time
00:35:29
before he was actually allowed to look at it after viewing it he did say you know there are things in there that I'm
00:35:37
just going to keep to myself and I have absolutely zero problem with that we have covered cases where they are open
00:35:45
cases and we've come across some information or seen some things and had to make the decision it's in the best
00:35:54
interest of the investigation of the open investigation that some of this information is not widely known yeah but
00:36:02
there's a public right but it still makes you curious when you hear something like that yeah actually with a
00:36:07
guy like James Renner that is so open about his investigations on cases well and especially this case yeah you know
00:36:16
it may be brutally honest we should say when it comes to Amy's case and I think that's
00:36:23
just because he like so many of the rest of us this is important case to to him personally and he likes so many of us
00:36:31
want to see this thing solved I want to go into some things here because there's
00:36:36
always been the question of was Amy sexually assaulted and from the statement that we just read you can't
00:36:43
really gather it doesn't sound like she was raped and and I'm sorry to use these
00:36:49
these terrible words and descriptions but this is where we are yeah there are indications that there was some form of
00:36:57
sexual assault one being that when they found her remember that she is fully clothed and I just used air quotes there
00:37:06
but the underwear that she was wearing when she was found was inside out now this could have just been happenstance
00:37:15
could have just been an accident or whatever but law enforcement believes that this is an indication that she may
00:37:21
have been redressed at some point and then we further that with what Emily Thompson says in her book about there
00:37:28
being blood inside the underwear Amy's blood well the injuries that occurred that led
00:37:37
to her death very likely would not have placed blood inside the underwear so it's another
00:37:45
indication that at some point during whatever assault occurred that she was in a state of undress or partially
00:37:55
undressed and further that thought I have never in all my years of following this case I've never heard an
00:38:05
investigator say anything other than the following we can't think of any other reason why somebody would have taken her
00:38:13
when when asked specifically was she sexually assaulted or raped they said we can't there there's things to indicate
00:38:20
that we can't prove it we can't say 100% but we believe some type of assault happened based off of the information we
00:38:29
can see but furthermore we can't find any other motivation for the abduction in the
00:38:34
first place and we've talked about it before it's sad that we live in a world that we we can walk down the street zero
00:38:43
motive if we don't have money on us or if somebody doesn't dislike us but females walk around with a motive on
00:38:50
them 24/7 with all these creepos out there and and so yeah I mean it doesn't make any sense why somebody would take
00:39:01
her again unless you go with the angle that this person was actually close to the family and it's some kind of revenge
00:39:10
for some reason but if they don't have any evidence that are pointing them into the direction of somebody that actually
00:39:18
knew the family or somebody that was mad at the family the mother or father then
00:39:24
what other motive would there be hmm and if you believe that the other two phone calls to the other girls are in
00:39:32
fact connected we can't say 100% right but if you believe those to be connected then that takes away from revenge as
00:39:39
well well just even if there's this one call that's connected mm-hmm you know it's difficult though to but because
00:39:49
there's no trauma in that area but you could have a situation where you know it's a stretch but you know there's
00:39:57
medical conditions like micropenises and things like that that might not actually
00:40:01
leave trauma well and the other thing that you have to wonder I mean it was a hundred days a hundred or so days after
00:40:10
the abduction that the bodies found so we have months of decomposition going on yeah what is lost through that time
00:40:18
remember we talked about when we watched the Adnan Syed special on HBO they titled one of them time is the killer
00:40:26
yeah again we have a situation here time is the killer in this case because it's
00:40:32
the killer of evidence that could have been on or around her body all this decomposition takes place again this is
00:40:40
another situation where I really feel that this offender is not like super sophisticated this
00:40:46
not a Hannibal Lecter type where he's just so much more brilliant than the lawn for law enforcement officers and
00:40:53
investigators working the case this is another situation where I believe that he again got lucky that I believe that
00:41:02
this body there there is reason to believe that the body was very likely there for quite some time and I mean in
00:41:10
the field and the thing that we also should point out here too is there has never been an investigator who has
00:41:16
visited that dump site that recovered her body that day that has said we believe she was killed here for
00:41:24
everybody has always said the amount of blood the amount of of blood from that attack she had to have been killed
00:41:32
elsewhere and then later transported to that location now Renner as well as some
00:41:39
others have stated that there was a sapling or some type of plant growth that had grown through one of the
00:41:47
articles of clothing that Amy was wearing they can't say for certain how long it would have taken that that plant
00:41:56
growth to patru dand go through her clothing but what they can say is that is an indication that she was in that
00:42:04
field for a long time before being discovered now what's your gut feeling like if you had to give it a percentage
00:42:11
of motive do you have a percentage of what you think it was you know the mode of being rape oh to me 100% I cannot I
00:42:20
agree I it's and even if I've proven if the guy's gives you in some kind of sexual assault it's rape that's what it
00:42:28
is the this idea you know whatever happened even if there wasn't penetration or whatever that it's it's it's rape that's
00:42:37
what it is and the amount of fear that she had to go through is I mean it's horrible to think of from Emily
00:42:45
Thompson's book the the broken fingernails Amy's broken fingernails pointing out
00:42:49
that she defended herself I've always believed that she fought back and I've always believed that the motivation for
00:42:57
the abduction was is sexual in nature I don't I don't where I have a break in the case in the
00:43:07
motive of the offender is I unable to determine or to decide if the killer if the abductor knew in advance that he
00:43:17
was going to kill the victim I've always kind of believed that the motivation was
00:43:21
sexual and that the killing may have happened because she fought back and that maybe that was not the intention of
00:43:32
the abductor now obviously we will never know that until this offender is apprehended and if they choose to tell
00:43:40
us what their motives and motivations were but that's always been my thought one hundred percent this was a sexually
00:43:47
motivated crime the other thing that comes into question here is not only how long was the body in the field but how
00:43:55
long was Amy kept alive if in fact the motivation for the abduction was sexual in nature and this offender went to all
00:44:05
of these high-risk activities to to abduct her it's thought that he would want to have spent some time with her so
00:44:16
one thing that we should point out based off of the autopsy information is that at some point Amy consumed what is I
00:44:26
believe it's listed as a soy-based protein product now that doesn't tell us exactly what she consumed obviously
00:44:35
right and again that might lead towards some of the decomposition that took place but there's been a lot of
00:44:42
speculation on this of what it could have been that she could have consumed the people that think that she may have
00:44:49
been killed very quickly after the abduction they point to the fact that she did have lunch at school that day
00:44:57
and according to renters book it was spaghetti there have been other people that have suggested that this type of
00:45:05
product that we found we find this to be very similar to what you might find on pepperoni pizza
00:45:13
and if that's the case then she consumed another meal after the abduction as far
00:45:19
as we know other people have pointed out that it could have been from something like Chinese food
00:45:25
so there there's a lot of thought there and a lot of speculation on how long she
00:45:31
was alive and captive but we have a pretty good idea of what she left school with like what she was wearing
00:45:39
very good very descriptive I mean from everything to her outfit to her jacket to her book bag some of the contents of
00:45:48
her book bag the type of shoes she was wearing she was wearing riding boots as well as the earrings that she was
00:45:55
wearing that is a huge factor in this case and I've actually always believed that this would be what would find and
00:46:04
hang the killer okay because some of these items that she left her home with that day the day she was taken some of
00:46:14
these items have never been they weren't recovered with her body and they've never been found since then so
00:46:20
let's go through that again real quick she was wearing a tutu simplify it she was wearing a green jogging outfit a
00:46:29
white nylon jacket and black ankle boots these are decorated boots with silver studs and she had on those turquoise
00:46:38
earrings these these earrings are shaped like a horse head she was also carrying a black leather
00:46:45
folder decorated with the buick three chevron logo with the words best-in-class embroidered on the front
00:46:52
so what we need to point out here where I said earlier she was found fully clothed than I and I said I'm using air
00:47:00
quotes there what was not found is her white nylon jacket her book bag the earrings the riding boots and the folder
00:47:12
the Buick folder those items were never found now what is interesting I think it was
00:47:18
in 1997 it was years years after the abduction in the murder of Amy maja Levesque
00:47:27
until they released that information you know they knew at the time these items are all missing the killer either kept
00:47:34
them on purpose or kept them on accident or they were discarded of elsewhere so the boots are missing and the earrings
00:47:42
are missing them boots earrings folder book bag and the nylon jacket so when they win the police and FBI present this
00:47:55
information to the public they come out and they say look these earrings were missing this folder was missing the
00:48:03
boots are missing what they purposely left out was the nylon jacket and the book bag right and it was it was bill
00:48:13
Huffman that asked the chief of police the current Chief of Police why did you not include that back in if it was 97
00:48:22
back in 97 when you release that information to the public and spatzle says that that's for good reason you
00:48:29
don't want to muddy the waters too much here because the nylon jacket that she was wearing is super common there's
00:48:35
thousands of them the book bag that is missing it's very again common there's thousands of them it's not unique it's
00:48:44
not specific to Amy what is unique and specific to Amy are these earrings these are like almost one-of-a-kind earrings
00:48:55
the boots they're riding boots anybody that rides horses they know that there's there are commonly made boots
00:49:03
mass-produced boots and then there are there are also some boots that are not common that are one-offs that are made
00:49:10
special these this would be a very uncommon item especially for a young girl you would expect most to be wearing
00:49:19
you know tennis shoes right but this makes me think that the person that took her knew that these items were
00:49:27
indicators and what I mean by that is maybe they worked at the place that she took riding lessons and so by taking
00:49:38
these items away maybe they would not know that she was wearing him that day but if she
00:49:44
was seen with that that maybe that would be a clue to lead them back to somebody
00:49:49
does that make sense yeah well yeah and the other thing too that was missing is that black leather folder decorated with
00:49:57
the Buick three chevron logo and the words best-in-class right this is embroidered this is not you know Trapper
00:50:04
Keeper this is not go to to Kroger or to CVS and pick up just any general folder
00:50:11
for my child to take to school right this is a very specific very unique folder this was actually something that
00:50:19
was made by Buick remember mark is employed by Buick at the time this is something he received at work there's
00:50:27
not a lot of them it's awfully fancy and he gives it to his daughter to use for school so the thing that the police
00:50:36
pointed out when they come out with this news conference is they say everyone out
00:50:43
there look at these items look at the earrings look at the riding boots look at the black folder any of these items
00:50:51
if you know someone then it has one two or all three of these items we want to talk to you because we want to talk to
00:50:59
them that was something that I personally thought at the time when they came out with that information I thought
00:51:08
it might not be long it might not be long until they find out who killed Amy but these items are obviously items that
00:51:16
are easily to discard but you also just wonder with the weird connection with this case if if this person was obsessed
00:51:27
with Amy on some level that you would I would assume that they would keep these items at least a few of them or yeah or
00:51:37
maybe even just one it's not terribly uncommon one for particularly serial killers and I don't know that we are
00:51:45
dealing with a serial killer here it could be some type of serial offender but it's not uncommon for them to keep
00:51:53
trophies or ways of remembering their victim or victims so that's one possibility the
00:52:01
that the killer is actually you know with with thought and effort hanging on to these items that is a possibility
00:52:11
and then like you said it's also a possibility that they transported the body and then just discarded of these
00:52:18
items simply by throwing them in the trash right and maybe they also thought that this would be a way to identify her
00:52:25
faster yeah and the thing too is see that I thought about that for a long time and question that myself I really
00:52:33
think that I don't see any effort made on behalf of the killer to slow down identifying the body of being that of a
00:52:44
Mima holodeck you know we don't have fingers removed the head removed we don't have the body being buried right
00:52:51
but we have a long period of decomposition so you wonder if she was somewhere else he let her sit there long
00:53:01
enough so the decomposition process is further along and then he discards of her right but it I mean it was no
00:53:10
trouble to identify it the body as being hers right right personally I think that
00:53:16
if there was if what they were worried about her being identified as Amy Mahalo vaq as the victim that he abducted if
00:53:26
that was truly what they were worried about I think that this individual would have buried her somewhere and
00:53:32
unfortunately well fortunately he did not because unfortunately had he done that there's a chance she may have never
00:53:41
been found and then that's a whole new set of problems and issues for the case the
00:53:48
other thing too that I should point out is and I think this is a big reason why not only do you know anybody that has
00:53:55
these items that we're missing from Amy not only does that mean the killer but could the killer have give given any of
00:54:04
these items away right you know when we talked about the Green River Hillar Gary Ridgway he he'd get these
00:54:12
victims he would take jewelry or other small items from them and he would sell them at his garage sales or give them to
00:54:19
co-workers or to his wife and say hey I bought you something or hey I found something for you barn we both believe
00:54:26
that these are sexually motivated it's a sexually motivated crime and we both believe that this perpetrator would not
00:54:34
stop trying to MIT to commit these sexual crimes to molest or rape young females so these could be gifts as part
00:54:46
of the grooming process mm-hmm to other victims yeah I don't know how many times
00:54:52
this offender has offended let's say but I don't believe this was his first attempt at doing so Amy was not his
00:55:01
first attempt at doing so and if in fact he did not intend to kill her and it went that way it went very wrong for him
00:55:08
there is a chance be a very very small chance in my opinion yeah then it was enough to scare him off of
00:55:17
this for good but I don't think that that's the situation I think this individual probably attempted to offend
00:55:26
again but making sure that they the murder wouldn't be the end result so that is what was not found but there was
00:55:35
an update about what was found at the place that she was left okay so this update took place June 23rd in 2016 I
00:55:48
know you and I spoke about this on Mike somewhere right did we do that on off-the-record I believe so okay so
00:55:55
let's go through this real quick on June 23rd 2016 Bay Village police chief mark
00:56:02
special Cuyahoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty and FBI agent Phil tours knee held a press conference in which they
00:56:12
presented never-before-seen evidence in hopes that it could refresh someone's memory the evidence was a handmade
00:56:20
curtain and blanket that had been discovered near Amy's body when the items were tested for DNA or
00:56:27
fingerprints canine hairs that matched Amy's dog Jake were found on both items indicating that his hair the dog's hair
00:56:37
had been transferred from Amy's clothing to the curtain and blanket when Amy was
00:56:43
found she had not been draped in either item leading investigators to believe that the curtain and blanket had most
00:56:49
likely come from the location where she was murdered it is theorized that she may have been wrapped in them to conceal
00:56:57
her body while her killer transported her to County Road 1181 identifying the curtain and blanket could lead
00:57:06
investigators to the scene where she was killed at the same press conference it was also revealed that the reward fund
00:57:14
for any information leading to the arrest of Amy's killer was now up to fifty thousand dollars now I think when
00:57:21
we spoke on record or off the record or wherever it was then I I expressed some anger and disappointment to the
00:57:33
investigators and the investigation of Amy's abduction and murder and I said that because I was I was frustrated at
00:57:42
the time I was happy to learn about the new information but I was frustrated to learn that 26 years later hey does
00:57:50
anybody know where this curtain came from or this blanket came from because we now we believe it's connected to her
00:57:57
murder yeah and the fact that they were custom made yes these are handmade items
00:58:02
to me they actually look like they were an item that served a purpose at one time and were repurposed repurposed
00:58:11
reconfigure ated in a way to serve a different purpose later and yes very likely if they found hairs
00:58:20
Amy's dog's hair on these items then they are connected to Amy they are connected to her murder I do want to
00:58:29
clear something up and this adds to the defense of law enforcement and not to my own defense but I'll a
00:58:38
screw you yeah screw you NIC I later learned that the reason why they waited so long to
00:58:45
release this information is that for many many many of those years I don't know how long but for a good majority of
00:58:54
that time they did not know that they were connected to AMI right it was found yes they were found
00:59:01
close to her she wasn't found wrapped up in these items it wasn't obvious that they were connected to her it was only
00:59:08
through finding those hairs on these items that they were in fact connected to her into her case so but but that
00:59:17
tells us something right because it tells us a lot but I want to I want to go through this just real quick before
00:59:22
you jump in with that idea later when I was reviewing some of my stuff that I've
00:59:27
collected over the years on Amy's case I found newspaper clippings where the investigators that responded to the call
00:59:36
about the body being found in the field you can see pictures of them in the newspaper where they are carrying trash
00:59:43
bags full of items so again this is not through a lack of effort on anyone's part in the investigation so I'm kind of
00:59:53
slapping myself here for expressing some anger toward that notion what they did was they collected just about any item
01:00:03
that they found within a half-mile radius of her body this would have been everything from people you know from
01:00:09
terrible worthless people that throw trash out their car windows to cigarette butts beer cans beer bottles anything
01:00:19
that was just flying around flapping in the wind blowing around in that field out there they collected all of those
01:00:26
items and the way that it works is back then keep in mind this is 89 this is 1990 they can only they were had to send
01:00:34
items off to the FBI for testing and the FBI of course they're not this is in its
01:00:41
infancy this kind of technology the FBI saying you can't send us a whole u-haul truckload full of
01:00:49
trash bags full of stuff that you found at the scene right we can't test all that stuff send us what you think is
01:00:55
connected first we'll test that we will come back to you with the results then later you can send us some more and you
01:01:02
can send us some more I actually I have heard this I obviously don't know if it's true or not but I believe that the
01:01:11
curtain and/or the blanket may have been found anywhere from a hundred feet to a
01:01:16
hundred yards away from her body so if if you just take the most simplest idea of investigating and deducing what items
01:01:26
are more likely to be connected to Amy then items that are less likely to be connected to her body you start with the
01:01:34
stuff that you find closest to her so you know I'm just kind of I wanted to throw that out there to admit that I was
01:01:42
wrong I admit that I was wrong there yeah I don't know she had to be transported somehow and and that could
01:01:52
have just been the murderer carrying her but but back to my point there's not much there would be no sign
01:02:03
of blood on these curtains correct it does not appear to be that way and they've never stated so if they did find
01:02:11
blood on them or anything they thought to be blood they probably would have these items would have been sent much
01:02:18
earlier right testing so what this can tell us is okay the what we actually know here 100% is Amy's body and/or
01:02:30
clothing came in contact with these two items at some point so she was either had either laid on them been wrapped in
01:02:40
them or concealed in them or all three at some point during the course in which she was held before the body is placed
01:02:48
in that field the thing is with there being no blood on it it would point more towards that these items while they may
01:02:59
have been in the general vicinity of where she was attacked and killed these items likely were not applied to
01:03:05
her body or clothing until the bleeding had stopped right to put it as you know plain as simple as we can yeah or and so
01:03:14
I think it's it's likely that these two items were used for one or two purposes one transporting the body and maybe
01:03:25
concealing the body in the field because keep in mind if she was out there for close to 100 days or about 100 days that
01:03:36
body was not spotted by anybody so these items are not really more any wonder because it is a pretty open field at
01:03:46
that point it makes me wonder if if people actually saw this when they're driving by and they just didn't stop
01:03:53
because it didn't look like anything recognizable at the time or or if she just wasn't out there that long well
01:04:02
that's something and that we can really dive into in the next part here but that
01:04:08
that is a good question that's something interesting to think of [Music] it's important to feel safe at home
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