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[Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you were doing thanks
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for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man whose bologna has a first name its OS c AR he is the
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captain yeah you're blown has a first name it's tu Rd thanks for listening Diggs for
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more spot on this is a dry hopped hazy IPA that is super flavorful and highly drinkable because of the tropical
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flavors of pineapple and mango garage grade four and a quarter bottle caps out of five and how about some thanks and
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Bellaire Texas the Prince of Bel Air mm-hmm next up we have Meghan and Seattle Washington and a
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all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
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[Music] [Music] KCRG tv9 Julian Petrus joins us now Julian you were in Evansdale for today's
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news conference not a lot of new information that came out for today but the main theme going into Monday is that
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this case is now being treated as an abduction it is christen authorities say they have
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hard strong evidence and gives them reason to believe that the girls were taken and that they are still alive
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but the FBI cannot say much more beyond that information what the FBI is saying is every little detail counts that's why
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investigators are asking for anyone who visited Myers Lake on Friday the 13th before three o'clock in the afternoon to
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contact police even if you think you didn't see anything what you think you don't know might end up bringing these
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girls home investigators say they need to know everything that happened near Myers Lake before 3 p.m. on Friday the
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13th even if you think that you don't have any information that's important to this case investigators want to talk to
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you federal authorities tell us a man recently told them he caught a glimpse of the girls bikes while jogging around
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the lake he didn't see the girls but the information helped narrow down a timeline for their disappearance he was
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able to pinpoint the time of the day that he saw the bikes small details of it like this are really important to the
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investigation we're told authorities don't want people to feel like they're bothering
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investigators they tell us they are well equipped to handle the search there is enough manpower to cover all the the
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tips which may lead to good leads are good information the tip lines are reportedly receiving several calls an
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hour about the missing girls investigators say they need the phones to keep ringing someone may have been
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out there taking pictures of you know bird-watching or something and they may not think that's relevant but we just
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asked for them to call and and we can talk to them ask for specific details surrounding the investigation I can't
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answer that I can't comment I can't answer that I can't answer that right and I I can't answer that all
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authorities can tell us is they feel confident the girls are alive and to not give up hope for safe return
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some of the details the investigators cannot tell us involved questions surrounding the families whether or not
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they have any suspects or if any search warrants have been issued and of course they could not share with us what
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information is leading them to believe these girls are still alive all of this authorities say might hurt their
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investigation [Music] in the summer of 2012 Elizabeth Collins lived with her parents and siblings in
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Evansdale Iowa this is a small Midwestern town of 4700 residents that is a suburb of the much larger Waterloo
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Cedar Falls metropolitan area Evansdale is a blue-collar town many residents are
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involved in agriculture production in some manner elizabeth attended pointer elementary and was described by her
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mother as a bubbly little person who was always active and busy she was 8 years old and loved girly stuff like having
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her nails done but also playing softball and hockey and riding her bike one of her best friends was her cousin lyric
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cook aged 10 who lived just minutes away in Waterloo lyric went to Kingsley Elementary and also was a very active
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outgoing girl who loved bowling cheerleading gymnastics and just being outside in general well it's great when
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one of your best friends can be a family member as well and their mothers are sisters that's correct we have lyric and
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Elizabeth's mothers are misty cook and Heather Collins and Heather and her husband Drew Collins they seem to be
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like your very typical American family they're hardworking people religious their parents just raising a bunch of
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children really and Heather had her hands full as they had several young kids but she also had some undisclosed
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health issues around this time as well so her mother Wilma would come over for about 4 or 5 hours almost daily to help
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out around the house and help with the children Heather's sister misty was also married to a man named Dan Morrissey but
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in 2012 misty and Dan were estranged and had been separated for years in fact Dan
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was out on bail pending trial for four separate criminal cases this from 2011 which included assaulting misty and
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significant drug charges including manufacturing meth yeah he's a real winner winner chicken did
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he's yeah well he went into the meth manufacturing industry now misty back in 2003 she got into trouble as well.this
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for drug charges to which she pled guilty and was released in 2006 in July of 2012 when
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our story takes place she was still on federal supervised release at that time misty and Dan's daughter lyric lived
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with misty and Heather's mom Wilma cook so Wilma cook grandma is helping out quite a bit with both families lyric
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lived in Waterloo at Wilma's house and Wilma had permanent custody of lyric lyric and her cousin Elizabeth played
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together nearly every day now keep in mind because she's living with grandmother grandmothers going over to
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help out at her cousin's house almost daily she brings her along the cousins all play together right but it's also a
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way to help her out yeah so on Friday the 13th this is July 13 2012 misty cook Morrissey was staying with her mom Wilma
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and her daughter lyric in Waterloo she left for work that day at 8:30 a.m. this was a new job at a gas station slash
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convenience store called Casey's and it sounds to me captain like Casey's was a popular chain with several locations
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misty worked at one which was about two miles away from the Collinses house in Evansdale so keep in mind she's not very
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far away when we're talking about being gone at work now after misty left Wilma took lyric over to the Collinses
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house both Heather and drew Collins were going to be gone for the day so grandma
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Wilma was going to be watching the kids in brought lyric with her as usual lyric
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and Elizabeth set off around 11:30 a.m. for a bike ride now this was something that they typically did I mean this was
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very routine stuff here and the girls were expected to stay within a short distance of the house their unsupervised
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but they're not to be venturing off very far from the home Ram although it does not seem that there were any like real
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specific rules it's just kind of these understood rules from Grandma to to the grandkids they always stayed according
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to grandma and the parents the kids always stayed within yelling distance and would check in about every 15
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minutes or so people were probably thinking back to their neighborhoods growing up I remember I thought it was
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neat one of my neighbors growing up they had like what I would call dinner bell but you know they didn't use it just for
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dinner but anytime the kids were out playing they wouldn't shout for them they would ring the bell and the kids
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would come in this situation lyric and Elizabeth if grandma or mom or dad came outside they're out on their bikes keep
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in mind they're supposed to be within yelling distance she shout their names boom they come riding right back to the
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house often Elizabeth's older brother his name is Kelly he was 12 at this time he would
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typically go with them but not on this day and at some point Heather returned to the house the exact timing of this is
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in dispute and some interviews heather says it was around noon but Wilma has said that Heather came home closer to
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12:30 so a discrepancy in time but they're not they're not off big time so most an hour after the girls left
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correct it has been reported consistently that Wilma told police that she saw the girls zipping by on their
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bikes around 12:15 and that Heather was not home at this time or had not returned to the house at that time
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so by this timeline the girls were last seen by a family member at 12:15 and Heather arrived home shortly after that
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the girls were to be back at the house shortly after Heather had returned so for argument's sake captain we're going
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to say like 12:30 to 1:00 p.m. ish is when the girls were were to return to the house
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so at 1 p.m. ish hether set out with her older son remember this is Kelly the 12
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year old to scout the area they were looking for the girls to tell them hey it's time to come home but he returned
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home reporting that he could not find them anywhere and at this point drew stopped home the the father which
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he often did during his workday you know he would come home maybe for lunch Heather told him that she was going out
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to look for the girls and she got in her car this is at 1:20 p.m. and started driving around the neighborhood by 2:00
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p.m. we have five adult family members all out looking for these two girls so very quick to react misty lyrics mother
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says Wilma called her at work around 2 p.m. to tell her that they could not find the two girls misty called her ex
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dan Morrissey who was living in Waterloo dan and his mother and his 15 year old son they all drove to Evansdale to help
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look for the girls so now we got a small army of people looking for the girls misty left work and went over to her
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sister's house remembers just a short distance away by 2:30 all of these adults and some children are all out
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driving all over Evansdale looking for the two girls at some point somehow they ended up at this place called meyers
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lake this was around 2:45 they started asking people whether they had seen two little girls on bikes one man walking on
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the trail told them he did see two little girls on bikes going west on the bike trail but the time was unclear he
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you know I saw them I don't know exactly what time I saw them meanwhile Heather went to the Evansdale Police Department
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most reports have the time of her in-person visit to the Evansdale Police Department at 2:48 p.m. according to the
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Waterloo Cedar Falls courier which we relied on extensively for research on this case quote within
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minutes of authorities learning of the disappearance of lyric cook Morrissey and Elizabeth Collins three Evansdale
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squad cars were scouring the area in checking the home within half an hour the search mushroomed with four
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Blackhawk sheriff's deputies and Evansdale firefighters joining in on the efforts and now you might have noticed
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in there that they said checking the home and that might sound weird to some people but you would be shocked how
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often a child is reported missing and then they find a kid inside the home mm-hmm you know the kid is hiding the
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kid fell asleep somewhere and you just you thought they were outside and overlooked them it can be embarrassing
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but obviously that's what you want to happen when you call and you're begging for help because you can't find your
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children you want some stupid answer to be the solution to the problem that is not the case here one sometimes kids
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want to hide to scare their family oh well we'll hide and we'll be in the closet and when they call for us I'll
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just don't come well there's some bad news here captain because around 4:00 p.m. a firefighter found the girls bikes
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this is a bad sign lying on the Evansdale Nature Trail at Meijer Lake the bikes were lying on the
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paved bike trail at the far southeastern corner of the lake now Meijer lake covers 27 acres with water and is about
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25 feet deep at its deepest parts the lake is a major recreation area for the people of Evansdale it is stocked with
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fish it has a boat ramp there's bathrooms there a playground picnic areas grills that paved bike
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paths that we talked about the payback bike path winds its way around three-quarters of the way around the
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lake so this is a fairly big bike path right a little bit of a discussion about geography I think is an order here the
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Collinses lived at 166 Brava Boulevard in Evansdale the distance from the Collinses house on on Bravo
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Boulevard to Meijer Lake is only 1.5 miles the Evansdale Nature Trail on which the
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girls bikes were found starts at Lafayette Road in downtown Evansdale this is just a block away from the
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Collinses house right the trail then runs south past the skate park and crosses Arbutus Avenue then the trail
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turns west through a short wooded area and leads to Myers Lake the trail follows the southern shore of the lake
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and as said runs three-quarters of the way around the lake so on a map this portion of the trail would look like a
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like a sideways u ending at Elmer Avenue on the lakes of north side there is an offshoot of the trail that goes straight
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north and then connects with Gilbert Avenue right near the advanced automotive store the the trail then runs
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back east along gilbert drive and reconnects up with the north / south portion of the trail through downtown I
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know that sounds all very confusing to listen to and kind of go through there are maps that are regularly available on
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if you a simple google search use with our two victims names and if you just type in map with that it will bring it
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up and it will also the maps that I saw clearly indicate where their home is as well as where the bikes were found just
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like we pointed out in the Delphi case because of where those bodies were found the moanin high bridge area the
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recreation area I think it's very important if you want to have a clearer understanding of this case and maybe the
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possible theories or outcomes the did you take a look at these at this map but what you're saying is that this path
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goes through town it's not secluded from town right so most of the locations of this trail you would expect to see other
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people there you know Myers Lake is heavily trafficked there's lots of people in and out of there all the time
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it's a big recreational area the trail as you just said captain does go through town I did want to point out how close
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one portion of the trail is to the Collinses home because the argument here is where the bikes were found is a
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distance away from the home that the parents said they would have never the girls would have never have gone there
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they never had known them to go there to travel that far or to even trial though
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to Myers lake now could they have everyday these kids are getting older they get a little more adventurous
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certainly but the parents really questioned why and how the bikes were found in this area so there are a few
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areas along the trail where a vehicle could park close to the trail there are some areas that are wooded so there are
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a couple of secluded spots along the way the girls bikes were found on Evansdale
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on the nature trail right at the southeastern tip of the lake along a line of chain-link fence this portion of
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the trail runs near I 380 so this is a major roadway but from my understanding and in the way that it appears to me on
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the map captain it would be difficult for somebody to park alongside a 380 venture up to where the bikes were found
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snatch the girls and then bring them back to their vehicle that would be very difficult there was a hole in this chain
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link events so you don't have to get out of the car is that you have to get the victims to come closer to the car that
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would that would be true I don't know why the girls would venture beyond that chain-link fence down to a major roadway
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it just doesn't seem like I'm not saying it couldn't happen it doesn't seem like
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a likely scenario we also don't have anybody coming forward saying hey I saw a vehicle
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parked on the side of a 380 what is interesting though this area where the bikes were found is right by a
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maintenance gate that leads to a water outlet on the lake this gate is not a locked gate photos show that this area
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of the paved nature trail is straight with the fence on both sides and the trees are overhead it has like almost
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like a tunnel appearance according to the girl's family the bikes were about 12 feet from the edge of the water on
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the trail and investigators also found Elizabeth's purple purse and cellphone now note this phone did not have service
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it was just it was a real cell phone but she just used it for like games and to play on right the purse and cell phone
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were thrown over the fence onto the lakeside now here's how it was described on Nancy Grace's show by her reporter
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Jim Spellman he says it's a densely wooded area with freeway on one side a fence which he says is a pretty tall
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fence then the bike paths then another fence and then the water the girls bikes were found on the bike path between the
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two fences and the purse was found on the lake side of the trail between the fence in the shoreline so that's where
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the big question is what were the girls bikes doing by Myers lake anyway as we pointed out this is not exactly close to
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their home well the big cause for concern for me is we got these missing girls but it's not just the bikes if we
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have the bikes somewhere you go okay well maybe they ran into somebody somebody stole the bikes or maybe they
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had left the bikes behind they went somewhere else but right when you see that person that cellphone even though
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like you said it's not a working cell phone you go okay that's that's cause for alarm yeah this this is not
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something that the girls would have ditched even if they would have ditched their bikes for some reason which would
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be strange but to get rid of the purse in the this cellphone seems not likely at all
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now this Lake is not a swimming lake I do want to point that out because they're the first suspicion by law
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enforcement and by firefighters was because of where the bikes were found maybe these girls drown in the lake the
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parents were quick to point out look both of them can swim and swim very well right they agree that of course yeah we
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got it we got to check this out but they kept pointing out they didn't seem to think that that would be very likely and
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then you take that a step further if there was some type of accident one of them drowned that's one person we have
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two missing children here so there's no sign of the girls there's no sign of the
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clothing that they were wearing at the time including their shoes all of this is missing so that's the another thing
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that the family points out that they would expect to see the shoes of these girls near the shoreline had they chose
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to get in the water for some reason well I'm back to the purse though if if you were meeting up with somebody you knew
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or got into a car with somebody you knew you would take your purse true and the other thing that really scares me is the
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it always scares me with the leaving of the bikes because I just think back to my childhood that's not something that I
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would have done I was always worried somebody was gonna take my bike so I I feel like if you're out and about and
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your kids most the time you're going to use that bike to get yourself around when you
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have a My Little Pony bike that's meant I mean you're going to be nervous that somebody's gonna steal it this is all
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stuff that was reported in the newspaper so other than the bikes the purse in the
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phone that was all found at this location if anything else was located there by police or firefighters it has
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never been disclosed to the public the following timeline was provided to the media by Kent smock who at the time was
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the police chief of Evansdale he says by 4:40 p.m. on Friday the 13th emergency calls went out to Evansdale residents to
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notify them of the missing girls officers began canvassing the lake neighborhoods and the media was
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notified by 5:30 p.m. boats were put into the water on Meyers Lake to begin scanning the surface and divers with a
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local search and rescue organization were called in to search the lake surrounding city police and firefighters
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Black Hawk County sheriff's deputies and Iowa State Police joined Evansdale PD in
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searching wooded areas a plane with special infrared was brought in to search from the air and the National
00:27:06
Center for Missing and Exploited Children was notified of the girl's disappearance by 8:00 p.m.
00:27:13
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cheers to you mr. captain the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children had a representative on the
00:30:12
ground in Evansdale by the next morning this person began emailing and faxing photos of the girls to businesses truck
00:30:20
stops and retail locations within a 100-mile radius the Iowa Division of Criminal
00:30:28
Investigation DCI and FBI both arrived and began interviewing people as well as looking into registered sex offenders in
00:30:38
the area 30 FBI agents and 15 DCI agents joined this search the FBI's child abduction response team was also on site
00:30:50
a nearby creek surrounding woods and a city campground were all searched in the coming days these twelve mile radius
00:31:01
large-scale searches included cornfields and farmland rivers ponds abandoned buildings wooded areas and other public
00:31:10
places cars were stopped at police checkpoints in the days after the disappearance searching car trunks and
00:31:18
asking drivers to be on the lookout for the girls all dumpsters were searched and the Black Hawk County landfill was
00:31:27
instructed to set aside trash collected from Evansdale for two full weeks for a full week the nearly round-the-clock
00:31:37
searches interviews evidence collection and information gathering proceeded full
00:31:43
steam ahead this is a large effort and it appears to be a well-oiled machine everybody acting in unison looking for
00:31:54
these girls well they did a lot of extensive searches on the actual lake yes they did and in fact just within
00:32:04
hours of the girls bikes being found the order was given to drag the lake and after two days of dragging nothing was
00:32:12
found but in skaters decided it was in their best interest to actually drain the lake to
00:32:17
be sure that they weren't missing anything yeah they didn't drain it completely but they drained it enough to
00:32:23
help the search but nothing was found and unfortunately the families both families very early on believed that the
00:32:31
girls had been abducted on the 17th FBI bloodhounds were brought in to track the girls scent police refused to
00:32:42
comment on the dog's findings but a family member said on Nancy Grace quote I watched the bloodhounds continue on
00:32:50
into this dense forest area which is about 400 yards I watched them go into that area and they positively identified
00:33:01
both girls were at that location if you continue on down the bike trail east there is about approximately 400 acres
00:33:10
of forest dense forest to the left side and that is where the dogs continued on to and picked up the the girls sense and
00:33:21
that's kind of where it went cold for the dogs that is where the investigator stopped according to this family member
00:33:30
beau again that doesn't make a lot of sense to me because if you have these two children let's just say they're
00:33:35
gonna put their bikes down and go into the woods why wouldn't you take your purse with you yeah that you think that
00:33:43
would be something that the girls would take with them it's very difficult because both of these locations one
00:33:51
where the bike is found in - - where the the scent is found located of both girls
00:33:56
are believed to be anyway these aren't ideal locations for grabbing a child and pulling them into your vehicle they're
00:34:05
just they're just not and so it's difficult and you know I've jokingly said this several times before but
00:34:11
unfortunately the dogs can't talk so we don't know exactly what it is that they believe they were hitting on now we did
00:34:18
see I saw a video footage of them having them sniffed the girl's shoes some other
00:34:25
pairs of the girl shoes so that's what they were trying to trace but right we obviously can't
00:34:31
confirm that that's what was actually going on because it seems that it seems to be a weird location right like you
00:34:38
remove if you're the abductor you remove them from their bikes or they get off their bikes on their own and then they
00:34:43
go out into the middle of this wooded area and then they just vanish into thin air right so an FBI spokeswoman said
00:34:50
that the dogs detection of the girls sense indicated a strong possibility that was her exact where it's strong
00:34:57
possibility that the girls had been there meaning that it was likely that the girls had been on the scene at the
00:35:05
lake rather than their bikes and possessions being planted there by their abductor the bikes were processed for
00:35:12
prints and other evidence but police will not say if anything was found police quickly started the
00:35:21
time-consuming task of interviewing all of the family members the family was initially completely cooperative with
00:35:29
police investigators were granted permission by both families to search any of the houses that they were living
00:35:36
in or had lived in without having to obtain a search warrant but we have two different families basically we have one
00:35:44
family that seems to be doing the right thing and upstanding citizens and and then the other family that seems to be
00:35:53
getting into a lot of trouble - two of the parents on the one side yes struggling with some drug issues yeah
00:36:00
they did take some of their computers their cell phones were searched but as police dug deeper they could not ignore
00:36:09
the criminal past of both misty and Dan remember Dan was a big-time meth manufacturer and dealer yeah and that
00:36:19
puts him around the cast of characters that that could be harmful to his family if he owes somebody money if he sold bad
00:36:28
drugs to them this could put his family into danger yes and this is seeming like
00:36:35
a likely scenario to police remember he's out on bail when the girls went missing well he's a real piece of
00:36:43
[ __ ] on the day before the girls disappeared dan appeared in court and instead of taking a plea I believe that
00:36:51
everybody assumed he was going to be taking a plea at that time but instead Dan opted to proceed with an actual
00:36:58
trial dan and misty put on a united front at this time holding hands and even staying together in a motel rather
00:37:07
than going to their respective homes this is also believed to be to avoid the media this despite the restraining order
00:37:17
misty had against Dan and the fact that they had been separated for years the two went along with the investigation
00:37:25
for the first few days but then things changed it seems that Evansdale police suspected
00:37:32
that Dan was either capable of harming his daughter and niece or at the very least he might know who was responsible
00:37:40
in fact according to his sister-in-law Tammy who spoke with ABC News she says quote they have accused him they told
00:37:49
him they had proof that he did it and quote there was also a report that Dan abruptly ended a police polygraph
00:37:58
session after investigators accused him of injuring the girls and knowing where they were after this debacle Dan and
00:38:06
Misty hired an attorney and this attorney advised them to stop talking to police or the media yeah but think about
00:38:13
how shady that is we're asking you a bunch of questions we're doing a polygraph one of the questions are gonna
00:38:21
be did you hurt these girls or any know who hurt the girls and you then stopped the tests you knew these questions were
00:38:30
coming and you then stopped the tests all this is [ __ ] you're gonna ask me questions like this
00:38:36
I mean that that just comes off that's very shady to me it does come off as shady it's also I mean it's just
00:38:43
difficult with what these people are going through and then you feel like you're being accused some people it is a
00:38:50
natural reaction to kind of fly off the handle and react to that it's difficult man hey this this
00:38:57
whole thing is I understand that it's difficult but it's it's the parents that say we're people involved in missing
00:39:03
person cases that say look I understand that because I was close to this individual I am going to be looked at
00:39:10
look at me as hard and fast as you want to get to other actual options because I
00:39:19
know I didn't do anything yeah I mean so I understand it's difficult but if you really want to help the situation but I
00:39:27
think you're gonna see time and time again that this individual is is about himself preserving himself well what you
00:39:38
are a level-headed person and what you're talking about is don't make fun of my head is a
00:39:44
thought out good decision what we have here is a man who has shown a history of making bad decisions so well he also
00:39:53
claims that once that she went missing he started to hidden he took back to meth pretty hard during this time on
00:40:01
Tuesday the 17th chief deputy Rick Abin of the Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office held a press
00:40:09
conference saying that authorities had been grasping for straws in their search for the girls but it was as if they had
00:40:17
just disappeared into thin air he said quote it wouldn't be proper for me to stand here and tell you we have a theory
00:40:24
because we don't he goes on to say we have two missing girls and we have no idea why he stated we have no reason to
00:40:32
believe there was any foul play at this time and he also said everyone is a suspect until we find something
00:40:39
no now what's your thought on press conferences like this because sometimes they come out and they tell people we
00:40:46
know nothing we have no theory and it's almost like a plea for help and then sometimes I think
00:40:54
even when they don't have anything they come out and they come out a little more
00:40:58
confident if you're leading an investigation like this what do you think your tactic would be well I would
00:41:05
be look I believe you need to strategize really with your delivery of anything to
00:41:11
the public especially if you have things that you're working on if you have leads
00:41:15
in this investigation or suspicions if you don't have leads or suspicions then I would go the route of being as candid
00:41:23
as possible and telling the public we don't know anything I don't think it's it's any kind of downfall I actually
00:41:29
think that it's a it's a good smart move to say hey we don't know anything because we've seen this look we're we're
00:41:36
four days into the search for these girls now we've seen how the rumor mill starts to go where people people sitting
00:41:43
in bars are sitting at work or talking to one another in town are saying oh yeah the I heard they found those girls
00:41:50
or oh yeah and you start getting all this bad information that swirls around in the community and they need the
00:41:58
public to know we don't know where they are and we don't have a lead so if you know something or even if you just think
00:42:05
you saw anything at all that you questioned and it has nothing to do with the girls let us know we're grasping at
00:42:11
straws let's talk about the last known sightings of the girls this on Friday the 13th remember the girl's grandmother
00:42:20
Wilma cook last saw the girls riding their bikes behind Linderman's big and tall this is located at 35 24 Lafayette
00:42:29
Road at about 12:15 p.m. the rear of the Collinses house looked out through a gap
00:42:36
in the buildings on the block behind so she would have been able to see the girls riding their bikes on Lafayette
00:42:44
Road from the Collinses backyard surveillance camera footage from a business called corn belt auctions this
00:42:52
is located at 35 20 Lafayette Road captured the two on their bikes riding at 12 11 p.m. but wait and I hate to
00:43:02
chuckle during this but the business owner said that the cameras were about eight minutes behind making the sighting
00:43:10
more likely being at 12:19 p.m. look I just admire the business owner coming forward and saying we know that they're
00:43:17
behind we monitor it with the understanding that they're eight minutes behind but you know there
00:43:23
are eight mins behind when you fix them still we've been it we've been doing this for five years in the garage
00:43:29
captain and we are yet to have a surveillance camera footage that has the right time right it will never happen
00:43:36
and now makes me question every footage I've ever seen because even like with the valid with the Brian Schaeffer
00:43:42
footage a lot of people believe that was the correct time but now it makes me question that yeah to this point I need
00:43:50
proof you gotta prove to me that was the correct time often it is not yeah but and then they're going to take this
00:43:57
tactic because now hey we got video footage of the girls and we have other businesses that we can check
00:44:03
well what's cool about this is if you suspect anything going on from the grandmother or if anything weird may
00:44:10
have happened at the house you can verify that a portion of her story is absolutely correct right
00:44:16
you know I last saw them roughly at this time you can spin it a minute to of a minute or two forward or backwards but
00:44:24
all about that time is is happening what she said is happening we have video proof of that
00:44:30
now this location is just a block it's less than a block from the Collinses home the girls were biking in a
00:44:37
direction away from the lake at this time that the footage was shot brain according to Iowa cold cases org the
00:44:46
girls were next seen at 12:23 p.m. on Bravo Boulevard and then again sometime between 12:30 and 1:00 p.m. on Gilbert
00:44:54
Drive not far from Meyers Lake right book but there both times heading towards the direction of the lake on
00:45:03
these accounts they may have been but on the with on the video footage they're heading in the direction away from the
00:45:10
lake but I also want to be clear about this because we cannot confirm we cannot verify any of these last two sightings
00:45:20
and it does not seem to be and other reports about the case so I want to just make sure everybody knows that going
00:45:29
forward what we do have though is a man named Robert carpenter he's an Evansdale
00:45:35
resident who lived about two blocks from Myers Lake he came forward and told police he saw the girls while he was out
00:45:43
watering his yard they biked by him sometime between noon and 1:00 p.m. this is according to an
00:45:50
ABC article carpenter lives at 10:20 Lake Avenue if this is really was the girls riding by they were close to the
00:46:00
area where the bikes were eventually found right another witness Ted gammer dinger I apologized and said
00:46:09
but I that's how his name is spelled in my notes apologized to his family the Gama dingers are great people mm-hmm the
00:46:18
upstanding citizens of Iowa you have to be with a name like that well Ted G was what we're gonna go with he is living in
00:46:25
Waterloo he's a cyclist who often rode the Evansdale Nature Trail he is a good guy he goes to police and he says this
00:46:35
is when they're searching the woods along the trail he told them that he saw two kids bikes on the trail on Friday
00:46:44
the 13th but no sign of the girls so he sees the bikes but does not see the girls ring he said quote I saw the bikes
00:46:51
lying on the path and had to swerve to miss them he placed this time that he saw the bikes at approximately 12:20 on
00:47:01
a phone call he made to his daughter soon after at 12:27 so of course jammer dingers sighting and the surveillance
00:47:11
footage from the auction house cannot both have the times correct but we know that both could be askew a bit right
00:47:19
right the girls could not have been on Bravo Boulevard at 12:19 and then already have been abducted on the trail
00:47:27
and bikes left there at 12:20 p.m. it's just not physically possible now this next part has to be taken with a grain
00:47:34
of salt because it involves both Facebook post and unverified sightings of the girls one person posted that her
00:47:42
son a cashier at the fairway store on South Evans rohde he was questioned by police twice
00:47:50
this was because he told police he gave the girls directions to Meyers lake that
00:47:56
day his statements were supposedly backed up by a co-worker the Evansdale nature trail commences literally right
00:48:04
next to this grocery store on Lafayette Road and runs directly south to the lake
00:48:10
so this seems like a very likely possibility if this was the two girls we're looking for it makes sense that it
00:48:19
would be that they would be right at the at the fairway just a block and a half from home but it is perplexing that they
00:48:27
would be asking for directions to the lake they're so close to the lake they right because of a couple things they're
00:48:35
young so I believe that they may have needed or required directions to get to the lake if that's where they wanted to
00:48:42
go but again we still have grandma and mom and dad the responsible ones pointing out that the kids were not
00:48:50
allowed to go there it was too far from the house now you said that she had a cell phone the thing that I couldn't
00:48:56
find which maybe you found was any activity of the kids being involved with any social media because or any contacts
00:49:09
as far as like were they able to text people and the reason why I bring this up is because I really questioned when
00:49:17
the parents and the grandparents are saying hey this is not this is too far they won't have gone that far because
00:49:23
they only stayed within a distance that they would be able to hear us yell well the lake is too far from there
00:49:30
they're not going to be able to hear their their grandma yell right so why is there a reason they were going there was
00:49:38
there somebody that they're gonna meet up and and and so but I haven't heard anything of that I mean when you look at
00:49:48
like the Delphi case were or Brian Schaeffer case or any missing person case we normally have some kind of
00:49:56
record but they're normally older individuals well I'm glad you bring that up because
00:50:00
some stuff on web sluice which is quite interesting there's several sleuth errs on there that have theorized that lyric
00:50:09
so she's the older of the two right right she was hanging out with an older cousin the week before and seems to that
00:50:17
they got in trouble for coming home late so now thus Luther's are taking that a step further and saying could she being
00:50:25
the older one maybe she's more adventurous by this time is she the one pushing for the trip to the lake maybe
00:50:32
they're not meeting anybody there but maybe she thinks she's gonna get her you know I went there last week with my
00:50:38
older cousin right now I'm going to be the older cousin and take my younger cousin there for a quick trip to the
00:50:44
lake that's a good idea though I mean that's it's a plausible theory it is and the thing is too we don't have anybody
00:50:52
any friends coming forward saying hey I did I was going to meet them at the lake
00:50:57
which I think we would have considering that that they need all the help they can get looking for these two girls no
00:51:05
what I'm saying is like an online predator somebody oh yeah Laura can't fish yeah you know hey oh yeah you seem
00:51:13
like a nice person we meet in a chat room or something oh I know that Lake let's meet by that Lake I'd like to meet
00:51:20
you sometime yeah and if the girls didn't fully know or understand how far away the lake was there's a good chance
00:51:26
they thought maybe they could go there and make it back in time and not get into trouble with with mom and dad right
00:51:33
the other thing you have to consider and I know we've been kind of dancing around
00:51:37
this a little bit but but we like to dance the right the the truth of it is look whether or not the girls actually
00:51:46
even made it to the lake depends on how much faith you put in the tracking dogs right and we know that the bikes the
00:51:54
purse and the phone were found there but again looking at it on a map it to me it
00:52:00
seems like a strange place to abduct the children like what I can't shake captain
00:52:07
is the feeling is this where the bikes and the purse planted there or is this the site of the abduction
00:52:16
again it could be not far off they could have been abducted a couple blocks over
00:52:21
and and then this is where the the person decided to dump the bikes right so six days after the girls were last
00:52:30
seen police were still not calling the disappearance and abduction the day after the girls went missing Evansdale
00:52:36
police chief Kent smock told the media that the case was being treated as a suspicious disappearance media outlets
00:52:45
theorized that a double abduction one in which two girls were taken at once would
00:52:50
be very unlikely you and I have been doing this long enough we know that to be the case and police chief smock told
00:52:58
the media that this is so rare for an abductor to take two children at a time they weren't really working under that
00:53:05
abduction theory by this point but a week out on the 20th chief's mock his notes indicate quote focus turns fully
00:53:15
to abduction as other causes were eliminated I think this also has a lot to do with the lake you were talking
00:53:22
about the lake being searched dragged drained so on and so forth I think that that they wanted to fully eliminate that
00:53:29
before they went into full abduction yeah I mean FBI sends out special divers they clear the lake at that point I
00:53:40
think all roads point to something bad happen right now the other than a bad accident in the lake and this is where
00:53:49
things get sad because now we have a big shifting gears where we have the Sheriff's Office are saying some
00:53:56
evidence has been found we don't know what that is you and I cap them we don't know what that is but this these items
00:54:02
that they're calling evidence were sent to the DCI crime lab for analysis they go on to say if they meaning the girls
00:54:13
were lost in that area they would have been found by now so they've ruled out the lake they've
00:54:18
ruled out being lost in the area and the the officer goes on to reiterate that they had not cleared anyone
00:54:26
everyone is a suspect until we find these young girls he said and he announced that a $50,000 reward was
00:54:33
being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved with the abduction of the girls
00:54:41
but once a like you said they're kind of rolling out some stuff and that leads to
00:54:45
the idea that there these girls are probably abducted okay that's fair enough but they're also stating that we
00:54:53
believe that they're alive and so even though time is passing and days are passing it seems like law enforcement
00:55:01
it's like we're not and I don't know if they were just trying to be safe by that
00:55:07
but it seems like they had some kind of evidence that these girls were still alive that they were still alive or or
00:55:16
maybe that that's really interesting that you bring that out because I don't know what would give them the indication
00:55:24
that the girls would still be alive because we have the FBI spokeswoman saying this on Friday the 20th so a week
00:55:33
later right my my thought goes to they have no evidence that they're dead so we're gonna we're gonna stay on this
00:55:42
road of they're still alive now I don't know I didn't come across this in this investigation but I've seen it and other
00:55:49
investigations of abductions of adults and children especially children and especially when you get younger children
00:55:57
that law enforcement will come out and say we believe them to still be alive and then they will show the grieving
00:56:04
parents crying on TV and saying just drop them off at some public place and drive away right and so maybe this is
00:56:14
part of a plea to get somebody not to do something stupid often you you want to be reminding the
00:56:20
offender yes you may have abducted these two girls but it doesn't have to get worse than this yeah but what's the
00:56:27
likelihood I mean is it more likely that a child would be abducted and within 48
00:56:33
hours they're probably dead unfortunately the statistics tell us that within two hours most of them are
00:56:39
dead right if they're abduct by a stranger and that's what I want to know why is law enforcement a week later
00:56:44
saying and then the FBI is saying week later they have something they had to cut have some nation they could have
00:56:53
something but I I have often heard law enforcement officials say until we have proof that that the person is damn then
00:57:01
we're we're sticking with we are searching for a live person on the 23rd of July so we are ten days after the
00:57:10
girls vanished BCSO captain Rick Abin said that the couple's refusal meaning Dan and Misti
00:57:21
refusal to talk to police has been a problematic he goes on to say quote it's a distraction for us and why they wish
00:57:28
to do that I don't know Abin said we're asking for 100% cooperation why they don't want to do
00:57:37
that I have no idea what is going on here according to CNN both misty and Dan passed polygraph exams and police
00:57:47
cleared them based on this and their alibis misty was at work and Dan was at home with his son and this is backed up
00:57:54
by his mother it seems that police might have had a working theory that we've kind of talked
00:58:01
about a bit that the disc the abduction of the girls was somehow related to Dan's drug connections the aunt of the
00:58:10
girls Tammy this is the sister-in-law said quote the children weren't exposed to those people they were pretty much
00:58:18
for the most part kept away from there and quote but that didn't stop the rumors from flying that maybe the girls
00:58:25
were taken by someone connected to Dan someone involved in his shady drug underworld as you pointed out maybe it's
00:58:33
somebody that he wronged that he owes money to the Daily Mail said that the girls could have been abducted by drug
00:58:42
dealers as payback for Dan's snitching remember it was believed that he was going to work out a plea deal on all
00:58:49
those drug charges for that trial that was going on right around the same time that the girls went missing right
00:58:55
the mail article said that Wilma told them it's possible her son-in-law made an enemy through his cooperation with
00:59:04
police many were wondering about Dan suddenly deciding to go forward with a trial
00:59:10
where he's going to face many years in prison rather than taking the plea deal the day before the girls were taken this
00:59:19
could be seen as suspicious Black Hawk County Sheriff Tony Thompson said quote we're not ruling anything out with
00:59:27
regard to the investigation to include Daniel Morrissey's criminal history his known associates any prior or future
00:59:35
criminal activities now although Dan himself was not considered a suspect and this was the police's very words not
00:59:44
considered a suspect it seems to many at the time just ten days into the disappearance of these girls that it
00:59:53
might have been easier to believe that there was a known suspect or reason that the girls have been taken rather than to
01:00:02
believe the alternative that the girls were kidnapped at random by a stranger [Music]
01:00:23
I want to thank you guys so much and remember if you want to be a part of parts unknown get your pre-order in
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